FORTY THREE.

    Kennedy was back at Langley sitting in her large corner office on the seventh floor. It was nearing three in the afternoon, and on most Saturdays she would not be in the office this late, but it was pouring outside and her son Tommy was at a friend's house until five. Her seven-year-old was getting more and more independent, which to Kennedy was both good and bad. Good, because he was a little less demanding of her time, and bad, because he was a little less needy of her affection.

    At seven, Tommy was coming out of his shell. His reserved manner had worried his teachers more than it had his mother. Others assumed it was the divorce that had caused young Thomas to be so shy, but Kennedy thought it had more to do with the fact that his mother didn't really speak for the first five years of her life, and to this day opened her mouth only when she really needed to.

    Kennedy looked at her son's shy demeanor as a positive. Just like his mother he was very cautious around strangers, slow to anger and deeply introspective. The boy had a wonderful imagination, and was capable of playing by himself for hours on end. On the other hand, he was also capable of burying his mother under an avalanche of questions when it was least expected.

    Now in the first grade he was making friends, playing sports and getting perfect marks, which was no surprise considering the IQ of his parents. While his father may not have been the most responsible and selfless man, he was nonetheless very smart. Fortunately, he didn't come around often. In Kennedy's mind he was a distraction from an otherwise tranquil and loving home.

    There were other male role models around. Tommy adored Mitch and just so happened to have a crush on his new bride. Mitch constantly prodded her son to get involved in sports and loved to take him up to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles. Next summer Mitch had promised to teach Tommy how to water ski, and now that she and Anna had reached an understanding, it was likely that they would see more of each other.

    There was also the quirky Frenchman a few doors down, Mr. Soucheray, who hung out in his garage all day listening to the radio, tinkering with an endless array of gadgets and pursuing his lifelong fascination with the internal combustion engine. Thanks to him, Tommy probably knew more about cars, motorcycles and anything that ran on gasoline, than probably any seven-year-old in the country.

    Kennedy closed the file on her desk and put her pen down. With a yawn she took off her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. If she left now she could probably sneak in a quick nap before Tommy returned from his friend's house. She grabbed several red folders off her desk and spun her chair around. After placing the files in her safe she locked it.

    She was about to get up when her large white secure phone rang.

    She looked at the display and frowned. Ben Freidman was finally returning her call almost nine hours later. The man had gall. She possessed enough information to destroy him and still he played these games. She was sure he would have some excuse to explain why it took him so long to call her back.

    Kennedy looked out at the falling rain and grabbed the handset.

    "Irene Kennedy."

    "Irene, it's Ben. I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner, but as I'm sure you've seen on TV, I've had my hands full over here."

    "Yes, we've been watching."

    "We took out a bomb factory last night and now we're bracing ourselves for reprisals."

    There were times when Kennedy wished she were more like Mitch Rapp. If she were, she'd tell her Israeli counterpart that he was full of shit. The news outlets were reporting that the Israeli Defense Forces attacked a bomb-making factory in Hebron and that was why the damage was so extensive. The Palestinians were denying any such factory existed and claimed the Israelis had attacked a civilian neighborhood without provocation. The truth, as always, lay somewhere in the middle. Jake Turbes from the CTC had briefed her only an hour ago that they did not think a bomb factory was the target. They'd picked up cell phone chatter that the real target was a high-level meeting of Palestinian terrorist groups. She also had in her possession satellite imagery that showed Israeli helicopters showering the neighborhood with missiles.

    Ben Freidman was lying to her, but in the hall of mirrors that was her life, she wasn't about to reveal what she really knew: Instead, she simply said, "The President is very alarmed by the amount of people killed in the raid last night."

    In his standard defensive tone, Freidman said, "Irene, we had no idea that the secondary explosion would be so large. They had enough explosives there to level the whole block."

    Obviously, she thought. The latest intelligence reports indicated that the Israeli Defense Forces were not in control of the site. Various terrorist and militia groups around Hebron had set up roadblocks to keep the Israeli army out and they had maintained their position just long enough for the media to show up and begin filming the carnage. The Israelis had fallen into this public relations nightmare before and immediately pulled back. Footage of tanks crushing teenagers and young men, no matter how just the cause, did not play well for the rest of the world.

    Freidman was playing a dangerous game here. If the Palestinians were telling the truth about the number of dead, they would have quite a case to take to the UN. When she spoke to the President she would have to apprise him of the possibility. No sense going too far out on a limb to defend Israel if they weren't going to tell the truth to their best ally.

