the Second Horseman (2006) (16 page)

He paused the video and pointed to the corner of the screen where a yellow cab was coming up the moderately congested street. "One-way, two-lane road. The cab is on the right side, away from the wedding."

He began clicking forward frame by frame, keeping his finger trained on the cab as it swerved into the left lane, taking advantage of a small gap that had formed between two vehicles. A few frames later, it had hopped up on the sidewalk and was plowing through the crowd, bouncing wildly up the steps until a stone pillar finally stopped it.

Hamdi concentrated for a moment on th
e f
rozen image of a young man pinned between the cab and the pillar, then scanned the rest of the screen, examining the broken and bleeding bodies strewn out on the ground. The bride herself had disappeared -- the only evidence of her existence being a wisp of white train wrapped around a tire. Hamdi winced in a facsimile of horror and sadness that he didn't feel.

He had spent a great deal of time in the Jews' country. His first childhood memories were of how his father -- an eminently reasonable businessman -- was treated as a second-class citizen. How he had been forced to scrape and kowtow to get work that was well beneath a man of his abilities. Later, as a college professor, Hamdi had studied the Jews' fanaticism and racism. And finally, as a politician, he had witnessed their brutality.

It never ceased to amaze him how the world had been so fooled by the Jews. Why had this one group been persecuted so long and so energetically by the rest of the world? Because they brought it on themselves.

Not that Hamdi had any real passion for the destruction of the Jewish race -- it was hardly practical and would create a great deal of unnecessary human suffering. But it was time for the Jews to be recognized fo
r w
hat they were -- a small, relatively unimportant group of people who were putting the entire world in danger. It was a situation that, with Richard Scanlon's unwitting help, he intended to put an end to.

Lowe turned off the television and settled back into his chair. The president didn't speak for almost a minute. Finally, "Who was it?"

"The driver's name was Daftar Abaza. He's originally from Syria, but he's been living in the United States for almost three years. Spotless work history, no criminal record. We have very little on him at this point -- nothing suggesting he has any terrorist ties. Obviously, we're digging deeper."

"So we have no idea who was behind this?"

Lowe paused to calculate the most advantageous spin. "We believe that if this was premeditated, he would have been in the correct lane. With the traffic, he risked not being able to move left. We think it was . . . an impulse."

"An impulse? Jesus . . . Did he survive?"

"He's alive, but in a coma. There seems to be some brain damage."

Morris folded his hands across his stomach and fixed his stare on the back wall for a few moments. "So no known terroris
t b
acking. Essentially, this guy is just a nut who doesn't like Jews. It was a hate crime more than a terrorist act. So, that's good. Right?"

"Yes, sir," Lowe said. "There's no suggestion of any kind of coordinated effort."

Hamdi sighed audibly. Another example of Paul Lowe coming to precisely the wrong conclusion based on all the facts.

"You disagree?" Morris said, turning toward him.

"That it was an impulsive act? No. That this is good news? Yes. This incident is lighting up the extremist Web sites, sir -- for the exact reason that it had no organized backing. The spin is that a devout Muslim doesn't need leaders, or even an organization to fight. This man, with no preparation and no weapons, killed or wounded a fairly large number of Jews. That is the message the terrorists are working to get out there. While we spend billion of dollars and thousands of American lives fighting wars against countries we think are terrorist sponsors, individuals and small groups can destroy us. The truck at the Mall of America was a fertilizer bomb full of nails. No matter how much we want to believe that it would take a massive organization and the support of Iran to succeed in an attack that devastating, it's simply not true. This is just the logical next step in a terrorist network that is becoming increasingly decentralized."

The president drummed his fingers on his stomach, and Hamdi glanced over at Lowe, who wasn't bothering to hide his animosity toward his half-breed detractor.

"I'm already under heavy criticism for not retaliating for the mall attack. And now I'm going to have every Jewish person in the country screaming for blood."

"Of course," Hamdi said. "All these people understand is retaliation."

"Here we go . . . ," Lowe said.

Hamdi ignored him. "Who would we retaliate against? This man's family? An eye for an eye? Besides, the Israelis are continuing to mass their military on the border of Gaza. They're more than capable of extracting their own pound of flesh."

"And Egypt is doing the same," Lowe said. "We're still waiting for moves from Syria and Jordan."

"Goddamn Arabs," the president said, in an uncharacteristically obvious attempt to bait Hamdi. "They don't care enough about the Palestinians to take them in, but they're willing to set the entire region on fire for them. I'll never understand these people."

"Mr. President . . . ," Hamdi started, but Morris ignored him.

"Look, I've told Israel in no uncertain terms that they need to stay out of Gaza. But they know how powerful the Jewish lobby is here, and they sure as hell know how the average American voter feels about Arab terrorists. I don't think they're taking my threats seriously. And frankly, there's no reason they should."

"Sir," Lowe said, "the Israelis are an important bulwark in the Middle East. I think even Dr. Hamdi would agree with that."

"It's all moot," Hamdi said. "We've put ourselves in a position that we have no choice but to do whatever is necessary to protect Israel. They have a nuclear arsenal that they wouldn't hesitate to use if their country was in danger. We have no way of stopping them from using that option, so we have to make sure they're never put in a situation that they would be forced to consider it."

Morris turned toward Lowe. "Do you agree? Would they use nukes?"

"Sir, I think --"

"Yes or no question, Paul."

"Then yes. Their main concern is their own security, and they aren't going to wal
k a
way from it for us."

