The Prisoner

by Alex Berenson

  “Then why always the Islamic State? Never al-Qaeda or anyone else?”

  Wells wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. Though he wasn’t sure anyone outside this room would agree. They’d ask Shafer and Wells for actual evidence, of which there was none.

  “Has to be someone who sees this stuff as a matter of course. And, from what you say, has access to the prisoner database, too. Very senior.”

  “What about the tech side?”

  “A sys admin?” Systems administrators, who ran the agency’s computer networks. “Since Snowden, we’re way more careful with them. Except in emergencies, desk heads have to approve or alarms go off.”

  “But if you run the systems, you can bypass the alarms.”

  “The software watches for that, too. I don’t know enough about it to know how secure it is, but that’s a checkable fact.”

  “So if it’s not the tech side, who? DCIA, DDO—”

  “Ludlow and Pushkin, yeah. Plus the assistant deputy director for counterterrorism, a guy named Vernon Green, and Walter Crompond, the head of Gamma Station. What we’re calling the anti-IS desk these days.”

  “Green is the ADDO and Crompond runs Gamma.” Wells had never met either one.

  “Correct. Green is black, ex-military. Crompond’s kind of an old-school WASP. Both rising stars.”

  “Ludlow, Pushkin, Green, Crompond.” Wells had hardly slept for forty hours and crossed the Atlantic twice. The blurriness crept in on cat’s feet. “Sounds like the world’s worst law firm.”

  “All in the meeting today.”

  “They get along?”

  “You’d be surprised. They know who’s running the show. Vinny, Vinny, he’s our man. If he can’t boss us, no one can.”

  Wells didn’t want to get sidetracked on Duto. “What about the chiefs for Syria and Iraq? Maybe the other blown ops were coincidence.”

  Shafer sipped his beer as if it might have the answer. “Doesn’t explain the prisoner database. Beer? Or does Allah still say no?”

  “What else do you have?”

  “Serve yourself, cowboy.”

  Wells rummaged through the fridge, poured himself a glass of low-lactose milk. It tasted less like milk than he hoped. He poured it out, tried again with orange juice. Maybe it was just fatigue, but speculating about a traitor in Shafer’s kitchen suddenly seemed absurd. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  “Who’s running him? How’d he get hooked up? How’s he pass stuff?”

  “Any of those guys could set up secure coms. Secure enough, anyway, with nobody looking.”

  “None of it explains why.”

  “I’m sure he has his reasons. I’m sure they make sense to him.” Shafer stood. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow morning we figure out what to tell Vinny.”

  —

  WELLS WOKE TO find Shafer beside his bed, sipping coffee from a chipped mug that read Tanned, Rested, and Ready: Nixon in ’88.

  “Should I be creeped out that you watch me sleep?”

  “Not unless I crawl under the covers and caress your scars.”

  “That’s a bit specific, Ellis.”

  “Get dressed. West Wing in two hours.”

  Vinny Duto, President of the United States. Wells couldn’t quite believe it. Duto had been an okay president so far. No surprise, he was a gravel-and-concrete guy. He’d raised some taxes, spent the money on infrastructure, a program he called Rebuilding America.

  The biggest risk he had taken was scaling back the war on drugs. He halved the Drug Enforcement Administration’s budget and announced that the federal government would no longer enforce marijuana laws because too many states had taken contradictory positions. He expanded needle exchange programs and supported research on medical uses for psychedelics. Let’s focus our law enforcement and military where they’ll do some good, Duto said. I’m worried about jihadis, not potheads. Wells expected a backlash, but the move turned out to be Duto’s Nixon-in-China moment. His toughness gave him credibility. Congress barely argued.

  On foreign policy, Duto kept his promise to be aggressive. He challenged China in the South China Sea and gave Ukraine advanced weapons systems even after Russia objected. He budgeted a hundred-fifty billion dollars to add three new aircraft carrier groups to the Navy’s current total of twelve. The move was obviously aimed at the People’s Republic, though Duto didn’t say so.

