Chapter 14
CIA Black Site
Detention Site Green
Thailand
April 2002
Rain poured from the sky, soaking the detention facility. Steam rose from the concrete pad, the facility’s attempt at an outdoor pavilion. Heat smothered them, like a sauna Kris couldn’t escape.
Zahawi slept fitfully in his makeshift medical suite, hooked to machines and monitors, bandaged like a mummy halfway through his mummification.
Kris’s shot had been perfect. He’d shattered coins in Zahawi’s pocket, sending shrapnel throughout his hip and stomach. The bullet had also torn apart bone, and shards were lodged in the organs of his pelvis, along with fractured coins and bullet fragments. The Johns Hopkins surgeon had spent thirteen hours in surgery with the Pakistani doctors. Zahawi had bled out more than twice the blood he’d been given before he was finally stabilized.
Kris had stayed with him the entire time. He’d watched the surgeons, had followed Zahawi into the recovery ward. Sat by his side, his hand wrapped around Zahawi’s wrist when he fell asleep.
David had gone back to Islamabad to meet with George and returned with both their bags packed, nearly all of their possessions, and a crate of intelligence. Dozens of Zahawi’s journals had been picked up in the arrest. Kris pored through them as he watched Zahawi sleep.
The first time Zahawi woke, in Pakistan, he’d opened his eyes and saw Kris staring down at him. His gaze had wandered from Kris’s face, down past his sweat-stained undershirt from the raid to his black combat fatigues.
Kris saw the moment recognition had settled into Zahawi that the United States had him. That Kris was his enemy. His heart rate had spiked, climbing from one hundred beats per minute to one-fifty to one-eighty, to over two-hundred. He’d pushed back in his hospital bed, trying to escape, gasping, trying to scream. Stitches had torn, and blood had poured from his side. Nurses had rushed in, screaming at Kris to back off, to get out of the room.
He’d stayed, holding Zahawi’s glare until Zahawi passed out from shock.
The next time he’d awoken, he’d stared at Kris for a long moment, not speaking. Kris spoke first, leaning in and saying, in Arabic, “Abu Zahawi. I know who you are. And you know who I am. We found you and we’ve captured you. You were wounded when we arrested you. But we’re taking care of you.” Kris had held Zahawi’s stare. “I will be right here, the whole time. I won’t ever leave your side.”
Zahawi had answered in English. “Don’t desecrate God’s language with your infidel tongue.”
“Rest. You need your strength.”
“Please… Let me die.”
“No. I want to know you, Abu Zahawi. We have so much to talk about.”
“I’ll never talk with you.”
Zahawi had passed out again shortly after, weak and barely able to stay awake. He’d waxed and waned in and out of delirium, sometimes reaching for Kris and clasping his hands, other times praying in Arabic as he sobbed. Kris fed him sips of water and read his diary, seized after the arrest, and held his hand when Zahawi flailed, reaching out for someone nearby.
David camped on a cot at the foot of Zahawi’s bed, out of sight. When Zahawi slept, David and Kris passed his diaries back and forth, sharing thoughts and ideas. David had a perspective Kris couldn’t have, and needed: an Arab view from an Arab mind, and an Arab experience of Zahawi’s childhood, his years growing up as a Palestinian refugee and part of the diaspora in Saudi Arabia.
“Funny, isn’t it. He and I are the same age. Thirty-one. His family life was better than mine. But here I am. And there he is.”
“A better family life?” Zahawi’s father had been a teacher in Saudi Arabia, a Palestinian expat, and his mother had taken care of Zahawi and his brothers. He’d had a middle-class upbringing, far better than many other Palestinian refugees.
David didn’t answer.
David spent long hours in the dead of night watching Zahawi. Once, Kris woke and saw him staring at Zahawi, hunched in a bedside chair, contemplating the man as if he wanted to climb into Zahawi’s skin, possess his mind, his eyes, and understand him like he could breathe in his soul and devour his memories.
When Zahawi finally wasn’t in danger of shattering into a million pieces, he was brought to the base’s airfield and loaded onto a private jet. He was hooded and shackled to his gurney, sedated for the flight.
He woke up in Thailand, in the steamy heat of the jungle and in the remote clutches of the black site.
He was the CIA’s detainee number one.
Everyone in DC wanted in on Zahawi’s interrogation, it seemed. When Kris, David, and Zahawi arrived, the facility was already crawling with suits from DC. CIA analysts, paramilitary officers, and a host of brand-new interrogators, fresh from a three-week training course. Even the FBI was there, in a joint-agency information sharing capacity, they said. Kris recognized one of the FBI agents.
“Agent Naveen.” Kris held out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
Agent Naveen, part of his welcoming committee in Yemen, days after September 11, stared him down. Finally, he shook Kris’s hand. “I have heard a lot about you, Caldera. Seems you kept your word. You were there to help.”
Kris lifted his chin. “And I still am. You?”
“This is a CIA-led operation. We were sent here by our director to offer assistance. I’m one of the FBI’s trained interrogators and I specialize in Middle Eastern terrorism. I know how these guys work. How they think. What they expect. I’m happy to lend a hand.”
“What do you suggest would be the best approach to Zahawi?”
“Has his medical situation been seen to?”
“Yes.”
“Then we should engage in rapport building. Try to get a baseline understanding of his motivations. See if he throws up a cover story, and if he does, use meticulous details to break through the eventual lies and double-speak.” Naveen smiled wryly. “You know, like you did in Yemen.”
Finally, Kris had smiled. “Seems we’re on the same team after all, Agent Naveen.”
Having everyone who was anyone there at the facility was both a blessing and a curse. Kris wasn’t used to so many people. So much oversight. So many eyeballs wanting to be read in on what he was doing. He, somehow, still maintained the lead on Zahawi. He was still the targeteer, and thus, the main interrogator. Everyone looked to him for direction on Zahawi’s case.
He waited for someone to try and wrestle his authority away, try to say he wasn’t qualified for the Zahawi operation.
The base was bursting at the seams, and practicalities had to be seen to first. There wasn’t enough space for everyone to have their own rooms. Kris volunteered to bunk with David in a tiny, dank hut, built out of corrugated steel and a thatched roof lined with plastic bags. Their shared toilet was an outhouse. Humidity turned the toilet paper soft. Snakes crept into the outhouse, and into their hut. The first time one had, Kris had jumped onto his bed, shrieking, until the security team had busted in, weapons up and ready to fire.
They’d exchanged long looks when they’d seen David and Kris’s metal beds pushed together to make one large bed. Oops.
Kris started questioning Zahawi the third night after they arrived at Site Green.
He started slowly, taking up his vigil by Zahawi’s bedside in the hospital room they’d put together. Zahawi lay on a gurney draped in a mosquito net under a thatched roof. At dusk, monkeys sounded in the trees. In the morning, bird calls echoed for miles in the empty jungle. Vibrant orange extension cords snaked across the wooden floor, over the edge of the half wall, and disappeared into a maze of bundled wires and underbrush. The entire facility was being run on industrial generators, buzzing far away on the other side of the base.
