The Midnight House jw-4

by Alex Berenson

  She breathed in deep, reached for the place where she was in control. She knew it existed, though she needed a map to find it these days.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave them alone.”

  “Then go keep an eye on them,” Murphy said.

  “Enough,” Terreri said. He reached for a cardboard box from under his desk, pulled out cowboy hats in all shapes and sizes.

  “We’ve all worked hard all these months. I know it’s been tough. But it’s paid off. This is what Jawaruddin bin Zari has been hinting at for the last couple weeks. We recovered it four days ago in Pakistan. Karp and I are the only ones who are supposed to see it, but I figure we all deserve a look. But you’ll only see it once, so watch closely. And it goes without saying, this is beyond classified.”

  He clicked on his laptop. On the flat-screen television across the room, the video of bin Zari and Tafiq began to play.

  TWO FLOORS DOWN, Mohammed Fariz sat on his cot, his eyes closed, his legs folded under him. He looked almost peaceful, but he wasn’t. The djinns were with him constantly now.

  They didn’t yell at him anymore, and for that he was grateful. They didn’t yell because he’d agreed to do what they asked. He understood them now. They were his friends, the djinns, his only friends. They helped him see.

  Every day, the Americans walked Jawaruddin down the corridor past Mohammed’s cell. And every day Mohammed saw that Jawaruddin wasn’t Jawaruddin at all. A devil had put salt in his mouth and seeped into his blood through his throat. He seemed to breathe, but he didn’t. The Jawaruddin-devil was in charge here. The Americans pretended to hold him, but really they worked for him. He could leave anytime. Every time Jawaruddin walked by Mohammed’s cell, he said hello, and the words made Mohammed’s teeth hurt so much that he wanted to pull them out. But Mohammed didn’t say anything at all. He just nodded and smiled. The djinns told him that if he nodded and smiled, his teeth wouldn’t hurt. The djinns explained everything. They came in the night and talked to him.

  They showed him how to unscrew the metal leg of his cot, how to sharpen its edges against the bed frame each night while the guards slept. They showed him that if he stood on his cot he could use the leg as a screwdriver to loosen the grate that covered the air duct in the ceiling. The screws were rusted tight, and for a week Mohammed worked them, inch by inch, tearing up his fingers. He wondered if the Americans would notice, but the djinns told him not to worry, that the Americans didn’t pay attention to him anymore. Finally, the night before last, the screws came loose and he took off the grate and stood on his tiptoes and looked inside the vent.

  The tube above was a dark tight metal hole, too small for an average-sized man to fit. But Mohammed wasn’t an average-sized man. He was an underfed teenage boy, 1.6 meters — five-four — and sixty kilograms — one hundred thirty pounds. He reached inside the vent. Less than a foot above the ceiling, it connected with a cross-tunnel that ran above all the rooms and cells in the basement. Mohammed screwed the grate back on and lay down and closed his eyes and waited for the djinns to tell him what to do next.

  MODERN AMERICAN PRISONS DIDN’T have ventilation systems that extended directly into their cells. But this wasn’t a modern American prison, and until 673 arrived, these cells weren’t used for long-term confinement anyway. Misbehaving Polish soldiers were hauled in for a week or two and then discharged or transferred to larger bases for more serious punishment. And central heating was a necessity in Stare Kiejkuty, where the temperature regularly dropped below zero in the winter.

  When 673 took over the barracks, Jack Fisher had seen the vents. He’d given the Rangers standing orders to check them once every two weeks, make sure the prisoners didn’t tamper with them. Mohammed’s cell was due for another check. In four days.

  AS MOHAMMED READIED HIMSELF for his mission, bin Zari lay two cells away on his cot, hands folded behind his head. He could almost believe he’d dreamed those weeks in the torture chamber. The antibiotics had taken care of his pneumonia. The blisters on his skin had healed. He had no scars, no broken bones. His insides had nearly recovered, the woman doctor told him. Even the most sympathetic lawyer might not believe his story.

