Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist

by Jeffrey Shapiro

  PD’s office had all the splendor of a man of his position and stature, richly decorated with dark picture frame paneling, custom made book shelves all filled with limited editions, maroon draperies that partially covered a wall of windows looking over the south portion of the property filled with hundred year old oak trees, maples and birches, and memorabilia from 35 years in the service. An American flag hung from a pole beside his desk and a large picture of the President hung on the wall. PD was a huge man, nearly 6 foot 7 inches tall, and over 300 lbs. PD had told Jonathan that his parents had emigrated from Lebanon and he was born in New York City. He played collegiate football for Texas Christian University as a defensive end and was very loyal to his alma mater. He was drafted and played offensive tackle for two seasons for the Los Angeles Rams. PD was always impeccably dressed. Today he was wearing a $2500 Hickey Freeman blue pin striped suit with a red tie. He welcomed Jonathan with a smile and a warm handshake like a father would welcome a son.

  He put his arm around Jonathan as he guided him into the room. “Have a seat Jonathan, how’s the transition going? Are you getting comfortable with your new position?”

  Jonathan sat in a blue wingback chair in front of PD’s desk and PD plopped into his oversized executive chair behind it. “Not as bad as I thought it would be,” answered Jonathan.

  PD rubbed his forehead and said. “I’m a little disappointed with you Jonathan. You know I have always looked out for you. I’m surprised that you doubted me. There are different stages in a career, just like there are different stages in life.”

  “I know that PD, I wasn’t exactly myself. It’s been a tough time for me. But, you’re right. I really do appreciate everything, thank you.”

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asked reaching behind his desk and pouring himself a glass of sherry.

  “No thank you.”

  PD took a delicate, almost effeminate sip, and asked, “And how’s Mary and Carly?”

  “Carly’s doing better, Mary not so well. We’re still going through some tough times.”

  “I know you’ve heard it many times, but a parent should never have to bury their own child. Jonathan you can never get over the loss of a child. Are you still going to the psychiatrist?”

  “It really didn’t help.”

  “You may not see it, but it’s helping. You should go back.” He saw that Jonathan wasn’t convinced so he tried again. “What do you have to lose; we’re paying for it all.”

  “I just hate to keep rehashing it over and over.”

  “Do you remember any more?”

  “Not really, just bits and pieces.” He hesitated for a minute. “You know what bothers me the most is that I feel so damn helpless. I need to be doing something to help you find these guys. You know as well as me that I’m the most capable agent that you have to do that. PD, I need my clearances back.”

  PD let out a loud breath of air, “Is that what this is all about? I thought we discussed that. I’m surprised that you would put our friendship in between agency policy. Jonathan, even if I wanted to I couldn’t do what you’re asking.”

  Jonathan put his head in his hands. “PD, you don’t know how frustrating it is! I need to get back at those sons of bitches, but I can’t. I need to make them pay and you’ve stripped me of all the tools. I just want to kill the whole lot of them!”

  PD chuckled, “Jonathan, you need to listen to yourself. That’s why you’re not on the case. It is impossible for you to be objective. Let me assure you that we’re working on finding these goons as we speak. We have more that 500 agents working 24/7 to make those responsible pay.”

  Jonathan lifted his head, “I’m sorry. I know you’re doing everything in your power. I’m just so damn frustrated! Have you found anything yet?”

  PD shook his head, “You know I can’t reveal that, it’s classified information, strictly on a need to know basis.” Jonathan felt a little hurt, because in the past he had always been in the need to know circles. “Not even a crumb?”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  After a few seconds of silence Jonathan blurted out, “I’ve been getting emails inferring that I may be the subject of an internal investigation.”

  PD perked up, “Emails? From whom?”

  “I don’t know, the username is encrypted, so I suspect it’s someone who knows a lot about computers, they would have to be from the inside. They also seem to know a lot about what happened on the 15th.”

  PD sat up in his chair, “What exactly did they say?”

  Jonathan handed PD a printout of the emails and the text messaging dialogue. He studied them and said, “Who have you told about this?”

  “Only you.”

  “You did good coming to me. How long has this been going on?”

  “Awhile.”

  “But why didn’t you come to me immediately? You know that in these types of things, time is of the essence.”

  “I was trying to help.”

  “Well you need to get uninvolved as of right this second. Now, I need all the information from your personal account, so that we can trace these back to their source. I don’t want you to talk to anyone else about them. Not even Mary, agreed?”

  PD scanned the emails and seemed stunned to see that the first one had come in nearly 4 months ago, right after Jonathan got home from the hospital. “Jonathan, of all people, you know better than this. Certainly you have a reason why you would withhold information that might be vital to our investigation?”

  “I really didn’t think it was anything.”

  “Jesus Christ, Jonathan, you of all people should know that with something like this, everything is important. Don’t have any more communication with this person or people or whoever they are, without us monitoring every transmission, do you understand?”

