Clash of the Gods

List of Characters

Moustapha Alnois. A Muslim zealot and international terrorist leader devoted to destroying all enemies of Islam in order to make the religion of Allah supreme.

Rebecca Bauer, secretary of state of the United States. A non-denominational Christian, she served as a Methodist missionary in Asia, became a professor of Asian Studies, and a leading foreign policy expert. The compatibility of their beliefs made her the president’s choice as his secretary of state. Involved in the intrigues of Middle Eastern politics for the first time in her career and with nuclear war in the balance, she must cast the deciding voice between the president of the United States who appointed her and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Vladimir Benkovsky and Yuri Golvnia, two Russian nuclear engineers who lost their jobs when the Cold War ended and Russian nuclear plants were closed. Now they want to use their nuclear expertise to make some money.

James Caufield, president of the United States. A former career Air Force officer, Member of Congress and evangelical Christian who believes that the Holy Land must be protected at all costs in order to fulfill the biblical prophesies about the Second Coming of Christ.

Fatima. A beautiful, young Palestinian woman from Gaza who works in an Israeli beauty salon to earn money for her financially desperate family. She must choose between the conservative religious rules of her Muslim parents and her desire to be a modern woman, which includes political activity with her brother.

Alexander Goloskin, president of Gazprom, the Russian national energy conglomerate which in 2006 became the fifth largest company in the world. As the chief puppeteer and powerbroker behind Russian government leaders, he wants to dominate the global oil markets and make Russia the world’s sole superpower.

Shlomo Helfein, deputy director of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. An immigrant from Eastern Europe, he worked his way to the top of the military intelligence apparatus of Israel and then into the Mossad to become one of its most wily and hard-hearted leaders.

Daniel Hennessy, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in charge of overseas operations. A young rising star in the CIA tasked with finding out where the loyalties of the Israelis lie.

Leonid Kamerov, foreign minister of Russia. An ignorant peasant who rose to the top leadership of Russia by being a loyal member of the Communist Party and who struggles to sustain his leadership position in the new, capitalistic Russia through political intrigue.

King Abdul Khalid, 78-year-old king of Saudi Arabia. A calm, cautious leader whose family ties to the founders of Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi religious sect have put him into the position of needing to decide if the fate of his country should be secular or religious.

Prince Habib Khalid, director of the General Intelligence Department, the Saudi Arabian intelligence service. His job is to protect the Royal Family from foreign and domestic enemies, including religious zealots.

Vladimir Krukov, director of Russia’s Federal Intelligence Service (a division of the former KGB). Machiavellian and ruthless, he wants to permanently cripple the United States and reassert the global power of Mother Russia.

Rob Lohman, station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency office in Israel. A young, idealistic espionage official, he is caught between his deadly responsibilities to the CIA and his love for a beautiful woman.

Avi Mahlberg, Israeli spy and assassin. A trained member of the Savak, the Iranian secret police, until the death of the shah when he emigrated to Israel and was recruited by the Mossad. He has conflicting agendas.

Sean Mansfield, deputy director of MI6, the British intelligence service. A friend and advisor to Michael Reilly, director of the CIA.

Aaron Miller, secretary of defense of the United States. He shares President Caufield’s geo-strategic views on the Middle East and is one of the president’s most important allies.

Claudine Montaigne, sensuous and sophisticated French girl friend of CIA agent Rob Lohman. She resides in France and eagerly awaits each rendezvous with her American lover.

Abdul Nasser, a young Palestinian who turns to acts of terrorism.

Boris Nimnogo, Russian intelligence officer in Saudi Arabia. His insecurities lead him to become a vicious assassin.

Nathaniel Penn, Central Intelligence Agency officer in Saudi Arabia.

Michael Reilly, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and personal friend of President Caufield. A former professor, and agnostic, who carefully analyses the interplay of the three religions seeking dominance in the Middle East. He must locate two nuclear devices planted in the Middle East, find out who placed them, and stop them before they detonate.

Rafi Sahedi, foreign minister of Iran. A sophisticated, educated member of the power elite who is hostile to Israel and seeks to reestablish the Persian Empire through Iran’s enormous oil and gas resources.

Hassan Sakir, foreign minister of Iraq. A kindly member of the hierarchy of Iraq who struggles to keep his country from being controlled by either Iran or the United States.

Moshe Shamron, prime minister of Israel. A political leader whose purpose is to preserve Israel and ensure that the Jewish State remains the only nuclear power in the Middle East.

Prologue

Tel Aviv, Israel

Twenty-one-year-old Rachel Mahlberg walked down a side street to meet her brother at Mitzvah’s restaurant, located in a quiet neighborhood in northern Tel Aviv. Like many soldiers in the Israeli army she was wearing her uniform even though she was off duty. She had less than a month left of her two years of required service in the Israeli army. Rachel was bright, cheerful, and exceptionally beautiful. She smiled to everyone as she approached.

It was a warm, lazy Saturday afternoon like so many others. Some Israelis were lounging casually in outdoor cafes. Others were playing in the parks with their children or at home with their families observing Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. The Israeli weekend is short—only Friday afternoon and Saturday—leaving little time to relax before the beginning of the next workweek on Sunday.

After the military turmoil of 2006, Moshe Haim had landed a job as a security guard, a bedek bitchoni, with a company that provides security personnel to public buildings and restaurants. His first assignment was at Mitzvah‘s, near his home. ‘Not so bad for a 23-year-old just a few months out of the military,’ he thought.

