by Tal Bauer
Kris and David debriefed him, learning everything they could from him about Hamid. Exactly how had the Jordanians found him? Exactly how fast did he flip, once Ahmad had him inside the fingernail factory? They went around and around. Where had Hamid been for two years? He’d been a die-hard Saqqaf supporter? Had Ahmad and Hamid truly connected enough that Ahmad believed he was genuine? Was Hamid really willing to sell out his brothers, his heroes, for cold hard cash?
“Twenty-five million buys a new life. Many new lives. Is there something you wouldn’t do for that much money? Or does that much money buy your allegiances as well?”
“It doesn’t feel right. Not to me. He turned too quickly.”
“Zahawi turned during our first conversation at Site Green,” Kris pressed. “And how many supposedly hardened jihadis did we flip while hunting Saqqaf in Iraq?”
“And how many we didn’t. Low-level thugs who treated his movement like they were joining a street gang, who weren’t hardened believers in the cause, gave up the ideology. For them, the ideology was a justification for their violence, not the root cause.”
“It comes down to whether they can see the writing on the wall. Whether the jihadis can realize what’s in their best interest.” Ahmad shrugged. “Everyone breaks. Everyone talks. Some are just smarter than others. They talk faster.”
“Deep faith, hardened faith, is thicker than that. It doesn’t break, not that easily,” Davis said.
“You think Zahawi’s faith wasn’t strong?” Kris frowned.
“What’s Zahawi doing now?” David leaned back and crossed his arms. “He’s in Gitmo, and he’s the cell block leader for all the other al-Qaeda fighters there. He leads prayers. He says in every one of his tribunal meetings before the military judge that he is still anti-American. He still believes in the cause. He’s a true believer and he’s never changed from that. Giving up intelligence to us did not change his core beliefs, then or now. And—” David glared. “Torturing him didn’t help either.”
“Have you been checking up on Zahawi?” Ahmad looked at David like he’d grown a second head.
“I’ve seen men die for their faith.” David held Kris’s stare. “Deep, hard faith.”
A basketball stadium flashed in Kris’s mind, a swinging body. Like he’d seen it, like he’d been there. He closed his eyes.
“And we’ve all seen men turn greedy and give up everything they can for cold hard cash.” Ahmad lit a cigarette and blew smoke across the table toward David. “This guy wants the money. He wants a new life. Wouldn’t anyone want to get away from this hellhole?”
Hamid emailed Ahmad every few days now. After the video, it seemed that Hamid had reached some kind of level within the movement where he was trusted, where he was allowed to have his own cell phone and travel where he wanted, as he pleased.
On the frontier now, he wrote. Gathering medical supplies. Have not seen Zawahiri since the meeting. Two drone strikes yesterday. Many dead. I set three broken bones. We buried twelve bodies.
Kris and Darren reviewed drone footage and found two strikes in a remote corner of Waziristan. The pilot, as per his orders, had lingered over the site as al-Qaeda had come for their wounded and dead. All in all, twelve graves had been dug.
“Ask him for a target. Tell him we want him to identify a target for us to strike. To prove his bona fides.”
Three days later, Hamid emailed, saying a group of Taliban would be traveling from Pakistan through the mountains to Asadabad, Afghanistan. They’d be traveling at night, in cars with no headlights.
Kris and Darren waited through the long hours of the night, until the drones hovering over Asadabad caught sight of a two-car convoy snaking down the potholed, gravelly Kunar road through the mountains down from Pakistan.
Kris gave the order to fire.
Twin explosions burned the night, and in the morning, the wreckage of the cars was pushed off the road by the villagers. Blackened scraps of metal tumbled down the flinty ravine and came apart in a cloud of black dust.
Hamid had proven himself, at least with the first tests. Kris felt the pressure of Langley, of Ryan, of Director Edwards, and even of the White House breathing down his neck. Find them, kill them was the mission, and he’d only had drones to work with for so long.
Now, Hamid had appeared like a gift from above. Find them… and use Hamid. Hamid could be an extension of Kris, inside al-Qaeda. Hamid could be his eyes and his ears, even his hands, if he got close enough. Hamid could be Kris’s weapons.
