The Scenario

RANDOM TALES: A journalist is offered the story of a lifetime by a rogue CIA agent: An alternative scenario for the September 11 terrorist attack.



THE SCENARIO

By Jack Random



PART ONE: THE INFORMANT


On the drive to the rendezvous, I tried to visualize what the informant looked like. I pictured an older man with checkered gray hair, full beard, close cut, slightly unkempt, a little fuzzy around the edges. I smiled, realizing I had painted a portrait of my now retired professor of International Studies at Columbia University.

If the informant was what he presented himself to be, it was an inept analogy. The professor had been a dissident voice, a defender of civil liberties, and an outspoken advocate of civil disobedience. Rumors persisted that he was forced into retirement in the second wave of antiterrorism legislation. I had wanted to contact him, to write his story, but I was advised against it. It was easy to rationalize that decision, then as now, but it left a deep impression of regret.

By contrast, this informant was anything but a dissident. He was an insider, a political operative at best and, quite possibly, a rogue agent, a turncoat to his colleagues and secret ally in the struggle for freedom.

In the space of a few minutes the informant had accomplished what he intended; he had established credibility. His cautionary tone, almost indifferent, an air of confidence, the sense that he was offering directives to be followed without question, a game of phone tag leading to a location on the wrong side of town, all combined to convince a skeptical reporter that he was what he claimed to be: the real deal.

I cursed myself for not having insisted on a name or at least some useful contact. What kind of reporter was I? I was operating on pure speculation and blind faith. It was the kind of situation that invited trouble – as it had before in my tenuous career as a journalist. I swore it would not happen again. It was always the same thing: my weakness, my need and hunger for the story.

I gazed out the window of a yellow cab as we drove past the brownstone towers in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, monuments to generations of poverty and a reminder of our government’s failure to address it.

When was the last time a politician referred to the war on poverty? The problem of the poor had become the assault on middle class. Like Vietnam and the war on drugs, it was better to forget.

The idea had been to combat crime on the streets, create community pride, and thereby save the urban landscape, but concentrations of poverty in high-rise buildings did not have the desired effect. Crime was more rampant than ever and the towers became markers for urban blight. Like a domestic domino theory, the government pressed on with its grand experiment long after its obvious failure. What else could they do?

We drove past the pimps, hookers, junkies, and a cacophony of boom box rap before arriving at the appointed address. It was the basement of an abandoned storefront. I took note of an all night café on the corner across the street before paying the cabbie. At least there was a place I could use to get off the street while waiting for a cab to return me to the relative safety of my middle class apartment.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The informant was nothing like my former professor. He was an older man, clean shaven, white haired and crew cut, his dress informal but meticulous. The general impression was distinctly military. He claimed to be an analyst and spoke of “the agency” in tones bordering reverence. He said that for twenty year his job had been to run scenarios: What if scenarios.

“We took situations, real and hypothetical, and ran them through probability quotients. We analyzed the results and projected outcomes.”

Despite my protests, he insisted on beginning his story in Lebanon, Beirut, circa 1983. It was the year a group of Shiite Muslims attacked the American Embassy, killing dozens of CIA operatives and capturing the Agency’s station chief for Middle East operations. According to the informant, they ran a scenario that indicated any response had to be covert. They were unwilling to risk congressional inquiry.

“Our hands were everywhere,” he said. “We were supporting both sides in every conflict. We were sponsoring Islamic fundamentalists as a buffer against Soviet influence.”

The Reagan Republicans had conspired with America’s most hated enemy, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, for the release of American hostages immediately after Reagan’s inauguration as president. The deal culminated in the delivery of weapons and spare parts in exchange for funds that, in turn, were used to arm the Contras in Nicaragua – expressly forbidden by an act of Congress.


“If ever there was a cause for impeachment,” the informant said, “this was it. Reagan consorted with the enemy to defraud an election, openly defied Congress, and lied to cover his tracks. What is the definition of treason if this was not?”

