by Tal Bauer
“Four months ago, you told my friend that this man is Abu Hafs, Bin Laden’s trusted military advisor. Now you lie to my face? How can I trust you?” Kris laid it on thick, shaking his head and leaning back. Image was important, deeply important, to Arabian cultures and to Muslims. Honor and one’s word were often all an individual had. Being called out as a liar was a stinging insult that left a deep cut of shame.
He’d use that. He’d use that all day long.
“Okay, I am sorry.” Tadmir ducked his head, his cheeks flushing. “You are right. I do know that man.”
“You are only admitting to things you think I already know. Abu Tadmir, I know everything. You have no idea which of your friends I have spoken to, who I have already arrested. Do you think I came to talk to you, all the way from America, because I know nothing? I want to trust you, but you make it difficult. How can I respect you when you lie to my face?”
“Okay, okay. Let me see the book again.” Tadmir pulled the book close, studying picture after picture, shaking his head.
Kris waited, forcing himself to breathe slowly as Tadmir lit another cigarette. Ash filled his nose, his mouth. Echoes of shrieks hung in the silence, clashing like cymbals in his brain.
Tadmir was about to turn the page, move on to the next, when Kris slapped his palm down on the tabletop. “You lie to me again!”
“What?”
“You claim you do not know this man!” Kris pointed to one of the pictures, a small passport photo of a half-smiling Arab near the bottom third of the sheet. The man had glasses and a goatee and looked like a computer programmer. “You truly expect me to believe you do not know Abu Mahraj? The man you spent Ramadan with in 1999? You broke your fast with him every day, sharing your dates and yogurt. And yet you lie to me?”
Tadmir flushed deeper. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I do know him.”
“He is your friend?”
“Nam.”
“You are both in al-Qaeda together?”
Kris stared into Tadmir’s eyes. Abu Mahraj, whose real name was Marwan al-Shehhi, was the lead hijacker of United Airlines Flight 175. The names of the hijackers hadn’t been released to the public yet. Tadmir had no idea.
“This man is also your friend.” Kris pointed to another photo. An unsmiling, square-jawed Egyptian with cold, dark eyes.
“Awag al-Sayyid.” Tadmir bobbed his head. “He was very serious. He was with Abu Mahraj, and they were friends. But I did not like that he never smiled.”
The serious man with the cold eyes, the picture Kris touched, was Mohamed Atta, hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11, which had slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 AM, three days before. He wanted to recoil, shake his hand until the evil of Atta left him, shake him off like he could shake off a bad dream.
“When did you last speak with your friends?”
“After Ramadan, they were away training for some time. Training with the Sheikh.”
“Training with Bin Laden?”
“Nam.” Tadmir seemed proud, and he smiled as he blew smoke toward Kris. “I was happy for Abu Mahraj. He seemed happy. We did not talk about it, though. He left Afghanistan, and I came to Yemen on my own mission for the Sheikh. But I was arrested, and I have not spoken to Abu Mahraj since then.”
A year. He hadn’t spoken to al-Shehhi in a year. But the training had happened before that, in 1999. Kris’s heart pounded. His breath sped up. All he could smell, all he could taste, was ash and flame.
“Have you heard about what happened in New York City and Washington?”
Tadmir hesitated. “Nam.”
“Do you know that thousands and thousands of civilians died in those attacks?” The death toll was still rising. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be known. Kris swallowed back vomit. It tasted like ash. He stubbed out his cigarette. The towers tumbled like blocks every time he blinked.
Tadmir took a long drag of his cigarette. He nodded. “You have only yourselves to blame for Muslim hatred. Your foreign policy, your occupation of Muslim lands, your support of Israel.”
“So you support the attacks?”
Another long drag. “No. Those attacks were not allowed under jihad. No Shura council would authorize that. Those are a crime. Murder. Anyone who knows jihad knows they were not allowable. Civilians are not to be targeted.” He frowned. “Clearly, this shows those attacks were the work of Israel and the Americans, framing Muslims.”