Since Mitzvah’s was a known hangout for Israeli soldiers stationed near the city’s edge, it offered a more exposed target for a terrorist attack than a site closer to the city. Yehuda Ramon, the owner, had recently hired the young security guard as a precaution.

After several hours standing watch at the front entrance, Moshe yawned and strolled inside. He headed for the toilet. I’ll be right back, he smiled at his fiancée, Anat Gershon, who was sitting at a table near the entrance and had come a few minutes earlier to be with him while he was working. Anat was a corporal in the Israeli army with three months left of her two-year military service requirement.

Across the street, Abdul Nasser sat at a small café. A Palestinian, also in his early twenties, was sipping his second espresso, and had been waiting and watching intently for over an hour. Now was the time. When the inexperienced Israeli guard left his post, Abdul rose from his table. He walked across the street, slowly and deliberately. No one paid attention to the young man as he smiled benignly at the patrons sitting at the outdoor tables and entered the door to Mitzvah’s.

Abdul Nasser was from Gaza, which along with the West Bank of the Jordan River, was seized by the Israeli military in 1967. The world refers to these areas as the Occupied Territories. The United Nations, including the United States, affirmed that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank violated the UN Charter and ordered Israel to return the captured lands. But Israel chose not to comply.

To Abdul and his family these territories are Palestine, while many Israelis and Jews around the world claim Gaza and the West Bank as part of Eretz Israel, the land of Israel that belongs to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because it was given to them by God as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. According to the theology of the Jewish people, Abdul Nasser and his family are descendants of Abraham’s oldest son Ishmael rather than the second son, Isaac. Nearly 3,000 years ago Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, were banished by Abraham, so they have no right to live in the Promised Land given to the Jewish people as a gift from their God. Abdul’s parents say that Abraham’s Hebrew descendents are now fulfilling the ancient directives of this pre-historic family conflict by expelling the Palestinians.

Abdul’s father had often told his family of how even before the 1967 Israeli territorial expansion, Palestinian lands had been confiscated in order to create the Jewish nation. As early as June 1938, one of the Jewish leaders, David Ben-Gurion, advocated the ‘compulsory transfer’ of Palestinians to make room for the Jews. To implement this process, on March 10, 1948 Ben Gurion and the other Zionist leaders created the ‘Plan Dalet,’ a six-month campaign of terror in which 531 Palestinian villages were destroyed, many Palestinians were killed, and nearly a million Palestinians were driven from their homes. Hundreds of thousands fled to different countries. Palestinians call this period the nakba, or ‘catastrophe.’ Abdul’s paternal grandfather was among the dead. David Ben-Gurion, the architect of the terror, became the first prime minister of Israel.

After the state of Israel emerged from British colonial rule on May 15, 1948, two-thirds of the population was still Palestinian. So the master plan of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and the Zionist leadership was to remove or eliminate at least 400,000 more Palestinians. The Zionist militia in Palestine, the Hagana High Command, gave orders to its troops using the Hebrew word tihur, for ‘cleansing.’

Many Palestinians who stayed behind lacked the resources, health or willpower to go elsewhere. Others were determined to stay and reclaim the lands which some of their families had owned for hundreds of years. They said, What was taken by force must be regained by force. Abdul’s father was one of them. Yet they failed, which left Abdul with an inheritance of hatred rather than land. They will take and take and take and they will never stop until we cease to exist, Abdul’s father told his son. That is why we must never recognize their right to exist on our land. It is better to be dead.

Abdul now lives in one of the refugee camps in Gaza, which along with the West Bank is home to nearly four million Palestinians. Gaza has three times the population density of Manhattan. The dwellings in the refugee camps there consist of modern homes built with money from Muslim countries to homes constructed from cinder blocks, tin, or whatever material is available. As in most refugee camps, water, electricity and sewage facilities are often in limited supply.

Though the United Nations Relief and Works Agency financially supports many of the camps—and some are part of Palestinian towns—many are systematically denied basic needs. All of them are frequent targets of the Israeli military and secret police who enter the camps and the Palestinians’ homes whenever they choose. Abdul’s village is ostensibly an open environment. Enclosed in barbed wire, it is in fact a virtual prison.

Like most Palestinian families, Abdul’s parents had many children. He was one of six, and the children hustled for whatever money they could get to help feed the family. Ever since Israeli bulldozers demolished their home during a retaliatory strike to punish Palestinians, the entire family of eight had been living in a small makeshift hut. After the Israelis bombed the municipal electrical plant in July 2006, they had no electricity.

Abdul’s mother watched sorrowfully day after day as her husband and children scrounged for work. They would spend hours every day waiting in lines at Israeli military check points trying to go from one place to another. When they returned to their make-shift home each night they would tell her how young Israeli soldiers had ridiculed them and made them stand in line in the hot sun waiting to show their identity papers. Jewish Nazis, his father would mutter, angry and frustrated that he was prevented from protecting and providing for his family. Abdul’s mother told her eldest son in an anguished moment that she wished she and her husband had not brought children into the world.

His mother’s despair was the breaking point for Abdul. He was finished with this miserable life in a refugee camp. Nor would he protest endlessly just to end up as another useless addition to the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli internment camps. Most of them, which included some of his boyhood friends, were never convicted of any crime. The Israelis held them for years as prisoners under administrative detention. One of his friends was the mother of a one-year-old son. The infant was incarcerated with her, since the Israelis allow children to stay with their mothers until they are two years old. Pre-teens and teens are held indefinitely. ‘Their names are neither known nor glorified,’ Abdul thought about his friends in these camps, referred to by Palestinians as ‘Jewish concentration camps.’

