The Jerusalem Assassin

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  McDermott could smell the wreckage before he saw it. The street was still clogged with fire trucks, ambulances, and any number of FBI vehicles. The place was swarming with crime scene investigators wearing blue jackets with FBI stenciled on the back in large yellow letters. Given that the sun had set hours earlier, banks of floodlights powered by gas generators had been brought in, bathing the entire area in a white phosphorescence.

  Coming around an FBI tactical unit truck, McDermott suddenly spotted ground zero. There was no evidence that a Chevy Suburban had ever stood there. Instead, McDermott found himself staring into a massive smoking crater as firemen continued to shower the area with water. Around the crater were the scorched hulks of at least eight cars and motorcycles that apparently had been parked along the street, three on the north side, five on the south. There were also the burnt remains of the moving truck that the SHS had mentioned—the one that had pulled up just behind the Suburban. Small plastic cards with numbers on them lay everywhere, marking each key piece of evidence.

  As he tried to take in the full magnitude of the horror before him, McDermott heard someone approaching from his right. He turned to find the director of the FBI standing beside him.

  “What are we looking at here?” McDermott asked.

  “I can tell you what happened,” said the director. “I can’t tell you why or by whom yet.”

  “IED? Car bomb?”

  The director shook her head. “This was a limpet mine.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Wish I weren’t, but it’s all on video.”

  The director explained that in the hours after the explosion, the bureau had pulled video from the traffic cams and from every single surveillance camera located up and down L Street and Fourth Street. She described the woman on the motorcycle, the Ford Festiva screeching to a halt in the intersection, the Suburban slamming on its brakes, and the woman attaching the mine to the Suburban, directly over the gas tank. She said her team had captured the license-plate numbers of both vehicles. Both sets were stolen plates, but they’d still actually found the vehicles, also both stolen. Both abandoned a few miles from there, in locations where there were no surveillance cameras present. Thus far they’d found no usable fingerprints in or on either the Ford or the BMW. They’d found no witnesses who said they’d seen the vehicles being ditched.

  “What you’re telling me, Director, is that you have no suspects and no usable leads; am I right?” McDermott asked.

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “Have you found anything that would suggest this attack is connected to the one at the church?”

  “Gut instinct? Yes,” she said. “Hard evidence? No.”

  McDermott turned and stared again at the smoking crater. “You’ve sent more agents to protect the ambassador’s widow and children?”

  “Yes,” replied the director. “My deputy is also there with the family at the Watergate, as is their priest and several friends. They’re safe, but grieving and scared.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “All right. I’ll go over and give my condolences to the family, then head back and brief the president. Call me the minute you have anything new.”

  29

  ATHENS, GREECE

  Hamdi Yaşar stared at his phone.

  He recognized the city and country codes. The text had come from occupied East Jerusalem. The number belonged to an elderly cobbler whom he was paying $10,000 a month via a Swiss numbered account to establish a Kairos cell in Jerusalem. But the message itself was from the shoemaker’s first serious recruit, Hussam Mashrawi, the executive director of the Waqf.

  The cobbler and Mashrawi had been talking secretly for the better part of a year. The conversations had gone so well that the cobbler had asked Yaşar to meet with Mashrawi in Cairo. The meeting had taken place just two months earlier, and Yaşar had been astonished by the man’s passion for the cause and eagerness to help. He wanted no money. Nor, after this initial meeting, did he desire any direct contact. He said he felt it would be more suitable to pass messages through the shoemaker. Yaşar had agreed.

  But now this. Was it really possible that the American president was heading to Jerusalem? If true, it was surely a gift from Allah. But how could they possibly take advantage of it? Yaşar’s hands were full. He had multiple complicated operations under way, and he needed to maintain his cover as a senior producer for a major Arab news network. The murders of the American deputy secretary of state and her would-be replacement were making a big splash. The next attacks, if they succeeded, would be even bigger. But this? The leader of the Great Satan in Jerusalem—at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, no less? If they could really take out Clarke—or even seriously wound him—in al-Quds of all places, they would accomplish more than al Qaeda or the Taliban or Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah or ISIS or any of their competitors ever had.

  Yet how? Kairos had only the beginnings of a cell in Palestine. Al-Qassab could coordinate. They had eyes and ears on the ground. They had some logistical support. But it was hardly enough. They needed more manpower. They needed someone to pull the trigger. But who?

  It was almost 4 a.m. in London when the door to the operating theater finally opened.

  “How is she?” Maxim Sheripov asked.

  “Fine,” said Dr. Ali Haqqani, still in his surgical garb.

  “May I see her?”

  “Not yet, but soon.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In our recovery room and still unconscious.”

  “How soon can I take her home?”

  “I’d like to keep her here for observation at least until tomorrow morning. By that time, we’ll know if there’s any unusual bleeding or signs of infection.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we’ll see.”

  “Can’t you be more precise? Our window is very narrow.”

  “Perhaps you should have brought her sooner.”

  “You have your orders, Doctor. I have mine.”

  “Your sister needs to rest. We’ll know more tomorrow.”

