simple, hard-headed, rational decision-making. Develop and maintain technological superiority at all costs, mobilize the entire population militarily, and never let your guard down, not for one second.”
“But that only works for as long as you have technological superiority,” Swann said. “Once your enemy catches up to you…”
“Right,” Trudy said. “Then you’ve got big problems. And it looks like the Iranians have just caught up.”
“Have they caught up?” Luke said. “Do they have nuclear weapons?”
Trudy looked at him. “Yes. I’m almost certain that they do.”
Luke pulled down his window shade.
He had been staring out into the vast darkness until he realized there was nothing to see but his own face, wreathed in shadow.
The Lear jet was going east, and if Luke had to guess, he’d say they were over the North Atlantic, nearly as far as Europe now – they’d been flying for hours, and had hours more to go. This was a long trip.
Luke looked at Trudy, who sat across the aisle from him. She was the only one besides Luke who was still awake.
Behind her, Swann lay curled in a ball across two seats. He was fast asleep. In the row behind Swann, Ed Newsam was doing the same thing. Ed was rock solid, of course. But Luke had some reservations about Swann. It wasn’t Swann’s fault – he had been traumatized by his time in ISIS captivity. He had changed. He was not the same wisecracking, sarcastic idiot he had once been. He was more reserved now, more careful. He spoke a lot less. On the surface, that might seem like a good thing – wisdom, maybe, or maturity. But Luke suspected it might be lack of confidence.
Swann had been rattled to his core. When the heat came, when the stress level amped up, it remained to be seen how well he would perform.
Luke looked across at Trudy. She had been asleep for a little while, curled into a ball. Now she was awake again, gazing out her dark window. From here, all Luke could see was a blinking light on the wing.
“Dark out there,” Luke said. “A whole lot of nothing.”
“Yes.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Exactly that. Nothing.”
He paused. It was awkward between them. He supposed it always would be. He didn’t want to get into it with her now, their shared time together, because Swann and Ed were here. Swann and Ed were not involved in this, and he didn’t want them to wake up in the middle of it.
“I remember the last time we went on a long flight together,” Luke said.
She nodded. “So do I. Korea. You guys had just broken me out of prison. That was a crazy time. I thought my life was over. I didn’t realize it was just beginning.”
“How was your time on the run?”
She shrugged. She did not seem eager to look at him. “I wouldn’t choose to do it again. But all in all, it wasn’t terrible. I learned a lot. I learned not to get so attached to a specific identity. Trudy Wellington, who is that? One possibility out of hundreds. I dyed my hair blonde, just like you suggested. I also dyed it black. At one point, I even shaved my head.
“You know I fell in with a bunch of left-wing protestors in Spain for a while? I really did. I learned Spanish in high school, and Spain was a safe place to disappear. No one had any idea who I was. They sent me for EMT training, so I could become a street medic. People get hurt at these protests a lot – usually minor things, but the ambulances can’t get to them. Street medics are right there, in the middle of the action. I saw quite a few broken limbs and cracked skulls. I thought of Ed the whole time I was doing it – I always had a lot of respect for his medical skills. Even more so now.”
She turned and faced Luke. “I learned a lot about myself, things I needed to learn.”
“Name a big one,” Luke said.
She smiled. “I learned that I don’t need to give myself away to older men anymore. What was I looking for, protection? Approval? It was a silly, little girl habit. I’ve been sticking with men my own age or younger the past couple of years, and it’s been pretty nice. I’ve decided I prefer men who aren’t trying to teach me anything.”
Ouch. Now Luke smiled. Words, however, seemed to escape him.
“I also learned I was a survivor.”
“That’s big,” Luke said.
“Yeah,” she said. “But not as big as the man thing.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
1:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
“What time is it there?” Susan said.
Kurt looked at his watch. “Ah, about a quarter to nine at night. We’re scheduled to talk to him at nine.”
Susan nodded. “Okay. Give me the elevator pitch.”
She looked around the room, packed as usual. Kurt stood at the far end of the oblong table, in his customary position. Haley Lawrence sat at the table among a sea of generals and admirals, a few of them women, Susan was gratified to notice. The edges of the room were full of aides and assistants.
“We’ve got a crisis unfolding,” Kurt said. “And we’ve got to step carefully. That’s the message.”
Susan made a spinning motion with her hand, as if to say, Get on with it.
“As most people here will know, Israel has been a strategic ally of ours since its founding in 1948. In a constantly changing world, only a handful of countries – England, Canada, France, India, Saudi Arabia…”
Kurt waited and rolled his eyes as a few people booed the mention of the Saudis.
“…Morocco, a few others – have been with us longer. As a relatively small country in a volatile region, Israel’s position is tenuous at best, and over the decades tensions have repeatedly erupted into open conflict with a host of regional actors. In the early days, these conflicts were the result of attacks by neighboring countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In more recent years, the conflicts have focused on the plight of the Palestinians who were displaced when Israel was created, and who live in a sort of political limbo in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, lands that Israel seized during the Six Day War in 1967. Every international body, indeed every country on Earth besides Israel and United States, considers Israel the occupying power in these territories.
“Islamic terrorist organizations have been using this situation as a fundraising tool for two generations. Also, Muslim countries can whip up anti-Israel sentiment any time it fits their purposes, as long as the Palestinians remain in limbo.”
“What is our policy on this?” someone along the back asked.
Kurt nodded. “Sure, good question. Just so we’re all clear. Our official policy is that there is an ongoing negotiation, the result of which will be that the West Bank and Gaza eventually become a country, probably called Palestine, and that Palestine and Israel will co-exist peacefully and may even become regional partners. In the meantime, we recognize Israel’s right to secure its borders and prevent attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians. We do not recognize Israel’s right to build so-called settlements in Palestinian territory, nor do we recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. We consider it a partitioned city – the western half in Israel, the eastern half in the West Bank.”
“And Yonatan?”
Kurt glanced at a sheet of paper on the table in front of him. “Yonatan Stern. Sixty-three years old. Married, father of five, grandfather of eight. As a young man, he was a commando with the elite Sayeret Matkal unit of the Israeli Defense Forces. In 1976, he was one of the leaders of the successful raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda, where Israeli commandos rescued more than one hundred Israeli hostages taken from a hijacked