Without Warning Page 15

  On a good day, the drive took less than three hours. But with so much snow falling overnight, I knew we’d be lucky to get there in four.

  With my briefcase resting on my lap, I pulled out my grandfather’s watch. It was 9:47. I made a quick call to Matt to check on him. He said he was just about to go into the ICU and would have to call me back. He would be making the trip to Bar Harbor in a couple of hours with another team of FBI agents.

  Next I called Allen but got voice mail. I didn’t leave a message. Then I called Harris, hoping for an update.

  “How are you holding up, Collins?” he asked, answering on the first ring.

  “Surviving,” I said.

  “How did the meetings with the Sullivans go?”

  “Fine.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Just some loose ends they were trying to clear up.”

  “So what was in the safe-deposit box?” Harris asked.

  “Personal stuff.”

  “Nothing relevant to my investigation?” Harris pressed.

  “No,” I said. “Just some private things, family things.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Collins. You know it’s a crime to lie to a federal agent, right?”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  I hadn’t crossed that line, not exactly, but I had come pretty close. The letter was personal. It contained Khachigian’s thoughts, emotions, and desires for me and Matt and our family. It included his personal assessment of the president and the administration. It didn’t contain evidence relevant to a murder investigation—not precisely, anyway. I certainly wasn’t going to tell Harris that I now had new passports, driver’s licenses, and credit cards. Khachigian had given me those for the very real possibility that I would need to slip away unnoticed, undetected by the ever-watchful eye of the American government. Telling Harris would obviously and completely undermine that intended escape hatch.

  As for the three names, at the moment I had no idea who they were. Clearly they were old friends of, and trusted sources for, Khachigian. But beyond that I knew nothing about them, and as far as I was concerned, I was under no obligation to disclose them to the FBI. I wasn’t under investigation. I hadn’t been served a subpoena. I didn’t have to tell Harris anything I didn’t want to, and for the moment, I didn’t want to tell him this.

  Harris had no new information for me, so I ended the call and thought more about the three names. I was dying to know who they were. At the moment I had no time to do a background search on them, much less contact them, but I needed to connect with them soon. I needed to know what they knew and follow whatever clues they could give me. Yet I hesitated even to do a basic Google search for these names on my own mobile phone. Partly I was concerned that Harris might be monitoring my calls and online activity—mostly to protect me, of course, but perhaps also to keep an eye on me. Was that paranoia? Maybe. But for the moment, I decided extra caution was prudent.

  I was even more concerned that ISIS might somehow be monitoring Matt’s and my phones. How else had the terrorists known we were supposed to be at my mother’s home by seven o’clock that Thursday night? If they’d been physically trailing us, I was pretty sure I would have spotted them somewhere during our fifteen-plus-hour drive from Arlington. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that they must have intercepted the e-mail I’d sent to my mom from the service station on the Jersey Turnpike, giving her a heads-up that we were coming home and estimating our time of arrival. Matt had also sent a text to Annie telling her we’d be there by seven. They must have intercepted that one too.

  On the other hand, what about the voice messages I’d left later, updating both Mom and Annie on our progress and telling them that due to snow and traffic we likely wouldn’t reach Bar Harbor until closer to eight thirty? If the terrorists were truly tracking our calls and text messages, wouldn’t they have intercepted those messages as well? Then again, I’d made those calls at 7:27 p.m. Based on what Harris had told me, maybe it had already been too late. Maybe by then Abu Khalif’s men had already struck.

  Just then, I remembered there was still another envelope from Khachigian I had not yet opened. Fortunately, the agents in the front seat were engrossed in a conversation of their own. I wasn’t paying much attention, but from the fragments I’d caught so far, they were discussing the arrival of the vice president and how they were being instructed to interface with the Secret Service. That seemed as good an opportunity as any to investigate further without the FBI looking over my shoulder, so I opened my briefcase and pulled out the other sealed envelope. Opening it carefully, so as not to attract their attention, I was stunned to find paperwork detailing my new fractional ownership of a private Learjet.

  I quickly scanned the documents in my hands and learned that Khachigian had prepaid for 100,000 flight miles, including fuel costs, pilot time, landing fees, taxes, and other assorted fees. Included in the envelope was a membership card. It did not have my name on it. It didn’t have anyone’s name on it. It just had a membership number and a PIN code. Reading through the instructions, I learned that all I needed to do was call the 800 number on the back of the card—or the international toll-free number from anywhere outside the U.S.—and punch in my number and PIN. At that point, I would be immediately connected to a flight coordinator who would simply ask where I wanted to depart from, at what time, what my destination was, and how many passengers would be accompanying me. The entire process was anonymous. They didn’t care who I was. They just needed the number, the PIN, and six hours of advance notice before departure.

  That could come in handy, I thought as I finished reading. Then I put the card in my wallet, the paperwork back in the envelope, and the envelope back in my briefcase.

  40

  An hour later, we were tearing up I-295, heading north.

