I wanted to tell him to eat shit, but I asked him, “Did they forget the little umbrella in your drink?”
He smiled. And why shouldn’t he? He said to me, “I was in Yemen for a few weeks. Also Tanzania and Kenya. Yemen was a little dicey.”
I didn’t reply.
He continued, “I’ve also been to Sudan and Somalia, and some other trouble spots.”
“You must have really fucked up.”
He looked at me a long time, then went into a little rap and said, “As we widen the global scope of our counter-terrorist operations, we realize that the answers to who attacked us at Point A are often found at Point B. And our response to those attacks might take place at Point C. Follow?”
“I lost you after bon voyage.”
“No, you didn’t. What I’m telling you is that counter-terrorism is a vast, complex operation against an equally vast global terror network. The key to success is coordination and cooperation. And that leaves out hotshots and loners who often do more harm than good.”
“Do you mean me?”
“Well, I’m not talking about me. If you haven’t noticed by now, counter-terrorism is not like a homicide investigation.”
“Actually, it is.”
He moved closer to me and said, “Do you know why I’m talking to you?”
“No one else here wants to talk to you?”
“I’m talking to you because Jack asked me to talk to you and make you understand that the answer to what may have happened to TWA 800 off Long Island may not necessarily be found on Long Island. It may be found in Yemen. Or Somalia. Or Kenya or Tanzania.”
“Or Paris.”
“Or Paris. But you can start in Yemen.”
This is when I should have kneed him in the nuts, but I kept my cool and said, “I see why you and Ted Nash hung together. You’re both assholes.”
Mr. Griffith took a breath and said, “Ted Nash was a good man.”
“No, actually he was an asshole.”
“Your wife didn’t think so when they spent a month together at the Bayview Hotel.”
I realized this guy was baiting me so I’d take a swing at him and wind up fired and charged with assault. I’m prone to biting at this kind of bait, which is fun, but not smart.
I clamped my hand on his shoulder, which startled him, and I put my face into his and said to him, “Get the fuck out of my sight.”
He broke free, turned, and left.
No one seemed to notice the little altercation, and I mixed again with the group.
Kate and I stayed another fifteen minutes, then another. By about 7:30 P.M., I was rocked, and I wanted to leave, so I motioned to Kate and walked toward the door.
Out on the street, Kate and I caught a taxi. I said to Kate, “Jack told me that he’d reinstate the special team when we got back. Did he mention that to you?”
“No. He probably wanted to tell you himself. That’s good news.”
“You believe him?”
“Why shouldn’t I? Don’t be so cynical.”
“I’m a New Yorker.”
“As of next week, you’re a Yemeni.”
“Not funny.”
She asked me, “What were you talking to Liam Griffith about?”
“Same as last time.”
“It was nice of him to come and see us off.”
“He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
I decided not to mention to Kate about her and Ted Nash at the Bayview Hotel because it wasn’t relevant, it was the past, Ted was dead, nothing had happened between them, I didn’t want to start a fight before we parted, and Liam Griffith was, in the words of the Feds, an agent provocateur, and was probably lying to piss me off. But I did wonder how both he and Jack Koenig knew that I was a little sensitive on that subject.
We rode home in silence, not wanting to say much more about this day.
We spent the next day, Saturday, getting our personal affairs in order, which was more complicated than I’d thought it would be, but Kate had a grip on what needed to be done.
We spent Sunday calling and e-mailing people, mostly family and friends, informing them of our separate overseas assignments and promising contact information when we arrived.
On Monday, Kate changed the message on our answering machine to say we’d both be out of the country until further notice.
For security reasons, agents’ mail can’t be forwarded to certain foreign countries—Tanzania and Yemen being two such countries—so we made arrangements for the post office to hold our mail, and it hit Kate that she wouldn’t see a mail-order catalogue for a long time.
Modern life is simultaneously convenient and complicated—both as a result of advanced technology. Kate has great faith in the Internet to solve most of her logistical problems, handle her finances, shop, communicate, and do business. I, on the other hand, use the Internet mostly for accessing my e-mail, which needs about six clarifications before I can figure out the post-literate, brain-dead messages.
Assured that we had done everything we needed to do to sever ourselves from life as we knew it, we went shopping for our journeys.
I wanted to go to Banana Republic, which would have been appropriate, but according to Kate, Eastern Mountain Sports on West 61st Street was the favored destination for people with weird destinations.
So, EMS it was, and I said to the clerk, “I’m going to the shit-hole of the universe, and I’m looking for something I can be abducted in that would look good in photos released by terrorists.”
“Sir?”
Kate said to the young man, “We’re looking for desert and tropical khakis, and good boots.”
Whatever.
After the shopping, Kate and I went our separate ways for a while, and my last stop of the day was the Windows on the World bar in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, known, with New York modesty, as the Greatest Bar in the World.
It was about 6:30 P.M., and the bar, on the 107th floor, an ear-popping 1,300 feet above sea level, was hopping with a wide assortment of people like me who felt the need for a ten- or fifteen-dollar drink and the best view in New York, if not the world.
