The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  The whole thing enraged me. I felt powerless and cut off. Until I looked down at the iPhone in my hands. I realized we were flying low enough that I still had cell coverage. And just then it occurred to me that I didn’t need to wait for Allen MacDonald or the brass at the Gray Lady to get this story out. I could do it myself.

  A soldier offered me a bottle of water, but I waved it off. Instead, opening my Twitter app, I began typing and sending dispatches, 140 characters at a time.

  EXCLUSIVE: President of the United States missing. After ISIS attacks in Amman, Air Force One took off without POTUS on board. #AmmanCrisis

  EXCLUSIVE: Where is POTUS? I saw Secret Service whisk him away from palace, heading for Amman airport. But he never arrived. #AmmanCrisis

  EXCLUSIVE: Massive search for POTUS under way using Jordanian military, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. military assets. #AmmanCrisis

  Over the next few minutes, I sent nineteen tweets. In many ways, I realized, the story read more dramatically over Twitter than it might on the Times’ home page. This was the epitome of a breaking news story. Raw. Dramatic. Unfiltered. Fast-moving. And in this case, exclusive. If Allen and the brass in Manhattan wanted to skip the biggest story of our time, they could be my guest. But I had news, and I was going to share it with the world.

  After getting out the core of the story, I then sent three more tweets using some cautionary language. I made it clear this was a fluid situation. I stressed my hope that additional reporting from other journalists—and disclosures from U.S. government officials themselves—would shed light on the situation. But in less than five minutes, the story was out there. Now all I could do was wait.

  I’d never broken a story via Twitter before. It wasn’t my style. In my heart, I guess I was old-school. I believed in filing dispatches and having editors clean them up and make their own decisions about what and when to publish. It wasn’t just safer for readers—and for me. It wasn’t just the way things had been done forever in the world of responsible journalism. I genuinely believed it was the right approach. It’s certainly the way my grandfather operated, and I held him in the highest esteem.

  Back in the day, back when Andrew Bradley “A. B.” Collins was writing for the Associated Press in the forties, fifties, and sixties, he worked his craft by the book. He wrote up his stories on old-fashioned typewriters (hunting and pecking with just his pointer fingers as, remarkably, he never formally learned how to type). His dispatches were hand-edited by grizzled old men wearing bifocals and smoking pipes or fat Cuban cigars. His stories were rigorously fact-checked and sometimes heavily revised, sometimes even rewritten, before they were finally transmitted over the wires and printed out in the clackity-clack of cacophonous newsrooms the world over. He didn’t like being questioned by his editors over his facts or sources. He didn’t like being rewritten. No reporter worth his salt did. But he wasn’t a rebel. He took his risks in the field, not in the newsroom.

  Sure, occasionally when a story was breaking big and fast, he had no time to type it up and cable it to his editors. Sometimes he had to phone in his stories from exotic locales to the news desk in London or New York. But my grandfather would never have even imagined doing an end run around his editors. They were the gatekeepers. Everything went through them. That’s just the way it was done. That was the system. And my grandfather respected the system.

  I did too. Or I had until now. It had never occurred to me to “publish” my interview with Jamal Ramzy, the ISIS commander in Syria, via Twitter or Facebook or some other social media just moments after I’d finished talking to him. Nor had it occurred to me to tweet out the story of the prison break at Abu Ghraib or the grisly sarin gas tests conducted by Abu Khalif and Jamal Ramzy in Mosul. To the contrary, I knew such stories needed Allen’s critical eye and the go-ahead from those above him. If I could convince them of the story’s merit, and if they were satisfied with the care I’d taken to write it, then they’d publish it—and not a moment earlier.

