The Third Target (29 page)

A moment later, a canister dropped into the room from somewhere above the ceiling. It was emitting something that looked like tear gas, but it quickly became apparent that this was not tear gas. As I watched the men behind the glass, I suddenly realized it was sarin gas. Khalif was going to murder these men just to prove to me that ISIS really did have the Syrian weapons.

Before long the prison guards and the warden were on the ground. They were writhing in pain. They were foaming at the mouth, convulsing violently. The chamber they were in was soundproof, so I couldn’t hear their screaming. But when I tried to look away, Ramzy grabbed my gas mask and smashed it against the window, forcing me
to watch these men suffer a grisly, painful, horrible death. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I was there to witness these murders, to be able to tell the world what had happened and how. This was my job. This was why I was here. As much as I didn’t want it to be true, I now had proof that ISIS had chemical weapons, and I had to be a faithful witness. Who else would do it? These men deserved it. And the world had to know the truth.

I stood there, my bloodless face pressed to the window, for what seemed like hours, horrified as I watched these men die a slow, agonizing, excruciatingly painful death. And I must admit that as much as I didn’t want any of them to perish, for me they couldn’t die soon enough. That seemed a terribly selfish thought, but I couldn’t bear to watch them grasp for life any longer.

Eventually it ended. Only then did Ramzy let me leave the observation room and step back into the larger laboratory. I repeatedly felt like I was going to be sick, but I think the fear of vomiting in my mask and suffocating as a result kept down all that was trying to force its way through my esophagus.

Finally Ramzy took me by the arm and led me back through the air lock. Only then was I permitted to remove my mask. Everyone else removed theirs as well.

No one said a thing, not even Khalif. But perhaps that was because Ramzy was not finished. He led the group to a large warehouse next door. To my astonishment, the rectangular building was filled with artillery shells and missile warheads, most of which were neatly and carefully stacked in crates bearing Syrian military markings, sitting on pallets. Some of the pallets were being loaded onto nondescript trucks.

“This is just a small portion of the chemical weapons and delivery systems we captured near Aleppo,” Ramzy told me. “These are awaiting the emir’s orders. The rest are being pre-positioned to strategic locations, even as we speak.”

When Ramzy was finished speaking, Khalif turned to me and, standing less than a foot from my face, gave me a simple order.

“Write
this
story, Mr. Collins,” he said. “Write that we’re coming after the infidels. Write that we have the motive. We have the means. All we’re waiting for now is the opportunity, and I am supremely confident it will show itself soon. Write that, and then I will decide what happens to you.”

AMMAN, JORDAN

My flight from Erbīl landed in Amman.

I still couldn’t believe they had let me go.

I had tried to sleep on the flight but couldn’t even close my eyes. Every time I did, my thoughts were filled with the most ghastly images. The flight attendants had served me a snack, but I couldn’t eat. They’d offered me water and soda, but I couldn’t drink. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t make them stop.

I powered up my phone and checked texts and e-mails. I saw none that looked urgent. But as we taxied to the terminal, I sent three messages of my own. The first was to my mom, letting her know that whatever else she might read, I was safely out of Iraq and out of the hands of ISIS. The second was to Allen MacDonald, essentially saying the same thing and asking him to coordinate a conference call between him, me, and the chief counsel for the
Times
. I was ready to go to the FBI, to do anything I could to put these monsters behind bars, but I wanted to know if my actions had put me in any legal jeopardy. The third text was to my brother, saying I’d just landed back in Amman and asking if he would come pick me up at the airport as soon as possible.

Then I sent a fourth, to Yael.

Grabbing my things from the overhead bin, I made my way off the plane as I scanned the latest headlines on my phone. My two articles
 
—the first on Abu Khalif and his escape from Abu Ghraib and the butchery of a prominent Iraqi government official, the second on the murder of Abu Ghraib’s warden and several staff members during an ISIS demonstration of its sarin gas stockpiles
 
—were the lead stories on the
Times
website.

The other major story on the front page was by Alex Brunnell, the
Times
bureau chief in Jerusalem. Its headline read,
Peace Deal ‘Close but Not Yet Done’ between Israelis and Palestinians, Says Senior U.S. Official
.

The lead story in the
Washington Post
was by their chief White House correspondent:
President Taylor Announces Surprise Summit on Mideast Peace
.

A
Haaretz
headline out of Jerusalem announced,
Israelis Roll out Red Carpet, Prepare to Welcome Air Force One
.

Meanwhile a
Jerusalem Post
headline was more negative:
Right-Wing Cabinet Members Furious with Lavi over Rumors of Secret Negotiations with Palestinians
.