  I used my iPhone to check the financial markets. They were up and running again as of that morning, after having been shut down for several days by the Feds. But already they were tanking. The Dow was down more than six hundred points. The NASDAQ was down more than 5 percent. It shouldn’t have been surprising, given how bad the Nikkei, Hang Seng, and other international markets had been in recent days. But seeing everything so deep in the red—and knowing the satisfaction that must be giving Abu Khalif—sent a chill down my spine.

  I knew I should be responding to the avalanche of e-mails and phone calls that were pouring in regarding the service, but all I wanted to do just then was play hooky. I’d had no time to think, no time to grieve. I wasn’t sleeping well and had no one to talk to. Matt was in even more pain. Allen had his hands full with all the media inquiries. And I certainly wasn’t going to pour out my emotions to these agents from the FBI.

  Thinking of Allen reminded me of the article he wanted me to read. I pulled up the Times app on my phone and looked for the front-page piece by my colleague Bill Sanders. The headline immediately caught my attention: Egypt Emerges as Unexpected Ally in Hunt for Abu Khalif. It was datelined Cairo.

  As I scanned the story, it became immediately apparent that congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle were furious that the Taylor administration was doing so little to bring the ISIS leader to justice. Yes, the president had ordered new bombing runs and drone strikes. But according to Sanders’s reporting, this was not a fundamental change of U.S. strategy. Rather, unnamed congressional leaders—and the unnamed head of a foreign intelligence service—said these attacks were “short-term fixes” aimed at “satiating America’s bloodlust for revenge.” The air strikes might last for a few weeks, said an anonymous member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but they would be curtailed again once all the anger at ISIS had calmed down a bit.

  “President Taylor has no appetite for a serious and prolonged war against the Islamic State inside Syria,” said the unnamed senator. “It doesn’t fit his strategy of containing the caliphate rather than crushing it.”

  Now, Sanders wrote, attention was shifting to Arab intelligenc
e services for help in taking out ISIS leaders and operatives, and Egypt was emerging as chief among equals.

  There were several more quotes by Republican senators speaking on background, chastising the White House and State Department for “not being serious” about winning the “great war of our time” and for “seeking sensational headlines, not serious solutions.”

  This struck me as shoddy journalism. Why was Sanders giving cover to GOP lawmakers, letting them take unnamed potshots at the president? If the Republicans had something of import to say, Sanders should have required them to say it on the record.

  Far more interesting was a scathing—and very much on-the-record—statement by the ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, excoriating the administration for not taking specific and decisive action against Abu Khalif in the aftermath of the widespread ISIS attacks inside the U.S.

  “Run this [expletive deleted] to ground and blow him to kingdom come,” said Jane Oliphant, the senior senator from Rhode Island and former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “What the [expletive deleted] is the White House waiting for? Are we really going to outsource this to the Israelis, the Jordanians, and the Egyptians? All three are great friends and capable allies. But we’re the [expletive deleted] United States of America, for crying out loud. It’s time for the president to show these [expletive deleted] what Uncle Sam is truly capable of.”

  Sanders dutifully quoted the president’s national security advisor insisting that “every possible measure is being taken” to track down the emir of ISIS and counseling patience for “those in the peanut gallery who perhaps have read a few too many spy thrillers and think hunting terrorists is easy and quick.”

  However, Sanders also cited an unnamed CIA official who admitted that the fear of ISIS moles in senior positions in government agencies was “nearly paralyzing” the U.S. intelligence community. “No one knows who to trust,” he said. “So no one is sharing information and things are getting missed.”

  “Enter the Egyptians,” Sanders wrote. “Working quietly but in remarkably close cooperation with the Israeli Mossad and the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate, senior officials in Cairo have made the hunt for Abu Khalif a top priority. In the past thirty days, Egyptian police and security forces have arrested twenty-three ISIS operatives. In the process they have scooped up an enormous amount of intelligence about ISIS methods, and more raids and arrests are expected in coming days.”

  As I kept reading, I forgave Sanders for letting a few Republican senators snipe at their political adversary on background. The rest of his reporting was as riveting as it was detailed. He described intense interrogation sessions of ISIS terrorists by Egyptian agents, the seizure of cell phones and laptops, the cracking of passcodes and encryption software, and even a list of confirmed locations where Abu Khalif had been sighted over the past two months. On that list were the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Dohuk and the Syrian cities of Raqqa, Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, and al-Mayadin. Given that I myself had theorized that Khalif might be in Raqqa, the ISIS capital in Syria, the story rang true. But Sanders had pieces of the puzzle I did not.

  He cited a senior Egyptian intelligence official saying he had actually been privy to grainy photos of Abu Khalif getting into the back of an ambulance in Raqqa, reportedly headed for Deir ez-Zor. However, the official noted, none of the witnesses indicated that Khalif was injured.

