She was right, of course. I wasn’t trained for surveillance. I wasn’t supposed to be doing what everyone else was doing. For now, my job was to monitor the video feeds while keeping my head down and staying out of trouble.
Looking back at the app on my phone, I tapped the feed coming from Yael’s glasses and studied the young Muslim more carefully. Now I knew Yael was right. The woman was pretending to read a magazine but she wasn’t really reading. She was scanning the faces of every passenger in the lounge, and she was texting something. But what? And to whom?
She wasn’t alone. That much was clear.
89
By the time we boarded, the team had identified no fewer than four ISIS operatives shadowing Al-Siddiq.
Dutch was sitting in first class and was among the first to board. That would allow him to study each passenger coming onto the plane after him and give us the opportunity to see each of them via the live images he was webcasting from the camera in his glasses. It would also give him the chance to “accidentally” bump into Al-Siddiq when the Saudi professor was boarding, enabling Dutch to slip a tiny tracking beacon into his pocket or his carry-on suitcase. Once we were back on the ground, we would be able to follow Al-Siddiq wherever he went.
Yael and I had been assigned seats in the very back of the plane—in the last row, actually, near the galley and the bathrooms—so we were among the last to board. This was a problem. Everyone else got to study us as we moved down the aisle. And since the release of Abu Khalif’s fatwa, I was growing increasingly anxious, though I fought hard not to show it. Still, my heart was pounding. My palms were perspiring. I suddenly felt incredibly awkward and conspicuous in the garb of a Gulf Arab.
I immediately noticed the young woman with the hijab. She was sitting in first class, to my left as I boarded, in a window seat two rows behind Dutch, and she was eyeing me suspiciously, making me even more nervous. Five rows behind her were two large, burly Arab men sitting in aisle seats across from each other. They, too, had been identified by the team as likely ISIS operatives, and their cold, blank, soulless eyes sent chills down my spine as I passed them.
Two rows behind them, on my left, I spotted Al-Siddiq. I’d been studying photographs of him for days, and in the terminal I’d seen him from afar or via the video stream on my app. But to see him up close, face-to-face, made my blood run cold. This was the theological and ideological mentor to the man who’d killed my family.
It was disorienting how normal he looked. Unlike Khalif, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Charles Manson, Al-Siddiq looked more like a distinguished professor of English literature than a genocidal End Times psychopath. He had a somewhat oval face, a closely trimmed mustache and beard, a long, patrician nose, and bifocals in rather dated gold wire frames. Dressed in a light-blue oxford button-down shirt, a tweed blazer, tan slacks, and loafers, he was also sitting in an aisle seat, and it struck me that he was doing the exact opposite of what I was doing. He, a fanatic Muslim, was trying to look like a Westerner while I, a brand-new Christian, was trying to pass myself off as a devout Muslim. We were trying to fool each other and anyone else who was watching, trying not to be noticed until our missions were accomplished.
That said, Al-Siddiq didn’t look any more comfortable in his disguise than I was in mine. He had a John le Carré spy thriller in his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. Rather, he was nervously fidgeting with the air-conditioning system and mopping his brow with a handkerchief.
As I moved past him, he looked at me and our eyes locked for a moment. I forced a smile and nodded to him, then looked away. But as I did, I saw his eyes narrow and his brow furrow, and I suddenly realized that I was acting more like an American tourist than a fellow Sunni Muslim from the Gulf. Now I was truly worried. Had he recognized me? Why had I been so foolish? Why had I let myself make eye contact? Worse, everyone else on the team who was riveted to the images on the app on their phones had seen the mistake I’d just made, along with Al-Siddiq’s uncomfortable reaction.