Abdul had no use for the ‘peace’ sought by his parents, which he believed could never be any better than a justification for accepting a life of servitude. He and his friends were convinced that the Israelis and Americans would only accept a so-called ‘peace’ that gave Israel a prolonged opportunity to create more Jewish settlements, destroy more Palestinian homes, and tie the economic, political and military noose around the Occupied Territories even tighter. The Jews have the Americans by the short hairs, Abdul had said. That means no justice, no basic human rights, and no international law that works for us. If we resist, we’ll be accused of breaking a peace that isn’t worth shit in the first place.

Abdul joined the resistance.

With other Palestinian militants, he began constructing an underground city in the Gaza Strip to store weapons for attacks on Israeli forces. He rejoiced in the work. For the first time in his adult life he felt a sense of pride. When Israeli Army Chief of Staff General Dan Halutz made a public announcement about the tunnels, Abdul and his colleagues celebrated their notoriety. Now he was making a difference.

Then came the military response. A massive four-month Israeli offensive in the battered Palestinian territory left more than 250 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers dead. General Halutz was quoted as saying that 15 tunnels along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt had been discovered and destroyed. Israel announced that large amounts of weapons were smuggled through these tunnels.

Abdul was not captured, though he had a couple of close calls. That’s when he decided that even to give up his life would not matter since he had no future anyway. ‘To give away something that is worthless is not so hard,’ he thought. ‘A short life lived for a righteous cause is better than a longer life lived as an animal, without purpose or dignity.’ Mitzvah’s would provide him such dignity. He was told of his destination only the day before, and said a silent good-bye to his family.

As Moshe Haim was leaving the toilet, Abdul entered the restaurant. The security guard began to saunter back to his post, thinking absently that he would soon be off and could spend some time with his fiancée. Then he saw Abdul coming toward him. As their eyes met he noticed Abdul’s curious, rueful grin. He instinctively thought, ‘Danger!’ But it was too late. Abdul Nasser slowly stuck his hand inside his loose-fitting shirt. For Moshe, everything went into slow motion as he heard the Palestinian scream, Get out of our country! and push the detonator button.

Bomb! Moshe shouted and dove to the floor. The force of the explosion lifted him into the air. He crashed back down through the smoked-glass top of one of the tables and landed headfirst on the floor. A dagger-like shard of glass flew like a missile into his right arm and severed it just above the elbow as cleanly as if a saw had cut through it at a meat packing plant. He then rolled over to his right, just where a heavy two-foot long piece of glass from another table fell from the air and sliced into his chest. It severed his aorta artery, creating a small geyser of blood squirting uncontrollably.

The blast hurtled people and furniture into the air, and slammed others against the walls. Dazed patrons staggered to their feet and stumbled toward the exit.

In the confusion no one noticed the little package the suicide bomber had dropped at the entrance. Bam! A second, smaller bomb exploded. The blast blew out the front door and windows and sent more glass flying in all directions. It tore the legs off the first two people scrambling to escape through the entrance. One of them was Moshe Heim’s fiancée, Anat. Screams of pain and panic added to the visual horror. Some people turned in fear and fled back into the restaurant, while others pushed desperately against the in-rushing people in a panicked attempt to get out.

The blast inside the restaurant killed three soldiers and two civilians instantly. Twelve others were seriously injured. One of the dead soldiers was Rachel Mahlberg. Now in an instant, this vibrant young woman became a bloodied corpse, merely another statistic in a 3,000-year-old cycle of killing and revenge.

Police and ambulances arrived at the gruesome scene in two minutes. They began to secure the area and transport the dead and wounded to the hospital. The dismembered body of the bomber lay inside the restaurant, blown in half from the explosives wrapped around his waist.

A police captain surveyed the debacle and wondered, ‘Why here?’ He knew that soldiers frequented Mitzvah’s, yet considered why a location deeper inside Tel Aviv was not targeted instead.

They’re still reluctant to go into town, because so many people are watching for danger, he said to a policeman at his side. So they came here.

I’m sure you’re right, the policeman responded.

The captain’s solemn analysis continued: Our defensive incursions into Lebanon and Gaza inflame these young Palestinian terrorists to retaliate against us in droves. Expect more of them with bombs strapped to their bodies. Even central Tel Aviv is no longer safe.

I sure as hell hope our buddies in the Shin Bet have penetrated Hamas like they say, the policeman said to his captain, referring to the General Security Service, Israel’s secret police.

The captain, who secretly worked with the Shin Bet, changed the subject. At least it wasn’t another attack on a bus on a Sunday, he said. Those attacks have killed many more people hurrying to work in rush hour after the weekend.

They’re just stupid, another policeman added with an arrogant sneer. "If they were smart they would have done a lot of things differently."

Not all of them, the captain cautioned. And stupid or not, their IQs don’t matter to our dead and wounded Jews.

During this seemingly idle talk, the captain was taking careful note of the scene of destruction in and around the restaurant. Later in the day he would meet with the Shin Bet and provide a thorough report. He noticed that the bomber’s head was only slightly injured. ‘Good,’ he thought. ‘This will make it easy to identify him—and track down his family.’

He gazed at the lifeless figure of Rachel Mahlberg. He knew about the young woman. His superiors in the Shin Bet would be especially angry, because Rachel was one of their recent, prized recruits. Her special training had been scheduled to begin soon after she left the army. He wondered if she had carelessly mentioned this to anyone, since others in her Iranian family had already come to work for the Shin Bet and Mossad after moving to Israel. ‘Could this attack have been aimed at her?’ he wondered.

