DravisWrites

Prologue to Part I

July 2004

Fallujah, Iraq

Here is what Anthony Rogers remembers: Knowing at the start of the attack how it will end.

Adrenaline spikes. Time slows. There is no analysis, only pure reaction. The stranger is 50 yards ahead of the American patrol, entering the street under the mid-day desert sun.

The man’s movements falter. He reaches the center of the road, then stops . His leathered face bears an expression of uncertainty and sorrow.

Rogers calls over his shoulder to Mac, perched in the turret of the armored vehicle trailing Rogers’ open-top Humvee. “Situation!” 

“On it!” 

The man wears a cap with the Manchester United logo. Western-style pants and shoes. A thin cloak of material that looks like burlap. Rogers can’t tell if there is a bomb vest underneath.

“I am not a rich man, or a mighty one,” shouts the man in Arabic. It is as though he is beginning a speech. Along the street, the crowd immediately begins to clear.

Mac is a sniper-level marksman. The rules of engagement don’t permit firing on the man simply for looking like trouble. Another step toward the patrol will make it a different matter. Rogers knows Mac will go for a head shot.

“I welcome the stranger as a guest,” the man declaims, gesturing to the sky. He addresses no one in particular. Not the Americans, certainly. “I tend to my family. To be good for the sake of good alone—that, I have done.”

“Don’t move!” Rogers shouts in Arabic. “If you are in danger, we can help.” Next to him, the Iowa kid, Leinheimer, starts to rise. Rogers puts out a restraining hand to keep him sitting.

“Then the war came to me,” says the man. “All I have done, and sought to do? Gone. Washed away by the war, like a storm.”

He looks downward. As he lifts his head, Rogers’ eyes meet his, and he takes a step forward.

“Don’t be angry….” he begins, before he dies.

-o-

2016

Part I

You Pretend to Tell the Truth And I Pretend to Believe You

July 1

Washington, D.C.

Maureen Dallas knows Talbot Mundy will lie to her.

On a sultry evening like this, the hotel north of DuPont Circle runs the air conditioning high. She wears a thin black cotton sweater while she waits near the bar. It is her favorite spot for interviews: She loves the nearby neighborhoods, quirky and possessed of elegance and the weight of history. One afternoon, decades back, a madman seeking to impress a movie star shot the President, right outside on the sidewalk.

She knows Mundy will lie because that’s the game. Whatever a source may tell her, the true story more often is found in the source’s motive for talking, or in the facts that are twisted or left out. Her column on how Washington really works—You Pretend to Tell the Truth and I Pretend to Believe You—cuts through carefully-worded misdirection to show readers the truths omitted or hidden inside, like a magician explaining a card trick.

The crowd will thin out soon, just past the dinner hour. Mundy knows the likelihood of being seen talking to her here. Perhaps the CIA deputy director doesn’t care about being seen talking to the press about the hijacked airliner over Mecca that the Saudis had shot down in May, or figures he is invisible. Their discussion will be on background, not on the record. She doubts the session will be productive. She called him, which means he’s likely coming to extract information from her based on her questions, and she might get nothing in return.

The hotel features eight TV screens around the bar, in sight of the restaurant area. Cable news with sound turned low or off. White décor—Maureen finds the sterility comforting. A small woman, she has picked a booth that doesn’t force her to stretch to keep an eye on the entry. She sees Mundy arrive.

He is mid-fifties, rumpled and a trifle doughy. In certain lighting, he resembles former President Gerald Ford. He is the behind-the-scenes guy, the workhorse, the CIA lifer. The CIA director, Robert Nadeau, had been in Congress. Nadeau is the show horse, the public face of the Agency. Nadeau is the Agency’s Number One, but she knows the book on Mundy. Nadeau only makes decisions on matters Mundy feeds him, and Mundy handles all the rest.

Maureen met Mundy a year ago at a social event with top-end catering, sponsored by a defense-oriented think tank. Looking back, either the invite had been flattering, because she was respected enough to be cultivated by the CIA as a media contact, or insulting, with Mundy hoping for a conduit to the Post he could manipulate. She didn’t know. That was all before she got her column.

Exchanging greetings, Maureen and Mundy order drinks and make small talk on the day’s events. They ignore the menu’s dubiously sensual descriptions of the chef’s works and order burgers. Maureen sees food as fuel, not entertainment.

Mundy looks around the bar. “This place has more screens than we do at the shop.”

“In this town, the definition of tragedy is when you’re on TV and you miss it.”

Mundy points to the open paper. Maureen had been re-reading her morning column, Treasury assistant deputy something, Harriman Brown, talking about money laundering. A snoozefest. “Good story,” Mundy says.

“I’ve had better.”

