The Third Target: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “Good—my sources are telling me the truth,” I said, moving quickly, not wanting to let the president box me in. “That’s a story I’ll be happy to print.”

  “You already have this?” the president asked, his face not quite incredulous but trending in that direction.

  “There are a few more people to talk to, but yes, I’m getting close to running with it,” I replied. It wasn’t entirely true, but I rationalized that it wasn’t a complete lie, either.

  “No. You cannot print that yet,” the president stated. “The key to success is absolute secrecy.”

  “I’m sorry, sir; I can’t promise that,” I noted calmly.

  “You have to,” he replied. “We agreed this conversation is off the record.”

  “And it is,” I said. “But that doesn’t apply to original reporting I’m already doing.”

  “It absolutely does,” the president insisted. “This is a matter of national security.”

  “And a matter of enormous public interest,” I countered.

  “Mr. Collins,” Vaughn interjected, “you just gave the president of the United States your word that nothing that was said in this conversation was on the record.”

  “And I will honor my word,” I said, doing my best to stay calm. “But I walked in here with sources already telling me the deal was done and the treaty was about to be announced, and I’m sorry—I’m not obligated to ignore information I had before I walked into this room.”

  The president and CIA director looked like they’d just been hit with a two-by-four.

  “J. B., listen to me. A leak at this moment would be devastating,” Vaughn said, clearly looking for a way out of the impasse. “But I’ll make you a deal.”

  He glanced at the president, then looked back at me. “We’ll leak the final details of the treaty and the behind-the-scenes story of how it came together once everything is ready. We’ll give you an exclusive one-day jump on your competitors. You have my word. But you need to sit on this for the moment. The secretary of state is just crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s with leaders on both sides and with King Abdullah of Jordan. But we need a little more time. A leak, especially right now, could destroy everything.”

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

  It was a good offer—an excellent one, actually, especially since I was bluffing. I’d gotten a lead on the treaty story from Yael, and I was fairly certain I could get more out of Ari Shalit in the next few days in exchange for doing him the favor of getting the WMD story out. But I didn’t have anything else at the moment, and the president and CIA director were offering me an exquisite gift on a silver platter. Why not take it, especially since the peace process was neither my beat nor even of particular interest to me. I wanted the chemical weapons story. I wanted an interview with Abu Khalif. And to get either or both, I was going to need to stay focused.

  Vaughn again looked at the president. “Two weeks, maybe three, tops,” he said at last. “Like I said, the negotiators are ironing out final details. But I think we could see a White House signing ceremony before Christmas.”

  “That’s less than a month,” I said.

  “Exactly. That’s why we have to keep a lid on this thing,” the president said. “We are engaged in the most delicate, high-stakes high-wire act in the history of modern diplomacy. My predecessors haven’t been able to get it done. There was many a night I didn’t think I could get it done either. But we’re there. So do we have a deal?”

  I looked into the president’s eyes and then into Vaughn’s. Why was this so easy? Why were they giving me so much, so fast? They wanted something else. I decided I’d pocket one story and brace myself for whatever was coming next. “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

  “You won’t write any stories on the peace treaty until we give you the go-ahead?”

  “You’ll give me a true exclusive, including the first journalist’s look at the treaty itself, and no one else gets the story before me?”

  “Yes,” the president said.

  “Then yes.”

  We shook hands, and then the president dropped the hammer. “Now, we need to talk about your other story.”

  “Which one?”

  “I understand you’re about to run a story that al Qaeda has captured a cache of Syrian chemical weapons.”

  “Well, ISIS—not al Qaeda—but yes,” I said.

  “That’s a problem as well.”

  “How so?”

  “It could trigger a wave of panic right at the moment when we’re trying to help Arabs and Jews make some very hard, very painful concessions,” Vaughn said.

  “I’m asking you not to print it,” the president said. “Not yet. Not until after the peace treaty is signed, sealed, and delivered. I’m willing to make a deal on that as well, but I really have to insist you not publish anything before the end of the year.”

  I was floored. The story was basically finished. In less than forty-eight hours, possibly sooner, I’d have my third confirmation. The story was ready to go, and it was going to be huge.

  “Well, gentlemen, I appreciate your concerns, but I’m afraid we’re going to move forward.”

  “And risk blowing up this peace deal?”

  “Sir, if this deal is the real thing, surely it will have to be strong enough to survive a newspaper story that doesn’t fit your ‘peace in our times’ narrative,” I replied. “And anyway, it’s ISIS that’s going to try to blow up your peace deal, not me.”

  “It’s not just about public relations,” the president said. “The larger problem is that the facts aren’t there.”

  “Actually, yes, they are, sir,” I responded. “I have confirmation from high-ranking officials in three different governments, including your own.”

  “It’s a mirage.”

  “With all due respect, it isn’t. I’ve personally seen satellite photos, drone video, listened to phone intercepts, read intercepted e-mails. Believe me, Mr. President, the story is solid.”

  “I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,” the president said. “Jack?”

