Without Warning Page 8

  “Taking risks. Feeding me information.”

  Harris said nothing. The elevator headed up.

  “The two agents who took my statement,” I said.

  “What about them?”

  “They wanted to know who’d leaked me the info about the mortar shells.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “I think you know exactly what I told them,” I said. “In fact, I think you told them to ask who fed me the information and to keep pressing me to see if I’d crack.”

  “And why would I do that?” he asked as we passed the second floor and kept heading up.

  “To see if I could be trusted.”

  Harris said nothing as we cleared the third floor.

  “Can you be?” he asked finally.

  “You tell me,” I said.

  The elevator dinged. The doors opened. We had reached the fifth floor.

  “Guess the answer is yes,” I said, then stepped off.

  I nodded to several uniformed agents holding automatic weapons, but they neither stopped nor searched me. Then I followed Harris to a suite of offices on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the building. A secretary waved us forward. The security men posted nearby nodded but didn’t say a word. The name on the door was Lawrence S. Beck, Director.

  Beck was a legend in D.C. He had been a special agent for the bureau for almost twenty years before being appointed to serve as the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York. Later he served for three years as U.S. assistant attorney general. During his career, Beck had successfully prosecuted some of the most notorious serial killers, embezzlers, mobsters, and terrorists in the country’s history. At fifty-six, he was tough as nails, straight as an arrow, and as bald as I was after a fresh shave.

  We’d actually met once in Baghdad at an embassy function in the Green Zone just after the liberation of Iraq in the summer of 2003. He was helping advise the Iraqis in how to set up their justice department. Tall and lanky, brimming with energy, he hadn’t been real chatty. Instead, he’d chain-smoked through the evening, and given that he didn’t really affect my beat directly, I’d not paid any more attention to him. Now I was standing in his office.

  “Mr. Collins, have a seat,” the director said.

  I did as I was told. Harris sat beside me. Beck didn’t sit at all. Rather, he paced and chewed—constantly—what I guessed was nicotine gum. I saw no ashtrays in the room. There was no smell of smoke. No stains on his fingers. Just the telltale signs of a man who wished I were offering him a light.

  “Impressive work on tracking the ISIS story, Mr. Collins—the chemical weapons in Syria and all,” he began. “Three separate intelligence agencies were pursuing that story. But you’re the one who confirmed it.”

  “Lot of good it did,” I said, in no mood to take credit given all the carnage that had ensued.

  “Not your fault,” he said, striding over to the enormous plate-glass windows overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue and the crime scene five stories below. “Those were political decisions, and—off the record—foolish ones. Nothing you could’ve done about that. You got the facts. You got them right. You put them out there for the world to see. There was nothing more you could do.”

  He was right. But so what? Where was he going with this? I was tempted to ask but held my tongue. Beck had summoned me. He had something to say to—or ask—me. He’d get to it in due time. There was no point seeming overeager.

  “Did you catch the president’s speech this morning?” he asked.

  I glanced at Harris, then back at Beck.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Any initial reaction?”

  It seemed a strange question for the director of the FBI to ask any reporter, especially a New York Times correspondent. His was an apolitical position. So was mine. At least, it was supposed to be. What should my reaction be? And why would he care?

  I shrugged. Beck stopped pacing. He just stood behind his desk and waited for me to answer. But I said nothing.

  “You had no reaction at all?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking, sir,” I said cautiously.

  “It didn’t seem odd to you the president didn’t accuse ISIS, didn’t mention Abu Khalif, didn’t suggest this was the emir’s payback for Alqosh?” Beck pressed.

  For a moment I stayed silent.

  Beck didn’t move. Didn’t resume pacing. Didn’t say a word.

  “Okay,” I said finally, seeing nothing to lose. “Off the record, yes—it did seem odd.”

  He waited for me to go further.

