FORTY-ONE

Washington, D.C.

Yasir Arafat sat behind the desk in the presidential suite at the Madison Hotel, making his way through a stack of paperwork, listening to the late-evening traffic hissing along the damp pavement of Fifteenth Street. He paused for a moment, popped a Tunisian date into his mouth, then swallowed a few spoonfuls of yogurt. He was fastidious about his diet, did not smoke or consume alcohol, and never drank coffee. It had helped him survive a demanding revolutionary lifestyle that might have destroyed other men.

Because he was expecting no more visitors that evening, he had changed out of his uniform into a blue tracksuit. His bald head was bare, and as usual he had several days’ growth on his pouchy face. He wore reading glasses, which magnified his froglike eyes. His thick lower lip jutted out, giving him the appearance of a child on the verge of tears.

He possessed a near-photographic memory for written material and faces, which allowed him to work through the stack of documents quickly, pausing now and then to scribble notes in the margins of memoranda or sign his name. He was now in charge of the Gaza Strip and a large portion of the West Bank, a development that had seemed impossible only a few years earlier. His Palestinian Authority was responsible for the mundane details of ordinary governance, like trash collection and schools. It was a far cry from the old days, when he had been the world’s most famous guerrilla.

He set aside the remainder of his work and opened a document bound in a leather cover. It was a copy of the interim agreement he was to sign the following day at the United Nations in New York. The agreement was yet another incremental step toward the fulfillment of his life’s work: the establishment of a Palestinian state. It was much less than he had wanted when he set out on this path-back then he had dreamed of the destruction of Israel-but it was the best he was going to get. There were some within the movement who wished him failure, some who even wished him death. The rejectionists, the dreamers. If they’d had their way, the Palestinians would be forever condemned to the refugee camps of the diaspora.

An aide knocked on the door. Arafat looked up as he entered the room. “Sorry to disturb you, Abu Amar, but the president is on the phone.”

Arafat smiled. This too would have been impossible only a few years earlier. “What does he want so late at night?”

“He says his wife is out of town and he’s bored. He wants to know whether you would be willing to come to the White House and keep him company.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“To do what?”

The aide shrugged. “Talk, I suppose.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Arafat stood up, removed his tracksuit, and dressed in his usual plain khaki uniform and traditional Palestinian headdress. He wore the black-and-white kaffiyeh of the peasant with the front shaped to a point to symbolize the map of Palestine. The aide reappeared with an overcoat and draped it over Arafat’s shoulders. Together they stepped into the hall and were immediately surrounded by a group of security men. Some were members of his personal bodyguard, the rest were officers of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service. They moved down the corridor, Arafat in the center of the party, and stepped into a private elevator, which whisked them downward to the garage. There Arafat slipped into the back of a limousine. A moment later his motorcade was speeding south on Fifteenth Street toward the White House.

Arafat looked out his window. A bit like the old days, this late-night dash through wet streets-like the days when he never spent two nights in a row in the same bed. Sometimes he even switched residences in the middle of the night when his well-tuned instincts sensed trouble. He avoided public places-never ate in restaurants, never went to the cinema or the theater. His skin turned blotchy from lack of sun. His survival skills had thwarted hundreds of attempts on his life by the Israelis and his enemies within the movement. Some had not been so lucky. He thought of his old friend and second in command, Abu Jihad. He had led the war effort in the Occupied Territories; helped to organize the intifada. And for that the Israelis had murdered him in his villa in Tunis. Arafat knew that without Abu Jihad he would not be where he was today: driving across Washington for a secret meeting with the American president. It was a shame his old friend was not here to see this.

The motorcade passed through the barricade on Pennsylvania Avenue and entered the White House grounds. A moment later Arafat’s car stopped beneath the shelter of the North Portico.

A Marine guard stepped forward and opened the door. “Good evening, Mr. Arafat. Right this way, please.”

President James Beckwith was waiting in the drawing room of the residence in the Executive Mansion. He looked as though he had just stepped off the deck of his sailboat. He wore a pair of wrinkled khaki trousers and a crewneck pullover sweater. He was a tall man with a full head of silver hair and a genteel manner. His permanently tanned face projected youth and exuberance, despite the fact that he was nearly seventy years old.

They sat in front of the fire, Beckwith nursing a glass of whiskey, Arafat sipping tea sweetened with honey. When Beckwith had been in the Senate he had been one of Israel ’s staunchest allies and led the opposition to U.S. recognition of the PLO-indeed, he had regularly referred to Arafat and the PLO as “bloodthirsty terrorists.” Now the two men were close allies in the quest for peace in the Middle East. Each needed the help of the other to succeed. Arafat needed Beckwith to press the Israelis to make concessions at the negotiating table. Beckwith needed Arafat to keep the radicals and fundamentalists in line so the talks could continue.

After an hour Beckwith raised the murders of Ambassador Eliyahu and David Morgenthau. “My CIA director tells me your old friend Tariq was probably behind both attacks, but they have no proof.”

Arafat smiled. “I’ve never doubted for a moment that it was Tariq. But if your CIA thinks they’re going to find proof of this, I’m afraid they’re sadly mistaken. Tariq doesn’t operate that way.”

“If he continues to kill Jews, it’s going to make it more difficult to keep moving toward a final settlement.”

“Forgive my bluntness, Mr. President, but Tariq is only a factor if you and the Israelis allow him to be a factor. He does not act on my behalf. He does not operate from territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. He does not speak for those Palestinians who want peace.”

“All true, but isn’t there anything you can do to dissuade him?”

“Tariq?” Arafat shook his head slowly. “We were close friends once. He was one of my finest intelligence officers. But he left me over the decision to renounce terrorism and begin peace talks. We haven’t spoken in years.”

“Perhaps he might listen to you now.”

“I’m afraid Tariq listens to no voice but his own. He’s a man haunted by demons.”

“All of us are, especially when you reach my age.”

“And mine,” said Arafat. “But I’m afraid Tariq is haunted by a different kind of demon. You see, he’s a young man who’s dying, and he wants to settle accounts before he leaves.”

Beckwith raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Dying?”

“According to my sources he has a severe brain tumor.”

“Do the Israelis know this?”

“Yes,” Arafat said. “I’ve told them myself.”

“Who?”

“Their chief of intelligence, Ari Shamron.”

“I wonder why their chief of intelligence neglected to share this piece of information with the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Arafat laughed. “I suppose you’ve never met Ari Shamron. He’s crafty and a warrior from the old school. Shamron makes a habit of never letting the left hand know what the right is doing. Do you know the motto of the Israeli secret service?”