“Well, what’s wrong with that?” her mother asked, voice rising and putting her hand out and laying it over Nancy’s on the table. “What is wrong with being looked over if you’re still writing for the best paper in the country and you get to interview the President? All our friends are so impressed when they see your name on the front page. And besides, it’s a safe position and you get to be with your daughter.” She gazed unhappily into Nancy’s eyes.
It all came down to that, Nancy knew, biting her lip to keep from saying anything she might regret. Ever since this chance of getting assigned to the Middle East arose, it had eaten away at Nancy as well. Joanna was 17, a senior in high school, and Nancy and her daughter had enjoyed such a nice life together. They still lived in the small apartment in Washington, which was cozy with their possessions. Nancy’s ex-husband was still in New Jersey, and Joanna relished her weekends with him, which also allowed her to go into New York City with her friends and cousins. Everything seemed about as good as it could be – certainly better than she had thought when the divorce happened.
But she felt like she was treading water in her career. At the Times, it was the rare star reporter who didn’t take at least one assignment abroad, at least for a few years, and, at 45, this might be her last chance. The White House beat, which to outsiders seemed romantic and exciting, was actually something of a backwater for reporters at the paper. You basically followed the President around and wrote down what he said, without a great deal of opportunity to really dig into issues. A lot of the time, you felt as though you were just spewing out whatever the administration wanted you to write, like a mouthpiece. She tried hard to avoid falling into that trap, but it was a constant danger. She relished the notion of spending time in the Middle East covering terrorism and the chaotic governments of the region. A few years over there, and she’d likely be able to come home to a higher position at the paper, perhaps even as a columnist. That’s how Nick Kristof and Thomas Friedman had gotten their columns, anyway.
It tore her heart out to have to leave Joanne with her father while she was away, and she knew that bothered her parents as well, neither of whom had ever warmed very much to her ex, even before the divorce. Nancy felt Jake was a perfectly capable dad, and could handle things in her absence. And Joanna was an independent girl who could take care of herself well. She and Joanna had spent many evenings this last month at home and out at dinner talking about the possibility, and Joanna seemed to feel pretty comfortable with the idea of living with her father.
What Joanna, and even more so, Nancy’s mother, did worry about, was Nancy’s safety. And they had good reason to, Nancy supposed. She’d lain awake nights, wrestling with this over and over, and she’d come to the conclusion it was now or never. As hard as it would be to separate from Joanna and only see her a few times a year, she had to do this for herself. She’d sacrificed so much the last 17 years for Joanna.
“Mom, I know exactly how you feel,” Nancy said, looking her mother in the eyes. There were tears coming down her mom’s cheeks, she was surprised and alarmed to see them. “Please, don’t cry.” She stood up, walked over to her mother and tried to hug her. Her mother gently pushed her away.
“Honey, it’s OK. I’ll get over it,” her mother said. “I’ll try not to worry too much about you over there. But it’s going to be hard.”
“I promise I’ll email every day, Mom. Remember, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m 45. I can take care of myself. And the Times takes security very seriously. I’ve been learning a lot about it. Actually, it might be hard to do any serious reporting there; I’ll be in such a bubble.” This wasn’t entirely true, Nancy knew, but she hoped it would soothe her Mom.
“How long will it be, again?” her mother asked, dabbing her cheeks with a Kleenex.
“I’d be leaving later this month and spending two years there,” Nancy replied. “I’ll still get to spend a few weeks here at home every year.”
“Fine, fine,” her mother said, standing up and beginning to clear the dessert dishes, which were still on the glass table in the dining area. Nancy walked over to help her.
“Just do me a favor,” her mother added as she gathered plates still flecked with chocolate cake crumbs. “No visits there by Joanna, OK? That part of the world just isn’t safe for kids.”
Nancy put down her dish and walked over to her mom, who this time accepted Nancy’s embrace.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Nancy said, holding her mother closely. “Joanna will stay here with her Dad. I won’t let her visit me in the Middle East. I’ll be too busy to show her around, anyway.”