God, he hungered for Hamid’s access. They all did, from Kabul to Langley to DC. For what it meant. If Hamid was inside the inner circle of al-Qaeda, if he could get back to Zawahiri, they could make meaningful strikes against al-Qaeda. Hit them where it ached, like they’d hit the US. Where it hurt.
After seven years of frustrations, of failures, of devastation, and death, Kris needed a win. He needed something to check in the victory column. The ledger felt woefully imbalanced after seven years of his eyes seeing the worst of humanity crawl up from the darkness.
He could feel the desperation swimming in his veins. Clawing at his heart. Please, a win, please. He wanted to get the sons of bitches that had ripped apart the world on September 11, 2001. Do something to fix what had become of the world. Right some wrong, or at least provide the tiniest bit of recompense he could to the families of the three thousand souls who had died that day.
And he wanted to do this for David, too. Rip the men out of the world who had twisted and perverted David’s faith, his father’s faith, until David was certain Allah was dead. If they could just destroy this evil, crush it, eliminate it, maybe there’d be space for David’s faith to return. It was the closest he could get to David’s father, Kris felt. Resurrecting David’s father’s faith and freeing it from the darkness.
To get started, he had to get to Hamid.
Know everything Hamid knew.
And then unleash Hamid on al-Qaeda, weaponized by Kris’s own hands.
You have told the Americans about me, haven’t you?
Hamid’s next message came before Ahmad had a chance to explain.
I have, Ahmad wrote back. And you’ve made all of Jordan proud. Your king proud. Your nation, and the world, is inspired by you. The ummah will praise your name. The Americans all rejoice over you. And, habibi, you are the one they most wish to speak to you. Urgently. We must plan for your next moves. Keep you safe.
Hamid went radio silent for three days. Kris paced Camp Carson, from the command center to the runways to the helipads.
David found him at the helipads, walking the empty squares where the Blackhawks landed every evening. The ethereal dust haze hovered in the air, choking off the sky and settling over everything in a fine layer of grit. It felt like walking through ghosts, like some kind of otherworldly realm. The dust seemed heavy, the dust of shattered empires and millennia of history trapped within the borders of Afghanistan. The sun, trying to peak over the Tora Bora mountains, couldn’t push through the haze completely. Afghanistan was still on planet Earth, but the sun seemed farther away than it did back in DC.
“I’m not sure this guy is everything you want him to be,” David cautioned. “I think he’s pulling back because he can’t deliver. I think he’s been talking a big game with Ahmad and now it’s about to get real. And he’s not ready.”
“You think we’re being played?”
“He says the right things. Delivers the right intel. Seems to be in the know. But we don’t really know that for certain, do we? And we don’t know why he’s doing this.”
“We know the why. Twenty-five-million-dollar reward.”
“You know, I’ve always thought that reward was a silly amount.”
Kris’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
“Most people here don’t think that much money exists in the entire world. Twenty-five million dollars is make-believe money to them. Their entire lives can be lived on less than a hundred dollars.”
“Hamid is Jordan
ian. He’s Westernized. He for sure knows the value of twenty-five million.”
“We need to move slowly with Hamid. Carefully. Take our time understanding him.”
“No, no, no,” Kris sighed. Exasperation weighed down his words. “That’s exactly the opposite of what we need. We need to get inside his skull. Understand what he knows and what he can do for us. If he’s a con man, then we cut him loose. But we can’t just let this linger. What if he’s killed? Or worse?”
David took both his hands. Looked into his eyes. “What if this is a trap?”
“A trap?” Kris snorted. “So a mole that the Jordanians inserted two years ago is somehow conspiring with Zawahiri? And comes up with intelligence that matches multiple intercepts, all speaking to the same tactic? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would al-Qaeda, or Zawahiri, trust someone who had been sent to infiltrate them?”
“I don’t trust this guy’s change of heart. I don’t.”
