The Third Target (40 page)

“I’m out of ammunition,” Yael said. “Does anyone have more?”

“There’s a full mag in my weapon,” I replied.

“Where’s that?” she asked.

“Here,” the crown prince said from the backseat. He picked up my machine gun from the floor, removed the magazine, and handed it to Yael.

“We need to get off this road,” the queen insisted, her voice quaking. “It’s not safe.”

I glanced back and saw the fear in her eyes.

“No, we have to keep going,” the king replied.

“But we’re out in the open,” she countered. “The rebels know we’re coming. We’re sitting ducks. Let’s just pull off. Let’s hide somewhere until the army comes to get us.”

The queen had a point, but it was not my place to say. I just kept driving. We needed a decision, and fast. In the distance, I could see the interchange approaching. I desperately wanted to know what the king was going to say. Would he accept his wife’s counsel, or were we going to try to blow through this checkpoint? That, it seemed, was a suicide mission. And I wasn’t ready to die.

A second later the issue was moot. Rising over a ridge off to our right were two Apache helicopter gunships coming low and fast. Yael noticed them first and pointed them out to the rest of us. Now we were all riveted on them, and one question loomed over everything, though no one spoke it aloud: which side were they on?

They very well could be loyal to the king. His brother, after all, was the head of the air force, and we had no doubts about his loyalty. But there were no guarantees. Who were these pilots? How carefully had they been vetted? Did their families have ties to ISIS or al-Hirak? A few hours ago, such a thought would have seemed ridiculous. But that was before a Jordanian air force pilot had attacked the palace.

The checkpoint was fast approaching. So were the Apaches.

“What do you want me to do, Your Majesty?” I asked, easing imperceptibly off the gas to give us a bit more time.

“There’s one more exit before the checkpoint,” Yael said, her window down, her weapon at the ready. “Let’s take it. The queen is right, sir. We need to get off this road before it’s too late.”

“No,” the king said. “Keep moving.”

“But, Your Majesty
 
—”

“Salim and Daniel need a hospital,” he insisted. “They need massive blood transfusions. We can’t stop to save ourselves. We need to think of them first.”

“We’re not trying to be selfish,” the queen interjected. “But if we die at this checkpoint, they die too. If we live, even for another hour, we might have a chance at saving them.”

We were quickly running out of time. The checkpoint was dead ahead. So was the exit. If I pulled off, we might all have a shot. What was the king going to do, kill me for disobeying him? I glanced back at the queen. She looked away. She clearly didn’t want to disrespect her husband, but it was just as clear she was not happy. I looked at the crown prince, but he was fixed on the Apaches. They
had banked to their left and then swooped around and were now coming straight at us from behind.

This was it. At more than a hundred miles an hour, I had only seconds to decide. And then in my mirror I saw the 30mm open up.

“They’re shooting at us!”
I shouted.

I saw a flash. I knew what it was. I’d seen it a hundred times or more, from Fallujah to Kabul. Someone had just fired an RPG. I could see the contrail streaking down the highway behind us. It was coming straight for us. The queen screamed. I hit the gas and swerved to the right just in time. The RPG knocked off my side mirror and sliced past. It hadn’t killed us.

But the next one might.

That was it, I decided. I was taking the exit.

But at that moment I saw another flash, this one from the lead Apache. He too had just fired, and this wasn’t a mere RPG. This was a heat-seeking Hellfire missile. There was no swerving or avoiding it. It was coming straight for us, and there was nothing we could do about it. We were about to die in a ball of fire. It was all over.

But to my relief, the missile didn’t slam into us. Instead, we watched it strike one of the Humvees at the checkpoint ahead. In the blink of an eye, the entire checkpoint was obliterated in a giant explosion. Stunned
 
—mesmerized by the fireball in front of me
 
—I forgot to exit. I just kept driving. Then we were crashing through the burning remains of the checkpoint, racing through the interchange, and getting on Route 35, bound for the airport.

None of us cheered. We were relieved beyond words, but we all knew this was not of our doing. Forces beyond us were keeping us alive and clearing the way for us. And it wasn’t just the chopper pilots.

The Apaches banked hard and came up beside us. One after another, they kept launching Hellfire missiles, clearing checkpoints and allowing us to keep moving undeterred. By now I was topping
120 miles per hour, but there was no way we were going to get to the airport before the president took off. The queen and crown prince had climbed into the back of the SUV. They had found a first aid kit and were doing the best they could to care for Mansour and Lavi. Yael watched for new threats while the king worked the satphone again. He was getting updates from his brother and from other generals. He was organizing a massive counterstrike on the ISIS jihadists.

