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He stepped from the vehicle and buttoned the jacket of his double-breasted blue suit. His posture slouched and his stride shortened, he moved toward the door of the hotel playing the role of an older man. The doors were opened by two bellmen who greeted David warmly. They knew him only as Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian businessman who had strong ties to the PLO. David continued through the lobby, his Prada loafers clicking on the marble floor. He entered the bar and peered through the smoke-filled haze. The man he was looking for was seated in the far corner, his back to the wall like he was some cowboy in an American film. Two of his bodyguards were seated at the adjacent table and were eyeing the rest of the patrons, their menacing stares reminding everyone to mind their own business. All three men had bushy black mustaches, a prerequisite for anyone in Saddam’s inner circle.
David approached the table with feigned enthusiasm. “General Hamza, it is so good to see you again.”
Hamza did not offer his hand. He simply looked at the chair opposite him and nodded for his guest to sit. The Iraqi general took a drag from his unfiltered cigarette and said, “You are late.”
“I am sorry,” David lied, “but I had a hard time getting through the checkpoints.”
Looking down at the two attaché cases on the floor next to him, Hamza replied, “You’d better have a better plan for getting back with these. If you lose them, I will have your head.”
David nodded effusively. “General, I will not allow your money to fall into the hands of the Zionist pigs.”
The general reached for his drink with the same hand that held the cigarette. Never taking his eyes off the Palestinian he said, “For your own good, you’d better make sure you do not allow that to happen.”
David again nodded and eagerly assured the general that no such thing could ever possibly occur. The two attaché cases contained a million dollars apiece in U.S. hundred-dollar bills. It was money for Hamas and Hezbollah to continue their terrorist insurgency into Israel. General Hamza was not a man to be taken lightly, but David was far from intimidated. The head of Saddam’s Amn al Khas, or Special Security Service, was a brute, and brutes were easy to trick.
Hamza’s thuggish behavior was legendary. In Iraq his name was spoken in whispers. He was responsible for entire families disappearing in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. On his orders, men and women were tortured and beaten for months simply because they knew someone who had been deemed a traitor to Saddam. Often, Hamza allowed those physically and mentally scarred subjects to live so that they could return to their communities and serve as living, walking, horrific, disfigured proof of what happened to people who went against Saddam. In any civilized society Hamza’s behavior and tactics would be deemed inhumane at the least, but what made his actions all the more reprehensible was that the overwhelming majority of the people he had tortured and killed had done nothing wrong. In the twisted world Saddam had created for himself, he was convinced there were spies everywhere, traitors lurking in every city and every part of his government. There was a purge at least once a year and if the SSS didn’t come up with bodies Saddam would turn his paranoid rage on the SSS instead. To avoid having his own head put on the chopping block, Hamza made sure his people found traitors. Guilty or not, they found them, they tortured them until they would say anything to stop the pain, and then they executed them.
It wasn’t as if the Arab world was blameless when it came to such thuggery, it was just the brazen way Iraq went about it and the sheer volume of intimidation and torture that occurred. David could deal with brutality. He didn’t like it but he could handle it. There was something else about the general, something that really turned his stomach, and it was for that reason alone that he would enjoy killing him.
A waiter approached and placed a napkin and a fresh drink on the table for Hamza. The man then asked David if he’d like something to drink. The general nodded his consent and David ordered a scotch and soda.
Hamza polished off the last few sips of his drink and then wiped several droplets of whiskey from his mustache. “I’ve decided to cut your fee. We’re spending a lot of money on you and not getting enough back. You need to step up the bombing against Israel.”
The fee the general was referring to had already been cut once. It had started at ten percent and dropped to five. It was David’s cut for acting as an intermediary. David feigned concern. He had no personal use for counterfeit U.S. money, but he had to at least play the part. “But I have already cut my fee once.”
