The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel (16 page)

28

It was quiet for several minutes.

I just sat there, not sure what to say. I’d not only made a foolish and serious error, impugning a member of the royal family without any proof whatsoever, but I’d done it in front of an FBI agent who was recording me.

The game wasn’t really over. I knew that. But for the first time I really did feel scared. This wasn’t a game, after all. This was a criminal investigation. I was accused of espionage, murder, terrorism, and treason. And my life hung in the balance.

“I’d like to speak to a lawyer,” I said finally.

Harris turned off the digital recorder. “Not so fast, Mr. Collins,” he replied. “You have other options.”

“No, really
 
—I don’t want to say anything else without legal counsel present.”

“Now hold on and listen to what I have to say.”

“I’m done listening, Agent Harris. I’d like a lawyer. That’s it.”

But Harris wasn’t done. He leaned close and spoke so quietly that the guards in the room had no chance of hearing him.

“Listen carefully, Mr. Collins. You’re in a heap of trouble. I think we’ve established that. The only question now is whether you want
to be tried in an American court or here in Jordan. And I’d like to recommend you choose option A rather than option B.”

“I’m listening,” I whispered back.

“You’d rather come home to face the music than stay here?”

“Yes,” I replied, oblivious now to the president’s fate and completely consumed with my own. I was at that moment no longer a foreign correspondent for the
New York Times
. I was an accused traitor facing death by shooting or hanging in a foreign court system where I had no leverage whatsoever.

“Then I’d suggest you make a call.”

“To whom?”

“Jack Vaughn.”

“The director of the CIA?”

“Yes.”

“Not the attorney general?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You know Jack, right?”

“Of course.”

“You’ve been friends for ages, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“You believe he can vouch for your integrity.”

“I do.”

“Then call him.”

“How?”

“I have your iPhone.”

I stared at Harris. It felt like the chess match had resumed, but I was no longer seeing five moves ahead. Now I was struggling just to figure out my next move. “And say what?” I finally asked.

“Make your case. Ask him to call the attorney general on your behalf. Tell him to have the AG call the king and make arrangements for me to bring you back to Washington in my custody.”

“And why would the king agree?”

“He’s the one who lost the president, Mr. Collins,” Harris explained. “Right now I think he’d do just about anything the American government asked of him.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“You’ll never know unless you try.”

He had a point there. “So what’s in it for you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why do you care?”

“I don’t, since you ask,” Harris said. “But you’re an American citizen. You’re being held for crimes as much against our country as any. And you’re being held in a nation that is undergoing a coup. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. If you’re guilty, then it should be our government that proves it before an American court of law, period.”

I leaned back. I thought about what he was saying and assessed my options. There were only two. Make the call or go back to solitary with no telling what might happen to me next. That was no choice at all. But there was something odd about the whole conversation.

“May I have my phone?” I asked, deciding not to overthink the moment.

“You may.”

Harris reached back into his briefcase, pulled out my iPhone, and slid it across the table. For a moment, I just stared at it. I wanted to call my mom. I wanted to call Yael. I needed to call Allen. But apparently I was getting only one phone call today, and I figured I’d better make it count.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s twelve minutes after eleven,” Harris said.

That meant it was only twelve minutes after four in the morning back in Washington. Twenty-nine hours into the ISIS ultimatum. Only nineteen hours left until the president’s execution.

“Shouldn’t we wait a few hours until Jack’s up?” I asked.

I didn’t really want to wait, of course. I wanted to get out of Amman as quickly as possible. But I also needed Jack Vaughn to be awake, alert, and in a good mood. Calling him in the middle of the night didn’t exactly strike me as the best strategy.

“This is a one-time offer, Mr. Collins. It’s now or never.”

I picked up the phone, searched through my contacts, and found the home number for the Vaughn residence in Great Falls, Virginia. I pressed the call button and held my breath.

The phone rang repeatedly, but no one answered. I got voice mail but hung up without leaving a message.

“Try again,” Harris said.

“He’s not there.”

“Just try again,” he repeated.

