by Tal Bauer
“We need a doctor!”
Kris ran backward into the Faisalabad Emergency Department, carrying Zahawi’s legs. David carried his arms, tried to support his shoulders, and Dan ran beside them, holding soaked gauze over Zahawi’s gunshot wounds. Ryan, Jackson, and a dozen police officers followed, all shouting for a doctor.
Two young Pakistani men in white doctor’s coats poked their head out from a dingy office. Overhead, fluorescent lights flickered. Kris skidded on the floor, almost slipping. He looked down. Grease, oil, and blood smeared on the cracked linoleum. As they jogged farther into the hospital, the stench of rotten meat, of putrid, festering wounds, slammed into them. Ryan gagged, fell to the side. Kris heard him puke into the wall.
The Pakistani doctors’ eyes were as wide as the moon. Twenty men were barreling into their ratty emergency department, all armed to the teeth and wearing bulletproof vests and helmets with tactical backpacks and gear hanging from them. Kris’s rifle banged against his thighs as he ran. “We need you to save this man!”
Blood dropped from Zahawi, a long trail leading back to the dirt parking lot and the truck they’d screamed across Faisalabad in.
One of the doctors finally unfroze, grabbing a filthy gurney from along the wall and running it toward them. The sheets were stained, a mottled mess of old-blood brown and pus yellow. Kris and David dropped Zahawi on the gurney. His head lolled to the side, limp. His skin was gray as ash.
“Two gunshot wounds. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Kris jogged with the doctors as they frantically ran the gurney toward surgery. “You have to save him. You have to keep him alive!”
“He’s already dead,” one of the doctors said, shaking his head. “You want us to cut into a dead man!”
“Stop the bleeding! Keep him breathing!”
They waited in the emergency department, pacing between the beds. A third were full, one man in a leg cast and three elderly people who looked like they were disintegrating into their beds. Grime was slick beneath their feet. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed in from the open windows, hovering around the fluorescent lights and feasting on raw wounds. The hospital had an “end of the world” aesthetic. If a hospital from the 1950s had been catapulted to zombie land, it would look like this place.
A bar of soap rested on the bedside table of each patient. Syringes were jammed into it, sticking up at crazy angles. It came to Kris after a moment. That was how they sterilized their needles.
David found chairs scattered around the hospital, and he brought them back for everyone. Dan and Jackson collapsed, both falling asleep sitting up. David wrapped his arm around Kris, trying to hold on to him and look like he wasn’t.
Ryan refused to sit, pacing as he growled into his phone on fifteen different calls. “What do you mean you put his cell phone in evidence?” he shouted at one point. “His cell phone is a communication device! That belongs with us!” He apparently didn’t like the answer he received. He flung his phone down the hallway, watching it skitter and glide through the grime and dirt.
“Fucking FBI put Zahawi’s phone in an evidence bag. They’re refusing to open it up. Damn thing’s been ringing off the hook since the raid.” Ryan seethed in front of Kris.
Kris scrubbed his hands over his face. David’s hand was on his back, out of Ryan’s sight. “Damn it. That means they know we have him.”
“And they’re going to be coming for him.”
The gunshots started two hours later.
A truck screamed by the front of the hospital, kicking up dirt and swerving through the near-empty parking lot. Bullets popped. Glass at the front of the hospital exploded, raining shards into the hallway and the lobby.
Kris and David hit the floor. Dan landed beside them, eyes wide. Ryan and the Pakistani police officers drew their weapons and took cover, aiming for the dark parking lot. The truck peeled away.
“We have to get him out of here.” Kris staggered to his feet. “They’re going to keep coming. They’ll try and get him back. And kill us.”
He got on the phone with Islamabad. “We have to get out of here. They’re coming for Zahawi, and if they realize there’s only a handful of us, we’re done for.”
“I’ll make some calls,” George said. “We’ll get you out, Kris.”
Five minutes later, another truck came barreling toward the hospital. Bullets spat from the passenger window.
Ryan and the police fired back, again.
The truck veered off, swerving wildly.