Zahawi lay propped on pillows, hooded. For once, the sheets beneath him were clean, not stained with blood. His chest rose and fell quickly, trembling.
Kris pulled the hood off his head. Zahawi’s hair was still wild, falling in long strands around his face. His beard had grown in, patchy in places. One eye was covered in a green film, clouded and milky. Zahawi stared at Kris.
“As-salaam-alaikum.” Kris pressed his hand to his chest.
“Wa alaikum as-salaam,” Zahawi whispered. “You are still here.”
“I promised you I would be. How are you? Are you in pain?”
Zahawi shrugged. He looked away.
“We are not here to hurt you. What do you need?”
“There is some pain,” Zahawi whispered. His chin wavered, but he held it high.
“Let me get that seen to.”
An entire team was listening to the interrogation through the mic Kris wore, piping their conversation into a dozen different recorders. Cameras watched them from every angle, hung in Zahawi’s secured medical hut. Kris waved to one.
A moment later, David walked in, carrying his medical kit. The Johns Hopkins surgeon had flown home and the CIA medical officer wasn’t allowed to interact with Zahawi while he was awake. David was Zahawi’s medic.
“As-salaam-alaikum,” David said, offering Zahawi a small smile. Zahawi tried to smile back. A tear spilled down his cheek. David prepped a syringe of morphine and slid it into Zahawi’s IV bag. “This should take the edge off. I’ll come back to check on you in a little bit.”
“Shukran,” Zahawi whispered. His fingers played with the edge of his sheet.
David gave Kris a long look before he strode out of the room.
“Is that better?”
“Why are you doing this? Why did you keep me alive? Why…” He waved to his IV bag, the door David had walked out of.
“I told you. I want to talk to you, Abu Zahawi. I want to know what’s in your mind. Understand you.”
“But you are American.”
“Yes.” Kris crossed his legs. “I’m not what you expected?”
“Not at all.”
Kris let the moment stretch long, let silence fill the room. “I have questions, Asim.” He used Zahawi’s birth name, his given name. “Help me understand you. Help me understand the pain you’re in. Not the physical. Help me understand your Muslim pain.”
A trail of tears ran down Zahawi’s cheek and fell from his chin. “I will never be free, will I?”
“That really depends on how much you help us, Asim. Help us understand.”
Zahawi nodded. “I will answer your questions,” he whispered.
Jesus fucking Christ. Kris could only imagine the faces in the control room, the expressions on the other officers’ and interrogators’ faces. For days, he’d had to fight off demands to go in hard, treat Zahawi brutally from the moment his eyes opened. He’d pushed back, insisted over and over on sticking with his methods.
Everyone had waited for him to fail.
“You were born in Riyadh. Your father is a teacher.” Kris walked through Zahawi’s childhood, his early years. Zahawi seemed shocked at some of the things Kris knew, lifted from his diaries. Good. Kris needed Zahawi to think he knew everything, that lying to him about anything was pointless. “You were married, once, after your studies. But you divorced her. Tell me about that.”
Zahawi cringed. “She was obsessed with sex. But I did not want her that way.” He looked away, his eyes skittering to the corner.
“Abdullah Azzam’s sermons lit a fire in you, after that. Made you want to travel to Afghanistan?”
Zahawi nodded. He took over, detailing how he’d joined the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets. How he’d been filled with fury over the attacks against his fellow Muslims, the occupation of the Soviets in Muslim lands.
“Tell me. How did you feel?”
Zahawi squirmed. “What do we have left of ourselves? Everything in the world is touched by the West. Corrupted by you. From cars to clothes, washing machines to food. Everything in our life is corrupted by you. You’ve taken it all. We have nothing left. We are totally dependent on you. It is shameful. Humiliating. Once it was exactly the opposite. You Westerners once looked to the Arabs and saw the best of humanity. Now you look at us like we are dogs. Filth.”
“I understand. You may not think I do, but I do. I know what it’s like to be hated by the West.”
Zahawi squinted.
“I know what it’s like to be hated for who you are. To have your life dictated by others, your choices made for you. To have that rage in your chest, all the time. That scream, that says you are more than this. The desire to prove everyone wrong.”
“That is Muslim pain,” Zahawi breathed.
They stared at one another, silent for a moment.
“Tell me about your injury, years ago,” Kris finally said.
“I don’t remember it. They say a mortar came into our position. That I was hit in the head. My brothers took me to the hospital. When I woke, I did not remember anything. Not even who I was.”
Kris held up one of Zahawi’s journals. Zahawi’s heart monitor beeped, pulsing faster. “You started keeping journals after your injury.” Zahawi nodded. He never took his eyes off his diary. “These are very important to you?”
“Yes.”
“They are safe. They will be returned to you after questioning. And we’ll arrange for a fresh notebook and pen to be provided to you.”
More tears spilled from Zahawi’s eyes. “Shukran.”
They kept talking. After Zahawi had recovered from his head wound, and had pieced together most of his memories, he’d gone to work as an instructor at an al-Qaeda-run training camp. He’d worked on the firing range, and he had cooked and maintained guesthouses for the recruits. He was back in the arms of a community again, embraced by his brothers. He had felt at home.
But he’d wanted more.
Finally, he was given the chance. He was ordered to a new training camp to join with Tajikistani rebels fighting against the Russians. When Zahawi mentioned the name of the rebel group he’d joined, Kris silently cross-checked his own notes. Zahawi’s rebels had been one of the groups the CIA had directly funneled money to, back when fighting the Soviets using mujahedeen had been the most popular game in town. Had Zahawi been considered an ally then?
When did history shatter into hatred?
“It was that operation that showed me what al-Qaeda had become. That they were the future of Afghanistan, of the jihad. I wanted to join. Be a part of their community.”
“And did you?”
Zahawi had been given the position of external emir of the Khaldan training camp. He’d managed the recruits, the trainees, and the guesthouses, as well as the recruits’ travel arrangements. Forgeries had been required, as attendees wanted to evade any attempts to track their whereabouts. Zahawi became al-Qaeda’s best forger. After the attendees graduated, he’d sent them back out to the world, to Europe, to America, sometimes with missions, sometime to lie in wait for an opportunity to strike.
“Who came through the Khaldan training camp?”
“Many people. But… what you are asking is, did the martyrs who did the planes operation go through the camp?”
“Yes, Asim, I am asking that.”
Zahawi nodded. “They were chosen by Mokhtar for the operation, and then sent to Khaldan. For advanced training.”
Mokhtar. They’d heard that name before. In videos taken from captured al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, the name Mokhtar kept coming up. Bin Laden himself, in one video, praised Mokhtar for his part in the “planes operation”, al-Qaeda’s name for September 11. He was everywhere, in the inner circles of al-Qaeda.
But no one in the CIA knew who he was.
Did Zahawi?
“You said ‘chosen by Mokhtar’. Why was Mokhtar choosing the operatives for the planes operation?”
“The planes operation was his idea. He brought it to Bin Laden and asked for his support. His blessing. And his money. He needed five hundred thousand dollars, he said, to pull it off.”
“So the idea for the attacks was Mokhtar's?”
“Nam.”
“But Bin Laden supported it? Financed it? Trained the operatives at his camps?”