Shin Bet operations needed undercover females who could recruit Palestinian women. Palestinian mothers and sisters could often be persuaded to secretly cooperate with the Israelis, to keep their sons and brothers from being imprisoned or killed. The Shin Bet recruiters would easily promise these kinds of deals. It cost them nothing. And then, if the Shin Bet found it necessary, they could arrange an accident for a terrorist, even one whose family was cooperating. The Palestinian women couldn’t be sure what really happened, and would continue cooperating.

As for Abdul Nasser—his journey from the simmering yet passive anger of the ‘occupied’ to the inhumane final act of a terrorist had taken but three months—and 3,000 years.

Part I

Tel Aviv, Israel: On the Mediterranean Seashore

The morning after the suicide bombing at Mitzvah’s restaurant, Fatima walked with her brother toward the Sheraton Hotel on Hayarkon Street across from the Mediterranean beach. Her long silky black hair, brushed to a constant sheen and always perfectly in place, looked as though a Hollywood coffier had just prepared it for a movie scene. She disdained the scarf worn by most Palestinian women. Her uncovered head and face brought Israelis and Palestinians alike to a rare agreement—that even in the ghettos of Gaza, the heat of oppression had not entirely obliterated beauty.

Fatima’s tall, slender 23-year-old frame was not unusual for young Palestinian women. Yet for a Muslim, her sensuality was uncommon. Perhaps it was because she shunned the clothing of the conservative Muslim. Her dresses instead gave notice of a perfectly proportioned body, and even her protruding breasts.

Among the people whom the world now calls Palestinians—like many of her fellow countrymen living in something less than a country—Fatima and her family were from elsewhere: in her case, Iran, a country with over a thousand years of culture and style. But now her family members were tenuous squatters in the rubble of Beit Hanum, a town of 28,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip. The town was an occasional target of Israeli missiles such as the one that destroyed an electric power plant in October 2006, leaving most families, businesses and services without power. The Israeli army said it was targeting Palestinian militants who were preparing to fire rockets into Israel. Likewise on November 8, a pre-dawn Israeli missile strike on a four-story apartment building in this agricultural town killed 18 people in one extended family, including seven children, most of them as they slept.

Scores of others were injured. According to news dispatches, 14-year-old Islam al-Assamna said she lost her mother, two grandparents and an uncle, and suffered shrapnel wounds to her face and a hand. An American reporter for The Washington Post found her at the Beit Hanoun hospital caring for her five-year-old sister Israh and their three-year-old brother Mohammed, whose legs were severely damaged.

We were sleeping and then something hit and the windows shattered, she said. We ran and then a second shell hit our house. It was all smoky. We were using our hands to find the kids.

Inside the partially destroyed apartment building, children’s notebooks were scattered about and school uniforms were hanging on hooks.

Israel apologized for the deaths at Beit Hanoun, claiming it was caused by a technical error.

The Palestinian government declared a three-day period of mourning.

Qatar introduced a resolution in the UN Security Council that condemned Israel for its military actions in Gaza and disproportionate Israeli violence, and called for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area and for an investigation into the Israeli attack on Beit Hanoun. The United States vetoed the resolution.

Fatima lived three streets away from the building where the 18 Palestinians were killed. The deafening sound when the missiles struck awoke her violently from a sound sleep. Fatima threw on some clothes and went out to see if she could help. The scene was horrible. She looked at the dead and wounded in the rubble—that moments before had been a home, with a self-protecting emotional detachment developed through painful experience. Ambulances were already on the scene and medics were attending to the wounded and dead. Fatima quickly returned home lest she be accused of something by the ever-present Israeli spies, and got ready for her daily journey.

That day, like many a day before, Fatima entered Israel through the military checkpoint where all but the semi-conscious among the young Israeli soldiers would vie with each other to see who would give her the standard five-minute interrogation, though from experience they knew she would put up a fuss if they tried to search her with their hands. It was hard for them to imagine that this seemingly confident young beauty came from the squalor of Gaza.

Among the Israelis, there were those who thought Fatima had sculpted her appearance from the fashion magazines at the Cote Friseur beauty salon on Dizengoff Street where she worked as a hair stylist. Although the wealthy and chic Israeli women who regularly reinvented some part of their hair, face, fingers or toes at Cote Friseur were well enough pleased by Fatima’s skills with a pair of scissors and a brush, it was her quiet charm and striking features that best served her with the Israeli elite. The patrons of the beauty salon would regularly bestow upon this creature of the Gaza ghetto an invitation to Israeli society parties in Tel Aviv. Fatima was an unusually acceptable Palestinian.

The American men at the Israeli parties soon learned that Fatima was available for nothing more than admiring glances and shallow conversation. Rob Lohman, an assistant economic attaché at the American Embassy, once tried to charm her into a dinner date. She told him demurely that she does not date non-Muslims, a polite rejection made easier for her by sensing that he had an appetite for more than just haute cuisine. Though Fatima lamented her fate as a subservient entity of a hostile Jewish society, she felt that surely her merciful Islamic God intended for her life to have meaning.

Fatima’s tastes were influenced by the many boutiques along Dizengoff Street, where she would peer into the windows of stores which as a Palestinian she would not enter and whose clothes she could not afford. She dressed simply yet with care. Fatima longed for the designer clothing, shoes and purses displayed in these expensive stores, and visualized how she would look in such finery. As a young girl she had adopted the attributes and the dignified manner of her imaginings.