  Otherwise, Duto stayed away from big moves. He pulled the United States out of talks on climate change, saying he wouldn’t sacrifice the American economy to let the Chinese build coal-fired power plants. He rarely held press conferences, kept public appearances to a minimum. He seemed content to rule from the White House. A Washington Post columnist had nicknamed him Vinny Dutin, and his governing style did have a Putinesque, Father Knows Best quality.

  But with the economy growing decently, Duto’s approval ratings were in the high fifties. Ordinary Americans seemed to have decided that even if they didn’t trust Duto, they trusted him to do a good job.

  “Two hours?” Wells said. “That was quick.”

  “Soon as I mentioned your name, he got hot and bothered.”

  —

  DUTO HAD KEPT the Oval Office basically unchanged. Wells recognized the furniture, the yellow couches and the heavy wooden desk. But he’d added a sideboard filled with thirty-year-old whiskeys and single malt scotches. Wells was no expert, but he suspected some of those bottles cost as much as cars. He wondered what other gifts Duto’s corporate friends had snuck into the White House. Presidents made four hundred thousand dollars a year, but they lived like billionaires.

  Duto bounced up from the couch and grinned as they walked in. His handshake was as fierce as Wells remembered, and he’d lost weight. No doubt the White House gym had a great personal trainer.

  “John, John, John.”

  “Here you are.”

  “Here I be. And you have a daughter now.”

  “Emmie.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Evan’s in San Diego? Still playing hoops?”

  “A senior now. And yes.” Evan started at shooting guard on the Aztecs, San Diego State’s nationally ranked basketball team. He’d been second-team All-Pac-12 the year before.

  “He have plans after graduation?”

  Wells wondered if Duto knew that Evan planned to join the Rangers, just as Wells had done after he graduated from Dartmouth. The prospect left Wells equally excited and nervous. “Considering his options.”

  “I’m sorry you missed the Inaugural, John. Next time.”

  Next time. Duto spoke with perfect confidence. As CIA director, Duto had learned how to hide his edges, project authority and control. But back then Wells saw the rage that fueled him, the need to win. Now he had won. The shell fit him more perfectly than ever. He could even pretend to be charming, ask after Wells’s family as if he cared. He had the confidence that this room bestowed on all but its weakest occupants.

  Even so, Wells felt a touch of pride on Duto’s behalf. The man had worked and schemed for this prize as long as Wells had known him. What Makes Vinny Run? Wells hoped he appreciated it. “How’s the view from the bridge, Vinny?”

  “Sit, please.” They sat and Duto arranged himself on the couch across from theirs. He half closed his eyes and faded into himself, like Wells’s question was something other than polite chitchat. “A lot of bull, but so much power, too,” he finally said. “Still figuring it out. So far, so good, though, right?”

  “If you believe the polls.”

  “Can’t even give me that.” Duto grimaced, real annoyance. You won’t kiss the ring, at least tell me it shines nice. “So what’s up? This about Raqqa? I heard about the show you put on last night, Ellis.”

  “Told you,” Shafer said to Wells. “Team
Vinny.” To Duto: “It wasn’t a show.”

  “You think somebody’s betraying us to the Islamic State.”

  “Why don’t you listen to John? He saw Oleg Kirkov yesterday.”

  “Bulgarian friend?”

  “None other.” Again Wells explained how he’d gone to London, heard Kirkov’s recording.

  “A two-minute tape,” Duto said when Wells was done. “Doesn’t name anyone specific. Just enough to get us to unleash the hounds.”

  “I’d play it for you if you understood Arabic. It was the real deal.”

  “You don’t think these two knew we’re taping their prayer room?”

  “Even if they did, how could they have planned this?” Shafer said. “They didn’t know we’d put them in the same prison, much less the same room.”

  “But they know they can get rendered. The top hundred guys could all have that little speech planned. How do I know the Big Bad Wolf won’t hurt my family, Mohammed? Don’t worry, Abu Abu, we have someone inside. So this op yesterday went bad. Means less than nothing.”

