All eyes looked to Black. But Black—wearing jeans, casual brown shoes, a black T-shirt, and a .45 caliber side arm in a shoulder holster—just stared into his glass and waited for the fizz to subside. Secondhand smoke filled the room with a bluish haze, but no one seemed to mind.
“You know why I drink Diet Coke?” Black asked the room of high-powered spooks as he continued to watch the fizz in his glass go down.
No one had any idea what he was talking about.
“I always hated Diet Coke, stuff tastes like dishwater,” Black continued. “But I had lunch once in Washington with the director of the Bureau at the time. It was in the fall of 1991 and we were having lunch at the Four Seasons with Henry Kissinger.
Zadok glanced at Ben Ramon.
Was this guy losing it?
“So Kissinger ordered a Diet Coke. And then the director ordered a Diet Coke. And I figured, ‘Well, I guess martinis are out.’ So, I figured, what the hell, so I ordered a Diet Coke. ’Cause I figured, you know, Kissinger’s a pretty smart guy. And if he drinks Diet Coke, then I probably should, too. And I’ve been drinking them ever since.”
Black looked up, picked up his glass, and raised it in the air. “Cheers.”
The Israelis in the room burst out laughing—partly out of nervous tension and partly because they had never known quite what to make of Black. As an operative, he impressed them. But as a human being, he amused them no end.
Zadok was the first to catch his breath and light up a new cigar. “You’re a moron, Black,” he told him, with a thick Israeli accent.
“Yeah, but I’m thin.”
“Fine, you’re a thin moron.”
Even Black had to laugh at that.
Six foot three, trim, completely bald (his wife once told him she couldn’t decide if he looked more like Lex Luthor or Mr. Clean), and about to turn fifty, Dietrich Peter Black was a twenty-five-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recruited fresh out of Harvard Business School at a time when none of his classmates would ever have even considered a career in law enforcement over one on Wall Street, he loved his job and had never thought twice about having taken it.
Hopscotching the world for most of the 1980s, he’d spent most of the 1990s based in Washington, working on high-profile terrorism cases like the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1994, the Olympics bombing in Atlanta in 1996, and, of course, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.
He was cool, methodical, and virtually devoid of the kind of passion and emotion that can cloud the judgment of a successful investigator. That’s not to say he wasn’t moved with compassion by the deaths of fellow citizens and colleagues. He certainly was. But he seemed to have an instinctual ability to channel that passion into a laserlike focus. He focused on the details and anomalies and idiosyncrasies and discrepancies that turn up in every case and often turn into determinative leads—leads that can turn into fibers that become threads that emanate from finely woven fabric and that can end up unraveling even the most complicated of cases.
“So, Deek, you know, we’re all really intrigued about how you pick soft drinks,” said the man with the yo-yo. “But what’s the deal here, what’s the verdict?”
Black took another sip of the cold, bubbly soda, then turned to the others.
“Avi? How ’bout you?”
Avi Zadok leaned back in his chair and took another puff on his cigar, savoring the taste and the moment. Finally, he broke the suspense.
“To tell you the truth, I believed him,” declared the aging Mossad leader.
Black picked up a half-eaten falafel sandwich sitting on a paper plate beside his Diet Coke, and took a huge bite.
“Yossi?” he asked, his mouth full of pita and hummus.
“Honestly, Deek?” Ben Ramon replied, his accent just as thick as Zadok’s, but betraying his Sephardic Moroccan roots. “I’m afraid I have to agree with Avi.”
Black looked him straight in the eye, and Ben Ramon finished his thought.
“He didn’t know anything.”
“No, it was more than that,” interjected Galit, the airport security chief, suddenly capturing everyone’s attention. “He was actually good. Very good. He was honest.”
“And loyal,” added Ben Ramon.
“Anyone else?” Black asked, eyebrows raised, scanning the room, thick again with nervous tension. No one said a word. Especially not the man with the yo-yo.
