“Mr. Collins, please meet my grandfather and the founding partner of this firm, Link Sullivan,” the younger man said.
“Link, did you say?” I asked as I reached out to shake the grandfather’s hand.
“Lincoln, actually, but my friends call me Link,” he said.
He was gray and balding and frail but had a warm smile and trustworthy eyes. As he offered me a seat, it occurred to me to wonder whether there was another Sullivan. Where was Lincoln’s son, Steve’s father? I glanced around and saw no pictures of the three men—separate or together—in any of the many frames on the large executive desk or on the walls. I was tempted to ask but decided the best thing was to get through whatever they wanted to talk about as quickly as possible and be on my way. There was too much else on my plate; getting to know the history of the Sullivan family wasn’t exactly on the list.
The grandson sat in a weathered wooden chair across from his grandfather. I followed his lead and sat in a similar chair a few feet to his right. The FBI agents stepped back into the hallway and shut the door. The three of us were now alone.
“We understand you’re pressed for time,” the elder Sullivan began after verifying my identity by checking my driver’s license. “We would not have insisted you come here unless it was of the utmost urgency.”
“The sealed envelope,” I said.
“Yes, the envelope. And one other matter,” he said.
“What’s that?” I said. “Your grandson didn’t mention anything beyond the envelope.”
“Mr. Collins, are you aware that my client left nearly his entire estate to you and your brother, Matthew?”
For a moment I just stared at him. “I beg your pardon?” I finally said.
“It’s true.”
“I don’t understand. What about his family?” I asked.
Sullivan leaned back in his creaky leather executive chair. “As you know, Robert’s wife, Mary, passed away three years ago from ovarian cancer. They had no children. Their parents are deceased. Robert’s sister, Ellen, died a decade ago. And Ellen’s children . . .” He looked at me expectantly.
I said nothing.
“I believe you knew Ellen’s son, Chris.”
“Yes,” I said guardedly. “He was an Army Ranger. He was killed in Afghanistan in 2006.”
“Exactly,” the elder Sullivan said. “And you and Ellen’s daughter were . . .”
He paused. I tensed. He was referring to Laura.
“. . . married, I understand,” the grandfather continued.
“And divorced,” I hastened to add. I stood, walked over to the window, and stared out at the snow and the traffic and people hustling and bustling, to and fro.
“As the executor of Mr. Khachigian’s estate, I can tell you that has no bearing on his final will and testament.”
“But shouldn’t she inherit everything?” I asked, turning now to face the two Sullivans. “I mean, Laura is his only living heir, right?”
“A man is entitled to leave his estate to anyone he so chooses,” said the elder Sullivan. “In this case, my client chose to leave his estate to you and your brother.”
“His entire estate?” I asked, incredulous.
“Well, no. Not quite. Laura will receive one quarter of the assets, once the house is sold and everything else is liquidated.” Lincoln Sullivan pulled a copy of the will out of a folder and handed it over to me. “You and your brother will receive equal shares of the rest. We will need to have the house reappraised, of course. But it’s quite valuable, as is his portfolio of stocks and bonds. All told, we believe you and Matthew will each receive about $15 million, give or take, before taxes.”
I took the thick document in my hand. I tried to read it over but my thoughts were reeling and my vision was blurring. “And Laura?” I finally asked. “What will she receive?”
“About $10 million, give or take.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I had no idea.”
“That the Khachigians were that wealthy, or that you and your brother were in the will?”
“Either—both,” I said, rereading the first paragraph of the document before me for the third time and still not absorbing it. My eyes were filled with tears but I was fighting them back, embarrassed to show such emotion in front of two complete strangers. The grandson reached for a box of tissues on the desk and handed it to me. That embarrassed me even more, but I nodded my thanks, took a tissue, and wiped my eyes. “So this is what was in the envelope you mentioned? The will?” I asked, fighting to compose myself.
