Enemy of My Enemy (30 page)

"Hold here," Shlomo said to Eytan. From a distance of forty yards he watched Nadim get out of his car. The Syrian gave a quick look around, then moved with fast, determined steps toward the entrance gate, where they were expecting him. He was passed straight through. Shlomo watched Nadim enter the building. Then he told Eytan, "Drive over to that cafe on the corner and park."

While Eytan followed the order, Shlomo told the other two units where they were.

With Eytan in tow, Shlomo walked into the Philadelphia Cafe, which had only a couple of patrons. They sat down at a table next to the window. Unobtrusively, Shlomo parted the grimy black-and-white-checked curtains in order to have a clear view of the entrance to the building with the fence and the gray Mercedes.

In perfect Russian, because he was a native, he ordered two coffees and some babka.

Eytan, who had been in Moscow only a month, asked softly, "Do you know what building that is?"

Shlomo's facial muscles were taut. "Formerly the operations center for KGB special projects. That's a polite way of saying they interrogated people in the basement. It consumed huge quantities of electricity."

Eytan grimaced. "And now?"

"Headquarters for Dmitri Suslov Enterprises."

"I've read about him. He's one of the new Russian big shot industrialists. Isn't he?"

"More precisely, a thug parading as a big businessman. Isn't Russia a wonderful place?"

Shlomo whipped out his cell phone and scrolled through the directory until he found what he wanted—the cell phone number of Michael Hanley. The top officials in Jerusalem and Washington could play whatever political games they wanted, but the Israeli and American agents in the field knew they could gain from cooperation. Shlomo regularly had dinner with key CIA agents in Moscow during which they exchanged information about current projects. He knew that Dmitri Suslov was the top priority for Michael.

"It's Shlomo," he said tersely. "We're in the Philadelphia Cafe. We've been following a subject who just went into your favorite building across the street. My guess is that he's visiting one of your best friends."

Michael was excited. This could be Suslov's next sale. "I'll drop everything and be there in twenty minutes. Less if I fly. Order me a coffee. It won't have time to get cold."

Fifteen minutes later Michael arrived. The coffee was waiting for him on the table. He sat down and whispered to Shlomo, "Subject still in there?" Shlomo nodded. "Who is he?" Michael held his breath.

"Major General Nadim. Deputy director of Syrian intelligence."

Michael gave a long, low whistle as he remembered his visit to Volgograd with Perikov. He hoped to hell there was no relationship between the two—that Syria wasn't trying to obtain nuclear arms from Suslov. "Why are you following Nadim?"

"Moshe didn't tell me," Shlomo replied. "Since the old man is personally involved, it has to be top-level stuff. You've been watching Suslov.... Have any ideas?"

"One that you won't like," Michael said. A picture of the warehouse in Volgograd popped into his mind. "You'll wish you never asked. You won't sleep tonight. And if I'm right, you won't sleep any other night until this is over."

After Michael explained why he had been pursuing Suslov and what he had seen in Volgograd, the three of them sat in glum silence trying to imagine how dreadful it would be for Israel, the Middle East, and the world if the Syrians or one of their allies obtained nuclear weapons.

"Perhaps Nadim came for some other reason," Eytan said hopefully.

"It can't be for a chess match. Suslov doesn't play." Michael shook his head. "There's one foolish optimist in every crowd."

"How can we find out for sure?" Shlomo asked.

Michael hadn't seen Irina since they had gone to the inn together overnight. She was his only chance. "I'll do what I can," he said. "Meantime, let's wait and see where Nadim goes from here."

* * *

Jack got to the Bristol early. He went into the men's room, removed his toupee, glasses, contacts, and mustache, and placed them into his briefcase. He couldn't risk Sarah telling Sam how different he looked. His brother was smart. He might guess why Jack felt it necessary to assume a disguise. Then Jack returned to the lobby and waited. Ten minutes later he watched a sad-looking woman with puffy eyes come through the glass revolving doors. From his distance of twenty yards, he immediately recognized Sarah.

After thirty years, the bright flower of spring had faded. Some men would have found her attractive, but Jack remembered something else.

