Into Darkness

by Richard Fox

  “Anyone want to hang around? Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ritter said.

  The Chinook kept its dual rotors spinning as the men of Dragon Company ambled out of its cavernous interior. The blown dust dissuaded the welcoming party waiting for them at the company landing zone. Dragon Company Soldiers, who weren’t on the mission, conspicuous by their relatively clean clothes, mobbed the returnees, no doubt demanding details from men who wanted nothing more than to clean up and eat a hot meal. Ritter and Kovalenko stood in the exit and counted as each Soldier passed them. They’d counted each as they embarked in Owesat, but a double count was always warranted and necessary. No Soldier wanted to stay on the wrong side of the river, but more than one Soldier had been left behind on a landing zone during the history of Army air-assault operations.

  Kovalenko flashed his count to Ritter with his fingers; the whine of the rotors made speaking futile. Ritter nodded and motioned for Kovalenko to head down the ramp. Ritter took a step to follow him, but the crew chief stopped him with a hand to the chest. The chief shook his head and handed a three-by-five card to Ritter. It read, “They Want You in the Green Zone.”

  Ritter didn’t need to ask who “they” were. He gave the card back to the chief. The rotors picked up speed as the helicopter prepared to go airborne, and the rear hatch elevated.

  Kovalenko spun around to look at Ritter. He raised his hands in confusion. Ritter shook his head and waved good-bye. Before the hatch closed all the way, Kovalenko gave Ritter a salute. Ritter returned the salute as the hatch shut with a hydraulic hiss.

  Chapter 22

  Atif didn’t know what time it was or where he was. The hood over his head kept him in darkness, and he was chained to a hook in the floor beneath his seat; both hands were handcuffed to metal semicircles protruding from the table in front of him. The blue-eyed, bearded American had asked him a few perfunctory questions—that must have been hours ago—and the last interaction he’d had with his captors was when he relieved himself in a bucket. He passed the time calling for a Red Crescent representative and rehearsing his story.

  The isolation didn’t bother him, nor did all the time that had passed. He had to hold out until Saturday morning. Once the bank in Medina opened for business, his accounts would be emptied, and the zakat “charitable” donations for jihad would be safe. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, savoring every second that passed as an incremental victory.

  He heard the door to his room open; two sets of footsteps came in with a gust of fresh air. Someone walked around the table and stood directly behind him, while he heard the other pull back the chair opposite from him.

  “I need to pray! The United Nations conventions on the proper treatment of detainees and your laws of land warfare require you to—” he stopped talking when the man behind him yanked the hood off his head. Atif blinked hard as his eyes adjusted to the bright lights of the room.

  The American officer from Owesat sat across from him, the same officer Mukhtar had warned him about. He was filthy; dirt and sand had invaded every pore and fold of skin on his exposed face and hands. His uniform top pressed flat from the weight of his body armor, and seafoam stains of salt from evaporated sweat crept across his uniform. His upper lip twitched as he stared daggers into Atif.

  Atif struggled to look over his shoulder to the man behind him. Rough hands twisted his head back toward the officer.

  “My name is Ritter, and we have much to discuss,” he said.

  “No, we don’t. I am just an anthropology student working on my dissertation.”

  Ritter pulled a manila folder from beneath the table and slammed it on the table. He opened the folder and looked over the first sheet, a sheet with a picture from Atif’s Saudi Arabian passport and writing in Arabic.

  “Your true name is Atif bin Kamal al-Wadhi. You handle finances between a series of Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia and Haider Hussein Mohammed al-Janabi, a man we both know as Mukhtar. You pay insurgents to attack Americans. If their attacks manage to injure or kill, you pay extra,” Ritter said.

  “This is preposterous. You have no proof of anything, and I refuse to discuss this any further,” Atif said. He would have crossed his arms if his hands hadn’t been shackled to the table.

  “You’re wanted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for material support to terrorism, treason, and”—he paused to read from the paper in the folder—“and homosexual acts.” Atif’s jaw dropped at the final charge. How did they know? “Conviction for any of those crimes is punishable by beheading,” Ritter continued.

