The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel (13 page)

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.

“I’ve heard some rumors,”
I’d replied, treading carefully.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Perhaps”
was all Hassan had said before bidding me farewell.

Had he known more than he was letting on? Was he already deeply involved in plotting against the Jordanians? Did he, like Abu Khalif and ISIS, consider the king and his court infidels, not fit to live or govern any longer?

22

I suddenly heard a sharp metallic scrape.

Startled, I sat bolt upright in the bed. A sliver of light was leaking in through an open slot at the bottom of the cell door. Someone was sliding in a plate of food and a plastic cup. I jumped to my feet, hoping to talk to whoever was out there, to get my bearings and maybe some news from the outside. But just as quickly as whoever it was had come, he was gone.

It was dark again. I could hear the
tick-tick-tick
of my pocket watch. But there was no point reaching for it. In such darkness, I’d never be able to read it. I was guessing it was around noon, but it was unsettling to say the least to have no idea when the lights were coming back on, when I was going to have contact with another human being, or when I was going to get out of this blasted cell.

My heart started racing again. The claustrophobia was returning. I felt around and found the sink and splashed more cold water on my face and neck. It was no longer chilly in there. Someone had turned the heat on. It was now boiling, and I felt like I was going to suffocate. I pulled off my shirt. Then I rinsed my hands again and trickled some of the brisk water down my chest and back. That helped a bit, but not nearly enough.

My stomach growled. I thought perhaps some calories would clear my head and calm my nerves. Freaking out wasn’t going to help me get through this, though I didn’t have a clue what would. Feeling around on the floor in the darkness, I found the plastic plate filled with something warm, and the cup, which was empty. Setting the cup in the sink, I repositioned myself in the bed, my bare back against the wall. Steadying the plate with my left hand, I used my right index finger to poke at the food and try to figure out what it was without burning myself. There was about a cupful of steamed rice, what felt like some overcooked vegetables, and a protein bar of some kind.

Famished, I quickly scarfed it all down despite the bland taste. Then I rinsed off the plate in the sink, set it back on the floor by the door, gulped two cups of water, and lay on the bed again in the darkness.

How much time had gone by? What if it was only an hour or two? How was I going to live like this, in alternating heat and cold, in utter darkness, with no one to talk to and no sense of what the future held? I knew I couldn’t let myself panic, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice. One of the things I valued most in life was my freedom to move, to travel, to roam
 
—around a room or around the world. I’d never been held captive. I didn’t know if I could take it. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. I wanted to be out. I wanted to be free.

I concentrated on breathing slowly and steadily. I’d never thought of myself as a fearful person. But this was a nightmare, and I didn’t know how to wake up. I’d known men who had been held as prisoners of war. I’d interviewed them, written stories about them. Most of them had cracked eventually, I knew, and I feared I might too.

Back to the list, I decided. I had to stay focused, stay sharp.

So who else was a suspect? Who else could be the mole?

I closed my eyes
 
—at least I thought I did, though in utter darkness it was hard to know the difference
 
—and a new face came to mind. Prince Marwan Talal. I tensed. It wasn’t possible, was it?

The oldest member of the Hashemite royal family, Marwan was an uncle to King Abdullah II. He was also arguably His Majesty’s most trusted advisor, having previously served as a counselor to the late King Hussein, Abdullah’s father. I’d first met Marwan through former CIA director Robert Khachigian on a brief trip to London. Khachigian had called the man “a most faithful, stalwart ally in the fight against the extremists in the epicenter.” Yet hadn’t Khachigian also told me that Marwan was a man who “lives in the shadows”? Hadn’t he explained that “few people outside His Majesty’s inner circle even know his name”? Then he’d added,
“But he knows theirs. He knows where all the bodies are buried. And I mean that literally.”

Marwan was not just a royal, however. He was a devout Muslim, a fervent Sunni, a true believer in every possible way. Indeed, on my last visit with him at his lovely, palatial home overlooking the seven hills of Amman, Marwan had actually tried to convert me. He was entering the sunset of his long and storied life, but he still had a fire in his spirit. He was still advancing his goals. Was it even remotely conceivable that his goals included the overthrow of the very monarchy he had helped build over much of the last century?

On the face of it, the very notion seemed preposterous. Yet what if Marwan Talal had come to the conclusion
 
—however painful and however reluctantly
 
—that his nephew was no longer fit for the throne? What if King Abdullah’s unwillingness to embrace a purist, fundamentalist brand of Islam was undermining his uncle’s devotion to him? What if the queen’s refusal to wear a headscarf and her embrace of the most stylish Western fashions had become an odious offense to Marwan? What if the soul and spirit of this elderly prince, this deeply devoted Muslim, this descendant of the Prophet, had heard the call of the caliphate and could not turn away?

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, or even consider it, I realized it wasn’t out of the question. It had to be considered.
I
had to consider it.

Everything I knew about the man caused me to feel guilty for simply raising such a possibility, even in the privacy of my own heart, even here in the darkness of a Jordanian prison cell. Being a devoted Muslim wasn’t a crime. I didn’t share Marwan’s religious beliefs, no matter how hard he might try to convince me. Yet his fervency didn’t make him a member of ISIS, did it? Of course not. The very notion was ludicrous.

Yet it was also true that just because not all devoted Muslims were terrorists, that didn’t mean none of them were.

The king viewed Abu Khalif as a man who was perverting Islam. But didn’t Khalif see himself as a wholly committed Muslim? Of course he did. Didn’t every member of ISIS see himself as committed to the teachings of the Prophet, following his model, rebuilding his kingdom? Without a doubt. And didn’t they see the king and all his fellow Reformers as the ones who were perverting Islam, selling it out, undermining its very essence and potency? There was no question of this.

The issue for me wasn’t who was right. I wasn’t an Islamic theologian. I certainly wasn’t the arbiter of what was the true path of Islam. I was merely a reporter. But I was also being accused of a crime I hadn’t committed. The question I had to ask was who had the motive to betray the king and usher in the chaos and terror that ISIS had brought.

Viewed from this vantage point, Prince Marwan Talal had to be considered a prime suspect. Who knew more about the king’s movements, the details of the summit, the security arrangements, the points of vulnerability than he did? Who likely knew even the names and families of the fighter pilots flying “protection” overhead more than the elder statesman of the royal family? Who could possibly be better positioned not only to pull off a coup but to help provide theological legitimacy for Abu Khalif when the black flags of ISIS were raised over Amman than a direct descendant of the prophet
Muhammad himself? King Abdullah would never do such a thing. But was it possible that his dying uncle
 
—approaching eternity, preparing to see Allah face-to-face, with nothing left to lose and paradise to gain
 
—would?

I had to admit it was possible.

And then another thought hit me. Where exactly was Marwan Talal? Hadn’t he helped the king craft the very treaty that was supposed to have been signed? Hadn’t I been told that many of the secret negotiating sessions had taken place at Marwan’s own home? Then why hadn’t he been at the summit? Why had he mysteriously disappeared, just before the attacks, as if he knew they’d been coming all along?