by Bob Graham
“She must have been exhausted,” Tony wryly observed.
“I don’t know about that, but when she was finally caught and tried in federal court in L.A., the judge threw out most of the charges for prosecutorial misconduct. It was one hell of a put-down and embarrassment for the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office.”
“And how did Nussbaum get involved?”
“He was sent out there to fix a leaking ship,” Mark said as he opened his car door. “He revved up the FBI, took on the China case as his own, and six months after he arrived, got the conviction, although it was for lesser charges, for which the Parlor Maid only got probation and a ten-thousand-dollar fine. If you still want to talk to him, I can get you his office and cell number.”
Rotating into the driver’s seat, Tony called out through the open window, “Give me a call when you’ve got them. You’re my man for all seasons.”
Tony showered in the State Department gym. Foggy Bottom was unusually active for a Saturday. All the spaces in the executive section of the parking garage were taken. The basement cafeteria was filled as if it were a Tuesday. As Tony walked down the INR bureau hallways toward his new office, the only unfilled cubicle was Brewster’s.
There is nothing that fixes the diplomatic mind more than the prospect of a nuclear war, he thought.
By the time he reached his desk and checked voice mail, Mark had left him a message with Jeff Nussbaum’s numbers. Tony called Nussbaum’s cell. With the three-hour time difference, Tony woke him up.
After the social niceties, Tony outlined his three-part theory that the Saudis and bin Laden had a role in what had happened in Mumbai. The question was, Where was the United States in this? He concisely shared what he had learned from Carol and how he thought what she had found in the bowels of the Cayman bank fit into the larger frame of that U.S. role. A key missing piece was Peninsular. He asked Jeff what the U.S. attorney for central California could do to assist.
Jeff responded, “It’s awfully early in the morning. I’ll need to get further details and then discuss it with my boss. He’s become more and more risk-adverse. It’s going to take a solid sales job. Would it be possible for you to come to L.A. next week to brief him?”
“Absolutely. I need to come to San Diego on a related aspect of this puzzle. Could you check if Wednesday would be open?”
“I’ll call you first thing Monday.”
At the FBI ballistics lab, technician Henry Ashton had an unexpected caller.
“Yes, Madam Director,” he said, startled as she walked in the door. “We have received the bullet they dug out from the armor of the San Diego police officer.”
In her intense, nothing-but-the-facts voice, she asked, “And what results?”
“None, so far. I haven’t gotten to that one yet. On regular order it will be another week.”
“Mr. Ashton, this is not regular order. Senator John Stoner, the chair of our authorizing committee, has asked me to expedite this analysis. He says it maybe related to the murder of Senator Billington. Could it be out the door by two o’clock?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” she responded, and left as abruptly as she had come in.
SEPTEMBER 27
Ramallah, West Bank
Although there are other contestants, most connoisseurs of olive oil rank the rich and amber liquid from Ramallah as the best in the world. In spite of all the difficulties and constraints on production agriculture in the West Bank, a freshly processed lot of olive oil was stacked on the warehouse loading dock ready to be placed in a twenty-foot ocean cargo container.
Two rows of pallets, each holding six boxes, each box filled with twelve two-liter cans, had been lifted into place by a Komatsu frontloader. Two hours of carefully placing the pallets in precise vertical columns to optimize the space in the container had left it almost half full. The loading crew was happy the warehouse manager had declared a thirty-minute respite.
The three men left the stuffy facility to go over the small hill that separated the olive grove from the warehouse and share midmorning coffee and stories of their conquests.
With the laborers gone, a Hyundai van with four young, athleticlooking men stopped beside the truck on which the cargo container had been placed. With the hill and truck shielding them from view, the men lifted a box twice the size of a steamer trunk to the dock and then placed it against the cartons of olive oil midway in the container. After securely connecting wires extending from the box to wires that snaked across the floor to a panel on the port side of the container, the quartet maneuvered additional pallets until all semblance of their other work had been buried.
When the workers returned, the Hyundai had departed. They were curious but pleasantly surprised that someone had completed a part of their labor. When the cargo container had been filled to the maximum allowable weight, the rear doors were closed, sealed with an international transport medallion, and embossed with a sticker: Unit W42408, Petronius, Port of Aden, Arab Republic of Yemen.
SEPTEMBER 28–30
San Diego
“Terri, this is Tony.”
Terri responded in a throaty but empathic voice, “Thank you, Tony, for calling. I’ve been thinking about you a lot and all you’ve been going through. Are you okay?”
“Better than I was yesterday.”
“How so?”
“This morning Detective Larsen called to say there was a match between the signature on the bullet that killed Carol and the one that was pulled from Sergeant Alvarez’s armor. Larsen said this was enough evidence that the same Beretta fired both, and that exonerates me. So, Terri, you’re talking to a free and cleared man.”
“Well, then, while we’re at it, I have some good news and bad news.”
“Give me the good news first.”
“It looks like Sergeant Alvarez is going to make it. He was removed from intensive care a couple of days ago and has been able to make a positive identification of the man who shot him from the Toyota. It was the same bastard who killed Billington and probably Santos.”
