Legacy - 28. Extreme Measures - Altaf El Tahari

“Sammy, you’ve really outdone yourself,” Jeremy Kimball exclaimed as he leaned back in his chair and groaned.

“Yeah, dinner was really awesome,” his son, Josh, agreed.

“I hope you managed to save some room for dessert,” Sammy replied, eliciting groans from all of us around the table. “I take it that’s a ‘no’?” Sammy went on and we all smiled and politely shook our heads.

“That’s too bad,” Sammy added. “My butter rum mousse has won numerous awards.”

“Maybe I could find room for a tiny bit of the mousse,” Danny, Trevor and Kurt’s eighteen-year-old son, suggested, making us all laugh.

“I’ll tell you what,” Sam began, “let’s relax a bit and sip some coffee and tea. We can have a little dessert later on, once our stomachs have had time to digest the main course.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kurt replied and then added, “so long as the coffee’s decent.” We all laughed at that, knowing how particular Kurt was about his coffee.

“For you, Kurt,” Sam replied, “I have a rich Kona espresso blend that I’ll fix any way you like. As I recall, you’re particularly fond of my Irish macchiato.”

“Particularly since it’s mostly whiskey,” Trevor interjected, earning another round of laughs from everyone around the table.

“There’s just a dollop of whiskey foam,” Kurt countered.

“Which is why you like it with extra foam,” Trevor replied, making us all laugh again.

“It’s the best part,” Kurt agreed and then asked Sammy, “Can you make one of those?”

“You know it’d be my pleasure, Kurt,” Sammy replied and then asked, “While I’m at it, would anyone else want to try one?”

“I’ll try one!” young Josh practically shouted, and then looked at his dad and asked, “Please?”

“Most of the alcohol boils off from the steam,” Kurt interjected.

“Damn,” Josh added, causing us all to laugh yet again.

“I’ll have one too,” Sandy, Jeremy’s daughter chimed in and that was followed by a chorus of responses from people around the table, leaving me, the lone tea drinker at the table, to request a traditional mint tea.

As Sammy disappeared to make the beverages, I lamented on the fact that what was originally to be a small dinner with Trevor and Kurt to discuss my urgent need to go to the Middle East, had turned into a major affair. Besides myself and my husband, Randy, Trevor and Kurt, and Jeremy Kimball, also in attendance were Debbie McLaughlin and her wife, Cathy Andrews, Jeremy’s two kids and Trevor and Kurt’s three kids.

I was kind of surprised to see the Kimball-Reynolds and the Austin-DeWitt children present when I’d arrived but, then, the two families were exceptionally close and the children had grown up with politics. Our brood, on the other hand, were street-wise teenagers we’d fostered and more than a few of them were rough around the edges. Even young Josh knew how to keep a secret. I wasn’t so sure about any of our foster kids.

Missing from the meal, which we were eating in one of the Underground White House’s many conference rooms, was Ian Walton, the FBI Director, who was invited at the last minute but had been delayed. I knew he was in the thick of the investigation into the hostage situation back home and had undoubtedly been busy all day.

Almost as if on cue, there was a knock at the door and Ian was shown into the conference room and greeted by us all. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” Ian said in apology. “You can’t imagine how much has been going on with the Tariq Tanner investigation.”

“Actually, I can,” Debbie interjected, and then asked, “By the way, is there any more news on Rick Simmons and the other hostages?”

“He’s out of surgery,” Ian replied, “but it’s way too soon to tell. Our initial impression that he’d been shot was wrong. There was a gunshot but the bullet went wild and no one was hurt other than Rick, thank God.”

“How’d he get hurt?” I asked.

“Let me back up and explain how the hostage incident unfolded in the first place,” Ian answered.

“Is this our cue to disappear?” Josh asked. Smart kid - he knew the score.

“Is there anything they shouldn’t hear?” Jeremy asked.

“You guys understand that nothing leaves this room?” Ian asked in return and the five kids - two of them adults, actually - nodded heads, rolled eyes and verbalized that they did.

“Great,” the FBI Director continued. “I know I don’t have to tell anyone how important it is to keep certain details from being leaked to the press . . . it’s critical to our being able to learn the extent of the plot against President Reynolds, let alone mounting a successful prosecution.

“As I told some of you earlier today, we got a tip from a reliable source on the involvement of Tanner and Ali shortly after David’s assassination and so we were already on the lookout for them.”

“That tip came from an agent in Mossad?” Debbie asked for clarification.