  Atif sputtered before saying, “You’re trying a file-and-dossier approach on me. I won’t play along with this any longer until I’ve exercised my right to pray and speak with a representative—” A massive paw of a hand thumped onto Atif’s shoulder from behind. A finger ran from the top of Atif’s neck to his collarbone with a terrifyingly slow intimacy.

  “No, Atif. You have no rights here,” Ritter said. His eyes glinted with malice, hinting at what was to come. “Now that we’ve finished with the pleasantries, let’s get to business.” He pulled Atif’s laptop from a bag and placed it on the table. He pushed the power button and spoke as it booted up.

  “You will tell me the correct password for the encrypted files. You will give me the bank account information for every place you have jihadi money. You will give a full accounting of the donors and charities you use to launder the money. And you will tell me everything you know about the Soldiers Mukhtar kidnapped,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Atif stared at Ritter for a heartbeat, then burst into laughter. The chains around Atif’s ankles rattled as he attempted to stomp his feet.

  “You think you can hold out until the banks open—I appreciate that. If you were in the custody of the Army, your plan would certainly work. You don’t understand your situation here with me. So, time for an education.” Ritter turned his attention to the man behind Atif. “Carlos? Hand, please.”

  Carlos moved to the side of the table and placed his meaty hand on the back of Atif’s right hand, keeping Atif’s fingers extended. Carlos kept his body at an angle from Atif, his other hand hidden behind his body.

  “What is this? You can’t—”

  Ritter clicked open the encryption program guarding a folder on the computer. He turned the computer screen toward Atif. “Let’s start with the password. This is your last chance to cooperate the easy way. Choose now. Choose wisely.”

  Atif spat at Ritter; the glob of spit almost made it across the table.

  “Finger,” Ritter said.

  Carlos pulled a ball peen hammer from his belt and slammed it down on Atif’s index finger.

  The finger nearly burst from the impact, spraying tiny blood drops onto the computer screen. Atif screeched in agony as he looked at his ruined finger, jagged bone exposed beneath the torn skin. He struggled against his restraints, his instinct to press his injured hand against his body denied.

  Ritter showed no emotion as he waited for Atif’s cries to fade into a whimper. Atif dropped his head to his chest, averting his gaze from the ruined finger.

  “Atif, the password,” Ritter said.

  Atif refused to look at Ritter but mumbled a fourteen-digit code.

  “Are you sure?” Ritter asked. Atif nodded.

  “Carlos, finger,” Ritter said. Carlos destroyed Atif’s middle finger with a hammer blow. Atif screamed so loud and so long, he nearly hyperventilated.

  “Atif, I had some of the best computer scientists in the world examine the flame-out protocol before we began. They figured out that the password is sixteen characters; any more digging on their part might trip the protocol. Tell me the correct password, or he’ll take two fingers next time.” Atif looked up at Ritter, his eyes burning with hatred.

  “If you cooperate, we might—might—let you go. You’d be a free man in Saudi Arabia, but a free man with no right hand. You’d eat and wipe your ass with the same hand. I know Saudi Arabia well enough to know that such a ha
ndicap would make you an instant pariah. I’m not sure you could make it on the streets of Riyadh as a beggar.” Ritter tapped a dirty, but otherwise pristine, finger on the laptop.

  The two ruined fingers pulsed blood with every heartbeat. Atif felt the blood’s warmth spreading under his hand as he imagined what this psychotic American would do to him next. Slowly and deliberately, he gave the sixteen-digit code to Ritter. Ritter listened but made no move to enter the code.

  “Where are the captured Soldiers?” Ritter asked.

  “What?” The new line of questioning surprised Atif enough that he forgot the pain in his broken fingers for a moment.

  “Do you have trouble hearing in your right ear? We can fix that. Carlos?”

  Carlos let go of Atif’ hand, which he tried to close into a fist; the exposed bones poked into his palm. Carlos wrapped a gigantic arm under Atif’s chin and clamped a hand on top of Atif’s right ear. Atif tried to wiggle free, but he was a kitten in the jaws of a wolf.

