by James Reston
“Omar is the Mauritanian?”
“We think that the publicity about you may have protected you somewhat from them.”
“What about the real Omar?”
“We’re sure now that he left Germany before September 11 and is somewhere in Pakistan. We have leads.”
Karima exhaled deeply and slumped down on her couch. “What’s the bad news?” she asked.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “The note you gave us in Hannover mentioned sacred mementos.”
“Yes.”
“That confirms suspicions that I … and my colleagues … have long harbored.”
Curiously, his formality pleased her. For all his fustiness, she saw him now as a consummate professional, and she admired that. It was a quality to which she aspired herself.
“What suspicions?” she asked.
“We believe you received more than merely a letter and a gold coin and an inscribed Koran and precious earrings from Sami Haddad right after 9/11. The postman who delivered your mail has approached us.”
“Dear, sweet Herr Schmitt. He is a solid citizen.”
“Yes. He described a bulky envelope. Indeed, he described its feel with considerable precision. That you would get a bulky package from Newark, New Jersey, only days after 9/11 aroused his curiosity. And then he read about your connection to Haddad in the papers. He was reluctant to come forward until now. To be honest, like a few others I could name, he felt protective toward you.”
“Okay. What else?”
“A neighbor of your mother’s in Stuttgart has been in touch with us.”
“I might have guessed. I bet I know the biddy you’re talking about. My mother has only a few friends left, you know.”
“I would not make light of this, Karima.”
“So, you have a curious postman and the gossip of an old blabbermouth and a note from Omar.”
“Yes. And a phone tap with Omar’s demand for Sami’s sacred relics. They were desperate to get whatever you had. Your gold coin and earrings did not make sense.”
“And so, what is your conclusion?”
“We think you received some sort of tape recordings.”
She took his plate without answering and drifted to the sink to soak the dish and silverware.
“Would you like another glass of wine?” she asked.
He nodded. She poured it, careful not to drip on her new tablecloth.
“Tell me something, Günther. Have you ever considered having that mole on your face surgically removed?”
He was content to let the conversation drift down side paths. She had not howled in protest at his mention of tapes. His detective’s intuition told him that she would not posture or dissemble this night.
“My colleague at work refers to it as my signature. Someone else thinks I store my microdots there. I’m not sure why it fascinates people.”
“I just thought women might find you more attractive without it,” she said.
A long, awkward silence passed between them.
“Yes,” she said at last. “It’s true. Sami did send me tapes.”
Recht felt his heart pound. Many confessions had come his way in his long career. Usually, they came as the fruit of a long, hostile interrogation when the subject was boxed in and when a confession was in the culprit’s self-interest. This was different. It was voluntary, flowing from the heart, a confession of the best kind. He could not threaten her. This was what his American counterparts would scoff at as a “fishing expedition.” Yet it felt now as if he had hooked his fish. Her story had to emerge naturally. If he coaxed the material out of her, it would be a real feather in his cap. It might even restore him to good standing in the office.
“Your favorite songs, I suppose,” he said. “Sami Haddad reading the sweetmeats of Kahlil Gibran poetry.”
“I didn’t know you read poetry.”
“Or some sort of sentimental, deathbed apology?”
“Sarcasm does not suit you, Kommissar,” she scolded. “Since he mailed his package to me the night before the attack, I suppose you could call it a deathbed confession … except that he recorded his sentiments to me over the two months before the operation.”
Her revelation floored him. Confessions from Haddad recorded over two months before 9/11! Unbelievable! The night before, when Recht had brainstormed about this meeting with the first kommissar, they had imagined tape recordings with a few sentimental tidbits. Nothing revelatory or actionable, perhaps a little elaboration on his farewell letter, just another piece of the puzzle, nothing that would be of any real interest to the Americans. Two months of recollections? It was unthinkable!
She paused. Now it was her turn to level a stare at him, searching for good intentions or bad.
“Günther, I think we should review our relationship.”
“All right.”
“Now that I have disclosed my secret to you, are you going to arrest me and throw me in jail? Put me on trial for withholding valuable evidence and send me to Guantánamo Bay? Dentists are not taught about their legal rights, except in cases of malpractice.”
“Some would say that withholding vital tapes from the BKA and the Americans is a form of malpractice,” he said.
“Unless the material is trivial or personal. If he sent me our favorite songs, or read sappy Kahlil Gibran love poems to me, that would have no legal or historical value, isn’t that so?”
She continued to clear the plates, enduring his long silence stoically.
Finally, he said. “Why don’t you let me listen to the tapes? Let me be the judge of their value?”