  Duto had just reminded Wells why Wells despised him. Less than nothing was exactly how much he cared about those dead operatives.

  “It’s obvious what’s going on, Vinny,” Shafer said.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “You don’t want to deal with this because you know how bad it looks. Maybe you’ve got some cognitive dissonance, too.”

  “Cognitive what, now? So we’re clear. You think a senior officer—really senior—is betraying us to the Islamic State. Like who? Reg Pushkin?”

  “Possibly.”

  “You know his grandparents came over from East Germany with nothing, snuck past before the commies closed the border? Insult him this way.”

  “Not saying it’s him, Vinny. Someone with that kind of access. Crompond or Green, maybe.”

  Duto looked to Wells. “You agree with this nonsense?”

  Wells wasn’t as sure as Shafer. But the Oval Office was the wrong place to reveal those doubts. Duto would eat them alive. “What I heard, it sounded real.”

  “Batman and Robin strike again. If he said jump—”

  “You ask me my opinion, I tell you.”

  Duto settled back against the couch. For all his bluster, he knew he couldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand, Wells saw. Too many ops had gone bad. “What do you propose we do?”

  “Box ’em, for a start,” Shafer said.

  “Put our top guys on the poly, ask them if they work for Daesh.”

  “Should have already.”

  “Total eff you to guys who have worked their asses off. And it won’t work anyway. Those guys can beat the box. No. They get polyed on schedule like everyone else. Next?”

  “FBI surveillance.”

  “How many targets?”

  “Four, five maybe.”

  “Great idea. Thirty agents per guy, that’s a hundred fifty feebs.” Duto had a CIA veteran’s dislike of the Bureau. “We’ll tell the D.C. office to quit every other counterespionage job. For how long? What are they looking for? And, by the way, what do we tell Pushkin or whoever when they spot the tails? Which they will, no way can the feds follow these guys without tripping over their own feet. Oh, it was just a training exercise, Reg, don’t worry about it. Absolutely not. Out of the question. Next?”

  “Tap their phones, computers, run digital traces to see if we can find suspicious emails, downloads, whatnot.”

  Duto paused. “Work or home?”

  “Start with work. That’s legal anyway.” As a condition of employment, CIA officers agreed to let the agency tape their calls and monitor their computers. “We see anything, we widen the op, you don’t argue.”

  “No way any of those guys would be dumb enough to do anything you could trace.”

  “Then we won’t find anything.”

  “All right. You can have that. Next?”

  “I get their whole files, back to the day they applied, background check, psych records, health, financial, evaluations.”

  “Whatever’s in the records. But you don’t talk to anyone. Root through the trash all you like, you’re not throwing shade on any of these guys. Next?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Duto stood up. “I’m meeting the secretary of commerce in fifteen minutes. I have no idea why, but it’s on the sched. You two shoo.” He flicked his hand at the door to emphasize their unimportance. “Gotta be honest. I missed you idiots. Like old times.” As if they were high school buddies he had invited to the White House to prove how far he’d come.

  —

  AFTER THE WHITE HOUSE, Wells feared that Shafer would insist that they go to Shirley’s. Instead, he led Wells south to the Mall and they strolled alongside the reflecting pool toward the Lincoln Memorial.

  “Doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s worried,” Shafer said.

  “Don’t know if I’d go that far. He’s interested. Anyway, how do we find this guy? No way did he leave us an electronic trail.”

  Shafer didn’t answer for a while. They passed the State Department and neared the Lincoln Memorial. Wells wondered again if they were right. He understood the impulse to betray all this for the Kremlin or Tiananmen Square. Those places had their own majesty. But for Raqqa?

  “Dangle an op, make him jump? Fingerprint it somehow?” Wells was stuck on motive, but Shafer had moved to the practical problem of catching the guy. Dangles were classic counterespionage. Create a fake operation so important that the mole would want to tell the Islamic State about it immediately. Ideally, they would find a way to show each target a slightly different version of the operation and then monitor the jihadi response to see which version had been passed.

