The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel (26 page)

48

“In the end, I took Dr. Katzir’s recommendation,” Ari said.

“Just to save a reporter?” the Saudi asked, indignant.

“She was the lead analyst on this,” Ari responded. “She had an impeccable service record. I’ve always trusted her judgment. I didn’t necessarily agree with her. But I respect her, and at the time I couldn’t say definitively that she was wrong.”

“But she was.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My blood was boiling. The colonel could see it. He reached over and put his hand on my arm, a subtle reminder
 
—perhaps a plea
 
—not to say anything, to let this thing play out without jumping in. I looked at Yael. She was surprisingly calm. I didn’t know how she did it. But I could see this was getting to Ari. His jaw was clenched as he carefully chose his next words.

“Dr. Katzir could not have possibly known what was coming, General,” he finally replied. “Nor could I. Nor could our prime minister. Nor could any of you. Not that night. Not based on what we knew at that precise moment. We had a judgment call to make. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. But I believe we made the best decision we could, given the imperfect information we had at the time.”

I was grateful for the answer. The Saudi general, however, wouldn’t let it go.

“But in the end you cannot escape the brutal fact that you chose to risk the lives of thousands
 
—thousands of Arabs, I might add; thousands of Muslims
 
—to save the life of a single man, a single reporter.”

“An American citizen,” Ari added, “and a friend.”

“Ah, and now we get to it,” the general said, his face red as he leaned forward in his chair. “This was not just an American and not just a reporter; this was someone Miss Katzir knew personally.”

“
Dr.
Katzir.”

“Someone that
Dr.
Katzir knew personally.”

“Yes.”

“Someone she is friends with?”

“You could say that.”

“Close friends?”

“Perhaps
 
—they’ve certainly been through a great deal together.”

“And perhaps more than friends?”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying,” the general said. “I’m merely asking.”

“You’re asking if there is some kind of inappropriate relationship going on here?” Ari asked, incredulous.

I glanced at Yael. She was mortified. Her face said it all. And she was growing angry. Her back stiffened. She leaned forward in her seat. For a second, I thought she might unleash on the general. But she was too much of a professional for that. She let Ari defend her, and Ari was doing a fine job. But I was livid, about to explode. Sharif tightened his grip on my arm, silently imploring me to stay calm and let others defend our honor.

“General, these are two people who risked their own lives to save the life of this fine and honorable king from these ISIS monsters,” Ari responded. “Perhaps you’re not aware that Dr. Katzir killed dozens of the jihadists, or that she was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with
them. Perhaps you’re not aware that she personally shot and killed Jamal Ramzy or that Mr. Collins was the one who had the wherewithal to recover Ramzy’s phone, which has given us such critical intelligence. Or that he was shot and wounded protecting the lives of the royal family. Or that he drove the vehicle that whisked not only the king and his family to safety but also the Palestinian president and my prime minister. Rather than cowardly insinuations, I believe everyone in this room owes these two people a great debt.”

The room was silent, but Ari wasn’t finished.

“Furthermore, General, with all due respect, you are distracting this group from the real objective, which is to analyze the evidence we have brought you,” he continued.

The general tried to speak, but Ari would not let him.

“No, I’m sorry; you can respond in a moment, but I haven’t yet completed my presentation,” he said as calmly as he could. “Look, all of us deeply regret not seeing these attacks against the summit coming. And we all regret not doing more to prevent them. Personally, if I could do it all over, would I have made different decisions? Of course. We’ve got three drones over Alqosh right now and, I might add, four over Dabiq. That’s what we can do
 
—make adjustments, course corrections, based on what we’ve all learned. But we cannot look back. We can’t get bogged down in finger-pointing and recriminations. Not now. We do not have the luxury. As His Highness has reminded us several times, the clock is ticking. So this brings me to my last and final point. Aside from the vehicles that left the compound in Alqosh to take Mr. Collins to the Kurdish border, we had observed no other vehicles coming in or out of not just the compound but the entire village until around four o’clock this morning.”

Yael took a deep breath and put a final video clip up on the main screen. It was more night-vision footage, this time of a convoy made up of three SUVs pulling off Highway 2, heading into Alqosh and right into the compound.