Fatima was fortunate that her beauty and gracious bearing enabled her to get the job at Cote Friseur. Like most Palestinians, her family was in desperate need of money. The small amount she could contribute from her meager wages was essential. The Israeli curfews had propelled the unemployment rate in Gaza to over 50 percent. Fatima’s father had made contact with a Palestinian body parks broker and made a fateful decision in order to buy food and keep the family alive: he sold a kidney.

This practice was growing among heads of households in Palestine, where local body parts brokers and others from Pakistan, China and elsewhere had set up shop. Her father was paid $2,500, even though in Europe kidneys were fetching up to $40,000. Though he dealt with a Palestinian broker, a rumor reached him after his kidney was removed and carted off to market that the transaction involved an Israeli middleman who made more than what he had received. "It was my kidney, he said angrily to his wife, cut right out of my body."

His health declined after the operation. This made it difficult for him to work during those infrequent times when a job was even available. For this reason, and because Fatima was a woman, she had to find a job. Her father’s older Muslim attitude that education is only for males conspired with her family’s poverty and lack of opportunity under the Israeli occupation to limit Fatima’s formal education.

Fatima’s political views were disjointed sets of unpleasant social observations interwoven with proscriptions and judgments from the Koran, which she mainly disregarded out of a lack of interest. Her convictions, to the extent she had any, were molded out of emotional weariness and resignation from living under duress in the Gaza Strip, adjacent to what her father referred to as The Broken Promise Land.

On this morning, Fatima had left the house with one of her brothers. They passed through the checkpoint without incident. As they continued walking, Fatima glanced down Hayarkon Street at the American Embassy and recalled when she had gone to the Embassy to get a visa to visit the United States and see if she could figure out a way to stay and go to a beauty school there. But Israeli security guards with Uzi machine guns stopped her at the entrance before she could even get in to speak to an American official. From this experience, she concluded that people were correct when they said that the small country of Israel controls the big, powerful Americans. She was also reminded that as a Palestinian she was a non-citizen, second-class resident.

Fatima was confused about the Americans. Those she occasionally met seemed friendly enough. Yet she had learned since childhood that the plight of her family and friends was because the Americans supported Israel’s policies. She thought that maybe if Americans knew what Palestinians are really like they would change and become fair. She therefore felt a trace of self-consciousness while walking with her brother toward the Sheraton Hotel.

Fatima imagined being a guest at such a hotel that caters to a large business clientele and wealthy tourists. Once in the lobby, she walked past the concierge and the expensive jewelry store and waved to the clerks behind the front desk. They smiled and waved back. One of the Palestinian bellboys winked at her. Are you going swimming? And so early in the morning? he asked, glancing at her swimming bag and then touring her body with his eyes. I’ll come down on my break to watch, he flirted. I didn’t know you were a swimmer too.

There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, she said with a demure smile, as she headed toward the stairway leading down to the magnificent Mediterranean beach.

Who’s your friend? asked the bellboy, presuming that her companion with the handsome chiseled features of many Iranian men was her date, or lover. Fatima smiled, having grown accustomed to the flirtations of many pursuers. That’s my brother, she said as she kept walking.

Fatima’s brother was tall with slim features and a ready smile that came naturally to him despite the ordeal he endured growing up in the Occupied Territories. He had dreamed of going to engineering school in the United States ever since he saw the Suez Canal with its engineering marvels. But the Israeli authorities would not allow him to travel outside of the area, so he enrolled at the Palestinian Beir Zeit University instead.

Then the Israeli authorities closed down Beir Zeit and other Palestinian schools because of the uprising called the intifida, the Arabic word to ‘shake off’ the Israeli occupation. The intifida began in the late ’80s and flared up again in September 2000. Like other students, when the schools were closed, he sought instruction from teachers and professors who began to conduct classes in their homes. The Israeli military then arrested these teachers and students, claiming that these were ‘terrorist classes.’ So his academic life ended and he became one among the tens of thousands of other Palestinians of the lost generation. Lacking alternatives, he channeled his aptitude and frustration into another direction and developed a different set of skills.

I’ll see you later, Fatima said affectionately, as her brother walked over to the lobby coffee area with his swimming bag and a large bath towel with a colorful design of the city of Jerusalem slung over his shoulder. He always needed a cup of coffee in the early morning, an apparent genetic requirement of Muslim men. One of the young male waiters saw that he was Fatima’s brother and served him without a petulant attitude, with the vague hope that his sister might join him after her swim.

Once Fatima reached the bottom of the stairs, she walked over to the ladies room where many hotel guests change into their swimming suits. The ground floor ladies and men’s rooms were near the center of the hotel, which made it convenient for bathers to walk right out into the middle of the hotel’s beach area.

Once inside the room, Fatima set her swimming bag on top of the counter by the sinks and studied herself in the mirror. Ever since her natural beauty blossomed in her teenage years, she questioned why Allah would want her to cover it up with clothing and scarves the way her parents and relatives insisted.

‘I’m one of God’s creations,’ she would argue with her mother. ‘God didn’t hide the beauty of the mountains and the seas. Then why should He want to hide me?’ Her mother never agreed, and along with her father, also opposed her working at the beauty salon, where they feared some licentious Israeli would entice her into sexual relations in violation of the family’s moral values.

Fatima brushed a few strands of hair gently from her face and reached down to open her swimming bag. She glanced into the bag and placed her hand on the contents. Looking at herself again in the mirror with an angelic smile, she peered wistfully into her soft, brown eyes. Whispering a silent prayer, she pushed the button on the detonator cap.

