Wednesday's Child (17 page)

28.

Rod understood precisely what he needed to do.  He’d been presented with indisputable facts, and he knew better than to deny them or suggest they’d been faked.  This wasn’t a hostile interrogation, not yet, anyway.  He might have been sitting handcuffed in an FBI interrogation room instead of across the table from us.  He had to know we preferred to treat him as an ally rather than an enemy, but nothing less than full disclosure would cut it.

He leaned back in his chair, smiling.  “I congratulate you on a very neat piece of work, Dylan.  I wonder what Gayle would say.” 

We all sat quietly, waiting for his explanation, I especially, hoping it was convincing.  I cringed at the thought of having to tell Gayle I was responsible for putting him in jail.

Rod looked at each of us.  When his gaze touched William’s, he said, “I want to be very clear about one thing.  My ties to Israel aside, I am an American first, last, and always.”

He paused, and when no one said anything he continued in a businesslike tone. 

“Let’s take the easy one, first, those ‘highly sensitive’ papers I received from Ari Gelsen. They’re worthless.  Gelsen is an angry man who did a foolish thing.  He came here at the invitation of our government to work on underwater detection systems.  Then, for some unfathomable reason, probably because some diplomat got his nose out of joint, Gelsen’s visa was revoked months before his tour ended, and he was ordered out of the country.  Security sometimes works that way, but people like Gelsen, scientists, even those attached to the military, are less sanguine about it when it does.  He knew he’d done nothing to warrant being treated that way.  In fact, the action had nothing to do with him or his work.”

“That’s interesting,” William said, “But I’m more concerned with your role in all this.”

“Fair enough,” Rod said, “but you’ll need context.  Joint research projects between Israel and the United States occur all the time.  Like when we sell Israel advanced fighter planes, not necessarily our best, but very good ones.  Israeli engineers and scientists design improvements on things like electronic weapons systems, and both sides benefit from the result.

“That might have happened in this case, but Gelsen believed Israel would be denied the benefits of his work, so he contacted his embassy, unleashing a chain of events that eventually reached me.  From Gelsen’s point of view, he wasn’t stealing secrets, merely assuring that his country received what it was entitled to.  The Americans had reneged on their deal with him, so why should he trust them not to renege on the whole arrangement?” 

“So,” William said, “he told his embassy we wouldn’t let him take his work home with him, and they arranged for you to meet him.”

“Essentially, yes,” Rod acknowledged.  “But you must understand – Israel knows the United States is its most important friend in the world.  It is inconceivable that it would act to hurt this country.  On the other hand, Israel knows that ultimately, it must rely on itself.  There are elements in the States constantly working against Israeli interests, and we all know there’s no guarantee they won’t succeed one day.  If I may be permitted to address you as colleagues – all of us, here, are in the same line of work – sometimes Israel must break the rules, not to harm the United States, but to ensure its own survival.

“As for the papers, I returned them to Gelsen this morning.  He’s prepared to admit what he did and give them back.  He’s really a decent man and a fine scientist.”

Rod might be lying about returning the papers, and he could have copied them before he gave them back, but the essential point for us was his contention that they were worthless.  That could be verified by John Barksdale.

“You make Gelsen’s actions seem like those of an impulsive child who now regrets his actions,” I said.  “That would be easier to believe if he hadn’t been compensated for the papers.”

“Compensated?”  Rod seemed truly puzzled.  “How?”

“I saw you pass something to him in the parking lot.”

“You surprise me, Dylan.  Suppose you were Gelsen.  Would you hand over something like that without getting a receipt?”  He was serious. 

“As to the dead terrorists,” Rod said, “that is one of those tangled webs.”

