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“Can’t say.”

“Well, you must.”

“Look, he went out on a limb. I gave my word. He’s an academic and senior. That’s all.”

Paxman thought. Academic, and mixing with Terry Martin. Certainly another Arabist. Could have been on assignment with the Mossad. Whatever, the information had to go back to Century and without delay.

He thanked Martin, left his beer, and scuttled back down the road to Century.

Because of the lunchtime conference, Steve Laing had not left the building. Paxman drew him aside and told him. Laing took it straight to the Chief himself.

Sir Colin, who was never given to overstatement, pronounced General Kobi Dror to be a most tiresome fellow, forsook his lunch, ordered something to be brought to his desk, and retired to the top floor. There he put in a personal call on an extremely secure line to Judge William Webster, Director of the CIA.

It was only half past eight in Washington, but the Judge was a man who liked to rise with the dawn, and he was at his desk to take the call. He asked his British colleague a couple of questions about the source of the information, grunted at the lack of one, but agreed it was something that could not be let slide.

Webster told his Deputy Director (Operations) Bill Stewart, who exploded with rage, and then had a half-hour conference with Chip Barber, head of Operations for the Middle East Division. Barber was even angrier, for he was the man who had sat facing General Dror in the bright room on the top of a hill outside Herzlia and had, apparently, been told a lie.

Between them, they worked out what they wanted done, and took the idea back to the Director.

In midafternoon William Webster had a conference with Brent Scowcroft, Chairman of the National Security Council, and he took the matter to President Bush. Webster had asked for what he wanted and was given full authority to go ahead.

The cooperation of Secretary of State James Baker was sought, and he gave it immediately. That night, the State Department sent an urgent request to Tel Aviv, which was presented to its recipient the following morning, only three hours away due to the time gap.

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel at that time was Benjamin Netanyahu, a handsome, elegant, silver-haired diplomat and the brother of that Jonathan Netanyahu who was the only Israeli killed during the raid on Idi Amin’s Entebbe airport, in which Israeli commandos rescued the passengers of a French airliner hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists.

Benjamin Netanyahu had been born a third-generation sabra and partly educated in the United States.

Because of his fluency and articulateness and his passionate nationalism, he was a member of Itzhak Shamir’s Likud government and often Israel’s persuasive spokesman in interviews with the Western media.

He arrived at Washington Dulles two days later, on October 14, somewhat perplexed by the urgency of the State Department’s invitation that he fly to the United States for discussions of considerable importance.

He was even more perplexed when two hours of private talks with Deputy Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger revealed no more than a comprehensive overview of developments in the Middle East since August 2. He finished the talks thoroughly frustrated, then faced a late-night plane back to Israel.

It was as he was leaving the State Department that an aide slipped an expensive vellum card into his hand. The card was headed with a personal crest, and the writer, in elegant cursive script, asked him not to leave Washington without coining to the writer’s house for a short visit, to discuss a matter of some urgency “to both our countries and all our people.”

He knew the signature, knew the man, and knew the power and wealth of the hand that wrote it. The writer’s limousine was at the door. The Israeli minister made a decision and ordered his secretary to return to the embassy for both sets of luggage and to rendezvous with him at a house in Georgetown two hours later. From there they would proceed to Dulles. Then he entered the limousine.

He had never been to the house before, but it was as he would have expected, a handsome building at the better end of M Street, not three hundred yards from the campus of Georgetown University. He was shown into a paneled library with pictures and books of superlative rarity and taste. A few moments later his host entered, advancing over the Kashan rug with hand outstretched.

“My dear Bibi, how kind of you to spare the time.”

Saul Nathanson was both banker and financier, professions that had made him extremely wealthy, but his true fortune was hinted at rather than declared, and the man himself was far too cultivated to dwell upon it. The Van Dykes and Breughels on his walls were not copies, and his donations to charity, including some in the State of Israel, were legendary.

Like the Israeli minister, he was elegant and gray-haired, but unlike the slightly younger man, he was tailored by Savile Row, London, and his silk shirts were from Sulka.

He showed his guest to one of a pair of leather club chairs before the log fire, and an English butler entered with a bottle and two wineglasses on a silver tray.

“Something I thought you might enjoy, my friend, while we chat.”

The butler poured two Lalique glasses of the red wine, and the Israeli sipped. Nathanson raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Superb, of course,” said Netanyahu. Château Mouton Rothschild ’61 is not easy to come by and not to be gulped. The butler left the bottle within reach and withdrew.

Saul Nathanson was far too subtle to barge into the meat of what he wanted to say. Conversational hors d’oeuvres were served first. Then the Middle East.

“There’s going to be a war, you know,” he said sadly.

“I have no doubt about it,” agreed Netanyahu.