Liar's Market

CHAPTER FIVE

BY J. P. TOWLE

Special to the Washington Post

LONDON—Nearly four months after the shooting outside the U.S. Embassy in London that took the life of a young American tourist, questions remained as to the motive of the Pakistan-born taxi driver blamed in the attack.

U.S. and British intelligence officials say there is little doubt Ibn Mussa Ibrahim attacked to protest American foreign policy.

But if so, skeptics ask, why shoot an unarmed civilian? And why was Ibrahim himself later found shot to death and stuffed in the boot of his taxi?

Security cameras outside the embassy captured the attack on video. The tapes show a shadowy, bearded figure behind the wheel of the black London taxi. The cab pulled up at the embassy’s outer gates just before the driver let loose with a spray of automatic gunfire.

The embassy had already closed for the day when 19-year-old Karen Ann Hermann of Oakview, MD, who had just left the building, was caught in the hail of bullets fired from the cab. She died at the scene.

But friends of the 26-year-old cabbie insist he had no interest in politics. Ibrahim immigrated to the U.K. in 1996.

“All he wanted was to earn enough money to bring his fiancée from Peshawar,” said Ibrahim’s roommate, Farid Zacharias. “Al Qaeda? No way. He loved American movies and Burger King.”

An alternate theory is that Ibrahim’s taxi was hijacked before the embassy attack.

“You can’t tell me that’s him in those videos,” Zacharias argued. “It was dark and raining. How can they be sure?”

But security spokesmen say Ibrahim’s were the only fingerprints found in the cab and on the murder weapon, later recovered in London’s High Park.

“We think he was a sleeper, like the Sept. 11 hijackers,” a senior intelligence source said. “Several have been inserted into Western Europe and the U.S. to await assassination orders.”

As to why the cabbie was subsequently killed, it may be because he missed embassy personnel in the April attack.

“Murdering one young tourist probably didn’t pack the political punch his Al Qaeda masters were looking for,” the same high-level source said.

TOP SECRET

CODE WORD ACCESS ONLY

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

(continued…)

So, Carrie, we were talking about the murder of Karen Ann Hermann.

Right. As I said, I didn’t learn her name until later, but she was there in the lobby when I came out of the reception for the visiting senators. She left the building ahead of me. If I hadn’t gotten held up talking to the Gunny at the front desk, I probably would have been outside, too, when it happened.

You might have even been shot. Has that ever occurred to you?

Of course it has. It’s amazing more people weren’t hurt in that attack. It was really bad luck that she happened to be there the moment that terrorist drove up.

And so Karen Hermann died in your place.

I—what? In my place? Wait a minute, what are you saying? Are you suggesting he had a specific target? And I was it?

What do you think?

That’s not what the papers have been saying, and my husband never mentioned there was any suspicion it could have been something like that. Why would a terrorist target me specifically?

You said yourself you were struck by the similarity in your appearances that evening—yours and Karen Hermann’s.

Strictly superficial similarities.

You said you were taken aback by how much you looked alike.

It was a rainy day. Raincoats and umbrellas tend to be pretty generic. Plus, we both had our hair tucked up under berets, so, yes, we looked a little alike.

Enough that you were struck by it. You said it spooked you for a second.

Yes, but that’s because I’m a twin.

You have a twin? An identical twin?

Yes—or rather, I did have. Isabel died when we were eighteen, along with our parents. When you grow up with an identical twin, though, you never quite lose that sense that there’s supposed to be a mirror image of you out there somewhere. Even now, I get a shock when I accidentally see myself reflected in a store window or something, thinking it’s Izzie. Except, of course, it can’t be. She’s been gone over ten years. Still, I never seem to stop looking for her.

Was it a car accident she and your parents died in?

You must have this somewhere in those thick files of yours.

If so, I haven’t seen it. I mean, we try to be thorough, but unless it’s directly relevant to this investigation, the Bureau hasn’t got resources to waste on trivial details.

It isn’t trivial to me.

No, I’m sure. Sorry. That’s not what I meant. How did they die?

A fire. Our house burned down just after New Year’s in 1993. I was back at school by then. It was during my freshman year at Georgetown.

Your sister didn’t go?

