by Brad Taylor
49
I couldn’t see his screen but knew the thumb drive was conducting a sync with the laptop, each interrogating the other to make sure the ciphers matched. After a second, he leaned in and said, “Alpha Echo Seven Seven Seven.”
I pulled out my phone and tethered it via Bluetooth to his computer, the access codes automatically locking on because of the thumb drive. The screen showed AE777 on one line and ZG502 on another. I said, “Zulu Golf Five Zero Two.”
He smiled again and closed the laptop. “You don’t look like an intel weenie.”
I said, “Neither do you.”
He laughed and said, “I’m just a small-town sheriff. You Army?”
“Yeah. Well, I was. Doing something different now. Like you.”
“Something different, but nothing like me, I suspect. I was One Seven-Five, back in the day when I was a barrel-chested freedom fighter.”
And I knew I was in like a tick on a hound dog, to use a phrase that seemed to fit in around here. One Seven-Five was First Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Infantry. A Ranger, like me.
I said, “No shit. I spent some time in Third Batt. Not as nice as Savannah, but I guess you didn’t see much of that city while you were there anyway.”
As expected, he immediately felt a bond, and I saw him relax. We of course spent the next few minutes playing the “You know Sergeant Humpty-Hump?” game, figuring out where we’d crossed paths. He didn’t ask outright for everywhere I’d served, but he was smart. He peppered the name list with men who’d moved on to a different, more select unit. A special-mission unit I was also once in. It didn’t take him long to confirm I wasn’t an intelligence analyst.
Eventually we ran out of war stories, and he said, “What’s an Operator doing here? I’ve had this guy for over a year, and the only people who’ve shown up might as well have been driving a hybrid car and wearing a lab coat.”
I skipped telling him about my rental. “I’m not here to get information out of him. I might be moving him to another location, depending on what he says.”
He nodded, not asking any more questions, knowing it wasn’t his place to do so. He’d only been read on to his specific activities with the Cloud and had no knowledge at all of the Taskforce, but he was smart enough to be able to guess.
I said, “How many other guys in the Cloud do you have here? Will they know he’s gone?”
“None. He’s my first, and from what I know, they never put two in the same place.”
Good thinking. It was weird getting a glimpse into part of the Taskforce that had been kept secret from me. Especially since I’d helped create the organization and was one of the Operators who fed the detainees into this system.
I said, “Can you give me some background on him before I go in? What’s he like? How’s he act?”
“He’s not bad at all. Actually, he’s pretty polite. Never gives us any trouble. His only request has been books. He reads constantly. Nothing like the drunks we usually deal with.”
That gave me a little alarm. The terrorist was a Palestinian assassin from a refugee camp in Lebanon. He went by the name the Ghost, and he was very cunning. He’d come close to killing some of my team in Dubai using an ingenious heat-detonated improvised explosive device he’d created in about ten minutes using parts from a hardware store. He was a killer who had never registered on our radar, which meant he’d been very, very good. We weren’t even sure if we had his actual name, since we’d found five attached to him. If he’d been here a year, he’d probably come up with some idea of how to escape.
“You realize his danger, though, right? This guy tried to kill the sheik of Dubai and the American envoy to the Middle East with an explosive device that cut the cables to an elevator. He is smart. I don’t care how polite he is, treat him like Hannibal Lecter.”
Bob held up his hands. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he’s not flinging shit through the bars or going on a hunger strike like I read about at Gitmo, but I treat him with the respect he deserves. Don’t worry, when I was read on to the Cloud I was given my left and right limits. I’m out of the Army, but I still have some discipline.” He took a sip of coffee and said, “Although when you see him, you might second-guess whether we have the right man. He’s a scrawny little guy with Coke-bottle glasses that make him look like the kid who got bullied at school. Doesn’t look like a master terrorist. But then again, neither did the ones I took out in Iraq. Don’t worry, I get it.”
