The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  17

  The king became visibly angry, though he controlled his tongue.

  “Don’t speak like this, Ibrahim—I will not have it,” he insisted. “We have to operate on the assumption that the president is still alive. We cannot give up this hope. There are forty-eight hours left. We need to use them wisely. We need to find the president and rescue him or help the Americans rescue him. The fate of the kingdom hangs in the balance. Now, Abdul, you think Abu Khalif and the president are in southeastern Syria?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, I do,” Jum’a confirmed.

  “Ibrahim, what about you?”

  “Where do I think they are?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d say Abdul is probably right—Khalif is in Syria.”

  “And the president?”

  “If he’s still alive?”

  At this, the king’s jaws tightened. “Yes,” he said carefully.

  “I don’t think they’d keep the two together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Operational security,” Al-Mufti said. “The entire universe is now looking for the president of the United States. It’s highly unlikely anyone finds him within forty-eight hours, but if they do—if we do, if anybody does—Abu Khalif is no fool. He’s not going to be in the same location.”

  “Would Khalif send the president into Iraq or just put him in a different safe house in Syria?”

  “That I can’t say, Your Majesty. But I’m happy to develop contingency plans for both scenarios.”

  “Yes, do that—work together, both of you,” the king said to his generals. “Get your best people working on this. You’ve got an hour. I want a detailed intelligence analysis of everything we’ve got so far—the video, the radar tracking of aircraft moving across the Syrian and Iraqi borders, the interrogations your men are doing with ISIS forces captured at the palace and at the SADAFCO plant, signals intelligence, paid informants we’ve got on the ground in Syria and Iraq—everything. And where are we with Jamal Ramzy’s cell phone, the one Collins here pulled off his body at the palace? It turned out to be encrypted, did it not?”

  “It was, Your Majesty,” Prince Feisal said.

  “Have we cracked it yet?”

  “They’re still working on it.”

  “Tell them time is running out,” the king insisted. “I want to know everything about that phone—what calls were made on it, what calls were received, all of it, when we meet in an hour. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Good. Now get to work.”

  The king stood, and the rest of us did as well. The generals saluted and then bolted out of the bunker. The prince was about to begin working the phones again, but the king pulled him aside. Colonel Sharif, meanwhile, suggested he and I head back to my temporary office to write up the story of the video.

  But as we left, I heard the king ask his brother in a somewhat-hushed tone, “Now, listen—where are we with this mole hunt?”

  * * *

  Back in the office, Colonel Sharif opened a safe and pulled out my iPhone.

  He let me put in my password, but since I was not allowed to send any messages without his permission, he kept control of the phone. As the phone reconnected to the data service, hundreds of messages began to pour in. But we were looking for just one—an e-mail from Abu Khalif with the details of a bank account to which the U.S. government was supposed to wire more than $320 billion.

  “Got it,” Sharif said at last.

  “Is it from Khalif directly?” I asked, immensely curious.

  “It doesn’t say,” Sharif replied. “It’s an anonymous Gmail account.”

  “No note?”

  “No, just the account number and SWIFT code.”

  The colonel quickly forwarded the e-mail to the king and the prince with a note asking for instructions on whom in the American government to forward it on to. The prince wrote back almost immediately, saying he would take care of it personally.

  I spent the next half hour writing up the story of the video. Sharif wouldn’t allow me to go back in the bunker to interview the king. But he did step out for a few minutes, and when I was nearly finished, he returned and handed me a typed statement from His Majesty.

  This video is further evidence of Abu Khalif’s descent into evil. It is proof of his apostasy, his wickedness and barbarism. The forces of ISIS have abandoned all pretense of being Muslims. Such takfiris are not practicing true Islam. They have perverted the religion of my fathers and forefathers beyond recognition. The kingdom of Jordan stands against such evildoers. We stand for peace and moderation.

  On behalf of all the peace-loving people of my kingdom, I pledge to do everything in my power to assist the United States, our great ally, in safely recovering President Taylor and returning him to his family and his nation.

  At the same time, I pledge to bring Abu Khalif and his men to justice. They are guilty not only of terrorism but of treason and a host of other crimes punishable by death. And I will not rest until they have been captured, tried, convicted, and eradicated from the earth.

  This last part intrigued me. The king was vowing to execute Abu Khalif and the leaders of ISIS. I asked the colonel to clarify this, given that I was quite sure Jordan’s government hadn’t executed any criminals in years. Sharif confirmed it but noted that death penalty laws were still on the books for a variety of heinous crimes from rape, murder, and drug trafficking to weapons smuggling, espionage, and treason.

  I dropped in the king’s entire statement, verbatim, toward the end of the article. Normally I’d include only a line or two, but I figured in this case it was safer to let the Jordanians see I was transmitting everything they gave me and leave it to Allen and the brass back in the States to edit it down as they felt appropriate.