  These Americans had defeated him without leaving a mark. He wanted to be angry at himself for breaking, but he couldn’t. He’d sent dozens of believers to their deaths, helped them strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves into eternity. But in truth he’d helped those men, offering them the briefest burst of earthly torment in return for the perpetual bliss that Allah granted his martyrs. What the Americans had done to him was something else, endless pain unrelieved by death. No one could beat that room.

  Since he’d agreed to talk, they’d treated him decently. Then again, he hadn’t given them reason to hurt him. In the last few weeks, he had thought of going back on his word, giving them fake names, addresses, plots. But he didn’t know how much they knew. And if they put him back in the torture cell, he would shed his skin like a snake, thirsty and desperate as the blood poured off him. They would take him to the brink and bring him back, over and over, until his mind snapped.

  The day before he broke in the torture room, its walls had turned into living crepe paper. He’d needed a few seconds to realize he was seeing roaches, thousands of them. They scuttled across the floor and over his skin, crawled into his mouth and nose and even his ears, scuttling along, their touch dry and quick. They weren’t real. He knew they weren’t real. They had bomb belts, tiny and perfectly formed, strapped to their shells. Bin Zari had enough sanity left to know that roaches didn’t wear suicide bombs, that the stress of being chained to the floor for days on end was making him hallucinate. But they felt real. He saw them and heard them and suffered their touch on his skin. And he knew that if he stayed much longer in the cell, he would lose what was left of his mind.

  Whenever he thought about lying to the Americans, he remembered the roaches. Maybe he was a fool. Maybe the Americans would go back to torturing him after he’d given up his secrets. But he didn’t think so. They’d offered a clear bargain all along. Give us what you know, and we won’t hurt you.

  He’d realized something else, too, something he should have figured out months before. He could turn his weakness into strength. The most important piece of information he had might be more dangerous for them than for him. Let them find the videotape with him and Tafiq. Let them play it at a tribunal at Guantánamo. Let the world see it. The Americans would know once and for all that their supposed allies in Pakistan could not be trusted. The ISI would be forced to declare its allegiance openly.

  But he couldn’t tell them about the tape right away, or they might not believe him. He gave up other information first to prove his reliability. Each day they debriefed him. They were pleasant to him now. They gave him bottled water whenever he wanted, and he ate what they ate now, no more gruel.

  In turn, he gave up safe houses in Peshawar and the North-West Frontier. He even gave up the cell that Ansar had put together in Delhi to work on an attack against the Indian parliament. In truth, bin Zari had always doubted the ability of the men they’d assigned to that job, so the information was less valuable than it appeared. He let them think he was broken, an act that wasn’t hard to pull off, since he was, more or less. Then, when the interrogator who called himself Jim asked about the ISI, bin Zari sprang the trap.

  “Of course we were close to the ISI.”

  “Senior officers.”

  “In some cases.”

  “Did you communicate regularly?”

  “Yes. In fact—” Bin Zari broke off. “I’ve answered all your questions. But this I can’t speak about.”

  At first Jim smiled, joked, cajoled bin Zari to talk. But after an hour of questions, Jim grew irritated. Finally, he ordered the Rangers to take bin Zari back to his cell. “No supper,” he said. “Take tonight, sleep, and wake up ready to talk.”

  The next morning, Jim appeared outside bin Zari’s cell carrying a tray. He til
ted it so bin Zari could see what it held: three biscuits and a bowl of honey. The sweet, hot smell of the biscuits filled bin Zari’s nostrils, made his mouth drip. Bin Zari wondered where they’d come from. He’d not seen food like this since they’d captured him.

  “You must be hungry after missing supper,” Jim said. He dipped a biscuit into the bowl of honey, ate it carefully, one small bite after another. “Remember, in the other cell? How hungry you were?”

  Jim dipped the second biscuit into the bowl. “So, you’ll tell me what you meant, about the ISI?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t get to decide. You answer my questions, or I’ll put you back in that place. Just as soon as I’ve eaten this breakfast.”

  “You promised.”

  “And you promised to be honest with us, Jawaruddin.”

  “Please.”

  Jim seemed to lose interest in the conversation. He kept eating. And when the third biscuit was gone, he turned away.

  “That’s it, then,” he said. He didn’t even seem angry. “I’ll send the soldiers for you. Please don’t fight.”