“We believe you are watching the president of the United States arriving at Abu Khalif’s lair in the town of Alqosh on the Nineveh plains,” Ari said.

The video now switched to thermal imaging of the three SUVs coming to a halt inside the walled compound under the tarps Yael had previously mentioned. So while we couldn’t see faces, I counted nine men carrying weapons exiting the first and third vehicle. Then I watched as four more armed men got out of the middle vehicle. I could see them opening the trunk and pulling out a body. At first I thought they were handling a corpse, and my heart almost stopped. But then I saw movement. The person’s hands and feet appeared to be bound. But whoever it was writhed and twitched and seemed determined not to go quietly. Was that really him? I wondered. Was that really President Taylor?

“Now, what was particularly curious to us was that within minutes of this particular convoy arriving, communications of every kind in the village shut down completely,” Ari noted, and as he did, the video ended and the screen went black. “The lights in the village stayed on. They hadn’t lost power. But the nearby cell tower was abruptly switched off. We’re not sure how. All Wi-Fi services in the village went dead as well. Since 4:15 this morning, no calls, no e-mails, no text messages, nor any other form of communication has come in or out of the entire village. But we did intercept the last text message sent by a mobile phone inside the main residence in the compound just before everything went dark.”

“What did it say?” asked the Saudi.

“‘The package has arrived.’”

49

It was now 5:57 p.m.

Just twelve hours until the deadline.

The sun had been down all across the Middle East for more than an hour.

And now the king asked Ari, Yael, the colonel, and me to step out of the room. They had heard the evidence. They had a decision to make and not much time to make it.

I didn’t envy the position these men were in. I’d jotted down a list of questions on my notepad, each of which was as vexing as the next.

Were the Israelis right
 
—were the president and Khalif in Alqosh?

Or was General Ramirez right about the evidence pointing to Dabiq?

I found myself leaning heavily toward the case Ari and Yael were making. Perhaps I was biased, but I was trying to analyze the evidence as objectively as possible. And when it came to Alqosh, the pieces fit.

Still, even if Ramirez and the others were persuaded by the Israelis’ case, could the U.S. afford not to send forces to Dabiq, given that the tracking signal from the president’s watch was unmistakably being picked up from there? What if Ramirez put all his chips on Alqosh and he was wrong
 
—or vice versa?

Then again, did the coalition have enough forces to embark simultaneously on two rescue missions?

And if they did, with the raging storm bearing down on the region, could the coalition’s forces get safely to either site and back?

As we stepped out of the war room and into the waiting area, I was eager to get the others’ take on all these questions, and there were so many more.

If the storm was too intense to fly special forces teams to either or both sites, was there a realistic ground option that could be pulled off in the next twelve hours?

And if they decided to fly, what would they do if one or more of the choppers went down due to weather or mechanical failure or enemy fire?

What’s more, if they could even get to either or both of the sites, how would coalition forces protect themselves against the possible use of chemical weapons?

Above all, what if they were all wrong? What if neither the president nor Abu Khalif was at either site? What if the president was already dead? What if another major attack was coming against Jordan, against Israel, or against the United States?

When we got out into the hallway, the colonel pulled me away from the others and showed me his phone. He now had five text messages and two missed calls from my brother, begging me to call him immediately.

In an instant, my entire perspective changed. “You need to let me call him,” I told Sharif.

“I can’t,” he replied. “You know that.”

“Then why show me all these messages?”

“I’m just trying to keep you informed.”

“And I’m grateful,” I said. “But you have to let me call him. Something’s wrong. He’s not like this. He never texts or calls this often.”

“I wish I could, Mr. Collins. But I’m under strict orders not to let you
 
—or anyone
 
—communicate outside of this base. I’ve already bent those rules as far as I can. I can’t do more.”

“Colonel
 
—Yusef
 
—you have to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you don’t understand,” I pleaded. “Abu Khalif personally threatened my family. What if something’s happened to them? Please, ask the king to make an exception.”

“Absolutely not. You heard His Majesty. He and his war council are making their final plans. They cannot be distracted by civilian affairs.”

“There’s got to be something you can do.”

“There isn’t.”

“Think, Colonel
 
—I’m not a prisoner anymore. I’m not a hostage. You can’t deny me access to my own family in an emergency.”

