by Fred Burton
Other times they beat him, stood on his head, kicked him, and punched him. One guard got a kick out of kneeling on Father Jenco and putting all his weight on the priest’s pancreas.
And for what? Why had they taken this man of the cloth? Their stated demands have not varied. They wanted the Dawa 17 released. This was a group of terrorists who had bombed the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983. They are murderers and fanatics whom the Kuwaitis will never let out of prison. They are far too dangerous. However, Hezbollah’s éminence grise, Imad Mugniyah, has a personal stake in the fate of these terrorists. His brother-in-law and cousin, Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, is one of the Dawa 17. Mugniyah is a shadowy figure who is either Hezbollah’s security chief or the operations specialist, we’re not sure which. He’s also the group’s main link to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Mugniyah planned Beirut I and II, orchestrated the marine barracks bombing, and was the mastermind behind the hijacking of TWA Flight 847. No other terrorist leader has soaked his hands in so much American blood. Now, he uses our citizens as nothing more than bargaining chips.
Hezbollah—meaning Mugniyah—has never wavered in their demand for the release of the Dawa 17, which makes me wonder why Father Jenco was set free. Is there a deeper motive for these abductions?
For six months, Hezbollah kept Father Jenco locked up alone in a filthy cell somewhere in southern Beirut. In June 1985, they again mummified him in packing tape, threw him into the spare-tire well of another truck, and united him with the other American hostages.
“You mean you were all kept in the same location?” I ask him. The news surprises all of us. If they’re in one place, we might be able to rescue them. If they were scattered all over the city and the Bekáa Valley, there’s no way we’d be able to get them simultaneously. And any rescue attempt would surely bring severe repercussions to whomever we left behind.
Father Jenco confirms this. “Yes. We were kept together in stalls, makeshift cells. We were still chained and blindfolded. I developed an eye infection from the blindfolds.”
We get Father Jenco a glass of water. He takes a sip and continues. “Several times they told me to dress in nice clothes they had given me. I was to be released. Then they’d laugh and say they were just kidding.”
The torment continued. Once, when one of the guards suspected the priest had caught a glimpse of his face, he was pinned against a door and brutally beaten. Such treatment demoralized each hostage. They could hear it when their fellow Americans endured a beating. All they could do was wonder when it would be their turn again.
It wore away at their spirits. It wore away at their ability to hope. At Christmastime, Father Jenco tried to sing a Christmas carol. He managed only a few words before he broke down in tears.
Another time, in February 1986, his captors gave him a letter from home. It was the first time he’d received one, and he opened it eagerly. But as he read every precious word over and over, he heard Thomas Sutherland weeping in the cell next to his.
“Thomas had not been given any mail,” Father Jenco explains. “It was so cruel to do that to him.”
The other hostages angrily gave their letters back to the guards to protest what they had done to Sutherland. Later that day, their captors relented and gave each hostage three letters from home. This sort of minor victory gave them strength. It sustained them.
There were a few moments of humor. Once, when one of the guards asked if Father Jenco needed anything, the priest replied, “Yes, a taxicab.” That elicited a few weary laughs. For the most part, each day became a struggle to survive, both psychologically and physically. For Father Jenco, his faith was his anchor in the storm. He fashioned a set of rosary beads from the loose strings of a potato sack. At times, he focused on Philippians 4:5–6 and said those words of comfort over and over to himself.
The Lord is near. Dismiss all anxiety from your mind.
The moves were the worst. Being bound up in packing tape and crammed into the spare-tire wells of those well-worn trucks left him in cold terror. His heart, already weak from cardiovascular disease, was strained to the limit by each of these ordeals. At first, he held fast to a button of Jesus Christ his captors let him keep. Unable to move inside the well, he prayed over the button as it lay in his tightly balled fist. It was his talisman and through the choking carbon monoxide fumes, he would recite prayers and try to block out what his tormentors were doing to him. Later, he threw the button away. He and God had a conversation, and Father Jenco realized he didn’t need any physical proof of his faith. He’d already lost almost everything else, including a cross given to him on his twenty-fifth anniversary of joining the priesthood. In the end, he discovered none of those small artifacts mattered. All he needed was faith itself.
