“Alexandra,” he said in a patronizing tone, “I suspect you’ve never had reason to have heard of an organization called the Ummah Tameer-e-Nau.”
I pretended to think for a minute. “UTN, you mean? The group headed by Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood? He’s the guy who talked to Al Qaeda about selling them nuclear weapons technology. But I thought they’d been effectively dismantled. What’s UTN got to do with anything?”
Jill stared at me. Hyde looked away, trying not to smirk.
The general shot a furious look at the press secretary, then turned back to me. “You seem well-informed for someone who usually covers the education beat.”
“I try to read widely, sir.”
“Of course you do,” he said coldly. “And you are correct that they were dismantled after 9/11. But there is some . . . evidence . . . that suggests perhaps offshoots remained active. And may remain dedicated to the original goal. Of course, we do not remotely believe they’re capable of procuring or detonating an active weapon.” The general stopped, as if that pretty much covered things.
“What does that have to do with Nadeem Siddiqui?” I asked.
“He is someone we have monitored.”
“Why?”
“We always worry about extremist links.”
“But did you have a reason in his case?”
“He . . .” The general hesitated. “We fear he may have been doing trial runs.”
“Trial runs? For what?”
“Siddiqui was ordering large crates of bananas.”
“I know. I saw one of them.”
“It was quite large?”
“Almost as big as a car.”
“Yes. I gather you’ve learned that among the unique qualities of a banana is that it produces radiation. Low levels, obviously. They’re quite safe to eat. But enough that bulk shipments don’t get inspected. They set off the sensors, and then they get waved through. Literally hundreds of tons of them every day. An ideal hiding place, isn’t it, if you were trying to shift radioactive material?”
“And so you think—”
“What I think is we would very much like to find and inspect that shipment that arrived at Dulles on Tuesday. And I think it would not be helpful for you to sow mass panic by writing about events that you know little about.”
Hyde rolled his eyes. “As it happens, she appears to know a good deal more about them than you do, Mike.”
Before the two of them could start bickering again, I cut in. “General, forgive me, but I’m still trying to get my head around this. Say for argument’s sake that it’s true, and somebody is trying to smuggle a nuclear bomb inside boxes of bananas. I mean, it’s ridiculous sounding, but on top of that—how would they get it? Doesn’t Pakistan keep that stuff locked down? Surely someone would notice if a nuclear weapon just walked out the door.”
The general shrugged. “You would think. A complete weapon would be very challenging to steal, I would hope. But weapons-usable material turns up fairly often on the nuclear black market. No one ever seems to notice it was missing until it gets seized.”
“But that’s crazy. I guess I can see it for old Soviet weapons, rusting in a warehouse outside Kiev or something. But for an active program in a country like Pakistan? With terrorists running around? I thought I read that we were spending all this money to help them with high-tech launch codes and security protocols and stuff. Isn’t someone supposed to be keeping track of where everything is?”
The general leaned forward. “Young lady, without confirming or denying the existence of any funds that may—or may not—have been appropriated to aid Pakistan’s nuclear program, consider this scenario. The right person, placed inside the right laboratory, underreports just a little every day how much nuclear material has been produced. Or how much is in storage. Over time you could have quite a sizable little stockpile that just . . . disappeared.”
“And you think—you think Nadeem Siddiqui was that person?”
“No comment.”
“But you’re talking some sort of inside job. You’re not suggesting the complicity of the Pakistani government, are you?”
“No. I don’t think they’re quite that insane. But given that you read so widely,” the general added mockingly, “you’ll be aware that Pakistan’s recent history doesn’t suggest great success at detecting or thwarting threats from inside the military and nuclear establishments.”
I thought about this for a moment. Then I took a chance. Elias had suggested a couple of long-shot interview requests, and this seemed as good a time as any. “I’d like to meet with the head of the CIA. Get a full briefing on UTN and other radical offshoot groups.”
Everyone in the room, including Hyde and Jill, looked at me as if I were cracked.
“No,” said General Carspecken.
“Why not?”
“Why not? Well, let’s see: he’s a busy man, he almost never gives interviews, and we’re speaking here off the record about classified information. Anyway, the CIA handles his press requests, it’s got nothing to do with us.”
The press secretary bobbed her head in agreement.
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re asking me to sit on what would appear to be the story of a lifetime. I’m asking you for an interview. An on-the-record interview.”
Back came the patronizing smile. “As I said, he’s a busy man. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. One last thing. What does any of this have to do with Thomas Carlyle?”
“With Thomas Carlyle?” The general looked blank. The press secretary leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Ah, yes. I heard you asked Lowell about that. A bit heartless to trouble him with this nonsense when he’s just lost his son, don’t you think?”
“Heartless? I’m not trying to trouble him or not trouble him. I’m just trying to understand the connections.”
“There is no connection. Not that I know of. What would it be?”
“There is no connection?”
“Yes, that’s what I just said, Alexandra,” the general said irritably. He looked around. “Okay. Are we good?”
