The Brotherhood Conspiracy Read Online Free Page B

doesn’t have the weapons-grade plutonium for a warhead. But they’re getting close.”
    Whitestone leaned back in his seat. He knew Cartwright was right. Intelligence briefings continually measured Iran’s march toward nuclear weaponry.President Mehdi Essaghir’s determination was inexorable. And it had to be stopped.
    “Am I doing the right thing, Bill?”
    “I don’t think you have any choice, Mr. President. The Arab Spring has created an incredible power vacuum in the Middle East and the Iranians are certainly going to try to take advantage of the opportunity. Egypt is the glue that holds together a fragile Mideast peace. Now we don’t know what we have in Egypt, the Saudis are scared to death they’ll lose control, and we took Iraq out of the game. For all his faults, at least Saddam kept the Iranians bottled up. Right now, the door is wide open for the Iranians to step in and dominate the region.”
    “And if Essaghir had nukes? God help us all,” said the president.
    “Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Iran,” Cartwright responded. “If we don’t work with them on this, we will likely see mushroom clouds in the desert. And once the Israelis unleash their nuclear weapons, who knows who will follow suit. No, I think we have to convince King Khalil to keep pushing for peace, for a moderate agenda, and keep that as our public policy position. But, pragmatically, there is really no other choice for us but to help Baruk pull off this scheme.”
    “We have to keep Stanley out of this,” Whitestone said of the secretary of state. “It’s just you and me, Bill. And it’s got to stay that way. Compartmentalize everything. Clandestine is not to get a whiff of what we’re doing in the financial sector.”
    “Yes, Mr. President.”
    “I’ll talk to Baruk tomorrow. Make sure his part is ready to go.”
    Whitestone looked out the side window as the five identical Marine helicopters orchestrated another high-speed shift in formation, what the Marine pilots called “the presidential shell game,” mixing up the four decoys with the presidential craft. “I’m worried about this, Bill,” he said, his eyes still on the chopper ballet outside. “The stakes are so high, and the margin of error is so slim. This could cost us the presidency.”
    “Yes, sir. But,” Cartwright leaned close again, “doing nothing nearly assures a nuclear war in the Mideast. Your presidency might survive, but I don’t think Israel would. And neither would the U.S. economy. There would be no oil. The country would be devastated. We just can’t allow that kind of chaos.”
    Whitestone closed his eyes and said a short, silent prayer.
    “I’m surprised,” said Cartwright, “that the Israelis didn’t accuse the Iranians of causing the earthquake.”
    The president opened his eyes and looked at his CIA chief. “What kind of shape is Jerusalem in?”
    “Could have been worse,” said Cartwright. “The damage was localized to Jerusalem—a very limited area of Jerusalem—even though the quake was very strong.”
    “Troubling, that, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, sir. Still, one-tenth of the city has been opened up, as if chopped with a meat cleaver. More than five thousand people died and up to twenty thousand refugees are living in a tent city in the Hinnom Valley. Jerusalem hasn’t erupted into civil war—yet.”
    “As if we needed another flashpoint for potential trouble in that city.”
    “So far, they’re treating each other with respect. Neither the Israeli government nor the Waqf have been able to figure out what to do with the Temple Mount. But the Israelis have been able to make their quarantine of the Temple area stick—too dangerous to let anyone near it—so that’s probably kept tempers quiet. And it appears as if our far-right Fundamentalists have worn themselves out with dire predictions about the end of the world. It’s relatively quiet and . . . that scares me more than anything,” Cartwright