by Eric Maddox
BABY RADMAN
0230 08NOV2003
I barely had time to catch my breath after the chain of events that had gone down in the last twenty-four hours. Two top Al-Muslits had been captured on the same day. That was the good news. But along with it came the reality that Farris Yasin was no closer to breaking than when he’d first been brought in. And Radman was now hundreds of miles away in the BIAP prison. It was frustrating to be so close to unraveling the insurgent web and yet not be able to close it out. I was still dealing with circumstances beyond my control.
But the pace was definitely picking up and I needed to stay one step ahead of it. When Kelly told me that Izzecki, the kid who had turned in Farris Yasin, was back to collect his reward, I had them bring him out to the guesthouse. I was determined to pinpoint the connection between the two of them. My hope was that something Izzecki might tell me could prove helpful in getting Farris to finally talk.
I began the way I usually did, by asking him about his family. Those links were often the most important in establishing where loyalties lay and secrets might be hidden. But there was nothing in what he told me that I could tie in with the men I was after. At least not initially.
“Tell me about your father,” I prompted him.
“He was in the army for five years,” Izzecki replied. “Now he has a store. A food market in our village.”
“What village?”
“Al-Alam.”
“Does the rest of your family live in Al-Alam?”
“My grandfather does.”
“Where is your grandfather now?”
“He is here. He drove me to get my money.”
“Does your grandfather have other sons?”
“I have two uncles. The youngest is named Muhammad. The oldest is Qasar.”
I paused for a moment, but the gears in my head kept turning. Izzecki had an uncle named Qasar. In Arabic culture, when a man has a son, the word “Abu” is added to his name. That made Izzecki’s grandfather Abu Qasar. Abu Qasar was one of the two friends of Farris Yasin, whom Ahmed had told me about.
Suddenly it all made sense. The old man knew that we were looking for him in connection with a wanted insurgent leader. I had given the Three Amigos specific instructions to bring him in. So he’d sent his grandson to turn in Farris Yasin instead and keep himself out of trouble. As the old saying goes, with friends like that, who needs enemies? Now I understood why Izzecki had been so sketchy on the details of Farris’s life and family. All he knew was what his grandfather, Abu Qasar, had instructed him to say: go to the Americans and tell them where Farris Yasin is hiding.
I called in the old man and spent a few hours trying to find out what else he might know about his supposed best buddy. I was particularly interested in the whereabouts of Farris’s other best friend, Shakir. But Abu Qasar pleaded ignorance and there wasn’t much point in trying to prove otherwise. The only reason I’d been interested in Abu Qasar and Shakir in the first place was because of what they might have told me about Farris Yasin. Now that he was in custody, his two friends were off the hook. All I’d really wanted to figure out was how Izzecki had known of Farris’s whereabouts. I had still been trying to sort out how I could have blown the hit that brought him in. Now I had my answer.
But there was another lesson to be learned from the Izzecki incident. Otherwise innocent individuals could provide as much valuable information as the guiltiest insurgent. Abu Qasar had known exactly where we could find Farris Yasin. All it took was some indirect pressure to crack him. The problem came in trying to apply that pressure. There was no way I could convince Kelly or Bam Bam to go after targets just because they were a friend or associate of a bad guy. We weren’t supposed to be in the guilt by association business. But that’s where the information was. It was becoming clear to me that Farris Yasin was never going to reveal the extent of his own or his cousin’s involvement in the insurgency. Those blood ties just ran too deep. But it was amazing what otherwise upstanding citizens can tell you if you provide the right incentive.
The obstacles I was facing in trying to expose the Al-Muslit’s leadership of the Tikrit insurgency got a lot higher when news came from BIAP that Radman Ibrahim had died of a massive heart attack while in custody.
