Man in the middle sd-6

by Brian Haig

  On the second day, the aircrew showed up to turn over the engines. To relieve the monotony, I challenged them to a chess tournament; fortunately, they declined. I had better luck suggesting poker, but they had better luck with the cards, drubbing me for two hundred big ones. The bastards cheated. I cheated, too; they just cheated better.

  Anyway, Bian returned early on the third morning without a word about where, or about how, she had spent her days in Baghdad. However, I sensed a new mood of calm contentment with an attitude of cordial reserve toward moi. I assumed this meant she had resolved her internal conflict between Mark or Sean. I won't say I was overly thrilled by this.

  Anyway, Bian elbowed my arm and said, "Sean, I think he's waking up."

  I looked up and noted that Ali bin Pacha's eyes were blinking repeatedly. Having personally experienced this-twice-I understood what thoughts were passing through his brain.

  For starters, you remember your last conscious moments, the images and thoughts playing back like a videotape-you have a bullet inside you, it hurts like hell, you know you might die, you feel a tide of weakness enveloping you, sucking you down into the darkness, and you're thinking… This is it. The End.

  Now his nerve endings and synapses were crackling with unexpected sensations. He reached with his hands and touched his face, then rubbed his three-day stubble, his nose, and his eyes, confirming that Ali bin Pacha still was encased in a corporeal body, still breathing, still alive.

  His one good eye shifted to the IV tube in his arm, and he noticed his surroundings, that he was resting in a bed, his body was covered with clean white sheets, and somebody-Bian-was watching him. From his expression, he realized this woman in an Army uniform was not one of the fabled Stygian virgins waiting to celebrate his martyrdom.

  Then the roving black eye discovered me.

  I cleared my throat and informed Ali bin Pacha, "You are in an American Army field hospital in Baghdad. I am Colonel Drummond. This is Major Tran."

  He stared back wordlessly.

  I continued, "We know you work with Zarqawi and we know you are… were his moneyman. As such, you are not a prisoner of war, you are an international terrorist and will be afforded none of the protections of the Geneva Conventions." I leaned closer and asked, "Do you understand?"

  His face remained impassive.

  Bian informed him, "You do understand. We know you speak English. In fact, we know a great deal about you."

  Which was true, courtesy of the file Sheik Turki al-Fayef had promised and actually delivered the day before, albeit a skeleton of the mighty file it had probably once been. It told us a great deal about this man personally, and nothing about him professionally, which was helpful, though not nearly as helpful as it might've been. She allowed bin Pacha a moment to consider her words, then said, "We know you grew up in Jidda in Saudi Arabia. Your father's name is Fahd, your mother is Ayda. Your father is an importer of fine automobiles, which has made him very prosperous. You have six brothers, no sisters."

  I added, "From 1990 through 1991, you were a student at Balliol College at Oxford. On your entrance exam, your English was rated as excellent. In fact, you wrote your first-year essay on the poetry of John Milton."

  He did not acknowledge this revealing insight either.

  I needed to get a rise out of this guy and said, "I read it. Let me be frank. I found it immature, pompous, and presumptuous. You don't know the difference between iambic pentameter and a pizza pie. And you totally misunderstood Milton's intent. About what I expected from an ignorant, backward camel jockey."

  I was sure this crude cultural aspersion was irritating for him-it was meant to be-but his expression was immutable.

  Bian's turn. She said, "The colonel has lost friends here. He… well, he's not a big fan of Arab cultures."

  Women have a sixth sense for what gets on a man's nerves, and Bian was cueing me to stay on this path. I said to her, "People who wipe their asses with their hands don't have culture. They can make chemical weapons and bombs, but can't figure out how to produce toilet paper?" I looked down at Ali bin Pacha and asked, "Hey, how do Arabs practice safe sex?" He wasn't going to touch this, and I said, "They put marks on the camels that kick."

