Another shrug.
Peter Mullin and his experts came down the narrow hiking trail, followed by volunteers from the Westchester Red Cross office. Mullin had been glad to see them. Having investigated dozens of aircraft accident scenes, his respect for the Red Cross and its support was unbridled. Sometimes, it was only the coffee and encouraging good cheer dispensed by the dedicated volunteers that kept him and his people going through the night.
Mullin was greeted by O’Connell, who introduced Lazzara to the lead investigator.
“Any witnesses?” Mullin asked.
“Not that I know of,” Lazzara said. “We have more agents coming from the city. I told the local police to start canvassing houses in the area.”
“Good.”
The combined NTSB teams from Parsippany and Washington fanned out to examine those areas of the wreckage of particular interest to them, taking pictures as they went. EMS personnel brought the first empty body bags down the hiking trail, and a pastor from a local church arrived on the scene. Mullin thanked the clergyman for coming, but told him he’d have to bestow any blessings from a distance. No one not directly involved in the investigation was allowed beyond the perimeter established by uniformed officers.
Lazzara trailed after Mullin as he slowly, cautiously walked among the twisted, charred wreckage and bodies and body parts, which seemed to Lazzara the product of the bizarre and warped imagination of a macabre performance artist—meant to shock rather than inspire. They stood side by side and looked down at a teddy bear spotted with blood.
“Kids are the worst,” Mullin said.
“Yeah. I have one. A year old.”
Mullin turned at the sound of his name. Two state troopers new to the scene stood at the foot of the trail. Between them was a fisherman wearing a tan fishing vest with multiple pockets over a tan shirt with still more pockets.
“Who’s this?” Mullin asked a trooper.
“He says he saw the accident.”
“You did, sir?” Mullin asked.
“Yes, I did,” Al Lester said. His round face was flushed with excitement and anxiety, and he spoke rapidly. “I saw it happen. I was out in my boat—”
“Maybe we should go someplace else to hear what the gentleman has to say,” Lazzara suggested.
Mullin nodded, and he and Lazzara led Lester up the trail to a small break in the trees.
“Now, sir,” Mullin said, “tell us what you saw.”
Lester looked back and forth between the two men and frowned.
“I’m Peter Mullin, from the National Transportation Safety Board,” Mullin said, realizing that an introduction was needed. “This is FBI Agent Lazzara.”
Lazzara extended his hand to Lester. “Frank Lazzara, special agent in charge of the White Plains office.” Lester took it, did the same with Mullin’s.
“I was out in my boat. I fish most every day, bass mostly, sometimes trout—depends on what lure I use, things like that.”
“I do some fishing myself,” Mullin said. “You saw what happened to the plane?”
“Yes, I did. Oh, yes, I certainly did.”
Lazzara and Mullin waited for him to continue.
“It blew up right where the wing joins with the body. What do you call it, the fuselage?”
“Yes,” Mullin said.
“Plane took off right over my boat. It’s a canoe, actually, an old aluminum one. Grumman canoe. They don’t make them anymore.”
“And?”
“I watched the plane all the way. I guess I always watch ’em taking off ’cause I don’t like the noise. I watched him all the way until . . . until it blew up.”
“You say it blew up,” Mullin said. “What side of the plane?”
Lester maneuvered his body to come up with the proper angle. “It was—let’s see, it was the left side of the plane. He was making a left turn, it looked like to me. Yes, it was the left side.”
“There was an explosion?” Lazzara asked.
“Yes, sir, right where the wing fits into the fuselage.”
“How large an explosion?”
“Pretty big. Well, not so big, maybe, but pretty big, big enough to knock the wing off.”
“What color was the explosion?” Mullin asked.
“Red, yellow. I told the troopers about the missile I saw.”
Lazzara and Mullin looked at each other.
“I know,” said Lester, “I probably sound like some nut who doesn’t know what he saw. Well, I don’t see things, and my eyesight is pretty damn good. It was a missile or something like a missile that went up and hit the plane.”
