Chapter 2089 - 854: So Many Things Happening (2)

"I know," Shamir interrupted him.

He stood up and walked to the window.

Outside, the Golden Dome Mosque on the Temple Mount gleamed in the morning light. The weather was good, the sky was blue, the clouds were white; you couldn't tell that a hundred kilometers north, thirty-seven people had just died.

"What about Ross?"

The secretary stood at the doorway.

"He's waiting in the reception room."

Shamir nodded.

"Let him in."

When Ross pushed the door open, his face looked worse than yesterday.

"Shamir, the White House is asking you, those Chechens—did they really come in from Europe?"

Shamir looked at him.

"Don't you know?"

Ross was taken aback.

"Know what?"

Shamir walked back to his desk and picked up an intelligence report.

"This was sent to you three days ago. Three hundred Chechens, boarded from the Albanian coast, crossed the Adriatic Sea, entered Italy, and then flew from Italy to Damascus."

He handed the intelligence report to Ross.

Ross took it and glanced at it.

Then his face changed.

"This... I've never seen this."

Shamir looked at him.

"You've never seen it?"

Ross shook his head.

"Never."

Shamir was silent for three seconds.

Then he asked:

"So what have you been sending to the White House for the past three days?"

Ross's hands began to shake.

He remembered the telegrams sent back to Washington every morning—situation stable, Squid Man in control, no need for U.S. intervention.

Those telegrams were sent by him.

But he didn't write them.

Every morning when he woke up, those telegrams were already in his computer. The signature was his, the content he reviewed, no problem. So he sent them.

But this intelligence, he had never seen.

"Shamir..." his voice was dry, "Someone's been tampering with my computer."

9 AM, in the Moscow suburbs, that villa.

The Boss sat in that wide chair, holding a glass of vodka.

The fire in the fireplace was burning bright, but his back was still cold.

The phone rang.

He picked it up.

"Boss, Grisha boarded the plane."

The Boss nodded.

"Tell the Syrians, they can move."

The voice on the other end hesitated.

"Now?"

"Now."

The Boss hung up, stood up, and walked to the window.

Outside, the snow in Moscow had stopped, the world was covered in a vast, silent white.

He thought of thirty years ago, when Kryuchkov sat in this very position. Back then, he was young, just an errand boy. Now he was the Boss.

"Grisha," he murmured, "Don't blame me."

10 AM, Golan Heights.

The Syrian army moved.

It wasn't a probe, it wasn't a feint, it was a full-scale advance.

Three divisions, eight hundred tanks, a hundred thousand soldiers, and those from Chechnya—only one hundred sixty-three left—blended in the ranks, waiting for revenge.

The Israelis' defensive line was breached in the first wave of attack.

Those nineteen-year-old soldiers, those Reserve just withdrawn from Safed, those Golan Brigade members who had been in the trenches for three days and nights—they desperately fired their guns, desperately threw hand grenades, desperately called for artillery support.

But there were too many people.

Too many tanks.

Too many shells.

At 10:17 AM, the first Syrian soldier crossed the Blue Line.

At 10:23 AM, Israel's first line of defense was completely breached.

At 10:31 AM, the Golan Brigade commander shouted his last words on the radio:

"There are too many of them! We need reinforcements!"

Then the radio went silent.

11 AM, Jerusalem, the Prime Minister's office.

Shamir looked at the just-delivered battle report, his hand didn't shake.

"The Syrians moved?"

Moses's voice came over the phone, hoarse like sandpaper.

"They moved. Three divisions. Full-scale advance."

Shamir was silent for three seconds.

Then he said:

"Notify the air force. Bomb."

Moses was stunned.

"Bomb? Bomb where?"

Shamir looked at the map.

"Damascus."

11:15 AM, downtown Damascus.

When the first bomb fell, President Assad was having lunch.

He heard the sound, stood up, and walked to the window.

Outside, the city he had lived in for twenty-eight years was smoking.

He turned around and said to the secretary standing at the door:

"Call Moscow."

11:30 AM, Moscow, the Kremlin.

President Yeltsin's lunch was also interrupted.

The secretary stood at the door, his face pale.

"Mr. President, a call from the Syrian President."

Yeltsin put down his fork.

"What is it?"

The secretary hesitated.

"The Squid Man bombed Damascus."

Yeltsin squinted his eyes.

He recalled the intelligence report he received three days ago—someone was tampering with his affairs. Someone was stirring trouble in Ukraine. Someone was causing issues in Chechnya. Someone was making moves in Syria.

Now it had finally come to the forefront.

"Put him through."

The voice on the other end was Assad's, urgent as if his pants were on fire.

"Comrade Yeltsin, the Squid Man is crazy! They bombed my capital!"

Yeltsin didn't speak.

He remembered that name.

"The Principal."

A former KGB man. Kryuchkov's deputy. The one who disappeared after the Soviet Union dissolved.

"President Assad," he began, "why did your men cross the Blue Line?"

Assad was taken aback.

"Because... because the Squid Man moved first!"

Yeltsin laughed.

A cold laugh.

"The Squid Man acted on Hezbollah. You acted on the Squid Man. Those are two different concepts."

The phone line went silent.

Yeltsin hung up.

He stood up and walked to the window.

Outside, Moscow's sky was gray, the red star of the Kremlin looming faintly in the mist.

"That 'Principal,'" he murmured, "He wants to drag me into this."