No. She was still living at home with our parents back in San Diego. She didn’t go to college because she—well, she just didn’t go, that’s all. Anyway, the fire broke out in the middle of the night. No one survived.

I’m sorry.

Yes, well, anyway—as I said, after spending the first eighteen years of your life as half of a twosome, something always seems incomplete when you’re alone. That’s why I was momentarily struck by the similarity in Karen’s and my appearance that day at the embassy.

And it never occurred to you that someone else might have been confused by it, as well. The shooter in the cab, for example? And shot the wrong person?

But that would mean—wait a minute, are you serious? Is there any proof at all that man was lying in wait for me?

I’m asking if it might have occurred to you.

Well, the answer is, no, it didn’t. What possible evidence could you have that he was?

Security cameras at the embassy recorded the attack. We’ve analyzed those tapes six ways to Sunday. There’s no audio, but when the cab pulls up in front of Karen, she ducks down and looks inside, like the driver hailed her. And the Marines at the front gate said they heard the driver call out to her just before he opened fire.

He called her by name?

He called out a name. It might have been Karen, the Marines thought. Then again, it could just as easily have been Carrie.

You’re serious, aren’t you?

Dead serious. We even called in a lip-reader to look at the tapes. She confirms the Marines’ story, although she couldn’t be sure, either, exactly what name he called.

My God. You mean…? That poor girl.

Yeah, that poor girl. And her poor family back home. Did you know Karen Hermann’s parents are both deaf?

I think I read that, yes.

Here’s something you probably didn’t read. Her father? He had a stroke three days after her funeral. He’s back home now, but paralyzed, they say. He can’t sign anymore, so even though his wife can still talk to him, he can’t answer. Can you imagine the mom? She lost her only child, and now, on top of the grief of that, she hasn’t even got her husband’s support.

That’s awful. I’m so sorry.

You’re sorry. Yeah, well—anyway—let’s put Karen Hermann back in the file for the moment and move on, shall we? You were saying that you and your family were supposed to stay on in London until the summer. But then, right after this shooting, you left early and came back to D.C.

That’s right. Drum had already been notified that he was being promoted to Operations Deputy at Langley. We’d been delaying our departure so our son could finish out the school year. But after the attack at the embassy, the official threat level was notched up and dependents and non-essential personnel were being shipped out. Drum decided there was no point in sticking around any longer, so we left a couple of weeks later.

And then?

Then, nothing. He started his new job at CIA headquarters. I was tied up with getting us settled after the move.

You went to live with your husband’s mother?

Yes. The MacNeils have a big old family home over in Virginia, right on the Potomac—but you know already that, don’t you? Anyway, it’s just a few miles from Langley, so it was convenient for Drum. His mother has been rattling around in it by herself ever since his father died. She has a daughter, as well—Drum’s sister, Eleanor—but she lives in New York and hardly ever returns to D.C. Anyway, I think I said that Drum inherited the house when his father died. When he was posted back to Langley, neither he nor his mother would hear of us living anywhere else.

How did you feel about that?

It wasn’t the first time. We’d lived there before the posting to London, too—after Africa, when Jonah, our son, was a baby.

I know, but I asked how you felt about it. Not many young wives would want to live with their mothers-in-law.

Well, no, neither did I particularly, to be honest. But we left London so suddenly, I didn’t have time to convince Drum we should be looking for our own place.

So you just went along with what he wanted?

To begin with, yes. You have to understand, I had a lot on my plate. There’s a ton of personal admin that has to be taken care when these transfers come through. With Drum as busy as he was at work, that all fell on me—the shipment of our personal effects, getting what we’d left behind out of storage. Drum’s Jag was in storage, but I had to find a car for myself. I also had Jonah to get settled. Had to try to find a summer day camp that was still accepting registration. There was no way a six-year-old could be expected to hang around the house all summer. He would have been bored silly, and Althea—that’s Drum’s mother—she wasn’t used to having noisy children underfoot, either.

Anyway, bottom line—living there wasn’t ideal, as far as I was concerned, but with our rushed departure from London, it’s what I was handed. I tried to make the best of it.

And your husband? How did he seem when you got back to D.C.?

He was even busier than he’d been in London, just as I suspected he’d be—which was another reason he had no interest in house hunting.

