Chapter 15
Islamabad, Pakistan
June 19, 2002
The sound of rain, of water dripping from the faucet, the toilet bowl filling after a flush, flashed David back to Thailand, every time.
He hadn’t seen it happen. Hadn’t seen Zahawi be smothered with the water, drowned, until Kris had interrupted and brought him back to life. But his mind could fill in the gaps, rewind reality and paint too-vivid pictures, working backward from the moment he’d appeared in the cell door.
Untethered, his mind worked overtime, building images from his memories, dredging through his soul for the raw material. He’d been through SERE school where Dennis had studied, had based his interrogation techniques on. He’d been mock interrogated, forced to sit nude while someone tried to crack him. It had been a game, an endurance test. He’d known there was an end, a point at which it would all evaporate. It hadn’t ever been real.
He’d never thought of his father.
His memories fractured, a broken kaleidoscope, or the carved wood fractals of his childhood mosque, honeycomb filigrees of bursting sunlight, a million tiny rays. His father’s face, smiling at him after prayers, reaching for him, rubbing his head. His father’s face on a naked, piss-covered body, drowned in a puddle on a dirt floor.
He’d never put his father back into his life. Not in twenty-one years, not since leaving Libya, leaving Africa, and washing the sand and the sun and the memories away. He’d left it all behind, his history, his name, his religion. Everything. He couldn’t be an Arab in America, certainly not a Libyan, not when they’d arrived. Pan Am exploding over Lockerbie had still been fresh for most people, as was President Reagan calling Qaddafi the most dangerous man in the world.
Never mind that David and his mother agreed. Never mind that the worst victims of Qaddafi were the Libyan people.
To be Libyan in the nineties was to be the enemy. He’d seen it on TV, in the movies, everywhere.
He’d buried it all, fragmented the memories until they were grains of sand, blown to the corners of his soul.
September 11 had brought the world to a standstill, had shaken the foundations of the globe, and everything he’d buried had come uprooted. He’d worked so hard to become American, but in a moment, one morning, he’d turned right back into a dirty Arab, someone dangerous, someone suspicious, the epitome of the Other in so many people’s eyes.
Collective blame was heaped on his and every other Muslim’s shoulders, the hatred of the Western world heaped on a billion people for the actions of nineteen men and the hatred of their small cult.
How could al-Qaeda undo the world so completely? Poison the minds of so many? Tarnish a people, and a faith, so entirely? How had their pain led them to dream about death, crave annihilation? Men like Bin Laden, like Qaddafi, like Zahawi and his best friend, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they ruined the world for everyone.
And were ruining David’s world, spinning it around like a Ferris wheel that wouldn’t stop.
Kris had pulled him out of Thailand, pouring him into the jeep with Agent Naveen in the middle of the rain. He’d still been unbalanced then, still fighting to keep the past and the present right in his mind.
Ryan and Dan hadn’t come back with them. He’d thought they would. But Kris had said, when he got into the jeep, “Dan promised he’d watch them. He’s going to take over the intel analysis. Ryan… He’s taking over the facility.”
They’d shared a long look at that. Ryan, in charge of the detention facility, overseeing Zahawi’s interrogation.
Six hours through the rain, and they were back in the city. He and Kris had spent a full day in a rundown motel, turning off their cell phones and their satellite phones and making love until they couldn’t breathe, until they couldn’t think, couldn’t hear the rain turning to water being poured over a black hooded face. When he’d wanted to sleep, he’d rolled Kris over, slid into him again. When he couldn’t breathe, when the memories were too strong, he’d kissed Kris until Kris had breathed for him.
Twelve hours later, they were back in Pakistan.
He was sent to the streets, back to Islamabad and Peshawar, back to being undercover in the teeming masses. Pashto, Urdu, and Arabic washed over him. The sun, a physical burn, blasted him from above. He tasted dust and sweat, and walked between streets, between alleys, into and out of markets. Overhead, sunlight split into streamers between swaying bands of fabric stretched across alleys and market stalls. He moved from shadow to shadow, watching and waiting.
Living. Listening to the people around him speak of Allah every other sentence. Hearing the muezzins call the city to prayer, over and over again. Mothers and sisters moved around him. Fathers and brothers called to one another. Soccer balls rustled in the dirt. Tea and cinnamon floated on the air, above the sewage and the manure.
Pakistan, on the surface, wasn’t anywhere close to Libya. People pressed in on him from every side. Pakistan was full, crowded with humanity, whereas Libya was spacious, more sand and sun than people. Empty stretches of the desert concealed Libya’s secrets. In Pakistan, there were no secrets, only gossip and scandal waiting for the right moment.
But it was a Muslim nation, with the rhythms of Islam embedded in its bones, in its blood, and old men walked the street with their slow, careful gaits, watching the sky and waiting for the time to pray.
If his father had lived, would he look like this man, or that man?
He stayed out of the US Embassy from before the sun rose to after it set. He returned late, after driving for hours, shaking any tails he might have picked up, and blending into the obscurity of the millions and millions of other Muslim men.