I was in no mood to argue, so I hit Redial and waited. Finally, on the fifth ring, I heard a man’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Jack Vaughn,” he said, sounding as groggy as he did annoyed.

“Jack, hey, it’s J. B. Collins,” I began. “I’m so sorry to call you at home, especially at such an hour.”

“Collins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No, sir.”

“This is really J. B. Collins?”

“Yes, sir. Again, I’m so sorry to call you so early.”

Vaughn sighed irritably. “Where are you?”

“I’m in Amman, sir.”

“But you’re alive.”

“I am, and I need your help.”

“Help? You’ve got to be kidding me. Do you even know how much trouble you’re in? I hear the bureau’s about to put a warrant out for your arrest.”

He was waking up fast.

“That’s why I’m calling, sir.”

“Look, Collins, I shouldn’t even be talking with you.”

“Sir, please, you know I’m innocent.”

“I do? I don’t think so.”

“Jack, come on
 
—I did everything I could to warn you and the president about what ISIS was planning. I risked my life to save the president’s and the king’s. And now I need your help.”

Just then I heard a woman’s voice.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Never mind,” Vaughn said. “Just go back to bed.”

Oh, great,
I thought,
now I’ve woken up his wife.

“Is that Collins?” she asked. “J. B. Collins?”

“Yes, yes, now just . . . Listen, Collins, I need to go.”

“No, wait, sir,” I pleaded. “I have one specific favor to ask you.”

“Where is he?” I could hear his wife asking him.

“Shhh, I told you, just get back in bed
 
—I’ll be there in a minute,” Vaughn told her. “So what is it, Collins? Make it fast.”

“Jack, I’m innocent of all of this. The evidence will completely exonerate me. But I want to be tried in an American court. Not here. Not in Amman.”

“That’s out of my hands. Now unless you know where ISIS is holding the president, I can’t talk to you any longer.”

“Jack, please
 
—I’m asking you to call the AG,” I pressed, my tone becoming more urgent.

“The attorney general?” he replied, clearly bewildered. “What for?”

“I want you to ask him to call the king and request that I be extradited back to Washington with the FBI agent who’s come to interrogate me. I’ll come willingly. I just want my day in court
 
—an American court.”

“Where is he?” I overheard Vaughn’s wife say again. “Is he still in Amman?”

Just then Harris slipped me a handwritten note.

“Jack, listen, the king wants to meet with me in fifteen minutes. Please, I’m begging you, have the AG call him. I’m pretty sure His Majesty will accommodate any request the U.S. government has for him right about now.”

“The king wants to see you?”

“Apparently he does.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea, Jack. But that’s why I need you to call the AG right now and have him take custody of me and this case.”

“You know what you’re asking?”

“I know, Jack, and I’m sorry. But I’m an American citizen. I shouldn’t be tried in a foreign court.”

“So where are you right now?”

I heard more whispering but forced myself to stay focused and answer his questions. “I’m on a military base outside of Amman,” I replied.

“Which one?”

“Marka.”

“At the general headquarters?”

“Yes. I’m in the detention center, level B, cell number three.”

“That’s too much. I don’t need all that. I just want to make sure the AG understands which base you’re at. Who’s the agent from the bureau there with you now?”

“Art Harris
 
—do you want to talk to him?”

“No, no, I’m just trying to establish the facts. Are you calling me on a landline?”

“No, it’s my mobile.”

“What’s the number?”

I gave it to him.

“And I can get back to you on this?”

“Hold on a moment,” I said. “Let me check.”

I turned to Harris and whispered the question to him.

He nodded, so I told Jack, “Yes.”

“Fine,” Vaughn said. “I need to go. I’ll see what I can do.”

With that, the call was over.

“And?” Harris asked when I set down the phone.

“And what?”

“Did he say yes? Is he going to get you transferred back to Washington?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Did he say yes?”

“Not exactly.”

“But he didn’t say no?”

“Not exactly.”

“So what did he say?” Harris pressed.

“He said he would see what he could do.”

“You think he’ll at least call the AG?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Okay, then,” Harris said.