This was a major setback. I had focused a lot of energy and attention on Radman, based on my belief that he was a senior member of the Al-Muslit brotherhood. Now he was gone and with him a vital link in the chain of command. I’d never had a chance to interrogate him and, with Farris Yasin still refusing to cooperate, I was facing a dead end. Kelly and Bam Bam, as well as the rest of the team, were willing to hang in as long as I could show I was making progress. But after Radman’s death, I was running out of viable options. I didn’t know how much longer I could maintain their confidence.
Grasping at straws, I asked Kelly to arrange for Radman’s son to be brought back from Baghdad. He had been captured along with his father, but the task force command was getting ready to cut him loose. He was only eighteen years old and had watched his own father die in an American jail cell. The Baghdad brass just wanted to wash their hands of the whole situation. “I think we can get him up here,” Kelly told me, “but we’re going to have to release him pretty soon.”
“I’ll take him for as long as I can get him,” I replied. I figured I’d have maybe thirty-six hours and I wanted to make the most of it.
Radman’s son arrived that night. His name was Awad, but I always thought of him as “Baby Radman.” He was obviously scared and traumatized by what he’d been through. For me, his state of mind was a definite advantage. I could use his fear to get him talking. For that reason I came at him hard right from the beginning. After a couple of hours, I was pretty sure he wasn’t actively involved in the insurgency. But that didn’t mean he had nothing to tell me. Izzecki and his grandfather had taught me that.
My tactic with Baby Radman was to accuse him over and over of knowing about his father’s role in the insurgency. The one key fact I was able to exploit was his admission that his dad was hiding from coalition forces. You don’t hide if you’ve got nothing to hide. But that only got me so far. Guilty or innocent, Radman was dead. Whatever his son did or didn’t know about his activities was irrelevant. It was what he might know about the rest of his family that interested me.
“How often did your father meet with his brother, Muhammad Ibrahim?” I asked. With Farris Yasin and Radman effectively out of the picture, my attention had naturally turned to the other important member of the Al-Muslit bodyguard fraternity. Over the course of dozens of interrogations and source meetings I had heard the name Muhammad Ibrahim come up on a constant basis. He was the only remaining brother with the power and influence to hold the operation together.
“Muhammad never came to our house.”
“Don’t lie to me!” I shouted. “I know your father saw his brother many times. How many times?”
“My father used to go to Baghdad,” Baby Radman answered with a whimper. “Perhaps they met there.”
“Perhaps?” I repeated the word contemptuously. “We’re not playing a guessing game here, asshole.”
“Muhammad Ibrahim has friends. Ask them.”
This was interesting. “What friends?” I asked. “What are their names?”
Baby Radman seemed relived to be off the subject of his father. “His driver,” he told me. “Basim Latif.”
I didn’t recognize the name. “That’s his driver,” I said. “We’re talking about his friends.”
“A business partner. Abu Drees.”
“Drivers. Business partners. What about his friends? That’s what I want to know.” I was actually getting what I wanted, but it was important to keep the kid off guard.
“Those are his friends,” he insisted. “They are always together.”
I had a problem here. I knew that as soon as Baby Radman was released he would report to his family everything he’d been asked. It was critical that he not know exactly which particul
ar individuals I was interested in. I had never heard of Basim Latif or Abu Drees before. But they were coming up fast on my most wanted list. I just needed to make sure Baby Radman didn’t realize that.
I spent the next two hours grilling him on other Al-Muslit family members and their respective best friends. It was only after the extensive detour that I brought the questioning back around.
“This driver of Muhammad Ibrahim. What’s his name again?”
“Basim Latif.”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. And where does he live?”
“His house is behind the governor’s mansion.”
“And the business partner?”
“Abu Drees. He has a store that sells rock and stones for construction. It is owned by Muhammad Ibrahim.”
That was the information I was after. If I could just convince Kelly and Bam Bam, then these locations would be the next targets for a hit. But to cover my tracks, I spent another hour going over more details of friends and family before finally letting Baby Radman go.
“We need to put a couple more guys on the link diagram,” I told Kelly when I returned to the house.
