Man in the Middle

by Brian Haig

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  With lawyer logic, I replied, “Yes, and it’s the law.”

  Waterbury gave me a puzzled stare.

  This man was entirely clueless regarding the legal aspects of rendition, which opened the tantalizing question of exactly whose idea this was. Three possibilities. Option A, for an unknown reason, was that somebody in Washington wanted bin Pacha buried forever in a Saudi vault. Option B, somebody in D.C. liked the idea of the Saudis beating the crap out of this guy to make him squeal, which, despite being fairly commonplace these days, also violates the United Nations Convention Against Torture, of which the United States happens to be a treaty signatory. Or Option C, the Saudis wanted Ali bin Pacha and offered us a choice: Hand him over or America will never need another highway bill.

  I thought it over for a moment. A, or B, or C each looked plausible. But so did A and B and C.

  Bottom line: Had the White House ordered this, as I suspected it had, I should start worrying about my next assignment, maybe my next career—and maybe my life. But frankly, I was past caring, which is always a danger point for whoever’s pissing me off. Also I wasn’t completely out on a limb. The golden rule of Washington was on my side: The party with the most to hide always holds the weakest hand.

  I knew this. And Mark Waterbury, too, knew this.

  So he drew a few breaths and decided the moment was pregnant for a new approach. He dropped his Lear-like act and gave me a friendly smile. “Sean . . . Hey, I’m not out on my own out here. You don’t . . . Look, there’s strong support for this . . . in Washington.”

  “Where in Washington?”

  “At high levels. Leave it at that.”

  He wished. “Fine. Show me the letter of approval signed by the Attorney General.”

  “I don’t . . .” He looked confused for a moment. “I’m quite confident the Attorney General can be persuaded to issue such an order.”

  “Well, you never know. Why don’t we call him and ask?”

  Everyone fell quiet for a moment. Then the sheik looked at me and asked, “What would it require to satisfy you, Colonel?”

  I was sure he had heard what I said, and I could only assume that his question was in the nature of a bribe. I was tempted to test his sincerity; I mean, this was the land of genies, and until you rub the bottle a few times you never know. Then again, people who are willing to bribe you are often willing to do other things, too. Like hurt you. Sometimes worse.

  So instead, I informed him, “Let me tell you my problem. You people don’t share.”

  He stared back with an icy smile and advised, “You should not believe all the libelous things you read about my country in your newspapers.”

  “How long have you worked in Saudi intelligence?”

  “Over twenty years. This is my career work. Why do you ask?”

  I looked him in the eye and said, “In 1996, I worked on the Khobar Towers investigation.”

  I could see in his eyes that this reference struck home. After Arab terrorists bombed the American military barracks in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia—after nineteen American servicemen were killed and hundreds more wounded—the Saudis quickly rounded up the suspects, and without allowing U.S. investigators a single interview, they were all swiftly beheaded.

  As I mentioned, I had a role in that investigation and we smelled Al Qaeda; all we ended up with was two bad smells. I’ve often wondered how differently the present might look had we interrogated those suspects, had we perhaps gained insights into Al Qaeda and their future plans and plots. That would’ve been good for America and good for the Saudis.

  But the Saudis play their own game in this region, and it goes something like this: We cover our own asses and could care less who stuffs a firecracker up yours. Clearly, the Saudis had an under-thetable treaty of some sort with Al Qaeda, probably involving a covert payoff, and the quid pro quo was that Al Qaeda would stay out of the Saudi sandbox and mess up other people, like us.

  Nobody could prove this. But the beheading of the Khobar Towers suspects made it impossible to prove anything, except that nineteen American patriots died without justice. The Saudis believe in burying their embarrassments, literally, and we buried ours, quietly.

  Predictably, Waterbury was outraged by my impertinence and informed me, “You’re way out of line, Drummond. You’ll apologize to the sheik.”

  “If you can convince me why, maybe I will.”

