The Towers Still Stand

by Daniel Rosenberg

  “Good morning, everyone,” the Press Secretary said, standing at the podium. His bright eyes behind his glasses took in the audience quickly “Thanks for being here. My apologies for the late start.”

  “Apologies, my ass,” Nancy grumbled under her breath.

  “The President is still out of town and I have no announcements from him at this time,” the Press Secretary said. “However, I want to update you on yesterday’s tragic incident in New York State. The plane collision is still under investigation, but we have confirmed that the American Airlines flight was hijacked by several men who appeared to be Middle Eastern, we don’t have all the information yet. These men apparently killed or disabled the flight crew and took over the controls. The United plane and the American plane collided about 15 minutes later. Both planes had deviated from their planned flight routes. We’re investigating at this time whether the United plane was also hijacked.

  “Obviously, two coordinated hijackings, if confirmed, would constitute a major terrorist attack, and any hijacking is definitely one hijacking too many. We’re exploring how the terrorists got through security, what if any weapons they may have used, what their intentions were, who financed them and planned this action, and any links they may have had to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda or terrorist leaders like Saddam Hussein. Right now, there’s still a lot we don’t know, but I can assure you the skies are safe. We decided out of prudence yesterday to prevent all takeoffs for several hours, and we spent that time working closely with the FBI and CIA to determine if any other attacks were imminent.

  “After determining that there were none, we allowed planes to begin taking off again at 3 p.m. ET yesterday, more than six hours after the hijackings. As of now, flights are in the air, and all security systems have been raised to the highest possible level as a matter of precaution. But we see no current danger. In fact, my own wife is flying on a commercial jet as we speak. With that, I open the floor to questions. Nancy?”

  Nancy, who had been first to wave her hand, now stood up and faced the Press Secretary, holding a notebook and pen and with a no-nonsense expression on her face, which was framed by medium-length, curly brown hair. Her face showed some middle-aged worry lines, and there were plenty of silver hairs mixed with the brown. Life as a Washington political reporter can take its toll.

  “Thanks, Ari,” Nancy replied. “I have a lot of questions, but the most urgent one is how do you know there’s no further danger? How can you be so sure this isn’t just the start of something bigger? And how can Americans feel safe in the air?” She stopped talking and stood there, bright green eyes staring down the Press Secretary, pen at the ready.

  “Well, Nancy, that’s actually about three questions, but that’s no surprise coming from you,” Fleischer said. There were titters from the other reporters. “I’ll try to address them the best I can, but I’ll first reiterate that there is no danger of further terrorist attacks at this time. Our national security team has been monitoring all of its channels into various terror groups, and it hasn’t detected any plots. We believe this was an isolated event, but we’ll be ready at first notice to ground flights again if we sense any further danger.”

  “Ari,” Nancy said, continuing to scribble in her notebook even as she looked the press secretary squarely in the eye. “Weren’t your people monitoring all their channels before yesterday and they still missed yesterday’s plot? How can you have confidence they aren’t missing something now? And what do you think these hijackers were trying to do?”

  “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy,” Fleischer responded with a smile. “There’s three more. No one else has gotten to ask one.” He smiled indulgently, then turned his full attention to the man at her side. “Let’s see what the gentleman from the Wall Street Journal wants to ask.” More titters rose at Fleischer’s obvious dismissal of her, and Nancy reluctantly sat back down, her jaws clamped and her eyes glaring. “John – you have the floor.”

  “Thanks, Ari,” said the Wall Street Journal reporter, who wore a tweed jacket and a somewhat unkempt beard. “My question is similar to Nancy’s. Was there terrorist chatter before the attack and what do you think the aims of the hijackers were?”

  “Well, John,” Ari replied. “We’re still working closely with the FBI and CIA, and with our national security team, to determine what if any sort of terrorist chatter they may have heard in the days and weeks prior to yesterday. It’s too early for that investigation to have yielded any results, but I’m sure we’ll learn more in the coming days. As to where the terrorists were taking the planes, or whether they meant to collide them – all that is under investigation, and I really don’t have answers yet.”

  More reporters waved their hands frantically, and Fleischer answered a few more questions, as vaguely and evasively as he had earlier in the conference, Nancy thought. She wasn’t able to get any more words in. Another 15 minutes and Fleischer thanked everyone for coming, walked briskly away from the podium, turned and disappeared behind one of the doors at the back of the room even as reporters kept shouting more questions at his retreating figure.

  Reporters packed up to go. Camera operators fussed over their equipment in the back, and there was a low buzz of conversation as everyone rushed to put their stories out as soon as possible.

  “So what do you think, John: are we being bullshitted here?” Nancy asked as she and the Wall Street Journal reporter prepared to file out of the briefing room behind a crowd of others.

  “Well, you’re the one with the patented bullshit detector,” John replied. “What’s it tell you?”

  “The bullshit detector is at 10 out of 10,” Nancy replied as they left the room and walked down a little hallway that led to their offices in the West Wing. “They’re holding back from us, can’t you tell? I think it’s because they messed up and let this attack slip through. They know more than they’re saying, but they don’t want us to know because they want to protect their asses.”