“I’m sure you have your reasons,” he said, after I told him about Basim Latif and Abu Drees. “But we can’t just go after someone because they used to know Muhammad Ibrahim.”
“I need to find these guys, Kelly,” I replied.
“Look,” he said with an edge to his voice. “You keep going down on this fucking link diagram and we’ll never get anywhere. We’re supposed to be working our way up. But you’re just adding names to the bottom of the list.”
“I know,” I said, “But if I can’t go up then I’ve got to go down. And if I can’t go down than I can’t go anywhere—”
“Eric,” he interrupted. “We have to justify bringing in low-level people that haven’t done anything. Muhammad Ibrahim may be at the top of your list, but he doesn’t mean shit in Baghdad. Now you want his driver and his business partner. How are we going to explain that?”
I could tell he was frustrated. So was I. If I couldn’t sell this to Kelly, I couldn’t sell it to anyone. And for the moment, he wasn’t buying.
Despite Kelly’s skepticism, I knew I had to find a way to make this happen. With Radman dead and Farris Yasin still tight-lipped, the driver and the business partner provided the only link I had left to Muhammad Ibrahim. I desperately needed to bring in Basim Latif and Abu Drees.
Fortunately help arrived from a very unlikely source. The morning after my session with Baby Radman, I was scheduled for a source meeting with Fred. Chris’s old informant had been keeping track of the street gangs in Tikrit that were aiding the insurgency. My intention was only to find out if he’d learned anything new about Munthir, the thug who ran the largest and most vicious of these groups. But once I sat him down I had another idea. It wouldn’t hurt to ask him what he knew about Muhammad Ibrahim.
“He is very important, mister,” Fred told me.
That much I already knew. “Do you ever see Muhammad Ibrahim?”
“Before the war, but not now,” he explained.
“You ever heard of someone named Abu Drees?” I continued.
He grinned. “He is a friend of Muhammad Ibrahim. I know where he is. I can take you to his house. He lives next door to Ahmad Hussein.”
“And who is Ahmad Hussein?”
“A very bad man,” Fred assured me. “He has RPGs. He has shot down two American helicopters.”
A man in Tikrit with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a grudge against Americans was hardly news. I’d had dozens of such reports from detainees since I’d arrived, most of them bullshit. I was about to add Fred’s to the pile. He wasn’t the most reliable source I’d ever worked with. But then I got an idea.
“Fred, can you call me when Abu Drees and Ahmad Hussein are both at home?”
“Mister, I give you good information all the time. You never do anything with it.”
“Just call me,” I repeated and hurried off to find Kelly.
I found him back at the house and ran down the information I’d just gotten. “I think these are good hits,” I added.
“Where did you get this?” Kelly asked skeptically.
“Fred,” I said under my breath.
He laughed out loud. He knew Fred’s reputation only too well.
“Look, Kelly,” I said, talking fast, “I know what you’re thinking. This chopper thing may not be real. But Abu Drees is. And he’s going to tell us where Muhammad Ibrahim is. All we need is a reason to do the hit. Now we’ve got one.”
“Did this guy Ahmed Hussein really shoot down a helicopter?” Kelly asked dubiously.
“Maybe,” I said without conviction. “Somebody had to have shot them down. Maybe it’s this guy. Will you push for the hits?”
He gave me a long silent stare. I took it as a yes.
Six hours later we had completed a successful raid on the two objectives. I was in the guesthouse with Abu Drees, wondering if I’d made a mistake. He was an old man, confused and disoriented. I tried patiently to build his timeline, but the dates kept contradicting one another and the facts didn’t add up. Words were coming out of his mouth but nothing was connecting. I wondered if he was maybe senile or if it was just an act. I needed another way to get at this guy.
I found it when I began interrogating his son Akail, who had also been rounded up in the raid and was being kept in a separate room, along with Abu Drees’s younger son, Ahmed, who had also been captured. Akail was a huge guy, over six feet and easily two hundred and fifty pounds. But he was also clearly terrified. It was a condition that once again could prove very useful to my purposes.
