I can’t explain it really, but all my hard-bitten professional cynicism began to melt away for a few moments. This was really happening. This was no longer talk. This was no longer a “backgrounder briefing” about how the parties were going to talk about the ground rules for the discussions about the negotiations. This was the real thing. The Israelis and Palestinians were really going to sign a final, comprehensive peace treaty.
And people were excited. Not just the students but the palace staff and hundreds of other government workers who apparently had been invited to see it all unfold.
I had no idea exactly how it was all going to play out. Nor did anyone else. But this was history in the making, and I was here at the center of it all, and I couldn’t really believe it. I can’t say I felt pride at that moment. To the contrary, I felt humbled. My grandfather would have loved this, and he would have done an amazing job covering it all. But I was just a kid from Bar Harbor, Maine. Who was I to be a witness to a moment in history as profound as the birth of the Palestinian State? Who was I to become a friend and confidant to presidents and prime ministers, much less a king? I was nobody. But at that moment I felt like God was looking down at me with pleasure. I didn’t deserve it. I still wasn’t even sure I really believed it. But God did seem to have saved my life countless times and was now opening these doors and seemed to be putting me exactly where he wanted me. And I have to say I felt grateful. I couldn’t escape the feeling this was a special moment. I only wished Omar and Abdel could have been here to see it too.
Sa’id walked me to my seat at the end of a riser situated immediately behind the main stage, the signing table, and the speaker’s podium, then took a seat directly behind me.
It was an excellent spot. From this vantage point, while I wouldn’t be able to see the faces of the various leaders as they addressed the crowd and the cameras, I still had a commanding view of the environment. I could see what the king would be seeing and how the crowd reacted. It was certainly a much better position than any of my colleagues in the media enjoyed. Plus, seated near me in this VIP section were a number of Jordanian ministers, members of Parliament, judges, and generals, along with their many aides. In part, I’m sure, this was simply because there was no other place to put these dignitaries. The courtyard wasn’t small, but there were limitations. I suspected, however, that the royals’ media advisors wanted to project TV images around the world of Jordan’s government fully behind this treaty, literally as well as figuratively.
The one person I didn’t see was Prince Marwan. I wanted to congratulate him on all his hard work. He had a great deal to be proud of, and I wanted to get his thoughts for my next story.
Scanning the crowd, I found the media pool in the back of the large courtyard. They were at least half a football field away, and there were a lot of them, but I was fairly sure I could pick out Alex Brunnell, our Jerusalem bureau chief, standing with the Times White House correspondent and chief diplomatic correspondent. At Allen’s direction, the Gray Lady was covering this event from all angles, and rightly so.
I realized at that moment that I had absolutely no idea what else was happening on the planet. Surely there were floods and droughts, elections and resignations, weddings and babies being born, and every manner of news being made—“all the news that’s fit to print, and quite a bit that isn’t,” as my colleagues and I liked to joke—but I’d had neither the time nor the capacity to pay attention to any of it. Since entering Homs, I hadn’t been able to think about anything but the ISIS threat. But now, finally, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I pulled out my grandfather’s pocket watch. It was two minutes before two o’clock. Almost showtime. And then Yael Katzir sidled up beside me.
“Is that seat taken?” she asked, pointing to the empty chair to my left.
“As a matter of fact it isn’t,” I replied, standing and pretending to doff my cap. “Would you care to join me, young lady?”
“I would be honored, kind sir. Thank you.”
We sat down and she scanned the crowd.
“Impressive,” she said.
“It is.”
“Maybe we’re overreacting a little,” she added.
“Maybe,” I said. “I was half-expecting to see you next in a chem-bio suit.”
“It’s in the trunk.” She smiled, but I couldn’t quite tell if she was kidding.
I looked up at the F-16s flying their missions, though they were way out in the distance, not close enough for the roar of their jet engines to disrupt the moment. I looked at the soldiers and Secret Service agents on the roof and tried to pick out the plainclothes agents intermingled in the crowds. Generally, it wasn’t hard. Everyone else was smiling. The security guys were not. Plus they had those little squiggly earpieces, of course, a dead giveaway. Still, I was very glad they were there.
Five minutes passed, then ten, but there was still no sign yet of the principals or the prince. Aides continued scurrying around on the platform, making last-minute tweaks. They were setting out fountain pens, pouring glasses of water, checking the microphones, and resetting audio levels. A newcomer to state events would naturally assume all these things would have been taken care of already, but I knew from years of covering such functions how many details there were to be handled, and how rarely such events began on time.
Still, the schoolkids were clearly becoming a bit restless. They had already been sitting there for the better part of an hour, and their chairs couldn’t be the most comfortable in the world.
At least it was December, so the sun wasn’t blazing down on us all. Rather, there was a blanket of dark-gray clouds overhead and a slight breeze that made it chillier than some might have wanted but also made the flags flutter perfectly for the cameras.
“Everything okay?” I said to Sa’id.
