The Last Days

  “Come on, let’s go, let’s go.”

  “It’s Greenwich Village, sir.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what the computer says—Regency Towers—penthouse suite.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No, sir. That’s what it says.”

  “Son of a …”

  Harris speed dialed Special Agent Neil Watts, his Joint Task Force commander.

  “You getting this?”

  “Just did.”

  “You think it’s legit.”

  “/ don’t know what to make of it”

  “No chance it’s a mistake?”

  “/ doubt it. Has anyone been there before?

  “Once. At the beginning. Looked secure so we never went back.”

  “Is there a security system?’

  “No. We checked.”

  Harris didn’t have time for recriminations. His mind raced through his options and his troops were waiting for their orders.

  “Just give us the word, sir.”

  “You got it, just as we war gamed. Nobody goes in till I give the order. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “Good. Let’s just hope it’s real.”

  Two minutes later, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was airborne. Forty-five seconds later, so was the NYPD’s SWAT Team Two. Twenty-four heavily armed men sliced through the icy cold air as four Blackhawk helicopters banked hard to the south.

  “You still got the signal?” Commander Watts asked as they approached the perimeter.

  “Strong and clear. Definitely the penthouse.”

  “Have they made a call?”

  “They’re checking voice mail.”

  “You’re serious?” 1 am.

  “Guess we should’ve left a message.”

  “Very funny, sir. I think they’ll get our message—loud and clear.”

  “What about ground units?”

  “On their way, sir. We’ve got two unmarked Bureau cars—four agents— sixty seconds out. Tactical Unit is inbound from Wall Street. ETA about two minutes. And you’ll have a hundred more cops there in less than five.”

  “Good. Cut off the streets in a four-block radius—and no sirens.”

  “Don’t worry. No sirens.”

  Watts assessed the situation. They had to be idiots to be there. Unless it

  was a trap. How many did they have with them? And how well armed were they?

  “Watts, it’s Scott Harris, how soon?”

  “My guys are ready, on the perimeter. Everyone else is moving into position.”

  “What’s the plan, Commander?”

  “We can surround the place or we can storm it right away. It’s your call.”

  “What do you recommend?” asked the FBI director.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Come on, Watts, give it to me. What’s your gut telling you?”

  Watts exhaled. He honestly didn’t know. He always preferred taking his time, gaining as much intel as possible, and planning a raid in precise detail. But this was different. If they were really dealing with suicide bombers, negotiations weren’t going to work. The minute the bad guys knew they were surrounded, anyone in the apartment—including the hostage, if there was a hostage—was as good as dead. Storming now would give Hostage Rescue Team maximum tactical surprise. But there were no guarantees.

  Another radio crackled to life.

  “Tactical is on the scene, sir. Permission to set up?”

  “Do it—just be careful,” said Watts, straining to see the building through high-powered binoculars from a half mile away—any closer and the roar of the choppers would give them away.

  “Come on, Watts, give me your best call,” ordered Harris.

  “I don’t know, sir, I…”

  “Watts, I’ve got the president on the other line.”

  Watts couldn’t see the building clearly enough. He’d be getting a live audio and video feed momentarily from agents sneaking up the stairwells. But they had fifteen flights to climb and that still might not give him enough information. He was out of time.

  ” Storm it,” Watts said, finally.

  He just hoped to God he was right.

  “Fine. Put your men on notice. I’ll talk to the president.”

  Every minute that ticked by felt like an hour. But it also brought more data. The first audio probe agents attached to the front door indicated a television was on somewhere in the penthouse suite. No voices. No footsteps. And still no outbound calls had been made. Snipers took up positions on the roofs of four adjacent buildings as plainclothes agents began evacuating lower floors of the Regency Towers, as quickly and carefully as possible.

  The president didn’t agonize over the choice. If the on-scene commander wanted to go in, he wouldn’t second-guess him. Everyone knew the stakes.

  Everyone had trained for this moment. And everyone knew the president would have to call Jon Bennett the minute the operation was over, regardless of how it turned out.

