Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (6 page)

He looked sadly at a picture of a former teammate who had died under his watch. During Jonathan’s last year his good friend Buddy Hoffman was killed in a practice run and Jonathan blamed himself. Even though the internal investigation cleared him of any wrong doing, he knew that Buddy was following his lead when he clipped the wing of Stan Kucel. It was horrific to hear Buddy trying to save the plane as it spun toward the ground and then wait too long to eject. Miraculously Kucel’s plane was able to land safely with a partially shattered wing. After Buddy’s death, Jonathan didn’t want to lead the Blue Angels any more. He needed a change.

His second love had always been writing programs that secured and managed databases. In the mid-eighties his knowledge of computers grew with the new computer revolution. He continued his passion at the academy, majoring in computer engineering, volunteering to work with the computer engineering department to manage the servers that controlled student email, the alumni fund and the shared engineering programs. Then through a cooperative arrangement with the U.S. Government, he spent 2 years with the FBI managing their databases. During that time, he wrote several security programs that were so efficient they drew the attention of the industry. When he left the Navy, he had the choice of becoming a commercial pilot and working his way through the ranks at a major airline, going into private business or pursuing a career in academia. He chose the latter. He applied and was accepted at MIT, Virginia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Cal Tech and RPI, but chose Virginia Tech because they were working with Cray to build the fastest and most powerful supercomputer in the world. He loved the fact that Virginia Tech had the resident expertise to build it. “If the faculty is smart enough to build the most powerful machine in the world, they are smart enough to teach me,” he said to his de-briefer as he exited the Navy. What he also liked about Tech was its relationship with Carnegie Mellon. Carnegie is home to the Computer Emergency Response Team (cert). He knew that with an education from Tech and a coop with Carnegie, he would learn the vulnerabilities in systems and mitigating steps for the general public. Plus both Tech and Carnegie were closely tied to assisting the US Government in protecting computers. By going to Virginia Tech, he would be able to have the best of both worlds by building the fastest computer in the world and by working with the intellects from Carnegie on security. It was at Tech that he met Bob Runyan and his wife Mary and the second major portion of his life began.

When they first met, Bob Runyan was in his final year of a Master’s program in psychology. They met randomly on the Virginia Tech golf course when he and Bob were paired up, both showing up as “singles.” Bob was 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighed 150 lbs, a “string bean,” compared to Jonathan who was 6’2” and 225lb. Bob had long brown hair pulled back into a pony tail. He was a sloppy dresser and had sparse facial hair. He was the exact opposite of Jonathan, who was clean-cut, fresh out of the academy. It took only a couple of holes for Bob to loosen up.

“You want to make the game a little more interesting?” he asked.

Jonathan smiled, knowing that a friendly wager was about to begin.

“I’ll tell you what,” continued Bob. “I’ll give you 3 shots a hole and we’ll play for $5,000 a hole.”

“What?” responded Jonathan.

“You heard me. I’ll give you 3 shots and we’ll play for $5,000 a hole.”

Jonathan scratched his head, because they had already played a couple of holes and Bob wasn’t that much better than he. “Okay,” he answered.

Bob never shut up during the entire bet. “Don’t think about the money,” he said. “Just swing like you would normally swing. Three shots is an awful lot. That means if I get a par on this next hole, you can get a double bogey and still win.”

Jonathan shanked his drive out of bounds. Bob hit a perfect drive down the center. Jonathan hit again off the tee box and dribbled the ball just short of the ladies tee-box. By the time Jonathan reached Bob’s ball, he laid 8.

“I never play like this,” muttered a frustrated Jonathan.

“Happens every time,” returned Bob. “The thought of the money fucks the mind.”

“But it doesn’t happen to you.”

“I’m not betting on my ability,” answered Bob. “I’m betting on you fucking up. It doesn’t matter what I shoot, I’d beat you.”

After 5 holes, Jonathan owed Bob $25,000. The ninth hole was a straight-on 100 yard par 3.

“Okay, double or nothing you can’t hit that green,” cackled Bob.

Jonathan knew that with a smooth pitching wedge it wouldn’t be a problem. “You got it.”

Jonathan’s shot went 50 yards to the right of the green. “Again?” he asked.

“Sure,” responded Bob.

“Only this time I’ll give you 5 to 1 odds.”

Jonathan’s next shot was further right than the first. “Again?”

“Come on,” said Bob. “We’re holding up the course.”

“No come on, you have to give me another chance. I’m getting closer.”