“No, the will was always in my possession, in my safe,” said the grandfather. “That wasn’t what was in the envelope. That’s something entirely different.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“I can’t say,” Sullivan said.
“Why not?”
“Because whatever he put in the envelope, he chose not to show me,” Sullivan explained. “Frankly, I have no idea what’s in there.”
“But that’s what you used to get me here.”
“It was very important to my client.”
“So may I see it?”
“You may,” he said, reaching for his cane and rising—shakily—to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”
37
Lincoln Sullivan hobbled over to a door I hadn’t previously noticed.
With Steve at his side, helping him keep his balance, he opened it to an adjacent conference room and disappeared from view.
Alone for the first time, I suddenly noticed that the office was dimly lit and quite chilly, as though someone had forgotten to turn the heat on, or perhaps the heater was broken. The whole situation seemed a little odd, and I wondered why in the world I had come. My mother had been murdered. So had my nephew. My brother was in a hospital across town, pleading with his God to save his critically wounded wife and daughter. I’d barely had time to accept what had just happened, much less grieve. Yet here I was in some dilapidated old law firm I’d never heard of, being told that Matt and I had just inherited thirty million dollars from a man to whom we had no blood relation. I hadn’t come for money. I didn’t even want it. I just wanted my family back, and now I regretted coming here at all.
I considered bolting but thought better of it. I’d come here for something far more valuable to me than money. There was something Khachigian wanted me to know, some bit of information he wanted me alone to see. Not Matt. Not even his attorneys, though he clearly trusted them a great deal. Could it be clues to the identity of whoever had leaked him the information about ISIS capturing chemical weapons in Syria? Or even clues to who might have ultimately killed him? Whatever it was, Khachigian had obviously left something deeply important to him, in my name, with the executor of his estate, and he’d done so shortly before his death. For that reason alone, I forced myself to stay and see this thing through.
As I waited for the Sullivans to return with the mysterious envelope, I checked my phone. There were dozens of new text messages and e-mails, but only two were critical. Allen’s caught my eye first. He noted that Vice President Holbrooke had just confirmed that he was, in fact, going to attend the memorial service. Air Force Two would be wheels down at 7 a.m. the following morning, and the VP would arrive at the church by motorcade. Allen also said that he had found a place to set up a full-blown media filing center and was now trying to track down card tables, mult boxes, and a lot of extension cords. Lastly, he asked if I’d seen the front page of the Times yet. I had not. In fact, with everything else going on, I’d forgotten to look, so for now I moved on.
The other significant e-mail was from Agent Harris. He reported that his colleagues had lifted partial prints from the car abandoned on that side street in Augusta. They belonged to an Iraqi national who had served as a translator for U.S. forces in Fallujah in 2003 and 2004. Later, he’d been arrested as a mole. It turned out he’d been secretly working for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of ISIS. He’d been tried and convicted a
nd sent to the Abu Ghraib prison facility near Baghdad in 2005. But he’d escaped along with Abu Khalif the previous November. While Harris conceded the FBI couldn’t yet prove in court that this guy was a member of ISIS or that he had been personally sent by Abu Khalif to kill my family, he said the evidence was moving steadily in that direction, and he wanted me to be in the loop.
I opened the attachment Harris had sent. There was a thumbnail picture of the guy from the FBI’s most wanted list. In the photo, he was no older than thirty with dark, soulless eyes, closely cropped black hair, a dark complexion, and a thick scar across his neck. I burned the image into my memory. This guy had slaughtered my family. I had no doubt who had sent him or that he was coming for me next. He had a mission. It wasn’t yet accomplished. And this wasn’t the kind of guy who just gave up and went home.
When Lincoln Sullivan reentered the office, he was holding a small sealed envelope—the envelope I’d come for. He set it on the desk and slid it across to me without a word. Then he excused himself and departed again through the same door.
I sat there by myself for a long moment, listening to the ticking of my grandfather’s pocket watch, staring at Khachigian’s handwritten scrawl on the outside of the envelope, and wondering what I would find inside.