  “Maybe you’re over-thinking it a little, Nancy,” John replied. They’d reached their offices and were standing outside in the hallway. “There is a lot of information they need to process, and it takes more than one day to figure out how something like this happened.”

  “Well,” Nancy said. “I don’t like being spoon-fed bullshit by them and then having to report it. Makes me feel like a mouthpiece for the administration.” She shook her head, saw others in the hall scurrying to their desks and felt a tired sigh breaking through her anger. “I’ve been at this place way too long. Maybe it’s time to look for something else.”

  “It would sure make my job easier if you left,” John said with a smile. “Then you wouldn’t be able to scoop me any more.”

  “Oh, I’d find a way, even if I retired,” Nancy joked, and John laughed. They went into their respective offices and closed the doors.

  Nancy sat at her computer and began typing a brief story about the press conference. There wasn’t much new information to share, and she was disappointed not to be able to add much information beyond what she’d reported yesterday. In 15 minutes she was done, and she pressed the button to send her story to the bureau, where it would be edited. She wasn’t worried about editors giving her any trouble. They pretty much left her alone. She guessed the story would be out on NYT.com within a few minutes, without any questions from any of the editors. It was like playing a sport, she felt. Once you established a reputation with the refs, they tended to call things your way.

  But reporting from a press conference was the easiest part of her job. She could do it robotically. The challenge was finding a way to get information no one else had. She wanted to know where the planes had been headed, what the hijackers’ motives had been and where they came from. And on this story, she knew whom she needed to talk to. The problem was, that person was Virgil Walker.

  Nancy had been in D.C. long enough to know there were certain people who’d talk on background, meaning not for attribution, and certain people who wouldn’t. She had a numbe
r of what she thought of as “deep” contacts in the administration who would give her insight on decision-making and behind-the-scenes debate as long as she never mentioned their name. Some would even call her. That’s how she got a reputation for scooping other reporters. She had a knack for developing trust, which served her well. Just two weeks ago, one of her White House sources had given her a heads up about the President’s decision regarding stem-cell research. Her article had wound up on the front page, and had been the talk of the town.

  Nancy hadn’t written much about terrorism recently – it hadn’t been a big topic since last year when the U.S.S. Cole was bombed. So she didn’t have a great network of Administration experts on the subject. However, word was that Virgil, a former Defense Department official, was the foremost expert in the White House on Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. So just on general principle over the last few months, she’d decided to develop him as a contact. Or had tried to, at least. She’d learned his office number through her web of contacts in the White House secretarial pool, but he’d refused to take her calls. And the one time she’d approached him in person, after the President held a press conference a few months ago to discuss terror threats, he had smiled shyly, shook his head and put a finger to his lips when he saw her press badge and walked quickly in the opposite direction. She hadn’t pursued him then, but she would now.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Director and the Sheik in Kandahar

  A group of three horses, each with a rider, headed down the dusty street outside Bin Laden’s compound. On the middle horse sat the Director, looking unsteady and uncomfortable, sitting stiffly as he clutched the reins. The Director had spent the last years in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, and he wasn’t used to four-legged transportation. When the horses stopped outside the Sheik’s home, the Director tried his best to scramble off the horse gracefully, but wound up unable to bring one foot down off the animal while his other foot rested in the stirrup. One of the other riders, an older, bearded man wearing a turban and hoisting a machine gun over his shoulder, walked quickly over and helped the Director down.

  “What a godforsaken place,” the Director said out loud, looking around the empty street lined with mud walls. Not for the first time, he wondered if the Sheik gave up all of his wealth and luxuries because he truly wanted to sacrifice on behalf of the cause, or if to some extent he did it as a prop to make himself more palatable to the fighters he directed. Whatever the case, the Sheik did lead the life of an ascetic, so the Director supposed he deserved credit for it, no matter the underlying reason. As for himself, he couldn’t imagine living in such a way. This horse riding, for instance, was at the Sheik’s request. The Sheik believed cars were too easy for enemies to trace, and could be wired with a bomb. Since the Sheik had never heard of a suicide horse bomb, he insisted that his key people ride horses or walk when they came to visit. Sometimes the Director thought the Sheik was a little over the top when it came to security. Then again, he lived a pretty dangerous lifestyle.

  “Stay out here with these confounded animals,” he ordered the men who had come with him. “We can shoot them later.” The men showed no sign of appreciating his humor, and stood stone-faced by the horses, toting their guns. The Director approached the security guards at the gate and they stood up to open it. There was no need for a security check this time. They knew the Director well.

  Inside the mud walls, a hut stood across the dirt yard. The sun beat down on the courtyard as the Director walked toward the hut, dust floating with every step. The Director paused when he saw the Sheik stood at the door waiting for him; this was quite unusual, the Director thought. Typically, the Sheik would stay inside whatever cave or hut he was living in, and one would have to approach him as a supplicant would, asking for his approval. Even the Director, who’d come up with the 9/11 attack idea and handled its execution, still felt the Sheik looked down on him. This didn’t matter to the Director, because he bowed to no man. But he knew others who were easily cowed by the Sheik’s presence, and realized the Sheik relied on that reaction.

