by Fred Burton
Within twenty-four hours, some of the pieces start to fall into place. First, Art has identified his assailants’ vehicle. It was a Toyota sedan, which the Yemeni police discover going into the Libyan Embassy later that day. The sedan also carries Libyan diplomatic plates. How careless is that? Of course, maybe they wanted us to know who pulled this off. Or maybe they just don’t care. Either way, this is pretty brazen, even for the Libyans.
The Yemeni police also find spent shell casings by the side of the road. The gunmen fired multiple shots, and we’ve now got five more shells to run ballistic tests on when they arrive here in D.C.
Coordinating this investigation, getting our RSO to ask specific follow-up questions, and trying to work with the Yemeni police through our agents on the spot proves unwieldy and time-consuming. I shouldn’t be shackled to this desk here in Foggy Bottom. I need to be out in the weeds, eyeballing this stuff for myself. I make a mental note to talk this over with Gleason. In the future, we need to send a team in to assist the agents on the spot. Between their normal security and protection duties and trying to ride herd on a multinational investigation, our RSOs are getting overwhelmed.
For now, I’ll work from here, gathering the pieces so we can study the big picture.
By the end of the month, we’ve got more details from both attacks. In Khartoum, it looks like a Libyan surrogate terror group known as the Sudanese Revolutionary Guard pulled off the hit on Calkins. Our agent in Khartoum interviewed witnesses who saw the attack, and they gave a description of one of the gunmen that matched a known SRG operative.
The chance of catching these guys is remote. The Sudanese government has no interest in going after the SRG, especially on behalf of the United States. They’re supporting the Libyans, and a few days ago recalled their ambassador from Washington.
In Yemen, we’ve got more details, thanks to the local police, who are British-trained. The real break comes, though, when I’m able to sit down with Art Pollick. Still bandaged up, he proves to be an outstanding witness to his own attack.
“Fred, I sensed something was wrong. There was this car behind me, and it seemed to be following too close,” Art tells me. “It was a sedan with three people inside. Something just didn’t seem right, you know?”
Art’s memory of the incident is crystal clear. His balding head is still bandaged, but he’s as sharp as they come. “I had this feeling. Not sure how to describe it, but it was unsettling. I glanced in my rearview mirror, but the car was gone,” he continues. “So I looked over my left shoulder. As I did, the window shattered. Glass went everywhere. Two of the men were shooting at me with pistols.”
Art’s quick glance to the left probably saved his life. One of the first bullets hit him in the head just as he turned it. The bullet entered his forehead and followed the curve of his skull around until it exited near his left ear. That shot should have killed him. Instead, it blinded him in the left eye. He’s a lucky, lucky man. I wish Bill Calkins had been as fortunate. Two weeks after his attack, he’s only now starting to regain his speech, and most of his right side is still paralyzed.
“Did you notice anything unusual before the attack?” I ask Art.
He thinks about it for a minute, then replies, “You know, a few days before, I saw a car parked in our neighborhood. I’d never seen it before, and it stuck out in my mind. Do you think they were watching me?”
“Possibly.” This is a critical piece of the puzzle. If this is connected, it means the terrorists have been watching our diplomats. Worse, they know where they live.
I arrange for Art to work with an Identi-Kit, which is sort of like a flat plastic Mr. Potato Head with which we can build a composite image of the suspects. It comes complete with hairstyles and colors, mustaches, facial shapes—everything an investigator needs to re-create a victim’s memory of his assailant. When we’re done, each of the three men in the car have olive complexions and black curly hair.
Next, I sit Art down with an FBI sketch artist. When the sketches are done, I take them and start comparing them to photographs of known Libyan diplomats and intelligence agents. We get a match. The Libyans had an agent from their embassy in the car when they hit Art Pollick.
In Sanaa, a Yemeni police captain has taken a personal interest in the attack. He’s prosecuted his investigation with vigor, and he sends word back to us via our RSO at the embassy that he’s come up with the names of the two other men in the vehicle. Both are local thugs, almost certainly recruited for a one-time job by the Libyan operative.