CHAPTER 3
Virgil Catches Up
Virgil shut his laptop with a sigh and stared out the window at the parking lot under the gray November clouds. He hadn’t been able to get steady work since being fired from the White House five years earlier, though he had contributed some opinion pieces on terrorism to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He was separated from his wife, who’d grown fed up with his late hours and inattention, and instead of living in splendor in a Kalorama, D.C. town home, he was stuck out here in McLean, Virginia, in this crummy one-bedroom apartment in a complex of boxy 1970s buildings. He couldn’t exactly blame his wife for leaving; she’d put up with his odd hours for years, and enough was enough. Besides, they’d grown apart since the kids left home. Luckily the separation had been amicable, and she still sent him a check every month covering basic expenses and kept him on her health plan. He’d never worked outside of the government, so his savings were rather meager. By being fired, he’d forfeited his government pension.
For about a year, he’d been taking night courses at the local community college, working to get his teaching degree. He figured if he kept it up, he’d make a decent high school history teacher some day. But at age 54, he wondered how likely it was that he’d be able to find a job once he got qualified. There wasn’t much of a market for people his age, he knew. And history teachers weren’t exactly a sparse commodity.
The other project he had going was his memoir, which he’d started soon after his dismissal. It was now more than 100,000 words long, but he kept revising and revising it, never satisfied. He knew it would be interesting to some publisher if he could ever finish. After all, he’d spent nearly 30 years in the government – from the time he graduated college right up until that fateful day in 2001 in Cheney’s office, where he’d heard the vice president chew him out in the most painful way imaginable. The book spent a lot of time assessing why the government had missed possible terrorist signals prior to the hijackings of 2001, and criticized both the Clinton and Bush administration’s responses to terrorist acts such as the African embassy bombings of 1998, the Cole attack of 2000 and the 2001 hijackings.
Even now, the words Cheney used came back into his head clearly. “Treasonous, irresponsible, Al-Qaeda’s best friend, self-centered.” He’d been given 20 minutes to clear anything personal out of his office – under the eagle eyes of two silent Secret Service men, who were there, he supposed, to make sure he didn’t run off with any sensitive documents. His computer and laptop had been confiscated, and he’d been escorted to the White House gate by the same two Secret Service men, carrying a shopping bag full of his meager personal items – framed photos of his wife and kids, the photo of him and Clinton.
Ah, what’s the point of ruminating about the past, he thought. That was then and now was now. The public fallout had dissipated pretty quickly after his firing, with editorial pages splitting about 50/50 on whether he’d made the right decision to reveal his memo to the public. His thesis that the terrorists were planning to crash into buildings, which he still believed in strongly, withered on lack of evidence. Nothing in Al-Qaeda’s communications prior to the hijackings or in Bin Laden’s messages to the public afterward ever referred to such a plan.
And when the administration had bombed several Al-Qaeda training camps and hideouts in Afghanistan several weeks after the plane collision, it had wiped ou
t the group’s primary network, even though it hadn’t gotten Bin Laden, who was presumed to be hiding somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Taliban government, which Bush had also targeted in his bombings after the collision, was weakened but held on to power, as the United States never committed the ground troops that would have been necessary to dislodge it. There was no public appetite in the U.S. for such an action, anyway, and Bush had shifted his focus quickly to Iraq. The public’s interest in Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda waned, and it was widely considered that the group had been adequately punished for the hijacking deaths. Aside from a threatening message every half a year or so from Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda had pretty much filtered out of the newspapers and news shows.
The most recent speeches from Bin Laden, like his first one after the hijackings, focused on Saudi Arabia, other Arab governments and Israel. He also railed against the United States, but the terrorist leader’s focus seemed closer to his own home in the Middle East. There’d been a terrible bombing of civilians in Riyadh in 2002, which proved once and for all to the Saudi government that Al-Qaeda saw the House of Saud as a target, and since then, Saudi Arabia had joined the U.S. in calling for Bin Laden’s death. But the Riyadh attack, which killed 25 civilians outside a government building, seemed like something of a pinprick, considering how much more damage Al-Qaeda might have done had it targeted oil facilities or the U.S. military bases in the country, so that attack, too, after a while, had faded in most peoples’ memories.
