Next, Ferris called Ajit Singh back in Amman to confirm the cyberspace portion of the December 22 operation. Singh described his kit of electronic tricks: he would send cryptic messages later that day from the Sadiki e-mail account he controlled, hinting in coded language that an operation against an American target was ready; he had prepared a communiqué taking responsibility for the Christmas bombing and announcing a militant new Salafist group, which would be posted on an authentic jihad Web site several hours after the bombing became public; he had a buzz of congratulatory messages that would pass among the networks; he had postings ready for Islamic chat rooms on mySunna.com and a dozen other jihadist Web sites—explaining the origins and theology of the new group that had staged the bombing. The postings would explain that the new group believed Al Qaeda was going soft—attacking civilian targets in Europe rather than American military targets. A few messages would even accuse Al Qaeda’s leaders of being in the pay of the CIA.
“You are a genius,” Ferris told his young assistant.
“If that’s true, why can’t I get laid?”
“I’ll take you out when I get back,” said Ferris. “Find you a girl. How’s that?”
“I want two, please.”
Ferris laughed. He wondered if his wired assistant might actually be a virgin. “Okay, fine. Two girls.”
SADIKI ARRIVED the next morning. Ferris sent a car to meet him at the airport. The Jordanian had been delayed at passport control, which meant his name must be on watch lists. Ferris was waiting at the office, in his usual disguise, with Bulent. The meeting went off as planned. After about an hour’s haggling, they agreed on terms for respecifying the insulation. Bulent insisted on taking Sadiki to a celebratory lunch at a neighborhood restaurant. Ferris excused himself, saying he had other business, so the other two went off to a favorite gathering place for Islamist politicians and pamphleteers; it was a restaurant where they would be seen—by pious Muslims connected to the underground, and by the Turkish security men who were watching them. The car took Sadiki back to the airport after lunch, and he caught the late flight out that night.
THE NEXT MORNING, Thursday, December 22, a large bomb detonated at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey. The fireball could be seen from many miles away, and the roar of the explosion quickly drew a crowd outside the air base. Local stringers for the wire services sent out bulletins thirty minutes after the bomb attack, and CNN Turk got video footage, shot with a telephoto lens from outside the perimeter of the base, that showed a thick column of smoke rising from what was left of a building. Two hours after the bombing, CNN Turk was quoting Turkish sources saying that the target had been an American barracks.
Ferris called Hoffman by secure phone a few hours later to confirm that everything had gone off as planned. He was worried, just as Jim had been the night they set the explosives, that something might have gone wrong.
“It was almost perfect,” said Hoffman.
“What does that mean?” asked Ferris.
“It means that some dumb-fuck enlisted man went to the officers’ barracks because he heard there were a bunch of empty rooms. He snuck past the guards. They identified his body thirty minutes ago.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Ferris had let this happen. He had seen this deadly mistake coming and hadn’t done anything to prevent it. What was happening to him?
“Don’t worry about it. This guy violated orders and entered a nogo area. That’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. It’s his fault. So don’t get all gooey and lose sight of what’s important. We’re getting close now. Suck it up.”
Ferris didn’t answer for a moment. He let Hoffman’s words sink in. “You don’t really care that this guy is dead, do you?”
“No. I guess I don’t. And neither should you.”
Ferris didn’t try to respond. He just said goodbye.
THE U.S. AND Turkish militaries did their best to keep a lid on the story, and because it was a military base, they had some success. But at ten that morning, the prime minister’s office in Ankara held a press conference for Turkish media and said there had been a large blast at Incirlik. There were casualties, but none of the dead or wounded were Turks. The prime minister’s spokesman told the Turkish reporters on background that the target of the blast had been the U.S. Bachelor Officers’ Quarters at the base, where many of the pilots lived. The spokesman said most of the building had been destroyed, but that the Americans were treating the casualties in their own field hospital, which normally handled emergency evacuations from Iraq.
