Man in the Middle

by Brian Haig

  We all looked at the two-story rectangular warehouse on a street corner. The narrower side faced us, while the wider side fronted the intersecting road.

  He continued, “One goombah on the roof . . . right”—his hand shifted slightly to the left—“there. See ’im? Okay, another slimeball’s hiding inside the front entrance. We wouldn’t know, right? Only this hump sometimes steps outside to burn one.” He chuckled. “Smoking truly can be hazardous for the health. He’s mine.”

  Eric spent a moment visually surveying the building and then, addressing his whole team, said into his microphone, “Target building’s two floors in height. Standard construction. Stucco over cinderblock, probably steel girders for the skeleton . . .” And so forth. He had an impressive mastery of architectural detail, and I wondered if he had been a builder before he became a destroyer. He turned to Larry and asked, “Other entrances?”

  “Yeah . . . a regular doorway on the far side. Donny can grease whoever comes out that one.”

  “Okay.” Into his microphone, Eric said, “There’s an exit—a door— on the far side. That’s yours, Donny. Anybody comes out, shoot for the legs.” After a moment, Eric instructed Carl, my old driver, “A three-story building’s due east of the target. You get up on that roof. When I give the go, take out the roof guard. Repeat that to me.”

  Eric listened a moment before he said, “Uh-huh.” He then said, “This goes down in two minutes. Synchronize with me. Time is two-fifteen.”

  He glanced at Bian and me for a moment, and seemed to recall that we were extraneous; I can do nothing without being instructed.

  Larry, the New Yorker, dragged over a tripod I had not previously noticed from out of the shadows. The three-legged device was a sniper’s stand, and on the swivel on top was mounted a wood-stocked specialist European rifle I didn’t recognize, with a screw-on silencer and a high-end night-vision scope. These guys had all the bells and whistles. Somebody was deep into the Agency’s pocketbook.

  Eric checked his watch and said to Jack, “Time to move.” He looked at Larry and said, “Don’t let these two out of your sight till I give you the signal.”

  Larry nodded. Eric and Jack disappeared back down the stairs.

  Larry turned to us and said, “Wanna watch?”

  We did, so we morbidly edged closer to the window as Larry hunched over his weapon and began adjusting a knob I assumed was a brightener for his nightscope.

  A moment later, a four-door sedan, silver in color, came rolling down the street, no faster than fifteen miles an hour. It pulled to a stop directly in front of the entrance, a man stepped out, and for a brief moment he looked around and observed his surroundings. The car windows were darkened, making it impossible to tell whether there were other passengers.

  Larry concentrated on his task and whispered, “Tommy Barzani. He’s Kurdish-American and speaks the local patois. ’Cause of that, he always gets the shit jobs.”

  The man appeared to be an Arab, and was dressed in Iraqi casual, tan slacks with an open-collared dark shirt with what looked like an AK-47 in his right hand. He moved confidently to the doorway and knocked, yelling loudly in Arabic.

  Bian translated, “He says he is carrying an important message and please open the door.”

  Larry, staring through his nightscope, mentioned, “The jihadis stopped using cell phones and radios months ago. They know we’re listening, they know we track the source, and they know it attracts missiles. Now they’re low-tech. Mail by messenger.” He drew a long breath and held it.

  After a pause, the door opened and a head stuck out. I heard Larry’s rifle spit, and I saw the head explode, then the body connected to that head tumbled out of the doorway and into the arms of Tommy Barzani.

  Almost instantaneously, two men, one carrying what looked like an Uzi, the other hauling what looked like a SWAT battering ram, jumped out of the car, lifted the feet of the corpse, heaved it through the doorway, and barreled inside.

  Larry directed a finger at his earpiece and said, “Just got a confirmation from Carl. Rooftop guard’s out of the picture.”

  My goodness—these guys were good.

  Next, I observed two figures, Eric and Jack, sprinting willy-nilly across the street, then through the now unguarded doorway, into which they disappeared.