I hadn’t been up to this place since last September when Kate dragged me here for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force’s celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its founding.
One of the FBI bosses who spoke that night said, “I congratulate you all on your fine work over the years, and especially for the arrests and convictions of all those responsible for the tragedy that occurred here on February 26, 1993. We’ll see you all back here for the twenty-fifth anniversary of this superb team, and we’ll have more to celebrate.”
I wasn’t sure I was going to make that party, but I hoped there would be more to celebrate.
Kate called to say she’d be joining me shortly, which meant about an hour. I ordered a Dewar’s-and-soda, put my back to the bar, and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even the New Jersey oil refineries looked good from up here.
Around me were lots of tourists, along with Wall Street types, yuppies, lounge lizards, pick-up chicks, and suburban couples in town for some special occasion, and probably a few people in my business, who had offices here in the North Tower, and who used this place for high-level meetings and dinners.
This was not particularly my kind of place, but Kate wanted to come here, she said, to see New York City from the top of the world on our last night together; a memory that would stay with us until we returned.
I wasn’t feeling any real separation anxiety about leaving home, hearth, and wife, the way soldiers do who are leaving for the front lines. To put this into perspective, I’d be gone only a few months, I could call it quits whenever I wanted, and the danger at my destination, while real, wasn’t as great as a soldier’s off to war.
And yet, I did feel some sort of unease, maybe because of Jack’s sincere concern that nothing bad happen to me, along with the signing of documents that anticipated my disappearance, abduction, or d
eath. Also, of course, I felt apprehensive about Kate going to a place where Americans had already been targeted by Islamic extremists. I mean, our job was to fight terrorism, but up until now, we’d done it here, in America, where only one certified terrorist attack had occurred—right here, actually.
Kate arrived uncommonly early, and we hugged and kissed as though we were meeting after a long time rather than separating.
She said, “I packed a few boxes for us that we’ll ship to the embassies tomorrow in the diplomatic pouches.”
“I have everything I need.”
“I included a six-pack of Budweiser for you.”
“I love you.”
I ordered a vodka on the rocks for her, and we stood with our backs to the bar, holding hands, and watching the sun set over the wilds of New Jersey.
The place had become a little quieter as people enjoyed the sunset moment, drinks in hand, a quarter mile above the earth, separated from the real world by about a half inch of clear glass.
Kate said to me, “We’ll come back here when we return.”
“Sounds good.”
She said, “I’m going to miss you.”
“I miss you already.”
She asked me, “How do you feel right now?”
“I think the alcohol goes to the brain faster at this altitude. I feel like the room is swaying.”
“It is swaying.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I’m going to miss your sense of humor.”
“I’m going to miss my audience.”
She squeezed my hand and said, “Let’s promise to come back the same as when we left. You understand?”
“I do.”
It was Disco Night, and a disco band began playing at 9 P.M. I took Kate onto the small dance floor and showed her some of my seventies moves, which she found amusing.
The band was playing “The Peppermint Twist,” which I renamed the “Yemeni Twist,” and I made up some dance steps called “Camel Ride” and “Dodge the Bullets.” Obviously, I was drunk.
Back at the bar, we started drinking a house specialty called Ellis Island Iced Tea, which at sixteen bucks a pop needed a more upscale name.
Kate ordered sushi and sashimi at the bar, and while I don’t normally eat raw fish and seaweed, when I’m plastered, I put things in my mouth that I shouldn’t.
We got out of the Greatest Bar in the World around midnight, with the greatest pounding in my head I’ve had in a long time.
Out on the street, we got into a taxi, and Kate fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. I stared out the side window as we made our way home.
New York after dark. I’d have to remember this in the months ahead.
The FBI travel office had thoughtfully arranged to get us flights out of JFK within two hours of each other; Kate had a Delta flight to Cairo, and I had an American Airlines flight to London. I’d fly on to Amman, Jordan, then Aden, and Kate would fly directly to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Hopefully our guns would arrive in the diplomatic pouches before we did.
Our doorman wished us bon voyage, and we took a limo to the airport, arriving first at the Delta terminal. We parted at curbside, without too much soppy stuff and no tears. I said, “Be safe. I love you. See you later.”
She replied, “You be safe.” She added, “To make up for the vacation we didn’t get to take, let’s try to meet in Paris on the way home.”
“It’s a date.”
A skycap took her luggage into the terminal, and she followed. We waved to each other through the glass.
I got back into the limo and proceeded to American Airlines.
We both had diplomatic passports, which are standard issue in our business, so checking in to Business Class was relatively painless. Security was a combination of a hassle and a joke. I probably could have handed my Glock to the brain-dead security screener and picked it up on the other side of the metal detector.
I had a few hours to kill, so I spent the time in the Business Class lounge, reading the papers and drinking free Bloody Marys.
My cell phone rang, and it was Kate. She said, “I’m about to board. I just wanted to say good-bye again, and tell you I love you.”
