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.Otherwise, they would think he was someone else and he would be in seriousdanger.After the courier arrived in Syria, I called Meshaal and told him to expect to be contactedsoon.If anyone else had told him that, Khalid would have immediately become suspiciousand refused a meeting.But this man had been sent by his young friend, the son of HassanYousef.So he believed he had nothing to worry about.When they met, Khalid requested the letter. What letter? our courier asked.He didn t know he was supposed to have a letter. I had given Khalid a hint about where to look, and they foundthe compartment in one of the shoes.In this way, a newcommunications channel was established with Damascus,even though Meshaal had no idea that he was actually on aparty line with the Shin Bet listening in.Chapter 20: TornSummer 2001A little before 2 p.m.on August 9, 2001, twenty-two-year-old Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masriblew himself up at the crowded Sbarro pizza parlor at King George Street and Jaffa Road.Al-Masri was from an affluent family in the West Bank.Between five and ten kilograms of explosives sprayed nails, nuts, and bolts into the sum-mer crowd, killing 15 people and maiming another 130.Between this horror and the Dolphin-arium bombing a few months earlier, the citizenry of Israel was almost blind with grief andrage.Whatever group or faction was behind these attacks had to be identified and stoppedbefore more innocents were killed.Otherwise, events would very likely spiral out of controland unleash unprecedented death and heartache across the region.Again and again, the Shin Bet pored over every detail of the bombing, trying to connect itto the five guys at the safe house Muhammad Jamal al-Natsheh, Saleh Talahme, IbrahimHamed, Sayyed al-Sheikh Qassem, and Hasaneen Rummanah but not a shred of evidencetied them to the Dolphinarium or Sbarro attacks.Who could have made such bombs? Certainly not some chemistry or engineering student.We knew every one of them, the grades they got, and what they ate for breakfast.Whoever was building these bombs was an expert, didn t seem to be affiliated with any ofthe Palestinian factions, and was flying way below our radar.Somehow, we had to find himbefore he made more bombs.This guy was superdangerous.What we didn t realize at the time was that Arafat s people had received a call from theCIA shortly after the Sbarro attack. We know who made the bombs, the Americans toldthem. His name is Abdullah Barghouti; he lives with a relative named Bilal Barghouti.Here istheir address.Go arrest them. Within hours, Abdullah and Bilal Barghouti were in PA custody not that the PalestinianAuthority wanted to arrest them, but to keep the money and logistical support flowing fromWashington, Arafat knew it had to at least appear that the PA was doing its part to keep thepeace.I believe Arafat would have preferred to give Abdullah Barghouti a medal rather than aprison sentence. No sooner was Abdullah comfortably secured at Preventive Security Headquarters thananother Barghouti Marwan showed up to get him out.The PA could not release Abdul-lah the CIA had dropped him into their laps, and America expected them to deal with him.Israel expected the same and would definitely take more decisive action if the PA neglectedits duty.So Marwan gave Abdullah food, clothes, and money, keeping him under a type ofhouse arrest working in a nice office, smoking, drinking coffee, and chatting with top securityofficers.Though not related, Marwan Barghouti and Abdullah Barghouti shared an interesting com-mon history.They both had connections to the twenty-three-year-old certifiable lunatic namedMuhaned Abu Halawa, who had been a lieutenant to Ahmad Ghandour.Halawa was a Fatah field commander and a member of Force 17.When you think of elitetroops like Force 17 and Saddam Hussein s Republican Guards, discipline, skill, and sharptraining come to mind.But Halawa didn t fit the model.He was an uneducated loose cannonwho often carried around one of the huge machine guns usually mounted on jeeps.Halawaroutinely distributed guns to other extremists and unsavory characters who then used themwhen driving by checkpoints, strafing soldiers and civilians indiscriminately.Back in May, for example, he had given someone a couple of loaded AK-47s and a sackof bullets.Not long after, this man and a friend waited in ambush along a road coming out ofJerusalem and put thirteen of those bullets into a Greek Orthodox monk named TsibouktsakisGermanus.Halawa rewarded the killers with more guns for an attack he was planning atHebrew University on Mount Scopus.Understandably, it wasn t long before Israel pressured the Shin Bet to put Halawa per-manently out of business.Because of my Hamas connections, I was the only one in the ShinBet who could identify him.But for the first time in my life, I was facing a real moral dilemma.Something inside me was completely opposed to killing this man, regardless of how bad hewas.I went home and pulled out my now-worn Bible.I searched and searched and could findnothing in the Bible that would sanction murder.But I also couldn t deal with the blood thatwould be on my hands if we let him go on living and shooting people.I felt caught.I kept thinking and praying to God Almighty, until finally I prayed, Forgive me, Lord, forwhat I am about to do.Forgive me.This man cannot live. That s good, Loai said, when I told him my decision. We ll get him.You just make surethat Marwan Barghouti is not in the car with him. Marwan was not only a big-shot Palestinian, he was also a terrorist in his own right with alot of Israeli blood on his hands.And as much as the Shin Bet hated him, they did not wanthim assassinated because he would make a formidable martyr. On August 4, 2001, I was sitting in my car outside of Barghouti s office when I saw Halawawalk in.A couple of hours later, he came out, got into his gold VW Golf, and drove off.I calledthe security forces and assured them that Halawa was alone.From inside a tank at the top of a nearby hill, IDF soldiers watched Halawa s car, waitingfor a clear shot with no civilians close by.The first armor-piercing missile headed for the wind-shield, but Halawa must have seen it coming, because he opened his door and tried to jumpout.He wasn t fast enough.The missile exploded and threw him out of the car.Mycar which was sitting several hundred yards away shook with the force of the blast.Asecond missile missed and hit the street.The Golf was in flames, and so was Halawa but hewasn t dead.As I watched him run through the streets, screaming in pain as the flames en-gulfed his body, my heart nearly pounded out of my chest.What had we done? What are you doing! the Shin Bet yelled at me through my cell phone when they caughtsight of my car so close to the scene. Do you want to get killed? Get out of there! Though I was not supposed to be anywhere near the attack site, I had driven down to seewhat would happen.I felt responsible and obligated to see what I was a part of.It was indeedstupid.If I had been spotted, it would have been too much of a coincidence for anybody to be-lieve that I wasn t involved in the assassination attempt, and I would have been exposed forsure.That evening, I went with my father and Marwan Barghouti to the hospital to visit Halawa.His face was so horribly burned I couldn t even look at him
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