The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “Aren’t you going to take that?” I asked Harris as I got up to follow him.

  “Why?” he asked. “There’s no point bringing it over to the bunker. The security guys won’t let me take it in there. It’ll be safe here. I’ll get it when we’re done.”

  “Fair enough,” I said as the guards came over and released my leg shackles and prepared to escort me upstairs.

  Just then, Harris’s phone buzzed. I wondered whether it was my phone forwarding a call to his or whether he was receiving a call directly. Either way, when he looked at the screen, the expression on his face completely changed. He excused himself and stepped out into the hallway, and suddenly I was alone again. Unfortunately, that gave me more time to worry about this meeting with the king. How much had Feisal already told him about the case against me? Had they even had time for detailed conversations? On one hand, it seemed unlikely given everything else on His Majesty’s plate. On the other hand, the mole hunt was critical to his own survival. I’d personally heard the king ask his younger brother for an update, and how could the two of them not make it a top priority in light of the damage this traitor or traitors had done already?

  The minutes ticked by. Harris didn’t return. And the longer he didn’t walk through that door, the more my anxieties increased. Whom was he talking to, and what was taking so long? Had Jack Vaughn called him to ream him out for letting me—someone under suspicion of espionage and treason against a foreign government—make contact with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency? Or was it the attorney general on the line, ripping Harris for getting him involved during what was arguably the most sensitive espionage investigation in the history of the bureau?

  I glanced at Harris’s briefcase. It was sitting there on the table. Was it locked? What else was in it besides my phone? Were there details about my case? I can’t tell you how tempted I was to open it and riffle through his papers, even just for a few minutes. My guards had stepped out with Harris. I really was alone. But then I glanced up and noticed a small surveillance camera mounted on the wall, up in the corner, near the door, and I wondered if this was a trap. Were Harris and the Jordanians trying to set me up, trying to lure me into doing something incriminating, only to capture it all on video and hang me for it—perhaps literally?

  Louis Brandeis, the renowned Supreme Court justice, used to say, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” That surveillance camera was the sunshine, purifying me from all temptation. I had to watch my step, I reminded myself. I had to walk the line. Too much was at stake. Then I started to wonder: was Harris really on a call? Or was he in the control room, watching me on closed-circuit TV, waiting for me to seal my fate?

  Almost twenty minutes later, Harris came back into the room. He apologized and told me to follow him, but his demeanor had changed. Why? Was he sorry I hadn’t taken the bait? Or had there really been a call? And if so, who had called, and why did the news seem so bad? Every instinct in me wanted to ask him questions. It’s what I did for a living, after all—ask people questions, ply them for information. I couldn’t help it. It was instinct. But in this case I forced myself to keep my mouth shut. If Harris had something to say, he would say it. But I couldn’t let myself be lulled into the notion that he was my friend or ally. He wasn’t. He was my adversary. Sure, he wanted the king to hand me over so I could be tried in an American court. But he was still there to bury me, and I couldn’t afford to forget it.

  We took a right down the corridor and headed through another series of locked doors and mazelike hallways until eventually we were standing outside. Finally I was breathing fresh air. Cold air too. After a gorgeous and warm October with temperatures averaging in the seventies and eighties and a stormy but mild November with temperatures in the sixties, the first few days of December felt unseasonably cold. I hadn’t seen a thermometer or heard a weather report in days, but it couldn’t have been more than fifty degrees, possibly a good deal less. The patches of blue and rays of sun I’d seen the last time I’d crossed this tarmac were gone. Now the skies were dark and threatening. I tried to remember when I’d last worn my leather jacket. I could have used it just then.

  Still, it felt good to be out of doors, even if my hands were still cuffed, even if there were three armed guards watching my every move, even if I was about to see a king and his senior advisors, who believed I had plotted to kill them all. It was strange to think how radically the past thirty hours or so had changed my perspective. No longer was I thinking about my next exclusive story for the Times. Now I just wanted to stand here, outside this detention center, and savor every moment out of that cell.

  There were no F-15s or F-16s taking off or landing this morning. There were no troop transport planes arriving or departing either. I saw a Black Hawk helicopter powering up over by the main complex of buildings, where the bunker was located, and there was a small Learjet being refueled and serviced. But overall, it seemed awfully quiet for a base operating as central command in a winner-take-all battle to recapture the country from the forces of the Islamic State.

  “Come on,” Harris said. “We’d better get moving.”

  “Hang on a second,” I said. “I want to ask you something first.”

  “Ask me while we’re walking.”

  “No, this is important,” I said. “Did the king or his people give you access to Jamal Ramzy’s phone?”

  “What phone?” he replied. “What do you mean?”

  “When Yael—Ms. Katzir—and I killed Jamal Ramzy . . .” My voice trailed off. I paused a moment, then looked the agent in the eye. “Did you even know we did that—that we killed ISIS members, including the organization’s second-highest-ranking leader?”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  “And it doesn’t mean anything to you that I was killing ISIS leaders rather than conspiring with them?”