Kris stopped breathing. “How so?”
“To justify the invasion of more Muslim land. Where will you invade next? If you try to take Afghanistan, the mujahedeen will rise and they will slaughter you like they slaughtered the Soviets.”
“I know who committed the attacks.” Kris’s voice was calm, soft. Almost a whisper.
“Then why are you here? Go chase them! Why bother me?” Tadmir scoffed.
“I am chasing who committed the attacks.”
“You are not! You are bothering me!” Tadmir waved his hand, as if trying to shoo Kris away.
“You committed the attacks.”
“What?”
“Al-Qaeda is responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. Innocent lives. Civilians.”
“No—”
“Al-Qaeda hijacked these planes.”
“No—”
“Al-Qaeda murdered all those people.”
“No!” Tadmir slammed both hands down on the table. Cigarette ash went flying. “What kind of Muslim would do such a thing? The Sheikh would not! He is not like you Americans!”
“I know that al-Qaeda committed these attacks. I know it.”
Tadmir snarled, “How? What proof do you have?”
“I was told al-Qaeda did it.”
“By who?”
“You.”
Silence.
Kris pulled a manila folder from his bag and laid out nineteen photos. He placed Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohamed Atta’s photos right in front of Tadmir.
Tadmir’s eyes were wide, so round and huge Kris could see whites all around his dark irises. His gaze flicked from the photos to Kris and back, lingering on al-Shehhi.
“These are the hijackers who murdered thousands.” He tapped al-Shehhi’s photo. “Your friend flew United Airlines 175 into the South Tower in Manhattan.”
Tadmir’s jaw dropped. All the oxygen seemed to disappear, sucked out of the tiny, drab interrogation room. Shock poured from Tadmir, and he stared down at al-Shehhi’s photo as he shook his head, over and over, his mouth hanging open. “How… how is this possible?”
“You tell me. You’re al-Qaeda.”
“Not like this… Allah forgive me, not like this. This is not what I believe in. The Sheikh… he’s gone crazy.”
“These men, they are all al-Qaeda?”
“Yes, all of them. I recognize them all. They were at my guesthouse near Tarnak Farms…” Tears welled in his eyes. One hand reached for al-Shehhi’s photo, his quivering fingers touching the image as if he could touch al-Shehhi’s face so gently. “Why?” he whispered.
Kris stayed silent. His heart raced, pounding out a bassline drumbeat in his mind, hard enough to crack his skull. Blood burned in his veins. Ash filled his nose, his eyes, his lungs, searing everything until he could taste the flames, the jet fuel dripping through the Twin Towers’ superstructure, could feel the singe on his own soul. Across from him, Tadmir wept for the friend he’d lost, and Kris tasted the bitterness of failure and shame.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Tadmir wiped his eyes, blinking. “I am sorry,” he said slowly. “This is not right. It is not what I believe. They were supposed to fight in Israel, in Chechnya. Against soldiers. Governments. Not this. So I will help you. What do you need from me?”
“Everything.”
The FBI agents, who’d been watching the interrogation on closed-circuit TVs, joined him. Together they asked Tadmir for details about the hijackers, their time at the al-Qaeda training camps, their connections to Bin Laden.
Tadmir gave them everything.
He smoked the entire pack of cigarettes, and his eyes kept straying to al-Shehhi’s photo. He shook his head, every time, and then launched into describing al-Qaeda’s defenses and marked on the map where he knew the Taliban had entrenched their own defensive positions.
After twelve hours of listening to Tadmir spill his soul, Kris ducked out. His hands were shaking, his legs, his whole body. He held himself up, one hand on the wall, as he walked toward a dingy window. He had to call Washington.
Williams picked up on the third ring. The satellite connection was scratchy, as if Williams were more than just a world away. “Kris, great job. Really great stuff. Thatcher and I are on the way to the White House to brief the president. Come home. Fly back to DC right away. We need you for what’s coming next.”
Chapter 3
CTC
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
September 15, 2001
“The people in this room will be leading the first wave into Afghanistan.”