I began to suspect it was either a hoax or a trap. In my years as a reporter, I had seen it all. I once took a shot at the paper’s corporate owner, refusing to run stories that were obvious plants, and I had paid for my indiscretions. I was kicked out of the newsroom and given a desk in Metro. I was hoping that this story would give me the jump I needed to get my career back on line but I was losing faith.

“I just don’t believe you,” I confessed. “I don’t believe you were ever with the Agency. I think you’re just some radical looking for attention.”

“Did I say I was with the Agency?” he replied with a cynical smile.

Then he shrugged with an incredulity that was as biting as it was sincere.

“You’re right. You found me out.”

I was dumfounded. I wanted to be disappointed but what I felt was relief. The journalist within was dying. I had to consider the consequences. I had a wife and child. At least I still had a job. Many did not. At least I still had my freedom.

I clicked off my recorder, gathered my notes and stuffed them in my briefcase. Out of habit, I reached out to shake hands with the man who had just played me for a fool. The informant, with a sardonic pose, placed a business card in my hand: “William Sinclair, Consultant.”

“Same time tomorrow?” he asked.

I laughed but felt a rising anger that I knew was fear at its core.

“We’ll see,” I replied.

I left thinking I would toss his card in the first trashcan I saw.


PART TWO: GRAVITY

I knew someone who knew someone at the Agency. I had contacts at the Pentagon and the State Department. I could make a few calls and tap my sources – or not. I could play the part of a journalist or go back to Metro and be a good boy. Nothing was certain.

I struggled with it through the night, like a shadow at the dinner table, like a ghost in the bed I shared with my faithful wife. I did not confide in her. She would only support me as she had always done. I was a good husband and father. She was a good mother and wife. I did not want her support. I wanted a way out that would allow me to retain a sense of self-esteem. The only way was to see it through.

I made the calls and what I found was conclusive: William Sinclair was the real deal. His involvement with the Agency went back three decades. He had risen from a low level data processor to a prime analyst when suddenly, in 1996, he went AWOL. If the Agency knew why, they were not talking. They wanted Sinclair and the man who turned him in could expect a sizable reward. I could be the hero of my own story. I could get my desk back in the newsroom. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I still wanted a Pulitzer.

“I knew you’d come,” smiled Sinclair.

“The hell you did,” I replied.

A man like him leaves nothing to chance. In the vernacular of the intelligence community, he knew more about me than I knew about myself. I wondered: What did he know that made him think I was his boy? Was it a sting? Was it all a part of the domestic offensive in the perpetual war on terrorism? If so, I was vulnerable the moment I walked through the door.

I asked why he had chosen me. He replied that I was not his first choice. He had considered a number of reporters who had shown some backbone, some integrity, some degree of professional pride but none had passed the test.

I soon learned that the test involved enduring Sinclair’s lectures on the history of American foreign policy. One of his favorite themes was that Americans have no sense of history. In the world according to Sinclair, that was what distinguished America from everyone else.

“To America, Vietnam is ancient history. To the rest of the world, it was only yesterday.”

He rambled on about Operation Phoenix in the early stages of the war, when 20,000 South Vietnamese were allegedly rounded up and executed. They were supposed to be our allies. He talked about free fire zones and the commonality of My Lai. He claimed that three million Southeast Asians had lost their lives as the result of our actions.

“We don’t count enemy dead,” he said with a profound sadness. “There was a time when we did.”

He sat behind his naked desk in the sparsely furnished room and stared into space, as if he could still see their faces, their wide dark eyes, their contorted and charred bodies.

“The Vietnamese are the bravest people in world history. After fighting every empire from the Ottoman to the British and French, they turned back the most powerful military force the world has ever seen.”

I was moved by his account and wondered what role he had played in the war. It was not my purpose, however, to revisit Nam or to rewrite history according to one rogue agent. When I said as much, Sinclair poured a large glass of water and dropped it on the concrete floor, shards of glass scattering like shrapnel from an antipersonnel bomb.

