by J. B. Turner
“Talk to me, Sam.”
“I got something you need to see.”
“What is it, Sam? I’m kinda busy.”
“Face to face. I have some crucial information.”
Meyerstein wondered why he wouldn’t just tell her what he knew. “Sam, where exactly are you?”
“I’m not far. Battery Parking Garage—you know it?”
“Sure. Not far.”
“I’m on the fifth level. Black Lincoln. I need to talk. Right now.”
“Sam, I’m real busy. Come in and we’ll talk here if it’s that important.”
“No.” His tone was strident. Not like him. “A source of mine . . . he wants to speak to you face to face. He has some documents.”
“Documents? What sort of documents?”
“Martha, they concern . . . they concern General Black.”
Meyerstein sighed. She knew Gritz, Reznick, and the dozens of agents in and around Flushing Meadows had Ford’s every move monitored. “OK. Give me twenty minutes.”
It should have been a short drive down Broadway, but evening traffic had snarled up.
“Goddamn, what is this?”
The driver shook his head and pointed farther down the street. “Looks like a bad one.”
She craned her neck and saw a cyclist had been knocked over, and was now surrounded by paramedics. She considered walking the mile or so on foot, but within a few seconds they were on the move again, and the driver somehow managed to weave around the accident.
They skirted the periphery of the World Trade Center site, turned right onto Liberty Street, and then hung a left, down Greenwich Street.
The red neon sign of the parking garage was up ahead.
“Up to the fifth level,” she said to the driver.
“Sure thing, ma’am.”
A few minutes later, they arrived on the fifth. The dimly lit, concrete catacomb was jammed with cars. She got out of the vehicle, her minders never more than a yard away.
Meyerstein spotted a black Lincoln in the far corner of the garage. She thought she saw two people inside. She headed straight for it, past the other agents. As she got closer, her stomach tightened and her heart rate quickened.
Bad thoughts crept into her mind. Alarm bells were ringing. Why the sudden call from Chisholm? Why the urgency? Why face to face?
She strode on toward the Lincoln. Ten yards away, she stopped dead in her tracks. The smell of cordite hung heavy in the air.
Then she saw it. Specks of blood splatter across the inside of the driver’s window. She felt her insides move as she stepped closer. Time seemed to slow down. Then stop.
Gray brain tissue and dark blood were sprayed all across the side and back windows. Inside was Sam Chisholm, eyes open but no life in them. His face frozen in shock, as if he knew in that split second what fate awaited him. One bullet hole in the forehead, the back of his head splattered across the passenger window and beige leather seats. Another man, not known to Meyerstein, with two shots drilled into the right temple—double-tap, execution-style. Blood congealed around the entry wounds; sinews, tiny fragments of bone and brain matter on the man’s ashen face.
The news about the double murder spread like wildfire throughout the FBI. Meyerstein had gone back to the nearby Manhattan office, where she had fielded more than a dozen calls from everyone—including Langley, the Department of Homeland Security, and the national security advisor to the Office of the Director of Intelligence. But the one person who did not contact her was Lieutenant General Black.
She began to focus her thoughts. The NSA had pulled up the call from Sam Chisholm and the verdict was clear. The call was genuine. It was made from his FBI cell phone. Video analysis from within the parking garage showed him arriving with an elderly man.
It took the FBI exactly fifteen seconds to identify the man formally as Marcus Belling, a rear admiral who had worked out of the Pentagon since the 1960s, until he retired in 1986.
The more she thought back to the call from Chisholm, the more it was clear he had something on Black. A connection, perhaps. Information about his Pentagon past. Belling would have worked with or come across Black at the Pentagon at some point during the height of the Cold War.
The shock and the adrenaline were still coursing through her veins, and they propelled her on. She hooked up a secure video link to Roy Stamper and they talked.
“Martha, I’m so sorry about Sam. I know you knew him well. I mean . . . I don’t know what to say.”
Meyerstein was determined to be all business. She cleared her throat. “Sam’s deputy, Special Agent Jamieson, is leading the counterterrorism team on this. But I need to speak to General Black right now.”
Stamper grimaced. “Might be a problem. He’s not here, Martha.”
“What do you mean he’s not there? I was just speaking to him a little while ago.”
“I mean, he’s been out of the office the last thirty minutes or so.”
“Shit.”
“I’ve tried his cell but there’s no reply. I was just about to trace his phone via the GPS.”
“Do it now.”
Stamper pressed a few keys on his laptop in front of him, eyes locked on to the screen.
“We’ve got him near us. Gated community in McLean.”
“That’s where he lives.”
“He’s back home now? That doesn’t make sense.”
“None of it makes sense.”
“You want me to go and speak to him?”
“No, you focus on your own work. We’ve got Ford. Leave the general to me. I want to speak to him myself. Face to face.”
“Be careful, Martha.”
Meyerstein’s mind raced throughout the one-hour flight to Reagan International. She popped a couple of Advil with a glass of water. When the flight touched down in DC, it was late.