We turn the interview toward the guards. Father Jenco tells us that most of them were young Lebanese males, often barely out of their teens. All had been inundated with propaganda ever since they were kids.
“What sort of propaganda?” I ask.
“Messages of hate, Agent Burton. Messages of hate. I listened to some of it on a tape. It was terrible.”
Some of the guards were hired help, unable to find jobs in the chaos of Beirut. One of them had been an air-conditioner repairman and just needed a way to pay the bills. He was one of the few kind ones and would occasionally bring Father Jenco things his wife had baked. Others seemed fanatical, or mentally ill. Maybe both. None of them had much formal education, which Father Jenco seized on. He told them he would like to bring them to America—not to punish them, but to educate them. He was not vindictive. He wanted these young men to do something meaningful and productive with their lives. They ignored him.
Once, the guards tied a bundle of plastic explosives to him. Father Jenco tried to find peace in what he thought would be the last minute of his life. When nothing happened, his captors said the bomb was a dud. Another time, a guard stuck his finger in Father Jenco’s mouth. As he peered at the priest’s teeth, he saw his fillings. He thought the fillings were transmitters and accused him of being a CIA agent.
It is clear that the hostages are not guarded by the first team. These guys are scrubs—nutcases and wannabes whom Hezbollah hires or trusts to do little but babysit their human booty. Delta would slaughter them. If only we could find out where they are.
That remains the problem. Fearing a rescue mission by the United States or Syria, the captors moved the hostages from location to location. Sometimes, they were moved from one place to another in southern Beirut. Sometimes they were taken elsewhere, probably the Bekáa Valley.
Several times, Father Jenco nearly lost all hope of freedom. At one point, the guards told him he would be free soon. He started to believe again. Then they replaced the door on his cell. After they left, he peeked at it from under his blindfold and saw it was a rugged, heavy door. Right then, he knew they were psychologically tormenting him again. A door like that could only mean he’d remain in his cell.
He broke down and began to cry.
Several nights ago, things changed. The guards came in and wrapped him up in packing tape again—a sure sign of another move. This time, though, they drove out into the Lebanese night, pulled him from the vehicle, and cut off all the packing tape. One of the guards stuffed some money in his hand. When Father Jenco asked what it was for, the guard replied, “A taxicab.”
He wandered through the darkness until a Syrian army patrol discovered him. Within hours, he’d been whisked to Damascus and was put on a flight to Germany.
I glance at my watch. We’ve been debriefing Father Jenco for hours, and the poor man just needs to rest. Tomorrow, we’ll start teasing through the details, gleaning those little nuggets that we can use to do our jobs. In the meantime, I have to ask this brave and decent man one final question for the day.
“Father, how did you endure? You must have felt like Paul.”
Martin Jenco sadly shakes his head. In a self-effacing voice he says, “Paul survived so mu
ch more than I, Agent Burton. And I was weak at times. I learned hate, which I had to overcome with forgiveness.”
The Agency man growls, “How can you forgive these men after what they did to you?”
“It is the only way. Violence achieves nothing. Rage, hate—they destroy the soul. What else is there but forgiveness?”
Silence greets his question. I know I am not that enlightened. I cannot forgive what my enemies have done to this kind and gentle human being. Perhaps a better man might, but not me, not now. Not after what I’ve heard.
Late that night as I lie awake, I make a promise to myself. I know I’m in this business for the long haul. This is where I belong, and while I’ve stumbled around these past months, I am learning. I will be the institutional voice for our department someday. I have no doubt of that—unless I get killed. Someday, I will be in a position to influence things. I’ll have authority. And I will use it to do everything I can to track down these evil, vile human beings who do so much harm to those like Father Jenco who are only trying to do good.
