Vince Flynn Collectors' Edition 2

by Vince Flynn

  Goldberg nodded his acceptance. Freidman was right. There were members of his own cabinet who turned mute when the intimidating director general of Mossad entered the room. “So what was the outcome?”

  “I spoke with Dr. Kennedy afterward. They are taking this very seriously, and will be in contact with us. She asked that we be patient and do nothing until they have a chance to find a solution.”

  Goldberg sprang forward in his chair, concern on his face. “Didn’t you tell them exactly what I told you to? There is only one solution to this problem, and it isn’t diplomacy or economic sanctions! Military action is the only solution!”

  Freidman held out his hand and gestured for his prime minister to calm down. “Don’t worry, David. I intimated your every word to Dr. Kennedy. As I told you before I left, with Saddam’s recent show of defiance, President Hayes is looking for an excuse to bomb Saddam . . . and this is a very good one.”

  “But those bombs can be moved!” Goldberg had not calmed. “If Saddam gets the slightest whiff that we, or the Americans, know about the bombs, they will be scattered across Iraq in a second!” Goldberg slammed his fist down on the table. “This is our only chance!”

  “And you don’t think the Americans know that?”

  “I don’t pretend to understand the American mind,” spat Goldberg. “They often do things that make no sense to me.”

  “Well, not this president. He hates Saddam for reasons that we know all too well, and he is going to do exactly as I told you.”

  Goldberg shook his head and thought about Freidman’s plan. “I don’t know. I can see them going to the U.N. or pulling some stunt like going on television.” He wagged his finger at Freidman. “Never underestimate the ego of an American politician. They love to grab the spotlight, and I don’t think I am being irrational by worrying that President Hayes might decide to go on TV and announce to the world that Saddam is in the final stages of completing a bomb. It would be the safe route for him to take, to build another coalition. Hell, the damn Arabs would line up against Saddam in a heartbeat. The Saudis and the Iranians fear him as much or more than we do.”

  Freidman calmly shook his head. “He can gain their support after he turns that hospital into a mound of sand. None of us want him to join the nuclear club. President Hayes is a very decisive man. He doesn’t relish what he has to do, but he knows it’s the right thing.”

  “What about the hospital?” pleaded Goldberg. “The Americans are loath to be sullied by the pictures that will follow.”

  Freidman hesitated to respond for a moment, knowing that Goldberg had a good point. “There is no doubt this aspect is troubling, but they know to do nothing is worse.”

  “I am not saying they will do nothing. I’m saying that their course of action will be to take to the airwaves, not to the skies.”

  “I know what you’re saying, David, but I disagree with you. I know this president. The bombs will be falling within two weeks and the Americans will have solved our problem for us.”

  The prime minister lowered his chin and studied Freidman. His jowls spilled over the collar of his white dress shirt. “I wish I could share your confidence, but I don’t. I have already asked our air force to make preparations for a strike. I will not sit around and wait for the Americans to act, and if they try to take this to the U.N. or go to the media with it, I will send in the planes immediately! I will not give Saddam a chance to move those bombs!”

  Goldberg’s words brought a smile to Freidman’s face. He admired the man’s fighting spirit. If there were more like him they would have never gotten themselves into this mess with the Palestinians.

  “What do you think is so funny?” asked an angry Goldberg.

  “You misunderstand my smile, David. It is one of admiration. The Americans will attack exactly because of what you just said. They know if they don’t take care of the problem, you will. And that, my friend, is a problem they don’t want to deal with. President Hayes will order the strike and take care of our problem for us. Just be patient, and give them the time they need to put it together.”

  “I will give them some time, but I will not be patient. Under no circumstances will I allow Saddam to bring those weapons into service. If it means we have to go to war with Jordan, Syria and Iraq, I would welcome it. Our air force would make mincemeat out of their fliers and our army would crush anything they throw at us.”

  “And what about Egypt?” asked Freidman.

  “They have no stomach for fighting. They know what will happen if they try to cross the Negev. They will be slaughtered just like the last time they tried. Besides, they are not as easily influenced by Saddam as Syria and Jordan are.” Goldberg confidently shook his head. “No, they will do nothing. You are a fighter like me, Benjamin. You know deep down inside the Arabs want nothing to do with us. We have pummeled them one too many times. They would rather talk tough and do nothing.”

  The prime minister’s words brought a smile to Freidman’s face. He agreed with everything Goldberg had just said. It was very nice for a change. “You are a tough old warrior, David. The people of this country probably have no idea how lucky they are that you are in charge during these difficult times.” Standing, Freidman looked at his prime minister and said, “The Americans will come through for us. I promise.”

  10

  WASHINGTON, D.C., WEDNESDAY MORNING

  It was unseasonably cold in the nation’s capital, even for November. The president had asked Irene Kennedy to arrive early, earlier than the others. He wanted to have a few words alone with her. At 7:00 A.M., the White House was a relatively calm place. It was still thirty minutes to an hour away from the start of another busy day. The Secret Service agents and officers were dutifully standing their posts, but that was about it. The deluge of media, employees and visitors were still sleeping or getting ready for another day at the nation’s most famous residence.