  “When can she go to work?”

  “Monday at the earliest, maybe Tuesday. But she will still have pain.”

  “Will it affect how she walks, how she moves, how she speaks?”

  “If she follows my instructions to the letter, then most likely no.”

  “You’re certain? Because the stakes—”

  “I understand the stakes, young man—far better than you,” Haqqani snapped.

  “I’m just saying that—”

  “Your sister is healthy, and her faith is strong. But recovering from surgery is not an exact science. Every person reacts differently. It cannot be rushed.”

  Maxim bristled. They had one chance at their target, and only one, and that moment was coming up way too fast.

  “Doctor, I must ask one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Is there any danger of the bomb going off . . . accidentally?”

  “None whatsoever,” said the surgeon, walking over to a wall safe. He spun the tumbler back and forth several times, and the door popped open. He withdrew a small cardboard box and handed it to Maxim.

  “What’s this?” Maxim asked.

  “The detonator. The number is preset. You don’t know it. She doesn’t know it. You can’t share it with anyone else. Nor can she. Nor can I. When you’re both in position, all you have to do is power up the phone and hit speed-dial number five.”

  “Five.”

  “Yes—then you will have less than three seconds.”

  “How close to the target does she need to be?”

  “Your sister has almost four kilos of plastic explosives inside her. It’s the most I have ever used. She should get as close as she possibly can, but if everything works properly, everyone within a ten-meter range should die instantly.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Make sure you’re not followed lea
ving this place,” Haqqani said. “Or I swear to Allah, I will come and kill you myself.”

  30

  TEHRAN, IRAN

  Dr. Haydar Abbasi rarely left the base during daylight hours.

  He certainly never went home for lunch. But the sun was high as he unlocked the driver’s-side door and climbed into his decrepit Volkswagen Passat. He turned the key and felt the diesel engine roar to life. Then he worked his way out of the parking garage and exited through the heavy steel gates.

  Soon the military complex was in his rearview mirror and he was threading through midday traffic, his stomach churning, his temples throbbing. Abbasi cursed himself for allowing more than two full days to go by. Two senior U.S. officials were dead. Scores more Americans were dead or injured. And it would soon get worse. This he knew full well. He also knew he was being watched. They were all being watched. And Abbasi shuddered to think of the consequences if he made a single misstep.

  A few minutes later, not thinking clearly, he made a wrong turn and found himself driving past the city square where the bodies of six Iranians dangled from construction cranes. That very morning, they had been executed by hanging for crimes against the state. Abbasi felt his stomach tighten. He could taste the gastric juices in his mouth. He rolled down his window and gulped in the cool November air.

  He had no idea what offenses these six people had supposedly committed. Nor had he any idea if they were truly guilty. But it didn’t really matter. The regime didn’t bother itself with such minor details. Iran’s leaders meted out vengeance on whomever they willed. They had already executed 332 people that year, most by hanging. That worked out to more than one execution per day, and there was still more than a month of the year to go.

  Tehran was on a war footing. The regime’s spending on war efforts in Syria and Yemen was skyrocketing. The treasury was also pumping huge amounts of cash into arming Hezbollah and rearming Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad after their repeated rocket wars with the Israelis. And of course, they had just spent most of the $150 billion the Americans had given them for agreeing to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal) to buy nuclear warheads from the North Koreans, only to watch that investment sink to the bottom of the East China Sea.

  Meanwhile, the economic sanctions the U.S. had reimposed after pulling out of the JCPOA were having a brutal effect. Iran’s economy had already contracted nearly 6 percent, and projections for the coming year were worse. Unemployment was rising, as was inflation—particularly food and gas prices—not to mention the deficit. The value of the rial, on the other hand, was plunging. So were the nation’s foreign currency reserves, and fewer countries were buying Iranian oil and gas. People were suffering. Protests were breaking out all over the country, many of them violent. Yet the already-bloodthirsty regime was cracking down even further.

  A feeling of paranoia was palpable within the highest echelons of the regime. Since the Americans had discovered the shipment of the warheads from North Korea, pinpointed the exact ship, and blown it to kingdom come, Iran’s intelligence services were beside themselves trying to figure out how the information had leaked and how to make sure it would never happen again. Only a handful of people at the top knew anything about the warheads, of course. But even low-level employees in sensitive agencies were being forced to take lie-detector tests. Some were disappearing. They simply wouldn’t show up for work, and neither their friends nor families had any idea where they had gone.

  Finally pulling up to his efficiency flat on the north side of the city, Abbasi parked in the lot behind his building. He glanced around to see if anyone was following him before exiting the Passat and heading inside. Seeing no one but the doorman upon entering, he took the elevator to the ninth floor and locked himself inside his room. He closed all his curtains before turning on the lights. Then he turned on his stereo, tuned to a government-run radio station playing classical Persian music, and dialed up the volume somewhat louder than usual.

