by Jeff Nesbit
Anshel rarely had time to go to temple anymore, not with the seven-day weeks he was putting in. But his wife managed to convince him to spend time with friends from their temple, and that sufficed for now. To Anshel, the temple was a community, not a place of bricks and mortar.
His faith was a way of living and acting, not of internalizing. His belief in following the still, small voice was like breathing—a natural part of everything he said and did. It was ceaseless prayer, which infused his every action.
Today, though, would clearly be a test more unusual than others he’d encountered since taking over the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing of the White House. He’d been avoiding the name near the top of his call sheet from the instant he’d spotted it as he entered the White House complex at the crack of dawn. The deputy head of the Mossad rarely called him—or anyone else in the U.S.—unless it was something important. Anshel knew, instinctively, what it was about. A steady parade of senior officials in the United States—from the secretaries of defense and state to the vice president and national security advisor—had been to Israel in recent months for quiet, but insistent, talks with the Likud government, Israel’s major center-right political party, about the largest threat ever to face the nation of Israel.
Iran’s nuclear program was at the top of everyone’s list of problems in both the United States and Israel. What made the situation both difficult and intense was the nature of the leadership in all three countries. Iran’s theocracy lurched unevenly between moderation and radicalism, almost on a day-to-day basis. The U.S. leadership had been trying, unsuccessfully, to engage with the religious head of that theocracy for months. Israel’s conservative government, meanwhile, felt that talk with Iran was pointless and, perhaps, even dangerous.
“They’re just running out the clock,” the deputy head of Mossad had once said bluntly to Anshel. “Diplomacy serves their purpose. We talk while they build. We’ll all wake up one day and discover that they’ve built a hundred thousand centrifuges underground somewhere, and they’re enriching uranium before we know it. And then it may be too late. We were almost too late in Syria.”
Anshel knew Israel would never let that day happen. The IDF had kept its hand on the trigger for months, waiting for even the first hint of a move toward a nuclear weapon in Iran. The Israelis grew more impatient with each passing day. If there was any sign that Iran was accelerating its weapons program, he was certain Israel would not wait.
The American president’s secretary of defense had recently delivered a blunt, insistent message to the Likud government: give the United States time to negotiate a firm, verifiable nuclear inspection program on the ground in Iran, or else the U.S. would stand on the sidelines during an attack by Israel directed against those facilities in Iran.
It was an extraordinarily difficult position for the United States. The Pentagon and IDF had shared tactical air exercises for years. The Israeli Air Force’s F-16 fighter jets, in fact, had just finished a “Red Flag” exercise at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada. The entire world had known about the joint exercise. Israel had made sure of it.
The IAF’s own fleet of C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, meanwhile, had taken part in a competition at McChord Air Force base in the state of Washington. Clearly, the Israelis were looking for almost any excuse to test their long-range aircraft, refuelers, and transport planes with the U.S. military.
But things were much different now for Israel and the U.S. During a previous American administration, under a conservative Republican president, Israel had enjoyed the ability to train in Iraqi airspace, with landing and takeoff privileges at American bases in Iraq. Israel could prepare for a staged attack against Iran’s bunkered nuclear facilities from positions in nearby Iraq. But not now.
Though there remained deep, endless support for Israel on both sides of the aisle under the Capitol dome, America’s stance had toughened. Virtually every American leader in the administration and Congress had made it quite clear that Israel would be on its own if it chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. The U.S. would not hinder those attacks, but it would not actively support that engagement, either.
There had been one—just one—concession to Israel and its military leadership in the current era. But it was a big one, known only to a handful of powerful members of Congress in the leadership and on the armed services and foreign policy committees. Everything had been handled at the highest levels in both the administration and Congress.
Anshel had quietly maneuvered the deal into place—based on a long-standing agreement that the U.S. would do its best to assure that the Israeli Air Force retained superiority in the Middle East region—and then hand delivered it to his boss, the president. The world did not yet know it, but the U.S. had secretly given Israel’s air force an enormous edge in the region, and a slim thread of hope that it could take out Iran’s nuclear facilities if that time should arrive.
Anshel had first broached the idea with the House speaker and the Senate majority leader. When they’d given their approval, in principle, he’d widened the circle to the chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees and, eventually, to the Group of Eight in Congress.
The Pentagon had already made the decision to mothball its first-ever Stealth fighter—the famous, awkward-looking F-117 fighter developed in secret at Skunk Works—to an air base in Nevada. The planes, while still fully capable, were simply put on the shelf—despite pleas from pilots that the planes could still fly and fight as well as anything in the world. But the Pentagon leadership already had two much more advanced and capable Stealth fighters in production and in the field, so they’d taken the F-117s out of service.