“So now we wait?” I asked.

“No, now we go see the king,” Harris replied.

I had already forgotten about his note. “Why do you think he wants to meet with me?” I was certain I was still in great danger and not sure I wanted to look the monarch in the eye just then.

“Don’t know,” Harris said. “But we’d better not keep him waiting.”

29

Harris stood and informed the guards we were going out.

Then he asked me for my phone back.

“But I thought you just said Jack and the AG could call me.”

“They can, but I’m going to forward your calls to my phone,” Harris explained.

“Why can’t I keep the phone with me?” I asked.

“Because as far as the king and Prince Feisal are concerned, you’re their prisoner. They ordered the phone removed from you, and I don’t want to do anything to challenge their authority.”

I nodded and Harris proceeded to fiddle with my iPhone to transfer all incoming calls to his phone. I was disappointed. I wanted to scroll through my messages. I wanted to see if Yael had written to me, wanted to send notes to her and to my family letting them know what was happening. But Harris was right. I was in too precarious a position to take unnecessary risks. So I steeled myself for what was ahead as he put my phone in his briefcase, set the briefcase on the table, and pointed me toward the door.

“Aren’t you going to take that?” I asked Harris as I got up to follow him.

“Why?” he asked. “There’s no point bringing it over to the bunker.
The security guys won’t let me take it in there. It’ll be safe here. I’ll get it when we’re done.”

“Fair enough,” I said as the guards came over and released my leg shackles and prepared to escort me upstairs.

Just then, Harris’s phone buzzed. I wondered whether it was my phone forwarding a call to his or whether he was receiving a call directly. Either way, when he looked at the screen, the expression on his face completely changed. He excused himself and stepped out into the hallway, and suddenly I was alone again. Unfortunately, that gave me more time to worry about this meeting with the king. How much had Feisal already told him about the case against me? Had they even had time for detailed conversations? On one hand, it seemed unlikely given everything else on His Majesty’s plate. On the other hand, the mole hunt was critical to his own survival. I’d personally heard the king ask his younger brother for an update, and how could the two of them not make it a top priority in light of the damage this traitor or traitors had done already?

The minutes ticked by. Harris didn’t return. And the longer he didn’t walk through that door, the more my anxieties increased. Whom was he talking to, and what was taking so long? Had Jack Vaughn called him to ream him out for letting me
 
—someone under suspicion of espionage and treason against a foreign government
 
—make contact with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency? Or was it the attorney general on the line, ripping Harris for getting him involved during what was arguably the most sensitive espionage investigation in the history of the bureau?

I glanced at Harris’s briefcase. It was sitting there on the table. Was it locked? What else was in it besides my phone? Were there details about my case? I can’t tell you how tempted I was to open it and riffle through his papers, even just for a few minutes. My guards had stepped out with Harris. I really was alone. But then I glanced up and noticed a small surveillance camera mounted on the wall, up
in the corner, near the door, and I wondered if this was a trap. Were Harris and the Jordanians trying to set me up, trying to lure me into doing something incriminating, only to capture it all on video and hang me for it
 
—perhaps literally?

Louis Brandeis, the renowned Supreme Court justice, used to say, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” That surveillance camera was the sunshine, purifying me from all temptation. I had to watch my step, I reminded myself. I had to walk the line. Too much was at stake. Then I started to wonder: was Harris really on a call? Or was he in the control room, watching me on closed-circuit TV, waiting for me to seal my fate?

Almost twenty minutes later, Harris came back into the room. He apologized and told me to follow him, but his demeanor had changed. Why? Was he sorry I hadn’t taken the bait? Or had there really been a call? And if so, who had called, and why did the news seem so bad? Every instinct in me wanted to ask him questions. It’s what I did for a living, after all
 
—ask people questions, ply them for information. I couldn’t help it. It was instinct. But in this case I forced myself to keep my mouth shut. If Harris had something to say, he would say it. But I couldn’t let myself be lulled into the notion that he was my friend or ally. He wasn’t. He was my adversary. Sure, he wanted the king to hand me over so I could be tried in an American court. But he was still there to bury me, and I couldn’t afford to forget it.