  A choking sound came from bin Pacha's throat. It sounded like he was trying to clear it, or was pushing words through a dry windpipe. Bian bent forward and said, "Oh… you must be parched." She found a glass and a water pitcher by the bed, filled the glass, and held it to his lips. "Here. Drink."

  He took a few shallow sips and coughed. Bian placed the glass back to his lips and he drank more heartily. She removed it, bin Pacha turned his eyes to me, and he found his voice. "You will rot in hell."

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  "Only by the grace of Allah do you still breathe."

  "Allah-my-ass. You were too slow on the trigger, pal. Any American kid could've gotten off that shot."

  "If there is a second chance, I will kill you. I promise you this."

  I laughed. He did not like this, and his eyes sort of narrowed.

  Bian said to bin Pacha, "Don't let him goad you. You've just been through a traumatic operation. Don't let him get you worked up."

  He ignored her and informed me, "I do not speak with American whores. Do not let her touch me again. Order this infidel bitch to leave my presence."

  Bian leaned toward him and said, "Fuck you." Her arm drew back but I grabbed it before she laid one on him.

  Well, so much for good cop, bad cop. Now it was bad cop, bad cop, bad prisoner. Obviously, he had a problem with American ladies. This could be a religious or cultural thing, or maybe Ali bin Pacha had some of those icky Freudian issues with his mother, or he liked boys, or girls had never reciprocated his affections because he was a murdering terrorist asshole.

  I informed bin Pacha, "American prisons are filled with female guards. They're going to order you around, watch you do potty, and occasionally will strip-search you and do those nasty cavity searches up your butt. Get used to it."

  He looked at me. "You are in Arab lands. I will tell you how to behave, and you will conform to my customs. Send her away."

  This guy needed to come down a peg and I knew how to do it. I bent toward him and said, "You know what, Ali? You and I, we were in Mogadishu together." This brought a spark of interest to his eyes. "Hey, maybe you and I can join the same veterans' organization. Wear those goofy hats and sit around all day trading bullshit war stories. What do you think?"

  He stared at me. I don't think he got the funny hat part.

  I continued, "I bring this up… only because… well, I have this amazing story. Small world and all that. See, a close pal of mine was a helicopter pilot over there. You remember the Apache helicopters? Big ugly things bristling with all those missiles and machine guns that just mess up your day."

  Ali bin Pacha was now staring at me with interest bordering on intensity. I continued, "Anyway, one day Mike-that's my buddy's name, Mike-well, one day he came back from this mission and we were sitting around, knocking back brewskis, joking about how many assholes we just killed. And he swore he saw an Arab… and he claimed-hey, look, you know how pilots are, okay? Well, maybe you don't. Just trust me, bin Pacha, those guys, they're such bullshitters, they even make up even bigger sins to tell their own priests… So, where was I? Oh, yeah, Mike-anyway, he swore he fired a missile and blew off this Arab guy's leg."

  I smiled at Bian. "Boy, for a week that's all everybody talked about. Ahab the Arab… Ali Baba and the forty one-legged thieves… the sheik of where's-a-my-fuckin'-leg."

  Bian laughed.

  Bin Pacha looked a little upset.

  I asked him, "Hey… you don't think that was you down there?… I mean, Mike amputated this Arab jerkoff, and you're missing a leg, and… What are the odds, huh?" I smiled at him.

  With typical Arab nonchalance, he replied, "Allah arranges our fates as he wishes."

  "Allah-schmalla. He didn't cripple you, pal. It was the United States
Army. Come on, how about a little credit?"

  He examined my face a moment. "When my leg was injured, I knew it had to be cut off. I ordered my men, saw it off, no anesthetics.

  Listen, American-I wanted to feel this pain, to savor this feeling, to remember it always."

  "Believe me, I understand. We were drinking warm beer over there. That sucked, too."

  He smiled. "And am I incorrect in recalling that we drove the American crusaders out of Somalia, that you ran home after we killed your soldiers? I think maybe you should not be boasting about Mogadishu." His smiled widened. "I personally killed one American soldier, and… I enjoyed it so much I decided to kill more."