She picked up her car from the near-deserted economy parking lot and drove across to West McLean. Fifteen minutes into her journey, her phone rang.
“Meyerstein,” she said, focusing on the GPS.
“Martha, it’s Roy. We really, really have to get this guy out of here.”
“The order is to wait until he leaves.”
“Listen to me. We’ve got something—it’s all beginning to take shape. But not in a good way.”
“So, what is it?”
“Firstly, Black’s a member of the Trilateral Commission. Did you know that?”
Meyerstein was aware of the organization set up by Rockefeller in the early 1970s. It included powerful banking, corporate, political, and military interests.
“I didn’t know that.”
“He’s not on any public list, but he’s attended the last dozen or so meetings. I have it on good authority that he’s a very influential member of the Commission.”
“What else?”
“Here’s the kicker. Our computer guys, along with the NSA, have accessed heavily encrypted Department of Defense files, including redacted secret files, relating to General Robert Black.”
Meyerstein was getting butterflies in her stomach. “I’m listening.”
“We believe Sam Chisholm had access to the same files.”
“And?”
“Black was on the periphery of a cabal at the Pentagon that was at the center of setting up an unauthorized plan to try to replicate Operation Northwoods.”
Meyerstein’s blood ran cold. He was referring to an infamous and highly secretive false flag operation—planned by the American military during the Cold War—to carry out apparent terrorist attacks on the US, hoping to blame the Cubans.
“Goes way back to the early sixties, the Northwoods plan, apparently.”
“Cuban missile crisis-era, right?”
Meyerstein’s mind was racing ahead. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about the same Operation Northwoods? The one way back in the time of the Kennedy administration?”
“Precisely.”
“So the question is—is what we’re dealing with a false
flag? Americans bombing or shooting Americans?”
Stamper said nothing.
“What else? I need to know more about Black’s part in this.”
“Black was a young officer at the time, but—along with others of the same political outlook prevalent at the time—he became aligned with a hawkish grouping. This group was led by General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff way back in the sixties, but his plan to launch bombings in the Miami area and in Washington was thrown out by Robert McNamara.”
Meyerstein felt her heart beat faster, her mind going into overdrive as she got closer to Black’s home.
“I’ve got more. Black wanted to recast the Northwoods plan once in the eighties. This was based on the original blueprint of the work of Brigadier General William Craig and other right-wing patriots, as they saw themselves. Lemnitzer and Craig thought Kennedy was a no-win president. They thought he was soft on Castro. Black was trained by Craig.”
The oncoming headlights made Meyerstein wince. “Craig?”
“Yeah. Black was mentored by William Craig. And Black in turn proposed an Operation Northwoods-style plan, including bombings, shootings, and plane crashes, to blame on the Iranians and galvanize public support for bombing Tehran to dust in 1981. Black’s plans were codenamed Operation Dustbowl. That’s what they wanted to turn Iran into. Dust.”
“Are you serious?”
“It was how part of the senior military was thinking at the time.”
“So how does this relate to Belling?”
“Apparently, Belling got wind of the 1981 blueprints that Black had circulated as a secret briefing paper. Belling worked out of the Pentagon—but, ironically, it was Belling who was edged out toward retirement. Black had numerous backers, both military and political, no doubt through his Trilateral Commission contacts, although the plans were never acted on and were finally scrapped after the Iran–Contra scandal broke.”
Meyerstein’s brain was racing ahead of her as the lights of the oncoming cars sped by.
“So how did Sam Chisholm find out about this?”
“Chisholm had an old Pentagon source, a friend of Chisholm’s late father. Both were in the army. And he pointed him in the direction of Belling. Said Belling had something on Black, or words to that effect.”
Meyerstein’s mind was in overdrive. Scenarios ran through her head at breakneck speed. “Roy, I want you to relay this information directly to the President’s National Security Council.”
“They already know.”
“Good. OK, this kind of puts a different spin on the analysis pointing to Islamists, right?”
“Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism are still working on this. They are up to speed with this information about Black. But I’m awaiting the latest from them. Expect an update within the hour.”
“Is that everything?”
“Not quite.”
“Not quite? You got something else?”
“Yeah, on Black. Martha, it’s true General Black works out of the Pentagon and has since the eighties. But we’re drilling down. He’s not reporting to anyone within the Department of Defense. I have that on good authority from three separate people.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Martha, he’s CIA. Always has been.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever. Vietnam, Korea, Laos—he’s been on the ground every time. You name it, he’s been there. And then some.”
“It’s all pointing one way, Roy.”
Thirty-Eight
As Meyerstein drove along the tree-lined streets of McLean, her mind tracked back to the numerous confidential reports she’d read about the true nature of the Islamic threat to the United States and how it had really emerged.
Geopolitics. During Soviet rule in Afghanistan, it was American policy to use mosques to recruit those who would fight the Russians. She knew about Camp Peary, also known as “The Farm,” the CIA’s covert training facility. It trained clandestine officers. But it was also where young Arab nationals from countries like Egypt and Jordan, along with young Afghans, were taught strategic sabotage skills. And so the blowback went on. And on.
