Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist

by Jeffrey Shapiro

  “Very odd, probably just a coincidence that it was on the same day,” thought Mary. “I wonder which operation he’s talking about.” Jonathan explained that at any one time there could be lots of operations going on and at any time, one might be coming to an end. They made a note to search out which other operation concluded on the 15th of July and they saved the file together with the rest of the Presidential files on the thumb drive and continued.

  Mary followed Jonathan’s list and it took her to the human resource files where they looked for any trace of Jonathan, but there was none. They put his name into a general query on the CIA database. The system pulled up his personal profile and all his relevant identification such as Driver’s License number, Social Security number, all of his bank accounts and home and email addresses, but there weren’t any records that he had ever worked for the CIA.

  “It’s 2 o’clock,” said Carly. “Time to go.”

  Mary gave Jonathan a hard nudge, because he was so engrossed in the data that he didn’t hear her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, is it already time?”

  He started to log off the computer.

  “What are you doing?” asked Mary. “I can still work.”

  “I don’t think that would be appropriate. I’ll be back a little after 6 and we can give it another go. Do you want me to pick up some chicken?”

  Mary looked upset.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking. What do you think, I just fell off the turnip truck, I’m a PhD for crying out loud and I’m used to working in large mainframes. Let me keep looking.”

  “Mary there’s all sorts of pitfalls in there.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Daddy…..” moaned Carly.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t want to get caught.”

  “I’m not going to do anything that you wouldn’t do.”

  Jonathan hesitated, “Okay, but I’m going to make a list of things that we are looking for and I want you to stay focused on these things. And please don’t go snooping around.”

  “What do I do when I’m done?”

  “Just shut it off.”

  Chapter 10

  Jonathan came in on schedule with a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and several sides. Both his and Carly’s faces were bright red from the brisk February air. “What a day,” he said with a smile. “We wore that place out, didn’t we Carly?”

  “They wouldn’t let me on the Texas Giant, because I wasn’t tall enough,” she pouted.

  Mary laughed, “Would you go on that great big roller coaster?”

  Carly ignored her mother.

  “You would, wouldn’t you sweetie?” said Jonathan.

  Carly nodded.

  “I believe she would,” said Jonathan. “Shut down for a minute and let’s eat.

  Mary couldn’t wait to share with Jonathan what she had found. “I was right, it’s the general consensus of the agency that they’re planning another attack.” Mary was sitting on the bed eating a piece of Kentucky Fried chicken and watching CNN. Carly was exhausted, fading in and out of consciousness, fighting to stay awake long enough to eat a cup of mashed potatoes and gravy, her favorite. She was wearing a pink Styrofoam cowboy hat that contrasted terribly with her red hair.

  “Where’d you get that hat?” asked Mary.

  “Daddy bought it for me,” answered Carly protectively.

  “It helped with the sun,” interrupted Jonathan. “It was really bright out there today.”

  “I love it sweetie,” said Mary.

  Jonathan changed the channel back to cartoons. “Why would that surprise anyone? Of course they’re going to attack again. They got away with it once; they’ll keep doing it until they’re shut down.”

  “I guess it’s just startling to see it in black and white.”

  “I’m telling you Mary, don’t underestimate these people. You have to always think of the worst.”

  Mary looked forlorn. “You know what bothers me more than anything? I took Carly and Matthew to that building every day and the security seemed pretty good. It was about the same as what you get at an airport.”

  “Oklahoma City did that for us,” answered Jonathan.

  “Then how could someone just slip 1450 lbs. of explosives right through the front door, and then attach them to specific columns without anyone, including the security cameras, which record every inch of that building, seeing them?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense, unless?”

  “Unless, what?”

  “It had to be an inside job. I need to find the forensic report from the detonation experts and then we can start piecing it together, but first I’m going down to the business center and print out all the depositions and reports and we’ll make another run at the main-frame a little later.”

  “Sure, but let’s get Carly to bed first.

  Mary went to the business center and printed off the depositions and the emails and returned to the room in about an hour with a pile of paper about 2 feet thick.

  Before they started going through the mountain of paper, Jonathan checked on Carly and found her lying on top of her comforter in a pink night shirt with a death grip on Bruiser. She turned over when he came in but didn’t wake. He heard

  sobbing coming from the living room and went in to find Mary sitting on the couch crying with the stack of papers in her lap. He rushed over and sat beside her, putting his arm around her and trying to comfort her by pulling her close and whispering ‘shhhh’ in her ear.’”

  “I hate them,” she cried as she turned to him with tears running down her cheeks. “Look at what they’ve done to us.”

  “I know sweetie, I know,” returned Jonathan. “Pull yourself together.”

  “Do you feel it? The hatred is like boiling sludge and it’s in me and I don’t how to get rid of it. I feel dirty and ugly.”