“David, what’s more likely? A huge conspiracy, years in the making, using sophisticated tactics al-Qaeda has never used before, trusting someone who was sent to burn them, who Ahmad swears is legitimate, in an attempt to trap us? Or that Hamid has been dazzled by the potential reward and he wants to cash in on his little adventure?” He paced, his hands on his hips. “Look, if anything, I think he’s playing a scam for money. Trying to cash in on the CIA’s dime. That happens all the time. Could it be happening here? Sure.” Kris cringed. “But, Jesus, I hope not.”
“I know the Arab mind. The Arab soul. Things don’t just go away. We’re desert people. And the desert is eternal, Kris. The past lives inside the present and shapes every single day. History, the past… These aren’t just academic concepts. The past never leaves someone. Never.”
“David—”
“You and me, we’re CIA. We’re American, as American as you can get, but even we’ve been disgusted by the past years. There are times I have been ashamed to show my face to Muslims, to my fellow Arabs, because of what we’ve done. If I feel that way, then how do others feel? Who’ve lived every day on the front lines of the disintegration of their world?”
“I didn’t know you felt like that,” Kris said softly.
David kept going. “Hamid spent more years cheering on Saqqaf than he’s been undercover.”
“You think he’s still sympathetic to the jihadis?”
“I just don’t trust him, Kris. And I don’t want you to get hurt. I know how badly you want this. Everyone on this base and back in DC, seems to have Hamid fever. Be careful.”
He smiled and rested his hand on David’s chest, over his heart. “You always watch out for me, my love.”
David covered his hand. “I always will. Forever.”
“And I you.” Kris kissed him, sweetly, a peck on the lips, even though they were out on the airfield and anyone and everyone could see them. “But this is going to work. I promise. We started this seven years ago and we’re going to finish it. Together.”
David smiled. He said nothing.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Ahmad knocked on their door in the middle of the night. When Kris answered, he seemed morbidly fascinated by their shared quarters, by David sleeping facedown and shirtless in their bed and Kris in his sweatpants and tank top. He grinned so wide his face seemed to split in half.
“What’s up, Ahmad?” Kris shut their door firmly behind him.
Ahmad finally focused. “Hamid has emailed. He is willing to meet.”
“Excellent. What did he say? How soon can we meet him? What kind of travel is he able to do?”
Ahmad held up his hands. “He is cautious. He says not soon. And he says that he cannot travel far. We cannot fly him anywhere. He cannot go to Kabul.”
“Fuck.” Kris groaned and slumped against the wall. “You tell him we need to meet him immediately. Or the money is off the table.”
Ahmad’s eyebrows shot up.
“If he won’t come to Kabul, then we’ll have to meet him someplace in the middle.”
“Your base. Camp Carson. Meet there.” Ryan, on the video call, stared Kris down. “You’re right over the border from Pakistan. He can slip through and you can bring him on base for your debrief. He only has to travel an hour from the border.”
“Plus wherever he is in Pakistan.” Kris mulled Ryan’s suggestion over. “It’s a good idea. I’ll start putting everything together.”
“You make damn sure that you keep everyone safe.” Ryan glared, the grainy video connection somehow making his scowl even uglier. “I want your base locked down tight. All nonessential personnel cleared from your meeting location. And you make sure this guy is legit. I don’t want to end up with egg on our face in front of the White House. We have enough problems as it is. Looking like giant assholes who can be duped by some goat fucker isn’t the image rehab we’re going for.”
“Cute, Ryan. You always were the culturally sensitive, politically correct one. It’s nice to know your concerns are all about how you’ll look when this operation is reported up. I take it Kabul station has taken over running Hamid?”
“You report to me on this, Caldera. Everything goes through me, before it goes up. Understand?”
It took two weeks of back-and-forth negotiations with Hamid to get him to agree to come to Camp Carson. He refused at first, demanding to meet at Miranshah, a mean border town that sold drugs and weapons and everything else just across the mountains in Pakistan’s northwestern frontier. Kris refused and threatened to walk from their association. Hamid relented, but refused to stay at overnight. I only have seven hours I can be away from our camp, he said. Sunrise to sunset. And what will I tell my brothers?