“I didn’t say that,” Ian corrected her. “I told you our information came from within Mossad but I didn’t say our source was an agent of Mossad. The link is much more tenuous than that but everything they told us has panned out so far.

“In any case, we pursued the leads on Tanner and Ali immediately and started searching for places and people with whom they might hide.

“As it turned out, Jamal Ali’s an orphan and grew up in foster care. We contacted some of the foster parents and siblings he’d stayed with over the years but he hadn’t had any contact with any of them after leaving each home.

“Tariq Tanner, on the other hand, grew up in a tight-knit family and, although his father threw him out of the house when young Tamarius converted to Islam and changed his name, Tariq maintained contact with his younger brother. We knew that from the phone and Internet records we obtained.

“With that in mind, we contacted the Tanner household, only to find that the father had just kicked the younger brother, Ryland, out for being gay.”

“Some father,” I commented. “He’d rather be childless than have sons who don’t conform to his idea of the perfect child.”

“Anyway,” Ian continued, “we tracked down Ryland Tanner through his social worker and relayed a message to be on the lookout for his brother. Things happened rather quickly after that.

“First, we learned from the local police that someone had tried to kill the Tanner boys’ parents last night and went to a lot of trouble to make it look like a gas leak. Fortunately for the parents, a neighbor became concerned with what they thought they saw and called 911. That action saved their lives and we got confirmation that Tariq and Jamal had been the ones who tried to kill them.

“With that we had to assume Tanner and Ali . . . the terrorists, that is . . . would seek out Tariq’s brother, Ryland. We therefore set up a perimeter around the house with which to intercept them. Little did we know they were already inside. No sooner did we finish setting up the perimeter than we got word from the company that monitors the Sanctuary Project’s group home that a hostage code had been entered.”

“A hostage code?” Josh asked.

“Yes,” Ian continued. “Many residential burglar alarm systems include a hostage code that can be used to notify the police of a hostage situation. When a hostage code is entered, the system seems to disarm normally but, at the same time, the monitoring company is notified.”

Just then, Sammy entered the room carrying a large tray filled with tiny cups of espresso, and one steaming mug of mint tea for me. He quickly spotted Ian and said, “Ian, it’s good to see you. As soon as I get everyone their coffees, I’ll grab you a plate of food.”

“Thanks, Sammy,” Ian replied, and then he continued. “So after we received word that a hostage code had been entered, we began video surveillance inside the group home.”

“Video surveillance?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ian started to explain. “The Sanctuary Project involves taking in boys in which there is often tremendous animosity on the part of the boys’ families. For that reason, their group homes are built like fortresses. On more than one occasion and in more than one city, a family member, usually the father of one of the boys, has tried to break in and take a boy by force at gunpoint.

“Although the homes are designed to fit in with the neighborhoods in which they’re located, they employ reinforced concrete exterior walls, bullet-proof glass in the windows and sophisticated alarm systems. Video cameras are located throughout the home . . . all around the exterior and inside each and every room of the house.”

“You mean you can spy on the boys having sex?” young Josh asked as his face colored up.

“Only in an emergency,” Ian explained. “Billy Mathews insisted the homes be built so the boys could have their privacy. The house parents can monitor the exterior and the common areas but they cannot access the video feeds from the bedrooms or bathrooms unless they activate a circuit that notifies the police. Inappropriate use of the video surveillance system is a crime punishable with jail time.

“When a hostage code is entered, however, the entire video network becomes available for monitoring by local law enforcement. That’s how we were able to see and hear everything that was going on inside the house from immediately after Billy entered the hostage code.

“Unfortunately, that was just after Ali had shown Billy a belt with explosives he was wearing. Billy knew Ali was wired with explosives, but we did not . . .”

“Whoa!” Josh exclaimed.

Smiling, Ian continued, “Naturally, we didn’t even suspect such a thing. After all, why would a terrorist seeking refuge after playing a role in assassinating the President of the United States want to blow himself up?”

“Terrorists don’t think logically,” Trevor pointed out and I knew better than anyone that he was right.

Sammy then reentered the conference room and placed a platefull of food in front of Ian, along with a fresh salad, a cup of his wonderful bean soup and fresh bread. Sammy balanced everything as well as a professional server would have.

“This all looks wonderful, Sammy,” Ian exclaimed.

“Believe me, it is,” Debbie interjected.

“Did Billy and Rick know you were watching them?” I asked.

“Undoubtedly,” Ian replied with a mouthfull of bread. “He had to have known since he entered the hostage code. I doubt any of the boys knew, however.