Still, there was nothing I could do about it now. I had to keep moving and keep praying. Coming up on my right, three rows into the economy cabin, was a handsome young Arab man that I surmised was in his midthirties. This was the fourth ISIS operative the team had identified, and I was careful not to look in his direction at all as I passed him. I already had his face tattooed in my mind’s eye, and it was he who struck me as the most dangerous of all. He had dark, brooding eyes and a large, bushy black beard. His features suggested he was a Saudi. He was in excellent physical shape, and he looked smarter and far more cunning than the two heavies sitting several rows ahead. Mustafa had alerted us all by text message just before we’d boarded that this was likely the leader of the ISIS team shadowing Al-Siddiq. But he’d also reminded us that there could be other ISIS operatives on the flight that had not been identified, including one or more of the flight attendants.
As per the plan, Yael took her seat by the window in the final row on the right. I took my seat on the aisle. That made me more exposed to anyone coming back to use the bathroom, raising the risk that I could be seen and identified. But we didn’t have a choice. A Muslim woman traveling with her husband, especially one wearing an abaya, would never be allowed to have the aisle seat. So I buckled up and said a silent prayer, and soon we were rumbling down the runway and up into the treacherous winter storm that was descending not just on Istanbul but on much of the northern Mediterranean region.
Twice during the short, bumpy flight, Al-Siddiq made his way down the aisle to the restroom. Both times he eyed me strangely, and as he did, my stress was off the charts. The first time, I buried my head in Asharq Al-Awsat, the London-based Arab daily newspaper. The second time, about thirty minutes later, the young Saudi followed him to the restroom. That time I pretended I was reading Al-Hayat, another Arab daily, as he stood directly at my side.
My imagination ran wild with what atrocities the ISIS killer beside me had committed and what atrocities he was preparing to commit next. Compounding those fears, Al-Siddiq was spending an unusually long time in the restroom. Why? Was the turbulence causing him airsickness? Was he ill for some other reason? Were his own anxieties causing him stomach problems? Or was he suspicious? Had the run-in with Dutch made him paranoid? Was he searching his clothing? Had he found the tracking beacon? Maybe he hadn’t found it the first time, but could that be why he was back again?
As Al-Siddiq came out of the restroom the second time and prepared to pass the young Saudi, the plane was suddenly jolted by turbulence. Both men stumbled in the aisle. Al-Siddiq grabbed the headrest in front of me to stabilize himself. And in that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the young Saudi slip a small note into the outside pocket of Al-Siddiq’s blazer. It happened so fast, so smoothly, so professionally that for a few moments I doubted that I’d actually seen it. But as the young man stepped into the restroom and Al-Siddiq worked his way back up the aisle and took his seat, I saw him look around nervously to see if anyone was watching him. He even looked back down the aisle toward the rear of the plane. I made sure I was carefully hidden behind the newspaper. When I looked again, I saw him pull the note out of his pocket, read it, and then quickly put it away.
I immediately leaned over and whispered what I’d seen to Yael.
“So contact’s been made,” she whispered back. “Now let’s see where they go.”
90
ANTALYA, TURKEY
No sooner had we landed in Antalya than it became clear we weren’t staying long.
Yael immediately received a call from Trotsky, informing her that someone had purchased a ticket for Al-Siddiq from Antalya to the Turkish city of Gaziantep on SunExpress Airlines. Flight 7646 would depart at 6:45 a.m. local time and was expected to land precisely at 8:00. What’s more, Trotsky indicated that there were newly purchased tickets to the same city in the names of four additional passengers who had been on our flight from Istanbul.
This was a significant break. We had video
and still images of the four ISIS operatives, but until now we didn’t have their names. To be sure, the names on the passenger manifest were unlikely to be their real ones. But they could be cross-checked against the Mossad’s databases as well as with Jordanian, Egyptian, UAE, and Saudi intelligence to put together a travel profile. We would soon know what cities they had been to in the last twelve months using these particular aliases and who their travel partners had been.
“We’re on it,” Trotsky told Yael.