  But this was different. This story was too big to hold, too important to sit on. I couldn’t reach millions of people directly, the way the front page of the New York Times or the home page of the official website could. But I had 183,000 followers on Twitter. People all over the country and all over the world were tracking my stories. More importantly, most of my fellow war correspondents and most of the reporters, editors, and producers in Washington and numerous foreign capitals followed me, as did political, military, and intelligence officials throughout the U.S. government, NATO, the Middle East, the Kremlin, and the Far East. I could guarantee they were all tracking their Twitter accounts right now. They were all desperate for any scrap of information from inside the battle zone.

  By “publishing” this story directly, at least I could reach people who could reach others—many others—and fast.

  4

  The story instantly blew up the Internet.

  As I scanned my notifications screen, I could watch in real time as reporters and various Middle East experts and analysts started retweeting my news flashes. Their readers then retweeted, others retweeted them again, and the story spread at an exponential rate. The feedback effect was stunning.

  Preternaturally, Matt Drudge picked up the scent almost immediately. He and his colleagues quickly cobbled together my tweets into an article of sorts and made this the lead story on his site—complete with his trademark red siren—with a simple yet stunning tabloid headline: POTUS Missing in Amman.

  Within minutes, Drudge’s version of my story became the biggest trending topic on Twitter worldwide. Reporters began instant-messaging me questions, probing for more details. Rather than respond to them each directly, I started tweeting out the photos I’d just taken over Amman and providing tidbits of detail and context as best I could. I couldn’t possibly report all that I’d seen and heard over the past few hours. Not 140 characters at a time. But as we shot across the eastern edges of the capital, flying low and fast, barely above the rooftops, I came to the horrifying realization that most if not all of the other reporters who had been covering the peace summit were now dead or dying. Most of the TV crews and satellite trucks providing coverage from the palace had been wiped out in the attacks. Across the world, live streams had been cut off midtransmission. Anchors back in their home studios had been left hanging, unsure at first why their feeds had been cut. What images had gotten out to the world? Any? How much on-the-ground reporting from Amman was actually taking place?

  A few minutes later we were on approach to a large air force base located in Marka, a suburb northeast of Amman. I recognized the base immediately. It was named after the first King Abdullah and served as the general headquarters of the Royal Jordanian Air Force and the home base of three squadrons of attack aircraft, including advanced F-16 Fighting Falcons and older Northrop F-5s.

  As we touched down outside the main air command center, I put my phone down. I could see that the base was heavily fortified by tanks, armored personnel carriers, and well-armed soldiers. I saw sharpshooters strategically positioned on numerous roofs as well. But I refrained from snapping any photos. There were lines I didn’t dare cross.

  When the side door opened, the special forces operators around me jumped out and took up positions around the chopper. They knew the king was a target, and they were taking no chances.

  I unfastened my seat belt and then caught a glimpse of Prince Feisal bin al-Hussein. He was flanked by an enormous security detail, and they were moving toward us rapidly. The prince was not a big man, but he was taller than I’d imagined, well built, a classic professional soldier, with closely cropped black hair graying a bit at the temples. He sported a small mustache and a somber expression and wore fatigues and combat boots, not his formal dress uniform. As deputy supreme commander of the Jordanian armed forces, he was the highest ranking officer after only His Majesty himself. He glanced at me somewhat coldly and then at his brother. It was clear he wasn’t coming to bring greetings but only to get the king quickly
and safely inside the command center.

  Abdullah climbed out of the cockpit and removed the chem-bio suit. Following his lead, I removed mine as the king returned his brother’s salute.

  “Your family is safe?” the king asked.

  The prince nodded, then quickly assured his brother that the queen, the crown prince, and the king’s other children were safe as well.

  “And the president?” His Majesty asked.

  “Wait till we’re inside,” the prince replied, anxious to get the king safely out of any potential line of fire and apparently not prepared to discuss the president’s situation in the open.

  The king started moving toward the door, then turned suddenly and said, “Feisal, where are my manners? There’s someone you need to meet.”

  “Yes, Mr. Collins from the Times—the pleasure’s mine,” the prince replied without emotion or any apparent real interest. He clearly knew who I was and had been aware I was coming, but it was also clear in his eyes that he didn’t like the notion of my presence at this place at this time one bit.