  “Yes I do. Every waking moment, I think about it. The only thing that helps is that I imagine different ways that I can hurt them, just like they hurt us.”

  “But Jonathan, look at the reality; we’re helpless. Let’s say we do figure this whole thing out and know exactly who is responsible for killing our son, then what? There’s only two of us and there’s an army of them. I’m not sure knowing is going to make it any better, especially if we can’t do anything about it.”

  “I know honey, we’ll have to figure that out once we determine what we’re up against.”

  “Jonathan, face it, you can’t beat the agency, you can’t beat the terrorists, they’re too big, too well organized.”

  “Sweetie, I’m good at what I do. You just help me find them and let me take care of the rest, okay?”

  “What I worry about is that you’re going to rush into something and get yourself killed. And then Carly and I will be alone. Jonathan, we won’t be able to stay hidden forever. What will they do to us when they catch us? They’ll put me on public display, won’t they? I’m not afraid of prison, but what I worry about the most is that they’ll take Carly away.”

  Jonathan rubbed his forehead, “You’re right, we crossed the line. We have a small chance if we do something heroic and it’s recognized as being in the best interest of the country. I’ve seen them pardon people before. But from where we are right now, I don’t see them letting us off too easy, especially when they figure out that we have hacked into their system. And no matter what, it’s only a matter of time before they figure it all out.” She stopped crying and listened to the hard reality of Jonathan’s words. Jonathan put his hand under her chin and looked directly into her eyes. “Mary it’s time to be brave. I didn’t want you to come because I didn’t want you tangled up in this, but you did and here we are. So, we need to ask ourselves the question, ‘what choices do we have?’ We can sit idly by and wait for something to happen. Then, what if nothing ever happens and they never find them. Are we supposed to just
turn the page of our lives and go on with living? The question that I have is what happens to the sludge, does it just eventually go away? Mary, I don’t know about you, but it’s getting worse inside me and not better. I can’t sleep, I can’t stop my head from racing. There’s no peace, none. I’m so twisted inside that there’s nothing left. But the thought of making things right calms the torment. Mary, I don’t know if finding Matthew’s killers is going to make me better, I just know that if I don’t try, I might as well put a gun to my head and end all this pain right now.”

  Mary gave him a hug. “I feel the same. I guess when you lose something the way that we did, there’s just no rationalization. It rips whatever faith you have right out of your heart, wads it up and throws it into the garbage. You know, even Carly sees it.”

  “She does?” returned Jonathan.

  “She sees that I’m not the same person and that I can no longer go to God.”

  “We’ve all been through a lot honey; we just have to believe that one day we’ll get back to normal.”

  “You don’t understand Jonathan; in my religion some things are unforgivable.”

  “Mary please don’t bring religion into this.”

  “But you need to know Jonathan that I may be lost forever.”

  “Mary, as far as I’m concerned, we are all lost and in my religion, everything is forgivable. You already told me I’m lost, right? So we’ll be lost together.” He stood up and snapped his fingers, “Hey, I’ve got it! We’ll both become born-again Christians and we can both be saved together.”

  Mary recoiled. “How dare you say something like that? Do you think that I can change my faith, like I change my clothes? Don’t ever joke with me about religion, do you understand? Religion is very serious business.”

  “I’m sorry, I was trying to be funny. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “How can your religion or any religion blame you? Mary, you didn’t kill Matthew, someone else did. And there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. If anyone’s at fault it’s me.”

  “That’s not true! I could have been home for him and not been so ambitious. I could have pulled him out of there as soon as I got an inkling that he wasn’t safe. Don’t tell me that there’s nothing I could have done, because there’s a thousand things I could have done.”

  “Mary, we don’t have time to argue, you have to pull yourself together. We’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to figure this out. And right now, that’s our only hope to ever feel human again. Can we please get to work?”

  Mary nodded and Jonathan dried her eyes with a tissue and gave her a hug, “I love you and I’m sorry for making light of your religion,” he said.

  “I love you too.” She wound up and slugged him as hard as she could in the shoulder. “Don’t do it again!”

  Chapter 11

  Jonathan and Mary sat on the bed reading and studying the large stack of documents that Mary had printed. After several hours of reading, Mary said, “This stuff looks really disturbing. Look at this….here’s that July 15th note we saw earlier, but the Director had been sending similar notes to the President since January. Listen to this one, ‘We can use the operation to solidify support from the American people.’ And then on March 3rd, ‘Everything’s progressing as planned, we are targeting July for execution.’ Jonathan, you don’t think that they had anything to do with this, do you?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Jonathan.

  “Is it really? Think about it. It was an election year and it tilted the country to the President’s party. Isn’t that what terror always does? And didn’t the President’s party take control of both the House and Senate last November? And what about that 60 minutes segment…..this is consistent with what they were saying.”

