500 Days (9 page)

“Freedom, itself, was attacked this morning by a faceless coward,” he said. “And freedom will be defended.”

•  •  •  

The 443-foot-tall London Eye Ferris wheel stood motionless on the bank of the Thames, shut down out of fear that terrorists might soon strike the popular tourist attraction. Across the river, a convoy of police vehicles and black vans raced down Parliament Street. Inside a sedan, Prime Minister Tony Blair sat with one of his chief aides, Alastair Campbell; both men had just returned from Brighton, where news of the attacks on the Twin Towers had aborted Blair’s plan to deliver a speech to the Trades Union Congress.

The motorcade arrived in front of the tall black gates at the entrance to Downing Street, a barrier erected during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher to protect prime ministers from terrorists. Blair’s car stopped in front of Number 10; he and Campbell stepped out and hurried into the residence.

Some of Britain’s top intelligence officials were waiting to brief them on what they had learned about the events in America. First, the precautions in London—the Department for Transport had closed the airspace over the city, special security details had been placed around the stock exchange and Canary Wharf, and the general security alert had been raised.

As for the attacks that morning, the intelligence agencies were already certain of the culprit’s identity. “Bin Laden and his people are the only ones with the capability to do this,” said John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee for the British Cabinet Office.

Moreover, he and his al-Qaeda terrorists had probably acted alone, Scarlett said, without the connivance of a sovereign state. Agreed, said Stephen Lander, the director general of Security Service, known better as MI5. Bin Laden just didn’t work with governments in his operations—he was too much of an egomaniac to place himself as subordinate to anyone.

“We need a command paper immediately on who al-Qaeda is, why they exist, what they do, and how they do it,” Blair said.

Britain, Blair said, was going to have to move deftly to influence the Bush administration’s response to the attacks in hopes of preventing the president from doing anything rash. It would be a delicate diplomatic challenge.

“The U.S. is going to feel beleaguered and angry because there is so much anti-Americanism around,” he said.

“The pressure on the Americans to respond quickly, even immediately, is going to be enormous,” Lander added.

Afghanistan, which had harbored al-Qaeda for years, would most likely be the immediate object of America’s wrath. But the Blair government couldn’t exclude the possibility that the United States might turn its guns on hostile nations like Iraq, Libya, and Iran if it uncovered evidence that they were complicit in the attacks—however unlikely that might be.

There was a general agreement on two points: The Bush administration should demand that the Taliban government in Afghanistan serve up bin Laden, and Britain should aid in appealing to the international community to support the United States in its inevitable quest to take down al-Qaeda.

It was also important not to overstate the terrorists’ capability to inflict further damage on the West, at least based on that morning’s attack. “This was less about technology than it was about skill and nerve,” Scarlett said.

Lander jumped in. “It’s the next logical step up from a car bomb,” he said. “Turning a plane into a bomb and destroying a symbol of America takes some doing, but it could be done by al-Qaeda because there are so many terrorists willing to kill themselves.”

All that was beside the point for now. The critical issue, Blair repeated, was how Bush would react to these events. He had been president for less than a year and was largely untested. He might flail out against America’s enemies in ways that could be unpredictable, or even counterproductive.

“He could be under enormous pressure to do something irresponsible,” Blair said—especially if the international community didn’t unite behind the United States.

“If America hears that the world view is that this happened because Bush is more isolationist,” Blair said, “there is going to be a reaction.”

•  •  •  

Massoud.
Scooter Libby tossed the name over in his mind. Islamists posing as news reporters had just assassinated the Northern Alliance leader. The strongest
fighting force battling al-Qaeda and the Taliban had lost its most important leader. Then, in less than forty-eight hours, America was attacked. The United States had been deprived of an ally who could have been counted on to join in any military operation against bin Laden and his cohort. An unlikely coincidence, or perhaps more proof that bin Laden’s hand was behind the hijackings.

Libby reached for a pen and wrote a note.

Did Massoud’s assassination pave the way for the attack in the United States?

He slipped the piece of paper to Cheney. The vice president skimmed it, turned to Libby, and nodded.

•  •  •  

At 3:00
P.M.
in Toronto, a truck driver named Ahmad El-Maati unlocked the door to his apartment, went inside, and greeted his mother.

El-Maati looked exhausted; it had been a day of enormous strain. Early that morning, he had quit the long-haul trucking business, returning his rig’s keys to his employer, Highland Transport. He had enjoyed the work until a month before, when he was stopped at the American border and searched. On that day, he had been driving a loaner because his truck was in the shop, and the inspection turned up a few items that weren’t his, including a map. It was a black-and-white photocopy, only slightly better than hand-drawn, and it depicted Tunney’s Pasture, an area in Ottawa developed exclusively for federal government buildings. A few of the facilities were labeled with names like
H&W VIRUS LABS, ELDORADO NUCLEAR LTD
, and
ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA
. The agents had interrogated El-Maati extensively about the map, demanding to know why he was carrying it. He could only reply that the paper wasn’t his.

The border confrontation had left El-Maati jittery for weeks, despite the efforts of his supervisors at Highland to assure him of their support. The company had investigated and concluded that one of the truck’s previous drivers had picked up the map while on a delivery in Ottawa. Ann Armstrong, a manager at Highland, had given El-Maati a letter stating that he had reported the incident to his superiors and that he should be commended for his professionalism in dealing with the matter. But he still felt too frightened to keep crossing the border. Better, El-Maati decided, to give up transporting items thousands of miles and drive shorter—if less profitable—routes in Canada.

Then came the terrorist attack that morning in the United States. Shortly after he returned his keys, he saw the news of the second plane crash on a television in the drivers’ lounge. The sight had made El-Maati nauseated, and he
wanted to vomit. His emotional turmoil continued all the way back home as he grappled with the images of death that he had just witnessed.