Ryan shouted that he’d seen the shape of an RPG as it passed by the light of a streetlamp. “They’ll come at us with technicals, next!” he hollered. Pickup trucks, usually Toyotas, outfitted with heavy machine guns in the beds. There was no way they could stand up to a force of technicals. Or even just one.
Finally, eight minutes after Kris called George, his sat phone rang. “Kris, the Pakistani military is on the way. They’re going to pick you guys up and bring you to Pakistani Air Base Chaklala, in Rawalpindi. The base’s medical team is waiting for you.”
“They’d better be fucking fast. Al-Qaeda is coming. Now.”
“Get out of there!”
David and Kris jogged together to the surgery suite and burst in. “Wrap it up, doc! We’ve got to move!”
“He is still bleeding internally. We have not given him enough blood!”
“Make him stable for transport. We’re leaving, now!”
“He will never make it!”
David grabbed three units of blood, a transfusion kit, and a wad of gauze and dressings. He prepped a line for Zahawi and slid a unit of blood into the transfusion port on his arm. “I’ll watch him during the flight.”
The doctor threw his blood-soaked surgery apron on the ground. “He will never live! Never!”
David hovered over Zahawi the entire helicopter flight. Kris cradled Zahawi’s head in his lap, keeping him still while David fed all three bags of blood into his body. Pools of blood formed beneath him, saturating Kris’s pants and the helo’s deck. He pressed where David told him to, held pressure over Zahawi’s wounds for the hour-long flight.
A medical team met them at the air base, a full Pakistani military trauma team and an ambulance. Kris and David climbed into the back with them. Kris ended up perched on David’s lap for the drive across the base.
After the medical team whisked Zahawi into the Pakistani military hospital, Kris turned in to David, folding into his arms outside the doors of the emergency department. For the moment, they were alone. Ryan, Dan, and Jackson had stayed behind with the helo and were on their way back to Islamabad and the CIA station.
“You did great,” David breathed. He pressed a quick kiss to Kris’s hair, as fast as he dared.
“I shot our target. The one man we wanted to capture alive. I shot him, and he’s nearly dead.”
“You planned this entire takedown. The coordination, the operation, everything. You did that.” Pride shone from David’s gaze. “I think George is starting to believe in you.”
“The CIA way is to ride competent people until they break.”
“I thought that was what you did to me.” David winked.
“Let’s get out of here. I want to change, shower, and get in bed with you for a whole day.”
David’s eyes gleamed, that look he got when he wanted to lay Kris down, spend hours devouring him, tracing his skin, the contours and curves of his muscles, until he finally brought their bodies together. David could turn him inside out, make love to him until his bones wept. He’d never thought his soul could ignite, but when David’s hands cradled his hips, ran up his back, drew him close until they merged…
Some days, he thought David was the fire he needed to live.
Kris’s phone trilled. He groaned.
It was George.
“Caldera.”
“Kris, Langley has sent orders for Zahawi. He’s twenty-four-seven, CIA-only eyes on. You’ve gotta stay at the hospital with him.”
Fuck. Of course. “What’s
the plan?”
“Langley is picking up the top trauma surgeon from Johns Hopkins tonight and putting him on a plane. He’ll be there tomorrow to patch up Zahawi. Then you’re off to Site Green.”
“Me?” A chill slithered down his spine. Site Green was their newest, darkest black site. Exclusively for interrogating high-value al-Qaeda prisoners.
“He’s your target, Kris. You know him better than anyone else alive, probably better than he knows himself. And… out of everyone here, you’re the best I’ve got.”
“Sounds like that was difficult for you to say, George.”
“Only because you make liking you difficult, Caldera.” There was a ghost of a smile in George’s voice, though. “You’re a Goddamn pain in the ass.”
“That’s my charm. It’s my appeal.”
“You’re lucky he seems to like it.”
Kris’s gaze flicked to David. “Request permission for Haddad to remain assigned to Zahawi? We’ll need a qualified medic if anything goes sideways. Here, or at Site Green.”