“Of course,” he said. “But you know how these things go. I’m sure they’ll be out soon.”
“Where is Prince Marwan?” I asked. “And where will he be sitting?”
“I don’t know where he is—that’s a good question,” Sa’id replied. “He should be here by now. He must be conferring with His Majesty. He’ll be sitting directly behind the king. Should I radio my men to find him?”
“No, no, they’ve got enough to do. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
I turned to Yael. “So I guess we have a little time to kill,” I said, trying to come up with some small talk that didn’t sound completely ridiculous.
“We try not to say ‘kill’ in this part of the world,” she replied. “But yes, I guess we do. Got something on your mind?”
I certainly did. I wanted to ask her out, but I was hesitant to go too quickly. “Well, I’m realizing I hardly know you.”
“That’s true.”
“Where were you born?”
“Up in the Galilee.”
“Where?”
“It’s a little town called Rosh Pinna. It’s up in the hills. It’s adorable. You should come sometime.”
“Sounds fun. Do you still have family there?”
“My parents are there. They run a restaurant—amazing—best food in Israel. And a stunning view, especially at night.”
“Even better. Do you have siblings?”
“I had an older brother.”
“Had?”
“He was in a special forces unit. Killed in Lebanon in ’06.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, what can you do?”
We were quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “How about you?”
“What about me?”
“All I know about you is what Ari told me.”
“Well, you already know about my parents,” I said. “My mom is in Bar Harbor, where I grew up. My dad is gone. But I didn’t know him much anyway. He left the family when I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, what can you do?”
“Have you had any contact with your brother since Istanbul? He’s here in Amman, isn’t
he?”
“He was, but he left with his family when Abu Khalif threatened to use them against me.”
“So you talked with him?”
“Yeah, we actually had a nice visit. It had been a while.”
“And Laura?”
“Oh, well, let’s not go there.”
“No longer the marrying type?”
“Couldn’t we talk about something else?”
“Like what, sarin gas?”
“That would be less painful.”
“Ouch.”
“Exactly.”
She paused for a moment, then asked, “Did she leave you?”
“No, but she cheated on me. A lot. So I left her.”
“I’m sorry.”
It was quiet again for a bit, and then Yael said, “Let’s pick something happier to talk about.”
“That would be good. Thanks.”
Just then the spokesman for the Royal Court went up to the main podium, tapped on the windscreens for the two microphones. The band stopped playing. Cameras started clicking, and the aide cleared his throat.
“This is the two-minute warning,” he said. “I repeat, the ceremony will begin in two minutes.”
A newfound surge of electricity rippled through the crowd, myself included.
It was time to get this thing done.
57
I checked my pocket watch—it was 2:28 p.m.
I pulled my digital recorder out of my pocket, double-checked the batteries, put it back, and then grabbed my notepad and scribbled down a few observations and a few questions I wanted to ask President Mansour and Prince Marwan after the ceremony.
Again I scanned the crowd. People were actually leaning forward now in anticipation. I noticed a side door open off to my right—the same door Sa’id and I had come through earlier—and a half-dozen agents from the Shin Bet, the Israeli secret service, and another half-dozen agents from President Taylor’s protective detail entered the courtyard and took up their positions. I saw one of the agents say something into his wrist-mounted radio and watched to see other agents react. One by one, they seemed to stand up a bit straighter. They were on their toes, ready to prevent anything from going wrong. But what really could?
The king was right. This was essentially a hermetically sealed environment. If there was going to be an attack, it might happen in Baghdad, but it wasn’t going to be here. Every person in the courtyard had already been carefully, meticulously screened. The only people who had weapons were Sa’id’s team, responsible for the security of the palace and its grounds, and the most trusted agents protecting each of the leaders. What’s more, the Jordanian army and police forces were on full alert. Several thousand troops were patrolling the streets of Amman. Security checkpoints were everywhere. The police were stopping cars and trucks and vehicles of all sorts, checking IDs, asking questions, on the lookout for anything suspicious. I told myself to take deep, long breaths and relax.
The words of FDR echoed through my brain: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
“Yael,” I said after a moment.
“Yes?”
“If you’re free this evening, would you like to have dinner with me? You could ask me more painful questions and I could spend the evening dodging them and trying not to look pathetic.”
“That’s quite an offer.”
“I thought so.”
She looked at me and smiled. “Sure. That would be nice.”
“Eight o’clock?”
“Better make it nine,” she said. “The PM has an early state dinner with the other principals and then flies out around eight. I should be clear by nine.”
“Then it’s a date?”
“It is. Thank you, Mr. Collins.”
“My pleasure, Miss Katzir.”
I started breathing again. But my heart was racing.
It was ridiculous. I think I was actually blushing. The back of my neck felt hot.
I looked away. It was showtime. I needed to focus. But for the first time in a long time, I actually felt happy. It was a strange sensation, almost surreal, in fact, but nice. I needed a little happiness in my life just now.
