Ghost

by Fred Burton

  A year later, Hezbollah hit the American embassy annex in northeast Beirut. This was where our diplomatic staff had been operating. Although the fixed-site security had been beefed up, another Hezbollah suicide bomber managed to breach the outer perimeter. This time the guards unloaded their weapons at the speeding vehicle, but the suicide bomber still managed to reach his target and detonate himself.

  Twenty-four people, including two Americans, died. Hezbollah: 3, United States: 0.

  Each of these cases is so complex that every file leads to more reading. I feel like I’m peeling an onion. Each layer reveals more layers, more information that I will have to know for my new life. I discover that Hezbollah’s tactics derived from the true pioneers of terror: Black September. Known as BSO, or Black September Organization, in the files, these fanatical Palestinians assassinated eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich back in 1972.

  Gleason tells me, “To understand terrorism today, you must understand Black September.”

  I put down the Beirut I and II files and delve deeper into the dead bodies cabinets. I find thick folders devoted just to Black September and its evil genius, the erudite, impeccably dressed mass murderer known as the Red Prince. The Red Prince was the archterrorist, the mastermind behind countless hijackings, bombings, and assassinations. He liked to keep things simple and used brute force whenever possible.

  Gleason’s right. Hezbollah is only the latest iteration of terror. Same with all the other alphabet-soup terror groups. They are only evolutions on BSO’s heyday in the 1970s.

  I start taking notes. I find some three-by-five index cards and return to the Beirut I file to start jotting down the basics of the attack. Suicide bomber. The van breached all the outer security and was able to get right next to the main embassy building. This was vital to the success of the attack. Had the outer security perimeter stopped the van, the damage would have been minimized.

  I underline a lesson here. I have no idea what I’m doing, but it just appears to me to be common sense. Stand-off distance.

  I grab another index card and write out the basic facts and lessons learned. Again, the outer security ring was obviously deficient. Was I even supposed to be noticing these things? I glance over at Gleason, wondering if I should ask for guidance. He’s buried in paperwork, a phone growing out of one ear. He looks irritated and overwhelmed.

  The attacks in Beirut sparked a congressional inquiry into the safety of our overseas diplomatic missions. Headed by Admiral Bobby Inman, the commission reported a long list of security deficiencies in embassies all over the globe. Among the laundry list of recommendations, the Inman Commission sought millions of dollars to build new facilities, plus additional money to hire more State Department agents. In 1985, in response to the Inman recommendations, Congress created the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the DSS. Mullen and I are the first wave of agents resulting from that piece of legislation. In agent training, they called us “Inman Hires.”

  I glance over at Gleason again. He’s off the phone now. He sees me looking at him and tosses me a few more files. “Lebanon.” “Beirut.” “Hostages.” “Look these over. See what you can piece together.”

  My stack of first-day reading just got even larger. As I flip through the new material, Gleason says, “Mullen, you’re going to cover South America. You’ve dealt with the cartels. You know the ground. There’s plenty there to keep you busy. Colombia. FARC. Shining Path.”

  Our new boss pauses long enough to toss another butt in the growing morass in his ashtray. He pulls out a fresh smoke and lights it up.

  “Burton, you’ve got the Sandbox. But you’ll both help out where needed.”

  I’m not sure what that means. He sees that right away and adds, “Anything related to the Middle East. That’s your turf. You will become the subject-matter expert.”

  I don’t know anything about the Middle East. The files on my desk right now are the tip of the iceberg. In the months to come, I’m going to be doing a lot more reading.

  “We don’t have a mission statement. I don’t have time to write one. Just know that our job is to keep our embassy personnel alive. Take a look at the cold cases. Think about how the attacks were carried out. Who did them, the mechanics, the tactics. Then we’ve got to figure out ways to counter them. Ways to prevent them. Right now, we’re playing catch-up. We’re reactive and always undermanned. We need to figure out how to get in front of things. Understood?”

  Two new agents nod dutifully. This is why Gleason handed me Beirut I and II right off the bat. They are the big ones, the attacks that reshaped the security landscape for our diplomats.