Now, at his apartment, he was ready to sit down and take a moment to gather his thoughts. Before he could, a knock came at the door. Odd, since no one had buzzed from downstairs to be allowed into the building.

El-Maati answered. Two men in suits stood in the hallway. Both flipped open leather cases, showing their identification. They were with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service—CSIS.

One of the men identified himself as Adrian White. “We need to speak with you,” he said.

“Okay,” El-Maati replied.

“Can we come in?”

El-Maati shook his head. “No. Let’s talk outside.”

He turned toward his mother and saw terror in her face. Then he left, leading the men to the elevator.

Back in the apartment, his mother reached for the phone and called El-Maati’s father. “Some people came and took Ahmad!” she said.

•  •  •  

Downstairs, El-Maati and the two agents crossed the street and sat on a bench. White explained that, given the attacks in the United States, CSIS was visiting people whose names had come up in the past—known as a “knock-and-talk” in the intelligence service.

“We heard about the map and what happened at the border,” White said. “Tell us about the map.”

The map!
How could he get them to understand that he didn’t know anything about it?

El-Maati brought out the letter written by Ann Armstrong. He always carried it in his shirt pocket for moments like this.

The two agents read the letter, then gave it back.

“Okay,” White said, “let’s talk about your background and about your travels.”

El-Maati suggested that they continue the conversation at a coffee shop in a nearby plaza. The three men walked there and sat at a table on a patio.

The questions were boilerplate—where was El-Maati born, where had he gone to school, what had he studied. He answered for a while, but grew increasingly worried.

“Look, I want to have a lawyer present to make sure nothing I’m saying gets
misinterpreted,” he said. “So we can continue this same conversation any way you like and anywhere you like, but with a lawyer present so I can preserve my rights.”

White looked annoyed. “We’re not a court here. You don’t need a lawyer.”

El-Maati insisted. White mentioned that CSIS knew that he was trying to sponsor a woman he planned to marry so that she could move to Canada. The file for that type of request went through the intelligence service, which had to give its approval. Maybe, the agent suggested, that application might be stopped if he refused to cooperate.

“You know, Ahmad, we are
mukhabarat,
” White said.

El-Maati recoiled backward as if he had been slapped in the face. In Arabic,
mukhabarat
generally referred to government units involved in gathering intelligence. Perhaps White was attempting to make clear that he was not part of a criminal prosecution.

But, El-Maati feared, perhaps not—in the popular parlance of the Middle East,
mukhabarat
had come to mean something more sinister. It referred to the secret police departments in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria that imposed state controls over their citizens; the
mukhabarat
were renowned for snatching up people and making them disappear into prisons where they were tortured while under interrogation.

El-Maati wasn’t sure how to respond. “You speak Arabic?” he asked.

“Well, a little bit.”

El-Maati let out a breath.

“You know how the
mukhabarat
here in Canada deals with its citizens,” White said. “We’re soft on our citizens. There are laws that control what we do. And you know how the
mukhabarat
deals with people back in the Middle East.”

Hesitation. El-Maati believed they were telling him that if he didn’t speak now, he would have to deal with the
mukhabarat
in his home country of Egypt.

“Are you threatening me?” he said.

White held up his hands. “No, no. Absolutely not. We just want you to cooperate.”

No chance. “I think you are threatening me, and I insist that I have a lawyer.”

White asked something else.
I want a lawyer
came the response. Then another question.
I want a lawyer.
Again and again El-Maati responded with the same words; it became almost laughable, with the agents joining El-Maati in saying
I want a lawyer
after their last query.

The interview ended. El-Maati asked for the men’s names again. White wrote them on a piece of paper and handed it over.

As he watched the agents depart, El-Maati took a deep breath.
The map.
He was terrified.

Years would pass before El-Maati learned the truth about the map. It was a decade old. The sensitive buildings it depicted had not existed for years before El-Maati crossed the border. It had been drawn not by terrorists, but by the government of Canada, a visitors’ guide printed up by the hundreds.

But by the time that was discovered, it would be too late to stop the terrible events caused by unfounded suspicions about a meaningless piece of paper.

•  •  •  

At Offutt Air Force Base, just outside Omaha, Bush hurried into an underground command post that resembled a Hollywood depiction of a crisis center, a vast room with high-tech wizardry of astonishing diversity. The president took a seat in front of a screen projecting the videoconference; the chair was a particularly comfortable one.

He listened for several minutes as Cheney, Rice, Hadley, and other officials gave him the latest news. The potential number of casualties was as many as ten thousand, he was told. But for now, it appeared the attacks were over. Government agencies had set up defenses. The FAA had successfully grounded all commercial airliners. A carrier battle group had put to sea. The Coast Guard was boarding ships. Immigration was locking down the border.

“At this point, Mr. President, I think it’s safe to come back to the White House,” Cheney said. “And that’s probably the wisest course of action.”

“I agree,” Bush replied. He wanted to speak to the nation again, this time from the Oval Office.

Deputies from the State Department—the secretary, Colin Powell, was en route home from South America, so couldn’t be on the call himself—gave a rundown of contacts they had received from foreign governments, both to express condolences and to offer help.

The president jumped in. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had already called. “He understands that, if this can happen to us, it can happen to him as well,” Bush said.

On to the intelligence. Tenet reported that the first indications suggested that al-Qaeda was almost certainly the group behind the strike. Known associates of the terrorist group had turned up on the passenger manifests for
American 77. The attacks displayed both al-Qaeda’s trademark meticulousness and its practice of launching multiple, simultaneous strikes against related targets.

Bush ended the call with the message he had been delivering by phone to his subordinates all day.