The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Why not? Being a foreign correspondent for the New York Times would be the perfect cover for a mole.” The prince stood and began to walk about the room as he explained the emerging theory of my crimes. “Who else has spent time with the leaders of ISIS and repeatedly lived to tell about it?”

  “If I was plotting to kill the four leaders at the summit, why in the world would I have warned two of them in advance about such an attack?”

  “There could be any number of reasons.”

  “Pick one.”

  “Very well,” the prince said. “To create plausible deniability. You certainly don’t have an alibi. You’re consistently in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet you keep surviving while everyone around you keeps dying. By telling His Majesty and the president that ISIS was about to attack—yet providing no proof whatsoever—you could make it look like you were only trying to help.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?”

  “And the wrong place at the wrong time? I myself was nearly killed each time.”

  “Of course—but you weren’t. You survived.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Take Istanbul, for example.”

  “What about Istanbul?”

  “A car bomb goes off in the heart of an Islamic capital,” the prince said, still pacing. “A Jordanian national is killed, allegedly a good friend and coworker of yours, but somehow you survive. The prime suspect in the bombing is a mysterious woman you were having drinks with, yet you refuse to give the authorities her name or any details about her.”

  He paused, but I said nothing. I was in shock.

  “Or take Union Station,” he continued. “A terrorist group—apparently an ISIS sleeper cell—opens fire in the middle of the train station in Washington, D.C. The shooters target everyone on the top floor of the restaurant—the, uh, the . . . What was it called again?”

  “Center Café,” I said numbly.

  “Right, the Center Café. The shooters kill every patron on the top floor of the restaurant—every FBI agent and a former director of the CIA—and you’re the only one who survives. Doesn’t that strike you as just a little odd?”

  “Are you forgetting that I actually shot and killed one of the terrorists?”

  “Oh, you’re ready to admit that, are you? I’ve seen the surveillance tapes. The FBI has seen them too, and from the various angles of the cameras and the lighting and the shadows, it’s impossible to tell who actually shot the female terrorist on the ground floor. Very convenient, isn’t it? Yet, remarkably, a few moments later, you go running through the crime scene, uninjured, unharmed. The FBI is still wondering, why exactly did you run? If you’re innocent, why didn’t you go to the police? Why didn’t you go to the FBI? Why didn’t you go to any of the authorities and explain to them what you’d done if it was really in self-defense and not to cover up a larger crime?”

  My anger was rising, but I continued to hold my tongue.

  “No, instead you didn’t just flee the scene of a crime—the site of a major terrorist attack—oh no, you actually fled the country,” the prince continued. “Using a false passport. Using fake credit cards. Using an alias, no less. Where does an innocent man get such things? And then you wind up in Baghdad on the very day—indeed, the very moment—of a coordinated prison break during which Abu Khalif escapes. You come back to Jordan and all hell breaks loose. Yet again, miraculously, you escape unharmed, or nearly so. You see where this is heading, Mr. Collins? You see why people are growing deeply concerned that maybe you’re not covering this story—maybe you’re causing it?”

  I couldn’t believe how quickly things were going south. I felt completely blindsided and disoriented, yet I realized there was no point answering the prince’s accusations. I was, in essence, being accused of treason, and as Colonel Sharif had recently made clear to me, treason was a crime punishable by death.

  “I want to meet with the American ambassador,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “No,” the prince said.

  “I insist.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because he’s dead.”

  It was as if the wind had been knocked out of me. I suddenly remembered seeing the U.S. ambassador to Jordan in the audience at the summit, sitting with several dozen other ambassadors, most of whom had probably also been killed in the attacks.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” I replied. “Then I would like to speak to the attorney for the Times.”

  “All in due time,” said the prince. “I have a few more questions I’d like answers to first.”

  “These aren’t questions,” I responded. “This is an interrogation. I’m an American citizen, and I’m entitled to legal counsel before I say anything else.”