  As this was a straight news piece, I led, of course, with Abu Khalif’s demand for the vice president of the United States to lead his country in conversion to Islam or else pay an ancient tax described in the Qur’an. The only alternative was to see their president executed in the most despicable manner possible. I emphasized the forty-eight-hour deadline and noted that “unnamed intelligence officials believe the president has most likely been moved out of Jordan and is probably in Syria or Iraq, though this could not be confirmed.” At first Sharif was bothered by that line, saying it was the very type of speculation the king objected to. But I pushed back, noting that it was the king’s own speculation and that of his top military leaders, not my own. In the end, I prevailed and the colonel transmitted the story as written.

  By the time Sharif was finished e-mailing the story to Allen and I’d had a few minutes to wash up and get another cup of coffee, we had only about ten or twelve minutes before we had to be back in the bunker to meet with His Majesty and hear the briefings by the generals. I asked the colonel if he’d be willing to scroll through my e-mails and text messages and print out anything from my family, anything from Allen, or anything that seemed either personal or particularly urgent. He graciously agreed and left the room to take care of it. I used the time to lie down on the air mattress for a moment to close my eyes and catch a few z’s. But exhausted as I was, I could not sleep.

  I found my thoughts turning to the king’s question to his brother.

  “Where are we with this mole hunt?”

  It was an important and frightening question, and with all that had been happening over the past eighteen hours or so, I’d completely lost track of the fact that there was almost certainly a mole within the Jordanian government. The ISIS attack on the Al-Hummar Palace had been exquisitely planned and executed. Surely it had required someone on the inside—more likely several people. The name of the Jordanian F-16 pilot who had fired on the summit assembly and then flown a suicide mission into the palace had not yet been released, but I had no doubt the royal family was doing a full investigation into the man’s background, family, associates, and possible connections to ISIS. But the full-blown coup d’état scenario—in which
more than fifteen thousand ISIS jihadists had participated—could not have been the work of just a single rogue pilot. Someone else—someone with access, with detailed knowledge of the plans for the summit—had to have tipped off Abu Khalif and his men to the peace summit’s location, timing, and other details. But who?

  There was a fairly limited list of possible suspects, and most of those people were now dead. The question was who on the list was still alive, still in a position to bring down the king and prevent any possible rescue of the president from being successful?

  At that moment it occurred to me that everyone in the bunker—short of the king himself—was a suspect.

  18

  It was just before seven o’clock when there was a knock on my office door.

  The colonel entered, but he was not alone. Prince Feisal was with him, along with one of the MPs who had been assigned to me and a half-dozen other elite soldiers guarding the prince.

  “Mr. Collins, would you take a walk with me?” the prince asked as we stepped out into the hallway. “There is a matter of great importance I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Hasn’t His Majesty asked us to gather in the bunker?” I asked.

  “That meeting is already under way,” Feisal replied. “I’ll join them in a little while. But this matter cannot wait.”

  “Well, sure, okay; if you insist,” I said.

  “I do.”

  We headed up the stairs, trailed by the security detail. When we reached the vestibule, however, we didn’t stop. Rather, the prince led me outside and across the tarmac. It was the first time I’d been outside in nearly twelve hours, and it was good to feel the rising sun on my face and a brisk December breeze as well. There were scattered clouds overhead and actual patches of blue between them. Yet to the north, dark thunderheads were rolling in. Another storm was coming.

  We paused at the flight line as a squadron of F-15s took off toward the west, headed, no doubt, back to Amman with a fresh payload of missiles and bombs. To our left, two Cobra helicopter gunships were on approach to land, while two more were powering up to lift off and take their place in the fight to reclaim the kingdom. As the last of the Strike Eagles roared past and climbed rapidly into the morning sky, the prince beckoned me to continue walking with him across the tarmac.

  “Have you had the opportunity to talk to your mother yet or to your brother?” he asked as we headed toward a series of hangars and administrative buildings on the other side of the base.

  “No, not yet, with the time difference and all,” I said. “The colonel let me send an e-mail to both of them, though, letting them know I’m okay.”

  “But not where you are, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I understand your brother—Matthew, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand he and his wife and children left Amman in quite a hurry two nights ago.”

  “They did.”

  “Almost like they knew what was coming,” the prince said as we passed through a security checkpoint and entered an unmarked three-story office building.

  “What are you implying?” I asked, suddenly caught off guard by his tone.

  “I’m not implying anything,” said the prince, boarding an elevator with me and three of the six members of the security detail right behind him. “I’m simply noting that they just up and left the country—leaving all of their possessions behind—just hours before the worst terrorist attacks in the history of our country.”

  “And?”

  “And how did they know?”

  “I warned them to leave.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You know why.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” the prince said. “Enlighten me.” He pushed the button for the third floor and the door closed behind us.