  “What are they doing?” asked Bian.

  “The initial entry team,” I told her, “should be clearing the ground floor. Eric and Jack will rush straight upstairs and begin securing rooms.” I said to Larry, “Right?”

  “Yeah . . . like that. But likely, I just nailed the only goombah on the ground floor. All five should be upstairs by now.”

  I asked, “The NYPD teach you to shoot like that?”

  “I taught them to shoot like that. SWAT instructor. Ten years.”

  “What takes you from the NYPD to here?”

  Larry looked at us and replied, very slowly and very simply, “They fucked with my city. Now I’ll fuck with theirs.”

  Interesting perspective. Interesting guy.

  He cupped his hand to an ear. “What? Yeah, yeah . . . okay.”

  He looked at me. “Eric says you should get over there right away. I stay here, covering the block.”

  A minute later, Bian and I were crossing the street, and then we were at the entrance to the warehouse. I stopped and stood with my back to the wall by one side of the door; Bian stood by the other side. I whispered to Bian, “Weapons off safe.”

  “Eric said—”

  “Who cares?”

  “Right.”

  I said, “Cover me.” She took a crouch, and I announced, “Entering now.”

  I went in, rolling on the ground, and then, coming to my knees, began scanning the ground floor through my goggles. I noted a lot of heavy machinery. This seemed to be a factory rather than a warehouse, and the nature of the equipment suggested the purpose of this building had once been tool die work. I also observed a line of thirty to forty large artillery shells standing on their bases in neat, orderly rows. These were not an ingredient normally associated with automobiles, unless they are being outfitted for one-way trips.

  I continued my sweep. Supposedly this entire floor had been cleared by Eric’s men and thus was hypothetically safe. But I’d known guys who walked into “cleared” rooms and were carried out.

  Aside from the heavy machinery, the artillery rounds, and a gory corpse with only half a head, I saw no living beings. I made my way to the base of the stairs and whispered to Bian, “All clear.”

  In two beats she was directly behind me and we went up the stairs, stepping lightly, with our weapons pointed up.

  A voice at the top of the stairs challenged, “You’re Drummond, right?” I sensed that a weapon was pointed at me.

  I had this weird impulse to scream “Allahu Akbar,” which was not a good idea, and probably was not really funny anyway. I asked instead, “Where’s Eric?”

  “Follow me.”

  We took a left at the top of the stairs and ended up moving swiftly down a narrow, unlit hallway lined with four or five doors on each side. The doors were all open, and several were splintered, presumably the handiwork of the SWAT ram I had watched one man haul inside. At the end of the hallway was the final office, which we entered.

  Inside, Eric was seated on the corner of a desk, swinging his legs back and forth, the picture of casual intensity. Two of his men stood behind him with Uzis directed at six Arab gentlemen who were lined up against the wall.

  Judging by their states of dress or undress, the prisoners had been caught by surprise, probably asleep. One was completely naked, one wore underpants—boxers with little red roses, actually—and the other four wore trousers and T-shirts. None wore shoes, which was either a weird coincidence or, as I suspected, Eric’s people had taken them away to discourage attempts at running away.

  I removed my Arab headpiece and night-vision goggles, and withdrew the flashlight from my pocket.

  Eric informed us, without appar
ent regret, “Aside from the two exterior guards, we had to kill one. He made it to his weapon . . . and . . . well . . .” After a brief pause, he gave us a verbal fifty-cent tour, saying, “They all had weapons in their rooms, if you’re interested. So they may not look like it at the moment, but these are bad hombres. And maybe you didn’t notice the artillery shells downstairs. Also, we collected two laptop computers. I thought you might want us to hold on to them.”

  “Good thinking.”

  He pointed at the corner of the room, where I observed a corpse lying on his back, with both hands folded neatly across his chest. His two forefingers were contorted into a small cross. Somebody had a sense of humor.