“Did you see where it came from?” Lazzara asked.
“Not really; from the woods somewhere.”
“You’re absolutely positive that you saw a missile come from the woods and hit the plane?” Mullin said.
“Yes, sir. That’s what I saw.”
Lazzara said, “Mr. Lester, who else have you told about this?”
“Nobody, not even my wife. I was going to call her but I saw the troopers after I came up from the water and told them. They brought me right here.”
“So you told the troopers about the missile?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And no one else.”
“No, just you two gentlemen.”
Lazzara glanced at Mullin before saying, “Mr. Lester, I’m going to arrange for you to be taken to a . . . to a command post where we can discuss this further.” To Mullin he said, “Has a command post been established?”
“The airport, a vacant hangar.”
“We’ll take you there, Mr. Lester. We can talk better. That okay with you?”
“I’d better call Nancy.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
“You can do that, but you can’t tell her what you saw this morning.”
“Why not?”
“Just procedure, sir. You can tell her tonight after we’ve gotten your official statement.”
“I suppose I don’t have any choice.”
Lazzara didn’t reply.
They escorted Lester to where two of Lazzara’s colleagues stood. Lazzara instructed them to take the witness to the airport and stay with him in the hangar that was being used as a command post. Before they left, he said, “Mr. Lester will want to call his wife. That’s fine, but he knows he’s not to tell her anything about what he saw.” He turned to Lester. “Why not just tell your wife that you witnessed the plane accident, are giving a statement to the police, and that you’ll be home later in the day?” The agents nodded; they understood that what Lazzara said was, in fact, an order.
Mullin and Lazzara watched them leave.
“Two eyewitnesses, in two different accidents, claim missiles brought down the planes,” Lazzara said.
“Doesn’t mean it’s true,” Mullin said. “We had hundreds of witnesses who claimed they saw a missile hit TWA 800. They were all wrong.”
“That was one plane. This involves two, on two coasts. You aren’t ruling out the criminal element, are you?”
“It’s on the table along with every other probable cause, but until there’s some confirmation, I’d prefer it not be bandied about in the press.”
“No argument from me, but that’s wishful thinking. How do you want to handle the interview with our fisherman friend?”
“Do it jointly, get it down officially.”
“Okay. Ready?”
“No. Hold him for a few hours. I can’t leave here yet.”
Lazzara walked away. Mullin started back to where his team was examining wreckage, and where EMS was removing the first of the bodies. His expert on metals was on his knees looking closely at a shaft of metal three feet in length and a few inches wide.
“What’s that?” Mullin asked.
“Not sure, Pete, but it’s not part of the plane. There’s a smaller, similar piece over there.”
“No idea what it is, where it came from?”
“Could be a piece of a weapon
of some sort.”
“Weapon?”
“Yeah.”
“A missile?”
The metals expert looked up at Mullin and winced. “I’m no missile expert, Pete. But I’d say it’s a possibility.”
7
Early That Afternoon
The White House
Mike McQuaid, special assistant to the president of the United States—on terrorism—prepared to leave the Situation Room on the first floor of the White House. He hadn’t wasted time changing into more formal clothing after receiving the FBI call at his Maryland home. He wore the same khaki pants and red-and-white-striped short-sleeve shirt he’d had on when the call came through. He’d spent the past fifteen minutes calling members of CSG, the Coordinating Security Group on terrorism, setting up a video teleconference between the involved agencies—the State Department, the Joint Chiefs, Secret Service, the Pentagon, and Justice. Because aircraft were involved, the FAA was included on the list.
“Mike, the president wants you,” an aide said after answering a phone.
“Keep things moving,” McQuaid said.
He was ushered into the Oval Office, where Anthony Cammanati paced.
“Everyone in the loop?” Cammanati asked. National Security Advisor Cammanati was a squarely built man with heavy black eyebrows and a permanently creased, broad forehead. His physical appearance, including his navy-blue suit, white shirt, and tie, set him apart from the fair-skinned, redheaded, slender, casually dressed McQuaid.