  This was no longer a friendly conversation. I wasn’t about to get an exclusive interview with the second-highest-ranking military officer in the kingdom. This was an interrogation.

  I took a deep breath and tried to maintain my composure. There was no point in getting angry—not visibly, anyway. It would only make me look guilty. But angry I was. I could feel my face starting to get red and the back of my neck getting hot.

  “Your Royal Highness, you know very well why I encouraged my brother and his family to leave,” I said as calmly as I could. “Abu Khalif threatened them by name. He indicated to me that he knew exactly where they lived in Amman. I didn’t feel they were safe any longer. And it turns out I was right.”

  “Khalif threatened your mother as well, did he not?”

  “He did.”

  “Has she suddenly evacuated her home in Bar Harbor?”

  “No.”

  “Did you advise her to leave?”

  “No.”

  “Just your brother. Why?”

  The bell rang. The elevator stopped. The door opened on the third floor, and the other three security guards were somehow already waiting for us.

  The prince now led us down a long hallway, past one cubicle after another packed with air force officers of various ranks, all hard at work, talking quietly and moving quickly. We were walking briskly, but I could see lots of maps and satellite photos on the walls. I wondered at first if this was a flight-planning and meteorological center, but when we reached the end of the hall, the prince ushered me into a spacious corner office guarded by two MPs. Four of the six security men entered the office with us, while two stayed outside with the guards, and the door was locked behind us.

  To my right were a desk and chair and credenza and a Jordanian flag on a stand. Straight ahead was a long set of bookshelves, and to my left were a round wooden conference table and four chairs and a large window looking out over the airfield. The prince led me over to the table and asked me to take a seat. As I did, I glanced at the titles of the books, and it became instantly clear the work being done here was neither aeronautic nor weather-related. This building was part of the Jordanian intelligence directorate, and I was under suspicion.

  “Would you like some coffee?” the prince asked, pouring some for himself from a freshly brewed pot on a side table.

  “No thank you.”

  “A soft drink?”

  “No.”

  “Water?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Nevertheless . . . ,” he said and poured me a plastic cup of water from a pitcher beside the coffeepot and set it down in front of me.

  I nodded my thanks and braced myself for what was coming next.

  “So,” the prince continued when he had taken a seat, “your brother.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “I’d like an honest answer as to why you told him to leave his home in such a rush, but not your mother.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked. “Matt was closer to Abu Khalif. He and Annie and the kids were in far greater danger. My mother lives half a world away.”

  “And you didn’t think she was in imminent danger from ISIS?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you thought it was obvious Amman was going to be attacked.”

  “Yes.”

  “And your brother believed you?”

  “I’m glad he did,” I said. “As it turns out, I was right.”

  “So you were.”

  “Matt wasn’t the only one I told, Your Highness,” I noted. “I told the king I was afraid ISIS would attack the peace summit. He didn’t believe me.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t realize you weren’t speculating.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning perhaps you knew for a fact the attack was coming.”

  “If I’d known for a fact, I would have said so. But I warned the king as clearly and urgently as I could. I warned the president as well.”

  “When?”

  “On Marine One, en route to the palace.”

  “Did the president believe you?”

  “No.”

  “Did
he take you seriously?”

  “No.”

  “Because he thought you were speculating, correct?”

  “Apparently.”

  “He didn’t think you knew exactly what was going to happen.”

  “I didn’t know exactly.”

  “So you say.”

  “Let’s just be clear, Your Highness—are you actually accusing me of being the mole?”

  19

  The prince glared at me.

  “You have to admit, Mr. Collins, the evidence is rather compelling, is it not?”

  “How so?” I asked, incredulous but determined to maintain control.

  “You really need me to explain it to you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m afraid I do.”

  “Very well,” the prince said. “As you know, the list of suspects—the people who knew the summit was going to be held in Amman, at the Al-Hummar Palace, who knew the exact time, the precise details—is a very short list indeed. What’s more, as you also know, most of the people on that list are dead, strongly suggesting that none of them were the culprits. But you, Mr. Collins—of all the names that remain on that list, you’re rather unique.”

  “How so?” I asked again, not sure what else to say.

  “Well, of course, you are the only one who has ever met Abu Khalif face to face. You’re the only one to have spent time with him. Significant time. And not just with the emir of ISIS but with his senior commander in Syria, Jamal Ramzy. You know them both. You’ve spoken with them both, at length. You’ve been to their lairs. You’ve met their advisors. They’ve told you their plans. They’ve instructed you to tell the world certain things, and you’ve done exactly what they asked of you.”

  “That’s my job, Your Highness.”

  “Some are beginning to wonder what that job actually is.”

  “Are you actually accusing me of being an agent of ISIS? Don’t you see how ridiculous that sounds?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. Collins. I just thought it was only fair to let you know what some are saying about you, so you can, shall we say, disabuse them of their concerns.”