by Bob Graham
“The senator felt there were some unresolved questions about 9/11 and thought you might be helpful in finding the answers. I’m trying to schedule a trip to San Diego in the next three weeks. If I’m able to do so, would you meet with me to discuss his concerns?”
“I’m covering a major fraudulent importation trial, but let me know when you—”
“Fraudulent importation? What’s that all about?”
“Some Russians allegedly were trying to get mislabeled, banned chemical or biological substances into the country and were caught down at the Tijuana border crossing. A lot of the trial is being held in the judge’s chambers since it involves classified information. Still, it’s been more interesting than the everyday corruption trials where I spend most of my time. And, yes. You let me know when you will be here, and I’ll try to be helpful.”
“Thanks.” Tony paused. “And, I have a second request. The senator also has urged me to meet with a Dr. Samrat Nasir, and you are one of the few people who know him. Could you help me set up a meeting?”
“Mr. Ramos,” Terri spoke with what sounded like barely suppressed exasperation, “I don’t know you, and Professor Nasir is a very private person. Let’s meet first. We’ll take one step at a time from there.”
“I understand and hope to see you soon,” Tony concluded.
JULY 26
Miami International Airport
“Mr. Ramon Diaz, please.”
Sergeant Whitten held for a response.
“Hola, Ramon aquí.”
“Mr. Diaz, this is Sergeant Whitten from the airport police office.”
“I didn’t expect to hear from you again. Have you found my truck, or should I start looking for it in Haiti?”
“No, but we do have a lead.”
“What kind of lead?”
“Detective Longo was reviewing the video from the surveillance camera at 3P in the garage. He spotted two men on Saturday night, just about eight hours after you left your SUV. These guys were removing the license plate from a black SUV. Longo says he could read three numbers and the letter M from the tag and it matches up with the plate number you called in. After they screwed it off your vehicle, they did the same to the car next door and switched them. It looks like they punched out the steering lock and jump-started your SUV and pulled off.”
“Sergeant, it’s a truck.”
“I’m sorry for the confusion.”
“Then what?”
“The only thing we know for sure is that they ran the gate at the toll, which triggered the toll camera. We have a clear take on the plate they put on your vehicle and a fuzzy shot through the windshield of the driver and his passenger.”
For the first time in almost a week, Diaz was feeling some satisfaction. “So what are you doing now?”
“Well,” Whitten said, “we have an all-points out on the van with the bogus plates. The Nissan with your plates is still in the garage.”
“Mr. Sergeant, it’s a Ford F-150 truck, not a van or sissified SUV.”
“Damn it! My head’s all screwed up tonight. Where was I? Oh yeah, the Nissan with your truck plates—did I get it right this time?—is still in the garage. We’ve sent the images to the FDLE—”
“What’s that?” Ramon interrupted.
“The Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They have equipment to make the pictures clearer, and maybe they’ll be able to tell who it is. Any questions?”
Hearing none, Whitten concluded, “If we pick up anything, I’ll keep you in the loop. It may be a month or more before we have a report from FDLE. Those lab guys stay pretty busy and it’s complicated stuff. You ever watch CSI: Miami?”
“No.”
“Well, you ought to. You’ll learn something about what we’re doing to find your car.”
“Thanks,” Ramon offered, “but it’s a truck.”
JULY 29–AUGUST 2
Washington, D.C. ☆ San Diego
Washington isn’t quite like Paris, where the national government virtually shuts down in August, but it’s close. Congress and its entire staff, hangers-on, and the ubiquitous lobbyists circling the Capitol have left. The president is at his farm. Even with two wars to fight, the Pentagon and the State Department are at a noticeably slower pace. Tony figured this was the time to strike.
Five days after he had submitted his request to travel to San Diego, over the following weekend he received an email from Ms. Wilkens:Mr. Ramos, the Ambassador has approved your request to be away from your station August 1–2. He has directed that you maintain contact with the Departmental duty officer and be prepared to return upon his request to do so.
