My plan provided my brother full anonymity and protection and first-rate medical care for his wife and daughter. But it also provided Matt the ability to reenter his life at some point. It was almost elegant in its simplicity. It was the best of both worlds, and Matt loved it.
Harris? Not so much.
For the bureau, it was the worst of both worlds. We would be costing the American taxpayers just as much as if we were entering the formal program and playing by all the rules, except that we wouldn’t be entering the formal program and we wouldn’t be playing by the rules. We’d get all the benefits, but the bureau would still face many of the risks. Abu Khalif would know we were still alive. He’d do his best to track us down and take us out. If we made a single mistake—and we probably would, Harris insisted, given that we weren’t intelligence professionals—then I might not even be alive long enough to testify.
So my plan called for a compromise. We would split the costs of our “disappearance” fifty-fifty with the bureau. Yes, the U.S. government would be going to considerable expense. But Matt and I now had sufficient financial resources to defray some of these costs. I didn’t think we should have to pay for all of it. After all, I would eventually be providing an enormously valuable service to the government by way of my testimony. But we would agree to cover half the costs to defray the added exposure for the FBI.
Harris had blown a gasket when we presented him with our counteroffer. He told us in a dozen different ways that he could never sign off on such a foolish and pathetic plan. But Matt and I held our ground. We made it clear we appreciated the bureau’s concern for our well-being, and we were willing to hide for a time, but we weren’t going to hide forever.
It was near midnight on that Tuesday by the time Harris finally met us back at the Harborside. He told us the request had gone all the way up the chain of command. Neither the director of the FBI nor the attorney general liked the idea, Harris said, but in the end they had agreed to it, provided Matt and I sign waivers indemnifying the U.S. government from any criminal or civil liabilities in what they called “the not unlikely possibility” that one or all of us were murdered by ISIS.
We had, of course, signed the waivers. In triplicate. On video. With a half-dozen federal agents there to sign affidavits as witnesses.
The next thing we knew, we were being rushed by helicopter to the Portland International Jetport in the dead of night. There, we boarded an unmarked Gulfstream IV business jet that had been retrofitted to serve as an air ambulance. Annie and Katie were already on board. They were lying on stretchers, hooked up to IVs, respirators, heart monitors, and who knows what else, attended to by a doctor and a nurse, both of whom worked for the FBI.
As we gained altitude, Matt had sighed, then leaned over and thanked me. We were safe from ISIS, and we were together as a family. Given the alternatives, that wasn’t bad, he said. Then he leaned his seat back, pulled a blanket over himself, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep, a calm and peaceful man.
I knew it wouldn’t last. I’d have to tell him the rest of my plan. But not just then. He needed his sleep, as I’d needed mine.
51
“Sir, can I get you anything from the bar?”
The twentysomething waitress who had just interrupted my daydream had kind eyes and a pleasant, gentle manner. She meant no harm. She was just doing her job. But she had no idea what she was asking.
Yes, I want a Scotch on the rocks with a twist.
Yes, bring me the whole bottle.
Yes, please deliver a case to my room.
There were only a handful of people in the lounge, and none of them knew me. I’d been here four days, and my contact hadn’t even called me back. Or sent an e-mail. Or a text. Yael hadn’t responded to any of my messages either. She knew I was here. She knew I wanted to see her. She was just blowing me off. So why not have a drink? I asked myself. I deserved one.
“Maybe just a cappuccino,” I said, forcing myself to smile.
Another boom of thunder, and the hotel trembled once more.
I checked my pocket watch again. It was closing in on six. I’d been here almost nine hours. For the fourth day in a row.
How much longer was I going to wait? What was I even doing here? Khachigian had, after all, drawn me a road map. He’d given me names, sources he trusted. Yet instead of tracking down the contacts he had given me, I was wasting time in this hotel lounge.
I got up to stretch and walked around the lounge for a bit. There was nothing to see. There was no one I wanted to talk to. A happy couple on a date, drinking champagne, laughing it up. A handful of executives discussing a telecom deal. Two gray-haired ladies, clearly tourists. One was reading Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express; the other was leafing through a copy of the National Enquirer.
Really? I thought. You’ve come all the way to the Holy Land and you’re wasting your time with tabloid trash? Then again, what was she supposed to be doing? She hardly wanted to be outside just then. Nobody did. The storm bearing down on Israel’s coastline was unbelievable.
I sat down and opened the Bible app on my phone. With nothing else to do the past four days, I’d finished reading the Gospel of John, not because I had really wanted to but because I’d promised Matt I would. In fact, when I’d finished John, I’d read through the other three Gospels, too, and then much of the rest of the New Testament. It was actually kind of interesting to read it here in Israel, where so much of it had taken place. I’d found myself particularly intrigued by Luke’s account. Luke was a Gentile. A physician. An educated man and a good writer. He hadn’t been an eyewitness like the apostles, apparently, but he’d set out to write an “orderly account” of the life of Christ. Like a journalist. A foreign correspondent. And a good one. His report provided a compelling narrative. Rich in details. Direct quotes. Colorful anecdotes. I’d never read anything quite like it.