  Harris relayed the message to Watts. Watts passed it on to his men. It was a go.

  “OK, guys, on my mark.”

  Twenty-four commandos rechecked their weapons. The Blackhawks gained altitude—a thousand feet, two thousand, three thousand and climbing. When they reached five thousand feet, the lead pilot guided the rest of the choppers over the strike zone, then gave Watts the thumbs-up. Watts sucked in some air and clicked on his radio.

  “‘Fox Five, Fox Five—go, go, go!

  The Blackhawks dived for the roof. Coming in fast and high would minimize the chance of being heard. But it was still a risk. Snipers readied their weapons. SWAT Team One waited outside the penthouse doors. Medical teams huddled in the lobby, ready to triage any casualties. Each Blackhawk now leveled off, each on its own predesignated side of the building. Watts gave the signal.

  “Fire, fire, let’s go, let’s go.”

  Suddenly, all power in the building went down. FBI snipers unleashed a fusillade of tear gas and flash bombs. The night erupted with explosions. Windows shattered. The penthouse filled with smoke. The Hostage Rescue Team and SWAT Team Two fast roped from the Blackhawks. They burst in through the windows. SWAT Team One blew off the front door and stormed in from the hall. Thin red beams from laser sights crisscrossed through the noxious fog as the commandos hunted their prey.

  More agents rushed up the stairwells and elevators. Watts could hear the chaos from his command chopper, hovering over the roof. Harris demanded answers, but there were none to give. Not yet. The drama inside was still unfolding.

  Watts ordered the search lights on. Each chopper lit up the tower and trained their video cameras on the scene. Harris could now see what was happening—outside at least—and immediately ordered the images cross-linked via secure fiber-optic trunk lines to Langley and the White House Situation Room, where the president and his senior advisors were huddled and waiting.

  And then, suddenly, all went silent.

  Watts waited, his heart pounding. Harris held his breath. The silence was eerie. Then a radio crackled back to life.

  “Chopper One, this is Black Leader, over.”

  “Black Leader, go ahead.” “It’s done, sir—we’ve got her.” “You’ve got her?” “Affirmative.” “You surei”

  “Yes, sir—same as her picture.” “Is she alive?”

  “Yes, sir—unconscious—knocked out by the gas—but she should be OK.”

  “Oh my God.” Yes, sir.

  “And the others? How many were there?” A flash of static garbled the transmission. “How’s that, sir?”

  “I said the others—the terrorists—how many were there?” “None, sir.”

  “What’s that? Say again.” “None, sir—the place is empty—it’s just her.” .

  Bennett hung up the phone.

  It was three minutes after six Monday morning, Gibraltar time. He’d been up since just after four, and he still couldn’t believe it.

  She was safe—in stable condition at an
undisclosed hospital. Under the watchful eye of a dozen FBI agents. The lead story on every TV network. Frontpage news around the world again. But she was safe, and he’d just talked to her, and that was all that really mattered to him now.

  Bennett turned off the lamp beside the bed and closed his eyes. The whole thing was unbelievable. There’d been no kidnapping. No Al-Nakbah terror cell. His mom hadn’t even known the world was looking for her. She’d just wanted to get away for a while. Far away. Someplace where no one would call her. Where no one would bring over flowers. Where no one would stop by to “see how she was doing.”

  Ruth Bennett simply wanted to be alone. Where it was snowing and the trees glittered with Christmas lights and she could lock herself away and hide. Where she could ignore the news and turn off the phones and watch Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life and get lost in a sweet and simple—albeit imaginary—world of good friends and happy endings. So she’d hopped on a train—she’d always hated to fly, despite her late husband’s jet-setting—and headed to the Big Apple to spend a week at her son’s place.

  She had his spare key. He was out of the country. What harm could it do?