Black paced the room, thinking, chewing, assessing the turn of events. He stepped over to the TV on Galit’s desk, picked up the remote and rewound the tape—then played it again without the sound, just watching the face in the center of the screen. He slowly finished his sandwich, and his Diet Coke, then wiped his mouth with a tiny, thin paper napkin and turned back to the rest of the group.
“I agree,” Black finally admitted. “He didn’t know.”
Everyone looked down, quiet and smoking. Then Galit broke the silence.
“You Americans should have recruited him,” he said, nervously looking around the room for agreement.
Then Black smiled.
“We just did.”
The black phone marked “FBI” rang just before 10:30 A.M. Eastern.
The National Security Advisor picked it up on the first digital ring.
“Kirkpatrick.”
“Prairie Ranch, standby for Black Ops.”
“Orange Grove?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Secure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Put him through.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Hold one.”
Kirkpatrick grabbed a nearby yellow legal pad and a black Sharpie. She pulled the cap off and prepared to take down the message.
“What’s the word?”
“It’s done.”
“And?” she asked.
There was a pause. Then she nodded.
“Thanks. Now clean up and get back here now. Bring everything. You’ll get instructions in the air.”
Kirkpatrick hung up the phone and looked over at the vice president. Everyone else in the room was consumed with other activities. The VP waited for the answer. Kirkpatrick wrote one word on the last page of the yellow legal pad and slid it over to him. He looked down, discreetly peeked at the last page, and nodded his head.
“Clean,” it read.
He picked up the blue phone in the console before him, the one marked “NORAD.”
“Get me the president.”
Black placed a secure phone call from Galit’s office.
“Seventh floor, may I help you?”
“I need to talk to Esther. It’s urgent.”
“One moment please.”
As Black waited, he asked one of the Israeli staffers to pack up everything he’d need for the trip back—including Bennett’s body.
“Ambassador’s office. Esther speaking.”
“Esther, it’s Deek.”
“Hey, Deek, you OK?”
“I need the DCM.”
“He’s on a call.”
“Now, Esther.”
“All right. Hold on.”
Black opened a new Diet Coke. On one TV, he watched the Sky News replays of the attack on the presidential motorcade, and the attacks in London and Paris and Saudi Arabia. On another TV, he watched CNN replay excerpts from a press conference with White House Press Secretary Chuck Murray at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
“I need Bennett’s cell phone and BlackBerry,” he told Galit. “And I need your guys to crack the pass codes fast.”
Galit nodded. One of his men scrambled off to make it happen. Just then, Tom Ramsey—the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv—came on the line.
“Deek?”
“Hey, Tom, it’s me.”
“You need the ambassador’s plane.”
“How’d you know?”
“Checkmate just called.”
“What about Paine? You need his clear
ance?” asked Black.
“Are you kidding?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Deek, don’t you know the facts of life yet, son?”
“I’m just saying…”
“I know what you’re saying. And I’m saying that asking Secretary Paine to sign off on a covert ops mission using a State Department plane would be like asking Pat Robertson to sign off on a nudist convention on the 700 Club. It ain’t gonna happen.”
Black chuckled.
“Get it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. How soon you leaving?”
“Soon as it’s ready.”
“They’re warming it up now—oh, and I just sent Jane over with a little surprise.”
“Tom, I don’t need any more surprises.”
“Don’t worry. It’s from the ambassador himself. Just take care of yourself.”
“Thanks, but what did I do to deserve anything from you guys?”
“Nothing.”
“Right.”
“Be good.”
“I’ll try.”
An hour later, Yitzhak Galit’s security office was nearly empty.
Zadok and Ben Ramon shut down the airport until further notice and rushed back to meet with the prime minister and the Security Cabinet. Most of Galit’s men were clearing the buildings above and setting up a heavily armed perimeter around Israel’s only international airport.
As he waited for his flight back to the U.S. to be ready, Black began scanning Bennett’s emails, a combination of urgent pleas from his staff all over the world to fill them in on what he knew about the president’s condition, news bulletins from AP, and one little email from Erin McCoy in London. Black took a deep breath. She’d sent him all the details on his charter flight, including tail number, two phone numbers for the Signature operations desk, the cell numbers of his flight crew and even direct numbers for the tower, followed by a little reminder: “Don’t panic.:)” Black made a mental note to have that flight canceled, then scrolled through the AP updates.