“In the works,” McQuaid replied.
Both men straightened as Lawrence Ashmead, president of the United States, entered the room. The door was closed behind him and he went directly to his desk. As usual, he was in shirtsleeves, wide, red suspenders, and a nondescript blue tie. Ashmead was known as a hands-on president, less statesmanlike and presidential than his predecessor. To a fault, some on his staff felt: He’d been governor of Missouri before capturing the White House, and ran things too much like a governor, micromanaging rather than viewing the proverbial larger picture. But he was liked and respected by most; those who’d ended up on the receiving end of a sizable temper were the exception.
He looked at McQuaid and Cammanati with probing eyes. “So, tell me,” he said.
McQuaid brought him up to speed on the three aviation accidents, using half-formed sentences, the bulleted approach he knew Ashmead preferred.
“. . . spoken with all the involved agencies, Mr. President. Vice Chairman Poe at NTSB confirms two eyewitness claims—missiles hitting the planes, California and New York—but no tangible evidence. The lead investigator . . .” he consulted his notes “. . . Peter Mullin— they found metal fragments at the New York scene that could have come from a missile—on their way to the Pentagon for analysis. FBI agents on the scene in New York confirm the eyewitness account.”
“Confirm it! It was a missile?”
“No, sir, sorry. They confirm that the New York eyewitness claims he saw a missile hit the aircraft.”
“What about Idaho?”
“No eyewitnesses there, sir.”
“What’s the possible link between them?” Ashmead asked, more of himself than the others. “If those three planes were shot down by missiles, there has to be a reason. Who was on them?”
“We don’t have passenger lists yet, sir,” McQuaid said. “They’re being officially withheld until next of kin are notified. We’re working with the airlines.”
“Government officials on the planes? Businessmen from the same industry? Scientists? Mobsters in witness protection? Somebody with a new insurance policy for a couple of million? Christ, people don’t target three planes in three different parts of the country—and on the same day—unless there’s some common denominator.”
“We’ll know more when we have passenger names and backgrounds, Mr. President.”
“How much of the missile theory has gotten out?”
“The press? The FBI and NTSB are keeping a lid on the eyewitnesses, but it’s already been leaked.”
“How? Where?”
“CNN. They went with the rumor story ten minutes ago.”
“How’d they get it?”
Shrugs from McQuaid and Cammanati.
Ashmead punched a button on his phone: “Send Chris in here.”
A minute later Ashmead’s press secretary, Chris Targa, entered.
“What’s being reported on the aviation accidents?” the president asked.
“It’s the lead story, Mr. President. No surprise, with three commercial planes down the same morning. Got to be a first.”
Cammanati started to ask something of Targa but stopped.
“The missile theory,” Ashmead filled in, not prone to keeping things from his press secretary as were other presidents. “Are they talking about eyewitnesses saying they saw missiles hit the planes?”
“CNN is, sir, but they’re couching it. ‘Unconfirmed reports,’ ‘alleged sightings,’ that sort of thing.”
“What kind of planes were they?” the president asked. “All the same make and model?”
“No, sir,” McQuaid answered, again referring to notes. “Two Canadian-made Dash 8s, one Saab 34, Swedish-made. Three different airlines.”
“So whoever shot missiles at them wasn’t out to cripple a particular aircraft manufacturer or airline.”
“Evidently not, sir,” said McQuaid.
The president asked to be kept abreast of any news reports playing up the missile allegations, and dismissed Targa and McQuaid. Alone now with Cammanati, who’d been a boyhood friend, Ashmead sat back and twisted his mustache—he was the first man with facial hair to sit in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt. “It’s terrorists, isn’t it, Tony? There can’t be any other explanation.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, sir, and if it’s a foreign group, state sponsored, we’ve got a war on our hands.”
“Call a meeting.” Ashmead looked at his watch. “Six this evening. Appropriate Cabinet members, FBI, Justice, our counterterrorism people.”
