by Klaus Marre
“I love you, mom,” Stacey said when she could finally get a word in.
The Harpers went inside. While Stacey headed for the kitchen to get something to drink, her parents planted themselves in front of the TV to get the latest news on the attack. CNN was just showing FBI Director Stevenson’s second press conference.
“... and have evaluated the surveillance tapes from the bus and the bus station. Two of the three cameras on the bus were operational, the one showing the front and rear doors, and we also got some data from closed circuit cameras at Crystal City station,” Stevenson said.
“As you can see from this shot, a young man with a large backpack got on the bus along with the other passengers,” Stevenson said in the background. “Shortly after leaving the bus station, it looks as though he got up and it seems as though he asked the driver to let him off the bus. As you can see, he left the backpack under his seat.
“In this video, taken from a bank surveillance camera from across the street, you can see him getting off the bus and walking back toward the Metro station. As you see him disappear from view, he seems to be talking to another person ...”
Glass shattered and both of Stacey's parents looked at their daughter. She stood in the living room, all blood having left her face. Amid a broken glass, a pool of soda expanded on the hardwood floor.
“We are not prepared to declare this young man a suspect, but he's certainly someone we would like to be talking to as soon as possible,” Stevenson continued on the television. “This is the best shot we got of him from the front camera of Metro Bus 2405.”
Most of the screen was filled with a somewhat grainy picture that clearly showed Stacey's former classmate Hassan al-Zaid.
“What's wrong, honey?” Stacey's father asked, rushing to his daughter's side.
“Oh my God. I'm the person in the video. I tried to get on that bus,” she burst out. “And I know who they're looking for. It's Hassan, who went to Woodbridge with me. I talked to him this morning.”
“If you have any information about this man, please contact law enforcement authorities immediately,” Stevenson's voice could be heard in the background. “A hotline has been established and hopefully the number will be on your screen now.”
Stacey had staggered to the couch and plunged down next to her mother, clutching Amanda Harper's arms with clammy fingers.
“Oh mom, I was so close to getting on that bus,” she stammered.
Both of Stacey's parents shuddered when they thought of how close they had come to losing their only child.
Bruce Harper also took a seat on the couch. He wanted to be as close to his daughter and wife as possible as they all went through the “what ifs” in their heads. The entire family just sat there for a few moments, holding on to each other and occasionally muttering words of comfort. Tears of shock mixed with tears of relief were streaking down their faces.
Stacey’s father was the first to speak again.
“You have to call them, pumpkin.”
“I know,” Stacey replied, curling her hair around her index finger the way she did when she was supposed to do something she didn’t want to. “But Hassan couldn't possibly have anything to do with this. I bet he's already getting in touch with them.”
“You should still call the hotline, just in case,” her dad said.
Stacey pulled out her cellphone and dialed the number that was still on the screen.
Wednesday, 2:42 pm ET
Director of National Intelligence Robert McClintock arrived at the Hoover building in a black SUV. Apart from beat-up cabs, the government suburbans often seemed to be the most used vehicles in Washington.
In the 19th century, Congress had mandated that no new building could be taller than the Capitol itself, preventing Washington from being home to the kind of high rises that made up the skyline of other major U.S. cities. Still, even the 10-story office buildings in downtown DC did the job of blocking the breeze that was coming from the Potomac. With the sun having burned down on the concrete all day, it was brutally hot and McClintock began sweating as soon as he left the car.
This area of the city had nothing of the beauty of Capitol Hill, where the Congress and Supreme Court and their antique-inspired architecture attracted countless visitors. The only tourists who showed up at the Hoover Building were lost. Its job was not to look pretty but rather to house the premier U.S. law enforcement agency.
With a couple of assistants in his wake, both of them struggling to keep up with the 60-year-old DNI, McClintock was taken straight to Director Stevenson's office. The nation's “top spy” had been asked to brief senior FBI personnel on whether there had been increased activity among terrorist groups. While the Bureau kept taps on domestic threats, the various spy agencies under McClintock had a global reach.
The DNI was an ordinary guy, the kind of man who, before he assumed his current position and rose to “Inside the Beltway” prominence, was always mistaken for other people. This had served him well at the beginning of his career, when he had joined the CIA out of college and being non-descriptive was an asset in his clandestine work. Since then, he had gotten to know the different aspects of U.S. intelligence gathering inside and out. First as an operative abroad, then behind a desk, as a staffer on Capitol Hill and the White House and later in increasingly high positions in the various spying organizations. It was that career path that made him revered by the intelligence community. He wasn't an academic who was picked by the president to lead them. Robert McClintock was one of them. In turn, he commonly referred to other members of the intelligence community as “my guys,” or, when women were present, as “my people.”
When he received his Senate confirmation hearing for the current job, McClintock was widely hailed by Democrats and Republicans alike as the perfect choice for the position. One senator had referred to him as a “throwback kinda spy,” stressing that he meant that “in a good way.”
