RED Hotel

by Fuller, Ed; Grossman, Gary;

  “You want the American people to provide a slush fund for your company. Well, sir, it’s not going to happen.”

  Dan Reilly heard the sound bite and the way Davidson phrased it. That’s all you have? he thought, although he didn’t say it.

  “No, sir, assuming that’s a question,” he replied.

  Davidson raised his voice and narrowed his eyes. “No? You’re employed by a private corporation at a high executive level, yet you’ve come to this committee with the intention of having Congress open the people’s checkbook.”

  Another non-question.

  “With all due respect, Senator, I accepted an invitation to speak on behalf of American citizens who travel abroad—Americans who want to know that the United States government is willing to help protect its citizens on foreign soil.”

  Davidson seized the moment. The graying congressman, a rancher who had struck it rich when oil was discovered on his property, did not take well to being lectured. He bore down harder on the hotel executive.

  “Mr. Reilly, my constituents did not send me to Washington fourteen years ago as their representative in the House and now the Senate to spend money on American tourists traveling on their own dime to Europe, Asia, or wherever their fancy takes them. Not now, not ever.”

  Reilly responded in a measured voice. “Senator Davidson, every day Americans travel the globe for pleasure, but so do our nation’s businessmen and women. They work hard to bring new revenue into the US, brokering commercial deals and spreading goodwill. But when the hotels they stay in are attacked by terrorists, attacked in many cases because they house American visitors, it must be seen as an attack against America. That, sir, is the only reason I agreed to appear before this committee. To help protect American citizens and their interests abroad.”

  “That’s not how I see it, Mr. Reilly. Not at all.”

  Again, not a question. Reilly remained quiet, waiting for one. But the chairman shook his head.

  “I see that my initial round is up, and I must relinquish my time to the senator from Massachusetts. Rest assured, however, I am not finished with you.”

  Davidson leaned back in his seat and acceded to Massachusetts Democratic Senator Peggy McNamara.

  “Mr. Reilly, thank you for joining us today,” the 58-year-old former judge politely stated.

  “You’re quite welcome, Senator.”

  “Following up on the chairman’s line of questioning,” which she really wasn’t, “you recognize that the US cannot provide real protection for American citizens traveling abroad.”

  “I do. That would be impossible.”

  “Then what are you proposing?”

  A real question.

  “Terrorism is our new reality. Radical terrorism is responsible for virtually all of the attacks against hotels, most of which are owned or managed by American companies. We considered ourselves lucky in the 1970s when the Irish Republican Army phoned pre-attack warnings. Those days are over. Modern terrorists aren’t polite or politic. Their goal is to kill as many innocent people as possible. Unannounced and dramatically. Terrorism is no longer just a political threat. It’s a corporate business threat as well. For us to prepare for this, we have to be armed. Armed with information,” Reilly affirmed. “Armed with timely, credible intelligence.”

  “At what cost, Mr. Reilly?”

  “Well, information gathering and sharing has a price tag, but so does the failure to spend.”

  Moakley Davidson intentionally ignored Reilly’s testimony; he was texting and answering emails. Reilly noted the purposeful snub, so he focused on each of the other committee members.

  “Senator, members of the committee, there have been terrorist attacks against hotels virtually every year since 9/11. Thousands dead. Tourists and first responders. Children. Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The bombs have not discriminated.”

  Reilly punctuated his answer with a long silence. He took a sip of water from the glass on the table and breathed deeply. “Nearly half of these terrorist attacks used VBIEDs—Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices. Kensington Royal is examining ways to increase our security perimeters to help guard against such attacks. But that has not thwarted VBIEDs from getting up to barriers at hotels and restaurants or suicide bombers and gunmen checking in at the front desk or sitting down for one last meal. Allow me to show you what I mean.”

  Reilly signaled a technician to play a video. The members of the panel and observers in the hearing room turned to the nearest of four monitors. Reilly began narrating.

  “July, 2009, Jakarta, Indonesia …”

  TOKYO

  The FedEx truck rolled out of the garage. The backup driver closed and locked the door, then hopped in. They slowly drove through Shibuya, one of the twenty-three city wards of Tokyo, passing the upscale department stores and boutique fashion shops that were still open, the bustling nightclubs with locals and visitors in the queue, and expensive restaurants where rich young couples spilled out onto the sidewalk.

  As the delivery truck passed the Shibuya train station entrance, the driver checked his watch. On schedule.

  They drove by the new Shibuya Hikarie shopping and office complex. A taxi pulled in front of them, nearly sideswiping the left front bumper. The backup man swore, but the driver remained cool.

  The crowd on the street paid no attention to the white FedEx truck with its distinctive purple and red letters that formed an arrow between the “E” and “X.” Indeed it was one of the world’s most iconic logos, eclipsed in recent years only by Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola. To the discerning eye, the arrow would appear slightly off, but from a distance it was good enough for tonight’s run.

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “To most people it was a day like any other,” Reilly said as the video played. “Nothing out of the ordinary. You’ll see people mingling and a hotel guest casually walking through the lobby—likely a businessman on his way to his room expecting to rest after a long day of traveling.”