“You’re getting worse.”

“Eventually, though, with double or nothing I would win.”

“No, my friend, it doesn’t work that way.”

After 18 holes Jonathan owed Bob $235,000.

“Tell you what,” said Bob. “You can just owe it to me. I’ll figure a way for you to pay it off.”

It was a very odd relationship of extreme opposites, but from the moment they met they connected. And over the next 3 months they became very good friends and did almost everything together. Bob, being a product of fraternities and academia, was amazed at how much the geekish Jonathan had accomplished in his life.

“You flew F-18s with the Blue Angels?”

“Yep,” answered Jonathan.

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope.”

“Can you still fly?”

“I think I might be able to get a plane off the ground.”

“But can you bring it back.”

“Now you’re shitting me, right?” said Jonathan.

“You know there’s a flying club at the Blacksburg airport. Do you think you could take me up? I’ve never been in a small plane. I’ll let you work off your debt. In fact, I’ll make you the fucking deal of the century. You teach me to fly and I’ll forget the $235,000. How much will lessons come out to be?”

Jonathan thought, “About $6,000, you’re right, that’s pretty fair compensation. Sure, when do you want to go? I don’t have to join the club, I’m sure that I can just rent the plane.”

“Serious, you’ll take me flying?” Bob couldn’t believe it, he called the airport and handed the phone to Jonathan and whispered. “You make the reservation; I don’t even know what to ask for.”

The next day they took off from Blacksburg airport in a Cessna 182 Skylane. Jonathan floated over the campus and headed north over the mountains towards Roanoke. Bob stared out the window like a little kid.

“Not quite as fast as an F-18?” asked Bob.

“Nope, about 2500 miles per hour slower, but we can make it exciting if you want.”

“This is about as exciting as I can take right now.”

Jonathan sensed Bob’s fear and saw the perfect opportunity for a little “mind fucking” revenge. He pitched the nose down, turned the yoke hard left, with full left pedal. The aircraft went into a hard spin and dove toward the ground.

Bob screamed, “Make it stop!”

Jonathan continued to let it spin toward the ground.

“Please! We’re going to die!” yelled Bob.

With incredible ease, Jonathan pulled the plane out of the spin and then laughed, “Please, we’re going to die…you sounded like a little girl.”

Bob was as white as a ghost. “Don’t ever do that again!”

“I’m going to do better than that,” answered Jonathan. “I’m going to teach you how to get out of it.”

From that time forward, Bob and Jonathan flew together once a week, and soon Bob had the controls. Being a Certified Flight Instructor, Jonathan was able to teach him to take off, cruise and land and yes, even recover from a spin. In a month, Bob was soloing and within 6 months he had his private pilot’s license and Jonathan was debt free.

Mary was the other treasure that Jonathan found at Virginia Tech. Bob introduced him to her at a party celebrating Virginia Tech’s completion of the supercomputer that had brought Jonathan to Tech. He immediately had feelings for this soft spoken, shy, red-headed beauty, who had the face and figure of a fashion model and the brain of a geek. To Jonathan, Mary was the perfect woman. She was “drop dead gorgeous,” she was brilliant and had a diversified international education. Most people were confused about what she was doing at Tech and why she was un-attached, because they knew that she could have gone anywhere and had any boy she wanted. Mary seemed happy to be at Tech and, like him, never boasted of the other schools that had accepted her. He felt fortunate she had chosen Tech and he felt even more fortunate that he was able to find this gem amongst the other 28,000 students that flooded the Virginia Tech campus. She was a bio-chemist, but her passion was in cell proteins and restructuring DNA to help deter future genetic weaknesses. A very modest genius, she helped Jonathan through all of his difficult science classes working through laboratory experiments as easily as he could fly a Cessna 182.

When they met, she was in her final year of her undergraduate degree. Mary was eight years younger than Jonathan, and she fell for his charm, good looks, but mostly his maturity, being tired of the young men in “heat” who had chased her for her first three years. Jonathan was kind, respectful and gentle, always thinking of her first and watching over her. She finished her four year program in three years, and to no one’s surprise won the National Science Foundation scholarship.

Both Bob and Mary graduated in May and in spite of Jonathan’s pleading, Bob chose to leave Tech and go to MIT where he entered their PhD program, majoring in bio-chemistry. What made matters worse was that he convinced Mary to accompany him to MIT for her graduate work. She hesitated, not wanting to leave Jonathan behind and tried to get him to transfer, but he was already committed to his program. Once again the maturity of Jonathan captured her heart. He convinced her that she should follow her dream and although separated they could still spend time together and marry when they both graduated.