“And you will cut it again.” Hamza leaned back confidently and sucked on his cigarette until the end glowed a bright orange. After he’d exhaled the smoke in David’s direction he smiled and said, “You are doing your people a service. The honorable thing to do would be to take no fee at all.”
Honor had nothing to do with it. When David’s fee was reduced the money was not passed along to Hamas and Hezbollah. It was pocketed by the general. David was tempted to point out that they were in this together. Arab brothers arm in arm doing battle against the Israelis, but he decided to leave the general’s hypocrisy unchallenged. He needed the money for the next part of his plan and the fact that it was counterfeit was all the better.
His drink arrived and in a defensive tone he said, “But General, the cost of doing business in my land is very expensive. Many people need to be paid to assure the safe transfer of your very much appreciated funds.”
“You should be paying no one,” snarled Hamza. “You should slit the throat of the first person who gets in your way. Hamas and Hezbollah are on a mission from Allah and anyone who trifles with them should be dealt with harshly.” The general shook his head in disgust. “You will never defeat the Israelis until you learn to control your own people.”
Biting down on his tongue to restrain himself from smiling, David nodded thoughtfully. He and the general had arrived at the same conclusion, but for different reasons. David would unite the Palestinian people and he would start by killing the arrogant Iraqi brute who was sitting across from him.
9
Rapp was shown into the Oval Office by one of the president’s aides. He found his boss, Irene Kennedy, and General Flood, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sitting alone on one of the couches with a series of folders spread out on the coffee table. Rapp could tell instantly that Kennedy had broken the news to the four-star general. The stony expression on the soldier’s face said it all. It was hard enough to lose men in battle but it was beyond infuriating to know that it could have been prevented.
Rapp decided that given the subject at hand it was better for him not to speak. Before he had a chance to sit, President Hayes entered his office with a cortege of aides trailing him. At over six feet tall with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, Hayes stood out in a crowd, and like most men who had reached his station in life, he exuded a real magnetism. The men and women who worked for him wanted desperately to please him. Hayes unbuttoned his suit coat as he strode toward his desk. By the time he reached it the coat was off. He turned to face the three aides who were arguing about the administration’s education bill. Hayes held up his hands, palms out, and the three fell silent like well-disciplined kids obeying their father.
As Rapp watched the exchange take place he noticed, not for the first time, that the president had gained a little weight. It was a subject the two men had discussed on several occasions. Rapp, a former triathlete, still worked out six days a week and watched his intake closely. The president had confided in him that he was very wary of what his job was doing to his health. After all his official duties, which there was scarcely enough time for, there was still the Democratic Party and its incessant need to raise money.
Barely a day passed when there wasn’t a fund-raiser of some sort, and where there was a fund-raiser one could always count on lots of food and booze. Rapp had designed a bare-bones workout plan that the president could do in forty-five minutes. The goal was to do it five days a week, first thing in the morning. As Rapp looked at the president’s expanding waistline, he had a feeling the man had been skipping his workouts.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” said the president firmly. “By the end of the day I want you all on the same page. If the three of you can’t come up with a consensus, this thing will be dead before it reaches the Hill.” One of the aides tried to get in a last word, but the president cut her off with a terse motion toward the door. The three left the room dejectedly and closed the door behind them.
Hayes dropped into his chair and picked up a pair of reading glasses from the desk. After quickly glancing over his schedule, he pressed his intercom button and said, “Cheryl, I don’t want to be interrupted for the next fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” came the always even reply of his gatekeeper.
Hayes looke
d up and waved for his three visitors to join him. “Pull up a chair. If you don’t mind, I have to look over a few things while we talk.”
Kennedy had called the meeting and she didn’t object. She knew once the president heard what she had to say, she’d have his rapt attention. As they settled in, the president picked up a document from his desk, scanned it and then moved it to another pile. Looking over the top of his reading glasses he said, “Mitchell, you look tan and rested. I trust you had a nice honeymoon?” The president smiled.
“Very nice, thank you, sir.”