I will make a list of those men. Men like Abu Nidal and Sa’id Rashid and whoever fired those shots at Art Pollick and Bill Calkins. There will be a reckoning. Father Jenco would not approve. Justice walks a fine line with vengeance, and that is an anathema to such a man, for there is no redemption in it. I am a cop to the core; he is a man of peace. We live in different worlds. Or maybe we live in the same world, we’ve just taken different paths to try to make it better. I want justice. And in this case, it starts with Imad Mugniyah.
eleven
THE GRAY HELL OF WAIT AND HOPE
In the weeks following Father Jenco’s release, I swing back and forth between cautious optimism and puzzlement. By nature, I’m a glass-half-full person, and I’d like to believe that Jenco’s newly recovered freedom is the first sign of better things to come in Beirut. Back at Foggy Bottom, all through August we heard nothing but positive rumors that more hostages would be set free. The tragedy of captivity, the horrors of deprivation and brutality, just might be over for those other Americans chained to radiators in dingy cells half a world away from home.
But then there’s that little nagging doubt in the back of my mind that keeps stabbing away at my optimism. Why all the optimistic rumors? For that matter, why was Father Jenco released? Granted, Jenco was in ill health when he came back to us, but that didn’t stop Hezbollah from letting Buckley die. What’s the root of all this? Could it be Terry Waite?
Waite is the official envoy for the archbishop of Canterbury who has worked tirelessly around the Middle East to solve hostage crises peaceably. After a group of Westerners were taken hostage in Libya in the spring, he flew to Tripoli and successfully negotiated their release. He is universally respected, has a reputation for honor and honesty, and has done the Lord’s work from Idi Amin’s Uganda to the very lion’s den itself—Tehran. For months now, he’s been quietly traveling to Beirut to find a solution to the hostage crisis there. Perhaps—just perhaps—this man of peace has found traction in the Shiite slums in the southern part of the city. Have they listened to him? Has his humanitarian approach succeeded? I’d like to think so.
But then, I know Mugniyah. This is not a man motivated by humanitarian principles. He’s a stone-cold killer who has no problems sending his minions to certain death in suicide attacks. Tell me how a man such as he can find common ground with a man such as Waite?
I just can’t see it.
Right after Father Jenco was released, a Hezbollah communiqué announced that the United States should “proceed with current approaches that could lead, if continued, to a solution of the hostage crisis.” The American response was quick and vehement. The administration denied that any approaches were being used and castigated the Hezbollah statement.
I can’t help but wonder. Wheels within wheels are always turning in the Dark World, and at the very least somebody in Washington had had advance notice that Jenco would be released. After all, we beat him to Wiesbaden. Is there some back-channel avenue open between Washington and Hezbollah? I wish I knew, but if there is, it is way above my pay grade and need to know.
Back at Foggy Bottom, things in the CT office continue along at their usual frenetic pace. Our office’s reputation is growing, and that has proven to be a double-edged sword. We’re getting more cooperation throughout the Department of State, but at the same time our workload has grown. Agents overseas and the RSOs know that we’ll help them out. We’ll ride herd over their evidence that needs analyzing and we’ll support investigations with additional resources whenever we can. It stretches us even thinner. At the same time, we are still required to perform protective security duties whenever we’ve got important foreign dignitaries in town. An upcoming UN General Assembly session in New York, scheduled for early next year, is not going to be fun. Already we’ve been told we’re going to be up there indefinitely helping to protect a lot of foreign diplomats who have said plenty of things against our country.
The thought of living in a hotel for weeks on end protecting the likes of Yasir Arafat really isn’t one I relish. American counterterrorism agents should not be used as human shields for the father of Palestinian terrorism.
In the meantime, I’ve managed to slip away a couple more times to see Fred Davis at the Brandt Place house. We’ve resolidified our friendship on those nights, sipping coffee on the porch and revisiting the good old days. Fred’s starting flight school in a few months, which means he’ll be in the Deep South for several weeks. I’ll miss him, but when he comes home, I’ll hold him to his promise to take me flying.