“I can’t,” she answered.
“Why not? We could make an agreement that would protect you.”
“No, Günther, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have burned them.”
Vice Kommissar Günther Recht thought he had experienced nearly everything in his long and varied career in criminal justice. But at this moment his shock was profound. Burn the tapes! Burn the most crucial evidence imaginable! How could she do such a thing?
“They proved my innocence,” she was saying. “But you will have to take my word for it now.”
“Um Gotteswillen, Karima! Do you know how many agents … here and in America …” he sputtered. “The entire BKA … a thousand FBI agents… if they knew what you have done. The Americans will be livid.”
“Honestly, Günther, I don’t think so,” she replied calmly. “I don’t think they’re interested in the humanity of Sami Haddad. They’re only interested in why their FBI and their CIA did not catch Sami and the others before they could act.”
“You burned the tapes,” he uttered again. “Of course! That accounts for the smell of burnt plastic in the train. How could I have been so stupid! The agents reported a smell of burning plastic mixed with your cigarette smoke.”
She returned to the sink and began to wash the plates. The sound of rushing water was deafening to him. He was still shaking his head, more in anger now than in disbelief. “You burned the tapes,” he whispered.
Her back was turned to him as she worked the detergent and brush. “Well, not all of them,” she said.
She rummaged in the icebox for a pear and brought it to him with a knife. Why was it, he thought to himself, that peeling a piece of fruit had such a calming effect? He could feel his heart thumping.
“Not the last one,” she said.
“The last one?”
“Yes, the one where he may tell me his decision.”
“His decision?” Recht whispered.
“Yes, his decision to go forward or to desert the cause and run away with me,” she said.
“You still have that tape?” he said, still trying to grasp what he was hearing.
“Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair, speechless, as a year of his professional life se
emed to pass through his mind in a flash.
“I could make you a promise,” he blurted out finally.
She sat down across from him to hear it, her expression open, expectant, devoid now of artifice or duplicity.
“If you will let me listen,” he continued, “I could promise not to reveal their existence to my colleagues and to the Americans, unless we agree together. I could swear that to you. I will put it in writing, if you wish.”
“Oh, Günther, you are such a dear man.”
He tried to modulate his tone. “I can’t begin to imagine how hard this is for you, Karima. How have you borne this alone this far? You cannot bear it alone any longer. You just can’t.”
“You’re not the first person who has suggested that.”
“We could work together. I know as much about 9/11 as anyone. I can fill in your blanks. If we need to keep this confidential, so be it. If we decided together to go public, I promise that you’ll be protected.”
“I know you’re an important man, Günther … Ober Kriminal Haupt Kommissar Günther Recht …”
“Actually, the oberkommissar is under me.”
“Over or under, I doubt that you’d be able to control things if my tapes were made public.”
“I could. I could.”
“Besides, why does hearing Sami’s voice excite you so much? It’s morbid.”
“Why does it excite me? Because I have been on Sami Haddad’s trail for a long time.”
She rose from the table and pushed in her chair. “I have an idea, Günther. Why don’t you go outside and smoke one of those revolting Gauloises, and I’ll think about it.”
It was true. She had been alone in this quest, so utterly alone. For once, listening with someone might be a good thing. Gretchen? Or Gretchen’s brother? Or her mother? They would not understand. Hadn’t the time come to unburden herself completely? Maybe he was right. She could no longer bear this witness alone. Unless she wanted to go crazy.
Recht came back through the door almost tiptoeing. He glanced at her sidelong for a hint.
“Well?” he said.
She pondered the lumpy face of this man with whom she had logged so many miles since the catastrophe, and she felt a great storm of sympathy well up. She sat down beside him on her couch, hands over her face, and broke into uncontrollable sobs. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she collapsed into his arms. He held her firmly, as the convulsions came one after another, as if all the hurt and confusion and anger and shame of the past months had to come out wave after wave until it was all expended, and she could speak again.
“You’re right. I can’t do this alone anymore.”
“Of course not. Nobody could.”
“I thought … I thought … that his tapes were just for me. Just for me! Such an honor! He wanted me, only me, to know his whole story. How stupid I have been.”
He held her silently, awkwardly, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing.
“I’m so far beyond anger now,” she said. “But the shame … the shame …” She could not finish. “Do you think people will ever forget about him … and me?”
He held her at arm’s length, his hands firmly on her shoulders, looking deeply into her eyes.
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “Yes, they will forget. Not about the attack. But the Nineteen? They were forgotten even before they acted.”
“But how can the attack be remembered, and not the attackers?”