Hyde stood up. “Just so we’re clear, Mike. We’re going to continue to aggressively pursue this story. I’ll check in with you this afternoon to let you know where things stand and whether we intend to publish tomorrow. We’ll obviously give you the opportunity to issue a statement on behalf of the administration.”
“You do that,” said the general, looking as if he sorely missed the days when people shut up and saluted when he gave them an order. “But just so we’re clear too. I will use every tool at my disposal—including the full legal power of the White House—to prevent you from publishing.”
“Of course. Good luck with that,” Hyde replied. “I haven’t been sued yet this week, I don’t think. But, hell—it’s only Thursday.”
41
Later that morning I got two interesting phone calls.
The first was from a spokesman for the CIA. He told me they had received my request and that they would be able to offer me a background briefing that afternoon.
“With the director?”
“No, I’m afraid he won’t be available today. With Edmund Tusk.”
“Who’s that?”
“The associate deputy director of the National Clandestine Service.”
“I had asked for an interview with the director.”
“Again, he’s not available. Between you and me, you’re better off with Tusk,” the spokesman added conspiratorially. “Former chief of station in Islamabad and Kabul. Amman too, I think. He speaks Dari, Pashto, God knows what else. He’s the one who knows all the people worth knowing over there.”
“Well, I’ll need it to be on the record.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it. Not the way these guys roll.”
“But—”
“Listen, you gotta understand, this is a guy who’s probably never talked to a journalist in his life. He only just got his cover lifted back in February.”
&n
bsp; “He—what?”
“He was working undercover until he got called back to HQ a few months ago.”
I sighed. Nothing about this experience was making me envy Elias the intelligence beat. Did no one ever use a real name or speak on the record? Still, I couldn’t see I had much of a choice. Maybe once I got out there and met the guy I could persuade him to give me a few quotes I could print. I agreed to a time and hung up.
The second call was from Marco Galloni.
It felt like years since I’d thought of him; it actually took me half a second to place the name. Was it only last week we’d been flirting and trading threats in the Eliot House courtyard?
“Alex,” he said urgently. “Hi. You okay? What are you mixed up in? I shouldn’t be calling. But the weirdest alert just came across. About increased vigilance at border crossings, and new orders for highway patrol to stop produce-delivery trucks for random searches—”
“No. Are you kidding me?”
“No, they just came out this morning.”
“But from where?”
“Let’s see . . . NCTC. The National Counterterrorism Center. You know, we’re supposed to all be partners now, a whole new world of information sharing, yada yada yada. Sometimes stuff even trickles down to lowly local law-enforcement guys like us. But, Alex, the memo mentions you.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s in the increased airport-vigilance section. Something about a security incident yesterday on a British Airways flight?”
I laughed darkly. “A security incident. That would be one way of putting it. The woman sitting next to me was murdered. And it appears it was actually me they were after.”
“But you’re okay?”
“I appear to still be among the living, yes.”
Galloni made a whistling noise as he exhaled. “Jesus. Why would someone want to—want you dead?”
“I don’t know. The last few days have been extremely strange. Listen, Lieutenant—Marco—sorry, I’m not even sure what to call you—”
“I think we can go with Marco at this point.”
“Okay. Marco. No one seems to believe me about this, but I think it’s somehow all mixed up with Thom Carlyle. I think he was involved in something big. I don’t know exactly what, and I can’t tell you everything I do know. But this wasn’t—this wasn’t just a guy who fell out of a bell tower because he was depressed or got clumsy after a couple of beers.”
“Yeah. I think we were in agreement on that point last week. I just can’t prove it.”
“No. Me either.”
At that moment, a truck beeped its horn loudly behind me.
“Alex? Where are you?”
“Washington. Just walking down K Street. Trying to find a decent sandwich.”
“But I called your desk.”
“It’s auto-forwarding calls to my cell phone. I had a meeting at the White House this morning. And I’m off to the CIA this afternoon. Quite the glamorous life I’m living down here.”
Galloni was quiet for a moment. “Alex, two thoughts. I want you to listen to me, okay? You should switch to Skype. Stop using the cell.”
I stopped walking. “Why?”
“Because I can’t tell you everything I know either. But trust me, it’s not that hard to eavesdrop on a cell phone once somebody knows the number. Skype is harder to intercept. Still not hard, mind you, but harder.”
“Okay, but—”
“You just told me somebody tried to kill you yesterday. What makes you think they’ve stopped trying? And this morning your name went out in an urgent memo to every metropolitan police department on the East Coast. I’d say making yourself a little tougher to find might be a good idea.”
“Fine. No more cell phones. What was the second thing?”
“Are you staying somewhere safe? Don’t say the name out loud.”
“Now you’re making me paranoid! Yes, I am staying somewhere safe.”
“Good. I’m going to call a buddy of mine down there. He’s in the Secret Service. You going back to the White House?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Still. His name’s Ralph. Ralph McNamara. He’s a good guy. Solid. Actually, he owes me a beer next time he’s in Boston. I’m gonna tell him to keep an eye out for you.”
“Thanks. I’m touched. But I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Remember. Ralph McNamara. You see him, you tell him Marco Galloni said to take care of you.”