In the meantime, we work other cases, chase down more leads, and add whatever details we encounter to our hostage files. The job keeps us moving, but I can’t help but feel caught in a gray zone I’ve never encountered before. On one hand, the hostage situation becomes a waiting game that runs relentlessly in the background of our day-to-day operations. It smolders and smokes, and several times a week leads or new developments force the issue back to the top of our in-boxes. At the same time, we have bombings, shootings, threats, and warnings aplenty that keep us bouncing from one crisis to the next. The hostage crisis is our bass line, the underlying beat of our CT office.
And as the summer starts to fade, bad things start happening in Beirut. On September 9, the embassy RSO sends us a flash cable that brings a grimace to Gleason’s face. Hezbollah has abducted another American. This time, they snatched an elementary school principal named Frank Reed. His crime? Apparently little more than staying in the shattered city to run the Lebanon International School.
A group calling itself Islamic Dawn is claiming credit for the abduction. The name is a new one, and we don’t have much information on them. But we send their statement to our analytical experts, who conclude it is very similar to the other ones released by Islamic Jihad and other supposed groups in Beirut.
Hezbollah prefers to operate in the shadows, using front groups for its public proclamations. I suppose they do it to try and keep us off-balance and guessing. It doesn’t work. Evil is still evil no matter what words are used to cloak it.
Three days later, I get a call in the middle of the night again. FOGHORN reports another abduction in Beirut. By the time I get to the office, the RSO in Beirut has confirmed that Joseph Ciccipio, another academic with American University, has been snatched. This time, Hezbollah’s operatives call themselves the Revolutionary Justice Organization. This particular front name has been used in the past. The RJO took credit for nabbing Aurel Cornea, a French television soundman assigned to Beirut with a news team.
Two abductions inside three days? What is the motive? Could Hezbollah be trying to increase the pressure on the United States? Are they trying to tighten the screws in hopes we will convince the Kuwatis to release the Dawa 17? Perhaps, but in neither case did the abductors issue any demands.
Could they be replacing the two hostages they’ve already released? Father Jenco was the second man of the cloth to be released by
Hezbollah. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister who was kidnapped in 1984 while out on a walk with his wife, was released in late 1985 before I joined the CT office. Could these two latest abductions simply even the books from Hezbollah’s perspective?
None of this makes any sense. The Dark World is full of murky issues, nonendings and huge questions. In that respect, the events in Beirut fit right in.
On Spetember 26, a British reporter named David Hirst manages to escape from Hezbollah’s clutches. We soon learn that he made his break while his captors were moving him from one slum prison cell to another in southern Beirut. He somehow was able to jump from the transport vehicle and reach safety.
Three days later, Hezbollah snatches a French TV reporter named Jean-Marc Sroussi. Was this in retaliation for Hirst’s escape? Probably. Fortunately, a few days later Sroussi escapes from a shed that was serving as his holding cell.
By October, my summer optimism rapidly erodes. It is business as usual in Beirut, and that includes all the chaos and brutality of a civil war grafted onto a religious conflict. In the middle are our hostages, the human poker chips Mugniyah hopes to use to parlay the release of his brother-in-law’s gang of murderers in Kuwait.
Ten days before Halloween, Hezbollah strikes again. This time, instead of trolling for academics around American University, they go for an easy target. Edward Tracy, a fifty-five-year-old wanderer and sometime writer, falls prey to Hezbollah gunmen while loose on the streets of Beirut. The Revolutionary Justice Organization again takes credit for the abduction.
Why he’s in Beirut becomes a minor mystery. His family has few answers for us. When we talk to his eighty-something mother, she tells us she hasn’t seen her son in over two decades. What contact the rest of his family has is spotty at best. His letters from Beirut are peppered by odd comments and near-gibberish.