“That’s damn good news. What’s the bad?”
“They still haven’t caught the two shits. The SDPD thinks they’re hiding out in Tijuana or farther south.”
“I wish I could help. But maybe you can help me with a job supposed to be closer to my skill sets.”
“Let me guess,” Terri offered. “Anything to do with Professor Nasir?”
“Can’t put one over on a first-rate investigative reporter. I need advice on how to prevent a second, third, and possibly fourth Mumbai. The old man is my best pick to be able to provide it.”
“I’ll see what I can do. When do you want to meet?”
“Tomorrow, as early as possible.”
“You’re fast. I’ll let you know by noon.”
The answer was yes. At ten o’clock the following evening, Tony arrived on the same United flight he had taken five weeks earlier. This time Terri met him at the terminal. The drive to the Marriott was a strategy session on how to secure the professor’s counsel and help, but without the delay for considered judgment that frequently encumbered academic or governmental decision making. By the time Terri’s Acura stopped at the hotel entrance, they had a plan.
Professor Nasir was noticeably more rested and energetic than at Tony’s first meeting with him. He greeted Terri, even Tony, with more genuine warmth, offering them a full breakfast of Indian delicacies before bringing them out to the patio.
One thing that had not changed was the deteriorating status of the professor’s home. Unlike the first visit, this time Nasir felt comfortable in mentioning his surroundings. “I regret the conditions in which I am receiving you. This house bespeaks my financial situation, which is in worse shape than after my divorce, or even after my FBI detention, for which I apologize. But I have some prospects for improvement.”
Terri offered a quizzical expression.
Nasir deferred explaining. “I’d rather wait until they m
ove from promise to reality. But I don’t think you came here, Mr. Ramos, all the way from Washington, to discuss my economic status. How can I be of assistance?”
Seizing the opening and receiving a supporting nod from Terri, Tony proceeded to lay out what he knew and suspected: the Saudi realization of the objective for which Nasir had labored for more than ten years—acquisition of nuclear capability; the still befogged role of the United States in the Saudis’ accomplishment; the king’s agreement to share a portion of the material with Osama bin Laden; the fragile situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s collapse into extremist rule; and within a fortnight, a nuclear explosion killing tens of thousands in the professor’s home country.
“We are confident this is not the only attack,” Tony stated. “We suspect less than twenty-five percent of bin Laden’s nuclear material was used in the attack on Mumbai. Professor, the world is coming apart with fear, and you are one of the few who has the capability of helping us avoid further, more horrific disasters.”
The professor was clearly moved by the murder of so many of his own people, especially the children.
“I have been carrying a heavy burden on my heart,” he said. “Neither the religion of my birth nor the one I now profess would countenance such killings. Let me first purge my soul.”
He described a meeting to which he had been invited at the Jeddah palace of the king of Saudi Arabia in February 1991. The king confronted his American counterparts with the knowledge that the Americans had provided materials and scientific assistance to Saddam Hussein in his pursuit of a nuclear device during the 1980s. Only late reversals in the war with Iran and the incredibly stupid decision to invade Kuwait had prevented successful completion of the project and Iraq’s emergence as a nuclear state. The king was emphatic in his condemnation of the Americans for having allowed this to occur and, more so, for doing it without consulting him, supposedly America’s closest Arab ally.
Nasir became almost theatrical as he dramatized the king forsaking his broken English and expressing his feelings in torrid and profanitylaced Arabic. The king insisted that if the Americans did not extend the same assistance to him as they had to Saddam, he would trumpet to the world the Americans’ duplicity and cancel the special relationship that had been in place since World War II whereby Saudi Arabia assured the United States of a stable supply of petroleum and the United States gave the kingdom its security shield. Reverting to English, the king said, “You know of the help we have recently received from the British with its Tornados; we are not without other friends.”
Nasir returned to San Diego during the spring of 1991. At the urging of the science advisor to the king, who said the Americans had capitulated, Nasir agreed to accept a royal appointment.
“I had been invited in February because of my scientific background and religious beliefs,” the professor told Tony. “In June I was given the opportunity to be the agent of the king in establishing the project and overseeing the subsequent flow of scientists and equipment to make it a success.
“But the assignment was not without its toll. Due in large part to seven years of extended separation from my wife and the strains of the working arrangement, by 1998 my marriage of over forty years was crumbling. It was bitter and dispiriting. I knew I would have to withdraw from the project until my personal circumstances were stabilized. After the divorce I was depressed and heavily indebted.”
Sensing the professor was becoming overwrought, Terri asked if he would prefer to suspend for a while the recitation of what were obviously painful experiences. He shook his head and continued on.
“It was during this period that I found some degree of financial balance in the arrangement with the FBI and solace in the fellowship of young Arab men who came to San Diego to study and, as we now know, for other purposes.
“In 2005, when I was unfairly terminated by the FBI, I was contacted by the kingdom and encouraged to assist in the conclusion of the project. The king was alarmed at the instability the Americans had unleashed with their ill-advised invasion of Iraq and their failure to maintain a focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was anxious to expedite the project’s completion.