Zahawi nodded. “Some did not want Bin Laden to support Mokhtar's plan. They said he was crazy. That the attacks were not allowed by Allah. That we shouldn’t attack the US. The US helped Muslims in Serbia and Bosnia. They said we needed to focus on jihad close to home, where Muslims were being killed every day. In Chechnya. Israel. Russia.”
“What did you think?”
“I hate America. I wanted Mokhtar's plan to go ahead, and to succeed. I dreamed about it with him, for months. We dreamed of the day of the attacks.” Zahawi exhaled, his voice shaking. “I hate America. Because of America, my life was shredded. I am an exile from this planet, a man without a home. I wasn’t a person to the world until I was a brother with my mujahedeen! Because of America, and Israel. My life, my history, has been taken from me.”
Kris was quiet. “Tell me about after the attacks.”
Zahawi spoke softly, almost reverently. After September 11, after the celebrations, the parties, and the dancing in the streets, the gunshots into the air in celebration, the giddy, almost drunk feeling of exultation, Zahawi, in Afghanistan, had joined together with the rest of the foreign fighters and had begun making preparations for defending their camps and cities form the coming American invasion. “Bin Laden, he had told us that the Americans would only launch missiles, like they did after the embassy bombings in Africa and the attack in Yemen. We did not think the Americans would invade. When we realized they were coming, we tried to buy weapons. Build defensive lines.”
“What happened then?”
Zahawi’s fists clenched the sheet. His heart monitor beeped faster. “The Americans dropped their bombs. The brothers… So many were killed. Death was everywhere we looked, everywhere we turned. We couldn’t bury all of our bodies. We couldn’t find all of our brothers. And we couldn’t survive against the bombs. We had to run.”
How many of those bombs had been guided by Kris and David’s own hands? They’d spent weeks around Afghanistan, painting Taliban and al-Qaeda targets with lasers for the bombers and jets above, had walked the entire front line of the Northern Alliance, meticulously mapping coordinates of enemy positions after staring through their binoculars.
And here they were, from opposite sides of a battlefield at the end of the earth to sitting together in a makeshift hospital in the jungle of Thailand.
It was almost dizzying.
In shaking words, Zahawi detailed the collapse of the Taliban, the collapse of al-Qaeda, and the scattering of their forces. Bin Laden’s exodus to Tora Bora. How Zahawi and so many others had stayed behind, trying to save Kandahar. Kandahar fell, and they escaped over the bodies of their dead, fleeing into Pakistan through the tribal regions. From there, he made his way into the underground al-Qaeda safe house network he had built.
“I hid from everyone. I did everything I could to hide. The American bastards wanted me. I had to stay free.”
“Why do you think the Americans were looking for you?” Kris picked up on Zahawi’s splitting of the Americans from him. In Zahawi’s mind, the Americans were still bad. But Kris, sitting in front of him, offering him water and medicine, listening to his story, seemed to be different.
Zahawi shook his head. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Have the Americans invaded Iraq yet?”
Kris frowned. “Iraq? Why would America invade Iraq?”
“It’s next, in the prophecies. To fall. The armies of Khorasan will come through Iraq. The final battle with the West will be there. America is going to invade.”
“I don’t think—”
Zahawi shuddered, and shame filled his gaze. He looked down as a smell wafted from him. He groaned. “I am broken,” he whispered. “I am shamed. I cannot—”
Kris grasped his hand. “You are healing.” Zahawi had soiled himself. A dark stain of urine spread on the sheets. “It is not shameful. We will help you.” He waved to the cameras.
David walked in again, with towels, a bucket of water, and clean sheets. Together, Kris and David lifted Zahawi from the bed, wiped him down, and changed the sheets. Zahawi curled against David’s chest, hiding his face. “Shukran, brother,” he whispered. “You are Muslim?”
“Nam,” David said, gently settling Zahawi down on the clean, remade bed.
Confusion tangled in Zahawi’s eyes. “And American?”
“Yes.”
“Rest, Asim.” Kris gathered his notes and Zahawi’s diaries. “We will talk again soon.”
CIA Black Site
Detention Site Green
Thailand
May 2002
“He’s expecting brutal treatment! They all are! They live on the worst fears and conspiracy theories about the US, and they expect to be proven right. If you want to rock their world, then you give them what they’re not expecting. Humanity. Compassion!”
It was an endless argument, the endless argument, at Site Green. Every day, Kris had to defend his approach to questioning Zahawi.
Kris, David, and Naveen stood on one side of their messy command center’s worktable, completely covered with the detritus of the interrogation so far. Stacks of folders, Zahawi’s bagged and tagged possessions, his diaries, transcripts and tapes of the interrogations, follow-up intel, leads chased from Zahawi’s information. Names of his former recruits. Graduates of the training camps sent to America and Europe. Targets al-Qaeda were surveilling. Plans that were still in the dreaming stage, but had to be checked.
Photos and charts hung on the walls, a cornucopia of intelligence and information, all gifted from Zahawi.
Paul, a senior officer fresh from Langley, snorted at Kris. “There’s no compassion for these animals. They’re murderers. Every last one of them. And here you are, becoming best friends with him. Caring for him!” He sneered.
“I am getting information out of him. He is cooperating!” Kris waved to the stacks and stacks of intelligence piling around their command center. “He’s giving us actionable intelligence.”
“He’s playing you,” Paul snapped. “He’s giving you what he wants to give, to keep you happy. To keep sucking on the American tit.”
“Paul—”
“Why is he even on pain medication? Who authorized that?”
“You would withhold medical treatment?” David pushed off the wall, where he’d been standing in the background, half in shadow. Arms crossed, he stormed to Kris’s side. “That’s torture. Keeping someone purposely in pain. Interfering with their medical treatment. You know that, right?”
“What constitutes torture is an open question. The definition is up for debate,” Paul said smoothly.
“No, it’s not!” Kris cried. He shot a glance across the table to Agent Naveen, his FBI partner for the ongoing interrogations.
Naveen had a scowl on his face, his lips pressed firmly together, eyes narrowed as he stared at Paul.
Kris glared. “The US has signed treaties against torture. We don’t torture people.”
“You won’t be making that call.”
“What the fuck did you say?” David, again, stepped closer. He started making his way around the table. Kris stopped him, one hand on his arm.
“Things are changing in Washington. This ‘buddy-buddy-with-the-terrorist’ bullshit isn’t flying. The president is not amused. Get ready. Your little Muslim friend is in for a world of hurt.”
Days later, an unmarked private jet landed on the runway outside Site Green. One passenger clambered off, adjusting his glasses. Paul strode up to a middle-aged man, professorial and lean in a tweed sport coat and holding a briefcase. They shook hands warmly.
Kris and David watched from an overhang, out of the way of the steadily falling rain. Monsoon season had come, and with it, torrents of water, like the world had turned upside down and the oceans were drenching the land. Puddles the size of buses covered the pavement. Leaks had sprung across the compound. The air they breathed was soaked.
They met the newcomer in the command center. Paul escorted the new arrival in like he was a guest of honor. “This is Dennis. He’s a psychologist who’s worked on the SERE program. He’s studied how to break recalcitrant detainees in interrogations. Washington has sent him to fix this situation.”