  Even so, he reached out and gave me a firm handshake, but he had no intention of standing on the tarmac making small talk. Again he urged His Majesty to come inside, and the king agreed. With the security detail flanking us, we moved briskly into the lobby of the GHQ—general headquarters—which was filled with more soldiers on full alert, then headed down several flights of stairs until we passed through a vault-like door to a bunker that stank of stale cigarettes. As we entered, the head of the prince’s detail prepared to close the vault behind us, but Feisal held up his hand and motioned him to wait a moment. Then he pulled his brother aside and whispered something in Arabic I couldn’t hear.

  “No,” the king said. “Collins stays with me.”

  “But, Your Majesty,” Feisal protested, “given the circumstances, I must insist that—”

  But the king would have none of it. “He stays—now lock the doors and initiate your protocols. We are at war, gentlemen. I want a full briefing on current status.”

  A spark of something flashed in the prince’s eyes. Anger? Resentment? I couldn’t quite place it, but I was close. Nevertheless, he had just been given a direct order by his commander in chief, and like a dutiful soldier he followed it.

  All nonessential personnel were quickly ushered out. I stayed.

  As the vault door closed, the king briefly introduced me to the elite few who remained inside the bunker with us. Lieutenant General Abdul Jum’a, head of the army, and Major General Ibrahim al-Mufti, head of the air force, were both likely in their midfifties. Colonel Yusef Sharif, a senior advisor to and chief spokesman for the king, looked like he was about my age, maybe early or midforties. Dr. Mohammed Hammami, an older gentleman, perhaps seventy or thereabouts, served as His Majesty’s personal physician. The remaining four men were a young military aide who looked to be no more than twenty-five and three armed members of the security detail. As we shook hands, the king excused himself, stepping into an adjacent washroom.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Collins,” Dr. Hammami said. “Let me take a look at that arm.”

  That caught me a bit off guard. Nothing had been said in my presence about my injuries, but the king must have radioed ahead. I did as I was told; as I sat, I noticed for the first time my blood-drenched sleeve. The doctor asked me to take off my shirt, but the pain was too much to raise my left arm over my head. Eventually, with no small amount of difficulty and discomfort, I both unbuttoned and removed the shirt only to reveal the queen’s now-crimson scarf-turned-tourniquet. The doctor opened his bag, withdrew a pair of scissors, rubbing alcohol, and some gauze. He cut away the scarf and examined my injuries.

  “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Collins,” he said after a moment. “This isn’t nearly as bad as I’d been expecting.”

  That was comforting . . . I guess.

  He asked me a few questions for his chart. “Full name?”

  “James Bradley Collins.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “May 3, 1975.”

  “Height and weight?”

  “Six foot one, 175 pounds, give or take.”

  “In kilos?”

  “Sorry—no idea.”

  “Do you know your blood type?”

  “A-positive, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Any history of heart problems or other chronic medical issues?”

  “No.”

  “Any allergies?”

  “None.”

  “Are you taking any medications?”

  “Not currently.”

  “Are you a smoker?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Any history of alcohol or drug use?”

  “How much time do you have?” I asked.

  He just looked at me, didn’t find me clever at all, and scribbled a few notes. “Past surgeries?”

  “Broke my leg in ROTC at the end of my freshman year. They had to do three different surgeries to get it right. And that, my friend, was the end of my career in the American military.”

  Dr. Hammami wrote it down but didn’t seem to care, particularly. Questions finished, he proceeded to clean my wound.

  But Sharif, the king’s advisor and spokesman, picked right up on what I had said. “You were in ROTC?” he asked.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Which branch?”

  “Army.”

  “Did you really want to serve in the U.S. military?”

  “Actually, I wasn’t sure. A bunch of my friends enlisted. I’d grown up hunting with my grandfather in the forests of Maine. I loved guns. I loved the outdoors. I thought maybe I’d wind up as a reporter for the Army Times.”