Soon we saw one squadron after another of Jordanian F-16s and F-15s streaking across the sky. I had to believe they were headed to Amman to bomb the palace and crush the rebellion. I couldn’t imagine how difficult a decision that must have been for the king, but I also knew he had no choice. He was the last of the Hashemite monarchs, and he seemed determined not to go down like those before him.

Somewhere along the way, I had ceased to be a journalist. I was no mere observer of history; I was a participant. I could no longer claim to be objective. Yes, this king had his flaws, and so did his government. No, Jordan wasn’t a Jeffersonian democracy. But His Majesty had emerged in recent years as the region’s leading Arab Reformer. Where once the presidents of Iraq and Afghanistan had looked like promising Reformers
 
—battling hard against the Radicals
 
—they had not proven themselves up to the task. This king was different, and my respect for him had shot up enormously in recent days.

Maybe my brother was right. Maybe the prophecies indicated Jordan was going to take a seriously dark turn in the last days. Maybe that was coming up fast. But I hoped not. I didn’t want the Hashemite Kingdom to fall
 
—not yet, not now. I wanted this king to crush his enemies and help fulfill his destiny as a peacemaker in the region. I wanted him to succeed in making Jordan a model of tolerance and modernity.

As we sped along Highway 35, against all odds, strangely enough
I actually began to feel a sense of hope again. We were still alive. We were safe for now. And I had the strongest sense that the king was going to prevail. He had been blindsided, to be sure. But he had enormous personal courage. He had an army ready to fight back, and he had the Americans and the Israelis ready to fight with him.

But when we arrived at the airport, those feelings instantly evaporated.

As I surveyed the devastation around us, all hope disappeared.

The gorgeous new multimillion-dollar terminal was a smoking crater. The roads and runways were pockmarked with the remains of mortars and artillery shells that apparently had been fired not long before we arrived. Jumbo jets were on fire. Dead and dying bodies lay everywhere. Fuel depots were ablaze. The stench of burning jet fuel was overwhelming.

Air Force One was gone. The president had left without us.

The Apaches above us went to work. They joined other Royal Air Force helicopter gunships and fighter jets in finishing off the remains of the rebel forces, some of which were still fighting at the southern perimeter of the airfield. But the Jordanian army was nowhere to be seen.

To be precise, there was evidence that the army had been here but apparently had retreated. Why?

All around us were burning tanks and armored personnel carriers. We could see slain Jordanian soldiers everywhere. There were bodies of many ISIS terrorists, too. But why wasn’t the Royal Army in full offensive mode? This wasn’t the Iraqi army. The Jordanians
were highly trained, highly motivated, well-led troops. Why had they fallen back?

None of us said a word, not even the king. We were all aghast. It took us several minutes to absorb the magnitude of the disaster.

It was Yael who first realized what had happened.

“They used the sarin,” she said.

There was dead silence in the SUV. No one wanted to believe her. Surely it wasn’t possible.

“The mortars and artillery shells that were fired here must have all been filled with it,” she continued.

I wanted to believe she was wrong. But as I slowly drove through the fire and smoke, it became clear that the Jordanian troops who had fought here had not died of bullet or shrapnel wounds. As we got a closer look at the bodies
 
—hundreds of them
 
—we could see the vacant eyes and twisted, contorted faces. I had seen such horrors before. I had seen them in Mosul just days earlier. This was the work of Abu Khalif.

There were no words. The queen wept quietly in the back. The crown prince was frozen, his hand over his mouth. The king said nothing either. He just stared at the carnage in disbelief.

Finally he pointed to a half-destroyed hangar off to our left. I drove there immediately at his command. Under what meager cover it provided, I pulled to a stop. We all knew what we had to do. The crown prince handed us each a backpack. We all put on the chem-bio suits, the gloves, and the gas masks as quickly as we could. Then Yael and I helped the queen and the prince put protective suits on Lavi and Mansour, desperately hoping to shield them from whatever trace of the deadly chemical was still in the air.

As we did, I could hear the roar of choppers. I turned and saw two military helicopters approaching from the east. They were preparing to land not far from us.

Just then, two Jordanian F-15s shot right over our heads. A moment later, four more streaked past.

The king’s satellite phone rang. He answered it but mostly listened, saying only an occasional “Yes” or “I understand,” and then hung up.

“Who was that?” I asked as I finished zipping up President Mansour’s chem-bio suit.

“My brother,” the king said as if in a daze.

“And?”

“He sent the choppers,” he replied, turning to his wife and son. “The first one is for you both, to get you to safety.”

The queen and crown prince appeared too numb to speak.

Then the king turned to Yael and me. “The other is to take Salim and Daniel to Jerusalem,” he told us. “You two will go with them. IDF medical crews are on standby. Daniel will go to Hadassah. Salim will be transferred to a hospital in Ramallah.”

