The Third Target: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “Meanwhile, the Israelis are literally rolling out the red carpet,” I said. “But it’s all a head fake?”

  “It didn’t start that way, but now, yes, I guess it is,” the king agreed. “We will have a wonderful crowd at the peace ceremony, but none of them know that’s what they’re coming for.”

  “Then what do they think they’re coming for?”

  “There is an awards ceremony beginning at 2 p.m. with about five hundred high school students from all over Jordan and the West Bank. There is even a delegation of Israeli students coming, about fifty, I believe. The brightest students in their schools are supposed to meet with my son and various ministers. Then I am scheduled to deliver the keynote address. All the students arrived in Amman this morning. They’re touring the city all day. When they arrive here tomorrow, they will go through security and then learn that they are participating in the most important event of this millennium.”

  “And the awards ceremony?”

  The king smiled again. “Everything has been thought of, Mr. Collins. It will be held at the performing arts center downtown the following day.”

  “What time do the various government delegations arrive?” I asked.

  The king turned to Kamal Jeddeh.

  “President Mansour and the Palestinians arrive late tonight,” the intelligence director explained. “As a matter of fact, the entire Palestinian delegation is staying at your hotel, Le Méridien. If it is all right with His Majesty, perhaps we can arrange for Mr. Collins and President Mansour to have breakfast in the morning and do an interview.”

  “Absolutely,” the king said. “That’s a good idea.”

  “I’d like that, Your Majesty; thank you,” I replied. “And the Israelis?”

  The head of the Mukhabarat addressed that question as well; clearly it was his responsibility to keep all these delegations safe.

  “As you can imagine, it’s difficult for Prime Minister Lavi to travel without the press noticing. But he’ll depart Ben Gurion at 10 a.m., touch down here in Amman around ten thirty, and be brought by helicopter to the palace no later than eleven. His advance team is already here, and most of his security detail arrives less than an hour from now.”

  I turned to the king. “Could we arrange for me to have lunch with Danny Lavi?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” the king replied. “He and Salim and I are having an early working lunch. But we’ll make sure you get a meeting with him at some point.”

  “And what about President Taylor?”

  “Air Force One touches down at one,” Jeddeh said. “President Mansour, Prime Minister Lavi, His Majesty, the crown prince, and Prince Marwan will greet him at the airport, do a photo op, and then all come back here for the official ceremony. I’ll make sure we get you a final, detailed schedule in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But with all due respect, Your Majesty, what good is the exclusive you’re giving me tomorrow if hundreds of reporters will be here from all over the world as well?”

  “None of them will have backstage access to the principals except you,” the king said. “You’ll be in the limousine when we pick up President Taylor. You’ll be sitting directly behind me during the ceremony. You’ll be privy to conversations and details that no one else will have.”

  “Why me?”

  “Why not?” He smiled. “If you would prefer, I can certainly give this to one of your competitors.”

  “No, no, don’t get me wrong,” I replied. “I’m very grateful. Just curious why I’ve been granted such a favor.”

  “It is simple, really,” the king replied. “You’re the only reporter in the world to have actually met and interviewed Abu Khalif. We want to send him a message.”

  “And what message would that be?”

  “That he cannot win,” the king said. “That peace and moderation and tolerance will prevail.”

  Sitting back for a moment, I carefully considered what he was telling me. I was intrigued and impressed with Abdullah bin al-Hussein, both as a monarch and as a Reformer. He was actively trying to lead his small, oil-less, but vitally important nation toward progress and freedom, toward tolerance and modernity. He was keeping close ties with the Arab world. But he was also working hard to maintain a close friendship with the United States and the European Union. On top of all that, he was maintaining his nation’s courageous peace treaty with Israel despite all manner of trials. Now he was trying to help the Palestinians and Israelis make peace, even while standing strong against the radical forces in the region. It was not an easy task.

  The Radicals—al Qaeda, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the mullahs in Iran, to name a few—desperately wanted to topple the king and seize Jordan for themselves. In the last few years, the Radicals had seized Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, albeit briefly, and they were presently fighting to grab Syria and Iraq too. Would Jordan be next? I hoped the answer was no. But Abu Khalif had told me he planned to strike again soon. And common sense suggested the king was a prime target. Did he not see it this way? I needed to persuade him to go on the record—immediately, for tomorrow’s paper. But how?

  “Your Majesty, may I ask you a question?” I said finally, leaning forward.

  “By all means,” he said. The man was nothing if not gracious. The bedouin tradition of hospitality was deeply ingrained in him.

  “I realize there is much you don’t want to say until all the principals initial the comprehensive peace treaty tomorrow, and I respect that enormously,” I began. “But there are two facts I need to address. The first is that my editor expects me to file a story from the region by midnight tonight so it can make it into tomorrow’s newspaper. The second is that given the events of the last few days and the threats made specifically against you and your kingdom, I would think that it is important for everyone in Jordan—but especially everyone in Israel—to hear from you directly on how seriously you’re taking ISIS and what security measures you’re implementing to ensure not only that tomorrow goes well but that Jordan remains the vital cornerstone of security in this corridor over the long haul. So my question, Your Majesty, is simply this: Would you be willing to do a short interview with me right now to explain why you are so confident that Jordan will play a major role in securing this peace, no matter what Abu Khalif is saying?”