A tweet from Al Arabiya claimed,
Sources close to PA President Mansour say they are “cautiously optimistic” a deal for a Palestinian state could be closed this week.

Finally, the
Jordan Times
was reporting,
Aides to King Say He Is ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ about Peace Process, Open to Attending Peace Summit in Jerusalem, if Needed
.

Clearly events were moving rapidly. I had missed my window for an exclusive on the peace deal, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to be out of Iraq, alive and safe and free. The question was for how long? For the moment, I was useful to Khalif and Ramzy. But that calculus could change any minute. What’s more, I was terrified for Matt and his family. They had to get out of Jordan as fast as possible.

As I entered the terminal, I was struck by the much-heavier-than-
usual presence of armed Jordanian soldiers and border police. Each passenger coming off the flight was thoroughly checked for weapons and explosives. All luggage was put through X-ray machines, subjected to bomb-sniffing dogs, and then hand-searched. In addition, Jordanian officials were asking questions of all passengers to determine why they had been in Iraq and why they were coming to Jordan. The whole process took more than an hour. But when it was finally over and I headed through the main hall outside to get a taxi, I suddenly ran into Matt, who greeted me with a relieved bear hug.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking me over.

“I’m fine,” I said, truly glad to see him again but wishing he wasn’t making a scene. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

It wasn’t true, of course. I wasn’t fine. But I couldn’t say anything more, not in public.

“We were worried sick,” Matt said. “Annie and I thought we’d never see you again. And don’t even ask about Mom.”

“But you let her know I’m out, right?” I asked, guilty for all I was putting her through.

“Of course,” he said. “As soon as I got your text that you were here, I called her right away. She said she’d just gotten a note from you as well.”

“How is she?”

“She’s pretty shaken up. I mean, she’s been reading all of your articles, and those were hard enough, but she can read between the lines. She knows it was even worse than you wrote.”

“It was,” I told him. “Worse than you can imagine.”

We headed straight out of the airport to his car. As we got in, he asked me how in the world I had gotten back to Jordan in one piece.

“It was bizarre,” I told him. “Late last night, Jamal Ramzy and some soldiers came down to the basement where I was chained up. They blindfolded me and carried me upstairs. I was sure this was it, that they were going to behead me right then. Instead, they threw
me, bound, into the trunk of a car and started driving. After fifteen or twenty minutes, they stopped the car, pulled me out of the trunk, and removed the blindfold and shackles. It was night, but there was a full moon. So I could see that we were in the middle of nowhere. That’s when I thought they were going to shoot me. But instead, Ramzy handed me the keys to the car and a map. He told me to follow the map out of the province of Nineveh until I got to the border of Kurdistan. Then he told me to explain to the
peshmerga
that I was a journalist who had been covering the war and needed to get to Erbīl to catch a flight to Amman.”

“They just gave you the keys?” he asked.

“I know. It was crazy.”

“So then what?”

“Ramzy and his men got into an SUV that had apparently been following us, and they drove off into the night.”

“Just leaving you standing there.”

“Yeah.”

“And it worked? The Kurds let you in?”

“I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

“Why do you think they let you go?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I said as we worked our way through the neighborhoods of Amman. “I think they changed their focus. Yes, Khalif and Ramzy would have loved to send my head to the president of the United States via FedEx. But I think they decided they liked the WMD story out there. Maybe they think it makes them look tough. I don’t know. But I don’t think they’re content just having the story published. They want me out there doing radio and television shows, telling people what I saw, that they really do have chemical weapons.”

“It’s so sickening.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I told him. “I’ve never seen anything like Abu Khalif. He rarely shows emotion. He talks in a monotone. But you should have seen the sheer twisted joy on his face when
he sawed off Ismail Tikriti’s head and when he was watching that sarin gas kill the warden and those three guards. It was sick, Matt, worse than any horror film you could possibly imagine.”

“You didn’t write any of that in your articles, of course,” he noted. “I could tell you were trying to be very careful with your words, and I figured he was watching you write.”

“It was the most horrible experience of my life.”

“Thank God you’re out.”

“Thanks again for picking me up. It really means a lot to me.”

“Of course. What are brothers for? I’m just glad it’s over.”

“But it’s not.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not over,” I said. “I think ISIS is going to strike soon.”

“In Israel or back in the States?” Matt asked.

“Actually, I think he’s going to strike here.”

Matt looked stunned. “Here, where? Jordan? Amman?”

“Yes.”

“You think Jordan is the third target?”

“I’m starting to, yes.”