“What is this?” he challenged.

“An irrational display of self righteous indignation,” I replied. He had already been through any number of reporters. I was confident he needed me as much as I needed him.

“Gravity,” he answered. “Come back when you have some sense of it.”

I went home and did some homework.


PART THREE: HISTORY

Sinclair’s history lesson resumed with Nicaragua in the early eighties. The Agency backed the Contras, a ruthless paramilitary force, against the Sandinistas, a coalition of working class and indigenous peoples. It was there that an infamous Agency Operations Manual was uncovered.

As Sinclair put it: “How to Subvert Popular Government by Terrorist Tactics.”

It openly advocated a nightmare scenario: Creating an atmosphere of constant fear with random looting, rape and murder, techniques of torture, hiring criminals to do the dirty work, assassination, and creating martyrs by killing your own leaders. He added that the Agency would not hesitate to use the same tactics within our own country if it believed it could get away with it. He connected the dots: Nixon and Watergate, Reagan and Iran-Contra, the Kennedy assassinations and Martin Luther King.

I was reluctant to consider such a wide brush for any story in the current political climate. The mere whisper of conspiracy, past, present or future, would never get past the editorial board of any major news organization, including mine.

Still, he left an impression, almost unthinkable thoughts, unspeakable possibilities that would transform my dreams to nightmares and darken my view of the world for years to come.

It was not the world I believed in. It was not the world I wanted to believe in. I was not prepared to accept such a radical transformation of reality.

Sinclair went on about our involvements throughout Latin America: El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Columbia, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. (In Argentina, 9-11 recalls the Agency sponsored coup that replaced Salvador Allende with the butcher Augusto Pinochet.) Everywhere it was the same story: Subversion of lawful democracies in favor of military despots. We allied ourselves with thugs, criminals and drug lords.

He lingered on the story of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the clergyman who stood up against oppression of the poor. It was hardly noted in the American press when nearly 200,000 peasants were slaughtered in Guatemala, but when six Jesuit priests, four American missionaries and the Archbishop Romero were tortured and executed, it was front-page news.

“Why do they hate us?” he asked with a twisted grin.

“They hate us for Suharto, America’s bloody gift to Indonesia. They hate us for the massacre of East Timor, where the price of opposition was one quarter of their population.

“Why do they hate us?”

He was pacing the room, gaining momentum, as he moved on to the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The first Gulf War was fought over the issues of cross-drilling and Kuwaiti belligerence. Saddam Hussein cleared the invasion with the American consulate but he could not have been surprised by America’s betrayal. It was an opportunity to establish dominance in a critical region. Our objective was accomplished when we refused to leave as promised after the war.

“Why do they hate us?”

“We financed Islamic fundamentalists throughout the world but especially in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded. After the Russians pulled out, we asked the ‘freedom fighters’ to return our more sophisticated weaponry. They politely declined.”

If it was an argument, Sinclair was winning. My mind was opening to the possibility that our government was guilty of massive crimes against humanity. I was beginning to believe that we – our government, our intelligence forces, and our military – were the real terrorists but my mind stopped short, unable to make that leap.

I wondered why he left the Agency. He had known these things for years. Why would he continue to work for an agency that was at least partly responsible for so much suffering and death?

It was not something he wanted to address. His eyes grew cold; his entire body seemed to shrivel like an old man in a storm. Finally, he produced an obituary and quietly sat down while I read:

“William Randolph Sinclair, Jr., 27, of Arlington, VA, died at St. Jude’s Medical Center. He was a veteran of Desert Storm. He is survived by…”

The pieces started falling into place. His son, following the example of his father, lost his life in consequence.

“You wrote a story,” said Sinclair, “about the Gulf War Syndrome.”

I had indeed. As many as half of the soldiers who served in the first war later contracted the sickness. It began with a mild rash, headaches, nausea, but developed into a neurological disorder resembling Parkinson Disease. Whatever the cause – depleted uranium munitions, experimental vaccines – the military chose to deny its existence rather than investigate. When they were forced to investigate, their findings were always inconclusive.