SOURCES: PRESIDENT ALIVE; LOCATION UNKNOWN
VP TAKES COMMAND AT WHITE HOUSE
QUEEN SAFE DESPITE LONDON ATTACKS
CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER WOUNDED IN PARIS BOMBINGS
747 DESTROYS SAUDI PALACE; KING, FAMILY BARELY ESCAPE
THREE SECRET SERVICE AGENTS DEAD
BREAKING: WHITE HOUSE SAYS PRESIDENT SECURE AT NORAD
NATION AWAKES TO TERRIFYING TV IMAGES
FED CUTS INTEREST RATES BY HALF-PERCENT
WORLD REACTS IN HORROR TO ATTACK ON U.S. PRESIDENT
MARKET PLUNGES 11% IN JAPAN, 13% IN HONG KONG
FAA ORDERS “NO-FLY ZONE” OVER ENTIRE U.S.
FOURTH SECRET SERVICE AGENT DIES OF HEAD TRAUMA
VICE PRESIDENT CONSOLES SECRET SERVICE WIDOWS
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VADIM OFFERS U.S. HELP IN TRACKING DOWN TERRORISTS
FBI BRIEFING DESCRIBES GULFSTREAM’S FINAL MINUTES
MURRAY: “EVIL HAS REARED ITS UGLY FACE AGAIN”
PRESIDENT “DOING BETTER,” WILL ADDRESS NATION AT 9 PM
DOW PLUNGES 9%, NASDAQ DOWN 12% AT OPENING BELL
BREAKING: CIA SOURCES SAY IRAQ MAY BE “PREPARING FOR WAR”
WHITE HOUSE: MEMORIAL SERVICE TO BE PLANNED FOR SATURDAY
With the help of a technical expert on Galit’s team, Black finally broke through Bennett’s cell phone password protection and began listening to his voicemail messages. Most were calls from the GSX team scattered across the globe. Two were from McCoy, repeating all the flight details she’d also emailed to him. One was from his executive assistant about his luggage. Two were from his parents checking on him.
Black now called Bennett’s home answering machine. Again, Galit’s technical people broke through and Black listened to the messages. The eeriest was from Secretary Iverson. Black winced, and replayed it twice: “Hey, Jon, it’s Stu. Quick update. Things have settled down a bit. The president’s doing OK. Wants to meet with you about the deal ASAP. You can reach me at 303-555-9697. Again, 303-555-9607. And use a landline—not a cell phone. I’ll figure out a way to get you to us. If you get in any trouble, let me know. See ya, kid.”
Black took a deep breath. It was going to be a long flight.
It was now ten P.M. Israel time.
Black finally received the clearance he needed to get back to the U.S. The November night air was brisk and breezy, but after so many hours cooped up in Galit’s smoke-filled bunker, it felt refreshing. Black walked across the tarmac, stood for a moment and stretched his legs. He felt exhausted and light-headed. He suddenly wanted to retire, move to Vail or Aspen, and buy a little ski lodge and sit under a peaceful, quiet canopy of moon and sky and stars, far away from cell phones and pagers and crises. He was getting too old for this.
“Good evening, Mr. Black,” said the fit, rugged black man in a crisp blue Air Force uniform. “I’ll be your pilot tonight. Colonel Frank Oakland. Good to meet you.”
The two shook hands. Three heavily armed American agents with plastic wires running into their ears stood nearby, as six more Israeli security agents with Uzis at the ready surrounded the plane at Galit’s directive. The plane was fully loaded and fully fueled, just waiting for its final passengers to board.
“Good to meet you, Colonel. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“You got it, sir. We’ll be wheels up in eight minutes. And you just let us know if there’s anything we can do for you—anything at all. All right?”
“Thanks. Let’s do it.”