  I wonder how I’m supposed to figure out how to stop such catastrophic events like those two. Six months ago, I was a Maryland cop. The worst I’d seen were homicides and car wrecks. I’ve never encountered anything on the scale of Beirut I.

  I guess in my gut I realized that when I joined the DSS, I would not be working a run-a-day nine-to-five job. Now, I’ve glimpsed the scope—and the stakes. This isn’t a job or a career, it is a way of life. Lives are at stake. The moves we make in the weeks and months to come will mean the difference between a thwarted effort and a lead story on CNN.

  No pressure or anything.

  Gleason disappears through the big blue door. Mullen and I work on in silence. I read through more cases, more carnage, more destruction. The same names keep popping up: Hezbollah, Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Abu Nidal. I discern that there are three major players in the Middle East terror game: Iran through Hezbollah and its cohorts, Libya through its own intelligence service and its surrogates, and the Palestinians through the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), its splinter groups, and Black September. I have much to learn. The curve is steep.

  Gleason returns and hands me more files that he’s taken from the dead bodies cabinets. They land on my desk with a heavy thump. I’m getting a crash course in human depravity. It is tough to take, and after a while, all the human misery resident within these pages starts to blur together. The parade of violence, the car bombings, the suicide attacks, the machine gunning of civilians, hostage takings, hijackings—file after file describes horrific events. It leaves me numb.

  The world is on fire. And I had no idea.

  Late that afternoon, Gleason leaves the office again. Mullen and I work on in silence, continuing our crash course in world terror. A few minutes later, he returns with another raft of diplomatic cables. “Okay, this is the latest from FOGHORN, our communication center. All incoming messages are sent there and prioritized. I’ll show you where it is later.”

  As he squeezes by my desk, Gleason says, “Burton, we’ve got a source who says our ambassador to Chile is about to get assassinated. You’re meeting the informant tomorrow in Charlottesville. When you’re done there, write it up, then get up to Philadelphia.”

  “Philadelphia?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a source who says his family is Hezbollah. He says he knows where the hostages are in Beirut. For a hundred and fifty grand, he’ll spill his guts. Go see if he knows anything.”

  He hands me two more files on these informants. “Get familiar with them tonight. In the meantime, you’ll be traveling on a moment’s notice from here on out. Keep an overnight kit packed, okay?”

  So much for on-the-job training. Tomorrow, the real game begins.

  three

  NIGHT TRAIN

  February 13, 1986

  Outside of Philadelphia

  The Amtrak coach rolls and sways as we clatter along the old tracks between D.C. and Philadelphia. Most of the passengers around me are trying to doze, but a few are busy reading under spotlights clicked on from the overhead panel above each seat. Periodically, we stream past a freight train, and I watch scores of boxcars swish past my window.

  I love train travel. It harkens back to a more genteel time, when manners and style reigned unchallenged by the speed and utility of modern airliners. Indeed, this short voyage tonight on Amtrak’s rails s
hould be a chance for me to relax far away from the rush-rush-rush of my new office.

  But I am not relaxed. Tonight, when I exit this car at the 30th Street Station, along Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, I will meet with a source I know nothing about. Gleason merely told me the rendezvous point and the recognition signal. Since I’ll be alone on this mission, I’m mimicking Mullen’s habit of carrying extra firepower. Before I left D.C., I strapped my Smith & Wesson Model 60 into the ankle holster now riding on my right shin.

  The source says he knows something about our hostages in Lebanon. For the past few years, Hezbollah and criminal gangs have snatched American citizens off the streets of Beirut. The gangs sell their catches to Hezbollah. Right now, there are dozens of hostages in their hands, including one very special one: William Francis Buckley.

