"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.