He answered the preliminary questions as if, more than anything, he wanted me to tell him how to stay out of trouble. I did nothing to reassure him, patiently piling facts until the time was right to make my move. “Your dad says he is in business with Muhammad Ibrahim,” I said. Abu Drees had said nothing of the sort, but I needed a way to get the ball rolling.
“I don’t know who that is,” he replied evasively.
“Come on, Akail. Everyone knows Muhammad Ibrahim. He’s your dad’s best friend.”
He swallowed hard. It was obvious that his fear was at odds with his family loyalty. “They own a few buildings together,” he said at last. “That is all I know.”
I returned to Abu Drees. From here on out, my strategy was simple: play the father off the son and the other way around.
“Your son tells me you are very close to Muhammad Ibrahim,” I said. “He says you own property together.”
“Yes,” Abu Drees replied, squinting at me as if trying to figure out what I knew and what I was pretending to know. “Sometimes we drink and play cards together.”
“Your son tells me you still see him very often.”
Abu Drees shook his head. “Not since the war began,” he lied. “That’s not what Akail says.”
“My son knows nothing,” he insisted.
“I’ll tell him you said so,” I replied as I went out the door and down the hall to where Akail was waiting.
“All you know is that your dad and Muhammad Ibrahim own some buildings?” I asked the frightened hulk. “What about the drinking and the card games. Did you forget about that, you piece of shit?” I dropped my voice to a hoarse whisper. I was after maximum effect. “Your dad can’t tell me about Muhammad Ibrahim, Akail. He wants to, but he can’t because he is afraid. This is your fault. You can help him but you won’t.” I opened the door and called to the guard. A moment later he escorted in the shuffling and miserable Abu Drees. He was drenched with sweat and his hands, cuffed behind him, trembled violently. “Look at your dad!” I shouted at Akail. “He may die in prison and you won’t help him.” It was generally against protocol to interrogate more than one prisoner at the same time. But I had no choice. One of these two had to talk to me. There was no other way that was going to happen.
“Take him away, please!” sobbed Akail. “Help him! I w
ill tell you what you want to know.”
One of the operators hustled Abu Drees out and I waited a few minutes while Akail pulled himself together. “Muhammad Ibrahim was with my father two weeks ago,” he said at last, his voice barely above a whisper. “I swear to you.”
“Where?”
“They played dominoes at a store. It is owned by a man named Thamir Al-Asi. He has two sons. They help him.”
“Who else was there?”
“Basim Latif. He is the driver for Muhammad Ibrahim. They are always together.”
“You’re going to take me there.”
“Muhammad Ibrahim is gone,” he wailed. “I have told you everything I know.”
“Don’t ever say that again!” I shouted, getting into his face. “You don’t know what I want to know. You don’t even know what you don’t know. I’ll tell you when you’re done.”
But, in fact, we were both done. It was 0600 the next day. I had been interrogating Abu Drees and his two sons, Akail and Ahmed, virtually nonstop for thirty straight hours. Leaving Akail to think over his options, I made my way back to the house and crawled into bed. It wasn’t until my head hit the pillow that I realized that I forgotten to question the helicopter guy. By then it was too late. I was sound asleep.
Chapter 11
THE DRIVER
2000 16NOV2003
It turned out that the guy who was supposed to be shooting down our choppers with RPGs was completely innocent. His only crime was being our source’s landlord. Fred just didn’t want to pay his rent and figured that the Americans could solve his problem for him. I had to hand it to Fred. He really knew how to work the angles. And despite the fact that the hit he sent us on had been total bullshit, it had gotten me Abu Drees. And that had gotten me one step closer to Muhammad Ibrahim.
By now I was convinced that the Al-Muslits had graduated from being Saddam’s elite bodyguards to being the leadership core of the insurgency. I may not have been able to prove my theory absolutely, but nothing had disproved it either. In fact, I continued to get good intelligence that told me I was on the right track.