“My chief contribution was in the evaluation of alternative delivery systems for the weapon. We never considered a missile; only a fool would send a nuclear device with his name painted on the side of a missile. The king had an understanding with the president of Syria to test various techniques. That, of course, came to an end when the Israelis found out about it and blew up all our test equipment—the Americans having told us the Iranians were the Judas, attempting to distract the Israelis into thinking the target was an ayatollah nuclear enrichment site. Fortunately our project was sufficiently advanced that the Israelis’ mistaken attack was only a minor annoyance.”
Nasir fell silent, his chin falling to his chest. While he left the patio to use the bathroom, Terri filled his cup with coffee, sugar, and halfand-half. When he returned he sat and gathered himself, sipped from the cup, and continued.
“I left the kingdom’s service for the second time this summer. The threats from bin Laden to unleash a revolution if his desires for nuclear material were not met, and the king’s acquiescence, drove me away. I warned the king’s advisors that he was repeating the mistakes of 1999, when he compromised with bin Laden and allowed al-Qaeda to use the Saudi support infrastructure—such as my friend al-Harbi provided here in San Diego—to protect and assist the hijackers. My plea was that without a protector for the kingdom in the White House, the consequences of arming bin Laden with nuclear material would bring down the wrath of the Americans, not another cover-up. All my protestations were rebuffed. I have never understood why.”
The professor paused. Tony respectfully waited until he realized Nasir was expecting the next request. “Professor, more than ever, I appreciate your centrality to arresting, or at least limiting, the worldwide bloody hemorrhage the convergence of events from Mumbai to Washington could inflict. How would you advise me, and what are you willing to do, to put your words into action?”
It was several long moments before Nasir spoke. The full light of late morning penetrated the heavy curtains in the nearby living room. Terri was squirming in anticipation as he spoke.
“You need to identify a person close to bin Laden who could dissuade him from continuing on the path of annihilation or, more likely, failing that, would give you credible information on his plans. Don’t depend on your CIA to find such a brave soul. Your confidence in the agency was misplaced in 2002 in Iraq, and it will be again if you rely on it to determine wherever ‘Osama bin Forgotten’ is hiding and what his next intentions are.
“Give me twenty-four hours and I will have a recommendation.”
OCTOBER 1–2
San Diego ☆ Los Angeles
With an eagerness Tony was just beginning to recognize, Terri offered her car and wanted to go with him to Los Angeles.
He had checked out of the Marriott earlier in the morning in anticipation of spending the night in L.A. At Pacific Beach, they stopped at Terri’s apartment, where she pulled together the bare necessities for an overnight trip.
The 125-mile journey would almost exactly retrace the route al-Harbi and his travelling companion had taken in January 2000. Terri and Tony speculated about what a different world it would have been if the events that journey facilitated, 9/11 and its aftermath, had never happened.
They shared a restrained pleasure in the just-completed meeting with Professor Nasir. As they had planned, allowing him to work through his own guilt from his complicity in a tragedy that had inflicted so much pain on his country and city of birth was personally therapeutic. The request Tony made for his advice and help gave him an outlet, an avenue of redemption in the form of a chance to cut short another, even greater loss of life. Yet while they respected the sincerity of Professor Nasir’s intentions and the wisdom of his advice, he had yet to deliver. Maybe in a few hours he would.
The slightly more than thre
e hours it took to drive up the I-5 gave them a chance to unburden and sort out some of their feelings. After a quick stop at a Burger King, the confessionals began.
“I think about Carol every night,” Tony admitted. “No question she was a professional and good at what she did, but at the core she was soft and insecure. Her over-the-top reaction to my trip to Billington’s funeral was just one signal. From what I learned of her parents, particularly that she had never told them who I was, it had to go against a lot of what she was raised to believe—the idea of getting together with an African American, and a Cuban one to boot.”
“Tony,” Terri said as she pulled her legs under her on the car seat, “you are too locked into your own past. Times and standards of tolerance have changed. I can say that from my own life experience as a Mexican girl growing up in the barrio.”
“It’s different,” Tony rejoined. “You could see it in the faces of the Watsons the first time they saw me at Reagan Airport. Even with mourning hearts and souls and their mouths shut, I could hear them wondering what that black man was doing to their beautiful daughter.”
“Well, that’s over,” Terri consoled as she gently stroked his leg. “How are you dealing with Carol now?”
“It’s hard for me to believe it’s only been two weeks. I guess the reality is starting to set in. When Mark told me she was dead, I couldn’t believe it. I was even more stunned when Detective Larsen said I was the prime suspect in her murder.
“It got so complicated so quickly. Have you ever had the feeling that you were watching a movie and at the same time were one of the actors? That’s what it’s been like for me.”
“I can only imagine,” Terri said.
“I knew the truth. I also knew how incriminating the circumstances appeared. I could go from saving the world from another Mumbai to being in prison for the rest of my life.”
