The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel (4 page)

4

The story instantly blew up the Internet.

As I scanned my notifications screen, I could watch in real time as reporters and various Middle East experts and analysts started retweeting my news flashes. Their readers then retweeted, others retweeted them again, and the story spread at an exponential rate. The feedback effect was stunning.

Preternaturally, Matt Drudge picked up the scent almost immediately. He and his colleagues quickly cobbled together my tweets into an article of sorts and made this the lead story on his site
 
—complete with his trademark red siren
 
—with a simple yet stunning tabloid headline:
POTUS Missing in Amman.

Within minutes, Drudge’s version of my story became the biggest trending topic on Twitter worldwide. Reporters began instant-messaging me questions, probing for more details. Rather than respond to them each directly, I started tweeting out the photos I’d just taken over Amman and providing tidbits of detail and context as best I could. I couldn’t possibly report all that I’d seen and heard over the past few hours. Not 140 characters at a time. But as we shot across the eastern edges of the capital, flying low and fast, barely above the rooftops, I came to the horrifying realization that most
if not all of the other reporters who had been covering the peace summit were now dead or dying. Most of the TV crews and satellite trucks providing coverage from the palace had been wiped out in the attacks. Across the world, live streams had been cut off midtransmission. Anchors back in their home studios had been left hanging, unsure at first why their feeds had been cut. What images had gotten out to the world? Any? How much on-the-ground reporting from Amman was actually taking place?

A few minutes later we were on approach to a large air force base located in Marka, a suburb northeast of Amman. I recognized the base immediately. It was named after the first King Abdullah and served as the general headquarters of the Royal Jordanian Air Force and the home base of three squadrons of attack aircraft, including advanced F-16 Fighting Falcons and older Northrop F-5s.

As we touched down outside the main air command center, I put my phone down. I could see that the base was heavily fortified by tanks, armored personnel carriers, and well-armed soldiers. I saw sharpshooters strategically positioned on numerous roofs as well. But I refrained from snapping any photos. There were lines I didn’t dare cross.

When the side door opened, the special forces operators around me jumped out and took up positions around the chopper. They knew the king was a target, and they were taking no chances.

I unfastened my seat belt and then caught a glimpse of Prince Feisal bin al-Hussein. He was flanked by an enormous security detail, and they were moving toward us rapidly. The prince was not a big man, but he was taller than I’d imagined, well built, a classic professional soldier, with closely cropped black hair graying a bit at the temples. He sported a small mustache and a somber expression and wore fatigues and combat boots, not his formal dress uniform. As deputy supreme commander of the Jordanian armed forces, he was the highest ranking officer after only His Majesty himself. He
glanced at me somewhat coldly and then at his brother. It was clear he wasn’t coming to bring greetings but only to get the king quickly and safely inside the command center.

Abdullah climbed out of the cockpit and removed the chem-bio suit. Following his lead, I removed mine as the king returned his brother’s salute.

“Your family is safe?” the king asked.

The prince nodded, then quickly assured his brother that the queen, the crown prince, and the king’s other children were safe as well.

“And the president?” His Majesty asked.

“Wait till we’re inside,” the prince replied, anxious to get the king safely out of any potential line of fire and apparently not prepared to discuss the president’s situation in the open.

The king started moving toward the door, then turned suddenly and said, “Feisal, where are my manners? There’s someone you need to meet.”

“Yes, Mr. Collins from the
Times
 
—the pleasure’s mine,” the prince replied without emotion or any apparent real interest. He clearly knew who I was and had been aware I was coming, but it was also clear in his eyes that he didn’t like the notion of my presence at this place at this time one bit.

Even so, he reached out and gave me a firm handshake, but he had no intention of standing on the tarmac making small talk. Again he urged His Majesty to come inside, and the king agreed. With the security detail flanking us, we moved briskly into the lobby of the GHQ
 
—general headquarters
 
—which was filled with more soldiers on full alert, then headed down several flights of stairs until we passed through a vault-like door to a bunker that stank of stale cigarettes. As we entered, the head of the prince’s detail prepared to close the vault behind us, but Feisal held up his hand and motioned him to wait a moment. Then he pulled his brother aside and whispered something in Arabic I couldn’t hear.

“No,” the king said. “Collins stays with me.”

“But, Your Majesty,” Feisal protested, “given the circumstances, I must insist that
 
—”

But the king would have none of it. “He stays
 
—now lock the doors and initiate your protocols. We are at war, gentlemen. I want a full briefing on current status.”

A spark of something flashed in the prince’s eyes. Anger? Resentment? I couldn’t quite place it, but I was close. Nevertheless, he had just been given a direct order by his commander in chief, and like a dutiful soldier he followed it.

All nonessential personnel were quickly ushered out. I stayed.

As the vault door closed, the king briefly introduced me to the elite few who remained inside the bunker with us. Lieutenant General Abdul Jum’a, head of the army, and Major General Ibrahim al-Mufti, head of the air force, were both likely in their midfifties. Colonel Yusef Sharif, a senior advisor to and chief spokesman for the king, looked like he was about my age, maybe early or midforties. Dr. Mohammed Hammami, an older gentleman, perhaps seventy or thereabouts, served as His Majesty’s personal physician. The remaining four men were a young military aide who looked to be no more than twenty-five and three armed members of the security detail. As we shook hands, the king excused himself, stepping into an adjacent washroom.

“Have a seat, Mr. Collins,” Dr. Hammami said. “Let me take a look at that arm.”