  “You’re pissing me off. Sheik al-Fayef is an honored guest and has very generously offered his valuable assistance.”

  Maybe I had misjudged Waterbury. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy; maybe he was just stupid.

  Phyllis cleared her throat and said, “This finger-pointing isn’t helpful. Let’s see if we can reason our way through this impasse.”

  If Waterbury was the heavy hitter, Phyllis apparently was sent as the relief pitcher, because she looked at the sheik, then at me, and suggested, “Maybe an alternative arrangement will satisfy everybody’s needs and wants.”

  Waterbury looked unhappy to be losing control of this thing and began to object, before the sheik raised a hand and said, “Please.” He looked at Phyllis, “Describe for me . . . this alternative arrangement?”

  I guess I now was calling the shots, because Phyllis bunted that question to me and asked, “What safeguards would satisfy you?”

  To tell the truth, I knew from the start that I had no chance of winning this. I could raise obstructions and objections, and make it more painful and time-consuming for all involved. Being a pain in the ass has its satisfactions; in the end, though, I wasn’t going to cause any great soul-searching, because the people who ordered this had no souls, just power.

  Clearly the big boys in D.C. wanted to avoid taking this case through the Justice Department and up the chain to the Attorney General, because it would eat up time, because actionable intelligence from an interrogation of this nature has a brief shelf life, but mostly because the less people in the know, the less you have to turn into amnesiacs later.

  Despite my warning her to stay out of this, Bian butted in. “Why does the rendition have to be genuine?”

  Waterbury said, “Shut up.”

  “But—”

  “I said, shut up.”

  By this point, I think even the sheik seemed to appreciate what the rest of us already knew; Waterbury only opened his mouth to change feet.

  The sheik held up a hand and said, “I believe I would prefer to hear about this suggestion.”

  I thought I understood where Bian was going with this, and on the face of things the idea was very clever; I wished I had thought of it. As I anticipated she would, she said, “I’m suggesting that bin Pacha doesn’t need to be rendered. He merely needs to believe he’s been turned over.”

  “Yes, and how would this work?”

  “We pump him full of drugs. He’ll awaken in a Saudi cell, with Saudi guards, and Saudi interrogators. Sean and I prep him before hand, inform him he’s undergoing rendition. I don’t care how tough he is. It will scare the crap out of him.”

  The sheik overlooked this backhanded compliment about his interrogation techniques and nodded thoughtfully.

  I slapped on my lawyer hat and quickly offered a few stipulations. “He stays under joint custody. We’ll have direct observation and round-the-clock access to his interrogation sessions, and we provide 50 percent of the questions.”

  Sheik al-Fayef was now stroking his goatee. “And how is this an advantage to me?”

  “You know what we know, as we know it,” Bian informed him.

  I added, “Or you can think of it as avoiding the ugly alternative.”

  He looked at me. “Alternative?”

  I told him, “You can read about it on the front page of the New York Times. I’m not sure what bin Pacha knows that scares you, and I’m not sure you know yourself. But your country has enough of an image problem in America after 9/11. Think about it.”

  So he thought ab
out it, very briefly, and replied, “I’ll grant you your wish.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Turki al-Fayef departed the plane to call his superiors in Riyadh with the news that the old deal had just become the new deal.

  Phyllis wanted a word with me, alone. So she and I marooned Bian with her boss, who looked a little frustrated and in the mood to browbeat a subordinate.

  The inside of the plane was, as I said, a sauna, and my uniform was pasted to my body. Even Phyllis, who has the physiology of a lizard, sported a light coat of dew on her upper lip.

  Neither she nor I said a word as we left the plane, or as we walked together through the hangar and out onto the airfield, where there was a brisk breeze, hot yet refreshing.

  Eventually, we were far enough away and I said, not softly, “You screwed us and you betrayed us.”

  “Harsh words. You look tired. So how are you?”

  “Didn’t you promise to watch my backside?”