“In any case, Ali turned out to be one sick bastard. He was likely a pedophile, with the things he tried to get his hostages to do.”

“God, those boys are going to have nightmares,” Kurt interrupted.

“Fortunately, we didn’t let things go too far. We had Ryland Tanner’s social worker call to interrupt an incident of coerced fellatio and then we sent her inside as things progressed further.”

“You sent an unarmed social worker into a hostage situation?” Trevor asked in disbelief.

“She was far from unarmed,” Ian explained. “We sent her in with a special purse equipped with a dispersal system for a rapidly-acting, potent nerve gas. She was instructed to try to get the hostage-takers away from the boys before activating it but, if not possible, simply to activate it immediately.

“We also had the ability to activate it remotely, which was what we ended up having to do since Ali grabbed the purse from her before she could act and it failed to activate automatically when he did so, even though it was designed to do so.

“Fortunately, Rick took it upon himself to use his skills as a black belt in Karate to take Ali out, or the outcome could have been a disaster. Although the nerve gas is fast acting, there would have been more than enough time for Ali to have activated the explosives he was wearing. Rick’s fast action likely saved all the hostages’ lives. It’s too bad he was injured in the process.”

“How was he injured?” I asked.

“Initially we thought he was shot. Ali discharged his weapon when Rick used his foot to snap Ali’s neck. The bullet, however, went wild. Unfortunately, Rick’s body had a lot of momentum when the nerve gas overwhelmed him and he was unable to cushion the blow. His head hit something hard and sharp . . . perhaps the edge of a coffee table . . . on the way down.

“As the doctors explained it to me, the force of the impact tore his middle meningeal artery, resulting in something called an epidural hematoma. We didn’t know about it until hours later, when he started having irregular breathing due to the pressure on the brainstem as it was being forced out of the foramen magnum, the opening in the bottom of his skull.”

“Fuck,” Josh said flatly, and then he added, “Oops, sorry.”

“Watch your language, young man,” Jeremy admonished his son, but then said, “Fuck is right.”

“The reason we didn’t suspect anything was seriously wrong was because everyone was unconscious from the nerve gas. We didn’t know until his breathing became irregular. At that point he was rushed to University Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery, and he’s now in the Neurosurgical ICU.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Trevor said, and then he asked, “Is Rick going to be all right?”

“Only time will tell,” Ian answered. “He could wake up tomorrow, or next week, or not at all. Even if he wakes up, he could have permanent brain damage. We may not know the answer to that question for quite some time.”

“Ian,” Debbie interjected, “I hate to break the somber mood, but you mentioned something about a contact in Mossad?”

“A contact with inside information from inside Mossad,” Ian corrected her.

“What’s your read on the situation?” she asked.

“Needless to say,” the FBI director continued, “we assumed at the time that the information came from their own intelligence gathering, but then there were the suicide bombings over there and then the assassinations of Solomon and Richards by one of their own people . . .”

“What are you thinking, Ian?” I asked.

“Tanner and Ali were American-born black Muslims with no direct ties to the Middle East,” he explained. “They may have been recruited by Islamic extremists operating within this country, but our contact was conveniently a little too circumspect about how they came upon the information.”

“You think Mossad was complicit in David’s assassination?” Trevor asked in evident shock.

“Not at all,” Ian answered. “I’m just saying that we’re not getting the whole story and that certain elements of the story don’t add up. If we make assumptions at this point, we may end up on the wrong track and may have wasted critical time. I’m not ruling anything out at the moment, but the information we got from our contact may well have been planted to throw us off the track.

“More than likely, they were the ones who were duped . . . quite possibly by one or more Islamic extremist groups, but the involvement of American-born Muslims is troubling to say the least.”

“So you think these two . . . Tanner and Ali, were set up by the ones who planned the assassination?” I asked.

“It’s quite possible,” Ian suggested, “but we have much more work to do in any case. Offering up a pair of local-grown terrorists who were complicit in the plot but in the dark as to the plot’s origin would certainly be one way of cutting our investigation short.”

“It’s just like what a lot of the conspiracy theorists said about Ruby and Oswald,” Jeremy pointed out. “Many still think Jack Ruby was sent in to take Oswald out before he could talk. That was in the days before terrorism. Today, how much simpler it is to convince a would-be terrorist to do your dirty work, and then hand them up on a silver platter as a way of stopping the investigation in its tracks.”

“That’s just what I’m thinking,” Ian agreed.

“Has the FBI had a chance to interrogate Tariq Tanner yet?” Debbie asked.