The explosion rocked the neighborhood. Windows shattered in nearby buildings and debris flew in every direction. The lobby of the hotel immediately collapsed into the lower floor where the bomb went off. People sitting in lobby chairs descended into the blast and smoke below still holding cups of coffee in their hands. The entire building began to implode. Terrified clerks at the front desk looked on in disbelief as one hotel floor after another with beds, lamps and tables fell into the blast area. Hotel guests tumbled to their deaths below, some still in their beds.

The Sheraton Hotel buckled in a final convulsive fit. Debris and bodies spewed across the street and onto the Mediterranean beach. Concrete walls and hotel furniture pummeled down onto cars in the morning traffic, intermixed with still living hotel guests crashing down onto the pavement and to their deaths.

Screams and desperate shouting punctuated the noise of the collapsing building. People reached hopelessly to aid those still falling, as one body after another dropped right before their eyes, some people holding on to each other in a final act of endearment while plummeting together to their death.

Within minutes police and ambulances full of medics surrounded the hotel ruins and began digging desperately into the rubble to help the injured and retrieve what bodies they could. Then another bomb exploded! This was a time-released bomb set by Fatima’s brother to kill the police and others who he knew would arrive to help the first set of victims. Survivors of this second blast ran from the hotel rubble in fear of still another bomb. Some of the injured cried out for help as they tried to crawl away from the blast scene.

Over here! came a voice from the debris. Please help me! But the dust and smoke made it impossible to see anyone. Panic engulfed the crowd, as people ran first in one direction, then in another, in a blind effort to escape. Others covered their eyes with protective handkerchiefs and scarves as they sought desperately to locate whomever they could.

The cries of pain on the street were dwarfed by the blare of car horns honking in a futile effort to get out of the enormous traffic jam. They were blocked by other cars, and by dead and injured people still being crushed by the falling debris. The sirens of police cars and ambulances arriving at the scene added to the overwhelming sense of disaster.

It’s the end of the world! a woman cried out in a shrill voice.

We’re under attack, a man added. Get to the beach, away from the buildings! A throng of people, fearing an air or missile strike, began running to the shore of the Mediterranean.

Standing on the beach at the edge of the water, at a comfortable distance from the hotel where he could survey the damage without being seen, was Fatima’s brother. He reached calmly into his pocket and took out a package of cigarettes and a book of matches from the Sheraton Hotel lobby bar which he had picked up a few days earlier when he and Fatima planned the attack. He looked at the matches. A satisfied smile crept onto his features. As the waves lapped quietly onto the beach, he slowly and methodically lit a cigarette, watched the chaos and admired his work.

He looked down the street from the hotel and saw the American Embassy building. U.S. Marines with sniper rifles were on the roof. He could also see American Embassy personnel, some with binoculars, watching the catastrophe nearby.

Eyeing the destruction that he and Fatima had just caused, his eyes filled with tears. Fatima, I will miss you so much. You are now in Paradise.

He thought about his sister, and how she was now one more among the many Palestinian girls who were choosing to die for the cause. The Israelis had not expected girls to become suicide bombers. But things had changed. He also thought of their parents. He could not tell them anything. ‘If they knew that I was involved in Fatima’s death, they would never forgive me. Besides,’ he thought, ‘the older generation does not understand that we won’t be slaves of the Israelis.’

He took another drag on his cigarette and glanced a few hundred yards up the beach to the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel and its tall façade towering over the Mediterranean beach. ‘Bearing walls that will fall like dominoes with a few well-placed explosives.’ he thought as he walked up the beach to get a closer look, and to get away from the scene that was now swarming with police. ‘A conventional structure,’ he said to himself as he surveyed the building. ‘Nothing impressive like the Suez Canal. Nothing that history will miss.’

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching helicopters. He looked up and saw them coming from several directions, some surveying the scene and preparing to evacuate the wounded, others circling the area in search of whoever had caused this devastation.

Taking another long, deep drag on his cigarette, he continued slowly up the beach. ‘Now there’s a nice blow to Israel’s tourism and foreign investments,’ he grinned with satisfaction. ‘Fatima, we did a good job.’

Jerusalem, Israel: Prime Minister’s Office

How could this happen? Prime Minister Shamron was shouting. Where was the security?

The prime minister had convened a meeting of the members of his Security Cabinet within an hour of the Sheraton Hotel explosion. The director of the Mossad was out of the country, so the deputy director, Shlomo Helfein, was the chief representative of Israel’s intelligence agency. Also present were Foreign Minister Alon Epstein, and Don Adar, director of the Shin Bet.

Is anyone going to give me an answer? Shamron shouted even louder, which he considered his prerogative, as prime minister.

As deputy director of the Mossad, Shlomo Helfein was reluctant to volunteer information except to the prime minister directly. The number two man for the Israeli foreign intelligence service proceeded cautiously. These were sophisticated bombs. That means either the Syrians or Iranians armed these people again.

Of course it’s one of them. Shamron was livid. They have been financing terrorists against us forever…and now they’re trying to destroy our whole country. We will not stand for this. This requires a plan of action!

Before we get to that, Helfein said, let’s try to find out why this was not prevented. He looked over at Don Adar. Like most members of the Security Cabinet, Adar was a retired military general. His background was military intelligence. He had spent several years with responsibility for the West Bank where he gained extensive experience in dealing with the Palestinians. More than most Israelis, he understood their politics and methods. Critics faulted him for a misplaced humanitarianism, claiming that he had become too close to their Palestinian adversaries. During the intifada, Adar was quoted as saying, If we stay out of their neighborhoods, they would not be able to throw their stones at us.