As soon as Yael briefed us, Dutch called Mustafa. The Turkish station chief had arrived in Antalya with his team on a Learjet a mere twenty minutes before us. They were waiting for us with six rented sedans and SUVs, ready for us to follow Al-Siddiq and his handlers wherever they went. But now, with Al-Siddiq’s revised itinerary, Dutch issued new orders. Three of Mustafa’s men and one woman needed to purchase tickets and take the SunExpress flight to Gaziantep. That would put fresh eyes and new faces on the plane to watch Al-Siddiq’s every move. The rest of us, Dutch said, needed to rush to the Learjet. Together we would head to Gaziantep with all haste.
Gaziantep was the last major Turkish city before the border with Syria.
It was almost eighty miles—close to a two-hour drive—south to Aleppo. Nearly every foreign fighter who wanted to join ISIS or the al-Nusra Front or one of the other rebel or jihadist groups battling for control of Syria found his or her way to Gaziantep. There they would hole up in a cheap hotel, make contact with a smuggler, and pay big money for someone to get them safely across the border.
Why the Turkish government was letting this happen was another matter altogether. The fact that a member of NATO—a longtime and stalwart ally of the United States—was now allowing bloodthirsty terrorists (aka “foreign fighters”) to crisscross its territory and its borders absolutely infuriated me. But the geopolitics of the situation was another matter for another time.
As our Learjet touched down at Gaziantep Oğuzeli International Airport just before sunrise, it was easy to imagine that Al-Siddiq was, in fact, about to take such a journey into Syria and very possibly into Aleppo. Several members of Yael’s team were now actively considering the theory that Khalif was hiding out in Aleppo. That would keep him inside the caliphate’s territory, near his forces, in direct contact with his commanders throughout Syria, but not in Raqqa, where so many ISIS members were being targeted and killed in drone strikes.
If this were the case, Al-Siddiq wouldn’t have to wait for days in a cheap hotel. He already had his contacts. He already had four ISIS operatives at his side. He had a deep and intimate and enduring friendship with Abu Khalif. Indeed, he was the father of Khalif’s first wife. He had almost certainly been personally invited on this journey by Khalif. There seemed to be no other reason for Al-Siddiq to be traveling to Gaziantep when he hadn’t traveled outside of Saudi Arabia for at least four years. Whether he was specifically heading toward Aleppo or not, I couldn’t say. I still leaned toward Khalif being hunkered down in Turkey. But either way, something big was in motion. I could feel it. I just hoped nothing I did would blow it.
By the time Al-Siddiq and his entourage landed, we were all in position and ready for any move he might make. There was a fresh team inside the airport, ready to jump on a new connecting flight if Al-Siddiq and his men surprised us again. The rest of us, however, were positioned in various vehicles on or near the airport grounds. I was behind the wheel of a dark-blue Toyota RAV4 with Yael at my side. We were idling at a gas station on Highway D850, not far from the entrance to the airport parking lot. I’d changed into blue jeans, a black sweater, and my leather jacket, though I still had the traditional Muslim skullcap on. Yael, meanwhile, had changed out of the abaya and was wearing gray slacks, a maroon blouse, and a black fleece, though she was also wearing a headscarf. We now looked a bit more like Turkish Muslims than ones from the Gulf—all the better, we hoped, to blend in to our surroundings.
Suddenly Yael’s satphone buzzed with a series of text messages from Dutch.
Al-Siddiq exiting airport.
With three men.
Woman has broken off from group.
Have separate team following her.
Al-Siddiq and group walking to parking lot.
Getting into van.
White.
VW Caravelle.
Pulling out.
Heading north.
I pulled onto the highway, gunning the engine and putting us a good distance ahead of the approaching VW van. I knew Dutch and the two agents with him would be tailing Al-Siddiq in a silver Audi. Mustafa and three more members of his team would bring up the rear in a black Ford Explorer.
Tracking system working, Dutch texted. Signal five by five.
That was a relief, since Al-Siddiq was heading into the heart of the largest city in Turkey’s eastern provinces, a metropolis of some 1.5 million people. Without the tracker, the chance of losing the Caravelle in a dense, highly congested city few of us had any experience in—and in which Yael and I had no experience—was very high. Even with the tracker we needed to stay fairly close. The system had a range of up to five miles, and was accurate to within one hundred meters, but if Al-Siddiq or his men were to realize we were trailing them, they might just be good enough to escape and disappear into a city whose layout they knew well and we did not.