How did he settle in?

It’s been tough for him, the past two or three months.

How so?

Well, being back at headquarters is not like being out in the field. You’re a lot more independent out there. Back here—well, you must know this yourself. The FBI can’t be that different from the rest of the government. There’s a lot of bureaucracy to deal with. Political gamesmanship, that sort of thing. Drum hates all that.

So he wasn’t happy?

He was showing signs of stress, I’d say. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the deputy’s job, mind you. He was really pleased to have been promoted. It was more like, he was champing at the bit to get to it. He wanted to put his mark on things, he said. Travel out to the posts, get to know all the station chiefs.

And what was stopping him?

As I say, bureaucracy. It seems there was some big organizational review underway—still the fallout from September 11, I gather. You know—trying to decide what the Agency did wrong, coming up with recommendations on what they might do differently in future. When Drum got back from London, the Director asked him to take on the running of that task force for a few weeks. Said it needed a little fire put under it. Drum felt he couldn’t say no, especially when the Director stressed how high profile it was, and how important to the Agency’s future. But Drum was more and more frustrated with every passing week. Said he was spending his days pushing paper around, chairing endless meetings—except not the ones he wanted to be in on.

And which were those?

The ones dealing with day-to-day operations, I suppose.

And so?

So, nothing. What could he do? He had to get the damn job finished, he said. That’s what he was trying to do. All I know is, we hardly ever saw him. Most days, he left home before Jonah was up and came back long after he was in bed. After I’d gone to bed, too, for the most part.

He left at what time in the morning, generally?

About seven. He liked to beat the traffic and be at his desk before seven-thirty.

Always?

Whenever he was in town, yes. As I say, he was almost always gone by the time Jonah came downstairs for breakfast.

So, he had a routine that never varied.

Not really.

And then two days ago, something changed. Right, Carrie?

You know it did. That was the day everything changed.

CHAPTER SIX

Washington, D.C.

August 12, 2002

The buzzing of the cicadas was relentless, maddening, like an electric drill to the brain. Sweltering air hung thick and hazy, even at this early hour, a reminder that the nation’s capital was a Southern city, albeit one over-laid with a more northern ethic of naked ambition. Summer heat and the drone of the insects in the treetops only amplified the sense of urgency that coursed through Washington like a permanent adrenaline feed.

Every cop on the beat knew that in D.C.’s rougher eastern neighborhoods, there would be blood on the pavement before the day was out. It was the same every summer. People couldn’t live day after day, week after week in such close quarters and suffocating humidity without snapping.

But it wasn’t just a problem of the concrete inner city. Even in green, leafy suburbs of neighboring Virginia, tension was rising.

McLean, Virginia

7:32 a.m.

Knowing Drum’s impatience with anything or anyone in his way in the morning, Carrie had gotten in the habit of either waiting to get up until after he’d left for work, or showering and dressing in the front guest room so he could have the master bedroom and bath to himself. On that morning in particular, she was anxious to avoid him. She’d been awake since a little after five and had slipped out of bed as soon as she’d felt him stirring for fear her brittle nerves would betray her.

The previous night, as happened more often than not, she’d been in bed when he got in. But going to bed wasn’t the same as going to sleep, not with her body thrumming in anticipation of what the dawn would bring. Her head, too, had spun with doubts, wondering whether she was doing the right thing. And even if she was, she wondered if she shouldn’t just screw up her courage and tell him about her appointment the next morning—assuming he didn’t already know.

Despite the fact that he was so rarely around, Drum had an unnerving ability to pick up information by osmosis—or maybe it was his mother who served as his inside source here on the home front. Althea’s formidable determination to stay on top of everything that went on under her roof was only one of the drawbacks of living in that house, as far as Carrie was concerned. As far as Drum was concerned, though, the notion of a place of their own had been a non-starter.

“I haven’t got time to look for a house we don’t need, Carrie. MacNeils have been living on Elcott Road for generations, and the house really belongs to me now, anyway. My God, do you have any idea what it’s worth these days? Over an acre of land in an area of million-dollar-plus homes? Surrounded by parkland, and fronting on the Potomac, no less?”

“But I always feel like we’re crowding your mother.”

