Ghost Read Online Free

these two. Then go draw some travel money. We take turns running to FOGHORN to pick up the latest cables.”
    I don’t understand any of this. I want to ask what FOGHORN is, but I decide it would be more prudent to remain silent.
    “Look, what we do here is very secret. Hardly anyone here at State knows what we do. Keep it that way. What we do here stays in this room, clear?”
    “Yes.”
    “Read these.” He launches a raft of diplomatic cables my way. The top ones are marked “SECRET” in red letters. I’d never read a secret document in my life. Now, I’m trapped in a blizzard of them. It’ll take me hours to read this stuff.
    “Check out the cold cases. Dissect them. Find ways we can keep our people alive in the future, okay?” He stabs the air with his cigarette, pointing at the file cabinets again.
    His phone rings. He snatches it up, his attention on me broken. It is time to get to work.
    I look down at the pile of paper and wonder where to start.

two
    DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
    “CT03.” That’s what the outside of one oversized brown file folder says. It was written with a black Magic Marker in spiky hand lettering. I untie the folder and open it up. Sitting inside are more legal-sized green file folders. They’re worn and ragged and look decades old. Each one has a label. I sort through them looking at the subheadings: “Intelligence,” “Unsolved Leads,” “Unanswered Questions,” “Witness Statements.” In the back is another one marked “Evidence.”
    My cop instinct leads me to pull out the evidence folder first. It seems awfully thin. When I open it up, I find only a single sealed plastic bag. On the outside it reads, “Department of State—Evidence—SRG.” I assume those are Gleason’s initials. I lift it up and examine its contents. Whatever is inside looks like a dried-up mushroom.
    “What is this?” I ask myself softly.
    Gleason overhears me and replies, “An ear.”
    First day on the job, and I’m holding a human body part. The Alice in Wonderland experience is complete. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole.
    I continue to hold the ear. Miss Manners doesn’t cover this sort of scenario. What should I say? How should I react? I’ll wing it.
    “So, did you cut this off a suspect?” I ask Gleason.
    He is not amused. He just looks at me with a
You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into here
sort of expression. Then he goes back to scribbling on more paperwork. Almost as an afterthought he says, “That’s what’s left of the suicide bomber.”
    Suicide bomber? As in kamikaze? I better start at the beginning. I tuck the ear away and pull out the first file. The sheaf of papers becomes my gateway to the world we Americans don’t want to know about. I read the stilted words, mesmerized by the meaning behind them.
    April 18, 1983. Beirut was chaos—it is even worse now. The city, once known for its Westernized and cosmopolitan atmosphere, had long since become a battleground. As the various factions dueled for control, spooks and terrorists played a game of cat and mouse amid the ruins. On April 18, the anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride, the terrorists scored their first decisive victory against the United States.
    At 1300 hours local time, a van passed through a security checkpoint and drove up to the front of the embassy. The driver parked under a portico, then detonated the two thousand pounds of explosives stuffed into the back.
    Now I understand why there is only an ear left.
    The explosion tore apart the entire front of the U.S. Embassy, killing sixty-three people and wounding a hundred more. I vaguely remember hearing about it on the news three years ago. I never heard who carried out the attack.
    What possesses a man to blow himself up while murdering scores of innocents at the same time? What is the motivation? I suspect those are questions I’ll be wrestling with for a long time.
    The attack was orchestrated by Islamic Jihad, which has been in the news a lot