I didn’t want to let on that I was the one who’d captured him, because as far as the sheriff knew, he might have been taken off a flight by the TSA. It didn’t sound like the Ghost had changed much, though. Although I guess he wasn’t getting any time to hit the gym.
“Has he talked about Islam or thrown any propaganda at you when you dealt with him? Killing infidels or anything like that?”
Whether I continued would hinge on his answer. The Ghost was a killer, but he wasn’t what I would call a radical jihadi. At the end of the day, he was a Palestinian nationalist who happened to be Muslim. He had no interest in a global caliphate or taking the war to the capitalist kafirs. His interest was the injustice he perceived had been committed against the Palestinian people. At least that was my take, and after reading the file of his extensive interviews, I knew it was also the take of the intelligence analysts. He, naturally, hated Israel and all it stood for, along with the United States for supporting that country, but he’d been screwed by Hezbollah as well, and I hoped to use that.
I wanted a second opinion, though. The Ghost might have fed the analysts whatever he thought would help him out, then dropped his guard around the prison personnel, letting something slip out about his true mental state.
Bob said, “No. Not really. Honestly, I haven’t even seen him pray like the devout ones do. When he looks at you, you can tell he’d probably like to put a knife to your throat, but I don’t think it’s because of Islam. I’d be giving him the same looks if I were locked up in a secret prison. Like I said, he’s pretty polite otherwise.”
“Have you talked to him extensively? Engaged him in conversation while he’s been here?”
“No. Not allowed to, beyond the normal day-to-day activities. The only ones allowed to engage him are guys like you who come in with a thumb drive.”
Should have expected that.
“Look,” Bob said, “I’ve only got a two-hour window when I can get you in and out without anyone else seeing. I don’t think I’m going to be able to give you anything more than those analysts.”
I nodded and stood, throwing enough money on the table to cover both of our coffee orders. “Let’s go.”
50
Alone in his cell, the prisoner wrote a verse in Arabic. He knew the men would come and take it, scrutinizing the words for some secret meaning, but they would never find his name threaded in the text. Abdul Rahman. Through repeated interviews they had gained much information from him, but they had yet to learn his true name. He kept it secret, a token of his resistance, and enjoyed hiding the name in innocuous text that they would study for hours. It was a small thing, but it allowed him the mental fortitude to continue.
They called him the Ghost, and had managed to connect him to several kunyas and aliases he had used in the past, but were frustrated by his true name. A frustration he enjoyed giving them.
The interviews had grown more and more infrequent, with the last one happening over a month ago. In truth, he missed them. Much to his surprise, he had never endured what he would consider torture; instead, the interrogations had become a match of wits. Initially, when he’d first arrived, the Americans had come in hard, threatening him with all manner of things and making his life miserable with various physically coercive techniques, but it got them nowhere, as there were very few men on earth with the willpower he possessed. He’d endured much worse in the past — true torture — and he’d survived intact.
About a month into his detention they’d shifted tactics, and he found himse
lf slipping. He had followed his own strategy, sure of his intellect. Giving up information that he knew would be worthless or dribbling out a web of deceit that sounded accurate, he had been surprised when the interrogators had come back with a different picture, asking more questions. A picture that was accurate.
The men and women would talk to him for hours, tripping him up with his own lies and using insidious psychological techniques to reveal what he wished to keep secret. Realizing they were much, much smarter than they let on, he had begun to parse his words so he said nothing that they could use, yet they always managed to get something. The interviews had grown to be a challenge he looked forward to, but they came less and less frequently now.
As they had learned from him, he had gained a greater understanding of them. While he no longer underestimated their intelligence, their actual knowledge of his world caused him to laugh. It was like watching a child paint a picture of an animal he or she had never seen, based only on a description. The painting bore a resemblance but its errors were glaring.