“Fix what? The interrogation is going great. Zahawi has given us years’ worth of information. Yesterday, he confirmed Mokhtar's identity,” Kris snapped.
Dennis peered at Kris. “He gave up Mokhtar? The guy who planned nine-eleven? I haven’t heard about this.”
“You’ve been flying. It’s brand new. We spent all day talking about his and Mokhtar's years-long friendship. They were both on the periphery of Bin Laden’s network. Associated with him, close to him, but not sworn to him.”
“Allies, you mean.”
“Of a sort. Mokhtar wouldn’t swear allegiance because he didn’t want to have to obey if Bin Laden called off the attacks.”
“Jesus Christ.” Dennis swore under his breath, shaking his head. “How does Zahawi fit into this?”
“He prayed every day for the attacks to succeed. He and Mokhtar dreamed about them together.”
“They’re close? Very close? Zahawi and the architect of nine-eleven.”
“Yes,” Kris said simply.
“Who is he?”
“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”
“The same guy who wanted to blow up flights from the Philippines five years ago? We’ve got an open case on Khalid. Jesus…” Dennis cursed again. “All the puzzle pieces were there to see this coming, weren’t they?”
Kris stayed silent, even as his soul shredded.
Paul, quiet through the exchange, finally spoke up. “All this time you’ve been best buddies with your little terrorist pal, and he hasn’t given up Mokhtar until now. Why the delay? Why was he holding back? What did you give him for this?”
“Nothing,” Kris hissed.
“If he held this back, what else is he holding back? This is just proof that he’s playing you.”
“We were going after critical plots against the homeland first,” Naveen said, jumping in. “We wanted to stop anything in the works before playing who’s who in al-Qaeda.”
“He’s giving you just enough to keep the sweet treatment going,” Paul sneered.
“Which is why I am here.” Dennis spoke before Kris could. “Like Paul said, Washington wants to change the nature of this interrogation.”
“Change it how?” David, at Kris’s elbow, frowned.
“Who are you?” Dennis frowned back at David. “I don’t recall seeing you on the list of cleared personnel.”
“Him? He’s just the medic,” Paul said.
“And the medic is in the command center?” Dennis’s gaze bounced from David to Kris. He scowled.
Kris held his glare. Behind him, he felt David’s fury build, felt it grow and press on the walls, until the room was choked with his raw emotion.
“What’s the nature of this change?” Naveen asked Dennis, cracking the tension. “What exactly are you planning on doing here?”
“We’re going to force him into submission. Send him the message that we know he’s been playing games. We know his little tricks. His pretense. He needs to know that his games are over and we’re not going to indulge him any longer.”
“But he’s been cooperating!” Kris shouted.
“He doesn’t know what cooperation is. He sees you as a tool, someone to manipulate, and he’s been successful so far. He’s got a comfy bed, blankets, food. Why should he do anything differently when he’s in the best space he’s ever been in?” Dennis glared at them both, but most especially at Kris.
“He’s fucking miserable! He’s away from his brothers, he’s been captured by his worst enemy. He sobs at night when he thinks we aren’t watching on the cameras. You think he’s fucking happy?”
“He’s doing a hell of a lot better here than he would be in some cave in Afghanistan. Of course he’s happy.” Dennis seemed shocked Kris had talked back to him, challenged him.
“He’d give anything to go back. Be with his brothers. You’re so fucking ignorant. You have no idea what the hell you’re saying.”
Dennis scoffed. “Well. He’s certainly convinced you of his little act, Mr. Caldera. But that ends. Now.”
“What do you really know of Zahawi?”
“I’ve read the reports.”
“That’s all?”
Dennis stayed silent.
“Why don’t you try to understand him first, spend a moment actually listening to him, before you tell me what he’s like. I’ve been by his side every day for two months now!”
“And that’s the problem. You’ve gotten too close.” Dennis shook his head, like he was shaking Kris off. “We’re changing his world. He needs to earn his comfort, his care. He needs to understand that we own him. We control him. When he’s good, he gets rewarded. But when he’s bad, and when he doesn’t cooperate, he gets punished.”
“He’s not a fucking dog!” David shouted. “He’s not a fucking animal or a slave! He’s a human being!”
“He’s a terrorist! He’d kill you if you gave him a knife! Slit your fucking throat! Didn’t you see what happened to that journalist in Pakistan? You think Zahawi would think twice about beheading you?”
“Do you have any experience with Islamic extremists? With ideologically driven hatred? With anyone incarcerated in the third world or in repressive regimes?” Kris groaned, clenching his hands. “He’s prepared himself for all of that and more. He’s expecting to be tortured, to be beaten, to be sodomized, for his family to be attacked and killed in front of him. He’s ready to die for his cause! What can you possibly do that will break that resolve? He came apart when I was kind to him. That was unexpected to him.”
“It’s human nature,” Dennis said simply. “He’ll collapse. They always do.”
“You are going to reinforce what he expects. You will harden him.”
“Caldera, listen,” Paul interrupted, spreading his hands sanctimoniously, a smug look on his face. “Washington has made the call. This isn’t your show anymore. Dennis is in charge.”
Dennis took a breath, visibly trying for calm. His cheeks were red, his eyes bright. “Tomorrow, Zahawi’s interrogation changes. Caldera, you’re staying here because we need your knowledge base on Zahawi. But you’re not going in there again. His friendship with you is over.”
“It wasn’t friendship—”
“Boyfriends, then?” Paul quipped. “Looked like you two were having a hell of a time together.”
David burst around the table, charging Paul and shoving him against the wall. Pictures of Zahawi crumpled behind Paul’s back. David fisted Paul’s shirt, grabbing him with both hands until his knuckles went white.
“Whoa, whoa!” Paul held up his hands, disgust crawling over his face. He glared at David. “What the fuck?”
Naveen, at the end of the table, had his hand on his hip like he was reaching for his weapon. He wasn’t armed, though. Not at the CIA site. He froze, his eyes darting from David to Kris and back.
“Understand this,” Kris hissed, his voice, his body, shaking. “I will do whatever it takes. Anything at all. To prevent another attack. I will never, ever watch our people die again. Not while I can do something, anything to prevent it. So, if I have to joke with Zahawi? If I have to sit at his bedside? If I have to hold his fucking hand, be the one human being he thinks understands him? I will fucking do it. I will do it every Goddamn day!”
Silence.
Kris felt Naveen’s stare, the burn of his eyes into the side of his face. Once, months ago, Naveen had spit fury at Kris, blaming him for the attacks. He’d been right, of course. It had been Kris’s fault.
But it never would be again.
Paul shoved David back. “Get the fuck off me,” he growled. “And get the fuck out of the command center. You shouldn’t even be in here.”
Without looking at Kris, David stormed out. The room trembled, concrete walls shaking, as he slammed the door behind him.
Dennis straightened his shirt. “Washington has made the call. I’m in charge now. Starting tomorrow, we’re moving him out of his hospital room and into a real cell. Make him feel like the criminal he is. We’re taking everything away. He has to earn what he gets. All the way down to his clothes.”