Although his analysis suggested an awareness of the Palestinian dilemma, in cases where Israel’s safety and security were at stake—and safety and security was his job—Adar believed that ruthlessness was the most effective deterrent. He re-adopted the ‘iron fist’ policy of Yitzhak Rabin, who as defense minister during the first intifida or the ‘war of the stones,’ gave orders to break the bones of the hands, arms or legs of young Palestinian men caught throwing stones at the tanks and soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces.

During a second term as prime minister, Rabin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his efforts in the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority and granted it partial control over parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Yigal Amir, an Orthodox Jewish extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords, assassinated Rabin in 1995.

We can’t be everywhere, Adar responded. We simply cannot protect everyone. The hotel should have had better security. They know they are vulnerable to an attack.

Who’s the head of the hotel security? Shamron demanded. Most everybody in the security business in Israel knows one another, since at one time or another they were all part of the government military security apparatus.

Mike Lehman, Adar responded.

Where is he? Shamron asked. Get him over here!

We can’t, Adar said. He’s dead. He was killed in the explosion.

The prime minister took a deep breath. He was my major in the army years ago, he said. I’ve known him since he was 19 years old… Shamron’s thinning hair suddenly looked grayer than usual.

We’ll have some answers very soon, Adar said to the prime minister, knowing they had to get to the business at hand. The police and our guys at Shin Bet will be reviewing everything carefully. It’s too soon to know what happened. We don’t have enough information.

One thing we can be sure of, said Helfein. They are targeting our tourist industry. They know we depend on the revenue, and they’re hitting it. Christian tourists comprise about 85 percent of all tourist revenue to Israel. We need it to sustain our economy.

We’re also painfully aware that in the United States, our principal benefactor nation, all but the very doctrinaire evangelical Christians are capable of turning against Israel or at the least, forgetting about us, Foreign Minister Epstein added. The American public is growing weary of the violence in Israel. In our first 50 years we received $85 billion in grants and loans from the U.S. and another $50 billion in interest they’re assuming. I was told last week that we are costing each American taxpayer over $25,000. We can’t count on this forever. Uncritical support for Israel is slipping.

Epstein was the only member of the Security Cabinet who was not a retired military officer. As an ultra Orthodox Jewish rabbi he had avoided military service and channeled his talents into education and politics. He became largely responsible for assuring that the Israeli educational system used religious textbooks that reflected Orthodox values. This led to a significant constituency that propelled him into the political arena. He delivered the conservative religious voters to support Prime Minister Shamron during the last election. This bloc of voters was rewarded through Rabbi Epstein’s appointment to the post of foreign minister. Like one of his predecessors, David Levy, a foreign minister during the 1980s, Epstein did not even speak English. His critics joked that this did not matter, since he disregarded any opinions from non-Israelis anyway. His political function as an insider activist was to keep the government in line with religious Jewish orthodoxy and to annex the Palestinian territories in order to create the biblical Eretz Israel.

We not only have these many painful deaths today, Shamron said. We have economic vulnerabilities besides.

Shamron reached for his cigarettes. Everyone took the cue and sat back either to think, or to appear to be thinking, while lighting their own cigarettes. Being absent of thoughts himself—or at least of thoughts he wished to share at this moment—Shamron snapped, Where’s the coffee?

I’ll get some, an assistant responded as he jumped up from his seat to leave the room.

Secretary of State Bauer is due here tomorrow, from Jordan, Shamron said. Now the U.S. will cancel her visit due to security concerns. Bad timing. She’s not on our side yet, is she?

We view her as someone we can influence, Helfein responded. She’s a Christian and may have a soft spot for the Holy Land, just like her president. And as a woman, she’s no tough lady like Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher. We don’t have a good enough reading on her influence in President Caufield’s inner circle. But we will.

We need to think strategically, Shamron continued, on multiple fronts. And with hearts of steel. We can’t bring back the dead, or tell tourists the Sheraton wasn’t destroyed. Or that other hotels are safe. But we can mine for opportunity out of this rubble of destruction. This is our strength…our heritage.

The assistant and a secretary returned with two pots of coffee and some rolls. They put everything on the conference table and placed an empty cup and saucer in front of each person.

Toda. Epstein and several others chimed in with their ‘thanks.’

Well, we know one thing, Shamron began to formulate some ideas. We know that banking does not require tourists to come here and risk being blown up. He looked around the room to gauge the reaction. We’ve been having some discussions about expanding our banking and investment relationships around the world, he began.

Investing what? Adar asked. What do we have to invest?

Epstein was privy to these new private discussions, so he interpreted for Shamron: What the prime minister means is that we would become investment managers for others.

Which others? Adar asked.

Epstein looked at the prime minister for permission to elaborate.

"Go ahead. Explain some of the things we’ve been thinking," Shamron gave his consent.

The context for addressing our problems is to look at our sources of money, Epstein said with a somber face. We get three to four billion dollars a year from the Americans. Then there is the money from our various Russian banking relationships.

Adar visibly winced. When he saw that the others were looking at him, he felt compelled to comment. I was just thinking, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian mafia money began flowing in here as a temporary thing. But now after 15 years and billions of dollars of deposits and revenue, it’s an integral part of our economy. This is troubling. Anyway, go on.