Israel and Japan had put in bids for export versions of the newer Stealth fighters. Both Congress and the White House had signaled that they were open to considering the sale of export models of the newer Stealth fighters. Israel had already made plans to pay for the new Stealth fighters years from now. In that debate, a path forward for Israel had emerged—for the U.S. to simply sell the old F-117s to Israel now while decisions were made about export models of the much newer Stealth fighters.
The F-117 was still an incredible fighter plane—better than anything any Middle Eastern nations currently had in their inventory. And even though it was nearly three decades old, it was a fully capable Stealth fighter and could defeat any air-defense system in place in Iran—or anywhere else in the Middle East, for that matter.
The F-117 Stealth fighter was, in fact, a silver bullet for Israel.
In the end, the transaction to Israel had been an easier sell than Anshel might have imagined when he’d first set off on the quest. Congress and the White House needed something—anything—to indicate a show of support for the hawkish Likud government in Israel. The secret sale of the mothballed F-117s to Israel made strategic sense on many levels. Anshel had been able to close the deal quickly.
Today’s call from Israel, though, was one that Anshel had hoped he would not have to take. Before making the return call, he quickly thumbed through the folder that contained some of the most urgent parts of the president’s national security briefing for the morning.
With some difficulty, Anshel had secured the ability to see an abbreviated version of the security briefing early in the morning, before it was actually delivered to the president. He never walked into any meeting cold, and national security matters were no different. Seeing the headlines at least gave him a chance to prepare before the meeting.
It was just a paragraph about two-thirds of the way through the briefing, but Anshel’s heart sank when he spotted it. He knew, with a dread certainty, that this item was the reason for the call from the deputy head of the Mossad. A drone, part of a shared mission, had finally detected highly elevated levels of uranium hexafluoride in the atmosphere above one of the sites long suspected to be an enormous covert centrifuge facility near the holy city of Shiraz.
Anshel glanced through the background. Not surprisingly, no IAEA
inspector had ever come close to visiting the suspected site. It wasn’t on any of the published lists. But it had been involved in Iran’s nuclear program before Iran had announced to the world in 2003 that it had ended its program. Most likely, Anshel knew, the Iranians had never shut down the facility—they’d simply poured more concrete on top of it and moved the centrifuges deeper into the earth.
But the elevated levels of uranium hexafluoride were unmistakable—irrefutable proof of action that almost surely involved tens of thousands of centrifuges. Based on what he was reading, Iran had made the internal decision to manufacture enough highly enriched uranium for at least one nuclear weapon. It would only be a matter of time. Iran was racing to the finish line.
Anshel looked over at the world clocks on his wall, then back at his call sheet. It was just after the lunch hour in Israel, and he’d put off calling back long enough. It was time to learn the grim truth—and prepare for what would probably be one of the longest days of his life.
“Ah, my old friend,” the deputy head of Mossad said to Anshel when they’d connected. “I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“I’m so sorry,” Anshel said. “There were pressing matters.”
“I can’t imagine that anything will be more pressing than the news I’m going to share.”
“You’d be surprised,” Anshel answered.
The Mossad deputy paused briefly. “Can I assume you’ve seen the report?”
“The drone?”
“Yes, the drone. But there’s more. We have reports out of Iran—”
“The arrests on their campuses,” Anshel said quickly. “Yes, we know. We’ve heard. But is there any word yet of Razavi?”
“No, but we’re checking now. We hope for news soon. Razavi hasn’t been seen.”
“Which means he’s likely under arrest…”
“Or worse.”
Anshel grunted. “I doubt they’d do much more than place him under arrest. They’d need to fabricate a trial first before they do anything to him.”
“Perhaps. I suppose time will tell,” the deputy chief said. “But there is one other piece of news I wanted to share.”
“As if this isn’t enough?” Anshel said, laughing tightly.
“There was a suicide attempt in East Jerusalem a short time ago. We got to the driver of the bus just in time, thanks to information from an American doctor who’d picked up news in the refugee camp.”
“Which camp?”
“Aida, near Bethlehem.”
Anshel sat back in his chair. “Someone was playing for keeps if they were staging a suicide attempt from Aida. That could have triggered an international incident if it was aimed at either of the two big settlements in East Jerusalem.”
“That appears to be the aim,” said the deputy chief. “It was a church bus—full of American Christian tourists. They were planning to blow it up in either Gilo or Har Homa.”
“Which would have kept both of us—not to mention the United Nations—busy for a while cleaning things up.”
“And so the picture emerges,” the deputy chief said slowly. “They round up opposition leaders to keep the lid on things inside Iran. They send word through Hezbollah to cause trouble in the settlements in East Jerusalem, keeping us both thoroughly distracted…”
“Buying them some time to enrich uranium as quickly as they can manage and sprint to the nuclear finish line,” Anshel concluded.
Both men said nothing for a while as they played out the scenario.