We watched as the two Black Hawks landed and teams of heavily armed soldiers in full protective suits poured out of both. The king held his wife briefly. Then he hugged his eldest son and walked them both to the first chopper. I watched as the door was shut and the Black Hawk lifted off while the king waved good-bye to his family.

Then I realized there wasn’t a chopper for the monarch. I turned to him and asked, “But, sir, what about you?”

“I’m not leaving,” the king said. “My brother is on his way. He’s bringing a team of specialists.”

“You can’t stay here, Your Majesty,” I said. “We need to get you someplace secure.”

“No,” he said. “I need to figure out exactly what happened here and why my men failed to stop it.”

“And then?”

“Then we’re going to unleash the wrath of Jordan on ISIS,” he told me.

“But, sir, James is right
 
—it’s not safe here,” Yael protested. “Please, we need to get you out of here.”

“No,” the king said. “This is my home. And these are my people.
We’re not going to surrender. We’re going to fight back. These demons are not going to win. I promise you that.”

The king gave us no opportunity for rebuttal. He immediately opened the back of the SUV and with the help of his troops began carrying President Mansour to the second chopper. Yael and I worked with several other soldiers to get Prime Minister Lavi into the remaining Black Hawk as well.

Just then the king’s satphone rang again. As he answered it, Yael climbed into the Black Hawk and sat next to her prime minister, checking his vital signs. I was about to get in myself when I saw a strange expression on the king’s face. It started off as bewilderment. It turned into horror.

“What is it, Your Majesty?” I asked.

“That was the Pentagon,” he said. “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

“What did he say?”

“He wants to know where President Taylor is,” he replied.

“He’s not on Air Force One?”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently, when the ISIS attack on the airport began, the president called the pilot of Air Force One and ordered him to get off the ground and into safe airspace until my forces retook the airport and it was safe to come back and get him.”

I felt a pain growing in my stomach. “So where was he going to go in the meantime?”

“He didn’t say,” the king replied. “He just said he and the agents with him would take shelter and hunker down until the coast was clear. Then he’d order Air Force One to come back for them all.”

“And?”

“They haven’t heard from him since. The chairman says they’ve been calling every number they have for the president and for every member of his detail. They can’t get through to any of them.”

“So where is the president?”

“I have no idea.”

I just stared at the king. I had no clue what to say.

Then Yael told me to get into the chopper. They needed to get off the ground and get Lavi and Mansour to safety right away. She was right, of course. But I couldn’t go.

“Go without me,” I told her.

“Are you crazy?” she shot back.

“No, I’m staying.”

“Oh no, you’re not. Come on.”

“There’s no time to argue, Yael. Get this bird off the ground.”

Shocked and angry, she turned to the king. “Your Majesty, order him to get on this chopper.”

But I shook my head. “I’m staying with you, sir. This is my president. I need to follow this story, wherever it goes and whatever it takes.”

The king looked into my eyes but didn’t say a word. Then he waved to the pilot, signaling for him to take off. Before Yael could respond, a soldier slammed the side door and the Black Hawk lifted off the ground. It quickly gained altitude and headed west toward Jerusalem with two fighter jets flying escort on either side.

As I stood there and watched them fade into the distance, I became physically ill. I felt hot bile rising in my throat. My body was soaked with sweat. I was suffocating in this suit. The president was missing. Mansour and Lavi were critically injured. Jordan was in flames. ISIS was on the move. And for the life of me, I could see no way out.

Then I remembered Jamal Ramzy’s cell phone. I ran back to the Suburban and grabbed it off the dashboard.

“What’s this?” the king asked as I put it in his hand.

“A lead, Your Majesty,” I replied. “Something you can use. It’s Jamal Ramzy’s phone.”

Then a thought struck me.

I pulled out my own phone and dialed Allen’s number in Washington. It rang twice before someone answered.

It was not Allen.

“Hello, Allen MacDonald’s office. Can I help you?”

“Where’s Allen?” I demanded.

“He’s out for the moment. Who’s calling, please?”

“It’s J. B. Collins calling from Amman with an urgent exclusive. I need Allen right away.”

“Hold, please.”

The wait that followed felt like an eternity, and the longer it took, the more irritated I became. I was right in the middle of the story of the decade
 
—maybe the century
 
—and Allen was nowhere to be found.

Finally I heard my editor’s voice on the line. “J. B., is that you? What on earth is going on over there?”

“What’s going on is all hell is breaking loose. Prime Minister Lavi and President Mansour are injured and en route to hospitals via helicopter. The king is furious but resolute and is swearing vengeance against ISIS. But never mind that. Take this down and get it out on the wire, on Twitter, everywhere. The lead is
 
—”

“What?” he asked frantically. “Say again. I can hardly hear you.”

“I said, take this down. The president of the United States . . . is missing.”