How to Break a Terrorist (17 page)

MAY
1, 2006, 2300
HOURS

H
EY, YOU’VE GOT
to take Abu Haydar off the transfer list,” I say to the guard standing in front of a row of prisoners, all of whom are prepped and ready to depart.

The guard replies, “He’s supposed to get on the chopper now.”

“I know. But trust me, he’s not leaving.”

Stopping a prisoner transfer requires a small mountain of administrative paperwork and many procedural hoops. My request short-circuits all of that. The guard doesn’t look happy. “Fine. But it’s on you.”

I give him a big smile and a thumbs up. “Yes. It is on me.”

I race to the conference room. There is a vacant spot up front where the senior interrogator is supposed to sit. Directly behind that chair is Lenny. I slip into the chair trying to stifle my grin.

I am borderline euphoric. We’ve got a shot now. If we can properly exploit Abu Haydar, he can at the very least give us al Masri. Al Masri can give us Zarqawi. We’re one step removed from a breakthrough. We won’t have to start from scratch.

Randy storms into the meeting. He looks anxious. Apparently the meeting with the task force senior leadership didn’t go well.

He kicks off the meeting with a few administrative announcements and then gets down to business.

“Slides,” he calls.

Abu Bayda’s mug shot appears on the flat-screen. Tom stands and describes everything Abu Bayda gave up earlier today. He’s still talking about how his network operates and how they get resupplied from Iran. He has not given us anything that will lead us closer to Zarqawi.

Randy thanks Tom. He calls for the next slide. It’s Abu Haydar.

“He’s on the chopper to Abu Ghraib,” Randy says. “Next.”

Before the admin guy can click the mouse, I interrupt.

“Uh, the detainee provided valuable information today.”

Randy freezes. I hear Lenny intake a sharp breath behind me. There’s not a sniffle from Cliff, nor a cough or a sneeze or a shuffled foot under a table.

As if in slow motion, Randy’s head turns until his eyes find mine. His head twitches to one side. That isn’t a nervous tick. That’s his
I’m about to tear you a new cornhole
twitch. He obviously didn’t hear my request at 1700. But it doesn’t matter now. The truth shall set me free.

“The detainee admitted that he met with Abu Ayyub al
Masri four times in different safe houses around Yusufiyah. Recommend we retain and exploit.”

Randy’s jaw unwinds so far that I’m certain I see his tonsils. He’s too stunned to even talk. The room remains silent. It feels like Randy and I are alone even though forty analysts and interrogators are arrayed behind me.

“Wha…ho…who…?”

I wait. Finally he says softly, “We’ve never had anyone admit to meeting al Masri.”

I can’t help but grin. The new techniques have just scored a tremendous coup. This could be a unifying moment for our group. No more cliques. No more administrative headaches and secret meetings. We could finally work together from the same sheet of music.

Randy still looks stunned. “Why is he talking now?”

His eyes say
Why is he talking to you
.

“Maybe because I showed him respect. Then I told him I was the boss here and I could get him a deal.”

I hear Lenny behind me exhale explosively. He’s not a happy camper. Tough shit. He had a month to do his job.

Randy doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve just said. Instead, he realizes what’s about to happen. He flushes crimson and shouts, “Shit! He’s leaving right now!”

“No,” I say calmly. “He’s not. I already took care of that.”

Randy doesn’t even ask Cliff for a recommendation.

“He stays. We’ll talk more after the meeting.”

Randy suddenly becomes all business again.

“Next. Abu Raja.”

Steve stands to summarize his day. The meeting continues in subdued silence.

When it ends, Randy looks at me from across the table.
He looks strange. Is it embarrassment? I can’t tell. “Good fucking job.” He doesn’t wait for a reply; he just gets up and walks out the door.

Behind me, an argument breaks out. Lenny yells at Cliff, “No way! I’m not interrogating him any more!”

He sees me watching and turns his fury on me. “You! You just completely undermined a month’s worth of work! You just blew every piece of control I had over him. Control is Interrogation 101!”

I wonder if he’s about to come after me. I stay calm, but I’m still blunt. “Lenny, how much control do you think you had over him if he was about to be transferred?”

“FUCK THIS!” he roars, and as he storms off he adds, “This is bullshit!”

In the back of the conference room, Nathan’s still in his chair with a deer-in-the-headlights look. “That was ugly,” he manages, as he watches Lenny leave.

I shrug. It doesn’t matter. The path to Zarqawi leads through Abu Haydar. We’re still in the game.