The Ambassador requests a briefing upon your return.
Florence Wilkens
Tony called Terri McKenzie that afternoon. He left a voicemail message that he would be arriving late on Friday evening and would hope to meet with her the following day. With a slight stumble, he mentioned his continued interest in seeing Professor Nasir. She returned his call the following morning.
“Mr. Ramos, I can meet you on Saturday for lunch at the Sundeck Restaurant; it’s at the downtown, old navy pier.”
“That’s great,” Tony said enthusiastically.
Before he could continue, Terri said, “I want to meet you before I make a decision on any arrangements with Professor Nasir.”
“I’ll take my chances. See you on Saturday.”
Tony had kept his overnight bag packed and stuffed into his gym locker. At five on a hot Friday afternoon, he was on State’s shuttle to Dulles. With the ticket provided by Billington, Tony departed at 7:15 p.m. on United 236 to San Diego.
By the time the seat belt light was off, he’d finished the Times and laid it on the empty middle seat. When the attendant passed by, he asked her for black coffee. While reflecting on the senator’s assignment, Tony recalled the conversation with Carol more than a week earlier on the ride in from Dulles to her apartment. Could there be any connection between the Saudi tentacles in Southern California before 9/11 and the kingdom’s behavior with the Brits a decade earlier? It seemed far-fetched, but Tony had learned early in his career not to dismiss any possibility out of hand.
As Tony’s coffee arrived, his mind transitioned from the Saudis in San Diego to his professional passion. The Belfer Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government had produced a series of open-source papers on U.S. options in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He spent the rest of the flight absorbed.
The Sundeck was a San Diego landmark. South of the retired World War II aircraft carrier USS Midway, the architecture of the restaurant was reminiscent of a Napoleonic quartered hat plopped on a dredged sand pile. Sundeck captured the laid-back spirit of San Diego when it had been a sleepy navy town down the road from LA.
Terri was waiting at an ocean-side table when Tony arrived, ten minutes early. While showing the effects of a late night in the newsroom, she was still pretty eye-turning in a tropical floral-design cotton wrap.
The introductory formalities went well. Terri and Tony were both in their thirties, shared Latino Hispanic heritage and working-class roots, an interest in running and tennis, and a curiosity to unravel the remaining secrets of 9/11. Over a lunch of seared ahi tuna for him and taco salad for her, Tony explained why Billington thought Professor Nasir was an important thread in that unraveling.
“There was only one involuntary subpoena issued during the almost yearlong 9/11 investigation. And that was for Professor Nasir.”
Terri’s journalistic curiosity rose. “What do you mean by involuntary?”
“There were people who were willing to testify, but to avoid the wrath of higher-ups, they wanted the cover of a subpoena requiring them to do it. The inquiry committee voted to send Nasir the real thing.”
“I was reporting on the Saudis in San Diego in 2002 and I don’t recall the professor going to D.C.,” Terri observed.
“You’re right. When the Senate got Nasir’s subpoena from the court it was on a Friday afternoon. Time was running short to c
omplete the inquiry, and Billington was anxious to have it served over the weekend. The only agency that could serve it was the FBI because it had Nasir in protective custody and only it knew where he was. Billington was reaching out to hand the paper to a bureau attorney. He folded his arms and backed away until his rear end was against the wall of the committee’s office. Billington was in his face when he said he would deliver the professor on Monday if he didn’t have to serve the subpoena.”
“Did he do it?”
“Hell no. On Monday he said he had orders from the director of the FBI herself not to accept the subpoena.”
“What was the director’s excuse?”
“She told Billington the bureau had to protect the integrity of the assets program,” Tony answered. “Given the fact that its asset had just lived with two of the hijackers, one for more than six months, there didn’t seem to be much of a program to protect. Billington told me later his failure to force the bureau to deliver Nasir was the single biggest blunder of the investigation. I think that’s why he put so much importance on my talking with Professor Nasir.”