38
Two minutes later, I blew out of the Sullivan firm and headed straight for the car.
“Gorham Savings Bank,” I said to the two agents hustling to catch up. “172 Commercial Street—let’s move.”
On my lap sat the envelope from Khachigian. I held its entire contents in one hand. There wasn’t much—just a brass key and a business card for the manager of the Gorham Bank branch on Commercial Street. That was it.
We pulled up precisely at nine o’clock, just as a security guard was unlocking the front door. I grabbed my briefcase and dashed out of the car and into the bank, only to find that the branch manager whose name was on the business card was out sick. Nevertheless, a young assistant manager offered to help me. She led me to a vault filled with safe-deposit boxes, and soon I had Khachigian’s box in my hands. The assistant ushered me to a small room containing only an oak table and a swivel chair, then left me there so I could open the box and examine its contents in privacy.
I nervously fumbled with the key but finally opened the steel box and found myself astonished. Inside were stacks of crisp, new one-hundred-dollar bills, wrapped in rubber bands. In all, I counted nine thousand dollars, all in U.S. currency. Underneath the cash was a brand-new satellite phone. There were also three different passports—one Canadian, one Australian, and the third from South Africa. The passports had different pictures of me and different fake names for me. Beside these were three leather wallets. In each I found a half-dozen credit cards with the same names as the ones on the passports, along with driver’s licenses, business cards, and various other materials corresponding to the fake names and appropriate countries of origin. There was also close to a thousand dollars in local currency in each of the billfolds.
Underneath all this were two more sealed white business envelopes. I opened the first one to find a handwritten letter, personally signed by Khachigian. I glanced back at the door to the windowless office to make sure it was fully closed, then sat down in the chair, facing the doorway in case someone suddenly entered, and began to read the letter.
Dearest James,
If you have this in your hands, then I am dead and you have met the Sullivans. Please know that you can trust them implicitly, as I have. Link was my father’s banker and worked with your grandfather years ago as well. I doubt he told you that. He is far too discreet. Link’s grandson, Steven, is as trustworthy as any young man you’ll meet. Before returning to Portland, he used to work for the Treasury Department—specifically the Secret Service—for nearly a decade, handling dozens of bank fraud and other cases and putting countless crooks and international terrorists behind bars.
If I know you, you’re probably wondering about Steve’s father, Link’s son. We’ll get to that in a moment. You’re also likely reeling from what the Sullivans just told you about my estate.
There is a reason for all this. Whoever has killed me did so to silence me, to keep me from telling the world urgently important facts about ISIS and its plans. So the torch now passes to you. Below I have listed three people whom you need to contact immediately. Go visit them in person. Show them this letter. I trust them. They’re good people. Now you must win their trust. Learn what they know, and tell the world as quickly as possible.
Do not wait. Do not hesitate. I believe far greater attacks are coming against the American homeland. Perhaps your reporting can save many lives, including your own.
By now it has become painfully clear to me that Harrison Taylor has no idea what he’s doing. He won’t listen to wise counsel. He doesn’t understand the nature and threat of the evil he faces. And I fear he—and the nation—will soon be blindsided as a result.
Over the many years of my career, I have known many presidents, good and bad. But I have never feared for the future of America as I do right now. We are not merely in a rough season, James. We are hurtling toward implosion. The president is selling out our allies and appeasing our enemies. He is gutting our military and dispiriting the brave men and women throughout the intelligence community and the military. Too many are giving up and moving on. And the more that leave high-level government service, the more danger America is in. People with such tremendous experience cannot easily be replaced.
Meanwhile, our enemies smell blood in the water. They see weakness, and they are probing, probing, probing, looking for vulnerabilities to exploit and waiting for the right time to strike. I fear they are planning something catastrophic.
Go stop them, James—before it’s too late.