Days passed.
Kris watched, over the monitors, as Zahawi was sedated, stripped, and moved into a dirt-floored cell. Four brilliant halogen lights hung above him, burning on Zahawi around the clock. He was given one metal chair. The temperature was dropped, the air conditioning cranked up until it was frigidly cold.
Paul had taken over the questioning at Dennis’s command, donning all black and covering his face with a balaclava. The first day of Zahawi’s new interrogation, Paul had strode in and bellowed at Zahawi to get up, get up against the wall. Zahawi had scrambled, moving as fast as he could hobble with his still-healing injuries.
“We know you’re playing games with us, Zahawi!” Paul had roared. “We know you’re lying! We know everything about you! We own you! And we’re going to break you, until you tell us what we want to know!”
“I have told everything—”
“You haven’t! You’re lying!”
“I have told everything—”
“When you lie to me, you will get punished.”
And Paul had left.
Cold, alone, and naked, Zahawi had huddled against the wall for hours.
Zahawi stopped talking the third day Paul barged in, all hours of the day and night, demanding information and calling Zahawi a liar. He stared beyond Paul, eyes vacant, trying to hide his nudity, cover himself as best he could.
Paul scoffed, snorting as his attempts. “I don’t care about your little dick, Zahawi. We grow them bigger in America.”
“We need to rattle him,” Dennis said one day. “I’m going to blast music into his cell. Until he begs for us to turn it off.”
Zahawi didn’t beg. He sat on the floor, eyes closed, stone-faced, until Paul stormed in again. Every time Paul entered, Zahawi jumped up against the wall. He stopped trying to cover himself. He held his chin high.
Kris was torn between staying and enduring alongside Zahawi, and fleeing, escaping to the other side of the compound, the silence of his shared hut with David. But, even there, the walls shook, reverberating off the quiet force of David’s rage.
As much as Kris hated Dennis, hated Paul, David’s hatred went deeper. Darker. Kris felt earthquakes in David’s soul, tremors in his body every time they touched. Darkness filled David’s gaze.
But he refused to speak about it.
When the music failed, Dennis ordered Zahawi be kept awake. Sleep deprivation, and lots of it.
“How the fuck will you know that you’re getting any real intelligence or just the firings of an exhausted mind?” Kris snapped.
“That’s your job,” Dennis snapped back. “Aren’t you the Zahawi expert?”
Zahawi was kept awake for two days, forced to sit upright on the metal chair, his hands cuffed behind him. Anytime he slouched or his eyes slipped closed, Paul, or another all-black-clad officer, was there to scream at him, force him to wake up.
Once, Dennis uncuffed his hands, offered Zahawi a crayon, and held out a notepad. “He’ll write intelligence down, and he won’t know he’s doing it.”
Zahawi stared at the crayon, and then at Dennis. He dropped the crayon.
“Start it all over,” Dennis said. “The music. And then the sleep deprivation. He gets sixteen hours to rest before we begin again.”
“Why the fuck has the intel from Zahawi stopped?” George, in Islamabad, shouted over the phone at Kris. “What the hell is happening down there?”
“Ask your friends at Langley. They sent some clown here from Psych 101 and told him he would be the one to make Zahawi talk. Never mind that Zahawi’s been talking to me just fine.” Kris paced away from the command center, sucking down his cigarette.
In the distance, David jogged around the airstrip, shirtless, his running shorts sliding up his thighs. Sweat slicked down his skin. Kris wanted to get lost in his back, press his face to David’s skin until he could transport out of there, reappear on a beach somewhere, where the sweat was from the sun and the sand and not the humidity and the rage, the futility of watching their interrogation go to waste.
David had gone quiet since Dennis had thrown him out of the bunker. Rage pulsed off him constantly. Kris spent most of his time in the interrogation cells, watching the monitors as Paul and Dennis tried to break Zahawi. Dennis kept the interrogations random, going at all hours, trying to disrupt Zahawi’s sense of time and place. Kris was keeping to the same schedule, awake for almost twenty-two hours a day. When he finally collapsed in their bed in their hut, David was usually gone, out pounding the runway or working out in the makeshift gym he and the rest of the Special Activities Division—SAD—guys had created. Steel rods with concrete on the ends were the dumbbells and barbells, along with old tires and pieces of chain.
“The word on the street is that Zahawi is the number three man in al-Qaeda. He needs to give up the goods on Bin Laden. Where is he hiding? What plans have they set in motion? What’s the next play?”
“He’s given up all their current plans. He’s given up what he knows about the leadership. He doesn’t know where Bin Laden is, though. He says no one does. Bin Laden’s in hiding. From everyone.”
“That’s bullshit. Someone knows. The number three in al-Qaeda has to know. They have an organization to run.”
“George, I’m telling you. He doesn’t. I think we’ve tapped him dry for actionable intel. Now we need to focus on operations. Understanding what’s what in al-Qaeda. Who’s who, and what their history has been. Who believes what, who is married to whose sister? Where are the loyalties, where are the weak spots? What can we exploit? We need a picture of their organization from the inside. He won’t tell us that while he’s sleep deprived.”
“What are you saying?”
“This quack and his crazy attempts to break Zahawi are only doing harm. Zahawi has given us what he knows.”
“Kris… Are you willing to put the lives of everyone in the US at risk for that statement? Are you positive, dead positive, that he’s said everything?” George sighed. His breath crackled over the scratchy cell connection. “Are you willing to risk another nine-eleven?”
Fire bloomed behind his eyelids, concrete dust and ash falling from the sky. Tumbling Towers, blocks falling down. The Pentagon, one side gone, and a tower of black smoke rising over DC.
He stopped, tipped his head back. Stared at the sky. It was gray, rolling with monsoon clouds that threatened torrents of rain, storms that would shake their world to the foundations.
“There’s a new directive that’s come from the White House. Straight from the lips of the vice president to Director Thatcher. ‘If there’s a one percent chance that something is possible, we act like it’s a certainty.’ There’s no room for error anymore. If it’s possible that Zahawi is holding back…” George trailed off.
“What they’re doing, George… It isn’t right. They’re on a dangerous path. How far will they go?”
George sighed again, long and low. “What else can we do? How can we know for sure? Really know?”
He watched David run, watched his shoulders heave, his chest rise and fall, as the skies split open again and the rain started to pour.
Another jet landed on the rain-soaked runway. The tires sprayed an arc of water, sluicing over the wings of the jet. Rain pounded the soaked compound in a never-ending staccato drumbeat. It sounded like the rock music Dennis blared into Zahawi’s cell. Like Zahawi, they couldn’t turn it off.
Kris waited under the overhang. David wasn’t with him. They’d been by each other’s side for eight months straight, day in and day out, through combat zones and undercover operations, from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Thailand. But David had slipped away over the past week, disappearing from his side like the humid mist of the jungle bleeding away. Kris ached for him, felt his absence like a physical hole he might fall into.
Two familiar men came off the jet, running through the rain to meet Kris.
“George sent us. Said you might need some help.” Ryan shook his head. Water droplets went flying. His duffel was soaked, just from the run.