“Why? What do you mean? I’ve seen all the stuff you’ve written in the last few days. Khalif told you point-blank he was gunning for Israel and the U.S. If I were him, I’d be planning to hit the peace summit in Jerusalem, wouldn’t you? It’s one-stop shopping.”

“I have no doubt Khalif would love to strike the summit in Jerusalem, but I don’t think he’d ever get that far,” I said. “There’s too much security. I think he’s coming here first. He’s just in Mosul. That’s practically right down the road.”

“But why here?” Matt asked. “Isn’t Khalif Jordanian, from Zarqā?”

“Absolutely, and that’s all the more reason,” I said. “He hates the king. He believes His Majesty is an infidel. He said as much when I interviewed him.”

“Sure, but he gave a laundry list of leaders he wants to kill,” Matt
replied. “Don’t you think he was just talking trash, listing everyone he could?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Several reasons,” I said as Matt wove through traffic. “First, yes, he gave quite a hit list. But look who’s not on it
 
—the prime minister of Lebanon, the emirs in the Gulf, the mullahs in Iran.”

“So what?”

“So he wasn’t just giving me a laundry list,” I explained. “I think he was giving me his list of priorities in order.”

“Okay, fine, but that still proves my point,” Matt replied. “He said specifically he’s going to attack the U.S. and Israel with suicide bombers and chemical weapons. That was the first thing he mentioned.”

With that, Matt pulled into his neighborhood and we were at his apartment building, a modest complex in a rather run-down section on the outer eastern edges of Amman. The street was crowded, but we soon found a parking space around the corner.

“Go back and reread the transcript,” I said when he had turned off the engine. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this earlier. Khalif told me exactly what he was going to do.”

Matt pulled out his smartphone and brought up the
Times
website. A moment later, he had the transcript.

“Okay, now find the section where Khalif vows to capture and behead the American and Israeli leaders,” I said.

Matt quickly scanned through the interview and found the section.

“Got it.”

“Good, now read exactly what he says there.”

So Matt did.

“KHALIF: We aim to capture and behead the president of the United States. . . . We aim to assassinate the prime
minister of Israel. In due course, we will unleash a wave of suicide bombers and other attacks against the Great Satan and the Little Satan and rid the world of these cancerous tumors.

“See?” Matt said. “He couldn’t be clearer
 
—he’s coming after the U.S. and Israel.”

“I know, I know, but keep reading,” I insisted.

“KHALIF: But our highest priorities are to rid the region of apostate Arab leaders who have betrayed the Muslim people and the Prophet himself. We will target the leaders of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia, as well as Syria and Iraq
 
—we will find them, kill them, and topple their governments one by one.”

“There it is,” I said. “Khalif says his highest priority is taking out apostate Arab leaders who have betrayed the Muslim people and the Prophet.”

“He’s coming after the king of Jordan,” Matt said.

“Exactly.”

“So you think Iraq and Syria were ISIS’s first two targets, and Jordan is the third?” he asked.

“I think so,” I said. “And what if it is? Imagine if ISIS attacks Amman with chemical weapons, kills the king, destroys most of the government, and establishes an Islamic state right on the border of Israel?”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Especially if ISIS ends up in control of all of Iraq and Syria too.”

We sat for a moment, trying to make sense of all that. Then Matt said, “I have to admit, I never really thought much about Jordan or its importance until we came here for my sabbatical.”

“You’re not alone,” I said.

“But it’s actually quite nice here,” Matt continued. “I mean, the king seems pretty moderate. And the country is peaceful, friendly, stable. They’ve got a peace treaty with Israel. They’re probably the best Arab ally America has.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Plus Jordan is the quiet cornerstone of any peace deal with the Israelis and Palestinians.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it,” I said. “The president’s entire strategic concept of persuading Israel to give up the West Bank for a final peace deal with the Palestinians is predicated on the Hashemite Kingdom being just what you said
 
—a stable and secure friend and ally on the east side of the Jordan River. But what if the king falls? What if jihadists take over? The entire peace process goes up in smoke, right?”

“I guess so. Hadn’t really thought about it that way.”

“Sure. A strong Jordan is Israel’s buffer against any ground invasion from the east. If the jihadists take Amman, Israel’s entire security architecture falls apart. If the kingdom falls and ISIS takes over, the whole West Bank could become radicalized and go up in flames. Suddenly Israel isn’t facing a jihadi storm way out in the western provinces of Iraq. Suddenly they’ve got ISIS forces on the outskirts of Jerusalem. At that point, the U.S. and Israel would be facing a radical Islamic caliphate encompassing all of Syria, all of Jordan, most if not all of Iraq, and very likely allied with Iran, which could soon become a nuclear power.”