The waitress came back with my coffee. I paid her, then tried to stare out at the storm. But the sun had set. Darkness had fallen. All I could see was my reflection in the window, and I winced in regret. I took a sip of my coffee, closed my eyes, and suddenly the clock turned back and I could feel the Gulfstream touching down.
I remembered Matt being startled awake. I remembered him trying to reestablish exactly where he was. I remembered his sudden sense of anticipation as he rubbed his eyes and checked his wristwatch, then leaned over to me and whispered, “Ten bucks we’re in Wichita.”
“Kansas?” I’d said, rubbing my eyes as well. I hadn’t slept at all.
“Yeah.”
“Why Kansas?”
“I don’t know. We were flying for about four hours, give or take. If we were heading west, I’m thinking that puts us around Wichita.”
“Why not Oklahoma City?”
Matt had shrugged. “You’d rather live there?”
“Hardly. But I’m sure we’re not in Kansas.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s not nearly cold enough.”
In my mind’s eye I pictured Agent Harris opening the door near the cockpit. The cabin had been flooded with brilliant sunshine and a warm, sultry breeze. We hadn’t flown west. We’d flown south.
“Your new home, gentlemen,” Harris had said, standing beside the open door. “Welcome to St. Thomas.”
As we exited the plane and headed toward a white Ford Explorer that was waiting for us, Harris explained, “Your wife and daughter will be taken to a specialized medical clinic on the other side of the island. You can visit them this afternoon, but first I need to show you the house, get you settled in, and explain a few things. Then I’ve got a noon flight back to D.C.”
“Why did you bring us here?” I asked, more coldly than I’d meant, as we wound our way up narrow roads, covered in dense foliage, driving on the left side of the street as if we were in Great Britain.
“Ever been here before?” Harris asked. “Either of you?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
“T
hat’s why you brought us here?” Matt asked. “Because we’ve never been?”
“Think about it,” Harris replied. “You don’t know anyone here. No one knows you. Not a lot of people read the New York Times down here. You can’t imagine yourself visiting, much less living here. It’s not you. I get it. I can see it in your faces, your body language. You’re mountain people. Lake people. You like to ice fish and hunt. You don’t hate deep snow and bitter winters. In fact, you love both. You’d be skiing at Killington right now if I’d let you. Which is why this is perfect. No one would think to look for you here. Wichita? Maybe. Oklahoma City? Perhaps. But the Caribbean? Never.”
We’d come to a fork in the road. To the right was a sign to Magens Bay, but we took the road heading left, snaking up the mountain, heading north toward a place called Tropaco Point.
“You’re actually still on American soil, gentlemen,” Harris continued. “These are the U.S. Virgin Islands. You don’t need a passport to fly from here to the mainland or back. You can operate in U.S. currency. And there are plenty of pasty-white tourists and businessmen—just like you two—who visit here, live here, retire here. So you’re not exactly going to stand out.”
I had to admit, Harris was right. Neither Matt nor I had ever had any interest in coming down here. But as we pulled into the driveway of a three-story house painted in a pale yellow with blue shutters, I could see Matt was warming to it.
And why not? The temperature was a perfect eighty-one degrees. The view from each of our three balconies was absolutely spectacular. The clouds were white and puffy. The bay, directly below us, was the most gorgeous shade of azure I’d ever seen, rimmed by white sandy beaches and dotted by sailboats gliding along in the lovely tropical breezes.
We’d never even imagined living in a place so gorgeous.
Inside, things got even better.
The tour started in the basement, where Harris showed us the secure room—or “panic room”—which by Middle Eastern standards was a full-blown bomb shelter. Hidden behind a sliding bookshelf, the room had a cement floor and two-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls. The ceiling was also concrete-lined with steel plates to prevent attackers from drilling into it from the first floor. The door was made of thick steel and Kevlar, and the entire structure was blast resistant and hermetically sealed to prevent smoke, tear gas, or other toxins from entering.
The room had sets of bunk beds that could sleep six, a separate toilet and shower facility, a small kitchenette, and a supply of water and canned and freeze-dried food that could last for up to thirty days. There was also a communications console that would allow us to monitor video cameras positioned all over the house and connect with local authorities, including the St. Thomas FBI field office, just in case. Harris walked us through the system of high-tech batteries that could provide all the power we needed if somehow we were cut off from the local grid.
The rest of the massive six-bedroom house—complete with a fully equipped medical suite—was no less impressive. The place was furnished and had all the linens, towels, dishes, silverware, and other necessities we might need. There was a large entertainment center in the basement and TVs in every bedroom, all hooked up to a satellite dish on the roof. And in the back, there was a two-car garage, where we found a bronze Toyota RAV4 and a forest-green Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The bureau, it seemed, had thought of everything.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Matt asked later that evening after Harris left and we were finally seated together, looking out over Magens Bay.