  Kennedy entered the West Wing on the ground floor. She was dressed in a conservative but stylish dark blue suit. Under her arm she carried a locked pouch containing the president’s daily brief, or PDB, as it was known by all in the national security community. The brief was essentially a daily newspaper put together by the CIA’s top analysts. It was a highly classified document and was distributed to only the most senior people in an administration. Each copy was collected at the end of the day and destroyed. Normally someone junior to the director of the CIA delivered the brief, but Kennedy had decided to handle it herself this morning.

  She made her way up to the first floor and into the president’s private dining room off the Oval Office. President Hayes was waiting for her, an array of newspapers spread out on each side of his place setting, a bowl of Grape-nuts in the middle and a piping hot cup of coffee on his right. Hayes was a very organized and determined man. He had told Kennedy recently that he wasn’t going to let the job destroy his health like it had his predecessors’. He spent thirty minutes on the treadmill and bike four to five days a week. In fact, this was when he normally reviewed the PDB. This morning, however, he had scheduled several early meetings. The situation in Iraq had him on edge. When they were done with their coffee they were to head down to the Situation Room to receive a briefing from General Flood and his staff.

  Thus far, Kennedy had talked Hayes into keeping the amount of people involved in the crisis to a bare minimum. The secretary of defense was in Colombia until Saturday. He would be briefed when he returned. The Joint Chiefs and the secretaries of the various services were to be kept in the dark until the last minute and the remaining members of the Cabinet, with the exception of Michael Haik, were also to be left out of the loop. Kennedy had convinced the president that the last thing they wanted to do was give Saddam a heads-up that something might be coming his way.

  The president didn’t bother to look up from whatever paper he was reading when Kennedy entered the room. “Good morning, Irene. Have a seat. Would you like anything to eat?”

  “No thank you, sir. Coffee’
s fine.” Kennedy poured herself a cup from the sterling silver pot sitting in the middle of the table. These early morning meetings with the president in the small dining room were becoming a weekly event. Kennedy was starting to feel very comfortable in her dealings with the man.

  “What’s new today?” Hayes shoved a spoonful of the tiny brown rocklike cereal into his mouth.

  “Well,” Kennedy extracted a key from her jacket and started to open the pouch. “Pakistan is making threats again to launch another offensive to take back the disputed land with India . . .”

  The president waved his hands in the air and then wiped a drop of milk from his lip. With his napkin still in hand, he said, “Put the brief away. I’ll look at it later. Unless there’s something that needs my immediate attention, I’d like to talk about this mess your Israeli friend has dumped in our laps.”

  Kennedy briefly wondered if the use of the word friend was more than a random selection. It was apparent that the looming crisis with Iraq had the president upset. “What would you like to know, sir?”

  Hayes set his napkin down and pushed his cereal out of the way. He took a second to rearrange the things in front of him while he organized his thoughts. “I want to throw something at you, and I want you to keep an open mind.” Hayes made direct eye contact and added, “I want you to give me your honest answer.”

  Kennedy kept her expression neutral, her brown eyes locked on the president’s. She nodded for him to continue.

  “Can we trust the Israelis on this thing?”

  Kennedy instantly disliked the question. It was fraught with problems, too broad to give a well-crafted answer. “Could you be a little more specific, sir?”

  “This information they’ve given us, can we trust it? Is it possible they have it wrong . . . or that they’ve been fed this information by the Iraqis?”

  She thought about the question for a moment and answered, “As you know, sir, anything is possible, but I think this information is pretty accurate.”

  Hayes grimaced. He wanted a more concrete answer than what she’d just given him. “What makes you say that? Is it because you trust Colonel Freidman?”

  Kennedy got her first hint of what might be bothering the president. “I trust Ben Freidman, sir, but only so far. I know better than anyone where his loyalties lie. He does nothing unless it helps Israel.”

  “That’s what worries me. I don’t like being manipulated by any country, but I especially don’t like it by a country that owes us its very existence. Quite a few of my predecessors allowed Israel to lead them around by the nose, and several of them weren’t even aware of it. Not me.” Hayes angrily shook his head. “I won’t allow it. I want to make damn sure this information is correct before we start dropping bombs. Do we have anyone in Baghdad who can confirm what Freidman told us?”

  “This is awkward, sir.” Kennedy hesitated for a second. “Our resources in Iraq are limited. As you know, we have a few people in the regime who are on our payroll, but to ask them to look into this would be extremely risky.”

  “Isn’t that their job?” asked the president with a hint of irritation in his voice. “Isn’t that what we pay them to do?”

  “Yes,” Kennedy conceded, “but for them to go outside their area of concern and start asking questions . . .” her voice trailed off and she uncharacteristically grimaced. “It would almost certainly get them tortured by Saddam’s secret police.”

  The president was undeterred. “Well, listen, before we start dropping bombs on a hospital I’d like to be absolutely sure that those nukes are in fact there.”

  “Sir, I can ask one of them to look into it, but I think they will ignore me. It’s too risky. Besides, we have no reason to doubt the Israelis on this.”