That caught me a bit off guard. Nothing had been said in my presence about my injuries, but the king must have radioed ahead. I did as I was told; as I sat, I noticed for the first time my blood-drenched sleeve. The doctor asked me to take off my shirt, but the pain was too much to raise my left arm over my head. Eventually, with no small amount of difficulty and discomfort, I both unbuttoned and removed the shirt only to reveal the queen’s now-crimson scarf-turned-tourniquet. The doctor opened his bag, withdrew a pair
of scissors, rubbing alcohol, and some gauze. He cut away the scarf and examined my injuries.

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Collins,” he said after a moment. “This isn’t nearly as bad as I’d been expecting.”

That was comforting . . . I guess.

He asked me a few questions for his chart. “Full name?”

“James Bradley Collins.”

“Date of birth?”

“May 3, 1975.”

“Height and weight?”

“Six foot one, 175 pounds, give or take.”

“In kilos?”

“Sorry
 
—no idea.”

“Do you know your blood type?”

“A-positive, I’m pretty sure.”

“Any history of heart problems or other chronic medical issues?”

“No.”

“Any allergies?”

“None.”

“Are you taking any medications?”

“Not currently.”

“Are you a smoker?”

“No.”

“Good. Any history of alcohol or drug use?”

“How much time do you have?” I asked.

He just looked at me, didn’t find me clever at all, and scribbled a few notes. “Past surgeries?”

“Broke my leg in ROTC at the end of my freshman year. They had to do three different surgeries to get it right. And that, my friend, was the end of my career in the American military.”

Dr. Hammami wrote it down but didn’t seem to care, particularly. Questions finished, he proceeded to clean my wound.

But Sharif, the king’s advisor and spokesman, picked right up on what I had said. “You were in ROTC?” he asked.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Which branch?”

“Army.”

“Did you really want to serve in the U.S. military?”

“Actually, I wasn’t sure. A bunch of my friends enlisted. I’d grown up hunting with my grandfather in the forests of Maine. I loved guns. I loved the outdoors. I thought maybe I’d wind up as a reporter for the
Army Times
.”

“And then you broke your leg.”

“And wound up in a series of hospitals for the next few months, so yeah, that was pretty much a wasted year.”

I can’t tell you how much at that moment I craved a drink. But I was fairly sure that in a room of reasonably devout Muslims, I wasn’t going to find anything suitable, so I did my best to focus on something
 
—anything
 
—else.

I looked around the room. It certainly wasn’t the White House Situation Room with its state-of-the-art, high-tech wizardry. Nor was this the handsomely appointed official reception room at the Al-Hummar Palace, where I first met the king. It looked more like a conference room at a Holiday Inn or Ramada somewhere in the American Midwest: simple, spare, and without any frills. There was a large, old oak table
 
—scuffed up a bit and covered in newspapers and used coffee mugs
 
—in the center of the room, surrounded by twelve executive chairs that looked a little worse for wear. Overhead hung several harsh fluorescent lights. On the wall to my left was a large map of the greater Middle East and North Africa, covered in plastic and marked with notes and diagrams written with erasable pens of various colors. On the far wall was a large map of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and several kilometers of each of its immediate neighbors. Directly across from it on the wall behind me was
yet another large map, this one a detailed street map of the city of Amman and its surrounding suburbs, showing all major landmarks and military facilities, including the air base we were at now. These maps were also covered in plastic and even more heavily marked up, showing the current known locations of rebel forces and the movement of Jordanian military response teams. On the fourth wall, to my right, just over the door through which we had entered, were mounted five large television monitors. They were all muted but displayed live feeds from Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, CNN, and two local Jordanian stations.

The young military aide quickly cleared away the newspapers and coffee mugs and emptied the ashtrays, then replaced them with Dell laptops and thick binders for the king, the prince, and the others. I turned my attention to the TV monitors. For the first time I could see the images the rest of the world was seeing.

It was immediately apparent I’d been wrong. Many more images of the attacks had gotten out than I’d expected, and they were both mesmerizing and brutally hard to watch. All the networks were replaying footage of the missile strike and kamikaze attack on the palace and the ensuing scenes of horrific chaos and carnage from a variety of angles and vantage points. It was one thing to have seen black-and-white images from the security command post underneath the Al-Hummar Palace, as Yael and I had while the attacks were unfolding. But these chilling images showed far more of the magnitude of the destruction
 
—and in living color.

The generals took seats in front of the bank of phones on the table and went right back to work, presumably getting updates from their men in the field. Out of the corner of my eye, I felt Prince Feisal’s glare, though I disciplined myself not to look over at him. Not just yet. He clearly didn’t want me there, and I didn’t fault him. He had a rebellion to suppress. He knew full well there was a mole somewhere in the system, maybe several of them, who had known enough of
the details of the summit to set into motion this devilish attack. He didn’t know whom to trust any more than his older brother did. He certainly didn’t want to trust a journalist, a foreigner least of all. I had to believe the very notion of having a reporter
 
—a non-Jordanian, non-Arab, non-Muslim, non-Hashemite reporter
 
—in his command bunker while he was orchestrating a massive counterassault against the forces of ISIS and an extensive search and rescue to find the president of the United States must have seemed nonsensical and unbearable.

It made me wonder why, in fact, the king would keep me around. I certainly didn’t have the security clearance to be in the war room at such a time as this. Surely the king, who still hadn’t come back into the room, was taking a moment to consider his brother’s counsel. It was one thing to show me a measure of kindness and hospitality given the role I’d just played in saving his life. But now the king had serious work to do. There was no reason whatsoever to keep me around.