    She decided to prod him just a bit.

    "You know that the Palestinians are saying you attacked a neighborhood without provocation."

    Freidman scoffed.

    "I could have written their press release for them before the operation was even launched. It's the same lies every time."

    "Yeah, I know," Kennedy answered with well-feigned sincerity. The only problem is, she thought, that they in turn could have written your press release for you.

    "You know the timing of this is very bad."

    There was a long pause and then Freidman asked in an agitated tone, "How so?"

    Freidman's frustration was not lost on Kennedy. Her Israeli counterpart was an unusually blunt man, but something in his voice told her that he was under a lot of pressure. He had his enemies in the cabinet, doves who wanted to disengage and start real peace talks. She was sure they were none too fond of this current operation.

    "The President is meeting with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia next week," offered Kennedy, "and the main topic of discussion was going to be a renewed peace initiative in the Middle East… but now that we have dozens of Palestinian women and children being pulled from the rubble the whole thing might be a nonstarter."

    "Irene, it was a damn bomb factory."

    "And it has taken the President months just to get the Crown Prince to sit down."

    "You know as well as I do," spat Freidman, "that the Crown Prince will never support real peace. The day he recognizes Israel is the day he ignites the revolution in his country and slits his own throat."

    "You think we don't know that?" asked Kennedy, maintaining her neutral tone.

    "The President wants assurances on other fronts. We want to see a real crackdown on the terrorist groups operating out of Saudi Arabia. We want to see the funding of these groups stopped."

    "Irene," Freidman interrupted her and let out a sigh of frustration.

    "We've been over all this before. I appreciate the efforts you make on our behalf, but this is our war. We are on the front line. We are the ones facing terrorist bombers every day. We will not sit on our hands. When we receive solid intelligence we are going to act, and if these cowards insist on hiding behind women and children, then so be it."

    "Ben, I am well aware of your difficulties, but you can't go it alone.

    You need to do a better job of keeping us in the loop."

    "I am keeping you in the loop," he replied earnestly.

    "What do you think I am doing right now?"

    Kennedy was not about to let him know that she knew he was lying to her, so she simply said, "You're calling me nine hours after I put a call in to you stating that the President of the United States wished to know what was going on." Kennedy let the statement sink in and then added, "Now come on, Ben, you and I are veterans at this.

    There's only a couple of reasons why you wait that long to return a call, and none of them are good from where I'm sitting." Kennedy listened intently while she pictured Freidman squirming on the other end of the line.

    Finally, he said, "There's something I've been working to confirm. something that's very important. I didn't want to call you until I knew for sure."

    "And what is that?"

    "This goes no further than you. I don't want you telling the President until I can verify it. We had intelligence that a high-level meeting was taking place last night."

    "How high?"

    "I'll send you the list, but suffice it to say that there were key players from Hamas, the Popular Liberation Committee, Force 17, Islamic Jihad, leaders of the martyr brigades and possibly Mohammed Atwa, the head of Palestinian General Intelligence."

    "You're serious?" Kennedy acted surprised.

    "So the story about the bomb-making factory is-" "True! We did not know it was there. Our rockets set off secondary explosions that were unavoidable."

    Kennedy wondered why it had been such a struggle for Freidman to tell her about the real intent of the operation and why, according to her facts, he was still lying to her about the bomb factory.

    "When will you have confirmation on who was taken out in the strike?"

    "By tomorrow I should have a good idea. I have an asset posing as a cameraman who's photographing the dead. Those pictures, along with the intercepts we're picking up, should give us a fairly complete list. Listen now," said Freidman reasserting control, "I have to go now.

    If I find anything else out, I'll let you know."

    "All right." Before she could say good-bye Freidman was off the line.

    Kennedy sat there for a moment staring at the handset, trying to separate the fact from the fiction in an effort to discern what the head of Mossad was up to. In the end it could be nothing more than his inability to play things straight. There were plenty of people like him in the business. Never tell the whole story, only parts of it. Or it could be much deeper than that. Kennedy would have to monitor the situation closely.

    Turning to her computer she fired off a quick e-mail to Jake Turbes that she wanted him to personally look into the events in Hebron, and do so without the aid of Mossad. She wanted clean untainted facts by which to judge Freidman's honesty, or more likely lack thereof.