  The ATM card? Of course she’d used it. Back in Florida, she’d used most of the cash she had on her to pay for the train ticket to New York. She always paid cash. Once she got to Manhattan, she’d needed some cash to buy some milk and bread and few groceries. With Jon in Israel and Germany and Washington and back to Israel, the place had been empty for a month, after all. The cell phone? Yes, that was her. She’d found it on Christmas Day as she did some housecleaning and tried to keep her mind off being all alone. But Jon had given her his voice-mail number and password in case she found it. So she’d taken it with her, just in case. The two calls to her sister—why hadn’t she left messages? “Jon,” she’d said, “you know me. I hate answering machines. They’re so impersonal. I just figured I’d call back.”

  Why hadn ‘t she kept the cell phone on all the time? Just trying to conserve the battery. She didn’t have the charger. Hadn’t she gone out? Too cold. Hadn’t she read a paper or watched the news? Of course not. That’s exactly what she was trying to avoid. Hadn’t anyone seen her? She had no idea. “You know New Yorkers, Jon. I was one of them for twenty-five years. Nobody makes eye contact with strangers. And certainly not all bundled up in weather like that.”

  The whole thing was so ridiculous, so anticlimatic, thought Bennett. Yet it was also surreal. For days, the world had followed the hunt for the suicide bombers and the hunt for his mother hour by hour, hanging on every detail. But had they really overreacted? The police? The media? Had he? No, Bennett thought. No, they’d been reacting to the moment.

  The country was at Threat Level Red, for crying out loud—its highest alert status—and the threats were real. They still were. The whole world had seen the suicide bombing in Gaza live on TV. They were all watching wall-to-wall coverage of the civil war in the Holy Land. Everyone was following the hunt for suicide bombers headed to America. The gun battles on the borders. The plane forced down over Rochester. A body floating in the East River.

  With all that, how could the FBI, let alone the media, not react? How could they ignore the serious possibility that the mother of a senior aide to the president was kidnapped by terrorists? In the context of what they were all going through, everyone assumed the worst. It wasn’t an overreaction. This was life in the age of terror.

  Still, what was the world coming to? Was it now a crime to disconnect for a few days from voice mail and cell phones and pagers and Blackberries— or, God forbid, not use them at all? Was it a crime to use cash, not a credit card that told every cop exactly where you were, exactly what you were buying? Was taking a week to get away and hide to rest and read and think

  and turn off the news and not read the paper such cause for suspicion? Was going missing from the world for a few days now a federal offense?

  It felt that way. In part because evil was seeping into the windows, under the doors, through the vents. People sensed it, and they were scared. The country was on edge. Go missing for a few days and the world could change forever.

  Nadir Sarukhi Hashemi pulled off 1-95 North and headed for D.C.

  As he came up Route 395, he hit a backup of cars trying to cross the Fourteenth Street Bridge into the city. Every car was being stopped and searched by the police at the checkpoint a few hundred yards before the bridge, and every officer was armed with a submachine gun and a variety of instruments capable of detecting metal, radiation, biological and chemical toxins, and a full range of explosives.

  As Nadir pulled up to the orange cones, he was asked for his driver’s license and registration. He gave the officers all his rental papers and his fake Italian passport.

  “Mario Iabello, that you?” the officer asked, staring at the photo and Nadir’s face.

  “Afraid it is,” Nadir said with a slight Sicilian accent. “Of course, they say if you look as bad as your passport photo, you’re too ill to travel.”

  The officer wasn’t amused, especially not standing outside on a bone-chilling January afternoon. He gave the passport to another officer, who called the number into the FBI and DHS to check against their watch lists. At the same time, he asked “Mr. Iabello” if his fellow agents could check through the contents of his car. “Mr. Iabello” readily agreed. He had nothing to hide. All they would find was luggage and a trunkful of software. After a few more questions, and a thorough search, the lead officer wished “Mr. Iabello” a pleasant stay in the nation’s capital, and waved him through.

  Easing the gas pedal down, he moved forward across the bridge, silently thanking Allah. He couldn’t believe it. Again, he was in.

  It was nearly four o’clock Monday afternoon when Bennett woke again.