Tony looked for some sign of acceptance from Terri. Seeing none, he asked, “So have I passed the test to meet with the professor?”
Terri reached her hands across the table, touching Tony’s. Tony noticed she wore no rings, although there was an indentation on her left ring finger. “You’re making progress. Let me ask you a couple of questions and give you some background.”
“I’m an open book,” Tony offered. “What do you want to know?”
“Don’t get too D.C. suave,” Terri said laughing, maneuvering her hands back to her side of the table. “You’re trying to convince me you have a legitimate reason to meet one of the most protected and protective men in America.”
Tony displayed his first hint of irritation. “Billington went through this routine with the director and the little shit from the FBI. Are you in the suppression of evidence business too?”
“No, but I do know something about protection of sources. In this case, Nasir is over eighty and tires in the afternoon. How long will you need?”
“No more than two hours.”
“Keep it to an hour. He’s just returned from Jeddah. For the past several years he’s resumed his practice of regular visits to Saudi Arabia, and the travel is very draining. He is sensitive and keeps the purpose of his trips to himself. He hasn’t even confided in me. Can you stay away from that?”
“Okay.”
“Nasir has been wounded by the way he was treated by the FBI. He considered himself loyal and beneficial to the bureau, and became the scapegoat for its bungling.”
“I’ll maneuver around his emotions.”
Terri rose from the table. Tony watched her walk to the porch over the water, talking on her phone. Her posture, balanced against the railing, was that of a feline purring for attention. She smiled, stored her phone, and returned to the table.
“If you can come now, he can see us at two.” She reached into her purse and removed her car keys.
Tony paid the bill with his personal credit card. He pulled back Terri’s chair. Together they walked out to the piercing midday sun of summer. Tony opened the car door and Terri slid into her silver Acura coupe.
During the thirty-minute drive east, Terri slowed through a neighborhood of subdivision homes. It reminded Tony of Hialeah.
“This is where I grew up,” she explained as she pointed to a singlestory home on a corner lot. “My parents came from Mexico thirty years ago when I was a baby. They never had much money but believed devoutly in the American dream and that education was the key to the dream. I was able to get a scholarship to San Diego State and, with that and living at home, scratched out a degree in political science and a minor in English.”
Tony turned to her, feeling more at ease. Her life story could have been his sister’s.
“How did you get into journalism?”
“Luck. My first job offer out of college was with a weekly in this area of San Diego. There’d been a lot of local government corruption, which eventually put a congressman in jail for bribery. I covered that and guess the people at the Union-Trib liked what I wrote. Then I got lucky again when Lemon Grove became a hotbed of 9/11 intrigue.”
Terri pulled into an open space in front of a postwar two-story wood house with a Mediterranean red-tile roof. “Here we are.”
Tony was surprised that even the water-starved lawn was overgrown. The exterior was years beyond needing a paint job. Tony thought his father would have liked to have sold the professor some siding. As they walked up the sidewalk, an elderly, dusty-complexioned man stood on the highest step.
Terri turned to Tony and said, “Dr. Nasir, this is the gentleman I mentioned on the phone.”
AUGUST 2
San Diego
Tony and the professor shook hands. “Dr. Nasir, I have been waiting several years to meet you.”
Nasir led them through the living room darkened by drawn curtains. Even in the dim light, the heavily carved furniture reflected the wear of years of use. The room was dominated by two wall-length bookcases that held what appeared to be personal photographs and an eclectic combination of science texts and books in Arabic. Tony could see no novels or volumes of poetry in English.
In the enclosed patio on the far side of the house, Dr. Nasir motioned for his guests to sit. He offered tea from an intricately inlaid teapot.
“It is my honor to have you in my home,” he began, his painfully slow pace and occasional blurring of final syllables betraying his weariness. “I have been away for almost a month, and when I return I miss the clutter and the voices of the young men who used to live with me.”
Sensing his exhaustion, Terri moved through the social niceties. “Mr. Ramos and I appreciate your hospitality and willingness to meet on such short notice, and we respect your circumstances. If you don’t mind, he would like to ask a few questions.”