A
FTER THE FIRST
solid night of sleep I’ve had since getting to Iraq, I roll into the ’gator pit about an hour early. I want to go over last night’s reports and see who ended up interrogating Abu Haydar. As I come in, I see Randy already at his workspace.

“Good morning.”

He grunts at me, then returns to a pile of paper he’s wading through. Nothing can dim this mood, so I press on cheerily, “Randy, given what happened yesterday, is there any chance we can put Tom in with Mary on Abu Haydar today?”

He nods, “Yeah. I’ll make it happen. I’ll want you to give them a full brief. Tell them what you did and give them some ideas.”

“I’d be happy to do that.”

I walk across the ’gator pit and sit down. The latest re
ports await. My mood spirals downward when I see that Lenny interrogated Abu Haydar last night.

I start reading his summary.

“Interrogator had to spend entire session explaining to detainee that previous interrogator is not the boss and had no authority to make any deals. After that, interrogator spent two hours reasserting control over detainee.”

I want to scream. I can’t believe what I’m reading. Lenny undermined everything I did yesterday. And for what? Jealousy? He’s compromised the best lead we’ve had to Zarqawi in the three years we’ve pursued him.

Fury wells in me.

The night shift’s senior interrogator sits nearby. I print the report and go over to him. I grit my teeth and try my best to be polite. “Did you see Lenny’s report?”

The night shift senior interrogator shrugs. “Take it up with Roger. I want nothing to do with this.”

I walk down the hall and knock on the door. He’s got somebody inside. I don’t care. I step inside and say, “Roger, we have to talk. This can’t wait.”

The other visitor leaves.

I’ve got to get Roger to act, but I’ve never seen him discipline anyone. One of our ’gators a few weeks back told a guard to roughen up a detainee at an outstation. The local commander called me and told me what happened. I talked to the ’gator, confirmed the story, and told him to pack his bags. Nobody who pulls a stunt like that with a detainee can ever be trusted inside the booth again, and the task force has a clear zero-tolerance policy for such things. Roger called him back to our prison and let him continue interrogating. He never disciplined him.

I’m not hopeful.

“We have a serious problem.” This gets his attention.

“What?”

“Lenny has endangered our best lead to Zarqawi.”

I explain the situation. Roger doesn’t seem to get it. When I finish, he’s not angry—he’s not even upset. He asks me to sit down, which I decline, and then says, “Look, we don’t want to do anything that could damage careers, okay?”

“Roger, this is not about careers. This is about the mission. You
cannot
let this go.”

“I’m sure Lenny has a perfectly good…”

“He has sabotaged an ongoing operation. This is treason. We can’t trust him to interrogate.”

He thinks about this. “Tell you what I’ll do for you, Matthew, I’ll bring Lenny in here and ask him to delete those sentences from his report. Okay? Problem solved.”

“What the hell are you talking about? We have the most important detainee in Iraq in our cell block. He is a direct link to Zarqawi, and Lenny deliberately destroyed our chance to get further information out of him!”

“Powerful words. Let’s just take care of this with a few deletions.”

I can’t win. “At the very least, you’ve got to pull him off Abu Haydar.”

“No, we can’t do that.”

I’m in a looney bin. Did my commanding officer just tell me the ’gator who failed for almost a month and then pulled this stunt is going to remain in the mix? I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

I leave in disgust.

Back at my desk, my mind pours over the damage. How can I fix this? What advantages do I hold here?

One, Abu Haydar doesn’t respect Lenny. That’s important. That may limit the damage he was able to do.

Two, we have established a measure of respect. I have shown respect for his religion and culture. I will have to hope that works in my favor.

Culture. Maybe there’s something I can use there to repair the damage.

Maybe not. Abu Haydar was already paranoid and ultra-suspicious. I can’t see fixing this now.

Wait a minute. Paranoia. Suspicion.

Iraqis are total conspiracy theorists. They’ve been marinated in so many tribal plots and counterplots over the decades that these things come naturally to them. What’s more, they love being a part of a successful conspiracy. All someone needs to do is come up with a believable one. One that offers hope.

A
FEW WEEKS BACK
I saw a car bombing on film. It was another one recorded for Abu Raja’s network and edited by Ismail. It showed a building two stories tall with a pair of humvees out in front. The camera, which the insurgents positioned on a rooftop nearby, captured a squad of American soldiers as they rushed inside the building.