In some cases, he helped them refine the picture, as with Hezbollah. That group had used him for its own ends and had eventually tried to kill him. Ultimately, he wasn’t sure if the reason he’d been captured wasn’t because the group had betrayed him. He detested their arrogance and had no compunction about feeding the Americans what he knew. Hezbollah might have professed to be the resistance against Israel, but he’d seen up close that all they really wanted was their own political dominance in Lebanon, and they used the threat of Israel to maintain their massive armament. Israel’s disappearing tomorrow was their worst fear, as they would lose their reason to exist.
In other cases he tried to dilute the picture even more, giving false information that would only confuse or conflict with intelligence they already knew, not wanting to enhance the Zionist dogs’ ability to harm the Palestinian cause. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, or any other group looking to push Israel into the sea was off-limits in his mind. He would protect them at all costs.
The one area that the interrogators actively pursued was al-Qaeda, wanting more information about them than anything else. Unfortunately for them, he’d honestly had little contact with that group and couldn’t have provided much information even if he’d wanted to.
He wondered if that was the reason the interrogators had quit coming around. They’d realized he couldn’t help them in their quest against al-Qaeda and thus left him to his lonely cell. Left him with nothing more than books and a chance to exercise once a week.
He missed the game. It was the only one he had, and he needed the stimulation. He understood that he would never be allowed to leave, would never have his freedom again, and that is what hurt him the most. He had considered suicide but had rejected it outright. It just wasn’t his way. Instead, he’d turned to thoughts of escape, studying the prison routines and plotting.
The task was daunting to say the least. Getting out of the prison would be nearly impossible, but that was the easiest challenge he faced. He knew he was in the United States but had no idea exactly where and had no passport, money, or connections to facilitate escape. Fading into the background, like he would have done in his home country of Lebanon, would be impossible here. Even so, he enjoyed the mental challenge and had come up with a multitude of options, if the opportunity presented itself.
The light in his cell flicked off, then back on, signaling that someone was coming to visit. It startled him, since it had been so long since his last interrogation, and he was embarrassed at the excitement he felt. He put his back to the door and placed his hands through the slot, waiting to be cuffed, mentally preparing for the duel.
He felt the steel on his wrists and stepped forward, facing the mirror at the back of his cell. He saw it open, and was shocked at who came through it.
The man said not a word, waiting on the door to close again. As the echo of footfalls faded, he spoke. “Hello, Ash’abah.”
The Ghost smiled at the Arabic butchering of his nickname but said nothing, staring at the man in the mirror to confirm. He didn’t really remember the height or the color of his hair, but the blue eyes and the scar on his cheek were branded like acid on his brain. It was the man who had captured him.
“You can call me Mr. Pink. Have a seat.”
The Ghost did so, turning around and sitting at his small table, remaining silent.
“You remember me, don’t you?”
He spoke for the first time. “Yes. You’re the man who stopped my attack. The man who brought me here.”
Pink grinned. “How about that airplane ride? You couldn’t pay money for high adventure like that.”
The Ghost barely remembered his drugged trip on the Skyhook extraction system. A violent jerk off the ground, spinning in the hurricane-force wind, then being hoisted in the back of an aircraft. From there, it was one sedated journey after another, until he’d ended up here.
The Ghost said, “What do you want? I don’t think it’s answers you seek. That’s not your skill.”
Pink smiled. “Perceptive, aren’t we. No. I want you to listen to something. And then I have a favor to ask.”
The Ghost was off balance, his routine shaken by this strange turn of events. He felt the redline of danger but nodded.
The Ghost watched as a digital recorder was placed on the table. Pink held up the headphones and said, “May I?”
The Ghost nodded again, and Pink placed them over his ears. He hit “play,” and the Ghost focused on a conversation in English, then in Arabic. When it was complete, he returned his eyes to Mr. Pink.
“What you heard was a Mexican drug cartel member talking to Hezbollah about selling nuclear secrets from the United States. There is an American who is bringing them down. Did you understand the Arabic?”
The Ghost said, “Yes. Someone is bringing money to pay, and the men speaking intend to kill him.”