  He headed for the walk-through closet that connected the main room, which doubled as his bedroom when he opened his foldout couch, with the bathroom. His heart pounding, he moved aside several suitcases and boxes filled with books and lifted a loose floorboard. There lay the satellite phone he’d been ordered by his handler to use only when absolutely necessary. He grabbed it, powered it up, and dialed the only number he had been given. When a voice answered at the other end, he provided his fourteen-digit clearance code from memory.

  “Take this down, every word,” Abbasi said, nearly in a whisper. “I don’t have much time.”

  31

  WEST BANK, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

  It was hot and getting hotter as the three black Suburbans turned off the main road.

  With Ramallah in their rearview mirrors, the American convoy sped north and soon arrived in a neighborhood known as Surda. Marcus checked his watch. It was precisely 1 p.m. local time as the massive steel gates opened and the vehicles entered the heavily fortified compound, pulling to a stop directly in front of the presidential palace.

  The compound was surrounded by eighteen-foot-high walls and miles of barbed wire.

  The gleaming, sprawling facility with its red-tiled roofs and massive marble columns was perched on a large hill, situated on six and a half acres of prime real estate. The largest building served as personal residence for the Palestinian leader. Adjacent wings housed offices and guest quarters. There were sprawling gardens and working fountains, a luxury swimming pool, and not one but two helicopter landing pads. The project had cost the treasury well over ten million dollars at a time when many Palestinians lived in dire poverty, often on the equivalent of less than five dollars a day.

  No honor guard greeted the national security advisor. There was no marching band playing, as was usually the case for other foreign dignitaries. No one had rolled out a red carpet. Nor were any media present. A lone protocol officer and two policemen dressed in tan khaki uniforms and red berets stood outside the front door as the guests arrived. Marcus glanced at Geoff Stone, the special agent in charge of the detail, and at Kailea. Neither looked surprised. This wasn’t an oversight. It was a message. But it wasn’t directed at Evans. It was directed at the American president.

  “Your Excellency, welcome,” said the protocol officer, a young man of about thirty, as he shook hands with the general and led the American entourage inside.

  Like his colleagues, Marcus unbuttoned his suit jacket, making it easier to reach his Sig Sauer. Of all the places they’d be visiting, the detail had been told this one would be the tensest. The briefers had certainly been on the mark. The territories were seething with discontent. The reigning political faction known as Fatah was widely seen by Palestinians as hopelessly corrupt and pathetically weak toward both the Israelis and the Americans. As Fatah’s popularity plunged, Hamas’s popularity was skyrocketing. This made it easier for Hamas leaders to raise funds in Turkey, Qatar, and beyond. It also made it easier for them to recruit jihadists from Jenin to Hebron. And that had been before Reed’s death.

  Marcus and his team had been told by a CIA briefer that if Israeli special forces weren’t raiding Palestinian warehouses and safe houses every night all across the West Bank, grabbing terrorists and scooping up caches of weapons, the situation would be far more dangerous. But it still wasn’t good. The Palestinian security forces were American-trained and equipped but at times seemed less than motivated to maintain maximum vigilance on their own people.

  When they reached the office of the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who served simultaneously as president of the Palestinian Authority, they found he was not actually there. They were greeted instead by Foreign Minister Jamal al-Hamid, who apologized that his boss was wrapping up a call with the newly installed Russian president Petrovsky and would join them shortly.

  General Evans took his seat. Next to him sat Dr. Susan Davis, one of his trusted deputies. Behind them sat two additional NSC staffers serving as notet
akers. Meanwhile, in the east and north corners of the room stood Agents Stone and Curtis, warily eyeing Ziad’s bodyguards in the adjacent corners. Marcus took up his post just inside the closed door through which they’d all entered.

  Evans and al-Hamid were served hot mint tea. Then their aides were as well. The principals drank slowly and made small talk. They kept it up for quite a while. Twenty-two minutes passed before the Palestinian leader deigned to arrive.

  32

  Ismail Ziad finally entered the room through a side door.

  Marcus did his best to look not at him but at the eyes of the four Palestinian security men who entered with him. Still, it was impossible not to notice that Ziad, now in his mideighties, walked slowly, was hunched over slightly, and had never looked so frail. His shock of white hair was thinning, and he struck Marcus as gaunt and unusually pale.

  “General Evans, President Petrovsky sends his greetings,” Ziad said with a thin smile as he settled into a large leather chair in the center of the room. “He looks forward to welcoming you at the Kremlin next week as you wrap up your journey.”

  Ziad offered no kiss, no handshake, not even condolences for the recent murders of two senior American officials. The message was unmistakable. The man counted the Russians, certainly not the Americans, as his trusted friends and allies.

  “I’m looking forward to meeting the new Russian leader,” the general replied, “and wishing him our condolences on the tragic loss of three great leaders.”

  “Tragic, indeed,” Ziad said coolly. “Especially with the gunmen still at large.”

  “Mr. Chairman, thank you for agreeing to see me,” Evans began.

  Ziad merely nodded.

  “President Clarke asked me to bring you his personal greetings,” Evans continued. “He recognizes there has been no small degree of tension between our two governments, particularly in the wake of our decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem. But he wants to begin a new chapter.”