  Asshole.

  He turned and looked at Bian. He asked, "You are Vietnamese, yes?"

  "I'm an American soldier."

  "No, you are Vietnamese. From the south, I am sure. So I think that makes you twice the whore. You give yourself to American men, and you serve the American Army that betrayed your people."

  "I serve the American Constitution. And who I sleep with is none of your fucking business."

  "You spread your filthy legs for these white men who murdered your people. Our Arab women would never do this."

  I could feel Bian heating up beside me. I squeezed her hand.

  "I have studied this Vietnam War," he continued, sounding just like an arrogant college professor. "Millions of your people died. Your country was bombed, your forests poisoned, your rice fields mined, your cities obliterated. And once the Americans lost too many soldiers, they ran like cowards and left your people to suffer and despair. So it will happen here. Inshallah. You will see."

  After a moment, Bian replied, "Have you been to Vietnam lately?"

  "I have no interest in visiting infidel lands."

  "That explains your ignorance. Today, the streets of Vietnam are lined with McDonald's, American luxury hotels, American movies, and American businesses. Guns, dollars… whatever it takes, we always win in the end." She smirked at him. "Always."

  Whatever he thought about this, he kept it to himself. He turned to me and observed, "You wear the collar insignia of a lawyer."

  "Hey, very good. I understand that you study our military manuals." I pointed at the crossed dueling pistols on Bian's collar. "Crossed spoons. She's a cook."

  Somebody kicked my leg.

  He replied, "I find it curious that your army sends women and lawyers into battle."

  "Really? Is it more curious than your movement using one-eyed cripples?"

  "I have read your newspapers on the Internet. I think your army can no longer attract young men to become soldiers. Here we have no trouble finding mujahideen willing to martyr for the jihad. Your young are spoiled, decadent, cowardly. They play their video war games and have no interest in real battles where they might die." He added, "Your President lied, and now he cannot find enough new soldiers to come to Iraq to die."

  "Don't believe everything you read in our newspapers," I replied, or maybe anything you read. "We can send cooks and lawyers against you with a hand tied behind their backs. Look who's the prisoner."

  "I think not. I think your hired mercenaries caused this."

  "Who? Oh… them… the Bowery Boys' Choir. They were here on a USO tour, got a little bored, so we gave them a night off for a little fun." I winked.

  "You are a filthy liar."

  "No, I'm a lawyer."

  He missed the inside humor. He said, "We study everything about you. The longer you remain in our lands, the more we learn about you, and the more dead you will count. We are willing to die for our cause, you are not."

  We locked eyes, and I said, "That's why we're here. To help you die."

  "Yes, but you are dying. Your President loses popularity with each coffin. I think you have a lovely American expression for this-you have bitten off more than you can swallow… in the corpses of your soldiers."

  This was going nowhere. We had all taken our best shots, and now we were merely stoking our mutual resentments. So I changed the tone, and the subject, and told him, "We're here to ask for your cooperation. We want Zarqawi. You're going to help us find him."

  He laughed.

  As we had discussed beforehand, Bian chipped in to remind him, "There's a twenty-five-million-dollar reward on Zarqawi's head. You've given an eye and a leg to the cause. There's no shame in cashing out now. Surely he considers you expendable and will not mourn your loss. You should return the sentiment."

  "I told you to shut up, whore."

  I warned him, "There's the nice way, or the hard way."

  "Yes?" He looked amused. "Explain for me this hard way. Maybe Abu Ghraib, where your whores will ply their sex perversions and your soldiers will march me around in a hood? Or maybe you will send me to your Guantanamo prison and flush my Koran down the toilet?"

  "Do you have a preference?"

  "I think not. I think the world knows about the disgusting things your soldiers have done to mujahideen in these places. I think you no longer have a hard way left."

  "You can't imagine how much a morality lecture means from somebody who blows up innocent people and slits the throats of helpless prisoners."

  "You know of what I am referring, I think."