  Before I left for Charlottesville and my first rendezvous with an informant on Tuesday, I read through the Buckley file. He was grabbed as he left his house in Beirut. For him, it had started out as any other day. His pattern rarely varied, which was an obvious mistake. He’d get up, get dressed, have breakfast, and walk out to his car. A short drive through the city and he’d be at the U.S. Embassy. A typical commute story, only this one went through the middle of a civil war. Somebody took notice of this well-dressed, dapper-looking American. Somebody like Hezbollah.

  On March 16, 1984, a four-man snatch team rolled up in front of his house, surprising Buckley before he could reach his car. The terrorists seized him and dragged him back into their ride. In seconds, it was over. Buckley had been armed, but he’d stuck his pistol inside his briefcase. The abduction happened so fast he never had time to go for it.

  File that one away in the lessons-learned category. After that, word went out to every American in the Dark World: Carry your weapon on you at all times. Don’t stuff it in a bag and expect to be safe.

  It happened that quickly. A matter of seconds and Hezbollah—the Iranians—had triumphed again. There had never been a worse defeat for us within the Dark World. William Buckley had not been an ordinary embassy employee. He was the CIA’s station chief.

  Another freight train thunders past, and our coach car rocks in its slipstream. A few of the dozers pop an eyelid, look around, then return to their naps. They sleep in blissful ignorance. Do they understand what a luxury that is? I wonder if I’ll ever enjoy that sort of unencumbered sleep again.

  When Hezbollah nabbed Buckley, they brought down every current operation and operative in the entire Middle East. Nothing like this had ever happened. Even the KGB had never dared to seize a station chief. With Buckley in enemy hands, the Agency had to assume that all the information inside his head would be compromised. Hezbollah and the Iranians were not known to abide by the Geneva Convention. Torture, intimidation, beatings—those were how they debriefed their captives. Certainly, Buckley would not be spared their worst.

  It was a catastrophic blow to our intelligence efforts in the hottest spot on the planet. After he was grabbed, we basically had to start from scratch, building new networks, running new agents. In the meantime, we operated with almost no HUMINT—human intelligence. All the gadgets, satellites, and eavesdropping our technology affords us cannot compare to one good agent in the right place and time. Hezbollah poked our eyes out with Buckley’s abduction. What are we missing? What won’t we see coming? It is chilling to realize how vulnerable we are.

  Our train rounds a gentle curve and hits the industrial outskirts of Philadelphia. I stare out the window at a parade of rusting factories and wrecking yards. The darkness makes the scene particularly bleak.

  Before I left the office today, Gleason took me aside and gave me one other directive: Find out if this informant knows where Buckley is. He is our priority. The Agency, furious, humiliated, and loyal, is desperate to get him back. They have unleashed a massive effort to find him. So far, every tip has been a dry hole. But each one must be checked out.

  The train begins to slow, and the dozers around me sense the change in speed. A few yawn and reach for their bags. A few gaze out the windows, and I can see their faces reflected in the tinted glass. Average Americans. These are the people I’m sworn to protect. Our job is to keep the Dark World from their doorsteps.

  Just this week, Gleason, Mullen, and I found almost a dozen credible threats in the cable traffic that landed in FOGHORN’s claustrophobic recesses. A dozen a week. Year after year after year. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the odds are stacked against us. The CIA, the FBI, the DSS—they can have tens of thousands of field agents and all the money any hungry bureaucracy can burn and still some of these plots will escape our attention. It takes only one terrorist to bring tragedy and trauma—and lots of media coverage. Thinking about those long odds has kept me awake this week. We can’t be 100 percent right forever. But we have to try—and therein lies the weight of the world that has sagged Gleason’s shoulders and worry-worn his face these past few years. He’s handled this staggering load by himself until now. I can’t imagine how he’s done it.

  We roll into the 30th Street Station. Around me, the coach bustles with activity as passengers grab their briefcases and detrain. I step onto the passenger concourse and marvel at the rectangular windows that make this station such a spectacular architectural achievement. The concourse glows gold from the lantern-style lights suspended overhead.

  I walk outside and pass the six thick columns that stand watch over the station’s entrance. They give the station a sort of ancient Greek temple look from this side. It is bitterly cold, and I pull my jacket tight around my collar as I make my way toward the line of cabs on the street.

