Rielly gave him a skeptical look. "Come on. What else?"

"Nothing that I can talk about."

"Mitchell?"

"Anna," Rapp replied in a mocking tone. "You're going to have to get used to this. If I take this job, almost everything that I touch will be classified. I won't be able to come home and chat about it."

Rielly rolled her eyes. "Your whole life is classified."

"Honey, we might as well come to terms with this right now. If you won't respect the fact that I can't talk about ninety percent of what I do or see at work then I might as well tell Irene right now that I don't want the job." Rapp stared at her intensely to make sure she knew he was extremely serious about the issue.

"I'll respect it, I'll respect it. Don't worry."

"Good." Rapp leaned over and gave her a long kiss. Her lips felt so good. He was head over heels in love. He knew it was affecting his judgment, but there was nothing he could do about it. There was no turning back, no slamming on the brakes; he didn't even have the willpower to tap them. After a while he worked his way to her ear and asked, "Can we go upstairs and have sex now?"

Rielly purred her response, and they rose together and went into the house, leaving behind the warmth of the fire.

Oval Office, Tuesday morning

"What in the hell is this meeting about?"

President Hayes tilted his head down so he could look over the top of his specs at the three people standing in front of his desk. He was still drinking his morning coffee and reading the days schedule when the three of them had come waltzing in with apprehension on their faces. They then proceeded to dump something in his lap that was unusual, to say the least.

Valerie Jones, the President's chief of staff, spoke first. "I just heard about it for the first time five minutes ago." Jones turned to look past Michael Haik, the President's national security advisor, to Irene Kennedy.

Kennedy spoke."I received the call early this morning. He was very serious, but then again, he usually is"

Hayes leaned over on the left armrest and stroked his chin. This whole thing was strange, a first for him in his relatively short career as President. Nothing good could come of it, he was sure of that. Looking up at Kennedy, he asked, "Have they ever done something like this before?"

Kennedy thought about her dealings with the Israelis over the last two decades. "They request backdoor meetings with us from time to time. Usually for the obvious reasons: they don't want the press or any opposition to find out," Kennedy shook her head slightly, "but I don't seem to ever remember them going straight to the top."

"This can't be good. The director of Mossad flies to the United States and pretty much demands to see me. I don't see anything positive that can come out of this." Hayes looked up at his NSA. "Michael, what's going on over there? Any flare-ups in the peace process that I haven't been told about?"

"No, its the same old thing. Arafat demands XY and Z and then walks away from the table. The bombs start to go off and then a month later they sit back down at the peace table and start over again." "It's not that," Kennedy said in a thoughtful tone. "If it had something to do with the peace process they wouldn't fly Ben Freidman all the way in from Tel Aviv. Their ambassador would take care of it, or the prime minister would call" She paused and thought about another possibility. "No," she said making up her mind. "Ben Freidman means real trouble. Something is going on over there that we don't know about. Something serious."

"Great," the President grumbled. With more than a little frustration he said, "And none of you have any idea what it is."

"Sorry, sir," was all Haik could say.

The President thought about the situation for a moment. He was tempted to pick up the phone and call the Israeli prime minister, but caution got the better of him. The PM was due to visit the U. S. in two weeks. There was obviously a reason for sending Freidman. The President looked to Haik and said, "Get General Flood over here. I want him to sit in on this."

Haik grabbed the white handset of the bulky secure telephone unit sitting on the Presidents desk and hit the speed dial button for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Seconds later, General Flood was on the line and the national security advisor was explaining the situation. The general said he would be there just as quickly as his limousine could take him across the Potomac.

President Hayes checked his watch. It was a quarter past eight. "Freidman will be here at nine?"

"Yes," Kennedy answered.

"All right, between now and then I would like the three of you to try and come up with some idea of what this is all about." President Hayes snatched his glasses from his face and glared at three of his most trusted advisors. All he got in return were blank stares.

Colonel Freidman and his bodyguard caught a taxicab on Connecticut Avenue. Freidman could have easily requisitioned one of the embassy's limousines for the trip but he preferred to keep a low profile. Anyone arriving at the White House in a limousine was sure to get his or her photograph taken. There were other cities where Freidman wouldn't dare to move about unless he was entombed in an armor plated limousine, but Washington was not one of them. All of the various groups of the Middle East knew the rules. To attempt an assassination on American soil would be suicide, both financially and politically.

As the taxi headed toward the White House, Freidman stared out the window at the embassies they passed. The concentration of power in this town was unlike any other in the world, and Freidman was here to make a huge power play. He respected America; it was, after all, his country's greatest ally. Every year the Americans pumped billions of dollars into the Israeli economy, and the military aid they supplied was invaluable, but then again America had riches beyond her needs. There were many in Freidman's country though, who felt the Americans could give more, that they could do more to secure the borders of the only true democracy in the Middle East. Freidman was one of those people.

Trusted with the security of his tiny homeland, Freidman would stop at almost nothing to get what was good for Israel. He respected America, but in the end that respect was greatly overshadowed by his ultimate loyalty to the Israeli cause. America wasn't always willing to do everything they asked, and that was where Freidman often came in. The ugly secret was that the Mossad spied on the U. S. Not only did they spy, but from time to time they also ran covert operations against their greatest ally. That's not what this meeting was about, at least not yet. Played in the best possible light, it was about two allies taking on a common enemy. In the perpetually cynical eyes of Ben Freidman, it was getting the U. S. to do Israel's dirty work.

The taxi dropped them off two blocks from the White House, and the two men nonchalantly approached the northwest gate. They cleared security and were escorted to the White House Situation Room by one of the Presidents aides. Without having to be asked, Freidman's bodyguard headed down the hall to the White House Mess. His boss was secure inside the White House. The man would use the opportunity to get a cup of coffee and see if he could overhear any useful conversations. When Freidman entered the small conference room in the basement of the West Wing, he wasn't surprised in the least that there were only five people in attendance.

He was a little surprised, however, that no one rose to greet him. He took note of the mood and the lopsided seating arrangement. The President was where he expected him to be, at the head of the table; Kennedy was opposite the commander in chief at the other end and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs; the national security advisor and the chief of staff were all on one side of the table. Freidman draped his overcoat over one of the four empty chairs on his side of the table and looked to Kennedy to break the frigid air.