It took Rod twenty-five minutes to tell the rest of his story.  Mossad had acquired the same intelligence we had concerning
Al Khalifa
. They actually knew about the plan to use submersibles to recover the isotopes before we did.  After the trouble and expense they’d invested to acquire them, the terrorists weren’t about to risk the isotopes on the chance that a vessel from an Arab country would sail through customs and port security without a thorough inspection.  “Your surprise boarding spooked them,” he told Samir.  “Thus, the explosion in the harbor that sank
Al Khalifa
.  A spectacular diversion, but quite meaningless, actually. 

“Between us, the terrorists aren’t all that smart, despite their fixation with blowing things up, themselves included.  They’ve only succeeded here, in the past, because our government was so lax in protecting its vital assets in the face of credible threats.  The fact that both American and Israeli intel caught on to them before they were able to create havoc says a lot about how far we’ve come.”

“Far, but not far enough,” I said.  More than ever, I was convinced that we were approaching a critical juncture that was the catalyst for my strangely altered life.  “We’re not out of the woods, yet.  We need to know everything you know.”

“Here’s the way it’s going to work,” William said.  “We’ll vet what you tell us at the diplomatic level.  I’ll need a number to call at the Israeli embassy.  If it all checks out, fine, but this would not be a good time to play with the truth.”

“I understand.  Believe me, we have the same goals in mind, except mine include protecting Israel from the same threat.  I’m afraid Dylan may have ended my usefulness to Mossad, however.”

“Maybe not,” William said.  “This is still between us, and if your superiors and mine agree, there’s no reason we can’t go back to doing what we were doing before all this started.  The CIA’s had a file on you for years.”

“About that…I decided to help Mossad because the Israeli government rescued my family from Turkey when I was a child.  My father was Eastern Orthodox and my mother was Jewish.  Times were not good for them and thousands of others in that part of the world.  Israel, using contributions from American Jews, ransomed our freedom.  My perspective is different from yours, but nothing I’ve done for Mossad was ever detrimental to the United States. 

“I wish I could say as much for my family,” he lamented.  “These last few months, I’ve been so caught up in my multiple lives, I haven’t been much of a husband or father.  Perhaps it’s time I gave all this up.”  He looked pointedly at me when he said that.

The rest of Rod’s story demonstrated why American intelligence tolerated Mossad agents in our midst.  Despite a handful of spectacular cases in which the media seized on accusations of Israeli agents spying on the United States, allowing Mossad to work unimpeded was a win-win. 

“Mossad is not your enemy,” Rod said, emphatically.  “It has deep roots inside organizations like Hamas and Hezbolah, and it often feeds you information about their activities when your interests are threatened.  Mossad knew about the plans to set off dirty bombs in this country before American intelligence because Hamas was aggressively trying to obtain the same weapons for use against Haifa and Tel Aviv.  Also because we are less squeamish than you about our methods when survival is on the line.

“Even in the distorted mindset of Islamic fanaticism, money talks. Hamas are like children with their noses pressed against the window of a toy store, jealously watching their better-funded peers walk off with all the prizes.  But recently, they received backing from a wealthy Saudi family known for sponsoring suicide bombings.  The Saudis told Hamas that if it could negotiate a deal for radiological materials, they would fund it.”

Hamas agents had contacted terrorist cells in the United States with Mossad on top of them every step of the way.  The day before the meeting in Laurel, the Hamas representative was snatched and replaced by Rod Burdak, but the terrorists, naturally paranoid, used several levels of code words and phrases, usually symbolic quotes from the Quran. 

“In our haste to set up the operation,” Rod said, regretfully, “we slipped up, and the Hamas agent I was to impersonate fed us a pass-phrase the terrorists would recognize as a covert distress signal.  During my meeting with the two Arabs in Laurel, just as I identified a key contact in the acquisition chain, I saw them exchange glances and I knew I’d blown it.  If they hadn’t both had to turn to reach for their weapons…I hated wasting the resource they represented, but they left me no choice.  They would have killed me if I hadn’t killed them first.”

The way he referred to killing the two terrorists as wasting a resource chilled me, resonating as it did with my own lack of remorse over firing the fatal shot. 