  I gesture to one of the cabbies, and he pops a door open for me. I give him the address of the motel that will be our rendezvous point and ask him to drop me off a few blocks short. I want to be able to scope out the territory before I go in. Also, I don’t want anyone watching to know that I’m alone. There will be no backup if things get rough.

  Charlottesville was an easy assignment compared to this one. That’s probably why Gleason had me warm up with it. I took one of our State Department Jeep Wagoneers, the kind with the faux wood finishing on the sides, and drove down through blue-blood country until I reached a horse farm set back from the road. The house had been built on a hill, giving anyone inside a clear field of vision to see a visitor’s approach. Well-manicured landscaping surrounded it, but none of the bushes were tall enough to mask intruders from the house. The place gave off a strange vibe—it was too neat, too picturesque. An Agency safe house? George Smiley’s summer home? Whoever owned it clearly had money.

  When I rang the bell, a stunningly attractive Latina in her midthirties answered. Her white blouse accentuated her tan, and she’d pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail that gave her an athletic look. She invited me in and we drank coffee. The day before, FOGHORN had received an incoming cable from Santiago, Chile, regarding a potential hit on our ambassador there. This woman knew one of the names mentioned in the cable. My job was to get as much information on him as possible.

  It did not take long. She didn’t know much. She was a grad student at the University of Virginia who had had minimal contact with the individual named in the cable. She spoke openly of what she knew, and I dutifully took notes so I could write it all up for Gleason when I returned to the office. I enjoyed the coffee and the company, left my business card, and drove back to D.C. Easy. This spy stuff didn’t seem all that hard.

  Until tonight. The cabbie plunges us deep into an urban jungle. Run-down row houses, abandoned warehouses, and garbage on the streets mark my descent into Philadelphia’s dark side. We finally stop a few blocks from the motel. I’m in dangerous waters now. I hand the cabdriver a few bucks, then climb out.

  A transient lies in a doorway across the street. Nearby, drug addicts are sprawled around a set of stairs leading up to a row house. One’s shooting up as the others watch. The cabbie, clearly uncomfortable, speeds off the moment my feet hit the sidewalk.

/>   I shouldn’t have worn a suit.

  As I start walking toward the motel, the local wildlife locks on to me. Red-rimmed eyes size me up, calculating whether or not I’d be easy to roll.

  On the next corner, I move through a small squadron of prostitutes. Tube tops and miniskirts abound, though a few have on leg warmers, too—a Taxi Driver meets Flashdance sort of fashion statement. A few call to me. I ignore them and press on, wondering how they can endure the almost freezing temperature in such dress.

  One more block through the human flotsam and I reach the motel’s parking lot. The place is a dive, and I’m sure the proprietor is happy to charge by the hour—fresh sheets extra, of course.

  Time after time, our instructors pounded into our heads that observant agents are live agents. Every day, I practice taking everything in, memorizing the things unfolding around me so that I can write them up later if necessary. It pays off now. I sweep the motel with my eyes. Metal stairs on either end give access to the second floor. The building itself is L-shaped. The parking lot is full of older junk cars. I scan the license plates. Most are Pennsylvania, some sport long-expired tags. At the far end of the lot, a prostitute struts toward the motel, a john in tow. They stare at me before disappearing up one set of stairs. A few seconds later, they’re out on the second floor, moving along the catwalk until they come to their room. The john casts a wary glance back over at me before closing the door to the night.

  What a miserable place.

  I take a few steps through the parking lot, still searching for clues as to who I’m supposed to meet. Is he a local? Is one of these beat-up cars his? Then I spot a shiny new sedan. New Jersey plates. It sticks out as badly as I do in this neighborhood. A rental car perhaps? Did my informant drive it over from the airport? I walk over to examine it. It is covered with water drops. Dew? The other cars are dry. This one’s been in the lot for a while, probably overnight. I peer inside the car. It is clean, though the ashtray’s open and full of cigarette butts.