And one other thing. Whoever killed me is coming after you, James. Make no mistake. They’re coming after Matt and his family and your mom as well. Your family is not safe in Bar Harbor. Not anymore. Persuade them to leave. Get off the grid—out of sight, out of mind. It’s that serious. They need to hide. You need to help them. This is why I’ve left you and Matt the lion’s share of my estate. Matt must use the money to get his family to safety. But you must use your share to defeat ISIS. To that end, I have left you with cash, new identities, and access to your own jet.
I know you want to go get these guys. Especially now. Good for you. That’s what I’ve always loved about you. You’re not afraid to go on offense, to seize the initiative. I can’t promise you won’t meet my same fate. I just hope you’ll do a lot of damage to the caliphate before all is said and done.
Last thought: I’m not a preacher. I’m not a pastor. But as your friend, I need to urge you, James—please read your Bible, humble your heart, and give your life to Christ. I let too many years go by before I got serious about the things that matter most. I don’t have many regrets about my life, but this is one. If it weren’t for Matt patiently answering my questions and guiding me through the Scriptures and urging me to make a decision for or against Christ once and for all, I don’t know where I’d be. I’m not a humble man by nature, James. It was excruciating for me to admit I needed a Savior. But I did. I do. And so do you. Go find him before it’s too late.
I leave you with the verse that changed my life, the words of Jesus, from the Gospel of John. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
Godspeed, son—I hope to see you on the other side.
Your biggest fan,
Robert
For a moment, I just sat there, staring at the pages. There was so much to take in.
For starters, so much of it was too late. The catastrophic attacks had already come. So had the hit on my family. Why hadn’t the Sullivans brought me all this sooner? Why hadn’t they come down to Walter Reed right after I’d gotten back from Iraq? On the other hand, why hadn’t I responded sooner to their calls and e-mails? The weight of my failures was almost overwhelming. I set the letter dow
n in the box, leaned back in the chair, and closed my eyes. Everywhere I went, people were getting killed, and I knew I bore a great degree of responsibility.
That said, I feared Khachigian had me all wrong. Clearly Khachigian wanted me—expected me—to personally go after Abu Khalif and these ISIS devils. Given all that he’d done for me—in the past and certainly now—how could I refuse? Yet I wasn’t sure I had the energy or desire to go back on offense. What’s more, how could I leave Matt, Annie, and Katie now, after all that had happened? They were all the family I had left.
Then there was the mention of his faith. Of all the conversations we’d had over the years, I couldn’t recall any about his religious beliefs. I knew Matt had had a profound influence on him, but Khachigian himself had never discussed his faith with me. He was a secretive man by nature. It’s what had made him an effective keeper of the nation’s secrets. But that only made his urgent appeal that I follow his spiritual journey and wrestle through the claims of Christ for myself all the more surprising. He was urging me to study the Gospels and make a decision, once and for all, for or against, before it was too late. Was I going to listen to him . . . or ignore him?
I sat silently for several minutes, then suddenly opened my eyes and picked up the letter again. I reread it, more slowly this time, word for word, sentence by sentence. Then, on instinct, I flipped the page over, and there on the back I found three names: Paul Pritchard, Walid Hussam, and Mohammed bin Zayed. Beside each name was a mobile phone number. None of the names rang a bell. I didn’t recall Khachigian having ever mentioned them before. But these were his sources for the chemical weapons story. Of this I had no doubt.
Which left me with two questions: Who were they, and would they talk to me?
39
We raced the 175 miles back to Bar Harbor.
The bureau was transferring me from the Motel 6 in Portland to someplace in my hometown, where I could make the final preparations for the funeral. As I sat in the backseat of the bureau’s sedan and watched the snow-covered trees and hills and barns of rural Maine blur by, my thoughts raced as fast as the car. I felt conflicted about heading back to Bar Harbor. My brother needed me with him at the hospital in Portland. But someone had to finish planning the service. He couldn’t. I owed him. The memorial service was set to begin in less than twenty-four hours.