I looked up into the cloudy gray sky. A flock of birds flew past and the breeze picked up. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been given any prepared remarks for any of the leaders, typically standard operating procedure for an event like this, and I suspected this could be accounting for the delay. They were all probably making last-minute tweaks to their remarks. Then again, I would hear them soon enough. Did I really need a sneak preview?
At that moment, however, two Jordanian F-16s caught my eye. They were flying their combat air patrol, keeping any stray aircraft—Jordanian or otherwise—out of this corridor, which was now restricted airspace. Both were quite a ways off in the distance, but what seemed odd was that while they had been flying from left to right across the horizon, heading from south to north, one of them was now turning right and banking toward the palace. Was that normal? It didn’t seem so. Several pairs of fighter jets had been crisscrossing the distant skies for the last half hour or so in the same predictable manner. So why the deviation?
I leaned over to Yael. “What do you make of that, twelve o’clock high?” I whispered, discreetly nodding toward the western sky.
She looked up. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Ask Ali.”
The jet was still several miles away, but there was no question it was headed in our direction. The question was why. I turned and whispered to Sa’id.
“What’s going on with that F-16?” I asked. “He’s broken off from his wingman.”
Sa’id had clearly been scanning the crowd, not the skies, because he didn’t immediately respond. But a moment later, he said something in Arabic over his wrist-mounted radio.
“Stay calm, but come with me, both of you,” he whispered back a few seconds later.
Startled, I had a hard time taking my eyes off the plane, but when I saw him discreetly get up and walk back toward the doorway from which we had come, I followed his lead.
Yael was right behind me. The band was playing again. Just then, I got a text from Allen back in D.C. This is exciting.
He didn’t know the half of it.
“Where are we going?” I asked Sa’id.
“The command center.”
“What do you think’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” he conceded. “But I’m not bringing His Majesty out here until I know.”
As he said this, I turned and took one last look at the F-16 before going inside. And at that very moment I saw a flash of light and a contrail.
“He just fired a missile!” Yael said, now motionless.
“Code red! Code red! Everybody down!” Sa’id yelled at the top of his lungs to his fellow agents and the rest of the crowd.
But he didn’t dive to the floor or take cover in the courtyard. Instead, he grabbed Yael and me and shoved us through the door. “To the stairwell—move!” he said. “Quickly!”
He started running and so did I.
As we came around a corner, we nearly ran into the king and the other world leaders who were coming down the hall toward us.
“Through this door, Your Majesty!” Sa’id yelled, pushing open an emergency door and nearly throwing King Abdullah and the others through it. “Run, Your Majesty! To the safe room! Go, go, go! There’s no time to waste!”
The king’s instincts were exceptional. His special forces training kicked in instantly. He grabbed Presidents Taylor and Mansour, the closest men to him, and began pulling them down the cement stairwell toward the basement. The rest of us followed hard on their heels, including Prime Minister Lavi and all the various security agents. A moment later we felt the explosion and then heard its roar.
The force of the blast knocked everyone off their feet. Some went tumbling down the metal stairs. Yael and I were thrown against a concrete wall.
The king was the first back on his feet, and he started shouting comm
ands. “We can’t stay here! Follow me!”
The security details found their principals and got them moving. In the confusion, Yael and I were shoved to the back. But soon we were racing down two more flights of stairs, trying not to be left behind.
Then a second explosion hit, again knocking us off our feet.
Jordanian soldiers in full combat gear now burst into the stairwell. They grabbed the king and took off. The rest of us scrambled to our feet and hustled to keep up. We raced down one hallway, then another. We were now apparently heading toward a bunker of some kind, something akin to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center located deep underneath the White House.
We passed what appeared to be a command center, not unlike the one I’d seen in Abu Ghraib, though far more modern and sophisticated. Sa’id stopped me there and pulled me inside.
The king and the others didn’t stop. They kept moving and passed into what looked from my angle like an enormous bank vault. The moment they were inside, a massive, three-foot-thick steel door was quickly shut and sealed behind them as Jordanian soldiers brandishing automatic weapons rushed to take up positions in front of the door.
Yael, trailing the leaders and agents, tried to join them, but she was too late. The soldiers wouldn’t let her in. She protested that she was part of Lavi’s team, but they wouldn’t budge. The door was locked.
At least the king and the others were safe. That was all that mattered for the moment.
“Where is that?” I shouted. “Where did they just go?”
Sa’id was about to explain, but the explosions just kept coming.
I looked at the bank of security monitors inside the command center, and all the blood drained from my face. I could see the flames and the smoke and the burning, screaming, dying children above us.
But as horrific as those images were, they paled in comparison to the image now on the main large flat-screen on the far wall. It was a live shot of the F-16 screaming inbound. Whoever was flying that plane was on a kamikaze mission into the palace. There was no one to stop him, and all I could think of was Abu Khalif and ISIS.
58