Time was no longer linear. The past lived in his present, extruding from his pores, his lungs, his eyeballs. He was saturated in memory, in time, drowning in it. At the wrong moment, he’d hear a note, the lilt of Arabic, a portion of the azan, and be back in his childhood. Catch a glimpse of the sun burning the sky to the color of an overripe orange, the look in a stranger’s eye, or the skyward gaze of a man in prayer.
He saw his father in the face of every old man.
He had to stop. Focus. His mind was like a broken sieve, leaking everywhere.
Kris spent a lot of time with George, especially in the evenings, when they were in meetings with Langley and Washington DC. He needed Kris, his lighthouse, his anchor. He was drifting out to sea without him.
David tried to get back in tempo with his team. Since Afghanistan, since he’d splintered off and stayed by Kris’s side, a gulf had emerged between them. His team had been his family, his brothers-in-arms, even despite their wildness, the bloodlust that had seized Jackson and the others, and the way their colonel in Germany had talked about killing those fucking Muslims. They were his family, as screwed up as some of them were.
Or, they had been.
He couldn’t fall back into the endless bullshit Cobb and Warrick threw at each other. Couldn’t muster the interest to kick Jackson off the junky game system, take his turn at shooting up the bad guys who dressed suspiciously like Middle Easterners, like Arabs, even Libyans. Their noise moved around him, through him, as if he were an alien in their midst.
Palmer crashed down on the couch next to him, creaking the old springs. They hadn’t spent much outfitting their living quarters in Islamabad, a sprawling house near the embassy. The furniture was on the verge of collapse. “Haddad. Squared away?”
He nodded. “Yes sir.”
Palmer kept staring at him. “You sure?”
He blinked. “Is this Captain Palmer asking, sir?”
“No, Sergeant, there is nothing that I want you to tell me. This is a friend checking in.” Palmer’s voice dropped. “Something’s got you shook. We can all see it. You’ve been off since Afghanistan. Ever since you were pulled off to go one-on-one with the CIA.”
“I’m good to go.” David tried to brush Palmer off.
Palmer wasn’t taking it. “Look, I got a WARNO for you.” A WARNO, a warning order, a heads-up. David’s hackles bristled as Palmer leaned in closer, speaking into David’s shoulder. “Some people are asking questions. Making comments. Wondering about you.”
“About me?”
Palmer stared. “Jackson let it slip you aren’t racking out in your own bed.”
He turned away. Stared at the TV, at the video game. Rodriguez was mowing down the bad guys in a tank. The bad guys looked like his neighbors from when he was seven, his neighbors who’d run a restaurant on Abdullah Bala Street in Benghazi and gave him pomegranates. His seven-year-old fingers would be ruby red, stained down to his fingernails by the time he was done. In his memories, the pomegranate juice turned to blood, the same blood on the TV screen.
“You gotta watch your six, Haddad. It’s almost time to pop smoke.”
“What?”
“We’re coming up on nine months we’ve been deployed. They’re gonna pull us back soon. Rotate us out. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“Iraq, man. We’re taking Iraq out next.”
David bit his tongue, hard enough to hurt. He’d heard about Iraq from Zahawi. The black flags of Khorasan coming over the hills, through Afghanistan, through Iraq. The prophecy, the prophecy.
“We gotta rotate out to start workups for invading Iraq. You know we’re always the tip of the spear.”
“When?”
“I’m waiting for the orders. Any day now.”
It was late when Kris finally came back to his—their—bedroom. David had already halfheartedly shared a beer with Jackson and Palmer, tried to shoot the shit with Warrick a bit. Had showered, standing in the cool water with far too little pressure as images of Zahawi and his father, Pakistan and Libya, and the burning sun beating down on a dry, dusty landscape, burst like fireworks behind his eyelids.
Kris looked like he’d been up for days, had stood before Goliath himself. Unlike the mythical David, though, he hadn’t succeeded.
Collapsing onto their bed, Kris slumped forward, burying his face in his palms. The knobs of his spine stuck out through his rumpled button-down. David trailed his fingers down each of them, pausing at every furrow. He felt Kris’s breath, the shudder of his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” Kris whispered. “I tried.”
It had always been a foolish promise.
Kris couldn’t stop the US government, couldn’t stop the might of the biggest bureaucracy on the face of the planet. Especially not from itself. “They won’t stop.”
Kris shook his head. His face was still hidden. He spoke to the darkness of his fingers. “George told me I was making a mistake. I was ruining my career. The detainee program is the next big thing in the agency. That anyone who is anyone is jumping to get on board.”
David’s fingers trailed down Kris’s back, tugged at the loose fabric until it was free from his pants. He slid his hand up Kris’s skin, ghosting over the small of his back, the taut warmth there. The small of Kris’s back had become his holy land, his Mecca, a place he craved and worshipped, burying his face deep in nightly prayer. The secrets of his soul were in Kris’s body, he knew. He just had to find them. He’d spend his whole life searching, on his knees in prayer before Kris.
He knew what Kris’s answer to George would have been. He knew it like he would have spoken it himself. “You told him to go to hell.”