“You didn’t, actually,” I said.

“Didn’t what?” Rod asked.

“Kill them both.  You left the one whose bullet grazed your face alive.  Someone else fired the fatal shot.  The FBI found a nine-millimeter Walther round in his thorax.”

“There was no one in the room except me and the two terrorists, and I only carry a Glock.  It must have been someone who entered the room after I left. If you were there, photographing me, you must have a picture of him, too.”

A glance at William told me he’d already worked it out, though Samir and Mary listened expectantly.  “I don’t need a photograph,” I said.  “After you left, I looked into the room and saw your yellow hat.  When I went in to retrieve it, the one who was still alive took a shot at me.  I didn’t have a choice, either.”

The dense silence that followed seemed to go on endlessly.  Mary was deadpan, but Samir had a strange look on his face, as if he were seeing me for the first time. Time re-started when William cleared his throat.

“We seem to have a situation, here,” he said to Rod.  “I’m going to have to ask you to be our guest until we work this out.  We have a couple of secure apartments down the hall for that purpose.  You can phone your wife, but the lines are tapped. You’re not to communicate with anyone else until I tell you otherwise.  If you violate that, there’ll be a couple of marines on you in seconds.  I hope the Israeli embassy cooperates rather than resorting to delaying tactics.” 

Rod accepted William’s terms, seemingly confident everything would work out.  “Just one thing before we end this interview,” he said.  “Some associates of mine are still holding the Hamas agent.  His people will want to know what happened to him.  Right now, they’re assuming it was he who killed those two in the motel.  If he doesn’t surface soon, they’ll know something’s up.  If we act quickly we might still be able to get something out of that debacle.”

William said, “Does the guy you abducted know who took him?” 

“No.  We decided to keep him isolated until we knew how the operation turned out.  A decision about what to do with him is supposed to be made tomorrow.”

“Turn him over to us,” William said.  “We’ll make it look like it was us all along and let it leak through back channels that we were on to him and we trailed him to the motel.  We’ll also let it be known that we haven’t gotten anything useful out of him.  Since terrorism is involved, we can hold him under military guidelines and prevent him from contacting anyone.”

Rod said that would solve a problem for Mossad, too, and agreed to set it up, if William would let him make some calls.  William could stay on the line and they’d conduct all their business in English.  William said that would need diplomatic clearance. 

He grabbed my arm as we filed out. 

“I oughta lock you up, too,” he said.  “If I didn’t know you so well… I’m not sure I do know you anymore.  You had two days to tell me you shot one of those guys.  Why the hell did I have to find out this way?  I don’t know which would be worse, trying to protect your friend Gayle or covering your own ass.  What would you have done if I hadn’t arranged for you to meet the FBI agent at the scene Thursday afternoon?”

“I’d have done exactly what I did, using my own credentials.  You made it easier, but I’d have worked it out.  As for not reporting in right away,” (I couldn’t tell him Wednesday morning was yesterday, for me,) “I’d just killed a man; even though I was justified and he probably would have died anyway, I was pretty shook up.  I knew I hadn’t left a trail, so I decided to wait until I saw you face to face and let you decide where to go with it.  I didn’t tell Henry White, either.”

William thought for a few seconds.  “You and I need to have a serious talk, Dylan.  When this stuff with Burdak wraps up, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on here.”

I turned to go, but he wasn’t finished.

“By the way, we haven’t had any luck tracking the guys who recovered the canisters from the harbor, though they’re obviously who the contract with APL says they are.  You think Burdak could help with that?”

“I don’t know.  I’ll ask him.”

***

Gayle knew Rod’s family had fled from religious persecution, helped by an unofficial arm of the Israeli government.  She knew about his Jewish roots; she did not know about his connection to Mossad.  Notwithstanding William’s outburst, I hadn’t been trying to protect her, but I’d have preferred that any revelations about her husband not be attributed to me.