I said, “I love you, too.”
“You don’t hate me for getting you into this thing?”
“What thing? Oh, this thing. No problem. It just adds to the Corey legend.”
She stayed quiet a moment, then asked, “Are we done with TWA 800?”
“Absolutely. And Jack, if you’re listening, it was a mechanical malfunction in the center fuel tank.”
She stayed quiet again, then said, “Don’t forget to e-mail me when you arrive.”
“You, too.”
We exchanged a few more “I love you’s” and hung up.
A few hours later, while Kate was over the Atlantic Ocean, the video screen said my flight to London was boarding, and I walked toward the gate.
It had been exactly one week since the memorial service for the victims of TWA Flight 800, and in that week, I’d learned a lot of new things, none of which were doing me any good at this moment.
But in this game, you have to think long-term. You talk. You snoop. You rack your brain. Then you do it again.
There isn’t a single mystery in this world that doesn’t have a solution, if you live long enough to find it.
BOOK THREE
September
Home
Conclusions: CIA analysts do not believe that a missile was used to shoot down TWA Flight 800. . . . There is absolutely no evidence, physical or otherwise, that a missile was employed.
CIA “Analytic Assessment,” March 28, 1997
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Home
Not having contracted malaria or been abducted, kidnapped, or murdered, I arrived at JFK on a Delta flight from London at 4:05 P.M. on the Friday after Labor Day, having spent about forty days and forty nights in the desert wilderness of Yemen.
For the record, the place sucks.
Kate was still in Dar es Salaam, but she’d be home within the week. She seemed to be enjoying Tanzania, e-mailing me about friendly people, good food, interesting countryside, and all that. Rub it in.
Exactly why we’d gotten off with short tours was more of a mystery than why we’d been exiled in the first place—which was no mystery at all. Possibly, Jack Koenig and his colleagues believed that, as with a prison sentence, a short one teaches you a lesson, and a long one breeds resentment and revenge.
Wrong. I was still pissed off and not a bit grateful for my early release.
I cleared Passport Control and Immigration quickly since I wasn’t carrying anything except my overnight bag, a diplomatic passport, and a concealed grudge; I’d left my safari clothes in Yemen where they belonged, and my Glock was being shipped home through the embassy dip pouch. I was wearing tan slacks, a blue blazer, and a sport shirt, which looked good when I’d put them on about a day ago.
It seemed strange to be back in civilization, if that’s the right word for JFK International Airport. The sights, sounds, and smells—which I’d never noticed before—were jarring.
Aden, as it turned out, was not the actual capital of Yemen—some shit-hole town called Sana’a was, and I’d had to go there a few times on business, where I had the pleasure of meeting Ambassador Bodine. I introduced myself to her as a close friend of John O’Neill, though I’d met the gentleman only a few times. I didn’t get kicked out, which was the plan, but neither was I invited for dinner at the ambassador’s residence.
Aden, where I was stationed, was the port city where the Cole had been blown up, and it, too, sucked. The good news was that the Sheraton Hotel where the team stayed had a gym (the Marines had to show the staff how to put the equipment together) and a swimming pool (which we had to teach the staff how to clean), and I was as tan and fit as I’d ever been since I took three bullets up in Washington Heights about four years ago. I’d kept the drinking in Yemen to a bare minimum, learned to like fi
sh, rather than drink like one, and experienced the joys of chastity. I felt like a new man, but the old man needed a drink, a hamburger, and sex.
I stopped at the lounge and ordered a beer and hamburger at the bar.
I had my cell phone, but the battery was as dead as my dick at the moment, and I asked the bartender to plug in my charger, which he was happy to do. I explained, “I was in the Arabian desert.”
“Nice tan.”
“Place called Yemen. Dirt cheap. You should go there. The people are great.”
“Well, welcome home.”
“Thanks.”
There had actually been e-mail service in Aden, through Yahoo! for some reason, and this is how Kate and I had kept in touch, along with an occasional international call. We never mentioned TWA 800, but I’d had lots of time to think about it.
I’d e-mailed John Jay College of Criminal Justice, explaining that I was on a secret and dangerous mission for the government, and I might be a few days or years late for class. I suggested they start without me.
The TV over the bar was tuned to the news channel, and it appeared that nothing had happened in my absence. The weather guy said it was another beautiful late summer day in New York, with more of the same in the days ahead. Good. Aden was a furnace. The interior of Yemen was hell. Why do people live in these places?
I ordered another beer and scanned a Daily News on the bar. There wasn’t much news, and I read the sports section and checked my horoscope: Don’t be surprised if you have feelings of ecstasy, jealousy, agony, and bliss all in a day’s work. I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Anyway, in Aden, I worked with six FBI agents, including two women, and four NYPD guys from the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, two of whom I knew, so it was okay. Along with the investigators, we had about twenty Marines armed to the teeth, and an eight-man FBI SWAT team, all of whom rotated duty as sharpshooters on the roof of the Sheraton, and which the hotel, I think, used in their marketing strategy for the few other guests.