At the same hearing, when McClintock was quizzed about a particular issue, another senator said that “it's tough to argue with a guy who knows more about this business than just about anyone and who put his life on the line every day while working in the Soviet Union.”
The DNI not only talked the talk but he had walked the walk behind the Iron Curtain and in other hot spots during his illustrious career in the clandestine services.
After some high-profile failures in recent years, most notably the fiasco of the pre-Iraq War intelligence, and concerns that the intelligence community was increasingly being politicized, McClintock was viewed as the man who would right the ship. In his third year on the job, he hadn't disappointed.
At the Hoover Building, the DNI again displayed his trademark bluntness.
“So, you got video of a suspect,” McClintock said, foregoing the use of the phrase “person of interest.” As all of the people in the room knew, that term was mainly created to shield law enforcers from lawsuits. None of the senior FBI officials in the room regarded the man in the picture as anything but their prime suspect.
“Indeed, and we actually got a name that goes with the picture,” Stevenson said. He touched a button on the remote he held and a photo appeared on a flat screen across the room. “The suspect is Hassan al-Zaid, second-generation American. He’s 21 years old. Muslim. We don't have a file on him but are working on pulling together everything we can find. Right now, agents should be searching his parent's house in Virginia and his last known residence in California.”
Stevenson got up from behind his desk and walked toward McClintock, who stood by the screen and looked at the photograph. He waited for the DNI to make eye contact.
“There is no doubt that he is the guy on the tape,” Stevenson said. “We've had at least three dozen phone calls all identifying him, including that girl he spoke to after getting off the bus. Apparently she went to high school with him not far from here and ran into him by chance this morning.”
“Any chance this isn't our guy?” McClintock as
ked.
“Sure there's a chance,” the FBI director responded. “But it would have to be a huge coincidence. In theory, an unaffiliated suicide bomber could have been on the bus and Hassan al-Zaid just happened to be the luckiest guy in the world because he was on the wrong bus at the right time. It would also mean that he left his backpack accidentally.”
Stevenson tapped the face on the screen before adding, “And, if all of this were the case, why hasn't he contacted us? All in all, there is a chance this isn’t our guy but that chance is pretty damn remote.”
“Fair enough,” the DNI said. “Makes sense. So we assume we know who did it.”
Though McClintock hadn't inquired about whether they had any leads on al-Zaid's whereabouts, the FBI Director gave the intelligence chief a brief rundown.
“Unfortunately, we don't yet seem to be close to arresting him,” Stevenson said. “Now that we have a picture, it should really help us with the manhunt and getting the public involved. Right now, you got at least 250 million pairs of eyeballs looking everywhere for our person of interest and I hope that the searches will give us some clues about where he is. Obviously we are monitoring airports, train stations, bus terminals and we are also setting up some checkpoints along the major roadways leading away from Washington.
“This guy has a head start but he's a young kid so I'm sure he'll make a mistake soon. It's also not like he can count on sympathy from anybody in this country and nobody in their right mind would want to be associated with him right now, so I'm hopeful we'll get him soon,” Stevenson concluded.
The FBI Director was nearly a polar opposite of McClintock. Whereas the DNI was of average built and plain looking, Stevenson was tall and handsome and nobody ever confused him at dinner parties with anybody else. Before being named to the position by his college buddy Jack Sweeney, he had worked as a lawyer in the private industry where he had made a fortune. His wealth showed in the expensive suits he wore and the cars he drove.
His deputy, a career agent, had joked when they began working together that “you used to have to take a whole lot of bribes to afford a car like that. At least we don't have to worry about that with you.”
Stevenson had only limited relevant experience prior to being asked to lead the Bureau – he had served a brief stint as U.S. attorney early in his career. His selection had initially resulted in loud criticism from Sweeney's political opponents and some editorial pages, as well as some grumblings within the Bureau. But he had proven himself to be a capable steward of the FBI and silenced all critics, who had to begrudgingly admit that Stevenson was an excellent director.
“Well, we got a name and a face. Shouldn't be too difficult to find him,” McClintock said. While Stevenson was showing some emotion about the attack, the DNI was all business. “Are you releasing the name to the press? I'm sure you've sent it to all of my agencies to see if he has any known associations.”
“We haven't made a decision on releasing the name,” Stevenson said. “With so many people identifying this kid, it seems that it'll only be a matter of time before someone leaks it to the press and it shows up on the Internet, even though we asked all those who contacted us to not share that information with anybody else. With regard to passing along the name,” he looked at one of his deputies who was the liaison between the Bureau and the intelligence community and nodded, “I guess that’s been done.”
“Good,” McClintock said. He had always liked the FBI director and never had an issue when they worked together in the past. He knew that Stevenson was in an unenviable position and things would get worse the longer he could not deliver the suspect. He also was aware the he would become a target of scrutiny soon as well but McClintock wasn’t worried about himself.
“I'm sure my guys will shoot you over anything we have on him,” he said, concluding that topic and shifting gears.
“Now, with regard to why I'm here. There is really no indication that this attack can be linked to any of the international terrorist groups we are monitoring. There certainly was no uptick in terms of chatter.
