Murder in Foggy Bottom (9 page)

Part Two

11

The Next Day
The J. Edgar Hoover Building

The multiagency meeting took place at two in the FBI’s seldom-used Strategic Information and Operations Center, a secure command center. Present were representatives of the FBI, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the CIA; the White House’s national security advisor, Tony Cammanati; Colonel Walter Barton, director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Division; the FAA’s second in command; and the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general in charge of liaison with city and state law enforcement. The rectangular table at which they sat was surrounded by classified computers and communications equipment.

Joe Harris, the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, chaired the meeting. “Let’s go around the room,” he said. “Give us what you have so far.”

NTSB’s Peter Mullin led with an update of his agency’s portion of the investigation. The wreckage of the three planes was being assembled in command centers near the involved airports. It occurred to everyone in the room that with the cause of the crashes now apparent, the safety agency’s activities were rendered academic. There would be no finding of design-induced or pilot error, nor would they look for evidence of metal fatigue, instrument malfunction, or a runaway aircraft-control surface. Missiles had brought down the planes. No doubt about that. Crash site evidence was conclusive.

Still, NTSB had to go through with much of its regular examination of the crashes as though any of those causes could have been at play. Mullin, well aware of what others were thinking, ended his brief presentation: “Even though we all know what caused those aircraft to crash, determining the attitude, altitude, and angle of attack will be useful in painting a more complete picture of what happened.”

“Peter is right,” Harris said. “We’re trying to pinpoint the exact location of each of the shooters by determining the angle of attack, as with an angle of entry.”

Justice’s liaison with local law enforcement spoke next.

“We’re getting feedback on an hourly basis from police departments and emergency crisis centers across the country,” he said. “New York has activated its center in the World Trade Center. They’re monitoring subways, water supplies, and sewage systems. All known terrorist and kook groups are under heightened surveillance. Hawaii, Chicago, and Los Angeles have gone to emergency status, too. The problem is, they’re all stretched thin because they don’t know what they’re guarding against.”

“The Pentagon’s liaison office with civilian emergency crisis authorities is swamped too,” Harris added.

“Known terrorist groups?” Cammanati asked Harris. “Still no one claiming credit?”

Joe Harris ran his hand over his shaved head and grimaced. “No. We’ve got our list of possibles. I believe they were sent over to you about an hour ago.”

“We got it,” the Justice Department representative said, “and we’re distributing it to state attorneys general. They’ll disseminate to local law enforcement in their states.”

“The president is concerned that local cops don’t start fingering individuals or groups just because they’re of a certain ethnic persuasion,” Cammanati said. “Racial or ethnic profiling big-time.”

“We’re worried about that, too,” Harris said, “but there’s not much we can do about it short of taking control of every police department in the country.”

Harris turned to the CIA representative at the meeting. “Want to tell us, Sam, what progress, if any, your people are making with foreign terrorist organizations?”

“It’s all input at this point,” he said. “We’ve been keeping tabs on the leading groups for years, but no intelligence has come through pointing to any single one as a prime suspect. We’re working every group we can, Sheik Abdel-Rahman’s followers, the mujahideen, the Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian groups, El Noure, Bachir Hannaqui, the FIS, Osama bin Laden. Nothing tangible yet.”

“We’ve got a major problem,” the FAA’s emissary said.

All eyes went to him.

“This is raising hell with the airlines. Passengers are canceling left and right, domestically and internationally. They’re facing—the airlines—an economic disaster of unprecedented proportions. And it would be even worse if these missile throwers had hit a heavy, a 747 or—”

“Can’t say I blame those passengers,” the assistant attorney general said. “I’m flying to New York later today on one of those puddle jumpers and I’m not looking forward to it.”

The FAA rep ignored him. “The point is, as long as there’s a nut out there with some sort of homemade rocket launcher—”

“Three nuts,” someone corrected.

“One nut, three nuts, thirty, it doesn’t make any difference. Those responsible had better be brought to justice before we have a crippled airline industry.”

