Final Winter

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The meeting took place at a time when the wreckage of the World Trade Center was still being doused with water, portions of the Pentagon’s south wall were still collapsing, and bits of metal from what had once been a Boeing 767 passenger jet were being dug out of the ground in a rural area of Pennsylvania. It was held in a small, carpeted room with wood paneling, a badly polished conference-room table, and framed Audubon Society bird prints on the wall. The dull-colored furniture and decorations announced that the room had last been serviced during the Johnson Administration; the smell and general dampness in its interior also announced that, despite its looks, the room was in a concrete cube, one hundred feet beneath the ground. The air smelled of soot and sweat and defeat.

Three men were at the meeting. In front of each of them was a fresh yellow legal pad, sharpened pencils, and uncapped black-ink Bic pens. The CIA man who had called the meeting looked at the other two participants: a heavyset man from the FBI who had not shaved in at least two days, and a taller, thinner man, whose blue Oxford shirt had one collar flap unbuttoned and who worked for the National Security Agency. Both men’s eyes were red-rimmed and watery, unfocused a bit with exhaustion and fear, and the CIA man knew he looked just as distressed.

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