“You know what we must do,” the deputy chief said finally. “You will discuss the available options with your president?”
“I will,” Anshel answered. “You know I can’t promise full cooperation.”
“I do. But I also know you will do your best to be persuasive,” the deputy chief said before hanging up. “Be well, and wish us success, my friend.”
05
WASHINGTON, DC
“You can’t stop me. No way,” Adom Camara said calmly, almost clinically. Sweat dripped off his brow, into his eyes, and down both sides of his cheeks. His gray University of Chicago T-shirt was already completely soaked.
He bent at the waist and held the basketball low in front of him. He started to swing the basketball from side to side, forcing his opponent to guess which way he was going on his drive.
He always played basketball early in the morning, before the day started. He’d tried running on the treadmill, or biking in the elaborate, private gym near the residence in the East Wing of the White House. He hated both. They bored him—even with the chattering talking heads screaming at him from MSNBC and CNN about the latest “big thing” engulfing DC.
Basketball was different. You had an opponent. You were constantly moving, and every shot, every drive to the basket, every defensive effort was different, unique.
President Camara’s top aides had learned early on that he couldn’t sit still inside the White House complex. He was always moving from office to office. His desk in the Oval Office was immaculate. There was nothing on it, save the phone he occasionally used to make calls his staff required of him.
Meetings with the young American president always happened in offices throughout the complex. If he wanted to talk to someone, he was just as likely to go find that person and hold the meeting in the staffer’s office. His handlers were constantly trying to keep track of him. He walked the complex constantly, seeking out people to talk through an issue.
If it was a truly important meeting—with a head of state, the chairman of the joint chiefs, or a Cabinet secretary—then, sure, they’d meet in the Oval Office. It was expected. But other meetings took place all throughout the West Wing, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, or, occasionally, outside at the playground with one of his two kids playing on the swing set in view of the Oval Office.
But his favorite part of the day was right now, on the basketball court around the corner from the Oval Office at the start of the day. He’d sneak his first cigarette of the day, then play one of his staff aides to fifteen. They were all younger than him, which occasionally made him feel old, but it was always a test on the basketball court.
One of his first moves as president was to pave over part of the tennis courts that former President Jimmy Carter had built and replace them with a lighted basketball court. He’d played basketball with friends his entire political career, and he wasn’t about to stop now that he’d become the leader of the free world.
Finding suitable opponents was difficult now, because his entire staff would have volunteered for time with the boss. In fact, some of them had undoubtedly read books on basketball on the off chance that they’d get time with the president on the basketball court. So he’d quickly settled on a few regulars, and that was just the way it was going to be.
His secret favorites were the press office guys. They were direct, almost profane. They didn’t mince words and were loyal beyond belief to the president. Mirror images of the national media they coddled, held off, fed, and generally danced with twenty-four hours a day, they could also move easily from a discussion about some fight on Capitol Hill to an injury to one of their starting wide receivers on their fantasy football teams—a talent the president admired and emulated. In fact, the president had his own fantasy football team and often swapped political and football gossip in the same text messages with his press office staff.
The guy he was playing against right now was a good example.
Daniel James—DJ—was in his early thirties, married, with a young kid in preschool. His wife held a global health political job at the Department of Health and Human Services. DJ had been one of the press aides on the long presidential campaign and had been rewarded with a job as one of the White House deputy press secretaries after they’d taken office.
DJ lived and breathed politics and picked up on issues rapidly. He’d earned the respect of the older crowd who handled national security issues and had become the principal White House spokesman on national securit
y issues. In fact, he’d earned enough respect to become part of discussions at the front end of a crisis.
He’d also adapted immediately when President Camara had collapsed the Homeland Security Council into the National Security Council soon after taking office. DJ, like his boss, recognized that foreign affairs and homeland security issues were tied together, so he thought it made sense to deal with the issues under one entity—not parsed out to different, sometimes warring, factions of the White House staff.
DJ was also a good athlete. He’d played soccer in college. But he’d also managed to squeeze in the occasional pickup basketball game and had run track in high school. He was a good match for the president.
In fact, DJ was up on the president right now, 14-12. He’d hit a few easy jumpers, but he’d also driven around the president on more than one occasion. DJ knew the president wasn’t happy right now. But he wasn’t about to let up. That wasn’t right—even if he was the president.
The president swung the ball right, then left, then right again. He bobbed his head one way, then cut back to his left. DJ concentrated on the president’s feet and ignored the head and hand fakes. He glided to his right quickly and cut off the president’s path to the basket. Frustrated, the president pulled back quickly and fired off a fade-away jumper. It rattled off both sides of the rim, then fell off to one side.
DJ retrieved the ball quickly and pulled the ball back out. He dribbled easily at the top of the key. “You know you’re about to lose,” he said, trying his best not to smile broadly.
“Bring it,” the president said, pulling on his shorts.