Dan, beside Ryan, smiled at Kris. His sunglasses had fogged from the humidity. He pushed them up, into his wavy black hair. Rain dripped from his jaw, highlighting the angles, the sharp square of his bones. Kris had never seen Dan out of a sport coat. His polo clung to his surprisingly broad shoulders. Raindrops traced down muscled forearms, raced over his smooth skin. He was a handsome man; Kris had never noticed.
“The prisoners are running the asylum.” Kris guided them through the compound. “Dennis, a psychologist who has never worked with Islamic radicals, or even interrogated anyone before, is in charge. He’s trying to break Zahawi.”
“What’s the problem?” Ryan, as usual, was gruff. “We’re not feeding this detainee milk and cookies.”
“No, but my interrogation was going just fine. I got mountains of intel through rapport building. This is bullshit.”
“We’re all on the same team here,” Dan jumped in as Ryan opened his mouth, a scowl on his face. “We all want the same outcome. Good intelligence. The homeland protected. Let’s figure out how we can all get that.”
Ryan’s mouth snapped shut. He glowered, but didn’t argue.
Dan smiled at Kris behind Ryan’s back.
Two giant security guards, SAD officers who hung out with Paul, stopped them outside the interrogation bunker. “You aren’t allowed in.”
“Excuse me?” Kris, though not actively involved in questioning Zahawi any longer, still was on the command team of the detention site. “What the fuck did you say?”
“Paul’s orders. You’re not allowed in today.”
Ice wrapped around Kris’s spine, a ribbon that twirled down his bones and squeezed. What were Dennis and Paul doing? What didn’t they want anyone to see? “Get out of my way,” Kris growled.
“Sir—”
“Sir! That’s right! Because I am fucking in charge of Zahawi, no matter what the fuck Dennis or Paul told you! Who are you to keep me out? Get the fuck out of my way!”
The SAD officer’s eyes slid sideways to Ryan. Ryan nodded. Finally, the guard stepped one half step to the side. Kris had to squeeze past him to open the door.
The stench hit him first.
Human feces. Sweat. Adrenaline. The stink of pure terror, animalistic fear.
Whimpering, and then screams. Shrieks and babbled Arabic, nonsensical.
Paul’s voice, bellowing. “I want the names, email addresses, phone numbers, and safe houses of all your fucking brothers who are planning on attacking the United States! Give me the information I want, Zahawi! Give it to me, or your life gets worse!”
“I don’t know!” Zahawi wailed.
Kris ran.
The interrogation bunker was long, with only one entrance. At the far side, they’d built Zahawi’s cell inside a freestanding isolation room. Outside the isolation room, banks of monitors showed the inside of his cell from every angle, in vivid Technicolor.
Dennis stood before the monitors, watching Zahawi’s tearstained face grimace and wail.
Kris ran, shouting. “What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck is going on here?” Footsteps echoed behind Kris, Ryan and Dan racing after him.
Dennis shoved a single sheet of paper right in Kris’s face. “White House authorization. The president has authorized enhanced interrogation techniques against uncooperative detainees.”
Kris’s eyes darted over the classified memo. “Slamming into walls? Beating him? Confinement? Stress positions?” He read on. “You’re using his fears against him! Putting insects in a confinement box with him?” Zahawi had told him, weeks ago, his biggest fear was bugs, especially ones that stung or bit. He’d been petrified of the desert scorpions, of the bugs in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of the spiders.
His gaze skittered to a stop over the last two techniques. “Mock burial?” he breathed. “Waterboarding?”
Ryan appeared beside him in time to hear Kris’s last words. He snatched the paper out of Dennis’s hands.
“He’s not giving up all that he knows! This is how we protect the homeland, Caldera! This is how we get through to these people that we mean business!” Dennis snarled.
“This isn’t legal—” Dan began.
“It is now. Straight from the White House. Zahawi doesn’t fight for a nation or belong to any country. The Geneva Conventions don’t apply to Zahawi. He’s an enemy combatant. And we can do whatever we want to him.”
A piercing wail rose over the monitors, scratching out of the speakers. On the screen, Zahawi collapsed, falling almost into Paul. Paul had a towel around Zahawi’s neck, wrapped like a sideways noose, and was flinging him against the wall. Zahawi’s head, his naked shoulders, bounced, sharp cracks breaking over the speakers.
“Are you this fucking weak?” Paul roared. “I thought you were the fucking prince of al-Qaeda! You were someone big and bad, weren’t you? Not so big and bad now, huh?” Crack. Zahawi hit the wall again.
A long box was in the cell, standing against the bars. It looked like a coffin. Paul swung Zahawi around, grabbed his hair, forced him to look at the box. “Do you want to go back into your box? Your new home?”
“No…” Zahawi moaned. “No, no, no…”
“You only have a few minutes to tell me what I want to know, Zahawi! Only a few minutes before your life gets even worse!”
A puddle appeared beneath Zahawi, a trickle down his legs. He tried to double in half, tried to shrink, moaning.
“You pissed yourself again? Jesus Christ, you are a fucking mess. Fucking pussy, that’s what we say in America. You already shit yourself in your box!”
Zahawi’s foot slipped on his urine on the floor. He hit the wall headfirst.
Kris was trapped in a nightmare. This wasn’t happening. Time fractured, the words coming out of the speakers broken into consonants and vowels that he had to reassemble, had to try and parse meaning out of. It was like Paul was speaking a foreign language, something he couldn’t understand. Images collided, smeared, the world moving too slowly and too quickly all at once. Zahawi hit the wall in slow motion. His urine spread on the floor. Kris’s heart stopped beating.
“You are asking me to hurt you, Zahawi. Do you know that? You are asking me to make your life worse. You’re asking for this! Tell me what I want to know and your life will get better. What are the names, email addresses, phone numbers, and safe houses of the brothers who are going to attack America?”
“I don’t know!” Zahawi shrieked. His bones seemed to give out, and he sagged against the wall, shivering. “I don’t know!”
“Remember, Zahawi. You asked for this.” Paul let go of the towel, his makeshift collar noose, and walked away. Zahawi slumped, sitting in his urine.
Once, Zahawi had told Kris how much he hated being dirty. He hated feeling unclean and loved his daily prayers, loved the way he made himself pure and clean before Allah. He’d fought to control his bowels, his bladder, after that first session, despairing whenever he lost control. Kris had helped him, encouraged him. Helped him relieve himself during breaks in their interrogations. Built up his strength again.
Zahawi pitched sideways, lying in his piss. Blood seeped from one of his reopened leg wounds, trickling down, mixing with the urine. Zahawi pressed his face into the dirt. His lips moved, scraping over the dust.
Paul reappeared, wheeling in a thin platform. Thick straps went across, obviously to restrain someone. A bucket of water and a black hood lay on the surface.
“No,” Kris breathed. “You can’t.”
“We absolutely can,” Dennis said. “The president authorized it. You just are too weak to do what the United States needs.”
“I gave you the opportunity,” Paul told Zahawi. “I gave you the opportunity to save yourself. All you had to do was tell me what I want to know.” Paul grabbed Zahawi and hauled him to his feet. Zahawi wilted, almost collapsed. Paul dragged him to the platform.