  “You’re certain of that, Mr. Collins?” he asked.

  “Quite,” I said.

  “Very well, then; when this whole episode with the president is resolved, we’ll see if we can’t get the attorney for the New York Times to come over to Amman so the two of you can have a chat.”

  With that, the prince instructed the MPs to handcuff me and take me immediately to the detention center. “Put him on level B, cell number three,” he said.

  Then he turned and walked away.

  20

  The door slammed and locked behind me.

  I was alone.

  Cell number three was a narrow, dark, damp cinder-block room containing only an army cot, a metal toilet without a seat, and a small metal sink that dispensed only cold water—very cold at that, and not much of it. The room was so narrow I could stretch out my arms and almost touch both walls at the same time, though not quite. Oddly, its ceiling was very high, perhaps five or six meters. There were no windows and thus no natural light, only a bare, dim bulb hanging by a thin cord from that high ceiling, far too high for me to reach.

  There were no books or magazines or newspapers or reading materials of any kind. There was nothing on the walls—no signs, no markings, and certainly no mirror. Indeed, as I glanced about, the two most noticeable features of the cell were how barren it looked and how cold it felt. One thin green blanket was folded up at the end of the bed, but there were no sheets on the threadbare mattress, and the tiny pillow was made of plastic and had no pillowcase. Nevertheless, I lay down and stared up at the lightbulb and tried to settle my nerves and gather my thoughts.

  I’d not been allowed to bring a notepad or pen or any other personal items into the cell. Everything had been removed by the guards when they first brought me into the detention center—everything except my grandfather’s gold pocket watch. I’m not sure why they let me keep it. I guess they didn’t fear I could use it either to escape or try to harm myself. So I pulled it out, wound it up, and took note of the time. It was just before eight o’clock on the morning of Monday, December 6. The ISIS deadline was just forty-six hours away, and in the midst of the most important story of my lifetime, I was now in prison.

  The prince’s last words to me rang in my ears. No one was coming to see me, much less get me out of here, until after the deadline was over and the president’s fate had been decided one way or the other. What was I going to do? No one even knew where I was. Allen knew only that I was in a secure, undisclosed location somewhere near Amman. He didn’t know exactly where, and he certainly didn’t know I was now behind bars. No one did.

  For the life of me, I couldn’t even remember the name of the Times’ law firm. I couldn’t remember the name of a single attorney who worked there. And even if I could, how were any of them supposed to get to me? Amman’s only international airport was closed indefinitely, a smoking wreckage, its employees murdered by ISIS in a brazen and despicable chemical weapons attack, its runways completely unusable, pockmarked with craters left by enemy mortars and artillery. And even if a sympathetic attorney could physically get not just to Amman but to Marka, to this base,
to this makeshift prison, to this cell, why exactly would anyone take such a risk? The forces of the Islamic State were running rampant. People were being slaughtered in the streets of America’s most faithful—and until now, most stable—Arab ally. The president of the United States had been captured by ISIS terrorists. What lawyer in his right mind would come here to bail me out?

  Theoretically, much could be done by phone, but with whom would a lawyer working on my behalf speak? The king was busy. So were the prince and everyone else on the base. Jordan’s minister of justice was on life support in a local hospital and not expected to make it. And even if the Jordanians assigned someone to discuss my case with my lawyers by phone, how likely was it that they were ever going to let me go? The prince was all but accusing me of espionage and treason, both capital crimes. I wasn’t going to be released on my own recognizance. There was going to be no bail. With Jordan in flames, I’d be lucky if there was even a trial anytime soon. And what would be my defense?

  Upon that thought, I was suddenly on my feet and trying to pace. There wasn’t much room, but I certainly couldn’t rest. I was utterly exhausted, but sleep was out of the question. I had to figure this out. Someone was guilty of the crimes Prince Feisal had accused me of, and it definitely wasn’t me. But who was it?