42
They say the best spies look like Midwestern dentists.
Or accountants.
Meaning they have bland, easy-to-forget faces. People too handsome or too ugly or too distinctive in any way could be a liability. They stand out.
If true, Edmund Tusk made an excellent spy.
He was neither tall nor short. He could have been forty or sixty or anywhere in between. He was portly, but not excessively so. His hair was colorless and thinning and he spoke in a flat, accentless voice. Tusk’s only distinguishing characteristic was a pair of enormous glasses, with lenses so thick it was hard to make out the color of his eyes.
I had been swept through the main lobby, where the huge CIA seal looked exactly as it does in the movies. The lobby was gray and white marble. Oppressive. And dated, the way you’d imagine an elite spy headquarters looking in the 1970s. Past a row of metal turnstiles I could see a glass wall and sunlight from an inner courtyard. A few Agency staffers were hurrying past. But the place felt strangely deserted. I had expected fierce security—metal detectors, X-ray machines, body-cavity searches, who knew? But there was just one uniformed guard behind a big desk. In front of it stood the spokesman who had called me earlier. He instructed me to leave my phone in a cubby behind the desk. Then he steered me away from the turnstiles and up several stairs to the left, into a small, antiseptic conference room.
Edmund Tusk was already there waiting.
He stood up to greet me, adjusted his paunch above his gray suit trousers, and sat back down. The spokesman looked nervously from Tusk to me and cleared his throat.
“So, just to reconfirm the ground rules we discussed—”
“We’re good,” I interrupted. “No quotes, no recordings, no photos, no nothing. Got it.”
“And actually, you’re free to go,” added Tusk, to my surprise. “I think Alexandra and I will get along fine on our own.”
“Oh, no, I’ll stay. I’d prefer to.”
“I insist.”
“But Agency policy—” The spokesman tried to protest, but Tusk was now making a shooing motion with his hands.
“Out you go. I promise not to give away any state secrets. Just leave the door open a crack, will you? For the cat.”
The cat? I wanted to inquire, but Tusk had leaned back and was studying me with great concentration, his eyes swimming behind the huge glasses. A button strained against his belly. I wondered vaguely whether it would hold. Then he smiled.
“So. Alexandra James. It’s good to meet you. You’re doing wonders for morale around here, you know. We always enjoy watching someone else ratchet up the stress levels of our brethren over at the White House. I gather you worked the good general into quite a rage this morning.”
“I thought he was always like that.”
“True. Not the gentlest soul. Was he wearing the Semper Fi tie?”
Now I smiled. “And the cuff links.”
“Excellent. Something so exquisitely . . . insecure about that, isn’t there? But I digress. How can I help you?”
I took a breath. “I’ve been reporting on a man named Nadeem Siddiqui. I understand US intelligence was interested in him too, so I’m assuming you know who I’m talking about and also that he’s dead. Can you tell me what you know about him? How he died? Who he was associating with?”
“No. I can’t get into individuals. Just broad themes, that sort of thing.”
“But would you steer me away from—”
“I don’t play that game, Alexandra.”
I tried another angle. “This group UTN. Everyone thought they had gone away after 9/11. Are they active again? Why is the administration so concerned about them?”
He answered my question with one of his own. “Was it Carspecken who told you there’s concern about UTN?”
“My meeting with the general was off the record, so I can’t say.”
“Mike Carspecken wouldn’t know his UTN from his arsehole,” Tusk snorted. “He can’t keep many acronyms straight in his head at any given time, so he just latches on to one and runs with it. Sure, UTN is running around in Pakistan. So is Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and half a dozen Taliban factions, not to mention the Haqqani network, and Hekmatyar’s guys . . . You’ve got all kinds of crazies running around. Of course, unfortunately, the most dangerous ones are completely sane.
“Here’s how I summed it up for the president the other day,” Tusk added, a tad pompously. “Pakistan has more terrorists per square mile than anyplace else on earth. And it has a nuclear weapons program that is growing faster than anyplace on earth. What could possibly go wrong?”
He gave a strange little giggle. For all his blandness, there was an effeminate quality about Edmund Tusk.
“You—you mentioned the nuclear weapons program,” I said. “This banana shipment that Nadeem Siddiqui had delivered. That you guys are now looking for. Is that really because there might be nuclear material inside?”
“Again, I can’t comment on any specific situation.”
“But would it actually be possible to steal a nuclear weapon, hide it inside a fruit crate, and just mail it to America?”
“Can’t go there.”
I was getting frustrated. “Okay. Hypothetically speaking—”
“I don’t indulge in hypotheticals.”
“Fine. Broadly, thematically speaking—how small can a nuclear weapon be? Would one fit inside a crate the size of a car?”
He shifted in his chair as if considering how to answer. “You know,” he said finally, “it’s difficult sometimes to remember what’s classified and what’s not. Isn’t that funny? So many not even remotely interesting things are top secret. And so many important ones lie right there in plain view.” He paused. “But I think it’s fairly common knowledge that you can build a sweet little bomb these days with less than forty pounds of HEU.”
Anonymous Sources Page 19