It was a clear setup. The scene shifted, thanks to a neat little edit of Ismail’s. Now the camera showed a teenage boy, eyes wide and glazed, sitting in a truck. Somebody handcuffed him to the wheel. He didn’t even seem to notice. I wondered if he was drugged up.

The cameraman walked to the back of the truck. Here, a group of insurgents finished arming a bomb. They placed it in the truck bed. The driver’s door closed. The truck engine revved, and the scene shifted back to the rooftop. There, the
camera followed the truck as it roared toward the humvees, gaining speed block after block.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to turn away. I couldn’t do either. I remained rooted in place, watching Ismail’s work.

The explosion knocked the entire building down. The humvees disappeared amid the rubble, smoke, and dust.

I hope Lenny doesn’t have a conscience, because the rest of his life he will have to live with what he did in a moment of weakness and spite.

I’ve learned my lesson. Whatever I do in the booth with Abu Haydar has to remain between us. I trust my enemy more than my colleague.

At my desk, a plan develops in my mind. I take no notes. I just spin it and test it again and again in my brain. It could work. But if anyone finds out, I’ll be on the next flight home. I’m skirting some rules, operating in gray areas, but if this works, we’ll be back in the game.

Nobody has said at this point that I cannot interrogate Abu Haydar. I go and check him out from the cellblock, then wait for him in the booth. As I sit there, I rehearse my opening lines. He’s got to buy this right away. If I have to work him, he’s lost. He won’t talk.

A guard escorts Abu Haydar into the booth. He sits down, and I ask him to remove his mask.

He looks relieved to see me. Thank God.

“Abu Haydar, how are you?”

“I am well, thank you Dr. Matthew.”

Do I detect just a hint of distrust? I guess that’s to be expected. I know this man. I know how he thinks now. If I am
very careful, I can outmaneuver him and turn all of the day’s negatives into positives.

“Are you ready to continue?” I ask.

“Yes, I am, but I have a question first.”

“Anything, my friend. What is on your mind?”

“Do you really have the authority to negotiate with me?”

I lean back and say, “Ahh. Is that what is bothering you?”

“Yes.”

“Abu Haydar, I’m going to tell you something, and I think you’ll get the picture.”

“Go ahead.”

I stand up and pull my chair next to his so that we are sitting almost side by side, facing opposite directions. Our faces are a foot apart, and I lower my voice to almost a whisper.

“Not everyone here works for the same people. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The subtext here is simple.

I’ll give him just a little more. “Some of those who work for a different agency from mine have different motives, my friend.”

He looks cautious, but at the same time, very intrigued. “What are those different motives, Dr. Matthew?”

“I will be blunt with you, Abu Haydar. Not everyone wants to work with Sunnis.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. That is why my boss in Washington sent me here.”

“I see.” His voice goes vanilla again. He’s studying me with those unbelievably perceptive eyes.

I decide to continue.

“I have a certain authority here that others do not. I have the ability to work with Sunnis. Other people resent that. Now, do you still want to work with me?”

Another pregnant pause. I’m naturally impatient, so this is starting to drive me crazy. But I don’t speak. My face remains cordial and earnest.

He strokes his beard. He nods once. “Yes. I want to work with you.”

“Okay. I want to bring you into our program and get you out of here. I will take care of you. But I need you to do something for me.”

His face goes blank. His eyes shine with suspicion. “What?”

“You must never tell anyone here that we have made a deal. It will be our secret and a secret between us and my bosses in Washington.”

I’ve just made him a part of the conspiracy.

He nods his head in a knowing, worldly way. “I understand completely, Dr. Matthew. I will say nothing of our arrangement.”

“Good. I must depend on you for that. If you talk to anyone about this, I will have to call off our deal, and Iraq will suffer for it.”

“I want to join your program. You have my word.”

“Okay. Here is what’s going to happen.”

Now he leans forward. I lower my voice to an even softer whisper.

“I have to fly back to Washington today to convince my bosses that you are worth the risk. I have a good feeling.”

“I understand.”

For the next hour, we discuss al Masri. Abu Haydar pro
vides more details of how he operates, and I take notes. He’s giving us a gold mine of information. At the end of our session, I tell him, “While I am gone, I need to know you will work with the others here.”

His face looks sour. “I would prefer only to talk to you.”

“I will be gone. But I will monitor the reports and check on your progress. Don’t worry, I will return in a few days, and we’ll talk again.”

“I look forward to that.”

“So do I, my friend. So do I.”