  As always when they met, the two embraced. The Sheik’s body seemed thinner and weaker than the Director had remembered from last time, several months ago. After they let go, they looked at each other for a moment, grim faced, and then the Sheik motioned him inside.

  In the shade of the hut, the Director sat on a soft cushion while the Sheik made tea for him in the next room. The Sheik always insisted on making tea himself, saying no one else could make it the way he liked. He could hear the Sheik clinking dishes and pouring water in there. This was the Director’s first time at this hideout, but he guessed that the other room was a kitchen. The windows were covered with curtains to keep the midday heat out, and the mud walls kept it cool as well. However, there were no window screens, and flies flew about, landing on the Director and then buzzing away when he slapped at them.

  The Sheik emerged from the other room bearing two cups of tea. He walked to the Director in his stooped manner, handed him a cup and then sat down slowly and carefully onto another cushion nearby.

  They sat looking at each other for a while. The Director, who’d asked the Sheik for this visit, decided the Sheik was waiting for him to speak and opened his mouth to begin talking. But the Sheik, seeing this, held up his hand and shook his head. He seemed to be waiting for something, and sure enough, within seconds, the midday prayer call came echoing through the windows. The two put down their teacups and knelt on cushions facing west toward Mecca to recite their prayers.

  When the praying was over, the Sheik turned to the Director and asked in his melodic voice, “What next?” The Director, who had come here to discuss what went wrong and why, was thrown off for a moment. This wasn’t how he’d expected things to go.

  “With all due respect, Your Highness, I think we need to discuss what went wrong on the blessed day before we decide what to do next,” the Director said. “There is no point moving forward if we don’t learn from our mistakes.”

  The Sheik put his hand up again.

  “The mistake was mine,” the Sheik said, again surprising the Director. “I chose the brothers for our sacred mission, and I chose wrongly. They failed us.”

  The Director knew better than to react, although he most certainly agreed with that assessment. Instead, he broke in with, “Certainly not all of them failed. Atta appears to have done his job as we discussed. His plane was hit by the other. The brothers on that plane – Shehhi and the others – they were the ones to blame.”

  “Yes, yes,” the Sheik said impatiently. “There is no sense dwelling on the past. The brothers are gone and we can discuss these matters with them when we reach the next life. I only have one observation to make. I think poor judgment was used in stopping the sacred operation after the first two planes crashed. We still had brothers in the air on the other planes, ready to strike. Please explain your decision.”

  “It was quite simple, your Highness,” the Director replied. “The failure of the first planes was a sign to us from Allah, a sign that we were not meant to succeed that day. Rather than sacrificing the others and risking the ruin of everything we had planned, I decided it was best we should wait for another day, and preserve the assets we had. Also – the towers were the most important target. They are the symbol of U.S. Jewish power. A strike at the government buildings and not the towers would have left the snake free to bite again.”

  The Sheik nodded, but from the look on his face he didn’t seem completely convinced. The Director knew the Sheik thought that he, the Director, was obsessed with the World Trade Center. And that was true enough. Ever since the semi-successful attack of 1993, which had killed six but failed to bring down the towers as planned, the Director had made it his life’s work to complete the job. As he saw it, the towers represented the financial power of the United States and all the evil those finances brought to the world. Particularly the billions that the U.S. pumped into the Zionist entity – Israel.<
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  “What’s done is done, and now it’s time to discuss our next actions,” the Sheik finally said. “You’re in touch with the remaining brothers in the United States, correct?”

  “I am,” the Director said. “We are sending the fighters back home but Hanjour and Jarrah will stay where they are for now, so we can easily use them for future plans. Hanjour, as you know, is a trained pilot and our best pilot there now that we’ve lost Atta. And Jarrah may be the most intelligent operator there with Atta gone. He can do brilliant things for us.”

  “He can, but not now,” the Sheik said.

  The Director looked at him questioningly.

  “Do you mean later, then, we’ll move ahead?” the Director asked. “Of course we need to lie low for a bit with the Americans on high alert, but they’re not going to stay that way for very long. You and I have been to America; we know how they act. They are a weak people enslaved by the devil Jews, and they value sloth and fornication over faith. They love their ‘freedom’,” he spat out the word contemptuously, “too much to stop us.”

  “The Americans are a vulnerable people, that much we know,” the Sheik said. “They will hear from us before long, God willing. But the failure of this sacred mission has made me think. I don’t believe we have the power to succeed in such a complex undertaking so far from our holy lands. We need to look closer to home, particularly to the holy land itself, where the infidel soldiers still pollute the soil. We need to target the sham government that calls itself the protector of the holy sites. The failure in America was God’s sign to us that we must re-focus. An attack on the oil fields in Saudi Arabia should be our next mission. We have the operatives to do it, and in that way we can punish both the Americans and the infidel house of Saud.”