Our other large sources of revenue are the Christian tourists, and our military sales, Epstein continued. To a lesser degree, we have some high technology exports, chemical production, cut diamonds and agricultural exports. But our gross domestic product numbers are never enough. The money we get from Jews around the world is nice, but just a fraction of what we need when we look at our overall economy.

Epstein had the tact of a schoolyard bully, and was not shy about lecturing his colleagues on matters where he felt superior—which was almost everything. He carried on: Let’s face reality. Most of us have access to the same intelligence reports. They show an increasing number of Jews worldwide are becoming sympathetic to the Palestinians. It’s even beginning in the States, among academics and in some liberal Jewish synagogues. With our PR firms and educational efforts, we know how to target our audiences and shape our messages…

And control the Members of Congress, Adar interrupted again.

…but it doesn’t help when a former U.S. president likens our policies to the system of racial separation in South Africa, Epstein ignored Adar’s comment. He was referring to the use of the word apartheid in the title of a book by Jimmy Carter, published in 2006, Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid

Fortunately we’re rock solid with American Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists, Epstein went on. Along with Jews, they’re our lifeblood. And every U.S. presidential candidate, whether Republican or Democrat, dares not profess anything less than total and uncritical support for a special relationship with Israel. That’s why we position ourselves in Cold War terms, as America’s only strategic ally in the Middle East, the sole bastion of democracy surrounded by hostile countries, dealing with evil enemies, and a victim throughout history. But I’m telling you, the day is already here where we can’t take American Jewish support for granted.

Adar was becoming concerned. If you are suggesting a change in strategy, I don’t agree. We must continue to prick the conscience of liberal Christians that they have a moral duty to help us, and cultivate the evangelicals who believe in the role of Jews and Israel in the second coming of Christ. Do you want to deviate from this?

Of course not, Shamron was indignant. You’ve misunderstood. We continue with that strategy, because it works! That the world has a moral responsibility toward Israel and Jewish people for all the persecution we’ve endured also happens to be the truth. But with modern communications, and our constant need to deal with our hostile neighbors, we can’t bet our long-term survival on past and present successes. The global landscape is changing. Many Americans already see us as a millstone around their neck. Even while we still have our Palestinian problem, we have to get Iran out of the picture. And soon. What if Americans wake up and realize that a billion Muslims around the world with oil are better allies than a secular little country of seven million people with an ancient religious agenda. At some point, it won’t matter how smart we are, how much Jews contribute to arts and culture, education, politics and business worldwide, or how much money we spread around to American politicians.

And one of these days those blessed, God-fearing American Christians may wake up and realize that most of today’s Chosen People are atheists, Helfein interjected cynically. Certainly most of the Israelis are…not to mention that a third of the Palestinians are Christians, he added. Where will that leave us?

When they realize that we don’t believe in heaven, we’ll have hell to pay, Adar quipped, now that he was feeling relieved.

Just another reason why we have to develop an additional source of income, Epstein summarized. Our most lucrative weapons export business—including the advanced U.S. technology that we access—is not a dependable basis for sustaining our economy. And what if someday the Americans actually call in the $50 billion we owe them? I tell you, we’re very exposed. We need a source of stable long-term income. We must carefully capitalize on our banking expertise and relationships.

"And by having special banking relationships with certain countries, we also gain access to information about what those countries are doing, and where they’re getting their revenue, Helfein added. I can tell you, the Mossad has a very particular interest in this approach."

Gentlemen, our streets today are littered with the dead. This is the moment to turn tragedy into opportunity, Shamron said firmly. Mike Lehman, for one, would have wanted his death to serve the security of our homeland—which includes developing our economy. By many standards, we are technically bankrupt. Our external debt of $78 billion is almost twice our annual budget. It’s also about one-third the size of the external debt of Russia, which has 25 times more people. And then there’s our brain drain. More than 600,000 Israeli citizens have left for other countries, and these are mainly the educated ones. In their place we have over 500,000 Russian Jews, who as we know are less educated, a source of social problems, and typically need government aid. The only other people emigrating here are religious Jews, and they’re a net drain on the economy. Let’s face it: Israel is a Jewish welfare state. Wealthy Jews don’t come here, unless it’s to set up shop on their way to South Africa.

The prime minister is right, Epstein concurred. Consider the U.S. immigration issue. It’s a big problem for them, even though 10 million immigrants from Mexico and Central America are less than three percent of their population. We have 10 times that percentage, with more than one-third of our population on some form of welfare or assistance. And it’s growing, since 21 percent of our population lives below the poverty level. In addition 31 percent of our workforce is employed by the public sector—producing, in effect, nothing.

So we have to do something, Helfein got to the point.

We have been thinking about negotiating with the Russians and the Iranians, to expand our banking relationships with them, Epstein said.

I realize we have certain…banking activities with the Russians, Adar chose his words carefully. But the Iranians…? Adar was incredulous and not even sure if he heard correctly.

We used to have strong relationships with the Iranians when the shah was in power, Epstein responded. Perhaps if we build relationships with them again they will also be less interested in destroying us.

And, as you know, Nimrodi is working on a secret oil brokerage deal with the Iranians, Helfein said, referring to the wealthy Nimrodi family in Israel which made a fortune in arms dealing and were deeply into the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.

We’re talking with the Russians, Helfein continued, "to expand our banking relationships into other sectors," he said with a knowing smile.

Deciding that was enough information for now, the prime minister interrupted. "Let’s leave the details of those discussions for a later moment. Right now, gentlemen, each of us has a job to do. Let’s adjourn and deal with this tragedy. We will