  “She’s a very attractive woman, don’t you think?”

  “She’s a good soldier.”

  “And very beautiful, too. Do I sense something developing between you two?”

  “I didn’t even realize she was female until she walked into a ladies’ latrine.” I wasn’t going to let her change the subject, and I asked, “Why, Phyllis? Why did you cave?”

  “Incidentally, you handled Turki brilliantly. He’s a tough negotiator. You ran a nice bluff, though you nearly drove it off a cliff.” She gave me a long stare and added, “Still, you squeezed a better deal out of him than we got.”

  “Maybe you didn’t push hard enough. Who’s ‘we’?”

  She looked away from me. “Powerful people. You don’t need to know their names and I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

  “Tigerman? Hirschfield? Do those names fit?”

  She chose not to answer directly, but did say, “Even three years ago, the Agency could have stood up to the whole lot of them. We’ve lost so much prestige, clout, and influence since 9/11. Did you know the President is considering a new Director?”

  “So what? The old Director will make a bundle off corporate boards and speeches and books. The new Director will learn that he needs you more than you need him. The bureaucracy is forever, and the bureaucracy always prevails.”

  “I’m not so sure. Washington is changing. The Agency is due for changes also. It has to . . . and maybe that’s not a bad idea.”

  “Who is Turki al-Fayef?” I asked.

  “Turki is the number two or three or four in Saudi intelligence.”

  “Which one?”

  “It depends on how many royal princes decide they want to play spymaster. I’ve known him for many years, and with Turki around that’s all they do: play. It’s perfectly harmless.”

  “But he’s not harmless.”

  “Don’t blame him. Turki does what’s best for his country, as we do what’s best for ours.”

  “Then hire him. He does it better.”

  “Stop acting naive, Sean. It doesn’t sit well on you.”

  “Excuse me for thinking we were here to do the right thing.”

  “How do you know we’re not doing the right thing?”

  Regarding Phyllis, she’s not shameless, but she has that annoying Washington syndrome, a stunning inability to blush, no matter how raw the lie or how awful the embarrassment. I asked, “What does Ali bin Pacha know that’s scaring everybody?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. But he’s a Saudi, and his own countrymen can handle this better than we.”

  “I know you don’t believe that.”

  An Air Force C-130 began sprinting down the runway, and she said something, but it was drowned out by the roar of the noisy engines. We stood, sharing a moment in silence, and watched the big plane lift off, and our eyes stayed on it as the pilot began a series of corkscrew maneuvers intended to elude ground-to-air missiles. This place sucked.

  The passengers in the rear of the aircraft were probably tossing their lunch; I was feeling a wave of nausea myself. “What about Charabi?”

  “Who?”

  I looked at her. “You can’t allow this.”

  “I follow orders.” After a moment she observed, “Needless to say, you also will follow orders.”

  “He betrayed us.”

  “Do you know that for sure? You have a suspicion based on a flimsy circumstantial foundation. A few e-mails in a computer that belonged to a seriously troubled, contemptible man who perhaps committed suicide. Were you the defense attorney, would you allow that to be entered into evidence? I think not.” She didn’t need to state the obvious, that her question was as abstract as it was specious, since I would never be allowed within ten miles of that computer or the incriminating e-mails. She did add, however, “You have no tangible proof that Charabi passed any secrets to the Iranians. He’s not even a U.S. citizen. That’s a requirement for an indictment for treason, is it not?”

  “He’s a suspect in the murder of Clifford Daniels. That’s an extraditable offense.”

  “You said the murderer was a woman.”

  “I also told you I believe she was a hired assassin. She was the murder weapon, not the murderer.”

  “There’s that ‘possibly’ word again. I thought the law dealt with facts, and I thought innocence is presumed.”

  These weasel words had a lawyerly ring, as if Phyllis was parroting the stupid rationale cooked up by the nameless powers that be back in D.C.