George’s sigh could have toppled Tora Bora, could have blown away the Hindu Kush. “Caldera, I swear to fucking God, if it comes out that you’ve manipulated us all into covering for your bordello…”
Kris, for once, kept his mouth shut.
“Haddad can remain. You’ll need a backup Arabic translator anyway. Send him back for supplies before you leave for Site Green.”
“Thank you, George.”
Chapter 14
CIA Black Site
Detention Site Green
Thailand
April 2002
Rain poured from the sky, soaking the detention facility. Steam rose from the concrete pad, the facility’s attempt at an outdoor pavilion. Heat smothered them, like a sauna Kris couldn’t escape.
Zahawi slept fitfully in his makeshift medical suite, hooked to machines and monitors, bandaged like a mummy halfway through his mummification.
Kris’s shot had been perfect. He’d shattered coins in Zahawi’s pocket, sending shrapnel throughout his hip and stomach. The bullet had also torn apart bone, and shards were lodged in the organs of his pelvis, along with fractured coins and bullet fragments. The Johns Hopkins surgeon had spent thirteen hours in surgery with the Pakistani doctors. Zahawi had bled out more than twice the blood he’d been given before he was finally stabilized.
Kris had stayed with him the entire time. He’d watched the surgeons, had followed Zahawi into the recovery ward. Sat by his side, his hand wrapped around Zahawi’s wrist when he fell asleep.
David had gone back to Islamabad to meet with George and returned with both their bags packed, nearly all of their possessions, and a crate of intelligence. Dozens of Zahawi’s journals had been picked up in the arrest. Kris pored through them as he watched Zahawi sleep.
The first time Zahawi woke, in Pakistan, he’d opened his eyes and saw Kris staring down at him. His gaze had wandered from Kris’s face, down past his sweat-stained undershirt from the raid to his black combat fatigues.
Kris saw the moment recognition had settled into Zahawi that the United States had him. That Kris was his enemy. His heart rate had spiked, climbing from one hundred beats per minute to one-fifty to one-eighty, to over two-hundred. He’d pushed back in his hospital bed, trying to escape, gasping, trying to scream. Stitches had torn, and blood had poured from his side. Nurses had rushed in, screaming at Kris to back off, to get out of the room.
He’d stayed, holding Zahawi’s glare until Zahawi passed out from shock.
The next time he’d awoken, he’d stared at Kris for a long moment, not speaking. Kris spoke first, leaning in and saying, in Arabic, “Abu Zahawi. I know who you are. And you know who I am. We found you and we’ve captured you. You were wounded when we arrested you. But we’re taking care of you.” Kris had held Zahawi’s stare. “I will be right here, the whole time. I won’t ever leave your side.”
Zahawi had answered in English. “Don’t desecrate God’s language with your infidel tongue.”
“Rest. You need your strength.”
“Please… Let me die.”
“No. I want to know you, Abu Zahawi. We have so much to talk about.”
“I’ll never talk with you.”
Zahawi had passed out again shortly after, weak and barely able to stay awake. He’d waxed and waned in and out of delirium, sometimes reaching for Kris and clasping his hands, other times praying in Arabic as he sobbed. Kris fed him sips of water and read his diary, seized after the arrest, and held his hand when Zahawi flailed, reaching out for someone nearby.
David camped on a cot at the foot of Zahawi’s bed, out of sight. When Zahawi slept, David and Kris passed his diaries back and forth, sharing thoughts and ideas. David had a perspective Kris couldn’t have, and needed: an Arab view from an Arab mind, and an Arab experience of Zahawi’s childhood, his years growing up as a Palestinian refugee and part of the diaspora in Saudi Arabia.
“Funny, isn’t it. He and I are the same age. Thirty-one. His family life was better than mine. But here I am. And there he is.”
“A better family life?” Zahawi’s father had been a teacher in Saudi Arabia, a Palestinian expat, and his mother had taken care of Zahawi and his brothers. He’d had a middle-class upbringing, far better than many other Palestinian refugees.