  “Calm down PD. I answered some emails and I’ve brought you all the information, so don’t shoot me, okay, it would seem that you’d want to use me to find out everything you can about this person and what they know.”

  “You’re wrong Jonathan and the sooner you get that through your head the better! This isn’t your investigation. How many fucking times am I going to have to tell you that?”

  “Come on PD, I’ve always cooperated, I’m a team player with nothing to hide. What about the other, you know what they said in the emails, the internal investigation. Am I being investigated?”

  PD looked around as if someone was listening. “Jonathan, the truth is that we’re all being investigated, all the time. You’re the only survivor of the team and mysteriously you have no memory. So yes, unfortunately in this day and age you’re guilty until proven innocent. And hiding emails doesn’t help, okay?”

  Jonathan looked at him with a puzzled expression. “It’s very interesting what you just said, because that’s exactly what’s written in that email.”

  “Sorry about that, it must have stuck. Don’t make too much of it, it’s a common expression.”

  “If I promise to behave, can you help me get access to the programs so that I can find these guys?”

  “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you fucking deaf! No and don’t ask again! Let it go! And if I find out that you’ve been digging around or in places that you shouldn’t be, the next time we meet won’t be so amicable.”

  “I love you, too,” said Jonathan snidely.

  “Get out of here,” answered PD with a guarded smile.

  A few moments later PD picked up the phone and called the Director, “You have a minute? Anderson just left.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  The Director walked in and closed the door, “Well?”

  “I think he’s given us enough to start the process.

  “Are we sure what went wrong?”

  “Runyan assumed that they would be out of the building.”

  “Was he out fucking Nancy?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Not much we can do about it now.”

  “The best laid plans…
.”

  “If this goes sour over Runyan’s dick, I’m going to personally cut it off and put it in a jar on my mantle.”

  “So I’ll start phase 2.”

  “Do it!”

  That evening Jonathan opened an Earthlink account. In the morning there was a new message.

  “Take everything you need to survive. You will be all alone for a very long time.”

  Jonathan turned the account over to the agency and never answered the email. The agency took the information and went silent.

  Chapter 8

  Six months had now passed and the agency had rounded up a half dozen suspects from the July 15th bombing. All the national news networks bombarded the American public with highlights from Presidential speeches on security as he traveled nonstop across America. And Good Morning America and Daybreak kept Americans heartbroken and full of vengeance with special interest stories on relatives of the survivors. The Senate had appointed a special counsel who determined the White House’s handling of the affair was impeccable and the resilient U.S. economy had already rebounded. Surprisingly people were starting to feel secure again. The President’s approval ratings were at a new all time high and he had all the support he needed to continue to increase the national debt to keep America safe.

  Work was going well for Jonathan and he found that he liked managing the training data bases. He continued mastering his programming skills in simulation and had actually programmed holograms that he talked to and kept him company at his town-home in Langley. Mary and he had decided to put their Occaquan home on the market in the coming spring and move in the summer, while Carly was out of school. This made Carly extremely happy, though anxious. Jonathan usually went home every weekend but decided one Friday to invite Mary and Carly to his town home. When Mary and Carly walked into the town home, they were greeted by three artificial super-agents, two simulated men and one woman, playing cards with one another at the kitchen table. Surprised, Mary and Carly were convinced that Jonathan had guests. Carly shyly grabbed onto his leg.

  Jonathan introduced them, “Carly and Mary I would like you to meet my friends. Donovan, Marla and Chris, this is my wife and little girl.”

  Marla smiled, “That’s quite the bear you have there.”

  Carly clutched Bruiser, blushed and smiled.

  Mary responded, “It’s nice to meet you,” and then whispered to Jonathan. “You didn’t tell me that you were going to have guests.”

  “They’re not real,” chuckled Jonathan.

  “What?” answered Mary.

  “They’re not real. Carly, go shake Marla’s hand.”

  Carly stared in disbelief and then crept carefully to the woman and poked her little finger through her arm, and then let out a shriek, followed by a series of giggles. Mary was not amused at all with what she interpreted as a bad practical joke and found the strangers creepy. “Make them go away,” she said and then she whispered. “It’s not funny you know, Carly’s having enough trouble without thinking her father can make her imaginary friends.” Jonathan just smiled and shrugged. Carly didn’t understand her mother’s concern.

  “Daddy.”

  “What sweetie?”

  “Can you make me some friends that I can take home to play with Bruiser and me?”

  Mary elbowed him in the side, “I told you.”

  “I don’t think so. These folks are only for Daddy’s work.”

  Carly’s bottom lip sagged to show her disappointment.

  “Daddy please, Bruiser and I want to have a tea party,” but before her father could answer, Mary answered for him with a firm “No, now Jonathan make them go away.”

  Jonathan hit a key on his laptop and they were gone.