This did not happen. After receipt of his PhD, he was swallowed up by the black hole of the CIA and did not talk to her again for over a decade, when out of the blue she called. How she had found him, she never said and he never asked. After a short courtship, they were married. He never told her that he worked for the CIA, only the US Government. His job title would change every few years, to show progression and justify the huge increases in his salary. Often, they would be apart from each other for months at a time as he was sent on international assignments, but they stayed connected electronically and through the strong love that they held in their hearts.

Bob was his best man at his wedding and Bob was Carly’s God father. Throughout every significant emotional event of his academic and professional life, Bob had been there to help him through. Now, he missed his best friend, who might be the only one who could truly understand what he was now going through. “No,” he thought. “There’s one other.”

When he finished Tech, the CIA was highly involved in the Middle East and counter-terrorism and with the birth of the internet needed software engineers to write programs to protect their new servers from information hackers. When Jonathan first started, every piece of software in the CIA was written by their internal programmers and there was no commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software. This practice allowed them to protect all of their data from the “hackers” who were familiar with “packaged products.” Jonathan was amazed at the massive amount of top secret data managed by servers that filled entire floors at CIA headquarters. His job was to work with a team of 175 of the smartest people in the world to develop programs that would keep it safe. Soon, technology required them to go outside and integrate their programs with packaged programs such as the vast array of commercial software. He rapidly rose within this organization with his uncanny ability to install safeguards to both internal and “off the shelf” software.

The fact that he was a pilot was an added bonus to the CIA. After his third year they moved him into the field. They rewarded his experience in aviation by placing him in projects that allowed him to fly their vast assortment of airplanes. At first he flew executives and public officials in their King Air B200’s and then moved to the Lear series of private jets, first the 35 and then the 45. His next projects were with the armed forces flying F-16s, F-18s and the F117 stealth fighter. The most difficult of all his training was transitioning from airplanes to helicopters. The Navy sent him to Fort Rucker, an army base in Alabama to learn from some of the best instructors in the world in the Bell Jet Ranger 206B3, given the designation TH-67. He quickly found that the helicopter required a unique coordination. The turbine power Bell 206B3 had hydraulic controls for the cyclic and collective that were so sensitive that the instructor often demonstrated hovering the machine using only 2 fingers. It was not that simple for Jonathan, and it took him 5 hours to master, long in his estimation, extremely quick according to the instructors. After 10 hours he was flying the helicopter as well as his instructor.

He looked on his wall and saw his first Distinguished Intelligence Cross awarded by President Bill Clinton. It had come with a very high price. In his last 2 years in the aviation wing, Jonathan flew predominantly in battle worn areas of the Middle East and Africa and became comfortable flying any rotary winged aircraft. In the late 90’s he was assigned to Afghanistan and was flying a MD530E “Little Bird” helicopter loaded with a team of Israeli agents that were looking for a Taliban terrorist named Abaya Jain, believed to be responsible for organizing a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that had killed 45 civilians.

As he flew 50 feet from the ground at 80 knots, he heard a pop and then felt a shudder and watched his transmission oil pressure drop. He saw a clearing and was able to run the aircraft on the ground without incident. He exited the aircraft to inspect the damage and saw a large oil drenched hole in the transmission cowl of the aircraft where the bullet had penetrated the main transmission case. To his sheer horror, out of the rocks came 50 or more Afghan militants all armed with Ak-47s. He winced at the fragmented memories of those next 15 days that raced through his head. Most of his recollection was not his own but came from the lengthy debriefing from the agency. They told him that he had been held by an Afghan army unit associated with a terrorist group named Al Qaeda and was the only survivor of captivity. As the words “sole survivor” came back to his memory he laughed, “Why am I always the sole survivor? This is getting old.” The other captives, once learned to be Israelis, were all beheaded. He remembered being stripped and placed in manacles in a cave and being asked about his mission over and over again, and the pain of the torture, but little else. All he had left were the physical scars, the missing little finger on his left hand, the two nail size holes on the bottom of his feet and a 2 inch scar above his left eye. He didn’t even remember the faces of any of his captors or the group of Israeli agents who were specialists in the caves of this region and had rescued him. During the 6 week debriefing, the CIA and the Israeli Secret Police were primarily interested in whether he had had any interaction with a man named Osama, of whom Jonathan had no recollection.