Kris snorted. Finally, he pulled back, his fingers revealing his red-rimmed eyes. “I said a little more than that.” He sighed. “I swore I would never be a part of the detainee program. That one day it would come apart and I would fucking cheer when it came down around the agency. I would fucking cheer.” Kris rubbed his eyes. “George said I was damn close to being a traitor.”
“You’re not a traitor.”
Kris slumped, falling backward against David. “I’m being sent back to CTC. To Langley.” He rolled into David, burying his face in David’s chest. “I leave in a week.”
Relief bubbled through David, and he wrapped his arms around Kris, pulling his body completely against his own. They fit together like a puzzle made of two pieces, their bodies made to conjoin in a million different ways. “Palmer said we’re rotating out, too. Soon, he said. Very soon. I’m going back.”
“Where are you based in the States?”
In all the time they’d been together, they’d never spoken about home. About the United States and what life was like for them back there. It hadn’t seemed real, as real as their days in Afghanistan and after. Going back to America seemed like a movie he was about to see, something that was going to happen to another person.
It felt exactly like he’d felt when he was ten years old, fleeing Libya with his mother. Then, like now, he’d clung to another person to make the journey.
America wasn’t a place to go alone. He’d die if he were alone there, suffocate under the pace and the energy. But Kris would be there. His palm found the small of Kris’s back again. He spread his fingers, stretched his hand open until he swept down Kris’s ass.
“I’m at Fort Bragg. North Carolina. It’s a little over a four-hour drive to Langley.” He swallowed. “I’ve already looked it up.”
Kris smiled, that sly curl of his lips that crinkled the corners of his eyes. The smile sounded like the shape of his laugh—sardonic, but warm at the center, for the one who mattered. For David. “Have you? Think you’re going to be coming up to visit?”
It slipped out, before he’d thought it through. Days and days of hearing Arabic, of hearing his language, his father’s faith, saturate the air around him. “In shaa Allah,” he said.
Kris’s eyes went wide. David’s breath stuttered, stopped. “I mean—”
Kris pressed his fingers to David’s mouth. His lips followed, trading places with his fingers. David drank him in. Pulled Kris on top of him, until Kris was everywhere, until his arms surrounded David like a veil and his body was the moon over David, rescuing him from the sun, from the memories, from everything.
Falls Church, Virginia
July 1, 2002
Kris’s apartment smelled like dust and old age.
Thank God for automatic bill pay. His checking account, abandoned save for his paychecks deposited by the CIA, had dutifully pumped out payments for his apartment, his utilities, and his insurance for the near year he’d been gone. But not a soul had entered his cramped home. Dust over an inch thick coated everything. His windows were covered in grime. A forgotten spoon in his sink lived under a cover of green fuzz.
He cleaned for days, scrubbing every room from top to bottom. In the background, the television hummed, tuned to CNN all hours of the day and night.
None of his old clothes fit. His body had changed, broadening in places, tightening in others. He had an empty closet and a stack of designer clothes to donate. The only things that fit were combat pants and worn field jackets that always smelled like gunpowder and woodsmoke. His Pakistani clothes fit, too, thanks to David. Kris spent the days cleaning his apartment in breezy kameez pants and his silk house coat, the necklace David gave him nestled against the hollow of his throat.
The day before he reported to CTC, he went on a shopping spree, frantically buying out Banana Republic and Abercrombie & Fitch. He blew thousands, but came home feeling like a runway model, like all those days spent enduring mismatched camo and unwashed shirts were vindicated. CIA money would make him the most fabulously dressed officer. He’d helped win the war for them. They would make him look fabulous again. And no one would make him feel badly about it now. Not after everything.
CTC hummed like a beehive had been kicked over. Shifts worked around the clock, targeteers and analysts and operations officers stacked in working groups and zeroing in on anyone who was anyone in al-Qaeda. Kris plugged into the Afghanistan group, avoiding the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed group, the detainee interrogations group, and the Zahawi group.
In the evenings, he worked out in his apartment’s gym, watching CNN on the televisions over the treadmills. After, he fixed dinner in his apartment, throwing together a protein shake and a chicken breast while CNN kept droning. He fell asleep to the shifting lights and the dull susurrus of the TV.
Finally, eleven days after he’d set foot in his apartment, his phone rang. The incoming number looked like a credit card, long digits stretched across the display. An international number.
“Caldera.” His heart pounded.
“It’s me. We’re in Tajikistan, at Camp Alpha. We just got word. We’re going to Germany, then back to the States.”
“When will you be home?”
“Three, four days, at the most.” There was a pause. Static. “We’ll have three weeks off when we get back. Stabilization. I can be anywhere. I don’t have to stay at base.” Kris heard David swallow. “Can I—”
“Yes.” Yes, David could come. Yes, David could stay. Yes, David could spend every day and night at his apartment, in his life. Yes, he wanted David. Forever.
Three days later, as fireworks bloomed over DC, David pulled into Kris’s apartment complex in his truck. He was still in his uniform, his green military bag on the floorboards and a duffel beside him in the passenger seat. David jumped out, jogged to Kris, and wrapped him up in a hug, lifting him from the ground and swinging him around, like they’d been apart for months and not two weeks. Fireworks kept bursting overhead, red, white, and blue falling like glitter over the city. Music blared from the radio, the National Anthem and God Bless America. It was the first Independence Day since September 11. Patriotism was in the air, so thick Kris could taste it.