“Yes. That’s correct. That someone is coming from Pakistan, and he’s due to arrive tomorrow. The American with the secrets arrived yesterday.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We cannot let Hezbollah get nuclear secrets. They’ll turn them over to Iran, helping them with their quest to build an atomic bomb.”
“So?”
“We want you to pretend you’re the man coming from Pakistan and lead us to the meeting.”
51
At first the Ghost thought he’d misunderstood. The statement was so ludicrous it defied logic. He thought his English had failed him.
Pink said, “You’ll be in no danger, and we won’t ask you to do anything overt. Just lead us to the meeting. We’ll do the rest.”
The Ghost couldn’t help but smile. The idea was preposterous. It was a trick of some kind. “So, you’re going to take me out of here, fly me to Mexico, and allow me to meet with members of Hezbollah?”
“Yes, that’s about the sum of it.”
“But I can’t do that under your watchful eye, with you handcuffed to me. If that were possible, you wouldn’t need me. You’re going to have to let me go on my own.”
“I know.”
The Ghost shook his head. “I don’t know what your little interrogators told you, but clearly you think I’m an idiot.”
“No, I don’t. Remember, I’m the one who caught you. I do not underestimate anything about you.”
The Ghost said nothing for a moment, contemplating. The idea was fantastic, and clearly a lie. There was something else at play here. Why else would this man — his sworn enemy — come begging? They were trying to set him up for something.
He said, “Pretending what you said is true, why would I help? You consider me a terrorist as well. What makes you even fantasize that I would help?”
Pink said, “Let me ask you a question: Do you hate the United States?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate Hezbollah?”
“No.”
“Really?” Pink smiled. “Hmmm… seems to me t
hat you have every reason. They sold your ass down the river in Lebanon and don’t care one little bit about Palestinians. They’re currently fighting against Sunni insurgents in Syria. Fighting with a Shiite dictator who hates you for daring to defy him. They’re trying to prevent the creation of a government that would help your cause.”
When the Ghost didn’t respond, Pink said, “I’ve read your file. I’ve seen the assessments of your intelligence. You should be proud to hear that they’re off the charts compared to any other detainee. What’s funny is that with all those smarts you get tripped up whenever talking about Hezbollah. We have very little for Hamas and other Palestinian groups, but quite a lot on Lebanese Hezbollah. Why is that, do you think?”
Pink leaned back in his chair, tipping onto the back legs and locking eyes with the Ghost. He rocked back and forth while the Ghost remained silent. Finally, he said, “The man coming to the meeting works for al-Qaeda, but he’s Palestinian. Is your hatred for America so great that you’ll let him die so Hezbollah can help out Iran?” Pink leaned forward on the table. “It’s really just a question of who you hate more. The enemy of my enemy and all that Arabic bullshit.”
They sat for thirty seconds without speaking, Pink content to let the silence blanket the room like a fog. Finally the Ghost said, “Let’s say I do lead you to this meeting. What’s in it for me?”
Pink said, “You’ll get to prevent the death of a countryman, and have my undying gratitude.”
The Ghost scoffed and Pink continued. “You know I can’t promise you release, but I will talk on your behalf. We’ve got everything we’re going to get out of you. Any information you have now is old and stale. Not worth our time. I’ll do what I can, maybe get you moved to some sort of house arrest where you get to see more than these four prison walls. That’s the best I can do. No way will they release you, because you’ll go right back to killing people. You and I both know the truth of that.”
Despite himself, the Ghost began considering the offer. He had no doubt that Pink was lying about something in the mission, but he hadn’t lied about what he could offer. He could have but didn’t. Reluctantly, the Ghost felt a grain of respect for the man across the table. He wouldn’t admit it, but Pink had spoken the truth about Hezbollah and Iran and had pushed the correct buttons much more adroitly than any of the interrogators before him. Pink wasn’t like the people who had questioned him this past year. He was someone more like himself than the Ghost cared to admit. Which meant he was someone to guard against.