  “And then you broke your leg.”

  “And wound up in a series of hospitals for the next few months, so yeah, that was pretty much a wasted year.”

  I can’t tell you how much at that moment I craved a drink. But I was fairly sure that in a room of reasonably devout Muslims, I wasn’t going to find anything suitable, so I did my best to focus on something—anything—else.

  I looked around the room. It certainly wasn’t the White House Situation Room with its state-of-the-art, high-tech wizardry. Nor was this the handsomely appointed official reception room at the Al-Hummar Palace, where I first met the king. It looked more like a conference room at a Holiday Inn or Ramada somewhere in the American Midwest: simple, spare, and without any frills. There was a large, old oak table—scuffed up a bit and covered in newspapers and used coffee mugs—in the center of the room, surrounded by twelve executive chairs that looked a little worse for wear. Overhead hung several harsh fluorescent lights. On the wall to my left was a large map of the greater Middle East and North Africa, covered in plastic and marked with notes and diagrams written with erasable pens of various colors. On the far wall was a large map of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and several kilometers of each of its immediate neighbors. Directly across from it on the wall behind me was yet another large map, this one a detailed street map of the city of Amman and its surrounding suburbs, showing all major landmarks and military facilities, including the air base we were at now. These maps were also covered in plastic and even more heavily marked up, showing the current known locations of rebel forces and the movement of Jordanian military response teams. On the fourth wall, to my right, just over the door through which we had entered, were mounted five large television monitors. They were all muted but displayed live feeds from Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, CNN, and two local Jordanian stations.

  The young military aide quickly cleared away the newspapers and coffee mugs and emptied the ashtrays, then replaced them with Dell laptops and thick binders for the king, the prince, and the others. I turned my attention to the TV monitors. For the first time I could see the images the rest of the world was seeing.

  It was immediately apparent I’d been wrong. Many more images of the attacks had gotten out than I’d expected, and they were both mesmerizing and brutally hard to watch. All the networks were replaying fo
otage of the missile strike and kamikaze attack on the palace and the ensuing scenes of horrific chaos and carnage from a variety of angles and vantage points. It was one thing to have seen black-and-white images from the security command post underneath the Al-Hummar Palace, as Yael and I had while the attacks were unfolding. But these chilling images showed far more of the magnitude of the destruction—and in living color.

  The generals took seats in front of the bank of phones on the table and went right back to work, presumably getting updates from their men in the field. Out of the corner of my eye, I felt Prince Feisal’s glare, though I disciplined myself not to look over at him. Not just yet. He clearly didn’t want me there, and I didn’t fault him. He had a rebellion to suppress. He knew full well there was a mole somewhere in the system, maybe several of them, who had known enough of the details of the summit to set into motion this devilish attack. He didn’t know whom to trust any more than his older brother did. He certainly didn’t want to trust a journalist, a foreigner least of all. I had to believe the very notion of having a reporter—a non-Jordanian, non-Arab, non-Muslim, non-Hashemite reporter—in his command bunker while he was orchestrating a massive counterassault against the forces of ISIS and an extensive search and rescue to find the president of the United States must have seemed nonsensical and unbearable.

  It made me wonder why, in fact, the king would keep me around. I certainly didn’t have the security clearance to be in the war room at such a time as this. Surely the king, who still hadn’t come back into the room, was taking a moment to consider his brother’s counsel. It was one thing to show me a measure of kindness and hospitality given the role I’d just played in saving his life. But now the king had serious work to do. There was no reason whatsoever to keep me around.

  But if—and more likely, when—he kicked me out, what exactly would I do? Where would I go? Would I be stuck in the lobby upstairs with no sources, no access, perhaps not even any ability to communicate with the outside world, in the middle of a base in full lockdown and under imminent threat of attack by the forces of the Islamic State?