Not long after this revelation, the first batch of evidence arrives at Foggy Bottom. Crime-scene photos, photos of the two cars involved, mug shots of the local thugs, all have been neatly packaged for us, along with the shell casings. Not surprisingly, they’re 9 mm pistol shells, just like the ones recovered in Khartoum. I first take them over to the FBI, as I want to have the lab there run a comparison on the casings. Could they have been fired from the same weapons? It would be a nice tie between the two hits. The FBI, however, decides it has better things to do with its time. These attacks happened overseas, and though I beg and plead for priority, the casings are dumped at the bottom of their to-do list. Frustrated, I take them to the ATF, hoping that they will prove more cooperative. They do, and I make a mental note to cultivate a tight relationship with the ATF folks. I know that connection will come in handy in the future.
A few more meetings with Art brings in a bit more granular detail. By early May, I’ve got a pretty good picture of the two attacks. First, they used the same modus operandi in both hits. It is simple and effective: Catch a lone diplomat between the embassy and his residence where he’s most vulnerable. Then hit him with a drive-by shooting and leave him for dead.
The method is not tactically elegant by any stretch of the imagination. It is brutal and thuggish, which is how Libyan intelligence operates. It worked, too.
But there are some things about both cases that trouble me deeply. First, why did they hit two communications officers? Were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did the Libyans plant their hit teams along known routes used by diplomatic personnel, then hit the first embassy staffer to come along? How would they identify them as American diplomats?
The license plates. I check. In both cases, Art and Bill were driving rigs with U.S. diplomatic plates. That’s got to change. We can’t have our people advertising who they are anymore, not with what’s going on in the world these days. We’ve got to be more discreet.
There are no coincidences in the Dark World. And as I study the puzzle pieces, I’m convinced that the gunmen hit two communications officers for a reason. The one thing Bill and Art shared in common before the attack was the odd hours they kept. They moved between their homes and their embassies at night, in the early morning, and during the day. Their erratic movements must have been detected. And if I’m an agent watching these two guys come and go, what would I conclude?
I’d conclude they were agents. Most embassy staffers keep regular hours. The ones that work late or come in exceptionally early are usually intelligence types. CIA. Did the Libyans think they were striking at two CIA agents? That might be the commonality in both attacks. If so, they forgot about the commo guys and their need to deal with message traffic 24/7.
But there is a larger issue here. Peel back the onion a bit more and another question pops out. How did they know Art and Bill kept odd hours? They must have been watching the embassy, noting the comings and goings of each vehicle and each staffer. That requires patience and professionalism to pull off. What’s worse, if Art’s suspicions about the car in his neighborhood are true, the terrorists knew where he lived. They’d followed him home in the past. They’d observed his movements. They knew where to find him.
It is clear to us at Foggy Bottom that the Libyans pulled off both hits. These are acts of retaliation against us for the April 15 bombing of Tripoli. Yet all of this surveillance had obviously taken time to do. They had bided their time and gathered in
formation about our embassy staff movements, their residences, and routes they drove between the two places. Then, when they were given the attack order from Tripoli, all the legwork had already been done. They knew where to go to lie in wait for their victims.
They’ve been watching us for a long time. And we never even knew it. We’ve been blind to just how closely our enemies observe us. If we don’t open our eyes, we’re going to lose more people. A lot more people.
Again we’re playing catch-up here, always chasing the attackers. There’s got to be a way to get out in front of them and stay out there. Right now, we’re two steps behind and always reactive. Perhaps if we’d noticed the surveillance teams, we could have done something to prevent both hits. We need to change our thinking. We need to change our tactics. But in what ways?
nine
HUMAN POKER CHIPS
July 23, 1986
Foggy Bottom
My desk is stacked and double stacked with cables, documents, leads, my own notes, half-eaten doughnuts, and an empty can of Coke. Mullen’s looks identical. Gleason’s is its own unique disaster area, with top-secret-and-above documents scattered about. Gleason has anointed me our in-house specialist on the Beirut hostages. Number one priority, of course, is still William Buckley. Plus, I’ve spent weeks investigating the two post-Tripoli hits. I feel like I’m in a maze, running in circles. At the same time, we’ve had to cover a plethora of other threats that we received in response to our air strike on Qaddafi.
