“I never looked at it that way,” Josh said.
“Things look a lot different when you spend almost a year in a hospital, learning to walk by day and asking why by night. I couldn’t do much research on terrorists from a hospital bed, so I focused on the financial angle. I started looking at who the big winners were from the financial collapse. Who was betting against American stocks. What companies were shorting the market, who owned puts, who made a fortune. It was a long list. Then I started looking at who benefited from the wars, especially private security contractors and oil and gas interests. The list got shorter. And something else intrigued me: the attacks nearly guaranteed a war in Afghanistan. Maybe whatever this group wanted was there and they needed a cover to go in and search for it. Or maybe it was in Iraq. Maybe both. I knew I needed to get out in the field to find some real answers.”
David took a breath and continued. “By 2004, I was back on my feet. I applied to the CIA that year but was turned down. I trained for another year, got turned down again in 2005, and trained some more. I thought about joining the Army, but I knew I would need to be part of covert ops to get real answers.”
Josh looked down, taking it in, seeing David in a completely different way now. He had always thought of the station chief as this invincible super soldier, had always assumed that that was all he’d ever been. The idea of him lying broken in a hospital bed for a year, of him being turned down as a field operative — twice — was slightly jarring.
“What?” David said.
“It’s nothing… I just, assumed you were a career operative. That you were with the agency on 9/11.”
An amused smiled crossed David’s lips. “No, not even close. I was a grad student, actually. At Columbia, if you can believe that. Might be why the CIA kept rejecting me — didn’t want anyone over-thinking things in the field units. But apparently the third time’s the charm — they took me in 2006. Maybe they had lost enough operatives or enough had joined the private contractors; whatever the reason, I was glad to be in-country in Afghanistan. I found my answers. The short list I had, the three companies, were actually subsidiaries of one company: Immari International. Their security division, Immari Security, coordinated their operations, but the funds from 9/11 went into several of their front companies. And I found something else. A plan for a new attack, code-named Toba Protocol.” David pointed at the file. “That file is all I have on that attack. It’s not much.”
Josh opened the file. “This is why you joined Clocktower, to investigate Immari and Toba Protocol?”
“Partly. Clocktower was the perfect platform for me. I knew back then that Immari was behind 9/11, that they had made a fortune from the attacks, and that they were actively looking for something in the mountains of East Afghanistan and Pakistan. But they got to me before I could figure out the big picture. They almost killed me in Northern Pakistan. I was officially listed as killed in action. It was the perfect opportunity to exit. I needed a new identity and somewhere to continue my work. I had never heard of Clocktower before I was in-theater in Afghanistan, but I took refuge here. It was perfect. We all come to Clocktower for our own reasons; it was the key to my survival at the time and the tool I needed to finally learn the truth about Immari and TOBA. I never told anyone my real motivation, except the director. He took me in and helped me start Jakarta Station four years ago. I hadn’t made much substantial progress on the Immari question until a week ago when the source contacted me.”
“That’s why the source picked you.”
“Apparently. He knows about my investigation. He knew I would have this file. It may hold the key to decrypting the code. What I know is that Immari Corporation is somehow involved in 9/11, maybe in other terrorist plots before and after, and that they’re working on something much, much bigger. Toba Protocol. It’s why I chose Jakarta — the closest major city to Mount Toba. I think it’s a reference to where the attack will start.”
“A logical assumption. What do we know about Toba Protocol?” Josh said.
“Not a lot. Apart from a few references, there’s one memo about it. It’s a report about urbanization and the potential to reduce the total human population.”
“That limits the possibilities somewhat. A terrorist attack that could reduce the total human population, it would have to be biological, maybe a drastic change in the environment, or inciting a new global war. We’re not talking about suicide bombers, it’s something bigger.”