People in the States were just waking up when the Pentagon issued a statement, at 1400 Ankara time and 0700 in Washington. The Pentagon confirmed that a car bomb had destroyed the U.S. officers’ barracks, that American casualties had been limited because many officers were away on Christmas leave. The Pentagon refused to release the names of the dead and wounded, pending notification of their next of kin, and a few reporters were advised in a gaggle afterward that there might not be a public announcement of the casualties because some of them had been stationed at Incirlik on classified missions. That wasn’t a surprise. The Pentagon press corps knew Incirlik was a base for special operations inside Iraq: a deniable “black” facility that everybody knew all about. The pictures told the story: They showed the devastation—a massive bomb blast that had destroyed a symbolic target, the base used by the very airmen who had dropped bombs on Iraqis.
When the claim of responsibility was posted on the Islamic Web site, the story went into a new gear. The statement criticized other terrorist groups as pro-American sell-outs. The group taking credit, “Nasr al-Din Albani Revenge Brigade,” was previously unknown. But by late that day, analysts in London and Washington were speculating that the group might be an important new offshoot of Al Qaeda. The man for whom the group was named was a watchmaker from Damascus who, before his death in 2000, had made a name for his free-form interpretation of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the “hadith,” that challenged the dry orthodoxy of the official canon. He was a modern saint to some of the more extreme proponents of Salafist Islam, people who wanted to purge the corruption of modern life and re-create the purity and fighting fellowship of the days of the Prophet. Albani’s followers were scattered in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan; the movement’s center point was a mosque in Zarqa, where many of Albani’s followers had taken refuge after fleeing Syria. The intelligence analysts knew, but didn’t tell reporters, that one member of the Zarqa mosque was a mysterious Jordanian architect who had been gaining prominence in jihadist circles.
There were more snippets of evidence, courtesy of Ajit Singh. Analysts noted similarities between the Salafist rhetoric in the Albani Revenge Brigade’s communiqué and that of postings that had been made on jihadi Web sites in recent months. There was a frequently repeated Arabic phrase, for example: “Nahnu rijal wa hum rijal,” which translated as “We are men and they are men.” For the jihadists, the statement meant that the traditional mainstream interpretations of the Koran and hadith were no more valid than those of Salafist radicals. That was the essence of Albani’s call for radical reinterpretation. A story in the London Daily Telegraph cited British analysts noting another quote, from a radical Salafist sheik named Abdel-Rahim al-Tahhan, which had appeared on a number of sites, in part of the communiqué: “La khayra fi qur’an bi-ghayri sunna, wa la khayra fi sunna bi-ghayri fahm salafna al-silah.” That amounted to a declaration of independence from the traditional canon for Sunni Muslims, known as the Sunna: “There is no good in the Koran without the Sunna, and there is no good in the Sunna without our righteous Salafist understanding of it.” These were the new killers, warned the Telegraph, more dangerous even than those who had detonated the car bombs in Milan and Frankfurt.
It took twenty-four hours before the first leaks emerged from the joint Turkish/FBI team that was doing the forensic examination of the site of the blast. Their findings made front-page news around the world. The Incirlik bombing was definitely linked to the
Al Qaeda network. Technicians had matched the explosives and the detonator with those used in a previous Al Qaeda bombing in Istanbul.
No real operation is perfect. But as Ferris followed the shadow play of virtual events, he could only conclude that falsehood was perfectible in a way that true life was not. He remembered something from his journalist days in the early 1990s—an observation by astringent critic Janet Malcom, who observed that there is only one kind of narrative where the accuracy of what’s described on the printed page cannot be questioned, and that is fiction. So, too, with the Incirlik bombing. The truth that the world understood was that an angry new group of car bombers could hit Americans inside their own bases. It was a shock—most of all to the real car bombers.