“Billy walked over to the high school football field,” continued Sinclair. “He was a star athlete, you know. He walked out into the center of the field, knelt as if in prayer, and put the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth…”

His face grew ever darker and a shadow seemed to come over him. His gaze went inward as he summoned the image of his child.

“Before Billy died it was just a game. Not any more.”

The history lessons were over. It was not that I had won his trust. It was just that he no longer seemed to care. If his story had merit and I had the courage to run with it, it was mine.


PART FOUR: THE SCENARIO

Sinclair came up with the terrorist attack scenario in January 1996, ten months before his son ended his own life. It proposed a simultaneous attack by an Islamic fundamentalist group on several cities within the United States. It was an attack on both civilian and government targets – the Washington Monument, Disney World, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon – using commercial airlines as missiles. His superiors were intrigued and asked him to give the enemy a name. He did so. The name had been around for years and his face was that of the perfect enemy: Usama bin Laden.

He emphasized that none of this was the product of his imagination.

“I have no imagination,” he said. “I wasn’t a fiction writer. I was not paid to write stories. I was paid to create realistic scenarios based on existing facts. Everything is in the public record.”

He instructed me to check the official transcripts from the investigations of the African embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, and the trial records of the first attack on the World Trade Center. I did so. It all checked out. Usama bin Laden, altered after September 11, 2001, to Osama bin Laden was an Agency recruit from the days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Sinclair explained that he ran a cost-benefit analysis, projecting the cost in lives and economic loss against the “benefits” to the Agency and the powers it served: Increased military spending, congressional approval of covert operations, broad powers of domestic surveillance, control of Congress and the White House, and, most critically, a forty year “war on terrorism” – a long awaited replacement for the Cold War. It was a virtual carte blanche for the neoconservative ideologues already entrenched in the White House.

“It would have been so easy to prevent this catastrophe,” he said.

He reminded me that the director of the Federal Aviation Administration pleaded with Congress and the administration to secure the cockpits of commercial airlines long before September 2001.

“Where was the Agency then?” he asked. “Where was the FBI? Where were all those men in high office who knew what was being planned and did nothing to prevent it? It would have been so easy.”

I had always considered myself a good, patriotic citizen. Even if I did not always agree with my government, I believed my country was the best and most virtuous on the planet.

This was not a story I wanted to hear, no less report: That our leaders – those in charge of defending our nation – knew what was about to happen and failed to act.

Sinclair offered me an envelope. He explained that it contained all the evidence I would require. I hesitated. I imagined he was reading my mind: Was this really what I wanted? Did I wish to go down in history as the man who exposed the great lie? Did the facts even matter? Would I be vilified by my colleagues in the press? Would I be called a traitor? Would I lose my job and everything I valued and worked so hard to protect?

I took the envelope in my hands, held it for the length of a second thought, and tossed it onto Sinclair’s desk. I had a confession to make. I had already contacted the authorities.

“I suspect,” I said, “there are a couple of agents outside right now.”

Sinclair flashed his sardonic smile.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You passed the test.”

I looked at him with disbelief. All of his passion and conviction were nothing but smoke and mirrors, lies and deceptions, like the lies of war.

“You try to convince me that my government has betrayed the nation, its people, its founding principles, and if you succeed, I go to jail.”

“You want to work in the fourth estate,” he replied, “that’s the test. It’s the price you pay to enjoy the blessings of your profession and the esteem, the privilege and the power of serving the greatest nation on earth.”

He was wrong. The price was much greater. Beneath his twisted sense of humor, a profound sadness would stay with us both as long as we lived. For each of us, shame was the price of survival.

He winked and I went my way. I was back in the newsroom. A few months later, I was given a column and a seat on the editorial board.

I never asked my publisher if he was in on the sting. I never had to.