  I decided to make a list of every possible suspect. From the Jordanians’ perspective, clearly, I was at the top. Right beside me, apparently, was Yael Katzir. They didn’t have her name yet. Or rather, they hadn’t yet connected Yael Katzir, the Mossad agent who had just helped me save the lives of the royal family, with the “mysterious woman” in Istanbul they now considered the prime suspect in the car bombing that had killed my best friend in the world, Omar Fayez. But how much longer would that take?

  If they suspected me, wouldn’t they soon be suspecting Yael? Once they did, they would undoubtedly “rewind the clock” and play out their theory to its logical conclusion. They would send her photo to the authorities in Washington to see if Yael was in any way connected to the shootings at Union Station. She wasn’t, of course, but then they would send her photo to the authorities in Istanbul and ask them to run her face against all surveillance videos of people coming in and out of the airport in the days surrounding the car bombing. Using state-of-the-art facial recognition software, how long would it be before they identified that Yael had in fact been there? A few seconds? A few minutes? Of course, when the Turks cross-checked Yael’s face with all the passports processed during her arrival and departure, they wouldn’t find one bearing the name Yael Katzir in their database, would they? No. They wouldn’t. Why? Because Yael had been using a fake name and a false passport. Why? Because she was on a mission for a foreign intelligence agency. That would lead to even more suspicions by dragging the Israelis into the mix.

  My heart was racing. My pulse was pounding. I splashed some water on my face, but it didn’t help. I was in danger of hyperventilating. I’d never been claustrophobic in my life, but now I felt like a caged animal, and I was desperate to get out. I needed my freedom. I needed to clear my name, and Yael’s, and get back to work.

  For it suddenly dawned on me that whoever the mole really was, he—or she—was still on the loose, still at work. This person had already caused the deaths of thousands and could even now be getting ready to kill again.

  21

  I woke up in pitch darkness.

  Groggy and confused, I had no idea where I was or what time it was. But as I came to, I breathed a great sigh of relief. Clearly, this had all been a terrible dream. I wasn’t in Amman. I wasn’t in prison. I wasn’t facing the death penalty for treason against a king. I couldn’t be.

  Yet as I felt around, I soon realized that I was not home at my apartment in Arlington, Virginia. Nor in a hotel room in some European or even Middle Eastern capital. I could feel the chilly, damp cinder-block walls. I swung my unshod feet over the edge of the bed and set them down on the cold, dirty floor. I reached out and felt the metal of the sink. And though the bare bulb was not on and thus not visible, I knew it was hanging above me. This was no dream. This was a nightmare.

  Lying back down and staring into the great void above me, I did not recall taking off my shoes and socks, much less falling asleep. The last thing I remembered was starting a list of people who might be responsible for this horrific cascade of events. Yael and I topped the list of suspects, but I knew we were innocent. So whom did that leave? It was time to go back to work.

  The prince was probably right that some of the most obvious suspects—the most senior aides to President Taylor, Prime Minister Lavi, and President Mansour—could be ruled out since they were dead. It was possible one or more of them was complicit in some way, but it would be difficult if not impossible to prove. For now, I would have to focus on the living. So who had access to the private schedules of all four principals? Who knew the exact details of the summit, including the expected location and movements of the leaders and the precise nature of the security arrangements?

  The first name to come to mind was Youssef Kuttab. At fifty-six, he was Palestinian president Salim Mansour’s most senior and trusted advisor. Born and raised in Jenin in the West Bank, Youssef had been a longtime member of the PLO before becoming a military aide to Yasser Arafat and later a political aide to Mahmoud Abbas. I knew he was a political mastermind, orchestrating Mansour’s stunning electoral victory after Abbas finally decided to step down, then working quietly behind the scenes with the Israelis on the peace deal of the century. He’d been at the summit, of course, at Mansour’s side when I’d interviewed the Palestinian leader over breakfast on Sunday morning. Later he’d been in the dining room of the palace, whispering in Mansour’s ear just before the comprehensive peace treaty was about to be ratified in front of hundreds of millions of people watching around the world.