  In fact, I did. I quietly reached down and turned a knob; instantly, a small vial of colorless fluid began squirting into his IV tube.

  Ali bin Pacha was every bit the overbaked fanatic Abdul had warned us he would be. Like many extremists, he was emotionally limited, those emotions ranging between fury, hate, and chronic self-righteousness. But he wasn't stupid, and surely he was cognizant that under enough torture, everybody breaks. I recalled a former client who had been beaten to a pulp by a dumb, sadistic southern deputy sheriff until he confessed to being a bank robber, a child molester, and a serial killer, ending with the astonishing revelation that he was the second man on the knoll at JFK's assassination.

  Even the sheriff, who was a few quarts low of IQ juice, had trouble with that after learning the confessor wasn't born until 1973. In fact, my client was guilty of nothing except diddling the deputy sheriff's wife. It was criminally stupid, but it was not criminal behavior. The point: Coerced statements introduce reliability issues. That is, unless you begin the process with a man you know is guilty; usually then you'll get something more credible and useful.

  As an attorney, I am of course philosophically opposed to torture under any circumstances, though men like Abdul Almiri and Ali bin Pacha are tempting. On more practical grounds, however, an interrogation ultimately is a form of negotiation-to succeed, there has to be a carrot, and there has to be a stick. Ali bin Pacha was telling me where I could put the stick.

  He informed me, "My comrades will know I am a prisoner of your army. You cannot hide or disguise this. They will post my capture on a Web site, and they will notify Aljazeera, and so the world will hear of this. I think your press will be very interested about me."

  "Is there a point to this?"

  "I think you know my point. Mistreat me, and your press will create for you another big public problem-another embarrassment your idiot President cannot explain."

  The Army advises that one should never underestimate the enemy, and here, I thought, was a case in point. Bin Pacha's people had planned for this eventuality, the capture of their moneyman, they were sensitive to the need to shield him from coercive tactics, and they were sure they knew how to do it.

  In truth, on any other day it might even have been a workable plan. I turned to Bian. "These people are smart, aren't they?"

  "I guess so."

  "I mean… this is… you know…?"

  "I know. This guy so much as gets an infected pimple, and the whole world will scream that we're Nazis."

  "That seems to be the general idea."

  "Very clever."

  "Would you ever have-?"

  "Nope. Not in a million years."

  Bin Pacha's smile now looked a little less certain; it looked wobbly, actually.

&n
bsp; Bian grabbed my arm. "Well, he has been unconscious for three days."

  Bin Pacha had not a clue what we were talking about, but he was reading our body language and picking up the sarcasm in our voices. I looked at him and said, "Which do you want first, pal? The merely bad news or the crap-in-your-drawers news?"

  The smile disappeared. But maybe he didn't understand the question.

  "Well… why don't we ease into it?" I continued, "Bad news first. The morning you were captured, the Army and Marines kicked off a big-time assault on Falluja. Last report I heard-this was two hours ago-about three hundred of your fellow terrorists are dead, many dozens more are buried in the rubble, and who knows how many have been turned into mist or paste by tank and artillery shells."

  In case he didn't get the message, Bian added, "Your compatriots will never know whether you've been captured, blown to pieces, or just buried in the rubble."

  He had asked for it and it was time for the kicker. I said, "Last chance-will you cooperate or not?"

  "Rot in hell."

  I turned to Bian. "Can't say we didn't try."

  "Sure did." She glanced at bin Pacha. "Poor soul."

  Bin Pacha now looked very interested in this exchange, dealing as it did with his fate. He insisted, "I am more than willing to live the rest of my life in your prisons. You are fools to think I am fearful of this."

  "I'm sure you are not." And I was sure it was true.

  Bian had endured this guy's abuse with commendable stoicism-well, but for that one minor incident-and it seemed only fair for her to be the bearer of the worst tidings. I glanced at her, and she nodded.

  She faced Ali bin Pacha. "You're being turned over to Saudi intelligence. I've never seen them so anxious to get their hands on a prisoner."