Kris glanced left and right. He and about twenty others had been pulled by Williams into a side room off the basement-level bunker. Everyone around him was huge. Huge physically, hulking muscles and ripped bodies. Huge in reputation. Career officers of the CIA, men who had their names etched in iron, who had stopped more terror attacks than years Kris had been alive. They were legends in the CIA, officers used as training examples at The Farm. Men who didn’t breathe oxygen, who didn’t pump blood through their bodies. They were made of far sterner stuff, iron patriotism and pure American grit. It was like looking at one of the world’s first astronauts. Who were these men who did these things? How did humans accomplish these feats?
And then there was him.
He’d managed to go home and shower after his flight back from Yemen. Change into a fresh pair of khakis and a burgundy turtleneck and repair the bird’s nest his hair had become. Next to all these legends of the CIA, he had spiked hair, a shell necklace over his turtleneck, and shined Oxfords.
They looked like lumberjacks from American fables come to life, and he looked like a Gap ad. A member of a boy band.
He could feel their stares burning into the side of his face.
“The military says they will need at least six months to plan and stage an invasion of Afghanistan. That’s not good enough for the president. He wants a response to these attacks and he wants it now. The director has told him we’re the men he needs.” Williams said.
Murmurs rose, grunts and acknowledgments from the room.
“Your mission is to insert into northern Afghanistan and link up with the Northern Alliance, the fighters aligned against the Taliban. You will convince them, any way how, to cooperate with us. You’re also going to evaluate the Northern Alliance. Figure out what they need to become an effective fighting force on the ground, and an ally we can use when we invade.”
“Will they cooperate, sir?” Ryan, a burly man with blond hair and a permanent scowl, spoke up. He was with the SAD, one of the clandestine super-secret soldiers of the CIA. The true James Bonds Kris had once dreamed of.
Williams turned to Kris, his eyebrows raised.
Kris chewed air for two seconds. He spun toward the rest of the room, his chair squeaking. “The Shura Nazar, which is the Northern Alliance’s preferred name, has been trying to secure Western cooperation and assistance for years. The Taliban has pushed them back all the way into the Panjshir Valley, and if they keep pushing, the entire Shura Nazar will be wiped out or will starve to death. The Taliban will control the entire country. The Shura Nazar is the only military force in Afghanistan that is capable of taking on the Taliban.”
“And, as Caldera briefed the president, the only way to get to Bin Laden is to destroy the Taliban.” Williams nodded at Kris. A few eyebrows rose around the table.
“But this Shura Nazar has been pushed back by the Taliban. How are they any use to us if they’re the losers?” Ryan asked.
“This is what the CIA does. We arm and train insurgencies. We topple governments,” Williams said. “Normally, we do it in secret. This time, the whole world knows we’re coming. And we’re going to take out the Taliban, followed by Bin Laden. You will link up with the Shura Nazar and find out what they need to get the job done. Bullets, cash, food, bombs. Whatever it takes.”
Nods around the room. Kris swallowed slowly. How was he supposed to fit in on the first wave of a war?
Williams kept speaking. Kris watched the men around him, saw their jaws tighten, their brows furrow. “The CIA hasn’t fought in a frontline war since World War II. But this time, we’re taking charge. You will be linking up with a small detachment of Special Forces soldiers on your way to Afghanistan. It’s the most the military could spare so quickly. They will help navigate and prepare the battlefield for CENTCOM. You will be sharing everything in your mission. Everything.”
More nods all around.
“And there’s one last thing I want to make clear. There is a strong possibility that not everyone is going to make it back.”
Silence.
“Not everyone is this room may come home. Maybe a third of you will pay the ultimate price. But we have to do everything we can do to bring these terrorists to justice. We owe that to the thousands of our people who were murdered four days ago. We have to act, for them.
“I want to go around the room, and I want everyone to speak their name. I want us all to acknowledge each other and what we’re about to undertake. We will remember this moment when we’re mourning our losses in the days and weeks to come.”