  “The ISIS leader appears to be using Red Crescent ambulances as his personal taxicabs to obscure his movements,” said the Cairo-based official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

  The article didn’t quote any sources saying the Egyptians, Jordanians, or Israelis were close to actually finding the ISIS leader. But in the infuriating absence of American leadership, the three countries had apparently banded together on a mission each regarded as vital to its own national security.

  Clearly the hunt for Abu Khalif was on. But according to Sanders, the White House wasn’t exactly taking the lead.

  41

  We arrived at the Harborside Hotel, and I checked in.

  The agents secured my room, then left me to myself and occupied the rooms on either side of mine, though not before cleaning out the minibar, at my request.

  “Two years, six months, and three days,” I told them as they removed all the alcohol from my room. “One step at a time. One day at a time.”

  I said it. I meant it. But there was no question I intensely wanted to drink and drink heavily. The pain of the last few days was sinking in more and more, and I desperately wanted an escape. The brutal truth was that I was an alcoholic. It had nearly destroyed me in the past. It was a constant temptation, and though I was determined to manage it, I genuinely feared I was going to crack.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text message from my friend Carl Hughes, the longtime deputy director of intelligence at the CIA. In December, after the arrest of then-Director Jack Vaughn on charges of espionage, the president had named Carl the agency’s acting director. I immediately dialed the number he gave, eager to hear his voice.

  I’d known Carl, now fifty-two, for nearly twenty-five years. We’d first met at American University, where I was an undergrad majoring in political science and he was a grad student studying international affairs. We’d become friends and kept in reasonably close touch over the years as he’d gone off to work at Langley while I’d gone to Columbia for an MA in journalism before taking a job with the New York Daily News covering local crime stories prior to landing a position as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press. We’d both done well for ourselves. Eventually I’d moved over to the Times and emerged as the paper’s chief national security correspondent. Carl had proven himself one of the most impressive analysts who had ever risen through the ranks of America’s intelligence community. Now he had finally been named to the top spot.

  His secretary answered. I gave my name and said I was returning Carl’s message and wanted to thank him for his condolences. She immediately transferred me to his executive assistant, a man with a military background who, among other responsibilities, was tasked with making sure not just anyone got through to the acting director. Again I explained who I was and why I was calling. I stressed that I was calling as an old friend, not as a journalist. Finally Hughes came on the line.

  “J. B., I’m so sorry not to have called sooner,” he began. “I just . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and as it did, the weight of all that had happened hit me again, and hard.

  “Don’t worry about it, Carl,” I said. “You’ve got a very full plate.”

  Nevertheless, he apologized profusely for not being able to come up for the funeral. I told him that was fine, but he insisted on explaining. He’d initially arranged to join the vice president on Air Force Two the following morning and surprise me, but the president had suddenly decided to send him to Moscow on agency business. He was leaving in a few hours.

  He asked me how I was doing. He asked how Matt was holding up and what the doctors were saying about Annie and Katie. I told him what I knew, which still wasn’t much, then took a deep breath and shifted gears.

  “Carl,” I began. “I have to ask—”

  But he immediately cut me off. “Don’t, J. B.”

  “What?” I said, taken aback. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  “Of course I do—we’ve known each other too long. You want to ask whether the president is serious about hunting down Abu Khalif. But you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t go there.”

  “Because you can’t tell me anything?”

  “No, of course I can’t,” he said. I expected him to say he needed to take another call and let me go. But to my surprise, he continued, perhaps taking pity on me. “Look, I can’t say it on the record, of course, and you can never repeat this, but your instincts were spot-on. All the warnings were there. Every light on the dashboard was blinking red. We didn’t k
now certain pieces, but we knew enough. We knew something was coming. We knew it for weeks. We knew ISIS had people here. It was inevitable with all the refugees the president’s been welcoming into the country with open arms. We didn’t know which ones, of course. There were too many to vet—more than fifty thousand—it was an impossible situation. But I personally briefed the president and the NSC on five separate occasions. I urged him to shut down the airports and seaports. I pleaded with him to delay the State of the Union. He wouldn’t hear of it. Any of it. And then the NSA intercepted two calls and a text message. I personally called Larry Beck at the FBI. That’s how they found the cell in Birmingham. We were hot on their trail, J. B. Another twenty-four hours, and we would have had them—some of them, anyway.”

  I was floored—not just that the head of the CIA was telling me so much, even as a friend, but much more by the damning nature of what he was saying. If the president had known all this before any of it had gone down, then he had stood there in the Oval Office and lied to my face. He had stood there in the House Chamber and lied to a joint session of Congress and the country. The state of the union was not strong. ISIS was not on the run. Abu Khalif had not been contained. Rather, he and his minions were coming to kill Americans, and the commander in chief wasn’t doing all he could to stop them.

  I’d gotten my answer. No, the president wasn’t serious about hunting down Abu Khalif. Someone else was going to have to do it. Maybe the Egyptians were up to the task. Or the Israelis. Or perhaps the Jordanians.