Suddenly Dutch’s Audi surged past the Caravelle and then past me. Dutch instructed me to slow down a bit and let the Caravelle pass. I did as I was told—subtly, gradually—and a few minutes later the VW did roar past. A minute after that, the Explorer passed us too, and now Yael and I were the last in line, a good three to four miles behind the Caravelle and at least five to six miles behind the Audi, even as other cars on this busy highway wove in and out around us.
After another ten minutes, Dutch texted to say he was exiting off the main highway onto O-54. He wanted to give Al-Siddiq and his men a wide berth and no cause for concern.
The Caravelle did not exit. It stayed on D850 and thus so did Mustafa and I.
A moment later, however, Dutch told Mustafa to stop for gas at the next service station. Yael and I would then be tasked with following the Caravelle while Dutch found a road to intercept us and reenter the mix.
As we headed into the city, the morning rush hour was building. I had barely gotten through the last few yellow lights to keep up with Al-Siddiq and was worried he or the men with him would soon realize we were following them.
“We need someone to relieve us,” I told Yael, who immediately agreed and texted Dutch.
A moment later, a motorcycle roared past us, followed by a message from Dutch ordering us to drop back.
“Is that guy with us?” I asked. “I didn’t know we had someone on a motorcycle.”
“Neither did I,” Yael said. “Let me check.”
She sent a text, and a few seconds later the phone buzzed in her hands. “You’re not going to believe it,” she said, reading the message.
“What?” I asked, coming to a stop at a red light.
“That’s Pritchard,” she said.
“Paul Pritchard?”
“Yeah.”
“From Dubai?”
“The very same.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Good question,” she said. “Guess we’re about to find out.”
91
GAZIANTEP, TURKEY
I never would have imagined Gaziantep had a Holiday Inn.
But it did. It was right downtown, it was cheap—a mere thirty-five dollars a night—and it had plenty of vacancies, and that’s where Al-Siddiq and the ISIS thugs stayed, in a suite with an adjoining room on either side.
Dutch and Mustafa rented the rooms directly above and directly below the suite and the two additional rooms. In these, they proceeded to attach listening devices onto the respective floors and ceilings, hoping to eavesdrop on private conversations and gain useful intelligence. Other members of the team took rooms on the same floor as Al-Siddiq’s suite, sp
ecifically at either end near the elevators and stairwells. They discreetly set up small video cameras and motion sensors with silent alarms that would vibrate when any of the ISIS team left their suite or when anyone entered or exited the hallway. At the same time, they hacked into the hotel’s Wi-Fi system and the local wireless phone network, hoping to intercept any e-mails or text messages.
We also rented a suite on the ground floor, which became our war room. Yael and I and two other agents—one male and one female—set up a bank of laptop computers, digital recording equipment, and various other devices allowing us to monitor everything that was happening in the rooms upstairs. We were far enough away that we could hold meetings and make calls back to the team at the Ramat David base without any risk of being overheard by the terrorists.
With the surveillance operation set up, Dutch, Mustafa, Yael, and I gathered in the war room with Paul Pritchard. I was eager to hear why Pritchard was there. So was Yael. And we were about to find out. The former CIA operative brought news. He explained that two of the three men now watching over Al-Siddiq were operatives who had personally worked for Abu Khalif in the past and were likely still closely connected to him.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“They were former residents of Abu Dhabi,” Pritchard replied. “The Baqouba brothers recruited them into ISIS a few years ago, and Prince bin Zayed and his men have been tracking them ever since.”
He handed us dossiers on both men, and I was struck by the level of detail. There were photos of the men and their parents and siblings along with fairly extensive bios and lists of their known associates. Perhaps most interestingly, there were transcripts of intercepted e-mail conversations between the men and Ahmed Baqouba from when they were first being recruited and didn’t know they were being monitored.