“The first time you and I talked, you told me about your official rule for Washington interview etiquette, and now it’s the title for your column.” He offers a smile. He’s been having his teeth professionally whitened. “Have you always been a cynical woman?” 

Flirting? Dear God, she thinks. He’s at least 15 years her senior and looks 30 years older. She pushes her tortoise-shell glasses back to the bridge of her nose.

“I’m pragmatic.”

Mundy sips his drink. “No direct or indirect quotes. Call me ‘a member of the Intelligence Community.’ Absolute background that doesn’t even suggest you talked to someone in Washington.”

“Sure. We have information that the Saudis were able to prevent the attack because they got a heads-up.”

“Old news. Either the Saudi Air Force was much better than anyone knew, or they had inside information. No other explanations fit. What do you have that’s new?”

For all that Maureen protests Washington artifice and pretense, she enjoys the verbal fencing. She knows she’s good at it and that Mundy is a pro as well.

“We got a lead that the tip-off rumor is true.”

“Real-time, ahead of the attack?” Mundy looks dubious.

“Unclear. The tip came with sufficient time for Saudis to scramble jets.”

“Source?”

“Of the tip to the Saudis?”

“Of the story to you. But yeah, the whole thing needs vetting.”

“Our story came from foreign service sources. Maybe just recycled embassy cocktail party chat. Don’t know.” 

“Embassy? Any specific embassy?” Mundy asks. “Or is your source State Department?” As Maureen expected, he came to ask her questions but to answer little.

“Another reporter. Foreign desk. Is it true?”

“There’s no way I’m going to confirm any of that story to you. Not on the record, off the record, informally, formally, or anything. There’s no reason to think that the CIA knows anything about how the Saudis wound up shooting down an airliner.”

“Other agencies?”

Mundy offers a grim smile. “There’s no way that I am confirming, or hinting, or anything, that the United States has any knowledge at any level whatsoever about the Saudis shooting down a civilian aircraft. Period. Just to be clear, my understanding of U.S. policy is that the United States thinks shooting down passenger planes is bad.”

“Are you denying the Saudis got a tip?”

“From somebody? No. But the idea that the CIA–and by extension, any other element in the U.S. government—can tell you who helped the Saudis shoot down a civilian aircraft is fucking nuts. Or if they did know, that would be a secret. Atomic bomb level secret. But on top of that, I personally never heard anything like this.”

Maureen gives him a mischievous look. “Do you object if I put ‘fucking nuts’ on the record?”

“Yes. But it is. No agency, no government, wants to have its name anywhere near an action like that, even to speculate about it. If the Saudis believed they had to do that, it’s on them. Not our problem.”

Mecca is home to the holiest site in Islam, the Grand Mosque, and from around the world, Muslims travel to Saudi Arabia each year for the Hajj, the pilgrimage each member of the faith is pledged to make at least once in a lifetime. This year, a KLM Boeing 737 filled with 171 Iranian pilgrims and six crew on a tour package went radio silent and veered off course toward the Grand Mosque. The Saudi Air Force shot it down 40 miles away from the city, fearing a hijacking and attack.

The Middle East, never calm, had been on even higher alert since, with new tension and open belligerence among adversaries. Militaries throughout the region mobilized, borders were patrolled, and yet, no enemy emerged. The Saudis held firm that their duty to protect the Grand Mosque included shooting down the airliner. The official line was that their ability to get to the airliner so quickly demonstrated how seriously they took that obligation. Countries outside the region, and even some Muslim nations, had accused the Saudis of being over-zealous.

Still, two months later, the mystery remained: No terror groups claimed responsibility. The day of the incident, Al Jazeera received a package with a cryptic message: “All false prophets must die, as Allah wills,” but no one knew for sure if the message was connected to the plane.

“Our tip mentioned a group called the Lions of Jihad,” Maureen says.

Mundy holds his poker face. No way to know if he’s heard the name before. In desperation she offered the only truly new information she had. She’s resigned to it, the game works that way sometimes.

“And they were the hijackers?”

“Most likely. Involved somehow.”

“Nationality?”

“Iranian, maybe. But I’m supposed to be asking you questions,” Maureen says.

“A little give and take here. I’ve got no information connected to that name. We think the message to Al Jazeera points to Islamists. If I hear something about your group, I might be able to let you know.”

“So right now, what I have is ‘member of intelligence community casts doubt on confirmation of heads-up to Saudis’.”

Mundy smiles. “ ‘Casts doubt?’ That’s your takeaway from the words ‘fucking nuts’?”

“You didn’t give me an official denial.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not telling you how to do your job. But you have room to tweak that, make it a little stronger.”

A vibrating phone interrupts Mundy. He listens to voicemail. His eyes narrow; his voice takes an edge. “Looks like I’m going back to Langley after all.”