Every boom sounded like a mortar blast, a dropped bomb in Afghanistan, an explosion blooming over the Shomali Plain, Bagram Airfield, Tora Bora. Every fizzle of firework was a scream, every hiss of a rocket rising into the air a wail. Kris had closed his blinds, shuttered his windows, as soon as the fireworks started.
David flinched in Kris’s arms as a massive shower of ruby sparks burst above their heads, sizzling into streamers that fell like tracer rounds.
They huddled in Kris’s apartment through the long weekend, not coming up for air until Kris had to report back to CTC.
David spent all but two days of his stabilization time with Kris. They made love until they couldn’t, laid in each other’s arms until they started and finished each other’s thoughts, each other’s sentences. Kris took David into DC, to the National Mall and the Smithsonian, to museums and restaurants. They were as careful in DC as they were in Kabul and Islamabad about being seen together, about being physically affectionate in public. Furtive handholds hidden in close bodies, quick clasps of fingers beneath tables. Some nights they slipped out to one of the handful of gay bars in DC, where they could sit side by side, kiss, dance together. Make out in the bathroom until they had to slide into a bathroom stall and relieve the pressure before making out in a taxi all the way back to Kris’s apartment.
David had jeans and t-shirts in his duffel, and nothing else. Kris took him shopping, opening up his wardrobe to shorts and chinos, breezy tees and linen button-downs, casual cutoffs and fitted polos. Low-cut flats and airy sandals squatted side by side with tan work boots and boat shoes, and David’s cracked combat boots, still gray from Afghanistan’s dust. David got a corner of his closet, then a bar, then one entire half. David’s toiletries cluttered one side of Kris’s sink. For three weeks, they lived together in all the ways they’d wanted to and hadn’t admitted out loud.
Two days before he was due back, David kissed Kris and made love to him for hours, until he thought he’d die. After, he drove away, heading for Richmond, Virginia, and his mother. He spent hours on the phone with Kris that night, lying in his teenage bed in his mother’s home.
“Does she know?” Kris asked.
“No. She asks me every time I come when I’m going to make her a grandmother. When I’m going to bring home a nice girl for her to meet.”
“Think you’ll ever tell her?”
David sighed. “My mother wears the veil and goes to the mosque three times a week. She’s one of the masjid’s main sisters. I used to think it was just my father who believed so strongly, but…”
Kris kept his mouth shut. He didn’t say any of the false platitudes, like, “You’re her son,” or “Her love for you will be stronger than anything.” Because that wasn’t true, not most of the time. Passive avoidance was better than the explosion, lies that were kept in the head and the heart better than the certainty of banishment. Kris and his mother had never said the words. Did she know? Or did Kris delude himself into thinking he would still have her love if he told her the truth?
“Come back next weekend, if you can?”
“Of course.”
Summer turned to fall. On September 12, the president, speaking to the UN General Assembly, announced his intention to go to war in Iraq.
In October, Congress passed the Iraq Resolution, giving the president the authority to use any means necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
At CTC, Iraq was the word on everyone’s lips, a hum that started softly, whispers in dark corners that grew to a dull roar, a headache that couldn’t be ignored. Pressure mounted from the White House, demanding a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Kris was pulled into the special working group, ricocheting between the White House and Langley.
“Find the connection,” he was ordered. “Find it now.”
All he could think was Zahawi. Zahawi and his certainty America would invade. Zahawi muttering the hadith.
It’s next, in the prophecies. To fall. The armies of Khorasan will come through Iraq. The battle with the West will be there. America is going to invade.
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
November 2002
“Haddad, you have new orders. You are joining Detachment 391. Their linguist is out and you’ve been tapped as their replacement. They’re already in training. Report immediately to Captain Diaz.” His colonel, bright and early in the morning, pulled him and Captain Palmer into his office.
“Colonel, what is 391’s mission?” David’s stomach sank as Palmer went unnaturally still, his legs and jaw locking.
“Don’t be a moron, Haddad. You know exactly where 391 is going.”
CIA Director’s Conference Room
Langley, Virginia
December 2002
“I have to say, I am incredibly disappointed.” The vice president scowled across the table. “I expected more from the CIA.”
Kris, sitting to the right of Director Thatcher, stiffened. The vice president, in a shockingly unusual visit, had come to the CIA. He’d walked into headquarters, strode through the halls, and had sat with Director Thatcher’s handpicked team in the strategic heart of the CIA, where every major operation had been decided for decades.
“I cannot understand why the CIA hasn’t uncovered the intelligence the Pentagon has.” The vice president stared at Director Thatcher. “There are mountains of information proving a link between al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. Why don’t you people see the connections?” He shook his head. “The CIA has got some real problems.”
“Sir, we’d like to go over the intelligence your office has developed, step-by-step, and compare it to the sourcing and analysis our office has collected,” Thatcher rumbled.
From behind, Kris saw the director’s hands clench, his fingers lace together until his knuckles went white. The Pentagon’s intelligence office had been micromanaged by the vice president, twisted and twisted until it put out exactly what the White House wanted to hear.
