Executive Power

Ke

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.

Ke

"Irene Ke

"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 Ke

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," Ke

"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 Ke

"The President is meeting with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia next week," offered Ke

"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 Ke

"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?"

Ke

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." Ke

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?" Ke

"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."

Ke

"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.

Ke