“Oh, the masterminds may be remembered. Bin Laden, perhaps Atta. But not Sami. He’s the one who failed. He’s easy to forget. By his failure, the Capitol Building of the United States was saved. More than that. He gave the Americans a great story of heroism. That was his gift. Listen to the news reports and the political speeches about the brave passengers who stood up to ‘terrorists’ and to ‘terrorism.’ But not to Sami Haddad. The perpetrators are an abstraction.”
“He’s no abstraction to me.”
“Nor to me.” He paused. “Let’s just sort this out together, Karima, just you and I.”
“All right,” she answered. “But not now. I can’t handle any more tonight.”
“When, then?”
“In a few days. Yes, in a few days. I promise.”
“What will we be listening to? I’d like to prepare myself.”
“You want a heads-up? Isn’t that what the Americans call it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, his last three entries.”
“What dates?
“July 18 and 19, and then the last one, August 8, I think.”
Recht arrived early the next morning at headquarters, eager to avoid Braun, at least for an hour or so. If he was to have the chance to listen to Haddad’s narrative of the last weeks, he needed to review the intelligence that his agency had developed on the same period. If they were more than wistful yearnings, the Haddad recollections might go right to the heart of the conspiracy. They would constitute the best evidence of motive, unfiltered, unadulterated, untainted. There was nothing else like that in the BKA files or in any files elsewhere. The truth was that neither the Germans nor the Americans had any real insight into the motives of the nineteen perpetrators, much less in the motives of the most interesting and vulnerable one of the bunch, the one who had almost pulled out of the operation.
Even though he was in a kind of unofficial probation for his cozy relationship with Karima and under tremendous pressure to produce the contents of Karima’s package, the vice kommissar still sat, however precariously, atop the huge BKA task force that was investigating the Hamburg cell and coordinating with the Americans. It had been he who wrote the agency’s summary report and sent it to Washington. He had been the one to sign the authorization to share secret information with the CIA and FBI. The BKA had done its work. His agency had responded promptly to every request by the Americans, but it had been a one-way street. Muaz the doctor, Bin Laden’s number 2, had not been killed in December after all, and now the terrorist leader was making threats against Germany for helping the Americans in its “war on terror.” Despite that, the FBI was refusing to share the intelligence gained from its separate interrogations. And Recht was disappointed in the way the Americans had used his information. The vice kommissar was mired in a state of chronic frustration.
In his modest office, with its gray walls and fluorescent lights, he leaned back in his leather chair and surveyed his domain. On the walls were reminders of a long and distinguished career: the picture of him as a rookie cop during the hostage crisis at the Munich Summer Olympics in ’72, as a young inspector during the Achille Lauro hijacking in ’85, and from the mad dash around Germany in ’88 with the Gladbeck hostage crisis. It had been a good run.
September 11 was supposed to be its capstone. It was a great honor to be put in charge of the German investigations. Instead, it became a devastating embarrassment: the BKA had had the Marienstrasse apartment under surveillance for two years before 9/11. He was the man in operational charge and, therefore, was held responsible for the lack of action. They knew about Mohamed Atta and the man Sami called Fatfat. They knew that a Pakistani air force pilot had been part of the cell, perhaps the inspiration for the “planes operation,” but they had lost track of him after he slipped out of Germany to the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Of course, the BKA had no actual details of the plot or its connection to America. But they knew the players (except Sami Haddad) and knew that they were dangerous. They had let them slip away without even adding their names to any watch list. To the German press, the agency blamed Germany’s progressive legal system for overprotecting free speech, even in cases of violent criminal conspiracies. Few were persuaded. It was a black eye for the agency. No one had been officially reprimanded for these failures.
With some trepidation now, he pulled the file on the detention of Haddad in the Dubai airport on his way back to Germany from Afghanistan. He was the one who had
taken the call in June 2000 about a young Lebanese connecting through Dubai from Pakistan on his way to Hamburg. Recht had listened to the suspicions of the Emirati authorities that the subject was al-Qaeda and had trained in Afghanistan. His passport had been altered, and he was giving contradictory and unsatisfactory answers during his four-hour interrogation. He had failed a lie-detector test. And he laughed constantly, nervously, almost randomly. What should be done with him?
It had been he, Günther Recht, the vice kommissar of the BHA, who delivered Germany’s final recommendation: the suspect should be released for lack of evidence. Recht was a stickler for following German regulations and law to the letter. There was no probable cause of a crime. His legalistic approach had persuaded his colleagues. They had acquiesced in his arguments, and later, denied that they had done so, leaving Recht to hold the bag. The first kommissar had been especially reluctant in the decision.