Someone else watched Paul strap Zahawi down. Someone else who inhabited Kris’s body, his mind. Someone else who could comprehend what was happening. Kris felt Dan and Ryan beside him, bracketing him. Dan was frozen, staring. Ryan had gone bone white. His hands had fisted, crumpling the memo Dennis had shown them. Only the top line was visible. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Authorized.
“You can stop this, Zahawi. Tell me what I want to know. Tell me how the United States is going to be attacked.” He held Zahawi down with one hand as he tightened the straps around Zahawi’s wrists, his ankles.
“I told Kris. I told him, I told him everything. Ask Kris. Please, ask Kris,” Zahawi whimpered.
“No, I know you didn’t tell Kris everything. You are lying to me, Zahawi. And you know what happens when you lie?” Paul yanked on the strap over Zahawi’s thighs. It cut into his open wound again. Blood poured down Zahawi’s leg. He screamed. The speakers cut out, warbled, not able to process the intensity of the sound.
“I’m telling the truth,” Zahawi sobbed. “I don’t know anything… I don’t know anything!”
Paul pulled the black hood over Zahawi’s face. Zahawi screamed, shrieked. “Please! Please!”
Paul grabbed the water bucket.
“Holy fuck…” Ryan breathed. His voice shook.
Kris wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to run. He wanted to disappear and reappear on the far side of the moon. He wanted to time travel, go back to when he was nineteen and walking out of his classroom at George Washington, and tell his younger self to ignore the man with two cell phones who said his country could make use of his talents. He wanted to stop breathing, stop seeing, stop feeling anything at all. Stop his heart from beating. Stop time, and stop the pour of water as it fell from the lip of the bucket. He watched, every moment a lifetime, as the stream fell onto Zahawi’s hood-covered face.
Zahawi thrashed, wailing. Paul kept up a constant litany, telling Zahawi he could stop this anytime he wanted, that all he needed to do was tell Paul the truth. “What is your secret, Zahawi?” Paul called out, almost mocking. “What is the one thing you are holding back? What is it that you don’t want me to know? Just tell me, and this will stop!”
Water poured. Blood seeped down Zahawi’s leg. He thrashed. The sounds he made weren’t human. They were primal, animal. Something beyond terrified.
Paul let up the water. Zahawi sputtered, for a moment. Until Paul started pouring again.
Kris forced his eyes open, forced himself to watch, the seconds turning to years, until his eyes watered and he couldn’t see, until he couldn’t breathe, until he felt like he was under the stream of water, the endless, ceaseless stream pouring from Paul’s hands. Paul’s voice was a monotonous call, a chant, a promise of salvation if Zahawi just told the truth.
Zahawi jerked. Went wild as a scream slithered from beneath the hood and his legs and arms went rigid.
And then he went limp.
Water poured, overly loud in the sudden silence.
Dan leaned forward, peering at the monitor.
“Is he—” Ryan’s voice choked.
“Get David!” Kris bellowed. “Get David now!” He shoved Ryan, pushing him back toward the entrance. “Get him! Get David!” Ryan took off, racing for the door.
Kris shoved Dennis out of the way and barged into the interrogation cell. Paul was still pouring, still talking to Zahawi, still trying to get him to tell the truth. Kris felt like he was running upside down, like he was trapped in a carnival of horrors. Paul was pouring water on a dying man, trying to interrogate a soul that was disappearing.
He swung, his fist slamming into Paul’s cheek and jaw, decking him from the side. The bucket clattered to the ground as Paul went sprawling across the dirt on his face.
Kris worked the restraints, yanking on the ties and freeing Zahawi. He pulled the naked, filthy, bleeding man to the ground, kneeling next to him as he ripped off his hood.
Zahawi’s eyes and mouth were open. A bubble rose from his throat and hit the back of his teeth. It grew, ballooning out of his lips.
Kris laced his hands together, one on top of the other, and pushed his palms down into Zahawi’s unmoving chest.
Paul stared, frozen on the ground, as Kris pushed on Zahawi’s chest, over and over.
Shouts rose outside the cell, boots running through the bunker. He heard Ryan’s voice, and then David’s voice. He screamed, “In here, David!”
David flew into the cell, Ryan and Naveen on his heels. Both Naveen and David came up short, their heads swiveling from left to right. The last time they’d seen Zahawi had been with Kris, when Zahawi was resting, healing in his hospital bed with a view of the jungle, listening to monkey calls. But David had been banned from interrogations and Naveen had been disinvited, pending CIA review, Dennis had said.
Now, Zahawi was naked, covered in his own urine, stinking of the shit from his confinement in the coffin box earlier, and not breathing. Water and urine and blood soaked the dirt floor of the cell, and Zahawi.
Naveen froze at the door.
“Hold his head,” David growled at Ryan. He kneeled across from Kris taking Zahawi in, from head to toe. Shock, sheer disbelief, bled from him. Kris had never seen him so raw, so open. Not ever.
“Halt compressions,” David choked out. He tilted Zahawi’s head back and dropped his chin. Leaned forward and closed his mouth over Zahawi’s. Pinched his nose. Breathed into Zahawi, twice.
“Resume compressions.”
Kris kept going, counting under his breath. Ryan stared at Zahawi’s wet hair as he held his head, stared at the way his ribs puffed out, his body shook, limp and unresponsive. Had they killed him? Had the CIA killed their first detainee?
Sputtering, Zahawi coughed, hacking up water mixed with vomit, bits of rice and beans and bile falling from his lips and across his face. He gasped, struggling to inhale, to exhale, and coughed up more water. David rolled him on his side, facing Kris.
Zahawi’s eyes were glazed, unfocused, but slowly, they tracked up Kris’s hands, up his arms, until Zahawi’s gaze landed on Kris’s face. He started to shake, to tremble, and he curled toward Kris, wrapping himself up into a ball as close as he could get to Kris’s knee.
Kris leaned his forehead against the metal door of his and David’s hut. Rainwater soaked his skin, spilled down his hair, his face. He closed his eyes. What would he find on the other side of the door?
After Zahawi had started breathing again, time had seemed to snap forward, every moment Kris had spent frozen in horror watching suddenly zipping ahead, fast-forwarding reality. David had started shouting, hollering at the top of his lungs, shouting at Paul, at Dennis, at everyone in the room. Ryan had manhandled David out of the cell before David could get his hands on Paul and rip him in half. David had bellowed, calling Paul a fucking murderer, a torturer, a disgusting human being.
Kris had helped Zahawi up, cleaned him, dried him off, and got him a blanket and his clothes. Zahawi slumped against the wall, huddled in his blanket, and tried to cling to Kris.
Naveen had disappeared. Dan and Ryan huddled off to one side, talking amongst themselves softly. Paul and Dennis locked themselves in the command center.
Now, there was no sense prolonging the inevitable. If David wanted to throw Paul in jail, what must he think of Kris, who had stood by and watched it happen, frozen, unable to stop the torture that went too far? Taking a breath, Kris pushed open the door.
David sat on the floor, leaning against their bed, his head in both hands. His legs were spread before him, as if he’d collapsed, fallen to the ground when they gave out. He didn’t look up.