“I hoped you would say that, Geoff.” The vice president flicked open his padfolio. Top Secret folders lay inside, and a classified memo rested on top. “What about the Iraqi intelligence officer’s meeting with Bin Laden in Sudan in 1996? Or the meeting between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence office in Prague? Al-Qaeda and Iraq’s discussions about explosives and chemical weapons training? The Salman Pak terrorist training facility in southern Iraq? I mean, Jesus, Geoff, this is just the tip of the iceberg!” The vice president tossed his pen onto his folders and sat back. “Can your people provide any credible intelligence?”
Silence.
Throughout the conference room, Kris heard the inhalation of breaths, and the sudden quiet of air being held inside lungs. All eyes slid to Director Thatcher.
“My people have been working extremely diligently—”
“Where’s the proof?” the vice president cried. He spread his arms wide, scoffing. “Where is your intelligence?”
“Mr. Vice President.” Kris leaned forward. “Regarding your claim that an Iraqi Intelligence Services agent met with Bin Laden in Sudan in 1996. We’ve also seen that intelligence report. It was passed to a foreign government’s intelligence service from a thirdhand source through an unverified network of informants. In the vernacular, Mr. Vice President, it’s a rumor. Furthermore, this rumor states that the Iraqi agent met with Bin Laden in July 1996. That’s a problem.”
All eyeballs in the conference room snapped to Kris. The air vibrated, almost enough to make the water glasses sing.
The vice president stared. “Why is that a problem?”
“Bin Laden left Sudan in May 1996. By July, nothing of al-Qaeda was left there.”
“And how do you know this?”
“I personally interrogated the individual responsible for transporting Bin Laden and his men from Sudan to Afghanistan: Abu Zahawi.”
The vice president’s eyes narrowed, dangerous slits. “What’s your name?”
“Kris Caldera, sir.”
“Mr. Caldera is one of our foremost targeteers and al-Qaeda experts—” Thatcher said, his voice rumbling.
The vice president interrupted. “I know who he is.”
Silence.
Kris barreled ahead. “Furthermore, allegations that there is a ‘terrorist training camp’ at Salman Pak in Iraq are erroneous.”
“The Iraqi Intelligence Service is running a state-sanctioned terror training facility at Salman Pak,” the vice president insisted, speaking over Kris. “Two airplanes were spotted at the facility. A Boeing 707 and a Tupolev Tu-154. Both were used to train foreign terrorists in how to hijack airplanes. This report has been confirmed by three Iraqi sources.”
“Yes, I know the sources.” Kris read off the names from his own notes. He heard Director Thatcher’s quick inhale, a hiss of breath, beside him. “Two of the men are associated with the Iraqi National Congress, a political lobbying group that has for years peddled misinformation in an attempt to foment political support for regime change within Iraq. Their claims, up until this year, have been roundly debunked. There is no proof that their claims of a terrorist training facility at Salman Pak are anything other than fiction this time around. They are opportunists, manipulating information and outright faking intelligence.”
“And the third source?”
“The third source, a former captain seeking asylum in a foreign nation, stated in his debrief that Salman Pak was a counter terrorist training camp for the Iraqi military. But the counter portion of that phrase seems to have gotten lost in translation. I have the original debrief from his petition for asylum here.” Kris tossed a folder onto the conference table.
The vice president did not reach for it.
“Reports of a plane in the desert south of Baghdad have been confirmed,” Kris continued, his voice softer. “It was a plane crash out of Baghdad Airport. The plane is a wreck. It’s not a training facility. Satellite photos show it has mostly been picked apart by civilians desperate to sell the metal and the wiring for a few bucks.”
“Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraq Embassy in Prague in April 2001.” The vice president stated the information like it was fact, chiseled in stone.
“That intelligence was provided by the Czech intelligence service. They refuse to give up their source for this report, so we cannot verify the credibility of the reporting. However—” Kris took a breath, folding his hands together. The pressure in the conference room had increased a thousandfold. It was as if only the vice president and himself were there. Even Director Thatcher seemed to have faded away.
“However,” Kris continued. “We have worked backward and created a day-by-day profile of Mohamed Atta’s movements in the year before the hijacking. Atta was photographed at an ATM in Virginia Beach on April fourth. On April sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and eleventh, cell phone records place him in Coral Springs, Florida, where he and Marwan al-Shehhi had an apartment together. We’ve checked every airline. Every route into and out of the US. Every passenger manifest. Every passport entry recorded for the first fifteen days of April. There is no sign of him ever leaving the United States, entering the Czech Republic, or returning to the United States.”
“There are no records of Atta’s movements on the ninth of April.”
Kris licked his lips. “That’s true. We don’t have any cell phone activity on the ninth. No email activity. No images of him captured at any bank or closed-circuit TV in the Coral Springs area.”
“Then that’s the day he was in Prague.”
“We also have no evidence of him leaving the United States.”
“He most likely traveled under a false passport.”