Smiling, Ian pulled a small flat object out of his suit coat and placed it on the table. Keying in some sort of security code on a keypad on top of the object, it suddenly came to life and a holographic projection appeared before us.

“I already told you,” the man in the holoprojection stated, “I didn’t know we were gonna go after the President.”

“How could you have not known?” the lead agent involved in the interrogation asked as Tariq Tanner sat, chained to a table with sweat pouring down his face.

“Look,” Tanner answered, “I was just one small cog in the organization, and it wasn’t like our cell was the heart of the organization. I didn’t even realize the significance of our target until I saw the President’s limo. I had one job and one job alone . . . to make sure no one interrupted the others. That’s it.”

“You were still an accomplice, Tariq,” the agent threw back at him. “I know we talked about taking the death penalty off the table if you cooperated fully, but unless you can give us more, all bets are off.”

It wasn’t clear if Tariq actually had any more information or not but, on the chance that he knew more than he was saying, it was evident we had to try. I suspected the FBI might end up having to drug him up and hypnotize him to get anything useful, in which case Debbie would be pissed, as she wouldn’t be able to use any of his testimony as part of the prosecution.

Still, I understood the importance of going after the big fish that ran the organization responsible for David’s death. Not even the triggerman was all that important - as Tariq said, they were all just small cogs in the machine. Those truly responsible were likely hidden behind layer upon layer of deception.

“Mr. Tanner,” the agent continued, “you admitted to seeing many strangers come and go in your time with the organization. Did you ever see someone who wasn’t a Muslim?”

With wide eyes, Tariq responded, “YES! There were two times. The first time was when I was in Afghanistan. I was in a training camp there and involved in daily prayers when someone from outside arrived at the camp. There was something odd about him. Not that he didn’t look like an Arab, but he didn’t quite act like one. He was dressed appropriately, but he seemed awkward, as if he was wearing someone else’s clothes.

“Oh, but the real clincher was that he entered our makeshift mosque without removing his shoes or washing his hands. At the time I just assumed it was because our prayer service was outdoors and perhaps he wasn’t familiar with praying outside. Still any real Muslim would have at least removed their shoes as a sign of respect.

“There was something about the way he talked, too. I mean a lot of us came from elsewhere and didn’t speak Arabic well, but this guy spoke it haltingly and his pronunciations were odd.”

“In what way?” the Federal agent asked.

“Well, he looked like an Arab and had the appearance of someone who’d been Muslim all their life, yet he talked like a novice . . . like someone who was new to the faith and just learning Arabic for the first time.

“All the original religious texts are in Arabic,” Tariq pointed out. “All of the faithful learn to read and speak in Arabic.”

“And the other time?” the agent asked.

“The other time was in New York,” Tariq related. “I was staying at a safe house in Brooklyn when we had a visitor. Like in Afghanistan, the guy didn’t seem comfortable in his clothes, almost as if they were distasteful to him. He spoke in English, so I couldn’t tell if he knew Arabic or not, but there was something very strange about him.

“When he left, rather than saying ‘Assalamu Alaikum’, the traditional greeting of peace, he mangled it. He said something like, ‘Shalom Aleichem’, with almost a guttural sound. It didn’t sound right.”

Randy and I just looked at each other at that point, recognizing that the phrase for ‘peace be upon you’ had been spoken not in Arabic, as it should have been, but in Hebrew.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Thursday, March 26, 2043 - Six Days after the Assassination

At first I felt a bit disoriented. I was sitting beside a stream - a stream I remembered from my youth - a stream in my homeland of Pakistan. Seated beside me was a young adolescent boy I remembered from another time in my youth, from after immigrating to America. It was Jeremy Kimball’s adopted brother, Clifford.

The setting was idyllic. It was a very warm day for spring and we both sat there wearing only shorts without shirts, our feet dangling in the icy waters of the stream. The hillside was covered in wildflowers as the jagged peaks of the surrounding mountains rose above us. A brilliant sun warmed our bare shoulders.

I saw myself as also being young - perhaps not much older than young Clifford sitting beside me. It was as if I’d been transported back to the time just before I had to flee Pakistan . . . to flee for my life. I felt content and at peace and I sensed that feeling of contentment was coming from Cliff.

“Your time is coming to pass, Altaf,” Cliff said without turning to look at me. “When you were young, your first love, Fareed, came to you in your sleep and told you that someday your presence would be critical to the future of humanity.”

“Not in so many words,” I replied in a high-pitched tenor voice I had not heard in decades. “Actually, he came to tell me I needed to flee Pakistan . . . that my life was in danger.”