“Poe from NTSB?” Cammanati asked.
“Sure, but it looks like a criminal act. FBI’s show now.”
“The Bureau and State’s counterterrorist people are meeting as we speak, sir.”
“Good. Coordinate this effort, Tony. Assemble a team. Use anybody you need, pull ’em off whatever they’re doing. That’s from me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The State Department
Max Pauling was running late. He entered the huge, square, nondescript, singularly unattractive government-issue gray box known as the State Department from C Street, passed through the Diplomatic Lobby, displayed his credentials to the security guard, and went directly to Walter Barton’s—Colonel Walter Barton’s—office in Room 2507.
“They’re meeting in Room 3524,” a Barton aide said immediately.
Pauling bounded up a back stairway and went into the small conference room where his jingoistic boss and a dozen others had gathered.
“Max,” Barton said as Pauling took a folding chair and pulled it up to one of two tables already occupied. “Now that we’re all here, let me brief everyone on what’s known to date. Three commercial aircraft down, the incidents occurring within hours of each other. Locations— Westchester County, New York; San Jose, California; and Boise, Idaho. Passenger fatalities, thirty-six in New York, thirty-one in California, and eleven in Idaho—seventy-eight in all. Plus a crew of three on each aircraft. Cause of accidents unknown. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen missiles hit the planes.”
“In all three incidents?” someone asked.
“No, in California and New York. No eyewitnesses in Idaho, at least that we know of.”
Pauling said, “If there’s any truth to these eyewitness sightings, we’ve got terrorists armed with missiles, an internal enemy nation or rogue group within a friendly nation. I understand all three aircraft were taking off when they came apart.”
Barton turned to an assistant who’d been monitoring
preliminary reports from NTSB. “Correct,” she said.
“They knew something about flying,” Pauling said, “positioned themselves upwind, knew planes always take off into the wind.” He sat back and focused on his thoughts while others tossed about theories. These missile-toting terrorists weren’t amateurs, not with what the missiles must have cost. They went for premium prices on the black market, no holiday sales at Kmart.
The meeting was interrupted by a senior advisor to the secretary of state, who drew Barton aside. “Cammanati just called, Colonel. The president’s holding a meeting at six. Secretary Rock will be attending. She wants a briefing at five-thirty before she heads over there.”
“Okay,” Barton said.
Barton’s aide assigned to monitor NTSB returned to the room. “NTSB just got a report from its Denver office on the Boise incident,” she said. “Fragments found at the scene point to the use of a missile. Evidence is being flown in as we speak.”
“What do we know about the missiles?” Pauling asked. “American Stingers, foreign-made?”
Barton shrugged. “I’m meeting with Harris at the Bureau at three. I’ll know more then.” Harris was Barton’s counterpart at the FBI’s counterterrorism division. “In the meantime, we’re on twenty-four-hour alert. Coordinate your movements through Ops. Nothing for the press. Nothing!”
“Does the president or Secretary plan to make a public statement?” Barton was asked.
He ignored the question. “Let’s get cracking.”
Pauling watched the others in the room get up and head for their respective offices. Since coming over to State from the CIA, he’d been impressed with the organizational structure and smooth teamwork within the agency’s departments. There was a more clearly defined chain of command and a smoother interplay between departments than he’d experienced at the Company. He wasn’t quite as sanguine about some of the larger political and diplomatic decisions made at the top, like the gloved-hand approach to nations run by dictators and deemed important, at times, to America’s foreign policy, while a harder line was taken with countries whose loyalty to the American diplomatic agenda was solid.
But lofty decisions weren’t part of Pauling’s job description. Before this new assignment, he’d been an agent, an operative, a “spook,” and loved it. Why wouldn’t he? You were sent on an assignment, handed enough untraceable cash to buy a small country—or at least its leader— and instructed to tell no one where you’d be or how long you’d be there.
Murder in Foggy Bottom Page 5
