H.M.S. Unseen (40 page)

Then he walked back up to St. Stephen’s Green and picked up a cab from the rank. He had it drive him to the great round building of the American Embassy, which sat in its own grounds behind a black wrought-iron fence at the end of Shelbourne Road. He walked through the small gateway, crossed the cobbled courtyard, and walked up the slope to the visa office. He explained to the duty guard that he wanted to pick up application forms for a B-2 multiple-entry business visa.

The guard waved him through the security X-Ray, and at the counter the Iraqi terrorist was the only person seeking help. The Irish lady was polite and genial. She gave him the form and pointed out that he must fill it in carefully, explaining that he must pay the fee into the Irish Bank along the road and collect a receipt. He must also provide a photograph, passport size, and acquire a letter from his bank or employer to confirm that he was a man of substance and would not be entering America in order to receive welfare payments.

Ben thanked her and took a cab back into the center of the city to the office of the Royal Bank of Scotland. There he explained to the manager that he was an established client of the bank, at the Helensburgh Branch, and would like a letter explaining that he had run an account from there for many years, and that it currently contained a sum well in excess of £50,000 sterling.

The manager said he would fax the request to Helensburgh immediately and that Mr. Arnold should call in tomorrow morning and collect the letter of recommendation, which would be marked for the attention of the U.S. Embassy.

Ben picked up another cab and returned to the Berkeley Court, retired to his room, and worked on the long, detailed form, electing to use his British passport, into which the coveted B-2 businessman’s visa would be stamped, valid for ten years. The notice in the embassy specified it would take two working days. But the lady behind the counter had explained that if he could return the completed documents the following morning, Friday, they would almost certainly be ready after two-thirty on Monday.

Faced with a lonely weekend in rainy Dublin, the commander walked slowly back to the hotel, reflecting that when he entered the United States, officials would not be looking for a man with a visa. He suspected that at Shannon Airport, they might not be looking for anyone at all.

But first he must ensure the visa was issued. And back in his room he checked every question carefully, ensuring that all of his answers were those of a stable, well-to-do Scottish businessman from Helensburgh…Ben Arnold, mining executive, with interests in the South African coal and copper fields. Currently residing in Dublin for six months. He had invented his address, invented his profession, invented his corporation, invented his name, forged his British passport. The only truthful document he would present to the American consular officials would be the letter from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The next morning, when he picked it up from their Dublin office, it was precisely as he wished—“
To the American Embassy, Dublin. This letter is to confirm that Mr. Benjamin Arnold has had an account with us for more than 15 years, and that his current balance shows in excess of
£
50,000 sterling.”

He walked to a supermarket, where he had four passport pictures taken in a machine. Then he stopped at the Bank of Ireland and paid the fee of sixteen Irish pounds, collected his receipt, and strolled the quarter mile to the embassy. There he placed his British passport, his signed application form, his photograph, his letter from the bank, and his receipt for the fee, into a brown envelope, and deposited it in the polished wooden drop box. As he left, the American security guard smiled, and said, “After two-thirty Monday, sir. It should be ready.”

He then walked over the wide bridge that spans the River Dodder, toward the headquarters of the Dublin Horse Show. He crossed the road to a shopfront marked Ballsbridge Travel and went inside, requesting a business-class round-trip ticket from Shannon Airport to Boston on Tuesday, April 11. He was looked after by a trim, pretty Irish girl named Loraine, who checked and accepted his credit card, and booked him on the Aer Lingus Flight that leaves Dublin at midday and arrives in Shannon twenty-five minutes later. But Ben planned to drive from Dublin, leaving early in the morning and making Shannon by 1100 to check in and arrange for the return of the car to Helensburgh.

He took his ticket and walked back to the hotel. After a light lunch, he traveled by taxi out to the suburb of Clonskeagh, to spend the afternoon at the Islamic Center and Mosque, a truly stunning religious and educational establishment founded in 1996 by Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum of Dubai, for the 7,000 Muslims who live in southern Ireland, mostly in Dublin.