“That too,” Cliff agreed, “but that was only a part of the message. It wasn’t a coincidence you saw into the future back then . . . that you saw the funeral of David Reynolds. You were intended to have that vision. It was necessary to ensure you took the correct path in your life.”

“But in that vision, I was the Secretary of Health,” I protested. “Now I am the Secretary of State and it is Randy, my husband, who is the Secretary of Health.”

“Yes, things have changed,” Cliff tried to explain, “but the changes were not unexpected. Had you known back then of the changes that might be, you would have pursued a different path. You wouldn’t have gone into Medicine and you would have strayed from the intended path. You wouldn’t be the Secretary of State today.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“It is not for me to tell you, Altaf,” Cliff answered. “You must find your own way.”

“And what way is that?” I asked.

“There has been an incident in the Middle East,” Cliff answered circumspectly. “The Prime Minister of the Palestinian state in waiting was the victim of an assassination attempt . . . twice.

“The first time he was able to escape unharmed. He sought refuge in his native Israel, in a synagogue, no less, but the forces of evil were still able to find him. He thought he could trust those around him but he was mistaken.

“The second time it was an American who intervened to save his life . . . a Baltimore detective named Paul Manning . . . but the forces of evil have made it look like it was he that tried to kill the Prime Minister.”

Taken aback, I asked, “Is Paul OK?”

Rather than answer me, Cliff continued, “You must go to the Middle East, Altaf. Your life will be in great peril but I will do everything I can to protect you. The future of the world depends on your success . . . or failure.

“Your friends will try to stop you from going, but you must not let them. You must go there by any means necessary.

“My time is short. I am nearing the completion of my task. Regardless of what happens, it is my time to move on.”

As the scene faded away, I awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed.

“Is everything all right, honey?” my husband asked in a groggy voice.

“Everything’s fine,” I answered as reassuringly as I could. “I just had a bad dream is all. I’m going to get up and read for a while,” I explained, and then I kissed him on the forehead and added, “Just know that I love you.”

Randy drifted back to sleep with a smile on his face as I quietly got up and dressed.

After brushing my teeth, I stealthily exited our apartment in the Underground White House and made my way through the complex to seek out Trevor Austin, the one person who could authorize a flight to the Middle East. I didn’t have much hope, particularly after the discussion we’d had once Ian Walton had left, but I had to try.

I certainly understood where Trevor was coming from. There was a good chance I would be assassinated if I set foot anywhere near Israel or its neighbors. Cliff made it clear, however, playing it safe was not an option.

When I got to the apartment being shared by Trevor and Kurt and their three children, however, it was quite some time before anyone answered the door, and it was their eighteen-year-old son, Danny, who answered. I couldn’t help but think what a handsome young man he’d become as he stood there in only his bikini briefs.

“Oh hi, Uncle Altaf,” he answered sleepily. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I need to speak to your dad, Trevor, right away,” I answered.

“He’s not here,” he replied. “Neither of my dads are. When they didn’t answer the door, I got up to see what was going on and found their bed empty. Something must be going down,” he added.

“Thanks Danny,” I responded before I left in search of Trevor.

On a hunch, I headed to the situation room and found it bustling with activity. The President was there, as was Jeremy, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there as well. Naturally, both Trevor and Kurt were present, too.

“Altaf!” Trevor called out as I approached him. “I wasn’t aware that Kurt called you yet.”

“I didn’t,” Kurt replied as he came up to us.

“Cliff did,” I attempted to explain.

When Trevor and Kurt just stared at me with puzzled looks on their faces, I continued, “There’s been an incident in the Middle East. There was an assassination attempt on the Palestinian Prime Minister.”

“How the fuck did you know that?” Trevor asked.

Somehow I had to convince Trevor that it really had been Cliff that contacted me. If I failed to convince him, I’d need to find an alternative and more than likely more dangerous means of getting to the Middle East.

“Cliff came to me in my sleep,” I answered. “He looked just as I remember him at the age of fourteen, but he looked well. He looked very well.

“He had an important message for me. He told me I had to get to the Middle East and that it was urgent . . . that I was about to play the part for which my life was intended.”

“Pretty heavy stuff for a dream,” Trevor noted with a skeptical look on his face.

“He told me of the attempt on the Palestinian Prime Minister and that it was an American who saved his life. Trevor, he told me it was Paul Manning that saved him, but that Paul was framed.”

