Agent in Place

Saydnaya Prison was lodged in the mountains twenty miles north of Damascus, near the hillside town of the same name. It was a massive walled complex with two main structures: the large, square White Building, and the even larger, tri-winged Red Building.

The prison had originally been built to process and hold a few thousand inmates, but since the war began, the population had soared. Now more than fifteen thousand prisoners were locked in cramped, foul, and cruel conditions inside, mostly in appalling cells along the echoing hallways that ran down the long wings of the Red Building. Windowless chambers originally built for solitary confinement in both the Red and White Buildings now held nine at a time, and the group cells were used to house many times that number.

Deaths from beatings, malnutrition, dehydration, and denial of medical care were common, but these were not the main causes of death here at Saydnaya. No, most people who died here were killed during the mass executions carried out in the dead of night in the basement of the White Building, where groups of twenty to fifty blindfolded men convicted in kangaroo courts were hanged by the neck simultaneously, their bodies then loaded into trucks like bags of flour to be dumped in unmarked mass graves in the nearby hills.

Killing enemies of the regime, be they combatant, protester, journalist, or others, was the regime’s only real answer to any threats to the rule of Ahmed Azzam. Tens of thousands had been hanged since the beginning of the war, mostly here at Saydnaya, and Amnesty International referred to the complex as a human slaughterhouse.

* * *

? ? ?

Sebastian Drexler pulled up to the lower gate of the prison at eight a.m. and shifted his white Mercedes E-Class into park at the guard shack. This wasn’t his first time at the facility, so he knew the routine. He handed his identity badge and government credentials over to the guards, received a grounds visitor’s badge, waited for a Jeep to meet him, then followed the Jeep up the hill. Together the two vehicles drove the long winding road across brown earth towards the complex. Here Drexler parked in a tree-lined lot located between the Red and White Buildings, pulled out a wheeled suitcase and a leather portfolio, climbed into the Jeep with his luggage, and rode with three intelligence officers from the Political Security Directorate into the main gate of the Red Building.

The Jeep parked by the main door and four men got out and showed their credentials through bulletproof glass, and then they were buzzed in and allowed to move freely around the main portion of the facility. On all his previous visits to the Red Building, Drexler had gone into the main entrance, then taken the hall to the right towards the interrogation section, where he would either question prisoners or meet with interrogators to pick up intelligence; today he and his chaperones made a left at visitor processing and headed towards the infirmary.

By eight thirty he and the three intelligence officers were drinking tea in a conference room, and here Drexler was introduced to a dark-bearded man in his fifties and a taller man with white hair in his sixties. They were both vascular surgeons from Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus, and the senior of the two, Dr. Qureshi, had been brought up to Saydnaya the day before to take charge of today’s procedure.

“Is everything ready?” an anxious Drexler asked the white-haired surgeon.

Qureshi turned to the director of the prison for an answer.

The director said, “Yes. The prisoner has been held in the White Building, which is primarily for short-term housing of political prisoners. But the medical facilities here at the Red Building are superior, so we are having him brought over here to us.”

“Fine,” Drexler replied. “We must not begin the procedure until the helicopter has landed. Everything is dependent on timing. I cannot waste one moment once we start.”

“Understood,” Dr. Qureshi said. “I have eight other doctors and nurses with me. They all know their roles. I was the lead surgeon on the test cases that were done last year. We will be fast, as you have requested.”

The other surgeon said, “We have trained on the process. The notes you provided us and the research you have done on the process were very helpful. But this will be my first implementation in the field. We spent yesterday afternoon practicing the operation. We are ready.”

Drexler sniffed. “I’ll hold my applause until I make it through immigration in Europe.”

The dark-haired surgeon said, “Of course, sir.”

* * *

? ? ?

Thirty minutes later a Soviet-era Mi-8 helicopter landed at the heliport outside the Red Building and Drexler’s luggage was loaded on board. Shortly thereafter, he was called into a windowless room just down the hall from the main operating suite of the infirmary.

Two prison guards stood against the far wall, bracketing a man in a prison uniform standing there, shackled to the wall.

Drexler looked him up and down. He was a healthy man, of average height and with very light brown hair, just a few shades darker than Drexler’s. The prisoner just stared back at him silently, unsure who this non-Arab man was or what language he spoke.

Drexler addressed him in English. “Your name is Veeti Takala. You are thirty-six years old, and you are from Finland.”

The man nodded his head vigorously. “Yes, that’s right. I am a videographer, working for ITN. I was taken from my hotel room last night. All my papers are in order.”

“I know they are, and I appreciate that.”

“I am not a spy!”

“I know that, too. If you were, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Who . . . who are you?”

“Well, I’ll tell you who I’m not. I’m not the lifeline you were hoping for.”

The prisoner’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand. I demand to speak to my embassy.”

“Afraid that won’t be possible. The locals here don’t have the best consular system around, I can tell you that. And, unfortunately, there is no Finnish consulate outstation here in Saydnaya Prison.” Drexler chuckled at his joke and looked at the guards, but they did not speak English, so the humor was lost on them.

The prisoner just cocked his head, regarding Drexler as if he were mad.

“The problem is,” the Swiss man continued, “that you have something that I desperately need.”

“What do I have? I had a backpack with me in my hotel room. Check it out. You can have anything. Cameras, computer . . . money. Anything you—”

“What I really need, actually, is your identity. I must make my way into Europe, and that is a problem. You see . . . I was a very bad boy once.” He held up a hand and corrected his last statement. “More than once, to be perfectly frank, so the Europeans don’t like me. In fact, they are hunting me down. I had a little plastic surgery on my face two years ago, so it is difficult for their cameras and computers to recognize me. But to get into Europe . . . it is more difficult. With your identity, however, I can travel freely.”

The Finn nodded slowly, thinking he understood. “I get it. You need my passport.” He was conspiratorial now. “It’s true. You and I look similar. We’re about the same size, same age. You can use it. Just let me go.”

Drexler nodded along with the Finn for a moment, they both smiled, and then Drexler continued smiling, but his up-and-down head bob suddenly turned into a left-and-right shake of the head.

Still smiling, still happy as he could be, Drexler said, “But you don’t get it, man. You don’t understand.”

Veeti Takala stopped smiling. “Don’t understand what?”

“A passport alone won’t work.”

“What do you want, then?”

“It’s not what I want, friend; it’s what I need. I need . . .” Drexler reached inside his jacket, drew his FN pistol from his shoulder holster, and flipped off the safety. “I need your fingerprints, and there’s just no pleasant way to take them from you while you’re alive, so I’ll do you the kind gesture of making this easy for you.”

The Finn’s face went white, and his eyes locked on the gun.

Sebastian Drexler leveled the gun at the man’s heart. “I don’t know if you are curious, but I’ve been told by the doctors that the moment this gun goes bang, I will have fewer than thirty-six hours to get into Europe before the prints begin to decay.”

The Finn started to hyperventilate. Through it, though, he was able to croak out, “Sir . . . I beg of you—”