  “It’s in the file,” he said without tipping his hand.

  That didn’t give me much comfort, but it was something I’d have to take up with my own lawyers, not with the FBI. “But does it also say in the file that I pried a mobile phone out of Ramzy’s bloody hands?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Does it say that when Yael and I got the king and his family safely to the airport and under the protection of his own soldiers, I gave him the phone?”

  “No,” he said again. “No one’s mentioned it.”

  “Well, you should ask about it,” I said. “I gave Ramzy’s phone to the king so they could analyze it—calls received and sent, to what numbers, in what countries, what cities and neighborhoods. I suspect there’s a treasure trove of information in that phone, information that might even lead you to the president.”

  “Okay,” Harris said quietly. “I’ll be sure to ask about Ramzy’s phone. Now let’s go, or we’re going to be late.”

  We started heading across the tarmac, walking briskly to make up for lost time. Just then I heard a buzzing in the sky off to our right. It was faint, and I barely noticed it at first. But it was getting louder. It sounded like a small plane—a prop plane, maybe a crop duster—not a jet. That was odd because this wasn’t a civilian airport. There weren’t any crop dusters or Piper Cubs or small prop planes of any kind anywhere near here. But there it was, getting louder and louder. It was coming from the east.

  We kept walking, faster now but distracted by the sound. Harris and the guards heard it too, and then one of the guards said it sounded to him like a drone.

  That’s when we saw a flash in the eastern sky. It was a drone, and it had just fired a missile. I saw the contrail. We hit the deck just as the missile streaked over our heads.

  The explosion must have been heard for miles. Burning debris was suddenly raining down on us. I wanted to cover my head, but my hands were still shackled. I turned my head and looked behind me. All I could see was a blazing fire and a smoking crater. The detention center was gone.

  And then we heard another missile go slicing past us.

  30


  The second missile slammed into the central administrative complex.

  This was the very building to which Harris and I had been heading, the very building that housed the command center from which the king was prosecuting the fight to regain control of his kingdom. This explosion was even more deafening than the first. A ball of fire soared into the air as the upper stories began collapsing and the main edifice of the structure imploded before our eyes.

  “Come on; let’s go,” one of the guards shouted over the roar of the flames. “We can’t stay here. We need to move.”

  He grabbed me and hauled me to my feet. The other two guards and Harris were scrambling to their feet as well, and we sprinted across the tarmac for the nearest hangar. There were no planes or helicopters parked inside, and I guessed this was why the guards were headed there. It was not likely a target and might give us some initial protection from the flames and flying debris. As we ran, I could hear the sound of antiaircraft batteries erupting behind and ahead of me, and moments later I could hear the sounds of sirens. Fire trucks and ambulances were streaming in from all directions, as were armored personnel carriers, military police vehicles, and probably even battle tanks. Moments earlier, the base had seemed so quiet, almost a ghost town. Now it was about to be swarming with soldiers and first responders.

  As we reached the hangar, we were rocked by a series of secondary explosions as fuel tankers and other vehicles parked near the sites that had just been attacked erupted in succession. The guards ordered me into a corner. Then they chained me to the side of a tow truck.

  Guns drawn, they then set up a perimeter and ordered Harris to hand over his weapon. Harris started to protest but quickly thought better of it. Slowly, carefully, he drew his .45, set it on the pavement, and kicked it gently over to one of the guards.

  “Can I make a call?” he asked the lead guard. “I need to reach my superiors in Washington.”

  “Of course,” the MP replied. “You’re not under any suspicion, Agent Harris. We just have a protocol we have to follow.”

  “I understand, gentlemen,” Harris said. “I know you’re just doing your jobs.”

  With me chained down and Harris disarmed, the guards turned their attention from us to the possibility that anyone might be trying to help me escape. To me, of course, the very notion seemed ridiculous. This wasn’t a breakout. This was simply the forces of ISIS bringing the fight to the vortex of the king’s command-and-control operations. Abu Khalif had vowed to behead not only the president of the United States but the monarch of Jordan as well. That meant ISIS jihadists were likely attacking the Jordanian soldiers guarding the base. Would they break through? Would they actually make it here, to where we were now? What then? The only thing I feared more than being tried by the Jordanians was being captured by ISIS. There had been a time when I was useful to Abu Khalif. No longer. I had no doubt the ISIS emir would love watching me die a slow death.

  “Op Center Alpha, this is Special Agent Arthur Harris with an emergency override. . . . Yes, sir—my access code is X-ray-Niner-Foxtrot-Three-Seven-Four-Three-Tango-Bravo. . . . Yes, sir. . . . Voice ID: ‘Kensington Station.’ . . . Yes, sir. . . . I am inputting that number now.”