“That’s preposterous,” was Trevor’s reply. “Paul is in Israel . . . I’ll grant you that, but then it was you that signed off on his visa. However, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near the Palestinian Prime Minister. His visa wouldn’t have allowed him access to Palestinian territory.”

“The attempt on the Prime Minister’s life wasn’t in Palestinian territory,” I countered. “He was in Israel, in a synagogue no less.”

“How do you know that?” Kurt asked. “We don’t yet have any details.”

“Trust me, you’ll find I’m right. It was Cliff that told me,” I answered.

At that moment, someone came up to Trevor and whispered something in his ear. “I have to go,” Trevor told us. “We’ll discuss this later, after the President’s meeting,” and then he walked off.

“Altaf,” Kurt said as he placed his hand on my shoulder, “it was only a dream.”

“I know you are a spiritual man,” I countered, “so listen to me. Cliff spoke to me.”

Sighing, Kurt said, “I believe Paul when he tells me he’s spoken to Cliff but, I dunno, it just seems so unreal.”

Then remembering something from my dream, I added, “Cliff has a scar. It’s located just under his right nipple.”

“You could have easily seen it when he was alive, Altaf,” Kurt countered.

“But I didn’t see it when he was alive,” I challenged. “I hardly knew Cliff at all in my youth. He was only an acquaintance. He was in middle school when I graduated high school. I never had the opportunity to see him without a shirt.”

“Jeremy!” Kurt called out and soon we were joined by the Vice-President, my good friend.

After reiterating all that I’d told him, Kurt asked, “Jer, can you recall a time when Altaf might have had even the most remote possibility of seeing Cliff without a shirt?”

Thinking hard, he replied, “I honestly can’t, but there’s always the possibility they were at the same swimming pool at the same time and he filed it away in his subconscious.”

“But the townhouse complex where I lived had its own pool and when I didn’t swim there, I swam with Randy in the swimming pool at the clubhouse in his neighborhood. I never used a public swimming pool in all my time there.”

“What do you think?” Kurt asked.

“Like we discussed last night,” Jeremy responded, “it’s way too risky to let Altaf go. For all we know, he’s making the story about Cliff up, just to get us to change our minds.”

As I started to raise my hand in protest, Jeremy went on to say, “However, that doesn’t explain how Altaf knew about the assassination attempt before you even contacted him. It hasn’t been made public yet, not even in Israel.

“IF it turns out that Paul was involved as Altaf suggests and IF Trevor agrees to it, I say we let him go . . . with as much security as we can provide him.”

“The only way you’ll stop me is to arrest me,” I countered. “By hook or by crook, I must find a way.”

“Don’t think we won’t have you arrested,” Jeremy responded, surprising me no end. “However, if your story checks out, I’m not willing to take a chance that Cliff hasn’t sent us a message. After all, I know for a fact that he’s influenced me a number of times in my life, most of them since he passed away.

“So as I said, if we can convince Trevor, I say we let him go.”

Just then Trevor came trotting up to us and said, “I’ve made all the arrangements, Altaf. I’ve sent a staffer to pick up some clothes and business suits in your size . . . they can be altered in-flight. Anything else you need, you can get in Israel. Your flight leaves in under two hours.

“I’ve already cleared it with the President, although he thinks I’m fucking crazy. He’s right. Every instinct tells me this is wrong . . . but I believe you . . . and we need to do something to show we’re taking the situation seriously.”

“What made you change your mind,” Kurt asked.

“An American was shot in a small synagogue in Israel as he attempted to assassinate the Palestinian Prime Minster, or so we’ve been told,” Trevor answered. “It was a detective with the Homicide Unit of the Baltimore Police. We don’t have a positive ID on him yet, but there was only one Baltimore police detective authorized to be over there. Once it’s known it was this administration that sent him there . . . well, you can imagine the implications.”

“They’ll think that we attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister,” I answered aloud.

“And sending Altaf would go a long way toward proving otherwise,” Kurt interjected. “It would serve as a show of good faith.”

“I doubt that sending Altaf will satisfy everyone,” Trevor confirmed, “but it will go a long way toward nipping the allegations in the bud.”

“How is he?” Jeremy asked.

“The Prime Minister’s a bit shaken up, I’m told, but otherwise he’s fine,” Trevor answered.

“I meant how’s Paul,” Jeremy corrected him.

With tears forming in his eyes, Trevor answered, “Our information is that he managed to fire a shot at the Prime Minister, but missed and killed one of his bodyguards instead. The other bodyguards opened fire. Paul’s . . . dead.”