  “It takes seven pounds of pressure to rip an ear from the skull,” Ritter said as Atif felt a vise grip the top of his ear. “Where are the captured Soldiers?” The vise started pulling the top of Atif’s ear toward the ground.

  “I don’t know!” Atif squealed. The pressure on his ear increased. “Mukhtar had them in a white truck! He stopped at the house where you found me and got rid of the two mujahideen that were in the truck with him. He was alone when he took them to the south. I don’t know where he took them, but it was far. It must have been close to the bridge in Jurf-al-Shakr. He never spoke of them again, and I never asked.” The pressure on his ear stopped growing, but it felt a hair’s breadth away from ripping off his head.

  “How do you know that?”

  “His gas tank was nearly empty. I…I have to keep track of benzene usage. It’s so expensive on that side of the river.”

  “What is the password?”

  Atif repeated the sixteen-digit code. Ritter entered the code, then gave a nod to Carlos, who released Atif’s ear. Atif tried to press his abused ear into his shoulder as Carlos pried the fingers of his right hand open, ready for another strike.

  Ritter took his time scanning through the many documents in the open folder. He raised a hand and made a quick “come here” motion toward a camera tucked into a ceiling corner. He turned his attention back to Atif. The man who had questioned Atif earlier came into the room and left with the laptop. Ritter turned his attention back to Atif.

  “For every lie, you lose a finger. After you run out of fingers, we will find something else to break. Now, tell me where to find Mukhtar.”

  Ritter watched the ensuing interrogation of Atif on the security camera feed. Atif’s hand was bandaged, the white gauze soaked through with blood. Carlos stood behind the new interrogator, who had Atif walk him through the financial data in the computer, the ball peen hammer perched in the crook of an elbow. He hadn’t needed to use it a third time.

  The pack of baby wipes gave Ritter the chance to clean up. He’d gone through two dozen wipes and removed most of the dirt and grime from his head to his waist. Shannon gave the door to the room a quick knock as she opened it enough to peek inside.

  “Got a minute?”

  Ritter opened the plastic on a pack of new undershirts. The feel of something clean against his skin made him feel like a new man. He sat on one of two swivel chairs in front of the wide-screen TV streaming the interrogation.

  “His information panning out?”

  Shannon slipped into the room and handed Ritter a bottle of cold water dripping with condensation. She took the other seat and crossed her legs.

  “It is. We’ve got a freeze on the accounts, and the Saudi mukhabarat will be waiting at the banks to pick up anyone who tries to access the money,” she said. Ritter snorted. Saudi intelligence used interrogation techniques that would make what he did to Atif pale in comparison. Ritter didn’t look at Shannon as they spoke.

  “How much?”

  “Almost four million dollars. Not a lot in comparison to the hundreds of millions we spend on the war every single week, but...it’ll put a crimp in Mukhtar’s operations,” she said.

  Ritter remained silent, rocking the chair a few inches from side to side as he watched Atif on the screen.

  “You haven’t lost your touch. Good job in there,” Shannon said.

  On the screen one of the analysts shook his head and pointed to the screen. The analyst glanced over his shoulder to Carlos and nodded. Carlos stepped off the wall and readied his hammer. Ritter and Shannon heard Atif’s protests through the walls. A muffled thump was followed by another thump, and Atif’s protests transformed into a wail of pain.

  “It was so easy,” Ritter said, as much to himself as to Shannon. “After all those years away from the Program, doing things aboveboard as an intelligence office, I thought there’d be some cognitive dissonance before Carlos and I maimed him. Nothing. No empathy for a man in pain. No cares for my oath as an Army officer.”

  “We wouldn’t be where we are now if you held on to something so useless as a conscience,” she said.

  “And where are we now? We don’t know where Mukhtar has our Soldiers. Do you think they’re still alive?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, it doesn’t matter. We never leave a fallen comrade behind.”

  “I’m not a Soldier, but I understand that. Mukhtar remains the key. Atif gave up the locations for our old adversary’s safe houses in Baghdad. Now we smoke him out.” Shannon outlined her plan to capture Mukhtar, a plan Ritter could find no fault with.