  I moved closer and then examined the corpse. There was a small hole in the center of his forehead, and blood was spreading outward from the back of his skull, creating a small pond. Eric informed me, “He was rooming with that guy,” and pointed at an older man at the end of the line of living prisoners.

  The dead man’s eyes were frozen open with that look of somebody without a care in the world—at least, not this world. If this was Ali bin Pacha, we had a big problem.

  Checking the next block, I asked Eric, “You’re sure nobody escaped out the other entrance?”

  “This is all of them.”

  I next walked down the line of six prisoners, pausing briefly in front of each one, and as I did, I directed the beam of my flashlight at their faces. The reaction of freshly detained prisoners can be very revealing. Here we had six men who probably went to sleep feeling completely secure in a city populated by their fellow jihadists, and were rudely awakened by strange American men pointing guns in their faces.

  What should follow are a few moments of disorientation, confusion, and fear. At least this is what you hope, because it is also axiomatic that, during this brief period, prisoners are most likely to talk, to divulge valuable information, or to do something incredibly desperate, and often stupid.

  And indeed, four of the faces revealed exactly the range of emotions an optimist would hope for. Fright, anxiety, confusion, even hopelessness.

  This was definitely not the case, however, with the second guy from the end, who was heavyset and muscular, about six foot two, with a broad face that glared back at me with an expression of anger and scorn. Hardy Hardass. Also, there was a fanatical glow in his eyes, which is never a good sign. So here was one guy to keep an eye on.

  The last man in the line was a little older than the others, who all looked to be in their early to mid-twenties. His face was long and thin, and I held the light on it for a long moment, and noted it was crisscrossed with scars, and that one of his eyeballs was milky white. A fairly handsome man, though the scars and eyeball, in this light, looked eerie, and you knew he was no stranger to violence.

  He was grinning at me the same way a pretty girl smiles at the cop who has just pulled her over for speeding, confident she is smarter, wilier, and should all else fail, has big enough boobs to fix the problem. I studied his face, and he studied me back with a lurid nonchalance. Joe T. Cool, and here, I thought, was the guy to keep a close eye on.

  But these were not trained soldiers, nor did they have a code of conduct for these situations, or even a modicum of training regarding how to handle themselves. If we were lucky, this was bin Pacha and his bodyguards; with less luck, here were six suicide bombers who didn’t give a rat’s ass whether they lived or died; only whether we lived or died.

  As I moved down the line, Bian was looking over my shoulder and also studying their faces. I had the sense she was processing their deportment and making snap assessments, which, in these situations, you have to do. To Eric, I said, “You and your men take a break downstairs.”

  He mentioned, “You know we can’t transport six prisoners out of here.”

  “How many?”

  “One.”

  I regarded him a moment. “Two,” he said. “That’s it.”

  In any interrogation, it always helps to have a few prisoners to play off each other. Two was fine.

  He pointed a finger at his watch. “Ten minutes. I hope you have a magic key to find your guy.”

  “And you’re using up precious time.”

  He said, “Well . . . one other thing. They were searched. But you’d better keep a weapon on them, unless you’d rather we slap cuffs on them first.”

  Bian shook her head. I wasn’t sure why, nor did I particularly agree, but this wasn’t the time or situation to argue. Prisoners look for weaknesses or division in their captors, and this was not the occasion to encourage silly misjudgments.

  Besides, this interrogation was her gig, and as she had assured me several times, she had considerable experience with this. A little late, I realized that I had failed to ask whether those were successful experiences.

  Anyway, the six prisoners were following our exchange with considerable care and attentiveness, their eyes moving between our faces as we exchanged words. Standard behavior.

  I was sure that three questions were going through their minds at that moment: One, who are these mysterious people who arrived in the night costumed as they are, as Arabs, shoving guns in our faces? Two, why us? And three, since they aren’t dressed in American military uniforms, what rules, if any, do they play by?