“Certainly, Teresa,” Nasir said as he turned to face Tony.
Tony concisely laid the predicate with his Joint Inquiry experience and asked the first question.
“Could you tell me about Omar al-Harbi?”
“He had been an agent of the Saudi government since he arrived in San Diego in the late 1990s,” Nasir replied. “His gregarious personality and religious fidelity made him well suited for monitoring the Saudi community, especially the college students in San Diego.”
Nasir rose and walked to the bookshelf, where he retrieved a photograph. Resuming his seat, he said, “This was al-Harbi when he first came to Lemon Grove in about the summer of 1998.”
Tony studied the black-and-white photo of a smiling, burly, black-bearded man and a woman dressed in a white abaya.
Nasir continued: “Al-Harbi’s income was generous—principally from a Saudi consulting firm, Ercan. It was generally known that he got a paycheck but seldom showed up for work. The manager of Ercan had threatened to fire him, but the rumor was he was told if he did so, Ercan would lose all its Saudi contracts.”
Tony leaned in closer as the elderly man went on. “In the aftermath of my bitter and financially disastrous divorce in 1999, I began the practice of taking in young Muslim men as boarders. It was partially for the income, but more for the companionship. I assume because of these tenants, the FBI offered me the job of monitoring Muslim youth, especially Saudi students. My assignment was essentially the same as what al-Harbi did for the kingdom, except I was doing so for your country.”
Shortly after he acceded to al-Harbi’s request that he take in al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar as boarders, Nasir said, he noticed their distinctly non-Muslim behavior—late nights at local strip clubs, al-Hazmi going so far as to solicit Nasir’s assistance in arranging a marriage with a Mexican dancer.
Tony asked for details of Nasir’s relationship with the FBI.
“All of these sacrilegious acts I reported to my agent in charge, Mr. Rick Kelly. He noted it in his book but never asked for additional inform
ation or follow-up,” he explained with a tone of perplexity and frustration.
“After 9/11, the FBI took me to a house near the Mexican border for the worst four years of my life.”
Nodding toward Terri, he said, “I first read her name in the Union-Tribune when she reported that people in Washington wanted to talk with me, but no one ever came. I remember after I had been held for a year, a lawyer I had not seen before or since came and said not to be concerned, he would keep them away from me.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Tony said. “Who were these ‘people in Washington’?”
“I wrote a series in 2003,” Terri explained. “Although I never could get conclusive evidence, I suspected the lawyer was retained and paid by the FBI to frustrate the subpoena the Billington committee had issued.”
So our inquiry was the “people in Washington” whom the FBI-secured lawyer was protecting Nasir from, Tony thought.
“The whole thing was deplorable,” Terri commented. “He has been a naturalized American citizen for thirty years.”
Dr. Nasir became noticeably more engaged, more agitated. His body moved as if on a pivot from Tony to Terri, his heavy eyebrows arched for emphasis. “I am not the first person to be used by your government. In the early seventies, I had a very bright graduate student from Chile, Jorge Echeverria. Upon graduation Jorge returned to Chile to found a company that manufactured explosives for the mining industry there. When Pinochet came to power and Chile was rendered an international pariah, the general vowed to become independent of foreign sources for military supplies, and Jorge’s firm expanded into ammunition. Ironically, when the U.S. began supplying Iran during its war with Iraq, to hide American complicity, many of the military materials were purchased from these very Chilean munitions merchants. Jorge’s outfit provided cluster bombs. The U.S. Marine officer in charge complimented the effectiveness of Jorge’s bombs.”
The professor paused for a sip of tea, touched his lips with a napkin. “When this whole scheme was exposed—I believe you called it Irancontra—the death of civilians from Jorge’s bombs was publicized. Like me, Jorge became the scapegoat, despite the fact he was told he was helping the U.S. government. With great fanfare, he was ostracized, stripped of his U.S. visa, and denied entry for life.”
