by James Reston
That colossal error had initiated Recht’s obsession with Sami Haddad, long before he met Karima Ilgun. Haddad’s release and his central role in the attack weighed heavily on the vice kommissioner’s conscience. Since 9/11, no one had overtly held his advocacy for Haddad’s release against him, though he suspected that it was behind the first kommissar’s chronically sour attitude toward him. The consensus persisted. Had Haddad been found, broken, and arrested, he might have led them directly to Atta, to the Hamburg cell, and to the plan for 9/11.
He could not share his disgrace with Karima. In the end, he knew he was far more responsible than she.
To overcompensate for his mistake, he had allowed himself to get too close to Karima. He had gone soft. His failure to report the existence of the Haddad tapes immediately would be grounds for instant dismissal. His pact of silence with her violated every rule of investigative practice. He knew the consequences. Perhaps it was time to go. It would not be so bad to retire to the Frisian Islands, and do a little fishing. He had always wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. True, he would lose a significant part of his pension if he took early retirement. He was fifty-five—still young. He could find ways to be useful.
Now, he opened the top drawer of his filing cabinet, pulled out the FBI’s “psychological profile” of Haddad, and stripped away the cover sheet marked SECRET in big red letters. The report was more than a hundred pages long, but he was not impressed with its contents. More a narrative of Haddad’s movements and calls and expenditures than a psychological profile, it contained no insights into the villain’s mindset or motivations or conflicts. As a fact sheet, it had its uses, but as a psychological profile, it was garbage.
Recht knew that he had to overcome his anger over the destroyed tapes and make the most of what survived. Karima had said the tapes she would play for him were recorded on July 18 and 19. That was around the time that Atta had flown to Spain to meet Omar and work out the final details of the planes operation. A few weeks earlier, Haddad had flown to San Francisco in first class on a 757, the aircraft he flew on September 11. And then he had flown on to Las Vegas to rendezvous with Atta, where they happily swilled whiskey and cavorted at the blackjack table. Caught on casino surveillance videos later, the pair had had a great time. Sami had purchased a GPS for use on the operational flight. The receipt for it was in his file. These actions did not sound to Recht like those of a man gripped by indecision.
If Sami Haddad was really torn, even right up to the end, was his ambivalence sincere? Or was he trying to make himself look more sympathetic in Karima’s eyes? Recht could argue it both ways. On the one hand was Haddad’s inexorable path toward his terrible fate; on the other was al-Qaeda’s verifiable concern about his commitment and reliability. The allure of Karima was their greatest worry, and who could blame them? In intercepted communications, marked TOP SECRET, Muktar had specifically written to Mohammad Atef that “if Haddad asks out, it’s going to cost a lot of money.” Money was code. The cost of Haddad’s defection would be far greater than financial.
And the evidence showed that as they worried about Haddad, they were grooming al-Sahrawi to take his place. In an encrypted message, Muktar instructed Omar to “send skirts to Sally,” meaning “send money to the Algerian.” By the time Karima prepared to fly to Florida to see Haddad for the last time, al-Sahrawi had completed six months of flight training, including an intensive flight simulator course in Eagen, Minnesota. Al-Sahrawi himself had told authorities that when he finished his flight training in August, his instructions were “to proceed to New York.” Why? The answer was obvious: clearly to be ready to assume the pilot’s role if Haddad pulled out at the last moment. But Muktar considered Algerian to be a poor substitute.
Viscerally, the vice kommissar knew he had caused himself a problem with Karima. All his professional life, he had known never, ever, to fall in love with your agent, and now the first kommissar had called him on the carpet for his indiscretions. His superiors knew that he was not involved in any romantic way. The notion was ludicrous. Recht was no lover. He was far too old and jaded and set in his ways for amorous indiscretion, though they imagined that he, like everyone else who came into contact with this stunningly beautiful woman, it seemed, had his fantasies. Rather, “the lover does not care for his beloved so much as he draws inspiration from her.” Recht had come upon the line in his nightly reading of Nietzsche a few nights before.
And Recht was drawing inspiration from Karima. No woman in his limited experience or even in his imagination had ever been betrayed so cruelly. By helping her navigate Sami’s recollections, interpreting his actions and statements, Recht hoped to prevent her from going insane. He had indeed become emotionally involved.
Now, against his better judgment, he had made her a promise. However impulsive, it was eminently practical: at the least hint of bad faith, she might consign these last tapes to the flames as well.
He turned to the section on Haddad’s voluminous telephone records. The man had been a telephone obsessive, and the Americans had done well to track every call, most of which had employed prepaid telephone cards. Sometimes he’d called Karima three times in a day, clearly in search of moral support. Flipping to the end of the record, Recht wanted to see whether Haddad’s last call had been to Karima—the three-times-I-love-you call. Could there have been a later one? Was it really true, as he had heard, that Haddad had called Omar in Germany from the cockpit itself? The unconfirmed report stated that as Haddad, somewhere over Ohio, turned the plane back toward Pennsylvania and set the course for Washington and the U.S. Capitol, he had shouted to Omar, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” and Omar had screamed back, “You must! You must!” But the report was unverified.