  “Abu Ahmet is a problem,” she said. Ritter’s heart rate sped up. He’d kept the revelation that Abu Ahmet was responsible for Mattingly’s death to himself. If Shannon suspected Ritter was holding out on her, his life would become very complicated very quickly. Ritter finished his water and collapsed the bottle against its base, then screwed the top back on and used the vacuum to keep the bottle compact. He was stalling, and he prayed Shannon didn’t pick up on it.

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Our source in his tribe says Abu Ahmet will turn on us, specifically your compatriots at Dragon, when Mukhtar is no longer a problem. Given that Abu Ahmet has been a valuable asset thus far, I suspect the source is playing us with poison-pen information. You’re the guy on the ground. What do you think?”

  Ritter felt fate’s hand enter the equation. This was his chance to balance the scales between him and Abu Ahmet.

  “This is what we’ll do about him,” Ritter said.

  Chapter 23

  The sound from the surrounding MRI machine switched from a constant whir to a series of clunks. During his first time in an MRI machine, after a bad parachute landing in the pine forests of Louisiana, he’d thought the clunking noise meant the machine had broken. Now he knew the machine was nearly finished scanning his skull.

  He hated the tightness of the MRI, hated the off-white confines that reminded him of the interior of a coffin. If that insurgent had thrown a fragmentation grenade over that wall, instead of a flash bang, he would be in a body bag right now. He’d had close calls from this deployment and the last: a bullet that snapped past his face, an IED that went off seconds too soon or too late, mortar rounds that landed close enough to pop his eardrums with the concussion.

  Each time he’d focused on his men and reacted to the threat as an infantry officer. But this last close call was different. When he’d seen the flash bang at his feet, his thoughts had been of his wife and daughters. He couldn’t stop thinking of them since he’d regained consciousness, but the hospital forbade him from calling home. All the Green Zone was in a communications blackout until the families of the wounded from a late-night rocket attack were notified.

  The machine stopped clunking. The whir traced a hidden orbit behind his cocoon from his left ear to the right. What had the rear-detachment commander told his wife? That he was in a coma? A vegetative state? Was she planning her future as the wife of a comp
lete cripple? She wouldn’t tell the girls anything until she had a complete understanding of his injuries; she’d maintain a lie that everything was just fine with Daddy and would hate every moment of it.

  “Why is this taking so long?” Shelton asked. There was no response from the technician in the adjoining room. The machine wound down and was silent. The MRI sled slowly returned him to the exam room. The room was kept dark to avoid aggravating his light-sensitive eyes, a symptom of what the doctors called either a concussion or traumatic brain injury. The technician was gone from his post behind the glass in the next room.

  Shelton pushed himself from the machine and patted the floor with his feet until he found his hospital-issued slippers. He made his way to the barest sliver of light marking the only door into the examination room. There had to be a civilian contractor floating around the hospital with a cell phone. He had to call his wife—regulations and standard operating procedure be damned.

  The light in the hallway sent a spike of pain through both eyes. He flung his forearm over his face until his eyes could adjust; the other hand groped for a wall to support him. He waited a full minute before testing his eyes with more and more light.

  “I can see your ass,” someone said.

  Shelton swiped at the back of his smock and grabbed the loose halves together. Ritter sat next to the exam room, a clipboard on his lap.

  “Eric? What’re you doing here? No, what happened out there? Are my men all right? Wait, if you’re here, then who’s in charge at my patrol base?”

  Ritter glanced at the clipboard. “Your chart says ‘diminished mental acuity,’ an over diagnosis by my guess. Maybe the doctor just doesn’t know you like I do.”

  “Answer me before I feed you that clipboard!”

  “Your men, all of them, made it back to Dragon without any injuries. I imagine your able executive officer, Lieutenant Park, can handle things until you return. I’m here to handle the secret squirrel side of things, which I’ll fill you in on when we’re someplace else.” Ritter reached to his side and placed a hand on a full shopping bag atop a cardboard box.