  I looked into President Taylor’s eyes. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look frustrated with me. Nor did I feel like he was necessarily trying to spin me. In fact, he genuinely looked like he was trying to help me. But the man was a politician and thus, by practice if not by definition, an actor. He knew how to persuade people, and I’d been “handled” by enough people in Washington over the years to have become even more cynical than I was already naturally inclined to be. I turned to Vaughn and braced myself for the pitch.

  “Look, J. B., you can’t quote either of us on this, but the intel you’ve been given is, in fact, solid,” the CIA director began.

  “Solid?” I asked, wondering if I could possibly have just heard him correctly.

  “That’s right; it’s solid.”

  “Well, isn’t that what I just said?”

  “Hold on; just listen to me,” Vaughn continued. “What you’ve seen and heard is accurate. I’m sure of that. That’s not the problem.”

  “What is?”

  “It’s incomplete.”

  “Meaning what?” I asked, wishing I had a notepad with me.

  “Meaning the president and I have seen a lot more intel than you have, and we’re not convinced.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the data doesn’t add up.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry, but I’m not following you, Jack. Stipulate the facts we’re talking about so I know we’re on the same page.” I was sure Vaughn wouldn’t take the bait, but I was certainly willing to go fishing anyway.

  Vaughn looked at the president, who, to my shock, nodded his assent.

  “When you’re making sarin gas, you’re combining two different chemical precursors,” the CIA director explained. “The first is isopropanol. The second is methylphosphonyl difluoride. You don’t mix them together until you’re ready to kill people. Why?”

  “Because you don’t want to take an unneces
sary risk.”

  “Exactly. You don’t want the whole thing to blow up in your face. So you store the two different chemicals separately—on the same base, but in different buildings. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, we know the ISIS rebels hit the Syrian base near Aleppo. We know that historically the base was a storage site for WMD, among other types of weapons. We know that for many years, both chemicals were stored on the base. But that was years ago. We know the rebels removed several hundred crates on trucks and that they sent those trucks to at least five different locations, maybe more. What we don’t know is what exactly was in those crates and on those trucks.”

  I was surprised but pleased to hear Vaughn confirm this much. I couldn’t quote him, of course. But now I knew with even greater certainty that my story—nearly entirely written and waiting on my hard drive—was accurate.

  “You think the rebels were carting away office equipment and linens?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what they were carting away, and neither do you.”

  “What about all the phone intercepts after the rebels seized the base?”

  “What do they actually say?” Vaughn asked. “One rebel tells his commander his men have captured the ‘crown jewels.’ Another boasts, ‘Allah will be most praised.’ A third e-mails Jamal Ramzy and says, ‘Zionists will suffer.’”

  “Right. So why do you think they’re so happy?”

  “Again, we can’t know for sure. The intercepts are intriguing, but they’re not proof,” Vaughn continued. “And remember, while it’s theoretically possible that the Assad regime hid a cache of chemical weapons at that base, the Syrians say they haven’t had any WMD in more than a decade. The U.N. inspectors went there. They searched the place, and they certified that there were no chemical weapons. The Syrians claim they gave up all of their stockpiles to the U.N. to be removed from the country and destroyed, and the U.N. weapons inspectors say they feel reasonably confident that the Syrians did exactly that.”

  “You’re going to rest your case on ‘reasonably confident’?” I asked.

  “You’re going to rest your case on nothing but circumstantial evidence that’s weak at best?” Vaughn countered.

  “Look,” I said, “the agency is gun-shy after the blown call in Iraq. I get it. But here you have jihadists seizing a known WMD base in Syria and boasting they have the ‘crown jewels’ and saying they are going to annihilate the Jews, and you want the New York Times to back off the story?”

  “You’re not listening to me, J. B.,” Vaughn protested. “I’m telling you the case is circumstantial at best. Might ISIS have chemical WMD? Yes. I grant you that. And it scares the daylights out of the president and me. Believe me. We can’t sleep at night. We’re doing everything we can to confirm this story, but so far all we have are a bunch of dots. In my position, I can’t connect them based on gut instinct. I have to have ironclad proof. I can’t tell the president of the United States that my circumstantial evidence is a slam dunk. And I don’t want the American people—or the Israelis and Palestinians—to live in sudden fear that we, or they, are about to get hit by chemical weapons of mass destruction unless I know that for certain. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think that’s moral. And deep down, I don’t think you do either. Am I wrong?”

  28

  I checked my grandfather’s pocket watch again.

  The meeting at the White House was finally over. But it was now 7:43 p.m. The former CIA director had already been waiting for thirteen minutes, and I was mortified.

  Even in retirement, Robert Khachigian was an important and powerful man. He certainly had a far tighter schedule than mine. He was leaving the country in just a few hours. What’s more, he had been a friend of my family’s for years, and I had given him my word I would not be late. Twice I had called his mobile phone from the car to tell him what was happening, but he hadn’t picked up either time. Now my guilt was spiking along with my heart rate.

  A cold late-November drizzle had descended upon Washington. I had neither a warm coat nor an umbrella. I was reminded of meeting Yael in Istanbul just a few nights before, and the very thought made me feel even worse. I wanted to see her again. But how?