In the FBI’s telephone logs, he saw no record of such a call, but the hijacker could have used another phone. Recht knew that in certain circles in the Middle East, this story was gaining credence. In other circles, Haddad was being held up as an Arab hero. In the hills of the Bekaa Valley, there was now an insurgent group called the Sami Haddad Brigade.
Recht reached for the al-Khatani and al-Sahrawi files. Haddad’s tape of July 18 or 19 would have to mention their names, he surmised. What would Sami have to say about those hapless blunderers? The vice kommissar had enjoyed the slapstick of the al-Khatani story when he first heard it: a bumbling Bedouin arrives on a one-way ticket in Orlando with a wad of al-Qaeda cash, unable to fill out the US immigration form, unable to say why he was coming, unwilling to swear an oath that he was telling the truth, first saying that someone was waiting for him, then that no one was, while Atta waited outside, twiddling his thumbs. Recht chuckled darkly to himself. Here again the Keystone Cops of America had sent him home rather than detaining him. Then he checked the record. Yes, al-Khatani indeed had been captured in Tora Bora late in 2001 and was now in Guantánamo. But he had been brutally tortured and rendered useless.
And al-Sahrawi? He had been indicted in December and was headed for trial in US federal court, purportedly as the “twentieth hijacker.” But Recht knew that al-Khatani was the twentieth, and al-Sahrawi was to be Haddad’s backup pilot, the twentieth and a half. The elements of the Algerian’s story seemed like a dark comedy to the kommissar as well. His remark to his flight instructors that he was not interested in learning how to take off and land a jetliner, only in how to control it in flight, was priceless. Recht had encountered many pathetic criminals in his day, but this character ranked high in his gallery of dim-witted blockheads.
As Recht reviewed the latest FBI intelligence on al-Sahrawi, Braun entered with a smirk. “Well,” he said. “Did you have a good time last night, Kommissar?”
Recht scowled. “You have a dirty mind, Braun. Shouldn’t you be busy with the Deutsche Bank case?”
“Come on, boss. Give. What happened?”
“Look here, Braun, if something significant happened, you would have no need to know it; 9/11 is my province. If I need your help, I’ll
tell you.”
“In Hannover, your nighttime appointment with her seemed so promising,” Braun pouted.
Recht glowered at him in silence.
“By the way, the man from the FBI is waiting,” Braun said.
“Let him wait.” Recht waved his assistant away and went back to the Al-Sahrawi file.
They each kept their promises. Two nights later Recht arrived at Karima’s apartment at 10:00 sharp. This time there were no candles, no music, no food. Karima had collected herself, steeling herself for what was coming.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get on with it. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
She shooed away the cat, and they sat together on her couch.
“Do you believe in black magic?” she asked.
He snorted. “I’m a Lutheran. We believe that life with God persists even after death, if that’s what you mean.”
“But do you think we can communicate with the dead?”
“I suppose it might be possible to be a Lutheran and practice voodoo at the same time. Martin Luther wrestled with the devil, after all.”
“I’m not talking about Martin Luther.”
“We also believe in perpetual judgment.”
“What does that mean?”
“That judgment lasts forever, now and into eternity.”
Christian theology confounded her, as much as did the fine points of Islam. She let it go.
“I have developed a ritual, Günther. It’s silly, I know. Don’t laugh. Will you humor me?”
He nodded.
She folded herself into the lotus position, laced her fingers in her lap, and closed her eyes. With a tinge of embarrassment, she whispered, “Those who I have loved and lost, speak to me now.”
She switched on the machine, uncoiled her legs, and tilted her head onto his shoulder. Sami’s voice filled their ears like an infection.
July 18, 2001
“And so, Karima, I’m at a fork in the road. One path leads to you. I’ve begun to think about withdrawing from this adventure. Its finality is just … too final. If I leave, then Atta will have his magic number, nineteen. Nineteen angels to guard the hellfire. Then he will be happy. I know they’ve got a backup for me. He’s getting trained in Minnesota. He can do it instead.
“What would happen then? I’ve been thinking about that a lot. They would track me down. To the ends of the earth. I would never be safe. You, my family, all of us would be in danger. When this is over, whoever is still alive, whoever helped along the way, will be on the run. I must protect you.
“Maybe when we see each other, we’ll talk about it. You would be shocked at first. But then, my love, you will be my rock of support. We could be brave together. I’m sure of it. Because you love me. That will be enough.
“And the other path … Atta does not share all the particulars with me, but I know we’re four teams of five. The other teams are complete. Almost everyone is in the States. They know this is a martyrdom mission, but they don’t know the details. Only my team is one guy short. Atta is in Orlando today to pick up my fifth.