There’s a knock on the big blue door. Mullen gets up and opens it, revealing a frail-looking man with a small briefcase in one hand. He announces that he’s an auditor of some sort; I don’t quite catch what he says. I’m just trying to keep my head down, working through my leads pile. Next to me is my own database of terror, the three-by-five card file box with all my notes from every case I’ve read or been involved in since February. I’ve almost filled the box already. Maybe I need a computer, but we don’t have a single one in the office.
The auditor steps forward to stand near Gleason’s desk. Cigarette stuck between tight lips, Gleason looks impatient. He stares at the uninvited guest with a Get on with it, the world’s on fire and we’re up to our armpits in alligators sort of expression.
The auditor begins with a bombshell. “This office is not in compliance with regulations regarding classified material.”
What? Who is this guy? I turn away from my notes and surreptitiously watch what happens next.
Gleason’s shocked into momentary silence. The auditor takes advantage of the lull and adds, “Your open storage of all these files is an issue….”
Before he can finish, Gleason points at me and says, “Fred, go close the door.” I spring to my feet, brush past our guest, and close the door behind him. It slams shut with an echo not unlike a hatch cover might make on a submarine. We’re sealed from the rest of the State Department now, down in our own little basement bathysphere. It instantly makes the auditor uncomfortable. I wonder if he’s claustrophobic.
Gleason takes a long drag on his cigarette as he eyeballs the little man. This sort of silent scrutiny is not something the auditor’s experienced, and I can tell by his body language he’s well beyond his comfort level. His shoulders hunch up and his eyes wander away from Steve’s.
Several seconds pass before Gleason plucks the cigarette from his lips, exhales angrily, and barks, “Look, I got no idea who the hell you are, but you’re not even cleared to be in here, so get out now before I tell these two agents here to take you into custody.”
Silence. Our visitor sags and takes a step backward. Fear registers on his face. He obviously realizes that Gleason is dead serious. If he’s not out of here, I have no doubt the next order we get will be to take him down. Mr. Auditor knows it, too. Perhaps Gleason’s reputation has preceded him. All over Foggy Bottom, people have learned not to mess with Steve Gleason. He plays hardball.
The auditor nods suddenly and bolts for the door.
Mullen laughs out loud at his hasty retreat. “I bet he just about crapped his pants!”
I can’t help laughing either. It is a classic Steve Gleason moment. What’s our fearless leader’s reaction? Nothing. He’s back to work, as if he’d never booted the geek out of our office.
A couple of minutes pass, and he tosses me a cable. “Incoming flamer from Beirut,” he mutters. I study the cable. Marked “Eyes-Only for DSS/CT Gleason” it is actually a DSS channel message, not a cable, which means it is routed only through our office. Gleason stretches over and plants a yellow sticky note onto it. As he does, he orders, “We need to report this to the NSC. They need to factor it into the mix.”
Whatever the mix is. I’m totally in the dark here, and obviously I don’t have a need to know. One thing about Gleason, he does not have loose lips. A few weeks back, during a meeting with the DSS director, Clark Dittmer, Gleason stunned me speechless when Mr. Dittmer asked Gleason a specific question about one of our cases. “You don’t need to know that, sir,” he answered. Mr. Dittmer is a man I greatly respect, and he’s given us much leeway to get our job done. When we need it, he also sticks up for us and backs us to the hilt. I wasn’t sure how he’d take Gleason’s comment. He didn’t even look annoyed. He nodded and told us to carry on. It was an incredible sign of trust, and it went a long way toward cementing our loyalty to him.
So, on this Wednesday morning, I don’t even bother to ask what the National Security Council is up to. I take the message as Gleason adds, “Go down to FOGHORN, Fred. Dial the number on the sticky note and read the message to the man who answers.”