The mosque is a magnificent stone building set beneath a vast copper dome. It holds 1,200 people, and Ben Adnam answered the Friday evening call to prayer, kneeling with several hundred of the faithful, begging his God for guidance and forgiveness.

All through that long weekend, the commander went back and forth from the Berkeley Hotel to Clonskeagh. He read the Koran in the library, attended prayers throughout the day and early evening, and on the Sunday afternoon succeeded in gaining a private audience with the imam, a wise and considerate Egyptian sheikh whose teachings had brought comfort to many of his countrymen.

Ben Adnam was unable to reveal the truth about himself, but he tried to explain his predicament, that he had worked for governments, carrying out their bidding, because he believed in their motives. He spoke of his betrayal by those governments, and tried to define his current dilemma, and his desperate need to attain the understanding of Allah.

The imam was thoughtful and encouraging. But as with all Sunni Muslims, he stressed that Benjamin must continue to nurture his own faith, that no one could help him with that. But he assured the weeping ex–Naval commander who knelt before him, that Allah was merciful, that in his opinion, Allah would not damn him, and that in the fullness of time, subject to prayer and devotion to the teachings of the Prophet, Benjamin would one day be welcomed into the arms of his God.

By night Ben slept only fitfully in his luxurious bedroom in the Berkeley, fighting off the persistent nightmares, awakening in the dark, and spending hours trying to reconcile the brute instincts of the international terrorist with his devout and pious yearnings to be closer to the kingdom of Allah. The result was always confusion, as the images before his mind, images of death and destruction, raced on with the glancing speed of all disconnected dreams.

At 1430 on Monday he walked into the consular section of the United States Embassy. The guard waved him through the security X-Ray, and told him to go straight to window three. The lady behind the glass recognized him, and smiled. “Mr. Arnold?” Ben nodded, and she handed him an envelope in which was placed his passport and the letter from the bank.

Outside in the courtyard, beneath the great fluttering Stars and Stripes at the top of the flagstaff, he stood for a moment and opened it. Taking up one full page in his passport was the official entry visa to the United States of America, printed along the ornate lines of a banknote, in green and pink with a wide yellow band across the great Seal of the United States. Ben’s photograph, name, and passport number faced the predatory head of the American bald eagle. The visa, the B1/B2, was good for ten years, until the year 2016.

The next morning, Tuesday, April 11, six days after Arnold Morgan had alerted all entry points, Ben Adnam checked out of the Berkeley at first light and headed southeast out of Dublin, bound for Shannon Airport and then Boston.

He took the city route, running along Dublin’s Grand Canal to the Crumlin Road, and heading southwest through County Kildare, past Naas, and on to Roscrea and Limerick. The road was empty throughout the second half of the 130-mile journey, and Ben pulled easily into the precincts of Shannon Airport at 1050.

He parked the car in the long-term parking lot, took the key, and paid a fee of £28 that was good until late Saturday. He taped the key to a piece of card he had brought with him, and placed it, with the parking-lot ticket, and a check for £1,000, drawn on his Helensburgh account, in an envelope addressed to the garage in Helensburgh. The accompanying note read:

“
Sorry about the distance. But I had to go to Ireland. The Audi is in the long-term car park at Shannon Airport, bay M39. I expect you’ll have to send someone over, so I enclose
enough money to cover expenses and inconvenience. Thanks for cooperating—Ben Arnold
.
”

He was sure the Scots mechanic would be irked at the prospect of the journey, but equally sure the extra cash bonus would undoubtedly make it worthwhile.

He purchased two Irish airmail stamps inside the airport and mailed the envelope from the box next to Hertz rental desk. It was, he thought, an easy way to avoid a mysterious missing Audi in Helensburgh, which ultimately turned up at Shannon airport, the same Audi that perhaps Douglas and Natalie Anderson had seen parked in their drive. His 1,000-pound payment to the garage might prove beyond measure in covering his trail for the next couple of weeks.

He checked his bag at the Aer Lingus desk and was directed to the business-class lounge. At 1300 he was escorted by a stewardess down to the line of United States immigration desks, through which the transit Dublin passengers had already passed. There were only 23 passengers beginning their journey in Shannon, only two of them business-class: Ben and a vacationing travel agent.