“Can’t say I have,” I said, glad Matt was happy.
And then I told him the next stage of my plan.
52
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
I paid my bill at the front desk and headed out the front door of the Carlton.
It was windy and wet and gray, but sometime in the night the rains had stopped. The bellman whistled for a cab and it pulled up momentarily. It was just before seven in the morning. There had been no time for breakfast or even a good cup of coffee, but I wasn’t staying in this country a minute longer. I’d wasted almost four and a half days, and I was done.
“The airport,” I said, and we were off.
I still felt bad about the way I’d left things with Matt. When I told him I wasn’t staying on St. Thomas, he’d been furious. “Are you crazy?” he’d said. “You just got here.”
“I know, but I never planned to stay. I wanted you and Annie and Katie to be safe, to enter the FBI program, albeit with modifications, and now here you are. You’ve got this great house—better than either of us could have imagined. You’ve got first-rate medical care for your family. You’ve got new passports, new IDs, everything you need. So you’ll be fine. But I can’t stay.”
“You can’t go,” Matt had replied. “I know I did everything I could to persuade you to do what Allen asked and go write those stories about the MP’s son and the king and his family and all. But everything’s changed. We negotiated with Harris. We made a deal. It was approved by the attorney general of the United States. You can’t just renege on it now.”
“Look, Matt,” I’d said, “what you and I agreed to was that the only way this ever ends—the only way we ever get our lives back—is if Abu Khalif is taken out once and for all. Now you and I both know the president’s not going to do that. But the Egyptians might. The Jordanians might. The Israelis might. Maybe a few others. Khachigian gave me information that might help take Khalif down. I need to go make sure this thing gets done right. Then we can all go home.”
“Help? You?” Matt had asked. “J. B., have you completely lost your mind? What, you suddenly think your initials stand for James Bond? Jason Bourne? Jack Bauer? What are we talking about here? You’re not an assassin. You’re not trained for any of that. You’re going to get yourself killed. And then you’re going to get us all killed.”
But in the end, I had left anyway. I had no other choice. I’d come to Israel first, hoping to link up with folks at the Mossad who might be able to make use of the information I had. But that hadn’t happened. I was on my own.
It was going to take a while for my taxi driver to work his way through the morning rush-hour commute to Ben Gurion International Airport, but at least the plane would wait. I was no longer flying commercial, after all. There was a Learjet waiting for me on the tarmac, fueled up and ready to go, a jet I partially owned. By lunchtime I’d be in Istanbul. By dinner I’d be in Dubai, having hopefully secured a meeting with Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE’s intelligence chief.
I had no intention of reaching out to bin Zayed directly until I arrived. He had no idea who I was, and I didn’t want to give him much time to find out. But if everything went according to plan, I’d be sipping coffee with him soon and discussing the hunt for Abu Khalif.
I pulled out my iPhone—a new one I’d picked up en route to Tel Aviv—and checked the headlines. This was a phone even Agent Harris didn’t know about and thus one he couldn’t trace.
My eye was drawn immediately to the lead story in the Washington Post, our fiercest competitor, though never our equal. It was an exclusive, lengthy, and stupefying interview with President Taylor, conducted in the Oval Office. In it, the leader of the free world had just gone on the record as saying some of the most incendiary comments of his presidency.
“Yes, this is a difficult moment,” Taylor had told the editorial board of the Post. “We have been hit by extremists who fundamentally reject modernity, who reject our values and our way of life. And I grieve for the families who have suffered losses. But we must maintain a sense of perspective. We are waging a war against these extremists, and we are winning. We are taking back the lands they’ve ravaged. We are killing their leaders. We are cutting off their money supply. And they are reeling. So they are lashing out, and these recent attacks, as terrible as they are, are simply death spasms of a movement whose day is over. Let me be clear: my job, and that of the American military and our allies, will not be over un
til these extremists are shut down once and for all. But they are trying to lure us into a much-larger conflict. They want us to come back to a full-scale war in the Middle East. And that’s not going to happen. America’s days of fighting endless wars in the Middle East—for the oil companies, for Israel, for democracy, for freeloader despots, or for whatever other reasons the neocons and the warmongers and the foreign policy establishment in this town are itching for—those days are over. They are over. And we are never going back.”
This was a new low. In a single paragraph, the president had once again demonstrated his absolute unwillingness to properly defend the American people and our national security interests in the world’s most dangerous and volatile region. That was nothing new. But now he had unleashed what amounted to an unprecedented anti-Semitic slur, and from the Oval Office no less, by accusing our Jewish allies in Israel and the “neoconservatives” in Washington—referring primarily to conservative Jewish foreign policy experts, many of whom were Republicans but some of whom were Democrats—of dragging America into war time and time again.
Not Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers.
Not the Mullah Omar and the Taliban.