NTSB’s Peter Mullin silently thought that the FAA spokesman was acting true to form, more concerned with the airline industry’s economic health than what his agency was charged with, keeping the skies safe for the millions of passengers who depended on it.

“The missiles,” the attendee from Justice said. “They were Russian? Chinese? Homemade?”

“Unofficially Russian,” Harris said. “Weapons men from Wright Patterson in Ohio and the Naval Air Warfare Center in California are on their way to work with the Pentagon’s weapons guys.”

The meeting accomplished little, as far as State’s Colonel Barton was concerned. No one seemed to have an inkling of who might have been behind the missile attacks, and judging from the comments made by the people in the room, there wasn’t any breakthrough on the horizon. Still, he reminded himself as he left with the others to return to his office at State, it had been only a day since the three planes fell from the sky, hardly time to build a case against anyone or any group without a voluntary, prideful confession.

The FBI’s Harris and National Security Advisor Cammanati stayed behind. When they were alone in the room, Harris pulled two pieces of paper from a briefcase at his feet and laid them in front of Cammanati. Cammanati picked up the first and read it over half-glasses.

“SA-7 Grail—9M32—Shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile—Entered Soviet service in 1966—Optical sight—IR seeker activated after sighting—Four feet long—20 pounds—Range 45 to 5,600 m—Speed, Mach 1.95—2.5 kg high-explosive fragmentation warhead, 5½ pounds.”

Cammanati laid the paper down and looked at Harris. “There’s no question about this?” he said.

Harris shook his head. “The Pentagon says the missile fragments from the New York site were large and in surprisingly readable shape.”

“What about the others—Boise, San Jose?”

“I got a preliminary report on the Idaho missile just before the meeting. Same batch.”

“Batch?”

“There’s a batch number on them. These guys weren’t too bright. If you’re going to use a gun, file the serial number off before you do. They didn’t bother eradicating the batch numbers.”

“Soviet-made,” Cammanati said to himself, standing and going to the far end of the room. He faced the wall for what seemed to Harris to be minutes, turned in a few seconds, slowly shook his head, and asked flatly, “Who else knows this?”

“Just those who need to. The CIA. They’ll have to be brought into it. The Soviet involvement. Same with State. We’re out of the picture when it involves a foreign power.”

Cammanati cocked his head. His expression said he knew better. The Federal Bureau of Investigation might be limited under its charter to investigating domestic crime, but that seldom stopped it from poking into international cases, to the chagrin of the CIA.

Harris didn’t comment further.

“I’m meeting with the president and some of his cabinet when I leave here,” Cammanati said. “I’ll take your notes with me. The other piece of paper—I didn’t read it.” He went to Harris and picked up the second sheet. On it was a list of names:

Aryan Nation
Christian Identity
CSA
The Freedom Alliance
Americans for Justice
Silent Brotherhood
The Jasper Project
Nazi National Alliance
Rally for America
The Ku Klux Klan

“Suspects?” Cammanati asked, shoving the two sheets into his briefcase.

“Right.”

“All domestic right-wing groups.”

“Mainly. Hate groups, homegrown.”

“You have information that points to one of them?”

“Information? No. But we do have an ongoing investigation that might result in useful info.”

“How soon?”

A shrug from Harris. “Probably not soon enough to please you and the president—or the FAA and the airlines.”

Cammanati displayed a rare smile. “Commerce marches on, Joe,” he said ruefully. “Tell me about this ongoing investigation.”

“No can do, at least not yet. Too much at risk.”

“Christ, how much more could be at risk than what we’ve got now? Talk to me, Joe. I’m here because the president of the United States wants answers.”

“And maybe a dead undercover agent, too?”

“You have someone undercover with some of these groups?”

Harris nodded.

“Which ones?”

“Compromise our agents, Tony, and you compromise what might be the answer to this. If the president wants a briefing, I’m sure Justice will oblige.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“That’s necessary.”

“I assume Justice approved these undercover operations.”

“Assuming anything in this town is a tricky exercise, but you know that as well as anyone. Things okay with you, Tony?”