Her brown hair was streaked with gray. She still had a shapely figure, but instead of the explosive colors and tight-fitting clothes she had once worn to show it off, she was dressed in a nondescript wrinkled beige suit and practical pumps. In the old days had once refused to wear makeup, laughing at women who did. Today it was caked on her face.

The sad-looking woman turned to a bellman inside the door and said, "I'm meeting someone." She spotted Jack moving forward and forced a smile.

As long as he was having lunch with her, Jack had made up his mind to be polite. "You look just the same, Sarah."

She gave a short, nervous laugh and touched his arm. "You can't mean that. Or you've lost your sight. But you're nice to say it."

"I thought we'd eat here," Jack said, pointing to the luxurious wood-paneled dining room just off the lobby of the Bristol.

"Wonderful. We always stay here in Paris. I like the dining room."

We
obviously meant she and Terry. Jack guessed that she didn't want to mention his name.

When the waiter asked if they wanted an aperitif, Sarah said, "A scotch on the rocks would be nice." Jack settled for a glass of white wine.

"To better days," she said, raising her glass.

After they ordered lunch, she told him, "You're in the wine business, Jack. Pick something good for us."

Jack selected a simple Mersault with the grilled turbot they were having.

He let her lead the discussion. For a while she talked about Ann and Sam. "They're so good together," she said. "Right for each other. I couldn't hope for anything better."

Then she moved to the usual "Let's catch up on our lives." She was tense and nervous as she began, gulping down the Mersault. "A wonderful wine," she said.

"You obviously like it," he responded.

She let that pass. "I spend a great deal of my time helping people as a volunteer. I'm the director of an organization that runs shelters for the homeless, and another one that dispenses food to the poor. I'm on the foundation board of a large public hospital. Nothing glitzy. No opera or symphony boards. I'm not an officer of the country club in Winnetka, though of course we belong and I've learned to play a decent game of golf."

She was waiting for some words of approval from Jack. When they weren't forthcoming, she added, "Not much different from the old Sarah in the soup kitchen at Ann Arbor."

He watched her picking at her food as she drank more and more wine. What was running through his mind was,
How could I have been such an ass, remembering those golden days of our youth?
Like the high school football hero, Sarah had peaked at eighteen. He could tell that she was desperate for him to like her. He realized that she had been unhappy long before Robert's plane was shot down.

"What about you, Jack? Sam says you've built a good business."

Jack laughed. "That's my brother. Always focused on the bottom line."

"Well, you've had your dream of living in Israel. Has it turned out the way you wanted?"

"I wouldn't live anywhere else, but the country and I grew up together. The dreams of the early days have given way to some harsh realities. It's a hard, tough life, and I don't just mean economically."

"You mean the wars and the terrorist attacks?"

He nodded. "That's part of it. Anytime you go to a restaurant or walk on the street, you know there's always the possibility of an attack by a suicide bomber. But even more than that, we're constantly under siege from the Palestinians and our neighbors one way or another."

He thought about his discussion with Layla last evening. "The Syrians are the worst."

"Are you married? Any children?"

"I was married once for a short time. No children. Didn't work out," he said curtly. She wasn't entitled to an explanation.

"Then I guess I sort of messed things up for both of us," she said.

Looking at her, he thought,
Only for you, my dear. Only for you.
Instead of responding, he signaled the waiter to clear the dishes from their main course.

"The past few days have been hell for me," she said, "since my Bobby's plane was shot down."

"I truly feel sorry about that." Jack sounded sincere. He meant it.

"Bobby reminds me of you in a lot of ways. He's a nice guy. Gets along with people. A good student. A real decent human being."

She paused to wipe some tears from her eyes with a napkin. "My Bobby had dreams of going to medical school, but Terry insisted on his attending the Air Force Academy. Terry wants him to be president one day."

"If that's what Bobby wants, I hope he gets it," Jack said, trying to sound as if her son had a future.

"We've gone everywhere. Done everything. Been to the White House. Met with the president and his top advisers, both senators from Illinois, everyone. It's all so hopeless and frustrating." She began sobbing. Tears were running down her face, causing her mascara to run.

Jack removed a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "I'm sorry. I'll pull together. I came to see you because the Israelis are good at this sort of thing."

"You know I would do anything I could to help. The reality is that I'm not in the government, Sarah."

"But you always had a good way with people. You could get them to do things."