  You can imagine how much I enjoy legal lectures, and I informed her, “Investigations always begin with vague and uncertain suspicions, you dig a little, and you decide which suspicious assholes need a second look. And, if you’re interested, the presumption of innocence pertains to jurors, not investigators. To the cop everybody is a suspect until proven otherwise.”

  She did not reply.

  “He’s a suspect. He needs to be questioned.”

  “He is an Iraqi citizen. This is Iraq. You have neither the legal basis nor the authority, nor the access to question him.”

  “No problem. I’ll just walk into his office and ask a few questions. Perfectly harmless. Man-to-man. See where it goes.”

  “I was instructed to convey three words: Forget about him.”

  We locked eyes for a moment.

  She said, “The Iraqi people are scheduled to have their first election in January. This is a critical milestone to victory in this war, a necessary step for bringing our troops home. Mahmoud Charabi—maybe you read this in the papers—is a leading contender for future prime minister.”

  “And that’s why he needs to be investigated. What if he’s elected, and what if he’s working for Iran, and what if he’s behind the murder of Cliff Daniels? That won’t be good for America, and that’s not what my comrades in arms are fighting and dying for.”

  “Why is irrelevant. Pay attention. Neither you nor I are allowed to carry this any further.” She pointed a finger, daggerlike, into my arm and invoked those sacred words: “That’s an order.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  There was silence for a moment. Eventually, Phyllis said, “Two words, this time: Martin Lebrowski.”

  “Who?”

  “The man you know as Don.”

  “Am I going to dislike Martin as much as I dislike Don?”

  “More.” She added, “The leak of the Iranian operation occurred on his watch. He was responsible for all aspects of that operation. Especially, operational security. Lebrowski was facing a serious career crisis.”

  “Lebrowski never should have had a career in the first place.”

  “Whatever. He has more savvy than I gave him credit for. Right after Martin departed our meeting he called a few friends, on the NSC staff and at the Defense Department. He disclosed what we knew.” She added, “The details were off, but it didn’t matter.”

  “What happened next?”

  “What do you think happened next?”

  Her response was as rhetorical as my ques
tion. This was Washington—a meeting happened next. The bright boys scrummed around a long mahogany table in a lushly carpeted back room and collectively they realized that, with a seesaw election mere days away, the opposition could begin picking out Secret Service nicknames and contacting their real estate agents. One meeting always begets the next, and this time Phyllis and her boss were invited, not as guests but as factotums to hear their marching orders. I asked her, “And what was Martin’s reward?”

  “Oh, well . . . he now works in the White House. On the National Security Council staff. A special assistant to the President.”

  “I love when the good guy wins.”

  “Martin outsmarted us—”

  “Martin outsmarted you. Personally, I thought he was an asshole.”

  “All right . . . me. There’s nothing to be done about it now.”

  She was right, of course. And actually, I felt a pang of guilt for indulging in that bratty told-you-so. I can rise above the vindictive and small-minded stuff. Then again, she doesn’t; why should I?

  I stared at her for a moment, then said, “Let’s make sure I’m clear on all this. In summary: Ali bin Pacha will be interrogated by his homies, Lebrowski has a new desk with job security, Charabi has a papal dispensation, and . . . what have I missed?”

  “A few details. Nothing important.”

  Actually there was something important—me. I asked, “Where does this leave Bian and me?”

  “Oh . . . yes. You will complete this leg of the investigation. Actually, the people who redirected this operation are very impressed with both of you.”

  “Does that mean my plane won’t accidentally blow up on the way home?”

  She ignored my paranoia. “You’ve apprehended an important terrorist, Sean. If he talks, it could help change the course of this war. We’re all very interested in what he might disclose.”

  “It sounds like Washington is more interested in suppressing what Charabi might divulge.”

  “In this business, you rarely achieve all that you want. You have to celebrate what you get.” She looked away from me and said, “There’s a good chance you’ll be rewarded for this impressive accomplishment.”