  “Don’t.”

  Jim began to walk away.

  “All right,” bin Zari said.

  Jim stopped.

  “I’ll tell.” Bin Zari explained that he’d once taped a meeting that showed him talking over a terrorist plot with a senior member of the ISI. He refused to disclose the details of the meeting, saying that Jim wouldn’t believe him. “You’ll think I’m lying, and I fear what you’ll do,” he said. “You must see it yourself.”

  He’d stored the video on a laptop, and hidden it at a farmhouse that belonged to distant cousins of his in the Swat Valley. They didn’t even know it existed, he said.

  “Why make this tape?” Jim said.

  “In case the ISI ever decided to betray me. Or Ansar Muhammad.”

  “If you’re lying—”

  “I’m not.”

  “And you can show us where to find it?”

  “Yes.”

  That evening, Jim came to his cell holding a Quran. “For you.”

  Bin Zari didn’t thank Jim. He hadn’t fallen that far yet. But he took the beautiful book, with its gray cover and intricate silver filigree, gratefully.

  That night, as he read, he wondered what the Americans planned to do with him. Would they find the laptop? And if they did, would they send him to Guantánamo? Or simply kill him? He no longer cared.

  But he knew that in the next world, Allah would see fit to torture these Americans, just as they’d tortured him. For eternity. No matter how much they begged for forgiveness, how loudly they screamed their mistakes. For this vengeance Jawaruddin bin Zari prayed as he read his holy book.

  MOHAMMED PEEKED THROUGH the bars of his cell. The corridor ran forty feet, past four side-by-side cells. Mohammed was housed in the second cell, Jawaruddin in the fourth. Past Jawaruddin’s cell the corridor ended in a concrete wall. On the far end of the corridor, two gates controlled the entrance to the cell block. A pair of chairs were positioned outside the gates. Usually a guard or two was stationed there to watch the corridor, an American during the day, one or two of the others at night.

  But for the first time in Mohammed’s memory, the chairs were empty. Now, the djinns told him. Now.

  Mohammed squatted low and flipped the cot up against the wall under the vent. He unscrewed its sharpened leg, careful not to slice his palm open on its edges. When it was loose, he touched its blade with the tip of his thumb and was pleased to see blood rise from his brown skin.

  He pulled himself up the side of the bed and squatted on its edge. With his free hand, he loosened the screws that held the vent. A bigger man would have knocked over the cot, but Mohammed’s lack of size worked to his advantage. The cover came loose. He pulled it free and jumped down. He left the cover on the floor and peeked out the front of the cell. Still no guards.

  It’s time, the djinns said.

  BIN ZARI CLOSED his eyes and tried to sleep. Though for some reason that little monkey Mohammed was scraping around his cell. Normally Mohammed didn’t say much, just stared whenever bin Zari walked by. Bin Zari wished the Americans would send the boy to Guantánamo or back to Pakistan. Wherever. He was strange, and bad luck. A fierce sour smell came off his greasy, tangled hair, and his eyes were black stones that gave no hint of what, if anything, he might be thinking.

  Bin Zari knew Mohammed wasn’t responsible for their original arrest, but he blamed the boy anyway. He’d never been close to being captured until that night in Islamabad. “Little monkey,” he yelled. “What are you doing?”

  UPSTAIRS, THE VIDEO WAS DONE.

  “Remember it,” Terreri said. “You’re never gonna see it again. I shouldn’t have shown it to you, but we are a team, we’ve always been a team, and we will always be a team.”

  “Even you, doc,” Fisher said.

  “I feel so much better now,” Callar said.

  “What happens next, Colonel?” This from Jerry Williams.

  “We’re going home,” Terreri said. “Unless you want to stay awhile while, hang out in Poland.”

  “Sir, that’s not what I meant.” Humor wasn’t Williams’s strong suit. “I meant with the prisoners.”

  “Yes, Muscles, I know. Hasn’t been decided. What you just saw, that could cause a lot of problems with the Paks. Only a few people back in D.C. even know about it. Even fewer know how we got it. And they don’t want Jawaruddin to get to Gitmo and start bitching about how he’s been treated. ’Specially if along the way he mentions the video. And we can’t exactly send him back to Pakistan, either. So, it’s complicated.”