  Before Wells could answer, Shafer rejected the idea. “No. All those guys see everything. No way could we create a plausible op even if Duto signed off, which he wouldn’t.”

  “Nice of you to consider my opinion, Ellis.” They were now at the base of the Lincoln, the greatest tribute in Washington, for the greatest president.

  “No dangle. Maybe a depth charge.” Another staple in the counterespionage play book, essentially the dangle’s flip side. Frighten the traitor into believing that he faced exposure and needed to protect himself by removing the threat. “What’ll make these guys think we’re close?”

  “The recording.”

  “It shows that neither guy knows who the mole is. Right?”

  “Latif doesn’t, for sure. The other one, Hani, he says something like only the Shura Council knows, and even though I’m on it, I don’t know everything.”

  “Because this mole, he knows the tricks. We show him something convincing or he shuts down, we never find him.”

  “Giving him a lot of credit.”

  “Right, let’s assume he’s an idiot. We’ll put up an index card in the seventh-floor break room—Mr. Traitor: Come out, come out, wherever you are—and a little piece of cheese—Gruyère, traitors love Gruyère—he’ll come running.”

  Wells remembered for the thousandth time that arguing with Shafer didn’t pay.

  Then Shafer stopped mid-stride.

  “You having a stroke?”

  Shafer sat on a bench between the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, muttering to himself, Okay, okay. No, okay. Playing a game of three-dimensional chess that only he could see.

  “Have to make him think Hani is going to narc him out.”

  “Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the tape—”

  “Forget the tape. The tape is two guys yapping at each other in Arabic. And one’s not even there anymore. We don’t play the tape. We tell our targets that Kirkov called you because he knows you from back in the day. And told you one of his guys heard Hani telling somebody that he knows something the CIA would kill to find ou
t.”

  “About the mole.”

  “No. We specifically say we don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the bunker where all the top commanders live. Maybe it’s some big terror attack. I say, Hey, maybe it’s the traitor, but everyone shoots that down. That way, Duto can’t say we’re conducting a witch hunt. Only the mole has reason to worry. Kirkov backs what we say.”

  “How does that help? Seventh floor will say we should send in an interrogator. And we will. And Hani will tell him to get bent. They’ll see those reports and we’re right back where we started.”

  “Correct. That’s why we aren’t going to use an interrogator. You trust Kirkov? Really trust him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enough to go into that prison undercover?”

  Okay, Wells hadn’t seen that question coming.

  —

  SHAFER EXPLAINED. They would tell the seventh floor that standard interrogation tactics wouldn’t work. Hani hadn’t given up anything so far. Asking him what he knew would only put him on his guard. They had only one choice, putting their own informant in the prison undercover. Wells was the obvious choice. Even now, no other American had spent as much time inside an Islamist terror group.

  “With Qaeda. Not the Islamic State. In case you’ve forgotten, they don’t get along.”

  “Works to our advantage.” Wells would pretend to be a mid-level al-Qaeda commander who’d been underground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He’d just been captured. Hani wouldn’t know him, but Hani had never fought in Afghanistan.

  “Plus we tell the seventh floor that Kirkov wants you for this. No one else. He has a history with you, you guys trust each other. Don’t mention Duto, no need. Everyone knows we’re connected.”

  On that score, Shafer was right. Everyone would know that if Wells wanted to go, the agency couldn’t stop him. “So I get dropped in, wave my magic wand, and the next day Hani tells me about their crown jewel secret source inside the CIA. Didn’t know you had such a high opinion of me.”

  “No.”

  “Again, I’m confused.”

  “I smell your brain burning. You’re forgetting the most important part. The mole knows you’re going. He’s going to feel pressure to react. He doesn’t know what Hani knows. And he can’t risk you finding out. Maybe he tries to sneak word to Hani. Maybe he goes directly at you.”