  It wasn’t just odd, of course. It was insane—an epic dereliction of duty. But why did Beck care what I thought? Again, I wasn’t a columnist. I wasn’t a pundit. I was a news reporter. My personal views were supposed to be irrelevant.

  “Look, Director,” I said at last, “if you’ve got something to tell me, I’m all ears. But I’m afraid I can’t comment on the president’s speech. Yes, I found it odd. But beyond that, I’m trying my best to stay objective.”

  Beck nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. Then he opened a file on his desk and began sliding one eight-by-ten glossy color photo after another over to me. And one after another, I gathered them off the desk, reviewed them, and passed them to Harris to look at. The photos showed an abandoned facility, a relic of D.C.’s history.

  “You’re looking at what used to be the Alexander Crummell School,” Beck said. “It’s a twenty-thousand-square-foot building set on two and a half acres on Galludet Street.”

  “Just off of New York?” I asked.

  Beck nodded.

  “The Ivy City district,” I said.

  “That’s right. You know it?”

  “Sure.” I had recognized the neighborhood immediately. “I had an apartment near there years ago when I first started with the Times.”

  “Then you might know the school was built in 1911 and shuttered in 1977,” he continued.

  I didn’t. Nor did I care. I was waiting for the punch line.

  Beck slid more photos across the desk. The first three weren’t interesting in the slightest. They showed several angles of an unmarked tractor trailer bearing Alabama license plates, sitting in the snowy parking lot of the abandoned school. The fourth photo, however, sent a jolt of adrenaline through my system.

  20

  “You found the weapon,” I said, stunned.

  I stared at the photo, trying to take it all in. When I didn’t immediately hand it to him, Harris leaned over and gasped.

  “One of them,” Beck confirmed. “What you’re looking at, gentlemen, is a World War II–era U.S. Army M114-model howitzer. It’s capable of firing 155-millimeter shells—each weighing about ninety-five pounds—up to a maximum range of about nine miles.”

  “How far is the school from the Capitol?” I asked.

  “Just over two miles,” the director noted. “And there’s more.” He handed us more photos. “Now you’re looking at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parochial School—or what’s left of it. It was a Catholic elementary school for, I don’t know, half a century or more. Three stories. Playground. Parking lot. Used to take in hundreds of kids, mostly African American, but it’s been abandoned since 2007.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “1409 V Street Southeast.”

  “Anacostia,” I said.

  “Right,” Beck agreed. “Just a block from the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. Used to be a jewel. But the diocese ran out of money and shut her down.”

  “How far is it from the Capitol?” I asked.

  “Two and a quarter miles,” Beck said.

  “Straight shot, no obstructions?” Harris asked.

  “’Fraid so,” Beck said, nodding, then showed us a photo taken from the roof of the school. The smoking wreckage of the Capitol Dome was clearly visible, and every muscle in my aching body tightened.

  Next Beck showed us photos of another abandoned, unmarked 18-wheeler, also bearing Alabama tags, and
another M114 howitzer.

  “Unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. “Please tell me you’ve got suspects in custody.”

  “Not yet,” Beck said, but then he corrected himself. “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Rather than telling me, Beck simply passed more photos across the desk. These next shots had been taken at a construction compound just off of Douglass Road in Anacostia, not far from the Suitland Parkway. Another 18-wheeler. Another set of Alabama plates. But unlike before, these photos revealed stacks of intact, unfired 155-millimeter mortar shells—nineteen, by my count. Then came a photo of an African American security guard, graying, probably in his late fifties. He’d been murdered, double-tapped to the chest.

  “Where’s the howitzer?” I asked.

  Beck handed me more eight-by-ten glossies. One showed the twisted, scorched remains of a World War II–era howitzer. Others showed bits and pieces of the howitzer spread all over the compound.

  “What happened?” I asked, my thoughts racing.

  “Apparently one of the mortar rounds exploded inside the barrel of the howitzer before it could be fired. Or perhaps it blew up as it was being fired. Our technical teams are still on site, doing their analyses.”