David didn’t answer.
David spent long hours in the dead of night watching Zahawi. Once, Kris woke and saw him staring at Zahawi, hunched in a bedside chair, contemplating the man as if he wanted to climb into Zahawi’s skin, possess his mind, his eyes, and understand him like he could breathe in his soul and devour his memories.
When Zahawi finally wasn’t in danger of shattering into a million pieces, he was brought to the base’s airfield and loaded onto a private jet. He was hooded and shackled to his gurney, sedated for the flight.
He woke up in Thailand, in the steamy heat of the jungle and in the remote clutches of the black site.
He was the CIA’s detainee number one.
Everyone in DC wanted in on Zahawi’s interrogation, it seemed. When Kris, David, and Zahawi arrived, the facility was already crawling with suits from DC. CIA analysts, paramilitary officers, and a host of brand-new interrogators, fresh from a three-week training course. Even the FBI was there, in a joint-agency information sharing capacity, they said. Kris recognized one of the FBI agents.
“Agent Naveen.” Kris held out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
Agent Naveen, part of his welcoming committee in Yemen, days after September 11, stared him down. Finally, he shook Kris’s hand. “I have heard a lot about you, Caldera. Seems you kept your word. You were there to help.”
Kris lifted his chin. “And I still am. You?”
“This is a CIA-led operation. We were sent here by our director to offer assistance. I’m one of the FBI’s trained interrogators and I specialize in Middle Eastern terrorism. I know how these guys work. How they think. What they expect. I’m happy to lend a hand.”
“What do you suggest would be the best approach to Zahawi?”
“Has his medical situation been seen to?”
“Yes.”
“Then we should engage in rapport building. Try to get a baseline understanding of his motivations. See if he throws up a cover story, and if he does, use meticulous details to break through the eventual lies and double-speak.” Naveen smiled wryly. “You know, like you did in Yemen.”
Finally, Kris had smiled. “Seems we’re on the same team after all, Agent Naveen.”
Having everyone who was anyone there at the facility was both a blessing and a curse. Kris wasn’t used to so many people. So much oversight. So many eyeballs wanting to be read in on what he was doing. He, somehow, still maintained the lead on Zahawi. He was still the targeteer, and thus, the main interrogator. Everyone looked to him for direction on Zahawi’s case.
He waited for someone to try and wrestle his authority away, try to say he wasn’t qualified for the Zahawi operatio
n.
The base was bursting at the seams, and practicalities had to be seen to first. There wasn’t enough space for everyone to have their own rooms. Kris volunteered to bunk with David in a tiny, dank hut, built out of corrugated steel and a thatched roof lined with plastic bags. Their shared toilet was an outhouse. Humidity turned the toilet paper soft. Snakes crept into the outhouse, and into their hut. The first time one had, Kris had jumped onto his bed, shrieking, until the security team had busted in, weapons up and ready to fire.
They’d exchanged long looks when they’d seen David and Kris’s metal beds pushed together to make one large bed. Oops.
Kris started questioning Zahawi the third night after they arrived at Site Green.
He started slowly, taking up his vigil by Zahawi’s bedside in the hospital room they’d put together. Zahawi lay on a gurney draped in a mosquito net under a thatched roof. At dusk, monkeys sounded in the trees. In the morning, bird calls echoed for miles in the empty jungle. Vibrant orange extension cords snaked across the wooden floor, over the edge of the half wall, and disappeared into a maze of bundled wires and underbrush. The entire facility was being run on industrial generators, buzzing far away on the other side of the base.
Zahawi lay propped on pillows, hooded. For once, the sheets beneath him were clean, not stained with blood. His chest rose and fell quickly, trembling.
Kris pulled the hood off his head. Zahawi’s hair was still wild, falling in long strands around his face. His beard had grown in, patchy in places. One eye was covered in a green film, clouded and milky. Zahawi stared at Kris.
“As-salaam-alaikum.” Kris pressed his hand to his chest.
“Wa alaikum as-salaam,” Zahawi whispered. “You are still here.”