  50

  To my surprise, the king agreed.

  I looked at Prince Marwan and Kamal Jeddeh. They, of course, deferred to their monarch. So I fished my digital recorder out of my briefcase, turned it on, and set it on the table. Then I pulled out a pad of paper and pen, and we began.

  “Your Majesty, thank you for agreeing to sit down to talk with the readers of the New York Times,” I began.

  “Always a pleasure,” he replied, taking a sip of coffee for the first time since entering the room.

  “To begin with, how would you characterize this moment in the broad sweep of Middle Eastern history?”

  “I would restate the central case I made in my 2011 book, Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril,” he replied. “I believe we still have one last chance to achieve peace. But the window is rapidly closing. If we do not seize the opportunity presented by the now almost-unanimous international consensus of the solution, I am certain we will see another war in our region—most likely worse than those that have gone before and with more disastrous consequences.”

  “You don’t consider the carnage inside Syria and Iraq to be regional wars?”

  “The situation in Syria is a civil war, and it is very serious indeed,” the king said. “Our brothers and sisters in Iraq are fighting a terrorist movement. This too is quite serious. But what I was referring to in my book, and what I am warning of now, is the danger of another full-scale war between Arabs and Israelis. This would be catastrophic, which is why we are working so hard to help the Palestinians and Israelis make peace.”

  “Is peace at hand?”

  “Inshallah,” he said. God willing.

>   “You have been deeply involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, correct?”

  “The Palestinians and the Israelis have done all the work,” he said modestly. “I have been particularly impressed with President Mansour. He has worked tirelessly to secure a fair and just result for his people. We have played a minor role, tried to encourage him and Prime Minister Lavi as best we could, based on lessons King Hussein learned while making peace with the Israelis back in the 1990s.”

  “What tangible benefits do you see from the Israelis and Palestinians signing a comprehensive peace agreement?”

  “As you know, Jordan has been the region’s strongest and most consistent supporter of the creation of a sovereign Palestinian State with its capital in Jerusalem,” the king replied. “If this could truly be achieved—and I do say if, though we are closer than ever before—then it would be the most important geopolitical development of the millennium. This would be the fulfillment of a dream that eluded my father, Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and one Israeli prime minister after another. It would be a tremendous blessing for the Palestinian people, who have suffered too much for too long.”

  “And for Jordan?”

  “My dream, as I have stated on countless occasions, is to link the economies of Israel, Palestine, and Jordan in a common market—similar to Benelux in Western Europe. Imagine if we could combine the technical know-how and entrepreneurial drive of all three nations to create an economic and business hub in the Levant? The potential for joint tourism is massive, as is the potential for foreign investment.”

  I was about to shift the conversation to Abu Khalif, but the king was not finished.

  “And let me say another word about tourism,” he added. “Jordan is a leader in encouraging Islamic tourism not only throughout our own nation but to Mecca and Medina and Jerusalem. But we also know that there are some two billion Christians in the world. Imagine if there was truly peace between Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Imagine if Christian pilgrims could come and visit the Holy Land—on both sides of the Jordan River. What a blessing that would be for Christians, as well as for all the people of the region. It is not widely known in the West, but we have in Jordan a small but thriving Christian community that is perhaps the oldest in the world. The place where Jesus was baptized is Jordan’s most important Christian site. It is here on the east bank of the Jordan River. This is where Jesus’ mission started. This is where Christianity began. Jordan is also where Moses lived and died. This is where Elijah the prophet was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. There is so much rich history here, and pilgrims could not only come to see it all, but then cross the Jordan River and visit Jericho and Bethlehem and Jerusalem. They could behold the wonders of ancient and modern Jordan, Palestine, and Israel in ways never before possible.

  “On my trips abroad I have met with priests, preachers, rabbis, and imams,” he continued. “We have been working hard to build relationships with Christians, the Jewish community, and of course Muslims. We want everyone who shares our heart for peace to come and walk where Jesus and the prophets walked. We are not just talking about peace. We are not just dreaming about it. We are working very hard each and every day to make peace a reality.”

  It was time to pivot.

  “Have you read the interview Abu Khalif gave to the Times the other day?”

  “I have.”

  “How would you respond to the ISIS leader’s threats not only to annihilate Israel but to take out any Arab leader who makes peace with the Israelis, yourself and President Salim Mansour included, all to establish a true Islamic caliphate?”

  “I am pained by the twisting of my religion by a small band of misguided fanatics,” the king replied. “Such people embrace a deviant form of Islam. While claiming to act in its name, they are in reality just murderers and thugs. They constitute an unrepresentative minority of the 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, but they have had a disproportionate impact on how the faith is perceived. These people are takfiris, which in Arabic means ‘those who accuse others of being heretics.’ They rely on ignorance, resentment, and a distorted promise of achieving martyrdom to spread their ideology, turning their backs on over a thousand years of Qur’anic scholarship in the name of what they presume to be the authentic ways of seventh-century Arabia. But the actions of the takfiris have nothing to do with Islam and its message. True Islam stands for justice, equality, fairness, and the opportunity to live a meaningful and good life. They seek to destroy these things. In doing so they have turned their backs on the ancient traditions of clemency and compassion.