“Kind of late. What is it?”

He drains his drink. “You’ll know. You’ll guess.”

He steps briskly through the tables to the exit.

Maureen watches him go. She’d traded away the “Lions” name to see if she could provoke a reaction. All she’d gotten in return was a vague promise to maybe hear back. But Mundy wasn’t faking the emergency call. He’d gone pale and cut things off in less than 60 seconds. With a follow-up, she might get a story after all.

As Maureen takes a last sip of her wine, a gasp and murmur echo through the hotel bar. She turns to the TV screens. Masses of flames and smoke. The barman turns up the sound on the TV nearest her.

“….flight bound for Tehran struck the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It is early morning here in Dubai, just before 7 a.m. local time. No one thinks it is an accident. It must be an act of terror….”

Maureen is unable to draw breath. She is in post-9/11 New York again. The grey ash everywhere. Taping photos of her boyfriend David to light poles, a prayer that went unanswered. Vaguely, she knows there are other patrons nearby. She tries attending to the sound and images from the television and fails. The long second holds and won’t end. Then finally it ends and her breath and focus return.

The plane struck the 120th story. Left Dubai Airport minutes before. Hijack. Lost radio and transponder contact. Boeing 737. The building still stood, but could that last?

She hears sobbing at the bar. A man places his arm around his companion, who is weeping over her Tiki drink. He glances around helplessly, unable to console her. He looks embarrassed.

Around the room, hushed whispers. Faces all turned to the screens. No one looks away.

Her phone buzzes. A text from Geary, the managing editor. Come back to office.

In the cab, she remembers the blue of the New York sky from that Tuesday long ago and her old black flip-phone with the weak battery. By the time she’d charged it, all she had was David’s hurried last voicemail: “Leaving now. We’re going to try to get out. I love you.”

As she enters the newspaper office, she catches sight of her reflection too late. She’d been teary in the cab and smeared her eye makeup. “You okay?” Geary asks.

“Yeah. Got triggered a little. What do you need?”

“Work the phones on the intelligence and military side, find someone to talk about the folks who did this and we’ll add it to our lead story. Early guesses are Iranian involvement, after what happened in Mecca, but that’s talking heads guessing, not hard facts. Don’t worry about waking people up. They’re awake.”

“Okay.”

Geary says, “We’re going with wire services for the first edition. We’ll try to add local comments for later editions. I need first copy by 11 p.m., we’ll assess everything we have at that point, then new marching orders.”

“Got it.”

“What happened with your CIA guy? Anything to tie into this?”

“No. He wanted to ask questions, not answer them. He got called back for an emergency—this, obviously. No confirmation that the Saudis got a warning on Mecca.”

“Anything else?”

Maureen sighs. “He said the idea the U.S. knew about a warning to the Saudis on Mecca was fucking nuts. Quote-end quote. Nothing on Lions of Jihad.”

“Well, early innings. Let’s keep going, work the phones.”

Maureen spends a fruitless hour. She uses private numbers, or home numbers she had gathered over the years. She tries office numbers in case military or intelligence personnel she knows have returned to their desks. Either they haven’t, or they aren’t picking up, or they aren’t picking up for the press. Then she mills around the newsroom with the other reporters to speculate and gossip. No one wants to leave.

On the other side of the world, the Burj burns through the early day. She watches the TV screen in the center of the bullpen. The networks had gotten footage of the moment of impact and play it again and again. Another video shows a stream of flaming jet fuel spurting from the ruptured plane to the floors below. It looks like a waterfall catching the last rays of sunset.

The dense black plume of smoke snakes east, dissipating miles away. Anxious broadcasters wear down the audience with redundant variations of the single comment and fear: The Burj was built after 9/11. Would it hold up better than the Towers did? 

No one leaps from the building to escape the flames; there is no explanation to the viewers at home. Construction experts offer insights. The base of the Burj was engineered not to collapse, but where the plane struck, the cement core is thinner. It could crack, shifting the weight of the highest floors to steel beams whose vertical strength is being sapped by the fire. In that case, as any beam falters, the burden will shift to the beams that remain and a cascade of failures could bring the summit to its breaking point.

The top floors of the Burj lean, then lean further. They keel over just before 12:30 a.m. Washington time. The falling spire plunges down, intact, like an icicle in winter, hitting the plaza and not the lower part of the structure. The collapse plays live on TV. Where the plane hit, the remaining shard of the building sticks up like a broken fang.

Maureen is jittery and drained. It’s another wound freshened.

She’ll call Tony Rogers in the morning. He teaches at West Point now, Mideast stuff. He won’t be close to the story, but he might provide background. It won’t hurt to touch base.