  “And whoever was manning this thing fled when the howitzer blew up too?”

  Beck shook his head. “Worse.”

  The final seven photos were each more gruesome than the last. They revealed dead men in their mid- to late twenties. Each had dark skin and a beard. And they all had clearly been killed by exposure to sarin gas. I had seen it before—in Amman, in Mosul, and in Alqosh. I knew the signs. Their eyes were glassy and dilated. Their hands and fingers were twisted. Some were curled up in a fetal position. There was unmistakable evidence that each of them had lost control of their bodily functions in their final moments. They had urinated and defecated all over themselves. Several were covered in their own vomit. They had died just the way they had intended their victims to die, the way they had intended the president to die, the way they had intended my brother and me to die.

  I couldn’t look any longer. Shuddering, I stood, walked over to the windows, and looked out at the fresh snow falling on a city reeling from the latest wave of evil. The death toll—at 136—wasn’t as high as the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, which had claimed 184 lives. But the al Qaeda attacks had taken place almost two decades earlier. A generation of young people had been born and raised since those attacks. They’d only heard about them through textbooks, documentaries, and annual memorial services. These attacks by ISIS were as fresh as they were horrific, and since they had come on the heels of the disaster in Amman, every American knew two things: First, it could have been much worse. And second, it wasn’t the end; much more was surely coming.

  Abu Khalif had launched an unprecedented chemical weapons attack inside the heart of the American democracy. This was the first time weapons of mass destruction had ever been used against the American people inside the American homeland, and it had taken place in prime time, during a nationally televised State of the Union address, when an estimated 70 million Americans had been watching.

  “Have you ID’d the seven yet?” I asked, fixated on the smoke still rising from the House Chamber but forcing myself to do my job.

  “We have,” Beck said. “Five are recent Syrian refugees. Each entered the U.S. in the past year as part of the president’s program to welcome and absorb fifty thousand refugees fleeing ISIS. The sixth was an Iraqi national. He was captured by U.S. forces as a member of AQI and sent to Abu Ghraib. He got out the night Abu Khalif escaped.”

  “The night I was there, interviewing Khalif?” I clarified.

  I saw Beck’s reflection in the window as he nodded.

  “And the seventh man?” I asked, turning to see Beck handing his entire file over to Harris.

  This time Harris answered, reviewing the notes. “Jordanian. Twenty-six. Graduate of MIT. Studied chemical engineering. Son of a Jordanian member of Parliament.”

  “You’re kidding me,” I said.

  “Wish I were.”

  “What else?” I asked, my thoughts reeling.

  “They’re all ISIS,” the director said. “Every single one of them. None of them were carrying passports or other forms of ID. But we’ve recovered their phones. We’ve got their fingerprints. We’re still crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, but the evidence is overwhelming. They’re all in our databases. They’ve all sworn allegiance to the caliphate and to Abu Khalif personally. Several of them posted videos of themselves doing so on YouTube. And if these seven are ISIS, we can be pretty sure the teams who ran the other two locations were ISIS as well.”

  “So the president was lying,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Beck countered.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” I argued. “You’re a career lawyer, and you’re the director of the FBI, personally chosen and appointed by the president. But facts are facts.”

  “Let’s stick to what we know for now, Mr. Collins,” Beck replied.

  “Didn’t the president just tell us it’s ‘too early to say who is responsible for these attacks’?”

  Neither Beck nor Harris responded.

  “Didn’t he say, ‘We must not make the mistake of jumping to conclusions that this was the work of a single organization’?” I pressed.

  “Mr. Collins, the president is operating in the midst of a fast-moving crisis,” Beck replied. “He didn’t say it wasn’t ISIS. He merely said it was too soon to point a finger. And he’s right. Our investigation is still ongoing.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, Abu Khalif just tried to take out the entire American government,” I said. “Then he and his men tried to slaughter me and Agent Harris in front of your own building, blocks from the White House. The president should be ordering the annihilation of ISIS strongholds in Syria. He should be unleashing the entire might of the American military toward finding and killing the head of ISIS. You know it. The entire country knows it. Don’t start making excuses for him. Not now. Not after all we’ve been through.”