“The needs of the kingdom rank higher than our own personal needs, Mr. Collins.”

“For you, yes, but you’re a subject of the kingdom
 
—I’m not,” I argued. “I’m an American citizen who has done everything I can to protect the king and his family, not out of obligation but because of the respect I have for them. Surely you can help me protect my family in a time like this.”

“The king’s command is sacrosanct, Mr. Collins. You may not speak to anyone off this base.”

“That doesn’t apply to you, though, does it?”

“Of course not.”

“You’ve been in touch with foreign media and foreign officials in the last few days, right?”

“Yes, of course, but what’s your point?”

“Call him for me.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes, you can call him. Find out what’s wrong. Maybe I can listen
in but not say anything, or just hand you a note if there’s something I need to tell him, and you can decide whether you can pass the message along or not.”

Sharif didn’t immediately say no. I had five more arguments to make, but I held my fire. I didn’t want to push him. And in the end, I didn’t have to.

“Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll call him?”

“Yes. Come with me.”

Sharif excused himself from the Israelis, encouraged them to have a seat, and said we’d be right back. They were a bit surprised, to say the least, but the colonel didn’t wait or discuss it with them. Instead, he led me down the hall to the security command post and into a break room typically filled with off-duty guards. Except that it was empty now. No one was off duty. Sharif pulled the door closed behind us, and we sat down on opposite sides of a small table covered in used coffee cups and napkins.

“Get out your notepad,” he said as he found Matt’s number and started the call.

“Why?” I asked.

“If there’s something you want me to say, write it down and slide it over to me. Otherwise, you keep your mouth shut or I hang up immediately. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“No exceptions.”

“I understand.”

With that, he hit the Speaker button and suddenly Annie’s voice filled the room. “Hello?”

“Yes, hello, I’m looking for Dr. Matthew Collins. Do I have the right number?”

“Yes, this is his wife. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Of course
 
—I’m Colonel Yusef Sharif. I work for His Majesty King Abdullah. I’m returning a call from your husband. Is he there?”

“Yes, yes, he is,” Annie replied. “Just a moment and I’ll fetch him.”

It was a joy to hear her voice. Her kids were fighting in the background over some toy, and one of them started to cry. Typically things like that annoyed me, but not anymore, or at least not today. Those were the sounds of home, and for perhaps the first time in my life I wanted to be with them instead of on the front lines of a major story.

Then, before I knew it, Matt came on the line. “Hello? This is Matt Collins. Who’s this again?”

The colonel greeted him and explained who he was. “Your brother is okay, Dr. Collins,” he told Matt. “He’s safe and covering this unfolding drama over here and doing an excellent job, I might add. But I’m afraid with all that’s going on, there are restrictions on foreign nationals making calls outside the country, at least those foreign nationals who know where His Majesty is. I hope you’ll understand.”

“Well, I guess so,” Matt said. “But it is really urgent that I talk with him.”

“I realize that, and that’s why I’m calling you back. Again, it’s not that J. B. doesn’t want to speak to you. To the contrary, he’s dying to talk to you and to his mother, your mother. But for security reasons, no one but government officials are allowed to call out of the location we’re currently in. But I can certainly pass along a message.”

There was a pause. I could tell Matt was weighing his options. Whatever he had to tell me, it was clearly sensitive. I scribbled down a note and passed it to the colonel. He read it, then looked at me, then closed his eyes.

“Listen, I understand this isn’t an ideal way for you two to communicate,” Sharif told Matt. “But I’m afraid right now it’s this or nothing. I’m not sure I’m allowed to tell you this, but I’m going to because your brother has been a true friend to the kingdom. You
should know that your brother is sitting right here with me. He’s listening to our conversation. He seems glad to hear your voice and your kids in the background. He’s not allowed to speak to you, but I want to assure you that he’s not going to miss anything you’re saying.”

“Really? J. B., can you hear me?”

Instinctively, I was about to respond, but Sharif held up his finger and cut me off. “Dr. Collins, like I said, he’s right here, but he’s not allowed to say anything. But you can speak to him if you’d like.”

“How do I know he’s really there?” asked Matt.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do I know you are who you say you are and that he’s really at your side?”

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mister
 
—Colonel
 
—whoever you are. For all I know, you work for ISIS.”