  I couldn’t imagine how Harris could hear over the triple-A fire, the sirens, and the raging fires. Yet before I could ask him what he was doing, he was dialing another number and talking to someone else. A few moments later, he handed the phone to the lead MP, who nodded a few times, asked a couple of questions, nodded some more, then passed the phone to his two colleagues. When the last one hung up the phone, he handed it back to the leader, who returned it to Harris. After they conferred among themselves, one of them made a phone call of his own. When that call was done, suddenly they were unlocking me from the wall and removing my handcuffs.

  “Follow me,” the head guard shouted.

  I had no idea what was happening, but Harris motioned for me to do what the man said and promised to be right behind me. We started walking briskly, then began running. Soon we were climbing into the back of a Black Hawk helicopter that was already powered up and ready to go.

  Harris shouted at me to put on my seat belt and hold on tight. Then we lifted off and shot into the stormy morning sky, rapidly gaining altitude and leaving the chaos behind us. As we banked to our left and took a north-by-northeast heading, I felt numb, staring out the window at the leaping flames and billowing smoke and terrible destruction below. One thing I didn’t see, however, was any sign that ISIS forces were striking the Jordanian troops holding the perimeter of the base, which only confused me all the more.

  “What in the world is going on?” I shouted at Harris over the roar of the rotors as we reached a reasonably safe altitude and distanced ourselves from Amman. “Shouldn’t we be trying to rescue the king and the prince and the others? We can’t just leave.”

  “Don’t worry,” Harris shouted back. “They’re not there.”

  “What do you mean they’re not there?”

  “The king and his team left the base yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “To avoid something just like that.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “They haven’t told me,” said Harris. “It’s classified.”

  “But you said we were going to see the king.”

  “We are.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We weren’t heading for the bunker,” Harris explained. “We were heading for this chopper. It’s taking us to the king, wherever he is.”

  None of this was making any sense. “I’m not following,” I told him. “Why did they remove my handcuffs? It’s like they’re letting me go.”

  “That’s simple,” Harris replied. “You’re no longer a suspect.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re no longer a suspect, Mr. Collins—you’ve been cleared.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said again.

  “You’ve been part of a sting operation—an operation that, I’m afraid, just went terribly wrong.”

  31

  As we shot over the eastern desert, Harris told me a story I could hardly believe.

  “You were never really a suspect,” he began.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t process what he was saying.

  “Our investigation, and that of the Jordanians, ruled you out almost immediately,” Harris explained, “for all the reasons you spent the morning enumerating. We were also able to rule out fairly quickly the people you suggested could be suspects, though we looked at them all.”

  “Including Prince Marwan Talal,” I said, more as a statement than as a question.

  “He was actually the easiest to clear,” Harris replied. “As I said, he was in Baghdad at the king’s request at the time of the attacks.”

  I felt terrible. “So you know who’s responsible?”

  “Yes, and even as we speak, agents are arresting three suspects.”

  “Who?”

  “This all has to be completely off the record, Mr. Collins.”

  “Of course.”

  “No, really. I’ll tell you because you’ve been cleared. But there is still a significant amount of work left to do in this investigation. It’s under way on three continents, in six different countries. And I believe there are many more arrests still to be made.”

  “But you’ve got the mole?” I pressed, dying to know who it was.

  Harris glanced at his phone and silently read a text message. “We do, and two of his coconspirators. They were literally just taken into custody.”

  “So who is it?”

  “You’re sure we’re off the record?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Because you’re involved in this case, you can’t write about it at all. I’m sure the Times will cover the story. I’m sure the bureau will work with other reporters from the Times. But eventually you’re go
ing to have to testify in this case, and we can’t have you writing about it. Conflict of interest and all.”

  “I understand. You have my word.”

  “Can I have that in writing?” he asked, pulling a sheet of paper out of his breast pocket and handing it to me.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  I looked at the crumpled piece of paper on FBI letterhead. It was a nondisclosure form, but this was no boilerplate version. It contained detailed legalese written specifically for this case and specifically for me.

  I laughed. “You don’t actually expect me to sign this without a written guarantee the FBI isn’t going to charge me with crimes against the United States or any other government, do you?”

  “You’re kidding,” Harris said.

  “I’m not.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then took the paper and scrawled out such a promise and handed it back to me.

  “Now sign it,” I said.

  And he did.

  “And date it.”

  He dated it.

  “And I’m going to need a copy of this before the sun goes down.”

  “Right.”

  “I have your word?”

  “Yes. Can we get on with it?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Can I borrow your pen?”

  Harris handed me his pen, and I signed. When I was finished, I returned the pen and kept the form.

  “When you show me a copier, I’ll be happy to give it back to you,” I said.

  Harris wasn’t happy. But to my relief, he didn’t protest.

  “So, you ready?” he asked.

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure, but I said yes anyway.

  “The mole is Jack Vaughn.”

  I thought he was kidding. But Harris didn’t smile. Harris never smiled.

  “Jack Vaughn?” I asked in disbelief.

  Harris nodded.

  “Jack Vaughn at CIA.”