Ben moved through first. The uniformed officer was American, and he leafed through the passport, without looking up. “Purpose of trip?”

“Business. Meetings in Boston first, then New York.”

“Ah-hah. How long do you intend to stay in the United States, sir?”

“Maybe three weeks. No longer.”

The immigration official looked through a large black book with clipped-in computerized pages. Found nothing, took his stamp, and confirmed in Ben’s passport that he had entered the United States on April 11, 2006, at the port of Shannon. In the space that was marked “Admitted until…” the officer just wrote “
B-2.”

Essentially, the world’s most wanted man was in the U.S.A. “Enjoy your flight, sir,” said the immigration man, handing him a customs form to be completed for Logan Airport, Boston.

Same time. 1300. Tuesday, April 11.
Loch Fyne, Scotland.

Admiral MacLean was still trying to track down Douglas Anderson. He called Boodle’s in St. James’s and was irritated to find the Scottish banker was not in residence at his club, and furthermore was not expected. Then he called the Connaught Hotel, then Brown’s, with the same lack of success.

Finally, supposing that Douglas and Natalie had stayed another couple of nights in France, he called Galashiels Manor again, and asked Beresford to please ensure that Mr. Anderson called him on a matter of some urgency. Whatever time of the day or night he received the message.

1400. April 11.
International Arrivals Building. Logan Airport.

Dick Saunders, the CIA chief at the Boston Station, had been on duty since 0700. In company with two field officers, Joe Pecce and Fred Corcoran, they had been combing passenger lists for incoming flights from Great Britain, especially from Scotland.

Right now was the busy time, with big jets trundling in off the Atlantic every five minutes until 1500: the morning flights from Europe. There were British Airways 747’s from Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Heathrow. There was American Airlines from Heathrow, and a North Western out of Gatwick. Virgin had one from Manchester. They were all interspersed with flights from Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Rome, and one from Dublin-Shannon.

The three CIA observers would have their work cut out for them, as they had had every day for the past week, since the order had come down from on high to try to find a traveling Arab named Ben Adnam, probably from Scotland, maybe from England, no visa, probably under an assumed name. But each agent had a good photograph, and they placed themselves strategically in the glassed kiosks with the immigration staff, making it well-nigh impossible for
anyone
to walk through who looked
any
thing
like the dark-skinned foreigner in Naval uniform in the photographs held by the CIA men.

Their problem was that Ben Adnam did not have to pass through the glass kiosks into the United States. He had already completed that formality back in southern Ireland. Aer Lingus Flight 005 came in on time, 1410, and, along with the rest of the passengers, Ben walked straight through the immigration area, down the steps to the customs hall, and collected his bag.

Admiral Morgan’s last line of defense was field officer Pecce, who was down in the hall, standing at one of the main-desk search centers watching the incoming passengers from Edinburgh. Ben Adnam walked right by him, 25 feet to his left, with his head held high, bag in hand. He handed his customs form to the officer, who initialed it, and told him to present it at the door. Half a minute later he was out in the arrivals hall, taking his time, walking with his bag toward the exit.

He turned left outside the international building and headed for Terminal D, where he hoped to locate either American or United Airlines. He decided on a direct route to Kansas, and bought a ticket, no longer terribly concerned about leaving a trail.

Thus, with just one change at Kansas City, Missouri, he flew straight to Wichita, and from there took a small local flight down to Dodge City, the old Wild West town in the southwest of Kansas, a 45-mile car ride from the big ranch run by Bill and Laura Baldridge. Arnold Morgan had not yet ordered a team in to protect Bill’s household.

Ben arrived at Dodge City airport on the evening of Thursday, April 13. He rented a dark red Ford Taurus station wagon for a week, using his Scottish credit card and his British license. And he was checked into a new hotel out near the airport before2100.

At that precise time Bill and Laura were sitting alone beside the big fire in the living room, half-watching the television news, half-reading magazines. They had dined earlier that evening with both of Laura’s daughters and Bill’s mother, and they were each sipping a glass of port, a habit imported from the home of Iain MacLean in faraway Scotland.