  The guest was seen walking from left to right across the screen. The footage switched from one camera angle to another. At thirty-six seconds into the real-time playback, the man reached the elevator bank.

  “Watch,” Reilly said. At that instant, an explosion, without the benefit of sound, sent smoke and debris hurtling into the lobby. “A suicide bomber in the restaurant detonated his bomb. The man you were watching died instantly. Died from just being there. He was not alone.”

  Reilly let the statement sink in and the footage unfold.

  After a pause, he continued. “Five minutes later, a second suicide bomber set off another bomb in an adjacent hotel. In all, sixty people were injured and nine died. Both properties were American luxury hotels. They were American, Senator. The JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton. The bombs were constructed in an independent flower shop in the Marriott. The two bombers, guests in the hotels, picked them up and walked into the Ritz restaurant and the Marriott conference room. It was as simple and as horrifying as that.”

  “American deaths?” Senator McNamara somberly asked.

  “Does it matter?” Reilly replied.

  The senator lowered her eyes.

  “Three Australians, two Dutch tourists, one New Zealander, and three Indonesians, including the two terrorists,” Reilly explained.

  “So, no Americans,” Davidson said, smugly reentering the conversation.

  “No Americans, but the bomb at the JW Marriott detonated during a meeting of AmCham Indonesia, a branch of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Jakarta. The president of the organization was hosting a breakfast meeting of prominent CEOs in Jakarta’s business community.”

  Reilly added one other comment for good measure—his gotcha. “The AmCham president is an American, Senator Davidson. Would you count that as an attempted assassination?”

  Two other members of the subcommittee were making notes as he spoke.

  “One additional thing,” Reilly said as the footage rolled. “Jakarta police found a third b
omb in room 1808 of the JW Marriott. It had been programmed to explode just prior to the restaurant bomb. You want to know the purpose?”

  Even Moakley Davidson was engaged.

  “To create panic. To drive more guests into the larger kill zone: the lobby. It’s right out of a terrorist manual. Fortunately that bomb did not go off.”

  “Why this target, Mr. Reilly?” Senator McNamara asked.

  “American hotels. American interests. Because Americans were there. We just got lucky, if you want to call it that.”

  TOYKO

  The FedEx truck cautiously continued along Tokyo’s streets, sticking to the speed limit. Other vehicles steered around them. Police ignored them. Pedestrians waiting at crosswalks were too busy on their cell-phones to take any notice.

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “I have more video, which I’ll send to each of your offices,” Reilly said. “But you don’t have to wait. It’s been on YouTube for years. Just Google it.”

  He motioned for an aide to bring up an easel and stand. It had ten stacked poster boards with grid lines indicating years, hotels, locations, tactics, casualties, and perpetrators.

  “In the interest of time, I won’t review everything. But we do have hard copies covering key points.”

  An assistant distributed bound PowerPoint decks bearing the KR logo.

  Davidson tried to insinuate himself into the moment. “If this is intended to—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but the witness is mine right now,” Senator McNamara proclaimed.

  He gave a brusque, inaudible reply and waved her on.

  “Please continue, Mr. Reilly,” she stated. “The floor is yours.”

  “Thank you.” Reilly stood next to the easel and began. “March 27, 2002. The Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the hotel’s dining room. May 8, same year. A Pakistani bus outside the Sheraton in Karachi exploded. October 7, 2004, the Hilton in Taba, Egypt. A suicide bomber drove a car into the lobby. The bomb exploded and 33 people were killed, another 150 injured.”

  Reilly ran through fourteen other bombings covering Indonesia, Kenya, Iraq, Egypt, Thailand, Pakistan, Jordan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Thailand. Many bore the names of America hoteliers.

  “They don’t necessarily always make the front page. If they do, it’s only for a day or two, and with few details. But for us, they are front of mind for a long, long time,” Reilly added.

  Moakley Davidson paged through the handout. Reilly was convinced he wasn’t reading a word of it. Montana was a world away from all of the locales mentioned. He wondered if it would take a direct hit in Billings to make a difference.

  TOKYO

  The driver stuck to the speed limit, braked for people crossing the street, and came to full stops at the lights. He passed a Shinwa Bank branch, a cluster of seedy “love” hotels not listed by Michelin, and then rows of pubs, karaoke clubs, and restaurants that came alive after dark. He made a final turn onto Dogenzaka. Five blocks from the destination, he dropped off his backup driver, who would have served as a translator if stopped. He checked his watch again. 10:58 p.m. 2258 hours. Two minutes before his special delivery.

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Davidson noted McNamara’s time was up. The chairman turned to the Alabama senator, Bill Cole, who would pick up Moakley Davidson’s line of questioning.

  “Thank you, Mr. Chairman.” The 58-year-old senator, serving his first term, got right to his first question. “Mr. Reilly, can you walk us through why you think hotels are so vulnerable?”

  Reilly viewed it as a completely naïve question.