"And yet we walk away from our security every day for them," Hamdi interrupted.

"Come on," Lowe said. "The Israelis may not be perfect, but they're the most reasonable friends we have in that region. Are they unfair and heavy-handed with the Palestinians? Sure. But wasn't it you, Edwin, who once said that there are no victims in the world -- only the poorly armed? Bet you didn't know I read your book, huh? The Israelis are just giving back a little of what they've been getting for years. The Arabs run around expecting everyone to bow down to them because God loves them best and then they don't have the juice to back up their big mouths. And thank God. I mean, if an Arab country ever had military power -- I mean real power -- can you imagine what they'd do with it? They'd kill every infidel they could get their hands on, then they'd start going after each other. In fifty years, there'd be about a hundred people left on the planet and they'd all be skulking around trying to stab each other in the back because their Koran was printed in a different font than their neighbor's Koran --"

"Goddamn country the size of New Jersey," the president said, silencing his tw
o a
dvisors before one of their infamous shouting matches started. "And nobody can agree on anything except that I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I'm looking for solutions here, not academic arguments that dead-end in the fact that the situation is hopeless. Edwin?"

"Are we talking about the synagogue attack or Israel in general?"

"Both."

"I guess the answer is the same. There really isn't anything you can do. The cab driver is already in a coma and seems to have no connections to anyone we can reasonably punish. And Gaza? Well, Gaza has turned into just the disaster the Israelis had hoped. They'll use the chaos as an excuse to take it back and to stop any talk about further moves from the West Bank. What they'll do with the millions of Arabs who live in Gaza, I'm not sure. My guess would be that they'll foment terrorism against the U
. S
. so that we'll support whatever measures they want to take. I have to assume that their long-term goal is to kill or drive the Arabs out of the Occupied Territories so that they can settle them."

"A typically cheerful analysis. Same question, Paul."

"You know I don't agree with Edwin'
s c
onspiracy theories. Israel may not be perfect, but they're a strong ally in a part of the world where we don't have a lot of friends. And you have to understand that there are factions within Israel that aren't under the control of the government. A lot of times it's them, not the prime minister or the Knesset, that cause the problems. They can help us, they have helped us, and we should support them for that reason. As for the cab driver . . . We know he was from Syria."

"What's that supposed to mea--," Hamdi started, but the president held up a hand.

"What kind of targets do we have there?"

"Sir . . . ," Hamdi cautioned.

"We've firmed up our intelligence on a few training camps along the border," Lowe said.

"But it's still incredibly soft," Hamdi said. "Please, sir --"

"You have something better, Edwin?"

"Restraint --"

"Restraint? That's all I hear from you anymore! We get hit and you tell me to just sit on my hands and explain to the American people why Homeland Security and the military that they pay billions for are completely useless in the face of a bunch of illiterate Arab fanatics. Syria is a problem for us and you know it. There are terrorist training camps all over that border, and the Syrian government isn't doing a damn thing about it."

Hamdi jerked forward in his chair, but then forced himself to take a breath before speaking. "Paul likes to point out that the Israeli government isn't complicit in many of the problems there, and I'd like to make the same argument about Syria. We expect them to know exactly who is and is not in their country and to completely control their border. But as the wealthiest nation in the world we can't control our own border with Mexico. And, frankly, our problems are no more a priority for them than their problems are a priority for us."

The president folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head a bit as he examined Hamdi. "You're always saying that we get in trouble by reacting without fully understanding what we're doing. Well, let me tell you what I'm about to do. I'm going to give an order to bomb a bunch of people who had nothing to do with the attack this morning and who may have nothing at all to do with terrorism. In the process, I'm going to give Islamic fundamentalists fodder to recruit another thousand terrorists. And you know what that's going to get me? Credibility with the American people so that they'll allow me to continue your program of conciliation."

Chapter
TWENTY

The room was typically spartan -- not so much as an inspirational poster about teamwork to break up the white, windowless walls. The long, rectangular table was straight out of government surplus, and so were the six men sitting around it. They all looked up at Brandon from behind steaming cups of coffee, expressions registering everything from intense curiosity to intense distaste.

At Catherine's request, most of them had made some effort to soften their images, but it took more than a pair of worn jeans and slightly shaggy hair to disguise that they were all either former military or from some even scarier branch of the government. Even more obvious was that none of them had signed on with Scanlon to take orders from an escaped convict.

Brandon drained the lukewarm remnants of his own coffee and stood, still waiting fo
r t
he caffeine to kick in. He'd spent the last week driving desert highways, visiting gas stations and airfields, touring the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, and plinking away on that invention of inventions, the Internet. It would have been nice to postpone this meeting until after he'd been able to get a decent night's sleep, but time was working hard against them.

He pointed to the man closest to him. "How many pull-ups can you do?"

No hesitation. "With which hand?"

Of course.

As much as he hated to admit it, you just didn't get this class of manpower working with the average American criminal. If this had been one of his typical strategy meetings, at least one person wouldn't have shown, one would be high, two would be fifty pounds overweight, and the rest would be suffering from near-terminal hangovers.

The question at hand, of course, was which of these disciplined and well-trained patriots was charged with putting a bullet in the back of his head when all this was over? Or was Scanlon on the up-and-up? Honestly, he was a trustworthy guy in a weird eighteenth-century kind of way, but Brandon wasn't one to bet his life on concepts as outdated as chivalry or honor. And the
n t
here were the millions of people who might just die if he screwed this up. Pressure anyone?