“Often, within a couple of weeks before an attack is scheduled to take place, we at least get some indication that something is about to happen, even if we can't figure out the details,” McClintock explained, pacing in the FBI director’s office as he spoke. “That hasn't been the case this time. We haven't seen a new as-Sirat video in more than a month and the chat rooms we monitor also haven't had an unusual amount of activity. We're always behind on monitoring phone calls because of the volume of those we are listening in on, but there also doesn't appear to be anything unusual there. So, we have little to go on with regard to international terror groups pulling the strings on this one.
“I guess the early signs point to a lone wolf,” the DNI concluded.
Stopping so-called “lone wolf” terrorist attacks was a nightmare for homeland security officials and the intelligence community. While they had ways to monitor terrorist groups through electronic surveillance and, especially with regard to potentially dangerous domestic groups, through human assets that were used to infiltrate them, there was comparatively little they could do against a determined individual. There was simply no way to monitor all of the sources that allowed people to figure out how to build bombs in their basements, and, of course, anybody who was in the U.S. legally could simply buy assault weapons and ammunition, go to a mall or a school and kill as many people as possible. If lone wolves maintained operational discipline and did not trumpet their plans to the world on their Facebook pages or a tweet like “2morrow I will bomb u all,” there was very little law enforcers could do to detect them until after they made their move.
Most of the men in the room nodded. Though the attack had taken place only a few hours ago, the early signs pointed to a lone wolf. Whether this had made it more difficult to prevent the strike wouldn't matter much to a public that wanted to be kept safe and believed that homeland security had not done its job whenever there was an event. In that way, those tasked with keeping the country safe got a really bum deal. Often the public would never find out about their successes, but any failure was magnified, even if there was nothing that could have been done.
“Well, let's wrap this up then, now that we have a suspect,” Stevenson said, eager to get back to work and learning more about the target of the investigation.
McClintock nodded and packed up his documents.
“Keep me up to date and, if my guys can help in any way, just let me know.”
***
Stevenson was proven right about the details of the investigation leaking out soon. Shortly after the meeting at the Hoover building concluded, about five hours after the attack, ABC News was the first to broadcast that the man in the picture was believed to be Virginia resident Hassan al-Zaid, a recent college graduate. The network supplemented its coverage with footage from a local affiliate showing FBI agents camped out at the al-Zaid residence in Woodbridge. The other networks were not far behind in bringing the news to a nation eager for any morsel of information.
At the Washington Post, the newsroom was bustling with activity. All hands were on board, even those who had taken the day off had come in if they were in the vicinity of Washington or worked remotely. This was the biggest news event in years and nobody wanted to miss out on being part of it.
The news of the raids in Woodbridge and the leaking of the name of the person of interest resulted in the decision to task three staff writers and two editorial assistants to pull together all available material on Hassan al-Zaid. The Post would try to give its readers as much information as possible in the morning edition and would also update its website to get people to come back to washingtonpost.com
At the request of managing editor Emily Strauss, Alan went to the newsroom after being discharged from the hospital. Though he was not expected to do any copy editing, he was supposed to work with Kempner on an article detailing the attack. In return for his help, Alan had been given the rest of the week off a
nd was cleared to use his new-found fame in any way that would not be damaging to the paper.
He was just discussing the article with Kempner and Strauss when the sports editor barged in with one of his reporters.
“You gotta hear this,” he said. “This is Mario Puente, one of the guys who covers local sports for us. Two years ago, he did a lengthy profile of Hassan al-Zaid and he’s been covering him for years before that.”
“Go ahead, tell them,” he added with a wide grin and a nod to the young sports writer.
“When I was starting out here, I covered local high school athletics. That's when I first met Hassan,” Puente said, fiddling with a piece of paper. “He played soccer at Woodbridge and was one of the most talented kids on the entire East coast. He was a midfielder at Woodbridge High, took them to state once and was a high school All-American as a junior and senior.
“He then accepted a full ride to play for UCLA.”
“Here it comes,” the sports editor interrupted, unable to contain himself.
“Hassan lost the scholarship at the end of his sophomore year,” the young reporter continued, visibly pleased with the bombshell he was about to unveil. “UCLA was supposed to play Maccabi Tel Aviv, an Israeli soccer team, in an exhibition match and Hassan refused to play, citing 'the Zionist's oppression of the Palestinian people.' With him being a local boy, I did a story on it and talked to him and others on the team. They said his coach had asked him to just fake an injury so he wouldn't have to be kicked off the team but Hassan refused, saying that he had to do what is right.”
Puente waved the paper he was holding. “I got a copy right here.”
He paused, letting the information sink in.
“Let me get this straight,” Kempner was the first to break the silence. “This kid was a freaking All-American who is now a person of interest for the FBI, which basically means he is their top suspect in the largest terrorist attack since 9/11 and he lost his scholarship at UCLA because of his anti-Israel views? That's great stuff!”
“You're sure this is the same person?” the managing editor asked. “I mean, 100 percent positive?”