  *****

  All of Jonathan’s correspondence with his unknown email friend ceased after he talked to PD and the agency began monitoring his email. Jonathan was sure that his confidant had figured out that he had been betrayed and had gone into hiding, but his unknown friend’s words continued to ring in his head Take everything you need to survive. To be safe he began smuggling programs, business cards, contact lists and directories out of the agency on memory sticks. He also bought a new lap top identical to the one issued him by the CIA and on a weekly basis transferred the entire contents of his hard drive. He hid his stash in his locker at the local gym, because he knew better than to take anything home. He was not able to recreate or find the sophisticated programs he was using at Blue Herron so he was never able to trace who sent the messages, and even though he spent countless hours studying faces and behavior and reviewing the agency directories, he wasn’t any closer and feared he might never know his invisible friend. The days and weeks went by without incident and he settled into the routine of a 60 hour work week and the 40 mile trek back to Occaquan, spending the weekend surrounded by the warm love of his little girl and the icy chill of his wife.

  He found out about the severity of the internal investigation suddenly and without warning when he was invited to a technical briefing on a new server. When he arrived at the assigned conference room, it was empty. He looked at his watch to see if he was early and when he saw that he was not, rechecked his PDA to make sure he was in the right place. When he saw that he was, he became suspicious that something else was about to happen. It was a typical agency conference room with a large veneer table with a phone in its center surrounded by 20 chairs. There was a Microsoft projector on the end of the table pointed toward a large white screen that extended from the ceiling. A podium was stuck in one of the corners and an easel with a large white tablet in another. The wall opposite the door was covered with a map of the world, and another had a large white board with a box of dry erase markers and 2 erasers on its tray. Like most agency conference rooms it was perfectly clean without a trace of any prior meeting. The emptiness and quiet was very disturbing, so he thought about leaving and going back to his desk and making them come after him when the door opened and in walked a familiar, but unwelcome, face: James Burton.

  Jonathan was well aware that the agency often scheduled investigative interviews under the guise of something else to catch the suspect off guard and to keep them from running. Jonathan knew immediately what had transpired and felt a little foolish that he had been duped but was most surprised that they would send Burton. He personally hated the man, knowing that he was used with the most severe criminals and that in his path lay a trail of former agents, most of whom had been his friends. James Burton was a big man, both in height and weight, in his early 50’s, Harvard educated, a former secret service agent, always wearing a dark suit with a red tie, always on the offense, bullying and intimidating everyone around him. He had a full head of grayish black hair that was heavily oiled and combed straight back. Jonathan surmised that it was probably the same haircut that he had had in his high school senior picture. He carried a large Styrofoam cup filled with black coffee, and before he sat down, he took a sip and then grimaced as if it was the last cup from a pot that had been sitting all day. Jonathan knew him as a miserable man who enjoyed using his power to bring misery to other people. Burton entered the room with 2 other agents, both acquaintances of Jonathan, Milton Friedkin, a human resources attorney, and Joe Snyder, a computer engineer. Milton looked much younger than the others, even though Jonathan knew he was about their age. He had a full head of dark black hair, layered stylishly, blue eyes and a black moustache without a hint of gray. Jonathan had been in several meetings with him over the years, on various human resource issues, and knew that Milton was PD’s right hand man.

  Joe Snyder was a slight man, about 6 feet tall and no more than 150 lbs. He was mostly bald and had eczema or some skin disorder that put large red welts on his neck and face which Jonathan could see on every bit of exposed skin. Joe wore black glasses that were a couple of generations out of style and a dark suit that matched Burtons’.

  Burton was an imposing figure and carried a black legal briefcase that was so large it looked like a section of a filing cabine
t with a handle. He sat down at the middle of the long conference room table, swung his suitcase up to the table letting it slam to produce the proper amount of decibels, so that everyone knew without a doubt that he was armed with evidence and in complete control. He opened his briefcase and pulled out 2 large binders that had hundreds of different colored tabs all neatly indexed and then slid the large bag across the table out of the way. The others sat on either side of him stoically, like uncomfortable pawns next to their evil king, as he explained his mission. Jonathan still stood in shock, knowing what was about to begin, wondering how it could be attached to him and having no options but to watch and listen to the show.

  “Sit down,” said Burton motioning Jonathan to a chair directly across from his. Burton continued methodically like a prosecutor reviewing his case before the condemned, being careful to reveal only what needed to be revealed at that particular moment. He placed a tape recorder on the table and hit the “record” button and began. “As you know there’s an internal investigation concerning the July 15th bombing at 1941 Jeff Davis Highway to determine the cause, find the perpetrators and see if there was any internal involvement. Even though the Senate found the agency not guilty of any wrong doing we anticipate that there will be other independent committees to further investigate the matter and as the only survivor from operation Blue Heron you will be called upon to testify to both our agency and other committees. Do you understand how important it is for you to explain everything exactly as it happened?”

  Jonathan nodded, “I’ve already told the agency and the Senate Committee that I don’t remember anything that happened that morning.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not even bits and pieces?”