We took a right down the corridor and headed through another series of locked doors and mazelike hallways until eventually we were standing outside. Finally I was breathing fresh air. Cold air too. After a gorgeous and warm October with temperatures averaging in the seventies and eighties and a stormy but mild November with temperatures in the sixties, the first few days of December felt unseasonably cold. I hadn’t seen a thermometer or heard a weather report in days, but it couldn’t have been more than fifty degrees, possibly a
good deal less. The patches of blue and rays of sun I’d seen the last time I’d crossed this tarmac were gone. Now the skies were dark and threatening. I tried to remember when I’d last worn my leather jacket. I could have used it just then.

Still, it felt good to be out of doors, even if my hands were still cuffed, even if there were three armed guards watching my every move, even if I was about to see a king and his senior advisors, who believed I had plotted to kill them all. It was strange to think how radically the past thirty hours or so had changed my perspective. No longer was I thinking about my next exclusive story for the
Times
. Now I just wanted to stand here, outside this detention center, and savor every moment out of that cell.

There were no F-15s or F-16s taking off or landing this morning. There were no troop transport planes arriving or departing either. I saw a Black Hawk helicopter powering up over by the main complex of buildings, where the bunker was located, and there was a small Learjet being refueled and serviced. But overall, it seemed awfully quiet for a base operating as central command in a winner-take-all battle to recapture the country from the forces of the Islamic State.

“Come on,” Harris said. “We’d better get moving.”

“Hang on a second,” I said. “I want to ask you something first.”

“Ask me while we’re walking.”

“No, this is important,” I said. “Did the king or his people give you access to Jamal Ramzy’s phone?”

“What phone?” he replied. “What do you mean?”

“When Yael
 
—Ms. Katzir
 
—and I killed Jamal Ramzy . . .” My voice trailed off. I paused a moment, then looked the agent in the eye. “Did you even know we did that
 
—that we killed ISIS members, including the organization’s second-highest-ranking leader?”

“Yes, I knew.”

“And it doesn’t mean anything to you that I was killing ISIS leaders rather than conspiring with them?”

“It’s in the file,” he said without tipping his hand.

That didn’t give me much comfort, but it was something I’d have to take up with my own lawyers, not with the FBI. “But does it also say in the file that I pried a mobile phone out of Ramzy’s bloody hands?”

“No,” he said.

“Does it say that when Yael and I got the king and his family safely to the airport and under the protection of his own soldiers, I gave him the phone?”

“No,” he said again. “No one’s mentioned it.”

“Well, you should ask about it,” I said. “I gave Ramzy’s phone to the king so they could analyze it
 
—calls received and sent, to what numbers, in what countries, what cities and neighborhoods. I suspect there’s a treasure trove of information in that phone, information that might even lead you to the president.”

“Okay,” Harris said quietly. “I’ll be sure to ask about Ramzy’s phone. Now let’s go, or we’re going to be late.”

We started heading across the tarmac, walking briskly to make up for lost time. Just then I heard a buzzing in the sky off to our right. It was faint, and I barely noticed it at first. But it was getting louder. It sounded like a small plane
 
—a prop plane, maybe a crop duster
 
—not a jet. That was odd because this wasn’t a civilian airport. There weren’t any crop dusters or Piper Cubs or small prop planes of any kind anywhere near here. But there it was, getting louder and louder. It was coming from the east.

We kept walking, faster now but distracted by the sound. Harris and the guards heard it too, and then one of the guards said it sounded to him like a drone.

That’s when we saw a flash in the eastern sky. It was a drone, and it had just fired a missile. I saw the contrail. We hit the deck just as the missile streaked over our heads.

The explosion must have been heard for miles. Burning debris
was suddenly raining down on us. I wanted to cover my head, but my hands were still shackled. I turned my head and looked behind me. All I could see was a blazing fire and a smoking crater. The detention center was gone.

And then we heard another missile go slicing past us.