  “My advisors and I have been working for several years to build a broad-based consensus among Islamic scholars and clerics of all stripes regarding the true nature of Islam and the many reasons the takfiris are both theologically and historically wrong in their interpretations of the Qur’an. The scholars have produced a document called the Amman Message, which sets out what Islam is, what it is not, and what types of actions are and are not Islamic.”

  From memory, he then recited for me a brief passage from the document.

  “Today the magnanimous message of Islam faces a vicious attack from some who claim affiliation with Islam and commit irresponsible acts in its name. We denounce and condemn extremism, radicalism, and fanaticism today, just as our forefathers tirelessly denounced and opposed them throughout Islamic history. On religious and moral grounds, we denounce the contemporary concept of terrorism that is associated with wrongful practices. Such acts are represented by aggression against human life in an oppressive form that transgresses the rulings of God.”

  I was writing as fast as I could. I glanced up to make sure my digital recorder was still working. Fortunately it was.

  “One more question, if I may?”

  “Please.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. I read your book when it was released in 2011, and I have also read your father’s memoir published in 1962, Uneasy Lies the Head,” I said. “One of the common threads of both books is how often the extremists have tried to assassinate you and overthrow your kingdom. As you know, my grandfather, A. B. Collins, witnessed the tragic assassination of King Abdullah I. Now Abu Khalif, the commander of ISIS, is personally threatening to behead you and destroy the peace process into which you and your family have invested so much. My question is, how can you assure the American people, the Jordanian people, the Palestinians, and the Israelis—along with all those in the region and throughout the world who care about peace—that Jordan will remain a strong and stable cornerstone of regional security, especially in light of the ISIS threat?”

  “I would simply say this,” the king replied. “The Hashemite Kingdom is the longest-reigning regime in all the Middle East and North Africa. I am not going anywhere. Jordan is not going anywhere. We are here to stay, and we will remain a beacon of peace and moderation in troubled times.”

  I wrote down his words verbatim. They certainly sounded good. And the king was nothing if not sincere. This wasn’t spin. He was saying this from his heart.

  I just feared he was dead wrong.

  51

  Just before three in the morning, I sat bolt upright in bed.

  Shaking and so covered in perspiration that my pillow and sheets felt damp, I got out of bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and made my way across my hotel room to the bathroom to get a glass of water. When I glanced in the mirror, I saw my eyes were bloodshot, but I didn’t have a fever. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t really sick. I was terrified.

  ISIS had threatened to wipe out my entire family. I’d just learned that four of the world leaders Abu Khalif most wanted to kill—the president of the United States, the Israeli prime minister, the Palestinian president, and the king of Jordan—were all gathering under one roof, here in Amman, in a few short hours. The question wasn’t “Why had I woken up so early?” but “How had I actually slept at all?”

  Death surrounded me.

  Matt was right. Everywhere I
went, people I cared about wound up dead. I kept telling myself I was strong and able to keep going in spite of it all. But I was no longer sure that was true. I’d just had the most vivid dream of Matt and his family being killed with sarin gas. I’d seen them writhing and gasping for breath and couldn’t do anything to save them. It was all I could do to convince myself it wasn’t real. It was a nightmare; that’s all. Yet who was to say it wouldn’t soon come true?

  If there really were five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—I couldn’t honestly say I’d even begun. I hadn’t even started into denial. I was somewhere between shock and primordial fear. For most of my life, I hadn’t been afraid of death because I’d never really taken it seriously. I’d never even thought about it in any depth. I hadn’t believed in an afterlife. But now everything had changed.

  I was now certain there was an afterlife. I was now certain that heaven and hell were real places that real people went. I couldn’t explain how. I just knew. What I didn’t know was how to get to heaven. Matt said Jesus was the only way. I wasn’t so sure. Which meant he was right about another thing—I was in danger. If I didn’t have a route to heaven, didn’t that mean I was on the road to hell?

  I turned off the lamp, unplugged my mobile phone from its charger, and used the glow of its screen to find my way to the darkened window. I turned on the air-conditioning and then lay down on top of the comforter. I checked the Times home page. My interview with the king had just been posted. Allen and I were still communicating only through e-mails and text messages. But he was no longer telling me to come home. I was in the epicenter of the story, and he wanted me to stay put and send him everything I could. That suited me just fine. I had no intention to run from Abu Khalif, even if I had told my brother to.

  I checked my e-mails. There were nine, all from various U.S., European, and Israeli reporters. They were all asking for interviews describing my personal take on Abu Khalif. I didn’t have time for that. But I did take the next ten minutes or so sending a few quotes to each of them, giving them some tidbits. Most important, I verified that I’d seen ISIS use chemical weapons in Mosul. After all, the only reason Khalif hadn’t killed me yet was so I could keep telling the world he had weapons of mass destruction. And that was a story I was determined to tell anyway.