  Jonathan’s face began to turn red. “I don’t want to believe that. Let’s keep looking and see what all the data shows us.”

  “But what if it’s true? What would we do?”

  “Mary, someone’s going to pay for this and right now, I don’t care if it’s the President of the United States or some raghead from Baghdad, someone’s going to pay, do you understand?” Jonathan got up and Mary could sense the rage that was pushing through his pours. “Somebody’s going to pay!”

  “Calm down sweetie, you’ll wake Carly,” she said. “You’re probably right, the President wouldn’t be involved in anything like this. Did you check and see if any other operation shut down on July 15th?”

  “I couldn’t find anything, but there’s a lot of data and I’m sure I didn’t get through 10% of it.”

  “We’ll look later,” added Mary. “Pass me those depositions.” Jonathan grabbed the stack and Mary noticed that his hands were shaking so badly that it took both of them to carry the papers from the bed to her without spilling them all over the floor.

  Mary watched in horror. “Honey, you need to relax. Fix yourself a drink, you’re coming apart.”

  “I know, it’s just that when I think about the brutality, I can hardly control the rage.”

  “Sweetie, fix yourself a drink and fix me one too.”

  Mary and Jonathan sat on the couch studying the depositions. After about half an hour she said, “I only see one guy who appears even remotely guilty of anything.”

  “It’s all the same stuff isn’t it,” answered Jonathan. “And what’s worse is that I can’t find anything in the interrogation files.”

  “Maybe we should shift our focus,” said Mary. “Let’s try to find who sent us all this stuff, and maybe through that person we can piece together what’s going on. Give me a profile of what you think our insider is like.”

  Jonathan picked up a yellow legal pad and spoke as he scribbled a description.

  “Okay, he would be an extreme computer geek, and when I say extreme, I mean to the nth degree. Of course he would have a terminal college degree, no doubt from a top ten school. He would most definitely have international experience and probably have been part of a number of special projects.”

  “Are there many Muslims at the agency?” asked Mary.

  “Why do you think he’s a Muslim?”

  “Well whoever it is seems sympathetic to your plight. And most Muslims don’t like terrorists, so I could see a Muslim, who knows you’re innocent, maybe trying to help you.”

  “Too much of a stretch,” answered Jonathan.

  “But answer my question; are there many Muslims who work at the agency?”

  “Yes, you’d be surprised at how many. It’s a Presidential mandate, kind of overcompensation for the way they are treated in the rest of America. It’s the political way of giving the appearance that we are not all bigots and an attempt to erase the assumption that we see all Muslims as terrorists.”

  “But the Muslims see right through it?”

  “Of course they do, because it’s all bullshit.”

  “How many do you know?”

  “We had 3 in my group, but they’re all dead. But really I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Okay, try a generic search. Start with the people on your project.”

  Jonathan pulled up a list.

  Mary scanned the computer screen, “It looks like there are about 5 of the 75 people on this list that fit your geek and educational requirements and have been overseas and have worked in Arab countries. Do you know Joe Dixson? Seems perfect: BS from Carnegie Mellon in Computer Engineering, MS from RPI, 2 years in the field at Naples and then a year in India, and then 5 years in Syria.”

  “Yeah, I know Joe, he was with me on the project and is dead. I think we’re wasting our time with all the Blue Heron folks because they’re all gone. Remember, the whole floor was destroyed and I was the only survivor.” Jonathan began to show signs of frustration, “Mary we don’t have much time, can we look elsewhere?”

  “But did you ever check to see if anyone from your team was out of the office that day, maybe on business or sick or on vacation? Certa
inly with that many folks, not everyone is going to be there.”

  “Are you suggesting that there was more than one survivor?”

  “What do you think the agency is going to do, broadcast who lived and who died. First of all, no one was supposed to know that there was a project at all and weren’t the agents supposed to keep it quiet, even from their families. So if they weren’t there, they would simply go to work someplace else the next day and no one would know the difference.”

  “Impossible, everyone knows now what was going on in that building and if anyone was absent, they would have been interviewing them on the TV media as quickly as possible.

  “I disagree. Don’t you think the agency would put fear in their lives and their family’s lives and warn them that the terrorists are still out there and may come after any survivors? You were different because you were inside and were hurt and were put on display when you were in the hospital for all that time. Play along with me and let’s see if anyone was absent from work that day.”

  “Why do you think it’s someone who was in my operation?”

  “I’m just guessing, but doesn’t it seem strange that the person knew your every move. There’s an old saying that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So either way they should be near to you. It just seems that you were being shadowed and what better way to shadow someone than to be part of their group.”

  “That’s impossible. We hand picked all of our people.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything is impossible at this point,” answered Mary. “Anyway humor me; it will be easy enough to use the agency computer to match the Blue Heron employees with the agency death list.”