“A false passport we have never uncovered, using an alias we have never discovered, despite a year of turning this man’s life upside down, investigating every part of his existence? I can tell you what food he bought three times a week at the grocery store and how often he bought toilet paper, Mr. Vice President. I can tell you what movies he watched repeatedly and what his favorite drinks at his favorite strip club were. The brand of toothpaste he used and how often he brushed his teeth.”
“But you cannot say where Atta was on April ninth, 2001. Can you?”
Kris exhaled. “It was a Monday. The pilots responsible for the hijacking had completed most of their training. Their funds were fine. No one was experiencing money problems. The so-called muscle hijackers were about to enter the United States. There had been no issues with their plans so far. Everything had gone perfectly for a strictly compartmented mission that only a few members in the senior al-Qaeda leadership knew anything about.
“Mr. Vice President, there simply is no reason for this meeting to have taken place. And Atta hated Saddam Hussein. His journals show that he hated the secular dictatorship, as most members of al-Qaeda, Bin Laden included, hated Iraq. Saddam Hussein was, to them, an apostate. They wanted him destroyed. They didn’t want him as an ally. There is no reason for Atta to have flown to Prague or to have met with an Iraqi intelligence agent. There is no proof, none, that it happened.”
“If Bin Laden and his followers hated Saddam, then why did Saddam order his military to Alert G, the highest military readiness level, two weeks before nine-eleven? Why did he move his wives to the most protected compound in Iraq? Why did he seem to know, ahead of time, that a major attack was imminent?”
Kris swallowed. “I don’t know, Mr. Vice President.”
The vice president swooped forward, hovering over his padfolio. “You don’t think it’s strange at all that in August 2001, one of the United States’ main opponents was expecting a massive attack to occur?”
“I do think that’s strange, sir.”
“Iraq was the only nation to not offer condolences to the United States after nine-eleven. Every other nation on the planet offered their sympathy to us. Even tribesmen in Kenya, who didn’t hear the news for months, responded to the attacks. They gave us cows. Fourteen cows. And the Iraqis said we got what we deserved.” The vice president spoke quickly, his words like rapid-fire bullets aimed straight at Kris.
“Saddam Hussein is an incredibly paranoid and monstrous human being,” Kris said slowly. “No one disputes that. But to use his psychopathic tendencies and his hatred of the US in an attempt to force a connection to al-Qaeda…” Kris trailed off. “Mr. Vice President, I can’t support these findings.”
Director Thatcher spoke up, clearing his throat. “We have human source reporting from within the Iraqi government, Mr. Vice President. A source claims that after nine-eleven, there were fierce debates within Saddam’s inner circle. All of Saddam’s officials were counseling him to reach out to the US to make it clear that Iraq had no connections to the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks.”
“But they didn’t,” the vice president spat. “They didn’t.”
“Saddam Hussein has been opposed to Islamic fundamentalism for decades. When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, he refused to open an Iraq Embassy in Kabul. Whenever Saddam discovered elements of Salafi or Wahhabi Islam sprouting in Iraq, he ruthlessly executed anyone associated with the fundamentalist sects.”
The vice president stared at Kris. “Caldera,” he said slowly. “Kris Caldera.” He nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “I doubt you’ve reviewed our other intelligence linking Saddam to al-Qaeda.”
He couldn’t get into an argument with the vice president of the United States, no matter the dig, the potshots that the vice president might take. He lifted his chin. “I have, Mr. Vice President. In fact, I took a special interest in the report, chiefly because of its origins.”
The vice president arched a single eyebrow. He sat back, holding his pen in both hands, spinning it in front of his chest. “You cannot dispute this intelligence.”
I absolutely can. I can and I will. I’ll scream and shout and dance on this table, call the newspapers, go public–
Kris kept his shoulders still. Didn’t move a muscle. Stared at the vice president. Director Thatcher’s foot nudged his, under the table.
“You’re talking about the torture of al-Shayk.”
“The questioning,” the vice president snapped. “Under enhanced interrogation techniques.”
“Al-Shayk was captured in Pakistan in November 2001. He was questioned at Camp Cobalt in Afghanistan, but someone thought he wasn’t giving up enough information. Despite him detailing plans to attack naval infrastructure in Yemen and Bahrain, and despite providing information that helped point to Zahawi’s capture.”
“Kris,” Director Thatcher said softly.
“Al-Shayk was rendered to Egypt, where the Egyptians took over questioning. I’ve reviewed the cables. It’s astounding how, in early 2002, months after September eleventh, just after the war in Afghanistan, al-Shayk was questioned about al-Qaeda’s ties to Iraq. The focus of his interrogation changed completely. The questions weren’t about protecting the homeland anymore. They were exclusively focused on determining what connections al-Qaeda had to Saddam Hussein.”
“Uncovering the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq is protecting the homeland! Saddam Hussein is a state sponsor of terrorism! You can see for yourself!” The vice president waved to his files.
“What I see is a man who confessed under torture to whatever his interrogators wanted to hear!”
“Kris—” Thatcher hissed.
“Al Shayk confirmed it. In 1999, al-Qaeda sent two operatives to Iraq for Saddam to train in chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons systems!” The vice president slammed his hand down on his padfolio, over the Top Secret folders. “He admitted it!”
