Read Online Twelve Days by Alex Berenson - Free Book Online Page A

says, it’s great to hear from you. Next time you’re in Washington, come by, let’s meet in person. Do you understand?”
    “Yes.”
    As if she hadn’t spoken, he repeated the question. “Do you understand? They are not going to war with Iran.”
    “Unless we make them.”
    He laughed. A dry, asthmatic sound, the sound of someone trying to reason with a crazy person. “
Make
the United States go to war?”
    “The uranium. If we can get that.” What Mason had told her in Jakarta.
Get the HEU, they’ll have to listen.
    “You have a source?”
    “Not yet, but I will.” Though Mason had also said that finding weapons-grade uranium would be impossible. Nothing on earth was guarded more closely.
    “And our current guys, none would wonder about this change in strategy?”
    “These men, you give them a mission, that’s what they do. Long as they get paid. So—”
    He reached into the desk, came out with a battered deck of cards. He shuffled them expertly, a perfect riff. Another new trick. Their backs were powder blue, with
H
s in white.
    “These are almost forty years old, these cards. Hilton made new managers work the floor. To learn the business up close. There were no mechanical shufflers back then. So I learned.” He flipped through the cards. “My boss back then, he liked to say, ‘Your first loss is your best loss.’ You understand? If it’s not working, walk away.”
    “That’s how you see this? A deal gone bad? A game? I guess I underestimated you.”
    She pushed her chair back and stood. She was conscious of the theatricality of the gesture, conscious, too, that her anger was real. The man across the desk from her had put up the cash, but she had done everything else.
    “Sit down.”
    She didn’t.
    “Understand what you’re proposing here. I’m an American citizen. This is treason. Punishable by death. And I’m not in the same place I was when we started.”
    Yeah, you married the best Barbie money could buy.
I married Glenn Mason.
Salome didn’t say a word.
    “Orli’s pregnant.”
    Her stomach twisted. More proof that the life she’d imagined with Duberman had never existed anywhere but her mind. Strange to know his greatest secret and so little else about him.
    “Congratulations.” She choked out the word.
    “Thank you. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I’ll be in my seventies when they’re teenagers. So this thing you’re proposing—”
    “It’s a long shot. And if we get caught, yes. I understand. There’s only one reason to do it, Aaron.” She rarely permitted herself to use his name. “If we don’t, Iran’s going to get the bomb. And not just one. Sooner or later, they’ll turn that city behind you into a pile of smoke. Maybe your kids will be there when it happens. You don’t care about that, then there’s nothing else I can say.”
    He shuffled once more and then shoved the cards away.
    “You know how leverage works, right?”
    “No more business jargon. Please.”
    “Put up a dollar of your own, borrow nine, now you have ten dollars. Then you do something with it. Buy a stock, whatever. If what you buy goes up ten percent, to eleven dollars, you pay back the bank the nine dollars, keep two dollars. That’s leverage. The investment only went up ten percent, but you doubled your money. But if what you buy goes down ten percent, you’re wiped out. You multiply your gains and your losses. You get it?”
    “You’re saying this is leverage. The bank being the U.S. military.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought he was convincing himself, the way he had years before, putting the scheme in business terms, his native language.
    He grinned. An odd expression. His face wasn’t built for big smiles. “But that’s it. The Pentagon
isn’t
a bank. If they catch us, they won’t sue us. They’ll string us up.”
    She didn’t know where he was going. Silence seemed to be her best choice.
    “Do you believe?”
    “Excuse me?”
    He pointed at the ceiling