  “I will, Senator Cole. While we’re in the hospitality business, we are equally in the anti-terrorism business. Hotels are ideal targets. They have fixed locations, limited security perimeters, and most of all they’re full of potential victims in an environment that’s meant to be friendly and welcoming. Increasingly, we are in the crosshairs of terrorists’ sights. We present soft targets, and to my point, timely intelligence can put us in a better position to detect and deflect.”

  Cole was prepared to rebut his testimony. He shuffled through some paperwork until he produced a document. He held it up for Reilly to see.

  “Mr. Reilly, do you recognize this?”

  Reilly nodded. “Based on the logo, from this distance, it appears to be a State Department document. I’d like to examine it, however.”

  Cole gave it to a staffer who walked it over to Reilly.

  “And?”

  “It is an official State Department travel advisory.”

  “So you are familiar with this,” Cole stated.

  “Perhaps not this exact one, but yes, these types of advisories.”

  “Will you read the highlighted portion, Mr. Reilly?”

  Reilly scanned the advisory.

  “I’m sorry. Aloud, if you will,” the Alabama senator insisted.

  Reilly cleared his throat and read the copy.

  In recent years, terrorists have targeted police stations and officers. Currently, travel by US government personnel to central areas is restricted to mission-essential travel that is approved in advance by the embassy security office. Whether at work, pursuing daily activities, or traveling, Americans are advised to be aware of their personal safety and security at all times. Extremists may target both official and private establishments, including bars, nightclubs, shopping areas, restaurants, places of worship, and hotels.

  “And hotels,” Cole repeated.

  “Yes, Senator.”

  “The advisory, issued by the State Department, was for Indonesia. Would you say it is representative of travel warnings issued for other nations?”

  “Yes, sir, it is representative,” Reilly responded.

  “And you have access to advisories of this nature?” Cole asked.

  “Yes, I do. Our corporate VP of Global Safety and Security routinely disseminates them, but they are also online.”

  The freshman senator removed his glasses and glared at Reilly. “Then what else can you possibly need?”

  TOKYO

  Takayuki Nikaido was already an hour into his dreaded overnight shift. This was his fourth week of all-nighters; his fourth week away from his family. The 63-year-old hotel security officer was not happy with the schedule, but with only a few more years until retirement, he quietly and obediently accepted the shift assignments.

  Nikaido scanned four computer screens stacked in two rows. They displayed constantly changing closed-circuit TV images captured by 420 cameras in virtually every corner and corridor of the opulent Kensington Royal Hotel in the heart of Tokyo. They cycled every two seconds except when a camera caught movement in its field of view.

  Movements covered on camera included what happened in the halls throughout the twenty-one-story luxury hotel: guests arriving and leaving, couples kissing, kids running, hotel staff going to and from rooms. Other cameras caught, but did not record, empty elevators. Stairways were also covered as well as lobbies, escalators, restaurants, kitchens, storage rooms, doors leading to bathrooms, and subterranean service areas such as the electrical power plant for the hotel and the roof. Exterior cameras, the few there were, focused on the front and back of the opulent hotel.

  Videos and still frames were archived for just thirty days on a hard drive in the security office. Another computer hosted a duplicate record, but there was no cloud backup.

  Nikaido shared the security office with two younger officers who were playing a game to pass the time. Daichi Eto and Fumio Imamura watched couples on the hotel cameras. They called their game “Hooker, Girlfriend, or Wife.” Ten points for hookers, five for girlfriends, two for wives. Eto and Imamura would make a guess as the couples walked through the lobby. Sometimes it would be instantly apparent. Other times, less so, and more fun.

  Wives were usually easy to spot, particularly if they were Japanese guests. If older, they generally walked behind their husbands. If younger and less traditional, they walked sid
e-by-side. Girlfriends walked arm-inarm, looking up and around, talking endlessly. Hookers also walked close to their escorts, but neither spoke nor looked anywhere but straight ahead. Often the security officers playing the game recognized the hired women. At other times, their purposeful mannerisms gave them away. And when it came to hookers, the action often started in the elevator or even in the stairwell. Eto was particularly good at guessing how long an escort would stay with their companion. It went anywhere from thirty minutes to the whole night, depending upon the client’s appetite and budget.

  Actually, most of the camera images pulsed too quickly to be reliably screened for true security purposes. They were intended as a record for examination against insurance claims after a theft or to settle a hotel/guest dispute. So the team principally made routine log notations, spoke with roving security personnel, occasionally answered a medical call, and played Hooker, Girlfriend, or Wife. Nikaido didn’t take part in the game, but he allowed his junior officers their fun. It helped pass the time. Meanwhile, he did keep an eye on the monitors. Reception was checking in a flight crew from American Airlines. Late night conventioneers from the US joined friends at the lobby bar, and an older man and a younger woman entered.

  He heard Eto’s guess. “Hooker!” He was right.

  Nikaido laughed at the repartee and casually focused on the street-facing cameras at the main entrance. They flared with the headlights of passing cars and one larger vehicle, a FedEx truck that was coming to a stop.

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “Senator Cole, we need deeper intelligence,” Reilly proclaimed. “We need a greater level of cooperation from America’s investigatory agencies, a pipeline to specific information that will help us deny terrorists access. Public warnings are helpful, but we need to know what’s not publicly published.”