  He’d sleep all day if he could, and almost had. His physical and emotional systems were verging on overload again. But there was a peace process to attend to. The New York Times story speculating on covert peace talks had everyone rattled. The precise location of the “Mount of Olives” might still be a secret, but the code name wasn’t. Nor was their mission.

  The White House was getting a barrage of questions, as were the Israeli and Palestinian governments. This was complicated by new battles in the West Bank and Gaza, the bloodiest to date. Twenty-six Palestinian gunmen were killed overnight. Nine more on the DIA’s most wanted list were taken into U.S. custody. But five American Rangers were dead and sixteen were wounded. The White House was going to have to issue a statement soon. Bennett’s team had to get as much done as they could before their cover was completely blown.

  Bennett took a shower, got dressed, and popped his head out the door to ask one of the guys on his security detail where McCoy, Doron, and Sa’id were. They weren’t answering their phones. Even Galishnikov wasn’t answering his phone.

  “They’re all in the dining room, sir. Been there most of the day.” “Doing what?” Bennett asked with a yawn.

  “Yelling about a security fence, I guess. I don’t know for sure, Mr. Bennett. I’ve been here standing post since eight this morning.”

  Bennett and his four-man detail headed down to the dining room where he couldn’t have been greeted more warmly by the two prime ministers and McCoy. Mordechai and Galishnikov were sitting in on the session as well. Yes, they’d been duking it out all day over the security fence, but they’d shifted to talking about the prospects of a Medexco deal. Now they were ready for a break and grateful Bennett’s mom was safe and sound.

  “This calls for a celebration,” Galishnikov boomed, glad to be back with everyone after being asked to stay in the background a few days until the Doron—Sa’id relationship warmed up. “Let’s all go out for some dinner.”

  “Always thinking with your stomach, Dmitri,” quipped Sa’id. “That’s what I like about you.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Mordechai added. “And I know just the place— the Top of the World restaurant, they just opened it last fall on the Su
mmit of the Rock. Great food. Incredible view. You can take the cable cars up there. And I’m paying.”

  “Well, well, now we’re talking,” said Bennett, surprised by how relieved he felt to be doing anything but haggling over the peace plan tonight. “When do we leave?”

  As the men chatted for a few minutes, McCoy stepped to the door to consult with Tariq, overseeing all security operations. McCoy and Tariq, in turn, huddled with the Israeli Shin Bet team there to protect Doron. It only took a few moments. The unanimous answer was no. Not tonight. It would be impossible for them to secure the route, and the restaurant and the food for the two prime ministers in just a couple of hours. After all, among other

  things, they’d need to clear the place of all employees so no one would recognize Doron or Sa’id. Perhaps they could arrange things for the next night. But tonight was off.

  McCoy relayed the news to the group. Doron and Sa’id said Tuesday night would be fine. They could yell at each other all day, then cap off the night with a lovely dinner on top of the world. Mordechai asked if it would be a problem for him to take Bennett, McCoy, and Galishnikov up there tonight, just to check things out. Tariq thought about it for a moment, consulted with the others, and agreed it would be fine. He’d just need to send a protective detail with them.

  “So, Dr. Mordechai, that mean you’re paying both nights?” asked Bennett.

  The old man laughed.

  “In your dreams, Jonathan. You were almost a billionaire. Why don’t you pay tonight?”

  “Nyet, nyet, nyet,” Galishnikov cut in. “I will be a billionaire soon. The least I can do is buy dinner for a few ugly old friends, and for the lovely and beautiful Miss Erin.”

  They all laughed again. It was settled. Tariq said he’d have the cars ready in fifteen minutes. That was good enough for Bennett. He was ready for a night on the town. All he needed to do before dinner was stop off at a few gift shops along the way to pick up something for his mom.

  “You ‘ve got mail. “

  It was past midnight Tuesday morning in Tehran, but Mohammed Jibril was restless. He deleted most of the garbage in his in-box. It was a mishmash of different stuff from operatives and informants around the world. But none of it was what he was looking for. But just as he was about to log off, an instant message came in. It was from Harrod’s in London. Jibril’s stomach tightened.