FERRIS RECEIVED an e-mail from Gretchen. He was worried at first when he saw the sender, but the message was reassuring, in its way. The subject line was “You Blew It.” The message itself was the text of an item that had appeared that morning in the gossip column of the Washington Post, reporting that a soon-to-be-divorced Justice Department lawyer had been seen that holiday season on the arm of a senior White House aide who was among the town’s most attractive bachelors. Ferris could only smile in appreciation; Gretchen was a force of nature. When one path proved to be obstructed, she had changed course and chosen another. That was her gift, that she did not complicate the business of life with introspection. She decided what she wanted and then went out and got it. Now the future lay open for Ferris, too. He was going home to Amman to be with the woman he loved. There was one impediment: At the center of his relationship with Alice Melville was a lie.
27
AMMAN
HANI SALAAM SUMMONED FERRIS the day he returned from Ankara. All he said on the phone was that it was urgent and that it concerned Incirlik. The media frenzy over the bombing was still gathering momentum, and Ferris was worried that Hani might do something to pull apart the web which he had worked so hard to spin.
When Ferris arrived at GID headquarters, he noticed that the management had installed a new portrait of the king in the front lobby. In place of the old painting that showed His Majesty relaxing in short sleeves with his wife and children, as carefree as if they were at a beach resort, the new tableau portrayed the monarch in his Special Forces uniform, scowling toward the middle distance where the enemy lay in wait. It was a sign of the times, Ferris thought. The easy talk about reform and renewal was over; the Arab leaders were caught in the bottle now with the scorpions.
Hani looked elegant as ever, and impervious to the battles around him. He was wearing a royal blue shirt, open at the neck, with thick gold cufflinks. His gray suit had the fit that could only have come from a tailor: the trousers that broke just so over the tops of his shoes, the jacket gently shaped at the waist. He was wearing a little Christmas candy cane on his lapel, whether in deference to his American visitor or to his handful of Christian employees, Ferris couldn’t say.
“Merry Christmas,” said Hani, taking Ferris’s hand and holding it for a moment, while he mulled a question. “Assuming, that is, that you are a Christian. I don’t think I ever asked, but you Americans are so religious nowadays. It’s worse than Saudi Arabia. Still, Christmas is for everyone, isn’t it? Here in Jordan, even the Muslims have Christmas trees.”
“I’m not a believer,” answered Ferris. “I like to sing the hymns, but I stopped going to church years ago, when I couldn’t say the Creed. I felt hypocritical, like a Muslim who drinks. But thanks for asking.”
“And how is Mrs. Ferris?” Hani had never asked about Gretchen before. The comment couldn’t be accidental.
“We’re getting divorced. The papers should be final in a few weeks.”
“Yes, I heard something about that. I trust that everything is all right.”
“It’s fine, Hani. Everything is just fine.” The Jordanian was showing off—making sure that Ferris realized he knew about his private life. He probably had heard about the inspector general’s investigation, too, but on that subject he opted for discretion.
Ferris didn’t want small talk. He was tired from the hectic activity in Turkey, and still troubled by his last phone call with Hoffman. “You said on the phone you had something important, Hani. As we say in America: ‘I’m all ears.’”
“Yes, my dear, I was getting to that. I think we can help you on that dreadful Incirlik attack. My greatest sympathies, by the way.” He pulled a photograph from a file on his desk and laid the picture before Ferris.
The photograph showed Omar Sadiki. He was dressed in a business suit, with his neat little beard and his wary, pious eyes. It appeared to be an enlargement of a passport photo.
Ferris stared at the picture, trying not to move a muscle in his face. He had been dreading this moment—when Hani would begin sniffing around Sadiki. Hoffman had advised Ferris to deny he had any links to the architect.
“Who is he?” Ferris asked, staring blankly at the picture.
“His name is Omar Sadiki. He is an architect with a firm here in Amman that builds mosques in Saudi Arabia. They work for the charitable foundations, the ones that fund the madrassas. He is also active in a mosque in Zarqa that we have been watching for a long time. We know quite a lot about him.” Hani paused and studied his visitor’s face as if he wanted to make sure of something.