“He confessed to stop the torture!” Kris snapped. “Egyptian prisons are notorious for their torture and their forced confessions! They’re fingernail factories!”
“Kris!” Director Thatcher glowered at him.
“I was there, in Afghanistan!” Kris barreled ahead. “My team walked through the remains of al-Qaeda camps. We read through the training manuals al-Qaeda had for their chemical and biological weapons program. You know where everything came from? The United States. Most all of their manuals were reprinted United States military training manuals. Not a single piece of information we picked up from their training camps came from Iraq!”
“Al-Shayk is a senior al-Qaeda officer and in charge of military operations. He is exactly the right person to know about external outreach attempts by al-Qaeda.”
“And his information is dead wrong, obviously falsified to stop his abuse. He only said that two people were sent. He can’t say who. He can’t say where. He can’t say who in Iraq he planned the training with. He can’t say when these two trainees supposedly returned. His intelligence, for all intents and purposes, is worthless!”
“The information is exactly what he said it was. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, working together. Saddam, sharing his chemical and biological weapons technology with terrorists.”
“Mr. Vice President, al-Shayk intentionally misled his interrogators. He lied.”
Flashes of memory came at Kris from all sides, monkey trills in the jungle and the sound of rain, Paul’s sneer. Water being poured. “In my experience questioning Abu Zahawi, I discovered that al-Qaeda is anticipating the United States’ invasion of Iraq. Zahawi asked me if the US had invaded yet. They’re waiting for your attack. They want you to take out Saddam. They’re no friend of his.”
“And why would they want us to take out Saddam?” The vice president’s voice had dropped, like he was suffering through a conversation with a child.
“Because their apocalyptic prophecies foretell it.”
The vice president tossed his head back and laughed.
“‘If you see the black banners coming from Khorasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them’.” Kris quoted. “‘And they will finally reach Jerusalem, where they will erect their flags’. Khorasan. Afghanistan. The land of the Hindu Kush. Bin Laden has been using this hadith for years, drawing his fighters to his vision of a holy war. He’s always wanted to push the fight toward Iraq. To turn Iraq into the next Afghanistan, and then onward, until they strike Jerusalem. Until they take out the West.”
The vice president stopped chuckling.
“This is the fulfillment of their prophecies, Mr. Vice President.”
He blinked. Stared at Kris from under his furrowed brow. Tossed his pen onto his folders. “Tell me, then, about Saqqaf.”
Kris’s gut clenched. The floor seemed to drop away, a swirling vortex opening beneath his feet.
“You, out of everyone, know about Saqqaf.” The vice president’s head cocked to one side. “I’ve read all the cables.”
“Saqqaf is a thug. According to the Jordanian Mukhabarat, he was a drunk and a gang member, and when his family tried to straighten him out with religion, he went overboard. He found a new addiction and a new outlet for his rage and his cruelty. He went to Afghanistan and he begged to meet Bin Laden. Wanted to join up. But Bin Laden was disgusted by him.” Kris flipped through his notes, cables from Jordanian intelligence, reports from his interrogations of Zahawi. “In my interrogations, Zahawi said there was a man named Saqqaf who operated a training camp near Herat. He was unsophisticated. Crude. He didn’t have a good command of Islam, Zahawi said. He wanted to be a part of al-Qaeda, but al-Qaeda wouldn’t have him. He promised to open a foothold in the Near East if they backed him. He was put on a probation of sorts. They asked Saqqaf to set up a training camp. They’d provide the funds if he provided the training. They wanted to see what he could do.”
“They provided the funds,” the vice president repeated. “He was affiliated with al-Qaeda.”
“No. He never swore allegiance to Bin Laden. Bin Laden wanted nothing to do with him.”
“But he came to Kandahar to fight against the Americans. With al-Qaeda, during the invasion of Afghanistan.”
“We attacked all foreign fighters in Afghanistan—all the fighters allied against us. That included other units besides al-Qaeda.” Majid, in the mountains with David, had fought both for and against the Taliban, both against and for the Americans. Alliances had shifted faster than the sun rose and set. It had seemed like any choice could have been made there, on the roof of the world. Any choice, any direction. Nothing was clear, nothing.
“After Kandahar, what happened to Saqqaf?”
Kris felt like his words were nails, broken glass he had to chew through. “Saqqaf made his way through the mountains of Iran to northern Iraq,” he said slowly. “Our intelligence places him in Kurdistan right now. He’s joined Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamist group.”
“A radical Islamist group aligned with al-Qaeda. Operating within Iraq’s borders.”
“Ansar al-Islam operates in the Kurdish north, in an area out of reach of Saddam. It’s protected by our no-fly zones, Mr. Vice President.”
“Saddam has given sanctuary to this group, and to Saqqaf. He’s allowed a known member of al-Qaeda freedom to operate in Iraq, to continue to operate an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group on Iraq soil.”
“Saddam has barely any presence in the Kurdish north. He has no control there. We’ve kept him out of the north. We gave room for Ansar al-Islam to take root and grow. We protected the area from any incursions through our no-fly zone after the first Gulf War.”