“That’s ridiculous. The place is way too big for her alone. Anyway, she’d be the first to insist it’s where Jonah belongs. Not to mention how close it is to Langley. Christ! Haven’t I got enough on my plate without adding a long commute every day?”

End of discussion. But if Carrie had been wavering for months about whether or not to take back her life, this one-sided debate had pretty much tipped the scales. When the dust had settled on the move and Jonah was safely enrolled in summer camp, she’d quietly made—then canceled—several appointments with the partner of her former college roommate, who now had a legal practice in Alexandria specializing in family law.

After the third time Carrie had chickened out, Tracy Overturf had met her for lunch, where, to her own horror, Carrie had broken down in tears over her Cobb salad.

“Oh, God, Carrie, this can’t go on,” Tracy said. “Look how unhappy he’s made you.”

“I can’t just blame it on Drum. I let myself go down this road.”

“You met him at a vulnerable time. You’d lost your whole family. If ever someone was looking for a port in a storm, that was you back then. And no wonder.”

“Still, I didn’t have to abdicate my life. Look at you. You’ve had a solid relationship with Alan for years, but that didn’t keep you from starting your own legal practice.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into that. The only reason Heather and I formed Childers and Overturf after we passed the bar is because there were no jobs to be had. And you haven’t seen our offices yet—bankruptcy auction furnishings in three small rooms in a renovated cotton mill. It’s not fancy. I’m warning you. Look, Carrie, I care about you too much to keep it on a professional level where Drum’s concerned, but Heather doesn’t know you like I do, and she’s really good—a pit bull in divorce cases. If you decide you need her, she’ll do a great job for you and make sure you get a fair deal.”

“I don’t need that much. I’m not even sure divorce is the right answer. If it were just me, but there’s Jonah to think about. This could really mess up his life.”

“What about your life? How happily can he grow up with a mother who’s so frustrated? Look, just talk to Heather, all right? Explore your options. Then, whatever you decide to do, at least you’ll be making an informed decision.”

So Carrie had thought about it for a few days, then called and rebooked with Tracy’s partner—just to explore her options, she told herself. Now, she worried Drum would get wind of her plans before she had a chance to figure out what she wanted to do.

She and Jonah had been out at the Pentagon City Mall the previous afternoon, buying new running shoes to replace yet another pair he’d outgrown before he could even wear down the treads. When they got home, Carrie had seen the message light flashing on the answering machine next to the telephone in the kitchen. Her heart had begun to pound when she’d played it back and realized it was Heather Childers’s secretary calling to confirm her appointment for the next morning.

Althea said nothing about having heard the message, but to Carrie’s worried mind, she seemed cool that evening. Her mother-in-law had exchanged only the most cursory of greetings, then taken her dinner up in her room, pleading fatigue. But much later, a light had been burning under her door well past her usual nine-thirty bedtime.

Carrie knew she should wait up and talk to Drum herself, heading her mother-in-law off at the pass. But ever since their return from London, days could pass without their paths crossing between 7:00 a.m. and midnight or without exchanging more than a few words face-to-face.

In the end, Drum had returned home in the wee hours of the morning, long after everyone was asleep. Not even the dreaded Althea had that kind of staying power.

The MacNeil home was a century-old Georgian residence built on a choice promontory overlooking the Potomac River. The family was old Virginia stock, descended from a Scots ancestor who had purchased a large tract of land in the late 1700s from the original Lord Fairfax, for whom the county was named.

An even larger house had once stood on the site, the cornerstone of a sprawling tobacco and lumber plantation. The first time Drum had brought Carrie home, his mother had pulled out an album of old sepiatone photographs to impress his new bride with the history of the clan into which she’d somehow finagled herself. One showed an earlier generation of MacNeils standing before a grandiose Greek Revival mansion, complete with Ionic columns, a full-width front porch, and weeping magnolias lining both sides of a long and stately gravel drive—sort of a Virginia version of Tara.

But after the insult of the Civil War, the plantation had never really recovered its former glory. When the big house had burned down during the economic depression of the 1890s, Drum’s great-grandfather had rebuilt a smaller place on the same site, looking across the river to Maryland and, downstream, to the heights of Georgetown.