Ferris kept still. He was aware of each breath. He waited for Hani to say more, but the Jordanian was biding his time, wanting to be asked.
“Does he have any connection with Incirlik?” ventured Ferris.
“We think so. The evidence is not so hard, but it points us in that direction. He flew from Amman to Ankara the day before the bombing. It was supposedly business. But we have talked to the Turks, and they tell us that while he was in Ankara, this Omar met with a Turk who went to Afghanistan. Our Mr. Omar stayed only a few hours in Turkey. Just long enough to do a little operational planning. If that is what it was. And then he came back home to Amman.”
Ferris paused and thought a moment. Months of work would be lost if he wasn’t careful. “Good stuff, Hani. What are you going to do with it?”
The Jordanian regarded him curiously and then took a cigarette from the pack on his desk and lit it. He held the smoke in his lungs for a long moment before exhaling.
“That’s why I asked to see you, Roger. We want to watch this Mr. Sadiki, see who he talks to. He is the best lead we have had in some time. I do not plan to arrest him, for now. I hope you will not try anything unusual, either. That would be a mistake, I think.”
Ferris turned away from Hani and paced toward the couch. He was relieved but tried to hide it. If the Jordanians arrested Sadiki, the consequences could be disastrous. The architect would stutter his protestations that he had nothing to do with Incirlik; in a few painful hours it would be obvious he was telling the truth and the game would be up. He turned back toward Hani, who was still puffing slowly on his cigarette.
“I think you’re right,” said Ferris. “Don’t arrest him. Leave him in place.”
Hani’s eyes narrowed to a crinkle. “Yes. Watch and wait. That is usually the right course of action. I knew I was right about you. But you must promise to stay away from him. No little rendition job in the middle of the night, because I will be watching. Can you give me your word on that?”
“Oh yes, absolutely. We won’t get near him. And you won’t. We’ll all watch and wait. Right?”
Hani nodded and offered a slight smile. “You should call Mr. Ed Hoffman. He would want to know, I think.”
“As soon as I get back to the embassy, I’ll tell him. He will be very excited. This is great work, Hani. Nobody could have cracked this but you. We owe you our thanks.”
Hani stubbed out his cigarette. He still had a curious look in his eye, or maybe Ferris was just imagining it. “We are allies. How can we not help each other?”
The two men shook hands. Ferris asked Hani if he needed any technical help in the surveillance of Sadiki. That was one area where the Americans alwa
ys had something to offer. But the GID chief said he would be fine, unless Sadiki started moving outside Jordan. Ferris asked Hani if he would be informing the Turks or any other friendly services, and the Jordanian gave another half smile.
“Not for now,” said Hani. “This will be our secret.”
WHEN FERRIS narrated the conversation for Hoffman forty-five minutes later, he got nervous all over again. Hoffman kept saying, “Shit!” as if he knew bad news was coming. When Ferris got to the end and Hani’s promise to leave Sadiki in place, Hoffman’s response was a relieved, “Thank God.” Ferris realized then just how nervous his boss had been that the operation might be blown.
“Do you think he knows?” asked Hoffman.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think he realizes we’re playing games with Sadiki?”
“Maybe. He’s smart. But I don’t think so. The collateral is all there. The more he goes looking, the more he’ll see the trail I’ve laid.”
“The legend is there, for sure. And Hani isn’t a genius, as I keep telling you. I think we’re okay. You want me to come out and talk to him?”
“Not unless you plan to read him into the operation. He would just get suspicious if you came out. He would think you were pulling some razzle-dazzle stunt on him again.”
“Which I am.”
“Right. But let’s not make it too obvious.”
“Merry Christmas,” said Hoffman. For it was, in fact, Christmas Eve.
Body of Lies Page 24