  Was it all an act? Was Youssef really a closet Islamic Radical, masquerading as a Reformer? I’d known him for years. I’d interviewed him countless times, sometimes on the record but mostly on background. I couldn’t imagine he’d be complicit in anything like this, especially when the attack had effectively derailed the treaty he and his boss had worked on so hard for so long.

  That said, he had been privy to all the details. He not only knew the summit was going to happen, but I’d been told by multiple sources that Youssef had personally worked in the shadows to persuade the Jordanians to host the summit in Amman, at the palace. Could he actually have been engineering the ISIS attack? Was it possible that rather than supporting the deal President Mansour was striking with the Israelis, Youssef secretly thought the treaty was a catastrophic capitulation, a sellout that betrayed the best interests of his people?

  And what of the e-mail he’d sent me just days before the attack? The words now rang in my ears. I thought you were coming to Ramallah. Things are getting complicated. We need to sit down in person. Where are you? What, exactly, had been so complicated—a peace deal that might actually get signed, not rejected out of hand by an Israeli prime minister?

  I didn’t buy it. But I couldn’t rule out any theory right now. Everything had to be considered, and anyone running the criminal investigation had to be giving Youssef Kuttab a very hard look.

  Also on my list of suspects was Hassan Karbouli, the fifty-one-year-old Iraqi interior minister. Though I considered him a friend and trusted source as well, I was suddenly looking at him very differently. There were several reasons.

  First was Hassan’s timing. After avoiding me for weeks and ignoring my repeated e-mails and text messages requesting a face-to-face interview with Abu Khalif, Hassan had suddenly and inexplicably summoned me for an interview with the ISIS leader at the Abu Ghraib prison just days before the peace summit. At first Hassan had warned me to stay away from Khalif. But then he’d done a complete reversal, out of the blue. Not only did he offer me an exclusive interview, but he also offered to personally take me to see Khalif. I’d been ecstatic, as had my editors. Now, however, how could the timing not seem
suspect? I got you your interview, he’d said in his last text to me. Hope you know what you’re doing. Had he known the prison break was being planned for the exact moment of my interview? Indeed, could he have been involved? How many people besides the Iraqi minister of the interior even knew Abu Khalif was being held in that particular prison, on that floor, in that cell?

  Second were Hassan’s religion and his politics. He was one of only a handful of Sunni Muslims serving in the predominantly Shia government in Baghdad, and I knew he was increasingly outraged by the moves the Iraqi government was making against Sunnis in recent months. Could he have become not only frustrated but completely enraged? Could he have lost all faith in the concept of democracy in Iraq? Could he have decided to secretly pledge his allegiance to Abu Khalif? Wasn’t it possible he could have helped the ISIS leader escape the prison and then get to Mosul? Hassan had been born and raised in Mosul, after all. Who knew the city better than he?

  As I lay there in the darkness, I flashed back to my arrival at the airport in Baghdad just a few days before. I could still see Hassan nervously greeting me in his ill-fitting suit. Why exactly had he been so nervous? Why had he changed his plans at the last moment and not gone to the prison with me as I had expected he would? I could still see the anger mixed with fear in his eyes as he railed against his own government. “The Shias have really fouled things up,” he’d told me. “They have no idea how to run the country. . . . Sunnis all across the country are absolutely furious. . . . We have no say, no voice. . . . People are demanding change, and so far the prime minister and his people aren’t listening.”

  I had never seen Hassan Karbouli so upset. I had never thought him capable of violence. But now I wasn’t so sure.

  There was a third reason my suspicions were growing, and this one put Hassan in a category of his own: he had known the Israeli–Palestinian peace treaty was coming before anything had been reported in the press. Indeed, he had told me about it himself. He’d pressed me to tell him what I knew, what the precise details were. I’d thought it strange at the time. But even more unnerving was that he had known that the Jordanians were the architects of the whole thing.