Black walked a few feet over to the steps of the plane, then stopped abruptly.
“It’s a G4, isn’t it?”
The pilot hesitated.
“Yes, sir, she is,” he said quietly.
Black stood for a moment, sizing up the aircraft, then began to walk around the nose of the plane.
“She’s big.”
“Eighty-eight feet, four inches long,” Oakland agreed as he followed Black around the plane. “Got a wingspan of almost seventy-eight feet, and she’s nearly two and a half stories high.”
“How heavy?”
“Maximum?”
“Yeah.”
“About seventy-five thousand pounds. She can carry a boatload of fuel and go more than four thousand two hundred nautical miles in one flight.”
Black said nothing, then stopped beside one of the two engines.
“Rolls Royce,” offered the pilot, unprompted. “The best money can buy. Fourteen thousand pounds of takeoff thrust. She can almost hit Mach one.”
Black shook his head in disbelief.
“How high can she go?”
“Forty-five thousand feet—about nine miles, give or take.”
Black slipped under the tail, careful not to get behind the engines, walked slowly back over to the steps, then turned to the pilot. He stared at the man for a moment, without saying a word. Then, almost in a whisper…
“If you were flying from Toronto to Denver…”
He paused for a second, then took a deep breath.
“…would you—would you be in danger of running out of gas?”
The pilot looked him straight in the eye.
“No, sir. Not a chance.”
Black stared into his eyes for a moment, then looked away, checked his watch, turned and headed up the steps. His security detail and the pilot followed right behind him, and the ground crew scrambled quickly to secure the aircraft for take off.
On board, Black leaned into the cockpit, quickly scanned the instrumentation panels, and shook hands with the copilot, completing his final preflight checklist. As he turned back to the cabin, he was greeted by a flight attendant who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
With short black hair and warm brown eyes, Maria Perez had a sweet, gentle smile. But best of all, she was holding some fresh, hot coffee in a dark maroon mug with a gold seal that read “American Embassy Tel Aviv” on the side—and a small white china plate of warm, gooey, chocola
te chip cookies baked fresh and brought over by the security team.
Black gratefully took the mug and the plate of cookies and carefully set them both on a small, low table to his right. A larger table to his left held a huge, dark blue porcelain vase of fresh-cut pink roses and a giant platter of luscious, fresh fruit—Jaffa oranges, watermelon, strawberries, kiwi, red grapes, red delicious apples, and plump, juicy pears to die for.
On another side table further back there were crystal dishes of mixed nuts and silver dishes of Christmas M&Ms—green and red, plain and peanut, along with small bottles of spring water, Perrier, fruit juices, and sodas of every kind. This was the surprise Ramsey was talking about, a nice little spread from the ambassador and his wife, and he appreciated it. Black’s job didn’t come with many perks and he savored each one.
Black had never been on the U.S. Ambassador’s plane, but he was impressed, and he quickly settled into one of eight white leather swivel chairs. Next, he fastened his seat belt quickly as the plane began to taxi almost immediately. The G4’s interior was absolutely gorgeous, and far roomier than the aging, stripped down Learjet the FBI usually used to send him around in the U.S. Thick, rich carpet. A long, white leather couch. A beautiful, polished mahogany conference table with a collection of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and Forbes. A built-in combination TV and DVD. And a stereo system with a six-disk CD player, from which Mozart’s “Turkish March” softly filled the cabin.
Black leaned back in his chair and stared out the window, watching four Israeli army jeeps with soldiers in full battle gear escort the G4 to the runway. An involuntary chill shuddered through his body. He closed two air conditioning vents nearby, retrieved his coffee mug and a cookie, checked to see it wasn’t too hot, and then took a long sip.
Perez—the daughter of the Air Force chief of staff, he later learned—quickly unbuckled herself from her seat in the back of the plane and brought him a thick, wool blanket and a large, soft pillow. Black accepted both gratefully, setting aside his coffee and cookie. Then he slid off his shoes and put his feet up on the low table in front of him as the flight attendant dimmed the lights and settled back in her seat.