What also had faded, and was more disturbing to Virgil, was any sense of mission in trying to uncover the people who had been behind the 2001 hijackings. From his conversations with people in the government who’d still talk to him – including Harry, who had re-joined the Department of Defense in 2003 and had rapidly risen in its ranks lately – it seemed there was a sense among the foreign policy elite that by breaking apart Al-Qaeda’s operating systems, killing some key leaders, scattering the group and putting Bin Laden and his top deputies on the run, the problem had been solved. “Americans have a short memory, Virge,” Harry had said a few months ago when Virgil brought up his concern in one of their rare conversations. “That thing in 2001 was a long time ago, and we’ve been at war for three years in Iraq. Lots more on folks’ minds now.”
But Virgil still obsessed about “that thing,” as Virgil called the attacks, because to date, it was only the second foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil, with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing the other. He couldn’t be sanguine about the possibility that some Al-Qaeda mastermind might still be out there planning more attacks.
“The CIA is all over this stuff,” Harry had assured him in that same conversation. “You just don’t know about it because you’re out of the government. They’ve been combing through all the evidence for years, and they’re pretty sure they know who the fellas are that put that attack together.”
Harry couldn’t tell Virgil the name of the “mastermind,” because Virgil had no security clearance. But Virgil’s own thorough research, and his continued talks with sources in the Middle East still willing to risk speaking to him after his fall from dignity, zeroed in on a native of Kuwait named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known to his associates as “the Director,” and referenced in the CIA documents as “KSM.” Evidence uncovered from some of the materials found at bombed Al-Qaeda sites made references to this mysterious figure, and there were also messages back and forth between KSM and Atta before the attacks. The CIA had spent a good deal of energy searching Pakistan for KSM, as that was his last known country of residence. But it had come up with nothing.
Virgil hadn’t let his lack of a security clearance stop him from attempting to figure out what happened, but he faced a number of challenges. For instance, he’d wanted to go through the manifests of every passenger plane on the tarmac or in the air at the time of the collision. He was haunted by the reference to “some planes,” a reference that he purposely hadn’t included in his memo to the President because of its national security sensitivity. And the public was unaware of it as well, since the black boxes had been under lock and key since the day they’d been found, with only selected bits and pieces released. Virgil wanted to know who else may have been on planes that day, and if they had connections to Al-Qaeda, but he didn’t have access any longer to the databases he needed to dig that information out. He’d talked to Harry about his concerns, and Harry had reassured him that the FBI had done the footwork and had the information it needed. For some reason, that didn’t make Virgil feel any better. He was frustrated being on the outside, but saw no hope of getting back in.
On this gray November day, after the Republicans had suffered a thrashing in the mid-term election earlier in the week, there was rumor that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would be the administration’s sacrificial lamb. Virgil didn’t exactly feel bad about this, knowing the smug bastard all too well. He’d been disappointed in the mid-term results, but understood the implications – someone would have to take the fall. And with the Iraq war going from bad to worse, it was Rummy’s turn.
Today Virgil planned to drive into D.C. for a doctor’s appointment. His leg had become worse as he grew older, and his limp more pronounced. The pain was getting to be a more personal thing, as well, talking to him like a close friend, day after day. He likely needed a hip replacement soon. “What fun, getting old,” he said out loud. He put on his coat, limped carefully down the outdoor stairs of his apartment building, got into his old Chevy with a grunt of pain as his leg brushed across the seat, and drove to D.C. The bridge over the Potomac offered a dramatic view of the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and the Washington Monument, but Virgil didn’t pay much attention. He’d never been a big one for scenery. And on this chilly day, the whole city seemed to lack color and vitality.