Around they went, men grunting their names, their teams, their positions.
“George Haugen. Deputy Chief of Southeast Asia Operations. I’m leading the team going in. I speak Russian and Farsi.” George was older, but obviously fit, built like an ox. His record in the agency was legendary. Kris could barely believe they were sitting at the same table. George was a former Army Special Forces officer and fifteen-year veteran of the CIA. Kris had learned about his counterterrorism operations in Greece and the Balkans, and his deployment with the CIA in the Bosnian wars, when he was at The Farm.
“Ryan Lawson. Deputy Chief of Special Activities Division. I’m deputy on the insertion team. I speak Russian and some Arabic.”
“Phillip Nguyen. Communications. I’ll do everything I can to keep us linked with HQ.” Phillip looked like a linebacker merged with a wrestler, with a barrel chest and a shaved head, and wireless glasses perched on the end of his nose.
“Derek Bronicki.” Derek had the sandy-haired good looks of a California surfer, and the laid-back attitude to go with it, even in this meeting. “I’m your pilot. We’re taking a Russian-made helo over the Hindu Kush, higher than any helo has ever flown before. I’ll try and make sure we don’t die.”
“Jim Lutjens.” Tall and lanky, Jim looked like a basketball player, and had a deep baritone, as if he spoke through a long tube. He’d put Kris to bed in the cot a couple of days before. “Operations. I speak Russian.”
Kris had no idea what to say for himself.
“Kris Caldera,” he finally said, his voice a little breathless. “Afghanistan analyst and linguist. I speak Farsi, Dari, Arabic, and I can get by in Russian.”
More eyebrows rose.
“Kris knows Afghanistan better than anyone in the agency. He speaks the languages we’ll need in theater,” Williams jumped in. “He’s going to be your analyst and political affairs officer in-country.”
Kris blanched.
“No medic?” Ryan frowned.
“Your medics will come from the Special Forces team. They’re sending six men, half an operational detachment. One team medic, and the rest of the soldiers have full combat medic training as well.”
Ryan and George shared a long look. George nodded once.
“Let’s go through the operational plan.”
Williams outlined the operation, codenamed Jawbreaker, that would pave the way for the in
vasion of Afghanistan. Separate teams of joint Special Forces and CIA would deploy into different regions of Afghanistan, Kris’s team being the very first. Once in Afghanistan, they would link up with Shura Nazar field commanders and convince them to cooperate with the United States.
Everyone going was former military, former Special Forces or Delta Force or Navy SEALs. They had all seen combat and had all spent time in third-world countries. They all had experience with covert combat operations.
Except for Kris.
“There will be nothing there. No footprint. You’re first in. You will be creating that footprint.” Williams didn’t pull his punches. “You will be setting up joint intelligence collections with the Northern Alliance, or, the Shura Nazar.” Williams nodded to Kris. “Everything you get comes back home and goes straight to CENTCOM. We want everything. Status of forces, Taliban defensive positions, numbers of foreign fighters. Most importantly, any and all intelligence you receive about the location and whereabouts of Bin Laden.
“You will work with the Shura Nazar to strengthen their front lines. Manage air operations to obliterate Taliban and al-Qaeda forces that engage you. You will be defining the battlefield for everything that follows.
“Here’s what we’re seeing so far. Satellite imagery shows the Taliban are digging in for a long fight. They’re digging trenches and they’re hoping for an early winter. If the snows start falling, we could be looking at trench warfare, the likes of which we only saw in World War I. Hundreds of foreign fighters a day are flowing across the borders of Pakistan into Afghanistan. They want to fight you.
“Afghanistan is one of the world’s most difficult places to reach by air. Our bombers will be flying sixteen hours from the United States, one way, to drop their ordnance. We’ve got fighter jets based in the Gulf, but they’ll be flying up to six hours to get to you for air support. In the Gulf War, we flew almost four hundred sorties a day. Here, you’ll be lucky to get thirty, until we have the ability for air assets in-country.
“George, you’re taking command of the Panjshir Valley.”