  “He’s not making excuses,” Harris responded. “He’s telling you to keep your head in the game and stay focused on the mission at hand.”

  “Yeah? And what’s the mission?” I asked, my face red, the back of my neck burning. I knew I was about to lose it.

  Harris held up the file. “Putting everything he just told you on the front page.”

  21

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  “J. B., wake up.”

  I groaned, rolled over, pulled the blankets up over my head, and flipped my pillow to the cool side. But then I heard it again.

  “Come on, wake up, J. B.—listen to me—it’s important.”

  Was that Matt’s voice? How could it be? It was way too early. I had to be dreaming. But then I heard it again.

  “J. B., seriously—you need to get up.”

  That was definitely the voice of my big brother. I forced my groggy eyes open.

  The room was dark and quiet but for the howling winter winds rattling my windows and the low hum of a space heater a few feet away. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand next to me. You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought. It was 4:36 in the morning. I’d been back in my apartment for less than three hours. There was no way I was getting up now.

  “Go back to sleep,” I mumbled, then shut my eyes again.

  Suddenly all the lights came on and Matt kicked the side of the bed. I sat up, shielded my eyes with my arm, and tried to imagine why in the world Matt would want to provoke me into punching him in the face.

  “Are you crazy?” I snapped. “Turn it off.”

  “Here,” Matt said, tossing a fresh copy of the Times on my lap. “Check out the front-page headline, top of the fold.”

  Annoyed, I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes and concentrate on the paper in my hands. Evidence Strongly Sugges
ts ISIS Responsible for Chemical Attack in D.C., Says FBI Director, read the headline.

  “It’s all over cable news and it’s blowing up Twitter right now,” Matt said.

  My exclusive interview with FBI Director Beck was the lead story, along with insider details of the bureau’s ongoing investigation. Below the fold was my two-thousand-word firsthand account of the terror attacks. Allen had been ecstatic. These stories were going to drive the national news cycle. But they were no cause for getting up at zero-dark-thirty.

  “Drink up,” Matt said before I could snap at him again. He handed me a piping hot Starbucks mug.

  “Not bad,” I said, taking my first sip and savoring the perfect aroma. “Now what in the world is going on?”

  “Didn’t you get my note?” he asked.

  “What note?”

  “The one I left on your bathroom mirror last night.”

  “Why—what’d it say?”

  “How could you not have seen it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just didn’t.”

  “What time did you get in?”

  “I don’t know—one fifteen, maybe one thirty.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Didn’t you brush your teeth?”

  “What are you, Mom?” I asked, my annoyance growing.

  “I left you a note.”

  “Fine—but I missed it. What does it matter?”

  He just looked at me like I should know what he was talking about. “What’s today?” he finally asked.

  I shrugged. “Thursday.”

  “Yeah, but what day?”

  “Who cares?”

  “I do.”

  “Just let me go back to sleep.”

  “What day is it, J. B.?”

  “I don’t know—the sixteenth.”

  “No, it’s the seventeenth—it’s right there on the front page.”

  “Okay, fine, it’s the seventeenth. So what?”

  “So it’s February 17,” Matt said.

  I just stared at him.

  “Three days after Valentine’s Day?” he said. “Ring any bells?”

  I sighed and took another sip of the coffee. It had been a long time since I’d thought or cared about Valentine’s Day, and Matt knew it. I was divorced. I wasn’t seeing anyone. The only woman I really cared about had nearly died in my arms on the other side of the world, and now I barely ever heard from her. Then it hit me. Matt and Annie had gotten married three days after Valentine’s Day, three months before she graduated from college.