The Third Target (16 page)

WASHINGTON, D.C.

After repeated weather delays, Lufthansa flight 418 finally landed at Dulles.

As we taxied to the terminal, I pulled out my grandfather’s pocket watch. It was now 5:35 Sunday afternoon, a full ninety minutes after our scheduled arrival time.

My nerves were a wreck. I still needed to clear passport control and customs, race home to shower and change before making it to the
Times
bureau at 1627 I Street downtown to meet with Allen for who knew how long, then arrive at Union Station by seven thirty. Otherwise whatever scoop Khachigian was saving for me was going to the
Washington Post
.

With a full flight out of Istanbul, my protective detail hadn’t been able to travel with me. But they’d assured me that I’d be met by agents from the D.C. bureau the moment I arrived. As I stepped off the plane, however, there was no one waiting for me. I had no intention of staying around.

Already I was checking flights to Tel Aviv later that night or the next day at the latest on the working assumption that Allen would see the light and let me go once we’d talked through the evidence I’d
gathered so far. At the same time, I knew I needed to call my mom. I needed to let her hear my voice and know for sure I was really okay. She would insist I come up to Maine, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not for a while. At least not until I got back from Tel Aviv and Amman. After all, I had to visit with Omar’s widow. I had to give her my condolences and tell her what an amazing friend her husband had been to me.

But the truth was, at that moment my thoughts were mostly on Yael. Where was she? Was she safe? Was she okay? I’d already tried the number on her card. Harris was right. It was no longer working. I’d also sent a text message to Ari Shalit asking about her and asking for permission to come see him as soon as possible. So far, I’d heard nothing back.

As I worked my way through the airport, I noticed a crowd gathering around a TV set. When I heard the trademark voice of James Earl Jones saying, “This is CNN Breaking News,” I stopped immediately to see what was happening.

“CNN has just learned that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda since 2011, is dead,” said a female anchor in the Atlanta studios while raw, unedited video of a smoldering crater on a crowded street and the burning wreckage of what appeared to be an SUV played on the screen. “Several sources are telling CNN the al Qaeda leader was killed in a drone strike, but at least one former CIA analyst says the images are more consistent with a car bombing.”

I quickly checked the headlines on my phone. Agence France-Presse was quoting an unnamed source inside Pakistani intelligence confirming that Zawahiri and two of his bodyguards had been killed less than an hour earlier as a result of an explosion, but the story offered no further details on how the al Qaeda leader’s car had exploded. A quick check of the AP and Reuters wires indicated that neither the Pentagon nor the State Department was commenting, but an unnamed White House source
 
—cited only
as a senior aide to President Taylor
 
—said that while U.S. officials were awaiting confirmation from the Pakistani government, they were “cautiously optimistic” that “a great victory over terrorism has been achieved.”

Meanwhile, I could hear an analyst on CNN saying, “This could prove to be the beginning of the end of al Qaeda,” and adding that under President Taylor’s leadership, al Qaeda was being “systematically dismantled.”

I hoped it was true. I feared it was not.

Grabbing my briefcase and carry-on luggage, I bought a cup of coffee and a copy of the Sunday editions of both the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
, hailed a taxi, and gave the driver the address of my apartment in Arlington. As we pulled out of the airport and headed southeast on the toll road toward D.C., the lead headline from the
Post
caught my eye.

President Warns Israelis, Palestinians of “Catastrophic Consequences” if Peace Talks Fail: Aides Say Administration Will Reconsider Aid Levels if Deal Not Struck Soon

Written by the
Post
’s top White House and State Department correspondents, the article was the latest installment in the ongoing media narrative over the past month or so that the Mideast peace talks were floundering, that the parties were not taking the process seriously, and that both sides seemed to be trying to paint the other as the intransigent and irresponsible one. This version added a bit of spice to the stew with the idea that the White House might actually reduce U.S. military aid to Israel, which averaged over $3 billion a year, and might also cut aid to the Palestinians, which averaged about a half billion dollars annually.

The story certainly fit the conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, but was it true? I was now starting to wonder whether
just the opposite dynamic was in motion. Yael had insisted that the parties were, in fact, incredibly close to a deal and that the consummation of a comprehensive peace treaty actually made the prospect of a major series of terrorist attacks more likely, not less so. Who was right?

The peace talks were not my beat, per se. I focused primarily on national security and terrorism stories, but obviously the two were related, and the deeper I read into the
Post
story, the more curious, and perhaps more cynical, I became. Was the White House trying to pull off the head fake of the century? With all the carefully timed leaks about how badly things were going, was the administration driving down expectations so that the announcement by the president of a final, comprehensive peace treaty between the Israelis and Palestinians would give him a political bounce of epic proportions?

A text message came in. It was from the senior producer at the
Today Show
. She wanted me on the following morning to discuss my Jamal Ramzy article and the terror attack that had nearly taken my life in Istanbul. She was also interested to know whether I thought the president had ordered the hit on Zawahiri as retaliation for what had happened to Omar and me.

As I checked my other messages, I found interview requests from a dozen other media outlets, from
Good Morning America
to
60 Minutes
. I had no interest in going on any of them. I wasn’t a pundit. I was a foreign correspondent. And I didn’t plan to spend a second longer on American soil than I absolutely had to.

I dialed my mom. She picked up on the fourth ring. She was ecstatic to hear from me and wanted every detail. I was guarded, not wanting to worry her any further than she must already be, even though I knew she’d been reading all the coverage of the attack on me that she possibly could. She asked me, of course, to come up to Maine that night. I said, of course, that I couldn’t.