“Mr. Caldera, where did this intelligence on Saqqaf originate?”
It felt like a trap, suddenly. Because it was. Kris fumed. “From my own interrogations of Zahawi.”
“During your personal questioning of Zahawi?”
“Yes.”
“Before any enhanced interrogation techniques were applied?”
“Yes.”
“If I understand your personal political position correctly, Mr. Caldera, from the numerous screeds you submitted to the White House Counsel’s Office, only intelligence gained outside of enhanced interrogation techniques is considered valid. Useful.” The vice president paused. “Is that correct?”
“Torture is completely ineffective, Mr. Vice President. Once you go down that road, everything you get is tainted. There’s absolutely no guarantee that anything revealed is truthful—”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“—Torture goes against everything this nation stands for—”
“The detainee program has stopped attacks from happening in Yemen, Singapore, Saudi, and right here, in DC and New York City and Chicago. It’s broken up cells all across Europe—”
“—torture violates the Geneva Conventions and goes against the Declaration of Human Rights—”
“Kris!” Director Thatcher grabbed his elbow.
“They don’t have human rights!” the vice president bellowed.
Silence. The director gasped, quietly. He kept his hand on Kris’s elbow.
“Animals that murder thousands of innocent civilians don’t get human rights! They don’t get international protections! They don’t get to go crying to the Red Cross for nicer treatment. Not when they want to murder every American on this planet!” The vice president’s voice shook the bulletproof glass in the windows, rattled the water glasses on the table. “They don’t deserve anything more than what they’re getting.”
Kris’s fingernails dug into the folders he gripped, scratching against the manila cardboard. “What is the status of Zahawi’s interrogation?”
“That’s enough, Kris,” Director Thatcher said quietly, leaning into him. “You’ve made your point.”
“What is the status of Zahawi’s interrogation? Did you send him to Egypt like al-Shayk? Or have you finally succeeded in killing him? This government was trying its hardest to!”
“Caldera!” Thatcher barked.
The vice president sat back, his seething rage replaced by the visage of a man who had sucked on the sourest lemon. He gazed at Kris like Kris was a traitor. No, was worse. Was one of them. Was a terrorist. “The interrogation of Zahawi has ended.”
Dan. He came through. He ended it. “He didn’t give you anything after you tortured him, did he? Not a Goddamn thing.”
The vice president didn’t blink. “What he did give us through your questioning was Saqqaf. An al-Qaeda operative who went to Iraq. Who is working in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein.”
“You’re twisting the intelligence around. That’s not an accurate representation of what Zahawi told me, or of Saqqaf’s current status in Iraq.”
“What does it matter, Caldera?” The vice president sighed, shaking his head. For the first time, he let his exasperation show. “What the fuck does it matter that we want to take him out? Saqqaf murdered our diplomat in Jordan two months ago. He is committed to killing Americans. Waging war against the West. So is Saddam. Now they’re in the same country, sharing resources.”
“He’s not al-Qaeda. He’s not even a big player. He’s a low-level jihadi flunky who has been searching for an outlet for his reckless criminal activity and his murderous fantasies. He’s isolated in the Kurdish region. If you want to take him out, send in a strike team, or a half dozen ICBMs. Both will eliminate him and solve the problem.”
“Look, Caldera, if there’s a one percent chance that they are working together, even just one percent—” The vice president spread his hands, as if to say the decision was out of his hands. “We cannot lighten our vigilance. We cannot take our foot off the gas. We have to win this war.”
It matters because David is going to be fighting this war of yours. David, and a hundred thousand other men like him. Fighting for reasons that aren’t truthful. Fighting a war that can be won another way. Fighting enemies that are propped up, made larger than life. Fighting for the wrong reasons, and fighting based on lies gained from torture. A lot of people are going to die for this, and if they die for lies, then what are they dying for? It matters because they want us there, they want us to take out Saddam, fight in Iraq, help them create the eschatological hellscape they crave, bring out the end of the world through bloodshed and the apocalypse—
But he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t get the words out. His wrath, his fury, gummed up his throat, ground his voice to silence.
“I want everything on Saqqaf. Everything the Jordanians have. Every intercept we have on the man. Every source on the ground, every rumor, every whisper of this man. I want to know where he is. I want to know what he’s doing. I want to know what time of day he eats. What time of day he takes a shit. When he goes to sleep, and where. Got it?”
This is how the war will begin. Kris gritted his teeth, biting down so hard his jaw hurt. There were other reasons for the invasion—the administration had tasked another team with tracking down Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—but the link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was the vice president’s holy grail.
“We’re going to nail this son of a bitch.” The vice president stood. Everyone followed.
Kris was the last to rise.
The vice president nodded to Director Thatcher, reached across the table and shook his hand. He turned to Kris. Glared, and said nothing.
The Secret Service was waiting for the vice president and his staff outside the conference room. They swept him up, passing him his Blackberry and his cell phone and escorting him through the building and back to his motorcade.
Director Thatcher slumped forward, bracing both of his hands on the table. He hung his head, his back bowing, shoulders slumping like the weight of the world was pulverizing his spine.
“Caldera…” He snorted. “That was a bold fucking career move.”