Who am I reading this to? Who is going to answer? How do I know the person who needs to hear this will be the same one to pick up the phone?
I’ve long since learned not to question an order from Steve Gleason. He once told me to go to the White House and deliver a briefing. I asked to whom, and his response was, “You don’t need to know that. They’ll be waiting.” I did it and didn’t have a clue whom I was talking to the entire time I was at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I get up from my desk and walk over to FOGHORN. FOGHORN lies on the far side of a nearby hallway, behind a heavy gray door. It is our operations and communications center. When I enter the place, I’m struck as to just how futuristic it looks. The room is dominated by a long, Star Trek–looking console, which is manned by three agents. They’re busy answering phones, sorting through cable traffic, and monitoring various radio channels used by our DSS protective security details. From this console, the trio of agents can call in the cavalry if we ever get in trouble. And I mean cavalry. They have the ability to order fighter jets into the air, mobilize army resources in just about any location, and can get the White House on the horn in a matter of seconds. All of this, plus they can run ops, move assets around, and vouch for our undercover agents if they happen to get nabbed by local authorities. This is our service’s nerve center, the Cheyenne Mountain of the spook world.
Of course, the place is as cluttered as our office. Dunkin Donuts boxes abound. Half-smoked cigars sit in overflowing ashtrays. Novels are stacked haphazardly about, and there are several new coffee stains in the carpet.
I greet the agents and tell them, “I need to use the Bat Phone.” They nod and go back to whatever they were doing. I walk over to the far corner of the room where an old rotary phone hangs on the wall. It isn’t just old; it’s ancient. Scuffed green housing with white numbers and a black dial, this thing has probably been in service since the JFK hit—which I just read a bit about in the dead bodies cabinet last week. Whenever I get a free moment, I’ve come to enjoy launching little fishing expeditions to see where all the bodies are buried. I’ll open a drawer at random and poke through the files until I find something interesting. Once, I even looked to see if we had a file on alien contact at Roswell, New Mexico. There wasn’t anything on it. Given all the other stuff that’s in those cabinets, I’ve concluded that if it is not in there, it didn’t happen.
The Bat P
hone is a secure line we can use to call any number of agencies and embassies. On it, we are allowed to discuss anything up to top secret. I look down at the number I’m supposed to dial. There’s only five digits. Who am I about to call? I don’t have a clue. And who in the world has a five-digit telephone number?
I spin the dial. The phone bleeps at me like British phones do. On ring six, a no-nonsense voice says, “Yes.”
Not a question. Just “Yes.”
What is going on?
“This is Agent Burton from CT,” I offer. Silence. The line makes faint, funny electronic noises. “I have an incoming from Beirut that my boss wants me to pass along.”
A heartbeat’s hesitation follows. Then I hear the voice reply, “Okay. Go.”
I read the message, slowly and clearly. When I finish, I say, “Over.”
“Got it. Out.” The line goes dead.
I look at the receiver for a minute, then sling it into its cradle. I could have been talking to the Wizard of Oz for all I know.
I beat feet back to the big blue door. When I reach my desk, Gleason gives me a sharp look and says, “Hey, Fred, did you pass that back channel to Ollie?”
Ollie?
“Just got done.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Ollie? There’s only one person anyone calls Ollie in our line of work. He’s part of the National Security Council.
I’d been talking to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, the gray ghost of the Dark World. I’ve heard rumors about him, but few people have ever seen him. He’s a shadow whose comings and goings have led to many whispers within the spook community. Who knows if they are true or not? But I know one fact about him now. For whatever reason, Oliver North has an interest in our Beirut hostages.
William Buckley is one of them, but there are others. Father Martin Jenco, a Catholic priest, was grabbed off the streets about a year and a half ago. No word if he’s still alive. Terry Anderson, an AP journalist, has been missing for months now after his abduction. Thomas Sutherland, the dean of the Agricultural School at Beirut University, has been in Hezbollah’s hands since last June. His colleague David Jacobsen was snatched only a few weeks before that.