“When can you get here, honey? You missed Thanksgiving. I didn’t celebrate it either. I was too worried about you. But we could celebrate together. I’ll make you a big feast.”

“Thanks, Mom, but I’m not sure how soon I can get up there. There’s an awful lot going on.”

“I know, but sweetheart, it’s been so long, and I . . . well . . . you know, I miss you.”

She sounded so deflated.

“I know, Mom, and I miss you. I’ll come visit. I promise. But it looks like I need to go to Tel Aviv and Amman first.”

“You’re going to Amman?” she asked, seeming to brighten.

“I hope so,” I said.

“When?”

“In the next few days.”

“Great,” she said. “You can see Matty!”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I’ll have time, Mom. It’s not going to be a pleasure trip. It’s for work.”

“But, James, obviously you can make some time to see your only brother.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good. He wrote to you recently, right?”

“I don’t know. Did he?”

“He told me he was going to.”

“Maybe he’s been busy.”

“Maybe you’re not reading your mail.”

“I was in Syria, Mom, and then someone tried to kill me.”

“That’s no excuse,” she said without a hint of irony. “You really ought to talk to your brother. You two need each other.”

“I’m sure he and Annie are doing just fine without me.”

“They are fine, but the fact is they miss you, young man.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“Really, James, would it kill you to return his notes or to call him
now and again? He’s your older brother. He loves you and he’s worried about you.”

“I’d really rather not talk about it.”

“That’s the understatement of the year.”

“Nevertheless . . .” I glanced out the window of the cab. Route 267, the toll road, was now merging with 66. We’d be in Arlington any moment. Which was good. I desperately needed a shower and a change of clothes.

“So, any word from Laura?” my mom suddenly asked.

Every muscle in my body tensed at the very name. “No,” I said.

We drove a bit longer.

“Nothing at all?”

“No.”

There was no way I was going to tell her I’d just deleted an e-mail from my ex-wife and had no idea what it said.

“I’m sorry, Mom. That chapter is over.”

“I’m so sorry, too, Son. Guess I always thought she was the one.”

I didn’t respond. What was there to say?

“Listen, Mom, I gotta go,” I said instead. “I’ll call you again tomorrow.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Bye.”

She didn’t sound like she believed me. I couldn’t really blame her. Nevertheless, I said good-bye and hung up. At that moment, though, I realized that rather than exiting into the city of Arlington
 
—toward my apartment
 
—as I’d instructed, the driver was staying on 66. In a moment, we’d be heading out of Virginia and into the District of Columbia. It was not only the exact opposite of where I wanted to go, but given the challenges of D.C. traffic, the error was going to take forever to correct. I was as annoyed as I was confused. I leaned forward and told the driver he was making a mistake.

“I have my orders,” he replied.

“What orders?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

But the driver didn’t answer. The car accelerated. The doors of the car abruptly locked as the Plexiglas screen between the front and back seats suddenly closed.

“What in the world are you doing?” I yelled, but still the driver did not answer.

I demanded he turn the car around, but he ignored me. I pulled out my phone to call 911, but now there was no signal. That was impossible, of course. We were heading into the epicenter of the American government. There was plenty of cell coverage to be had. The only possible explanation was that the driver had a device that was jamming my phone. He must have turned it on right after I hung up with my mom.

I looked at him. He briefly glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Furious and becoming frightened now, I demanded he take me home, but even if he could hear me through the Plexiglas, he did not alter his course.

We were not going to Arlington. That much was clear. I had no idea where we were going instead, but given all that had happened in recent days, I found myself fighting panic.

Who was this guy? Who was he working for? And what did they want with me?

Before I knew it, we’d passed the Lincoln Memorial.

We headed east on Constitution Avenue. Then we took a sharp left on Eighteenth Street and started zigzagging through a series of side streets before barreling down a ramp into a dark parking garage, tires squealing like a stunt car’s in a movie. Down, down we went, lower and lower into the bowels of the garage, and this guy was driving far faster than was either normal or safe. I was certain we were going to plow into a car coming up in the opposite direction, but no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than he hit the brakes and brought us to an abrupt halt on a deserted level.

The doors automatically unlocked. Immediately both rear passenger doors opened and I became aware that a half-dozen men in dark suits were standing around the taxi. They looked and acted like federal agents, but we were a long way from the Treasury Department and even farther from the Hoover Building.

“Mr. Collins, please step out of the vehicle,” one of them said.

“Who are you?” I asked. “What’s going on here?”

“Please step out, sir. And follow me.”

“Why? To where?”

“Just follow me.”

I couldn’t decide if I was really in danger. This was Washington, after all, not Syria. In any case, it was clear I didn’t have a choice, and by nature I was insatiably curious. They hadn’t killed me yet. The deserted level of a downtown parking garage on a Sunday evening seemed as good a place to do it as any. But if that wasn’t the objective, what was? It seemed unlikely that Abu Khalif or Jamal Ramzy had an entire group of American-looking thugs operating out of central Washington.

I got out of the cab and followed the agent who was doing all the talking. As I did, the rest stepped behind and around me. We entered a stairwell, but rather than ascend to street level, we went down a flight of stairs. The leader unlocked what appeared at first to be a utility closet but actually led to a tunnel. We stepped through the doorway into the tunnel and proceeded on our way. As we walked, I had a flashback to being taken to see Ramzy, and the farther we went, the more curious I got.