  The black armored Chevy Suburban I was riding in pulled to a stop. Four FBI agents newly assigned to me jumped out first, scanned the area, and then gave me the green light. I grabbed my briefcase and dashed into Union Station, the mammoth train depot located just a few blocks from the Capitol building. I raced to the Center Café, a restaurant appropriately positioned in the bull’s-eye of the gargantuan Main Hall, and prayed Khachigian was still there.

  “Yes, he’s waiting for you upstairs,” the maître d’ said. “Right this way, Mr. Collins.”

  Every table on the ground level was taken, and there was a line of tourists waiting to be seated as we headed upstairs. One of the agents assigned to me took up a position at the base of the winding staircase. The other three followed me to the second level.

  Khachigian was sitting alone at a table for two on the far side of the restaurant. He did not look happy, though as a rule he was a fairly serious guy anyway. As I greeted him, I apologized profusely for my tardiness, but he waved it all off and told me to have a seat.

  “You’re mad at me,” I said.

  “No,” he demurred.

  “You look mad,” I insisted.

  “I’m not mad, but we don’t have much time,” he said. “We have a real nightmare developing. But how are you?”

  A consummate professional, but always the gentleman.

  The graying, bespectacled man before me was the elder statesman of the Washington intelligence community, and he was dressed to the nines. He wore a dark-blue suit, a light-blue monogrammed dress shirt with gold cuff links, suspenders, and a snappy lavender bow tie, which seemed to me a relic of an earlier age. At his feet stood a small suitcase. Clearly he was heading to the airport straight from this meeting.

  “I’ve been better,” I said, not sure how much detail he wanted.

  “Secret Service?” he asked, referring to the two agents who were now sitting at a table directly behind him and the third standing by the top of the stairs.

  “FBI,” I replied. “To be honest, I’m not exactly sure if they’re protecting me or keeping tabs on me.”

  “Both,” he said without hesitation. “Pain?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Oh, well, a little.”

  “Percocet?”

  “A lot.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I got it.”

  “Addictive personality and all.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Really, I’m fine.”

  Khachigian and my family went way back, and he’d always seemed to take a liking to me. Almost like a surrogate grandfather, he’d kept an eye on me. In his youth he was a nonofficial cover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. He was based primarily in Eastern Europe and traveled in and out of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. When he retired from the intelligence business, he returned to Maine, the state where he had been born and raised. He and his wife, Mary, were from Bangor, a bit to the northwest of us in Bar Harbor. They had known my grandparents and later my parents and had become fairly close family friends. After practicing law for a few years, Khachigian ran for office and won the seat serving the Second Congressional District. Later he went on to win a Senate seat and wound up chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Eventually, he was appointed to the top spot at the CIA and served for almost three years before retiring for real.

  Over the years, my grandparents—and my mom—contributed to his various political campaigns. In college, I did an internship in his Senate office. During election cycles, my mom often volunteered to put up signs and answer phones and go door to door leafleting for him. She and Mary Khachigian became quite close. They were pen pals and loved to host an
annual Christmas tea together for friends and political supporters—that is, until Mary passed away of ovarian cancer three years ago.

  Interestingly enough, Robert—called Bob by his friends but always “Mr. Khachigian” by me—had never been a source of mine for all those years. He probably would have agreed if I had asked, but I never had. There was no question he was a treasure trove. He obviously had a great deal of insider details from his various government positions, and I certainly would have benefited from access to all that behind-the-scenes information, especially in the early years when I was building my career. But it never seemed right. I never wanted to cross the line, never wanted to make him think I would trade on a personal relationship. I actually felt uncomfortable even when my mother asked Mary to get me the internship way back when.

  I’ll never forget the day Khachigian called me out of the blue and asked me to meet him in London, where he was giving a lecture the next evening. At the time I was still a young reporter, and the timing was hardly ideal, and he refused to give me even a hint as to what he was thinking or why he wanted me to come. Nevertheless, I found myself so intrigued that I immediately booked the flight.

  Upon my arrival, Khachigian picked me up at Heathrow, alone, and drove me to the Dorchester, one of the swankiest hotels in London. There we had a private, intimate dinner with the up-and-coming leader of the Israeli opposition at the time, a man by the name of Daniel Lavi.

  “James, this man is going to be the prime minister of Israel soon,” Khachigian told me the moment Lavi and I shook hands. “The polls don’t show it. Most analysts don’t believe it. But I’m telling you right now it’s going to happen. And Daniel here specifically asked me to arrange a meeting with you. He’s an admirer of your work. Has read it all. Says you’re one of the most trustworthy reporters in the biz. I agree. So I decided to introduce you before Daniel’s life gets much busier.”

  The following morning, Khachigian and I drove to the Ritz in the Piccadilly section of London. There he led me up to the Prince of Wales suite (which I later learned went for a jaw-dropping 4,500 pounds per night) and introduced me to an older gentleman who turned out to be Prince Marwan Talal. At the age of seventy-eight, he was an uncle of Jordan’s King Abdullah II and a trusted senior advisor to His Majesty. Khachigian seemed unusually pleased by bringing the two of us together.