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“Thank you.” Freidman clanged his bottle against the prime minister’s and said, “But?”
Goldberg finished his drink and in a confused tone asked, “But what?”
“Don’t protect me, David. Remember I hear everything. I know your cabinet is furious with the number of casualties.”
“They are rarely in agreement on anything.”
“Well, if you’d like me to address them I am more than willing.”
Goldberg considered this for a moment. It wasn’t a bad idea. Ben Friedman could intimidate even the staunchest opponent. “Maybe later, but for now I am more concerned about explaining to the international community how so many innocent civilians died.”
He was tempted to remind him that the Palestinians living in the neighborhood were hardly innocent, but the director general of Mossad decided against it. Goldberg the warrior had transformed into Goldberg the politician. Instead he said, “They are an unfortunate casualty of war.”
“But sixteen Hellfire missiles, Ben. What were you thinking?”
Freidman shrugged. “This was a once in a lifetime chance. I wasn’t about to let a single one of them escape if I could help it.”
“I’ve been told your infiltrator had enough explosives in those cases to take out everyone at the meeting.”
Freidman was more than a little surprised that Goldberg knew about the specifics, but he covered it well. He had intentionally told him little prior to the mission with the tacit understanding that if things went wrong, the prime minister would have deniability. Now someone within his own agency was talking to the prime minister and Freidman would have to find out who.
“David, don’t tell me you’ve lost your stomach for this?”
A scowl formed on Goldberg’s face. “Don’t confuse the issue, Ben. I’m hearing things from other sources. I’m hearing that you went overboard on this thing … that we could have avoided killing all the innocent civilians.”
Freidman stopped rocking and looked harshly at his old friend. “Do me a favor and stop calling them innocent. They have been blowing up women and children for years, and you know as well as I that the only way to make them stop is to hit them harder than they hit us.”
Goldberg wasn’t so sure anymore. When he’d been a young tank commander, he’d thought so. When he’d taken the reins of the country just a few years ago he had thought so, but now, after all the homicide bombs, he was wavering in his conviction. “Ben, these are delicate times. The eyes of the world are upon us.”
Freidman was disgusted by what he was hearing. He was tempted to tell Goldberg to step down if he didn’t have the constitution to see it through. Instead he said, “The eyes of the world have always been on us. It shouldn’t matter any more now than it has in the past. We are not the aggressors here, David, and you know that. They are the ones who have continued to attack us, and both of us have been around long enough to know the only thing they respond to is force.”
“But it has to end at some point. We need to find a way.”
“What?” snapped Freidman. “Do you want to pull out and build your stupid wall? Have you paid no attention to history? All you will be doing is giving them land that they will use to someday attack us from. You will be remembered as the Neville Chamberlain of Israel.”
“I am talking about doing no such thing,” replied a terse Goldberg. “And don’t sit here and lecture me about being Neville Chamberlain, when just last night you killed a hundred innocent women and children. I’ve been briefed by the army, Ben. I know there was no bomb factory. Those people did not need to die.”
Freidman did not intend for this meeting to head in this direction, but he was not about to back down. “I will admit that some of those deaths are regrettable, but again, only a few. The overwhelming majority of the people who were living on that block were either terrorists or supporters of terrorists. I will lose no sleep over my decision, and I will gladly stand before your cabinet and defend my actions.”
“It is not the cabinet that I am worried about,” snapped Goldberg. “It is the UN, and it is the Americans. If they decide to look into this, and they find out that there was in fact no bomb factory, you will have done us great harm.”
“They will not look into it,” promised an irritated Freidman. “I can handle the Americans. I always have and I always will, and as far as the UN is concerned they are a bunch of impotent dilettantes. A week from now this will all be forgotten.” Freidman took a swig of beer and confidently added, “I can promise you … this will all blow over. Right now, though, we need to stay on the offensive. In the wake of an attack such as last night they will make mistakes. They will seek vengeance and we must be ready to pounce. This is what I propose we do.”
Goldberg rocked in his chair and listened as the head of Mossad laid out his plan for how to keep the various Palestinian groups on the defensive. The prime minister was torn as he listened. The old soldier in him very much wanted to press the advantage, but there was another voice in his head that was preaching caution. It was the voice of a politician who had the support of less than half of his country.
So far the only reason he hadn’t received a vote of no confidence was because there was no clear challenger willing to step into the ring. His opponents were circling, though, and it wouldn’t be long before they pounced. For the time being he would have to keep a close watch on Freidman. If the UN found out what had really happened in Hebron, his cabinet would turn on him in a second, and Israel would once again be forced back to the peace table with weak leadership at the reins of power.
45
It was Sunday night, it was late and Mitch Rapp sat awkwardly behind the wheel of his sedan, his body contorted in such a way as to keep his right butt cheek from touching the seat. Medically speaking, the ass was not a bad spot to be shot; no vital organs, just a lot of muscle and fat. In terms of general comfort, though, it sucked. To the amusement of Coleman and his men, Rapp had flown all the way back from the Philippines either standing or lying on his stomach.
With the mission a complete success, and Rapp’s long-term health not an issue, the men were able to make light of his situation. For the most part Rapp took the ribbing well. The humor was at least a welcome distraction from having to dwell on what awaited him when he got home.
Relationships, he was finding, were tricky things. He’d already learned that often his recollection of what had been said, or promised, varied greatly from his wife’s. He’d been searching his memory for the last day trying to remember if he had ever specifically promised to stay out of situations where he might be shot. Most of these conversations were vague by nature of the secrecy that went along with his job, but he seemed to remember some reassurances he’d made that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. Something told him that she would classify getting shot in the ass as downright moronic.
Ultimately, however, he realized that this legalistic approach, while an inventive defense, was worthless. Nothing specifically had ever been agreed upon or said, but there were clearly expectations in place. Anna was not a judge or jurist, so any case pleaded on the grounds of technicalities would be unwise. She was his wife and no amount of truth or logic would save him from her wrath.
This briefly led him to the conclusion that he would need to stall and fabricate a story. The Anderson family was currently recuperating at the naval hospital in Pearl Harbor. Rapp had told Kennedy that he wanted to stay with the family for a few days and handle their debriefing. He was hoping to stretch the debriefing into a full week of recuperation for his own tender wound. In addition to that, he felt it would be fairly easy to fake a surfing accident on a coral reef.