"I'm sure that the American government has asked the Israelis to help. That means more than my calling somebody I met once at a party."

"He told the president not to involve the Israelis. I was there when he said it."

The
he
was obviously Terry. Jack was thinking.
The old anti-Semite couldn't stand the idea of Jews rescuing his son,
but he didn't say that. Instead he replied, "With all due respect, Sarah, the American government will do whatever makes sense regardless of what a hostage's father says. No matter how important the person is."

Jack's words put a ray of hope on her face. "Do you really think so?"

He nodded. He decided to probe for information. "Surely the American military is planning a rescue operation?"

She got a pained expression on her face. "They tried one somewhere in southeast Turkey, but they were too late. By the time they got to the jail where they were holding Bobby, the Turks had moved him. Terry said he's in the town of Van now in an underground bunker. They'll never get him out of there."

Jack wondered whether Moshe had decided not to tell the Americans about Robert's present location, or whether Kendall and his people were keeping Terry in the dark. He wanted to say,
Bobby's been moved to Syria. He's probably safe because they're planning to use him in some bigger deal.
But he couldn't do that. He fiddled with a cuff link. If her information was current, then he and Avi were ahead of the Americans. He would have to report that to Moshe.

She was staring at him before making another try. "You must be able to do something. You've lived in Israel so long. You have to know people who could help." The niceness was gone. In her desperation, fueled by alcohol, she sounded ugly.

"Shh. Keep your voice down."

She got herself under control. "I'm pleading with you to consider what you can do to help. That's all I'm asking."

Jack looked away from her down at the table. "I'll do what I can, Sarah," he said softly. "I can't promise anything."

She reached over to touch his hand, but he pulled away. "Please, that's all I ask."

Jack stole a glance at his watch. It had been the longest hour he could ever remember. He would have preferred to get the check and wrap it up when the waiter came by. She ordered a cognac in lieu of dessert. Jack had a cappuccino.

As long as he had to stay, Jack made up his mind to ask her the one question he had always wondered about. "How did the head of the New Left student association become a right-wing Republican?"

"Ah, the great metamorphosis of Terry McCallister," she said bitterly. He nodded. "We were living in a commune near Big Sur, farming and smoking pot. Ann was four and Robert was two when Terry's father died. He hadn't spoken to his dad for years, though he'd stayed in touch with his mother, which was more than I did with mine," she said sadly. "So we came back to Chicago for the funeral. His father had a large real estate business, but his affairs were in shambles. The day after the funeral Terry and I went with his mother to the family lawyer's office, Edward M. Jones the Third. We were in dirty jeans and sandals—to prove a point, I guess. The kids were barefoot. What we found was a roomful of blue-suited lawyers and bankers ready to pounce like vultures on a fresh carcass. Mr. Jones, as the old stuffy bat insisted on being called, explained that the chances of his holding the creditors at bay and leaving Terry's mother with even the house were between slim and none.

"Something happened that day to Terry. Maybe he was tired of the life we had. Maybe he loved his mother. Or maybe he wanted to prove something to his recently departed father. But Terry made up his mind to do battle with the vultures.

"He fired Mr. Jones and hired Del Prescott, a high school buddy of his, who was a lawyer with one of the big La Salle Street firms. We moved into his parents' house with his mother and cleaned up, so to speak. Actually, Mrs. McCallister was a very nice woman. First she scrubbed the kids. Then she tidied me up. She was doing all of this while she was still shaken over her husband's death and the financial mess. I remember she even tried to call my parents. I knew that would be hopeless.

"Funny thing was, Terry had a good head for business, and he could be charming when he wanted to be. In about twelve months he and Del sold off enough property and had a large enough nest egg to start a venture-capital firm, one of the first in Chicago. They took early large stakes in Microsoft and Intel and soon had high-tech start-ups beating a path to their door. Timing in life is everything. They cashed in most of their chips before the bubble burst. By then Terry was spending about half his time contributing and raising money for Republican candidates. They were all sucking up to him for money, mostly on the right. He was loving every minute of it. I wanted him to set up a charitable foundation, but he wouldn't do that. It had to be the Republican party. Terry saw himself as a kingmaker and Bobby as his future. Believe it or not, Joe Kennedy was his model. Does that answer your question?"