The doctor’s office was in his old neighborhood, and after he parked and paid the exorbitant meter fee, he limped across DuPont Circle toward the building entrance. A light drizzle fell, and it was about 45 degrees. It was midday, but car headlights beamed through the rain drops. Lacking an umbrella, Virgil limped as fast as he could, eager to get inside.
As he walked, someone called out to him.
“Virgil –is that you?” a man’s voice came through the mist. Virgil turned toward the sound and saw a tall, slim man wearing a tan trench coat walking his way. Virgil tried to place the face with the voice, which sounded so familiar. He’d always had trouble remembering faces, and this put him in the uncomfortable position of being recognized often but not being able to recognize who he was talking to. It could be quite awkward at times.
“Hi there,” Virgil replied, trying to sound cheerful and enthusiastic at this chance encounter, which wasn’t the way he actually felt. “It’s been a long time.” He still had no idea who he was talking to.
“It sure has,” the man said. “I haven’t seen you since probably, 1998. Remember that SOB we worked for, that Clarke guy? I’m glad he’s gone.”
That was the clue Virgil needed. Now he realized who he was talking to. It was Frank Edwards, who had worked with him in the Defense Department many years ago.
“Yeah, Frank, I remember that, too,” Virgil said. “It wasn’t all bad. We had some decent times.”
“Well, if we did, I sure don’t remember them,” Frank said with a laugh. “I was the one in that guy’s sights, mainly, not you, I suppose. What are you up to these days? Man, it’s great to see you. You’re still out of the government, right? That was a messy thing back a few years ago. Wouldn’t have wanted to be you, no way. That took some guts, going to the New York Times like that. Phew. Talk about laying it all on the line.” They were standing in the middle of the park at the center of DuPont Circle, with people hurrying by in both directions.
“Yeah, I’m still out of the government, Frank,” Virgil said, feeling slightly embarrassed at the reference to his firing. “You really think they’d ever hire me back after that affair? You cross the Bush people, you’re marked for life.”
Frank laug
hed and pulled out an umbrella, which he opened over both of them. “I know how that is. Say, want to grab a cup of coffee? We should catch up. Lots of juicy rumors going around.”
Virgil looked at his watch. “I’m running a few minutes early for my appointment,” he said, intrigued to hear any rumors Frank might know. “There’s a Starbucks right across the street. We could go there for 15 or 20 minutes.”
“Good, good,” Frank replied. “I’m out for lunch, but I wasn’t going anywhere special. I’ll pick up a sandwich at Starbucks. Or maybe some yogurt. I’m trying to lose weight – don’t laugh.”
They started walking across the street, where the corner Starbucks beckoned. “Lose weight?” Virgil replied. He guessed the six-foot man at about a trim 175 pounds, hardly any different from eight years ago when they’d worked together. Virgil felt all the more decrepit as Frank strode out briskly toward the coffee shop. “You look like you could use to gain a pound or two.”
“Yeah, that’s what my wife says,” Frank said as they opened the door and walked into the cozy store, punctuated by the rich, dark smell of strong coffee. “Believe it or not, I put on a few pounds after my birthday last month. Can’t let middle age creep up on me. I’m training for a marathon.”
Virgil, who’d long ago surrendered in his fight with middle age and now had the paunch to prove it, was secretly jealous. Running a marathon was one of those things he’d long imagined himself doing, but he hadn’t been able to run the last 10 years or so since his leg got worse. Now, he supposed, he never would.
Over a grande caramel macchiato (for Virgil) and a tall black (for Frank), the two spent a bit of time reminiscing before Edwards leaned forward and spoke in a lower voice.
“Don’t say anything now, but I have it on pretty good authority that your old buddy Harry is a finalist to take over for Rummy,” Frank said, punctuating his comment with a raised eyebrow. “Inside dope. It’s all the talk at the DOD, anyway.”
The Towers Still Stand Page 10