The jihad that the US had created and fostered and nurtured was engulfing large parts of the Middle East, and those same jihadists were turning their gaze on America. Bin Laden himself had been linked to a jihad refugee center in Brooklyn.
But her investigation was now not about jihadists. They were going to be the patsies, while the true nature of the emerging threat would lie undiscovered.
She felt a terrible emptiness within her. Was this her country? Was this her government? Was this how it had always been?
She turned onto a deathly quiet residential street and saw the house. Floodlit garden, shielded by massive trees and hedgerows. Lights on in the upstairs windows. She walked up to the front door and knocked three times.
Her heart was beating fast as she waited. Inside, footsteps. A small, gray-haired woman wearing an orange blouse and long skirt answered the door.
Meyerstein flashed her ID. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m looking to speak to General Black.”
The woman stared at Meyerstein. “This is most irregular, is it not?”
“Indeed it is, Mrs. Black.”
“Do you mind me asking what this is about?”
“I’m sorry, that’s not possible.”
The woman sighed. “I see.”
“This isn’t about me. This is about your husband. Now, are you going to invite me into your house or do I have to go and get a warrant from a judge?”
Mrs. Black’s eyes bored into Meyerstein for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, she opened the door wide. “There will be no need for that. My husband is in his study.”
Meyerstein followed her down a long carpeted hallway.
“If you must know, my husband began to feel unwell and had to return home. The doctor has just left.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”
“No, I don’t suppose you did.”
Mrs. Black escorted Meyerstein to the study at the far end of the house. She knocked on the door.
“Come in, Esther.”
Esther Black opened the door. “Darling, sorry to trouble you again. Assistant Director Meyerstein has come by to see you.”
Lieutenant General Black looked up from a pile of papers on his huge teak desk, and stared at Meyerstein. He was wearing a button-down shirt, chinos, and dark-brown loafers. A desk phone and a cell phone sat neatly beside each other. Two lamps were on, the wooden blinds drawn. Black-and-white pictures of the general with various presidents over the years decorated the walls.
“I see. Well, you’d better show her in.”
Meyerstein stepped into the room.
Mrs. Black looked at her husband. “Can I get you a coffee or tea, darling?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Assistant Director? Coffee or tea?”
Meyerstein smiled. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
Mrs. Black shut the door behind her. Lieutenant General Black pointed at one of two leather sofas. “Take a load off.”
Meyerstein sat down and cleared her throat. “I’ve been trying to contact you, General. Have you heard what happened to Sam Chisholm?”
Black’s eyes were hooded. “Indeed I have. Appalling. In all my years—”
“I’ve got some questions for you, if you don’t mind. They’re starting to build up.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow. I thought this was about Chisholm.”
Meyerstein felt his gaze on her and she instinctively shifted. “Sir, I have grave concerns. And I feel the need to ask you some questions, once again, face to face.”
“Well, here we are.”
“My first question, General, is why wasn’t I told that you were ill? You’re chairing this special access program, which I’m leading.”
He sighed. “I apologize. I should have made you aware of t
hat. My doctor advised me to get the hell out of my office.” Black leaned back in his leather chair and sighed again. He was playing it cool. Aloof. “Forget me. What about Chisholm? How the hell did that happen? I heard you found him. Meeting up with some source.”
Meyerstein nodded, images of Chisholm’s bloodied face seared into her mind.
“What was the meeting about?”
She wondered how much she should reveal. “I got a call from Chisholm saying a source of his wanted to speak face to face with me. A source that used to work at the Pentagon.”
Black nodded. “I’ve listened to the call. And I know who the source was.”
The news was a surprise to Meyerstein. She wondered who had passed on that information. Was it someone within her team? Outside the team?
“You’ve listened to the call?”
A thin smile cracked his face, as if he was enjoying toying with her. “Marcus Belling was in the car with Chisholm. We went back a long, long way. Hell of a nice guy, but he was . . . how can I put it . . . more cerebral than practical.”
Meyerstein averted her gaze for a moment. “He had documents. Documents about you, General. Did you know that?”
Black said nothing.
“Do you have any idea why Marcus Belling would want to speak to Chisholm urgently about you? What sort of documents do you think he was talking about?”
Black’s steely gaze fixed on her. “Marcus Belling was a good man. But he was naive.”
“Naive? In what way?”
“He believed that this great country of ours always has to play by the rules.”
“And you don’t believe that?”
Black let out a long sigh. “Meyerstein, you should know better than anyone that, sometimes, you’ve got to break the rules to get results. You turned a blind eye to the rules when you tracked down that government scientist, Luntz, didn’t you?”
Meyerstein felt her face flush. She was tempted to rise to the bait. But she focused on the questions at hand. “You seem to know a lot about me, General. I’ve been finding out some information about you. And it makes for interesting reading.”
Black said nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me you worked for the CIA?”