“They were until yesterday. I’ll get back to you.”

Joe Harris went outside to Pennsylvania Avenue before returning to his office in the Hoover Building. He was a smoker other smokers envied, able to limit himself to five or six cigarettes a day, none on some days. He lit up and walked to the corner of E Street, where hundreds of tourists were lined up for the FBI tour, one of the most popular in Washington. Not long ago, the tour had been suspended after the Bureau received what it considered to be credible threats against the facility. But it resumed when security, already tight, was further beefed up, and thousands of visitors filed through every day, learning that G-man stands for Government Man, and that the FBI stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation but also that the
F
stands for Fidelity, the
B
for Bravery, and the
I
for Integrity. The tour always ended with a dazzling firearms demonstration by a Bureau sharpshooter. Always a bull’s-eye. A shame things didn’t work that smoothly in real life.

Harris agreed with most Washingtonians, at least those who cared about such things, that the buff-colored, concrete-aggregate building named after J. Edgar Hoover ranked high on the city’s list of ugly edifices, a prime example of the school of architecture known as New Brutalism.

He snuffed the cigarette out, dropped it in a trash container on the corner, and cast a final glance at the tourists. Everyone in Washington, DC, was hot in summer, but there was no hotter-looking creature on earth than a tourist waiting in line for a tour.

He welcomed the blast of air-conditioning as he entered the building and went to his office, where his secretary told him that the director wished to see him. “Where have you been?” she asked.

“Outside for a smoke.”

“It sounds urgent. Why don’t you just quit?”

“This place?” He laughed.

“You know what I mean.”

FBI Director Russell Templeton was in his spacious office with top aides when Harris walked in. Harris liked working for Templeton better than he had for his predecessor, a much older man who, as far as Harris felt, was more of a political hack than a dedicated law enforcement officer worthy of leading the Bureau. What he especially admired was Templeton’s willingness to stand up to the attorney general, whom Harris lumped in with the former FBI director as but another of the previous administration’s misguided appointments.

“How’d the meeting go?” Templeton asked once Harris had joined the others in a circle of chairs around the director’s desk.

“All right. Nothing new. I gave Tony Cammanati the information about the missiles.”

“What did he say?”

Harris ran his hand over his head, on which stubble was reappearing. “He’s taking it to the president who, no surprise, wants this solved yesterday. I mentioned to him—general terms only—the ongoing investigation into right-wing hate groups.” Harris turned to the special agent to his right: “Scope?”

The agent looked to Templeton for a signal that he could respond. Instead, the director gave the answer. “Scope is due to report in tonight.” He raised his eyebrows at the agent to Harris’s right, a silent call for affirmation.

“That’s right, sir.”

“How long has it been since he last gave a report?” Harris asked.

“A week,” the agent replied in a pinched voice, leaning to his left to come closer to Harris. He was a small man with a narrow face and disproportionately large ears. “The Elephant Man,” they called him when comparing notes over a beer or on the golf course. He was a Bureau “handler,” responsible for training and maintaining special agents who worked underground, infiltrating groups of interest to the Bureau because of possible criminal activity. “He reports on a weekly basis.” He sounded defensive, as though Harris were challenging the reporting schedule.

“Tonight,” Harris said.

The Elephant Man nodded.

“When do we bring the other agencies into the loop on the missiles?” Harris asked.

“That’s not our call,” Templeton said. “I had a confirmation from the attorney general that we’re to release nothing about the missiles until directed to by her. She’ll get the word from the president.”

Harris turned to his right again. “Has Scope reported anything in previous contacts that indicates he might know something about these missiles and whose hands they fell into?”

“No.”

Harris didn’t believe him.

Templeton stood and stretched, straining the buttons on his blue button-down shirt. “I assume that by tomorrow, we’ll be getting together with the Company’s people and State. Naturally, we’ll cooperate fully with whatever agency the president dictates, but that doesn’t include Scope’s activities. Unless, of course, we’re ordered to from up top. We’ll meet here at seven tomorrow morning.”