David put together a local package of medicines and natural remedies, teas and creams, for Hamid to carry back to his camp. “He can say he was picking up medical supplies,” David said. “These come from Miranshah. It will all be legitimate.”
Finally, Hamid agreed. He would come in one week, for one day. How will you get me into your base? he asked. And how will you protect me? Spies are everywhere. I will not get my throat cut because you let one of the spies see who I am.
It all came down to Kris.
Seven years after September 11, after his failure to stop the attacks, here he was, asked to create a plan to train and equip an undercover agent in al-Qaeda, the best possible lead they had in finding and destroying Zawahiri and Bin Laden. He could practically taste victory, could almost feel the vindication, glorious, righteous fury singing in his blood.
But first, he had to get Hamid to Camp Carson. Debrief him. Equip him with a small mountain of tech and gear. And then release him, all in just under six hours.
Hamid could get to the border crossing, but he needed an escort across the border and to the base. Using any of the Afghan military or police was out of the question. Their ranks were infested with spies for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and blue-on-blue attacks, where an Afghan soldier would kill American forces on a joint operation, were on the rise. The Afghans, CENTCOM and Langley warned, were not to be trusted.
Sending Special Forces to meet Hamid was also out of the question. The muscle-bound, dip chewing, action hero stereotypes stood out in Afghanistan, a land of deprivation of privation. Most Afghans were skinny and small, short statured from childhoods of malnutrition. Special Forces soldiers came in big and bigger, and had the attitudes to match.
David. David had been crossing the border for a year now, weaving in and out of the northwestern frontier, in and out of the border towns and villages, crisscrossing farms and rivers and streams. He’d built a small network of human sources and he’d become a familiar face to the scattered communities. Here, he was Dawood, an itinerant farm hand, a laborer for hire. He could pose as a taxi driver and pick up Hamid from the border, bring him back to Camp Carson.
How many people should be at the meeting? Six hours wasn’t long. In Iraq, he and David had run informants and human sources as a two-man team while driving around. They traded of
f who drove while the other sat in the back seat with the informant, driving in circles through Baghdad or Mosul or Ramadi. Whoever was in the back seat led the interrogation, checking for weapons or hidden bombs before launching into questions.
Would that work here? Could he and David handle Hamid alone?
His pride and ego warred with his common sense. He needed his best people. The best analysts. Interrogators. Men and women who could dive deep into Hamid in a short time, turn his mind inside out. Study his body language. He needed the best al-Qaeda expert to corroborate Hamid’s information and extrapolate based on the new intelligence he was going to provide. Hamid was going to be bringing them a gold mine.
Technical agents from Islamabad and Kabul were flying in with their whiz-bang gadgets. Kris had been sent a suitcase of flip phones, identical to the cheap knockoffs found on the streets of Pakistan, that could take pictures and text them instantly via a hidden, embedded satellite link. The pictures also had geotags coded within the image, invisible to the naked eye. But once at Langley, analysts could identify exactly where on the vast, vast globe the picture had been taken.
Get a picture of Zawahiri. Or Bin Laden. Make him smile for the camera.
Ahmad, as the Jordanian Mukhabarat officer in charge of Hamid, had to be there, too.
At this point, if he did a vehicle meet, he’d need a school bus to keep everyone in, drive everyone around in circles outside Camp Carson.
No, keep the meeting on base. Everyone would be together, maximizing time, expertise, and equipment. Darren, his deputy, would take the al-Qaeda angle. Three interrogators and an analyst were being flown in from Langley. Ryan was sending his deputy. And a team of CIA SAD officers, former Special Forces, would provide security for the meeting, in case anything went wrong.
But nothing was going to go wrong. This was it. This was their big break. Hamid was coming to Camp Carson.
What then? Hamid was right about the spies. Afghan national police helped guard the base perimeter, but no one trusted them. More than one was most likely a spy for al-Qaeda. If they saw Hamid’s face, they would instantly report back to their commanders, and Hamid would be tortured and killed when he returned to his camp. And, they would lose their chance at getting Zawahiri and Bin Laden.