  “I can think of several reasons why I should doubt them.” Hayes rolled his eyes.

  Kennedy ignored the comment and extracted a file from the pouch. “I thought you might be interested in these.” She slid a sheaf of black-and-white satellite photographs across the table. They were of downtown Baghdad. The Al Hussein Hospital was circled in white. “I had my people go back through the files to see what they could dig up on the hospital. This is what they found.” Kennedy removed the first photo, revealing a second one that showed just the hospital and the surrounding one-block radius. On the east side of the hospital, where the alley was located, several vehicles were bracketed in white and next to them were two simple words: Dump Truck.

  “This all started a little over three years ago. Dump trucks all day long for a month straight. My experts estimate that over a thousand tons of earth was removed from beneath the hospital.” Kennedy flipped to the next photo. It was the same setup, except this time the vehicles in the alley were labeled as cement trucks.

  “My people counted the number of trucks that came to the site and feel pretty confident that they weren’t just laying a new foundation. They say the only time the Iraqis use this much cement is when they are trying to build a bunker.”

  “How in the hell did we miss this?” Hayes asked angrily. “Isn’t this why we spend billions on the spy satellites?”

  “The problem, sir, is that we leveled a good portion of the country. Since the end of the Gulf War it’s been a nonstop succession of dump trucks and cement trucks.”

  The president flipped through the remainder of the photographs without comment. When he was finished he took his time putting them back in a neat stack and then handed them to Kennedy. “You think this corroborates what Freidman told us?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The president stood and walked over to the window. He gazed across the way at the Executive Office Building. Kennedy watched him in silence, speculating if he wasn’t telling her something. She was in the midst of wondering if the Israelis had done something she didn’t know about, when the president turned around and spoke.

  “How many people are in this hospital?”

  “I’m not sure, sir.” Her answer was less than truthful. One of her analysts had given her a range, but she didn’t think now was the time to tell the president the number.

  “Hundreds?”

  “Possibly.”

  The president turned around again and looked out the window. Kennedy felt for him. It would probably be aviators who would drop the bombs, but they were trained from day one of flight school to deal with it. Not the president. He was ultimately the one who would be ordering those people to their deaths. Kennedy feared that he was going through the hospital wondering how many children would be killed, how many mothers, fathers and grandparents. It was an ugly business they were in.

  Without looking away from the window, the president shook his head and said, “You know, right now I really hate the Israelis for putting me in this position.”

  Kennedy frowned at the president’s words. Emboldened by a career of making difficult decisions she said, “You don’t mean that, Mr. President.” When Hayes turned around she said, “The Israelis didn’t put this facility under a hospital. Saddam did. He is the one who has put those people in harm’s way. He’s the one who’s put us in this position.”

  11

  SITUATION ROOM, WEDNESDAY MORNING

  General Flood was traveling light, so as not to attract too much attention. He’d brought along only four aides, one each from the air force, the navy, the marines and the army. When the president and Kennedy entered the Situation Room, the five military men were arrayed around the far side of the table. Simultaneously, the warriors snapped to their feet.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. Please be seated.” The president pulled out his leather chair at the head of the table and sat.

  Michael Haik, the president’s national security advisor, arrived on their heels. He and Kennedy sat next to the president. The president’s chief of staff had not been invited to the meeting, and General Flood was very appreciative. He didn’t want the president to be distracted by Valerie Jones inserting political issues into the meeting. The task at hand was to apprise Hayes of his
military options and give him a realistic estimate of the time it would take to move the right assets into position.

  General Flood was seated opposite the president at the far end of the table. He was an imposing man at six feet four and almost 300 pounds. Flood leaned forward, placed his forearms on the table and started. “Mr. President, as you have requested, my staff and I have prepared several contingencies for you. The first plan is one you are familiar with. Within minutes of you giving us authorization, we could launch a salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles that would level the target. This plan has only one redeeming quality in my opinion. It guarantees us that we won’t lose any air crews.” Flood paused briefly. “We are also of the opinion that a strike with Tomahawks would not guarantee the destruction of the primary target.”

  The president wasn’t sure what the general meant, so he asked, “Please elaborate?”

  “Dr. Kennedy has provided us with satellite imagery that suggests a command- and control-type structure was created underneath the hospital. Tomahawks don’t work against these types of hardened targets. We would merely level the hospital and incur some collateral damage.”

  “General,” growled the president with a look of disapproval on his face.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” apologized the general, who had momentarily forgotten the president’s severe dislike of sterile military terms. “We would merely level the hospital and kill most, if not all, of the people inside. We would, of course, also run the risk of an errant Tomahawk hitting something other than the target, but depending on how many missiles we use in the attack the chances of that happening is somewhere in the neighborhood of five to ten percent.”

  “What’s the next option?”

  “The next one involves using F-117A stealth fighters from the 48th Fighter Wing out of Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. These platforms would give us maximum stealth and the ability to deliver precision-guided munitions to the target. Our odds for success in taking out the nukes are much better, but still somewhat limited.”