  Eric and his men stepped out of the room, and the door closed behind them. Bian turned to me, pointed at several candles, and ordered, “Light those. Now.”

  Her tone was authoritative, even harsh, though I knew it wasn’t directed at me; she was now playacting for the audience against the wall.

  And what you could see was how very surprised and displeased these men were to hear a woman’s voice, and worse, that she appeared to have their collective balls in her hands. They weren’t used to what American males had to put up with.

  I lit the candles, and Bian removed her veil and then her abaya, and shook out her hair. As the English gentleman said, a rose remains a rose by any other name, and a beautiful woman is still mesmerizing even when holding a loaded gun to your face. Maybe especially then.

  Now the six men all had their eyes locked on Bian. Two actually smoothed their hair and stood a little straighter, and the naked man immediately slapped his hands over his groin. Modesty was the least of their problems, all things considered, but it’s funny how some people think, their reflexive responses at times of peak stress.

  Bian repositioned herself directly front and center of the group, spread her boots about two feet apart, placed her hands on her waist, thrust forward her hips, and elevated her chin. This sudden metamorphosis from demure female to haughty dominatrix was a little theatrical, but also it was very persuasive—even I did a double take. But as with other forms of social interaction, an effective interrogation has to take into account local customs, belief systems, and communal fears. Clearly Bian knew this.

  Here we had six Arab gentlemen raised in a culture where women are devalued, obscured behind veils, unable to drive, literally speaking only after being spoken to. And now, on top of the indignity of capture, it turns out an American woman—an infidel slut—would be conducting the interrogation. Bian understood their shame and disorientation, and now she was heating up their humiliation.

  She allowed a few tense seconds to pass, long enough for it to sink in that this truly was her show. Eventually, in a very harsh tone, in English, she asked, “Who speaks English?”

  No response.

  She scanned their faces and announced, “I demand an answer,” and she asked again.

  Again no response.

  “At least one of you speaks English. We know this. Step forward . . . now.”

  It took a moment for me to realize why she was so confident somebody spoke English, much less why it mattered. The artillery shells downstairs meant bombs, either the car-borne or the roadside variety; ergo, somebody inside this room had the engineering faculty to construct such devices. That meant a high level of education, probably at a foreign university, and probably he spoke English. In the
pecking order of terrorists, bomb technologists are just below financiers, so taking one off the streets was like winning second prize in the lotto.

  Again, though, no response.

  Bian glanced at me. She pointed at Sammy Naked and Captain Underpants, and very coolly said, “Separate these two.”

  I looked at her a moment. She barked, “You heard me. Now!”

  I stepped forward and, covering me, Bian elevated her weapon at the prisoners. I grabbed the poor naked man by his arm and flung him forward, then followed suit with the man in undershorts.

  The two men now stood in the middle of the room, looking even more dazed, unfortunate, and confused, wondering what made them special and regretting whatever it was.

  Bian ordered me, “Take them downstairs. Tell Finder to execute them.”

  She looked and sounded completely serious.

  I stared at her back a moment, and she sensed my hesitance, because, keeping her weapon on the men against the wall, she glanced backward and winked.

  She turned back to the prisoners and began speaking in Arabic, probably apprising them that their fellow jihadists were about to become compost.

  I used my M16 to prod both men out of the room, through the doorway, and then down the long dark hallway to the stairwell. You aren’t supposed to threaten prisoners with death or bodily harm, of course; but neither are you supposed to send human bombers into the streets to murder civilians. And on a more Zen-like note, if they did not speak English, they did not understand the threat, and it’s not a threat. I hoped that circuitous logic would sound as good in court as it sounded to me at that moment. We had reached the top of the stairwell and as a precautionary measure, I called out, “Drummond coming down with two prisoners.”

  I had the prisoners lead the way down the stairs. They moved like sheep, passive, completely clueless. Neither of these clowns had the slightest idea what was going on.

  Finder was standing at the base of the stairs and he asked, “Who are these guys?”

  “Object lessons.”