“Ahmad has been shadowing me for weeks. Atta insisted that we room together. The little prick is insufferable. Seriously, I hate him. He’s constantly waking me up to pray in the middle of the night. He goes out of his way to annoy me. And he sticks to me like glue.
“The others in my team are staying in Naples. They come from the al-Qassim in Saudi Arabia, where the Wahhabis are. I know them only by their warrior names. The guy from the al-Ghambi clan, his name means “might,” “pride,” and “invincibility.” I hope so. He was in Chechnya. The other claims to be a descendent of the Prophet. I haven’t met them yet.
“My fifth team member is that little Bedouin, al-Khatani, who bunked next to me in Afghanistan. Remember I told you how he used to dream of glory with Osama bin Laden and the Prophet himself? He’ll be in the best physical shape. That will be a huge plus.
“Perhaps for once in my life I should finish something I have started. To really achieve something—what would that be like?”
Karima switched the machine off. “Perhaps for once in my life I should finish something I’ve started,” she repeated.
“He was past the fork in the road, Karima,” Recht said.
“Maybe,” she answered. “I’ve listened to this passage over and over. He still has a chance to reject them.”
“Maybe,” he repeated. “Go on.”
She pushed the play button. Haddad’s first words boiled with anger.
July 19, 2001
“Karima! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! Atta came to my apartment tonight and said that stupid little al-Khatani had been turned back at the Orlando Airport. He learned this from Muktar. Since al-Khatani had a tourist visa, they asked to see his return ticket. And he didn’t have one. Then he showed them he had $2,800 in cash, and they said that was not enough for his stay. When they asked if he was being met, he said yes, then no. What a joker! Then they asked again, only under some kind of oath. He sputtered something incoherent.
“Then he lost it. Goatherd! He got hostile with them. The whole idea, I mean, the first principle is not to draw attention to yourself. Kalb! Asshole! What happened to all that training? And get this: he claimed to speak no English through the whole interview. So, they got an interpreter. But then they took him to the plane, sending him back to Dubai, and he stood there at the door of the plane and shouted at them.
“‘I’ll be back!’ Idiot!
“And so, my team has four guys rather than five. There’s no time to get a backup. Maybe this makes my choice easier. When I asked Atta what we do, he just shrugged his shoulders.”
“Have you ever heard him that angry?” Recht asked as he switched it off.
“Once.”
“When was that?”
“With my old roommate, Gretchen, in Greifswald. She was a theology student and a pretty good cook. We got together for a student dinner from time to time, and when Sami was around, they often discussed religion. She’s a devout Catholic and very interested in the rituals of religion. There was only one rule: we were never to bring up Israel and Judaism. That was taboo.”
“So, what happened?”
“One time they were talking about whether Muslims had a highly developed sense of right and wrong, or whether following the ritual of praying five times a day was enough. But the conversation drifted to the question of whether Islam was a violent religion. Sami became quite agitated, and he made some outrageous remark—I can’t remember what exactly, something about jihad, probably. She was pretty well versed, and she challenged him on some important pillar of his faith. He was obviously wrong about it. And then, half-serious, she questioned whether he was a true Muslim or was just faking it.”
“Ach so! She went right to the core of his insecurity,” Recht said. “Whether he was really a true believer or just putting on a show.”
“Yes. He exploded in a terrible rage. He turned on her viciously and said something like, ‘Tonight we eat together, and tomorrow I will take you out of the picture.’”
Karima rose from the couch to get them a drink of water. She could feel his eyes on her back as she glided toward the kitchen.
“Why is he so upset with this al-Khatani business?” she asked, handing him his glass.
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” he answered. “With four instead of five, his team would have difficulty controlling the passengers. With Sami and Ahmad in the cockpit, that left only the two Saudis to keep forty passengers at bay. Sami seemed to understand that. He knew the Americans by this time, knew there was a good chance that there’d be some hero on board. His chances of success were severely diminished.”
“Success,” she whispered.
“But isn’t that the way he thought?”
“I don’t know how he thought anymore,” she mumbled.
“Don’t you see?” Recht
persevered. “All his life he’d had trouble finishing anything. He falters in high school, in dentistry school, in flight engineering school. He is always dropping out. Always needs help—from his professors, from his family … from you. The loss of al-Khatani must have felt very familiar to him. He saw the shape of yet another failure.”
“I suppose that’s the way it worked out,” she muttered.
“Tell me what you remember about your two weeks together that summer.”
Karima had replayed those two weeks in her mind so many times they had almost become a dream. Or actually, two dreams. She now could accept that she had loved half a man: the good Sami, the funny, playful Sami, the great dancer, and yes, great lover. In Florida, he’d taken her to his flight school to meet his instructors, to his gym to meet his personal trainer. They’d picnicked on the beach of Siesta Key. He’d flown her solo to Miami, where they’d partied in the bars and discos of Miami Beach. And he’d taken her downtown to see the skyscrapers.