  “We ought to leave them here, let the Poles have ’em.”

  “Personally, I wouldn’t care if they spent eternity and a day downstairs. But no, they won’t be staying here. When we go, the Midnight House is done.”

  “We oughta just kill ’em,” Fisher said. He looked around the room. “I’m serious. Much easier.”

  Terreri puffed his cigar, blew a perfect ring. “You mean it, don’t you, Jack?”

  “That man downstairs is a human roach.”

  “You’re sick,” Callar said.

  “All your complaining, you’ve been here every step,” Fisher said. “Little late to be holding your nose.”

  “Wish I could agree with you, Jack,” Terreri said. “But that’s not how we do.”

  “You sure? One hundred percent? If I went downstairs right now and did it myself, I’ll bet none of you would turn me in.”

  “I would,” Callar said.

  “Would you, now, sweetheart?” Fisher stepped toward her, blew a stream of smoke in her face.

  “Enough, Jack,” Terreri said. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Good. And on that happy note, let’s go outside, take a couple pictures. Something to remember when we’re old and gray.”

  DOWNSTAIRS, MOHAMMED PULLED HIMSELF atop the cot, wormed his head into the vent. The tube was cracked and rusted, the air inside hot and stale. He wanted to pull out his head. He wanted to lie on the floor and close his eyes and sleep. And wake up in the room in Haji Camp he shared with his brothers, wake up before the Jaish had touched him. He was so tired.

  But the djinns didn’t care about his excuses. They had chosen him for the mission. As he wavered, their voices rose, a cacophony of curses and threats, filling him until he couldn’t breathe. Go on, the djinns said. Leave it behind.

  Mohammed balanced himself on top of the cot. He pushed himself into the vent and found the cross-passage that ran horizontally through the ceiling of the cell block. To his right, the passage led to the front of the block and the guard station. To the left, it ran toward the rear wall and Jawaruddin’s cell.

  Left, the djinns whispered. Left.

  Mohammed put the knife into the passage to his left. He reached for the ridges of metal where the ventilation pipes had been welded together and pulled himself left, pushing the knife be
fore him. For a moment he was stuck, and then he wriggled his shoulders sideways and freed himself and squirmed forward with the syncopated twists of a snake. He slid over the vertical vent that dropped into the cell beside his and wriggled along until he reached the fourth and final cell. In the cell below, he heard Jawaruddin. He looked down and saw Jawaruddin’s bulky body through the grate. “Monkey. Are you up there?”

  Now, the djinns said. He’s the devil. The devil, the devil, the devil. And if you don’t do what we say, you’ll be the devil, too.

  Mohammed dropped down and kicked through the grate and slid out.

  IN THE CELL BELOW, bin Zari looked up almost in awe as Mohammed’s feet emerged from the vent. “Crazy monkey. Where did you think you were going? Trying to escape?”

  Bin Zari reached out and tugged at Mohammed’s legs and pulled him down. Centimeter by centimeter, Mohammed’s belly and neck and head came out of the grate. His arms were over his head, the last part of him to emerge—

  And so bin Zari had only an instant to react when Mohammed’s arms came free and Mohammed’s right arm swung down at his face with something that looked like a lightning bolt wrapped inside his brown fingers. Bin Zari grunted and twisted his head and let go of Mohammed—

  But he was too late. The sharpened edge of the cot leg caught his left eye and tore through the lid and the cornea and into the meat of the eyeball. Bin Zari lifted his arms and tried to scream, but Mohammed shoved the leg deep into his brain, and before bin Zari knew what had happened the pain spread from his eye to everywhere and nowhere and he couldn’t hold himself and—

  He collapsed beneath Mohammed, dead before he touched the ground.

  BUT MOHAMMED AND THE DJINNS weren’t finished. Mohammed slashed at Jawaruddin’s face and belly until the big man’s guts covered the floor of the cell and his nose and ears lay stacked on what was left of his chest. Now eat, the djinns told him. Eat.