“David,” Kris whispered. “I—”
David’s red-rimmed eyes lifted, found Kris’s. Dried tear tracks stained his rage-ruby cheeks, twisted over his clenched jaw. The air burst from Kris’s lungs, punched out by the depth of anguish in David’s gaze, the bottomless abyss of agony he saw in the black of David’s eyes.
He didn’t know what to say. What to do. He stood immobile, stunned, as frozen as he’d been before, watching Paul slowly kill Zahawi.
“When I was a kid,” David said slowly. His words ground out of him, halting, as if physically ripped from the center of his soul, or deeper, from a place where he’d buried them forever. He stopped, and started again. “When I was a kid… in Libya…”
Kris felt like he was on the edge of the abyss inside of David, about to tip forward and fall into something he wasn’t ready for. He wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready for the secrets David kept buried.
“Qaddafi’s men arrested my father. They said his faith was turning him against Qaddafi. Against the state. Because he believed in Allah too strongly.”
The more David spoke, the more his voice seemed to fall from his body, to come from somewhere else. As if he wasn’t speaking any longer, but something else was. Something that lived inside him, and he’d tried to bury. To forget.
“My father was taken. To Qaddafi’s secret prison.” David shuddered, his whole body spasming, like Zahawi’s had spasmed. Kris felt rain falling on his skin, felt it splash on his face. No, not rain. Tears.
“My father… was tortured…” David tried to breathe. His mouth was open, and Kris saw his throat work, saw him gape like a fish out of water. “He was tortured, and then executed,” he whispered. “We fled.” He gasped, as if he’d been given permission to breathe, as if he was coming up from being held underwater. As if he was taking his first breath after drowning.
Finally, Kris moved, breaking free from the force that held him immobile. He couldn’t save Zahawi, not in time, but he’d go to David. He wouldn’t leave him to drown in the memories, the horror, the torrents of hate and fear and water that flooded them all, united them. He crouched beside David, curled into him. Wrapped his arms and legs around David, as close as he could get. David folded into him, like a child would, like a ten-year-old boy would in his father’s lap.
“I try never to think about what happened to him,” David whispered. Tears poured from his eyes, landed on Kris’s skin. He could drown in David’s tears. “If I imagine it, if I think about what he went through—”
“Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself.”
“We tortured him. I don’t even fucking like him. Zahawi. He ruined his Islam, made his faith ugly. He destroyed the best of what he had. A life. A family. A father.”
Kris tried to swallow. He couldn’t, not past the shame, the bile.
David’s words were bullets, fired on breathless gasps as he clung to Kris, like Kris was his anchor to the world. “I. Saw. My. Father. In. There. I saw my father on the ground. In the dirt. Covered in his own piss and shit, drowned, beaten. I saw him. I didn’t see Zahawi.”
“David—”
“We came to America, and my mother said we’d never have to worry again. America was free. America was safe.” He pressed his soaked face into Kris’s chest. His hot breath burned through Kris’s clothes, scorched his skin. David’s confession was burning him alive, turning him to ash and dust. “But today, I saw my father.”
Kris curled over David, wrapping his arms around him, holding him as tight as he could. “It will never happen again,” he choked out, each vowel, each consonant struggling to escape through Kris’s own tears. “Never, David. I swear.”
“Enhanced interrogation techniques will resume in thirty-six hours.”
Dennis and Paul squared off against Kris and Naveen in the command center. A single memo rested on the table between them. The rest of the intelligence, everything Kris and Naveen had built between them and with Zahawi’s help, was gone.
The memo from CIA Director Thatcher’s office started:
Resume EIT on subject after sufficient recovery period from incident reported in previous memo. All previous EIT techniques authorized.
“You’re not fucking torturing him again,” Kris growled. “You almost killed him.”
Dennis tapped the memo, the third paragraph. “Read on.”
Regarding subject’s disposition. All contingencies must be planned and prepared for, including the subject’s potential death while in custody. Regardless of future disposition, subject will be held incommunicado for the rest of his natural life.
“We will resume in thirty-six hours,” Dennis repeated. “He has information. And we’re going to get it. He will break. You’ll see. Especially after the last session. He’ll break when he sees the waterboarding table again. We’ll use what happened against him. He’ll break out of fear. I guarantee it.”
Naveen stepped back, away from the table, until he turned and walked out of the bunker.
“I am calling Langley,” Kris hissed. “I’m calling the president. I’m calling fucking everyone. You are not torturing him!”
Paul, quiet throughout the confrontation, finally spoke up. “Who do you think authorized us to continue? Why do you think anyone at all will care about this terrorist? When he dreamed about nine-eleven? When he was best friends with the architect of the plot? When he rejoiced and danced in the streets when he heard the towers had collapsed? Do you think anyone at all will give a fuck?” Paul peered at Kris. “Why do you? Maybe you should think about that.”
The only answer he could give Paul, after that, was a slap to the face. He restrained himself, just.
Following Naveen, Kris strode out of the command center, his mind whirling. He was going to call George, then Clint Williams. Work his way up the chain of command until he got to the director, then the White House. He’d make everyone see reason.
Naveen waited for him outside, leaning against one of the half walls and watching the rain. His face was twisted, like he’d seen something he’d wished he’d never, ever had. A duffel was by his feet.
“Caldera.” Naveen’s gaze flicked to him, then back to the rain. “I’m leaving.”
“No, we’ve got to stop this. I need your help. We can go together, to Langley and the FBI—”
“I already called FBI headquarters. Spoke to my director, right after… it… happened. My director called your director…” He trailed off. Squeezed his hands together. “The CIA isn’t changing their mind. They told Director Mueller to go fuck himself.” He shook his head. “I’ve got a choice. I either arrest them in there—” He jerked his head back, toward Dennis and Paul. “Or I leave. The FBI… It’s like Mueller said. We don’t do that. Ever. And we won’t be associated with anyone who does.”
It felt like a chasm had opened up between them, like a ravine had been rent into the earth. Naveen on one side, Kris, and all that he’d seen, all that he’d watched unfold before him as he stood silently, on the other. Kris, and the CIA, all the way up to Director Thatcher, and further, to the president.
“Why don’t you arrest them?” Kris finally said. His voice cracked.
Naveen blew out a long breath. “Arrest two Americans on a base that doesn’t exist, in a country that pretends we’re not here? While I’m surrounded by other CIA officers who support what those two jackasses are doing? I wouldn’t make it out alive.” Turning, Naveen grabbed his duffel, slung it over his shoulder. “Watch out, Caldera,” he said. He didn’t offer his hand to shake. “This isn’t right. And it’s all going to come out one day. It’s going to be a fucking mess when it does. Justice always comes.”
Turning, he headed for the vehicle bay, the concrete slab where they parked their four-wheelers. It was a grueling six-hour drive through the mud and the jungle to get to the nearest city. They were off the map, purposely. Off the edge of the world, in more ways than one.
“Wait. Wait.”
Naveen stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “I’m not staying, Caldera. Don’t try and stop me.”
“I’m not staying either. Can you fit two more in your jeep?”