The Prisoner

by Alex Berenson

  He had forgotten the power of hunger and dirt and exposure and fatigue to grind down the will. He hadn’t realized how much his time back home had weakened him. More than once, he wondered if he’d make the week. The John Wells who had survived years in the Kush would have laughed at this man. John Brown wouldn’t even have bothered to laugh.

  As for the hike itself, Wells remembered almost nothing. He’d passed through beautiful country, Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains, looking over tree-carpeted valleys and granite escarpments, a quilt of gray and green that stretched for miles to the west. But the trail was less isolated than he expected. For long stretches, it closely paralleled Skyline Drive, the main road through the national park. Farther south, it hung close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and was only a couple of miles from Interstate 81. The westerly wind carried the rumble of eighteen-wheelers. He had been far more alone in his cabin in the Bitterroots. Anyway, after the second day, Wells didn’t have the energy to appreciate the view. He kept his head down and focused on the next step.

  The Appalachian was a friendly place, and it didn’t have much of a dress code. But Wells had brought only one spare T-shirt and pair of socks. By the fourth morning, he could smell himself, and the hikers he passed eyed him as if he might be dangerous. Female hikers gave him a wide berth. More than one discreetly reached for pepper spray. Men, alone or in pairs, grunted greetings but kept their heads down. Only groups of men would risk talking to him, Y’all right or Hey, dude, everything okay? but Wells ignored them, and they didn’t ask twice. He found himself hoping for rain to wash away his stink, but none came.

  On the second-to-last morning, still fifty miles from Roanoke, he ran out of caffeine pills and went into withdrawal. He hadn’t brought aspirin or ibuprofen, and his headache worsened by the hour. With every step he felt the softness leaching, his bones hollowing. Life is suffering. Wells wasn’t a Buddhist, but the Kush had taught him the truth of those words. This week was a crash refresher. For a while, the pain became its own pleasure. He imagined staying on the trail, to Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, walking without food until he collapsed, then picking himself up and walking some more. He was high on his own endorphins, he realized. He was sorry when the haze lifted.

  On his last day, a mile before he left the trail and headed into Roanoke, he tripped on a rock and gashed his shin on a gnarled oak root. The blood seeped through his jeans, which were more brown than blue now from all the dirt and sweat. Even the homeless guys gave him space as he waited for Shafer at the Roanoke bus station. Shafer put down the windows as soon as Wells slipped inside.

  “Lucky nobody called the cops.”

  Wells ignored him.

  “And that you didn’t get sepsis. This is what eight days does to you? I thought you were tough.”

  “Hush or I’ll sit closer.”

  “While you were busy on the Naturemaster, I was doing real work.” Shafer reached into the back seat and after much grunting came out with a manila file, a twin of the one from the week before.

  Wells flipped it open, looked at the pages inside blankly, the words dancing. “I need coffee.” He didn’t think coffee was cheating. Even the poorest villages in Pakistan had coffee and tea, because caffeine suppressed hunger so effectively.

  “Let’s stick with drive-through.”

  An extra-large black coffee later, Wells could read again. He was Samir Khalili, born in Toronto to a Lebanese father and a Canadian mother. He had come to al-Qaeda two years before September 11, gone to Chechnya to fight with the rebels, returned to the camps in Afghanistan. After the attacks, he disappeared. He resurfaced in Pakistan in 2003. The National Security Agency picked up his name as a courier for Ayman al-Zawahiri four times over the next eight years. Then Khalili vanished. He hadn’t gone back to Toronto—at least, as far as the Canadian government knew. He hadn’t turned up in intercepts or detainee reports. He was presumed dead.

  “Much better,” Wells said. The references to Zawahiri, who had led al-Qaeda since bin Laden’s death, ensured that the agency would care enough about Khalili to want to control him even now. Meanwhile, Wells’s own experiences in Chechnya and the Kush had plenty in common with Khalili’s backstory.

  “Glad you approve, Samir. The sys admins say they can put it in the system so it looks real. Some guys at Bagram may wonder why they never heard about you before if you’re such a priority all of a sudden, but we’re catching a break on that. A bunch of Deltas are rotating out this month. We’ll have COS Kabul”—the station chief—“brief incoming units about you. The guys in the birds”—the Special Forces and SOG operators who helicoptered out to capture high-value targets—“will figure the station screwed up, didn’t recognize your importance.”

  “And is using the changeover to cover the mistake, put me on the target list where I belong.”

  “You get picked up, they hand you to the mercs, those guys don’t care whether you’re Zawahiri or some random Talib as long as the paperwork is signed and they get paid.”

  “Just like that, Samir Khalili is in Bulgaria with a live jacket. Well done, Ellis.”

  “Yeah, then you have the easy part.”

  —

  WELLS SLEPT twelve hours before the meeting with the seventh floor. He wanted to be rested. This briefing was both a formality and the hinge for the mission. They had to walk a fine line, to set the hook while making the mole believe he was relatively safe. If he knew they were looking for him, he might look for a way to kill Wells before Wells even reached Bulgaria.

  Besides, Wells would admit to being interested in Ludlow and the agency’s new top officers. Ludlow had helped Wells on his last mission. Wells had never met the others. But they were all his cousins, all children of September 11. The agency’s new breed, moving into middle age and authority. Wells might have been one of them if he had been better at bureaucratic infighting. And at giving orders that risked other men’s lives.

  Even now, he wasn’t sure he believed that one of these men could be a traitor. The usual motives didn’t seem to apply. Money or love seemed impossible, ideology and blackmail almost as unlikely. Shafer would do the talking, so Wells could watch them, though he didn’t expect to see anything revealing. These men were pros.

  When Wells followed Shafer into Ludlow’s office, all four were already waiting. They made an odd-looking set. Ludlow was compact and unassuming, with quiet eyes. Pushkin had a fleshy face with Slavic features, like an old-school member of the Soviet Politburo. Green was the opposite. He could have come off a Marine recruiting poster, lean and fit. Crompond was an old-school WASP, blond hair and blue eyes, straight from the yacht club.

  They greeted Wells with an enthusiasm that surprised him, though Wells sensed nostalgia, too. Like Wells was an All-Pro quarterback coming back to the team for the first time after retirement. That ol’ boy sure could sling it. Two and a half years away from the field was a long time, and Wells had reached the age where most operators either retired or came inside.

  “At last,” Crompond said. “The legend.”

  “Save it for when I’m dead,” Wells said.

  “Place look different?” Ludlow said. Wells had seen the office more than once when Duto was director.

  “Vinny had more junk.”

  “Give me time. We all know I owe you a finder’s fee.” Ludlow paused. “Though it does look like you’ve had better weeks. So, what can we do for you?”

  Shafer had deliberately not told Ludlow, or the others, why they wanted the meeting.

  “John’s heard something you need to know.” Shafer recounted the story he and Wells had devised at the Lincoln Memorial and refined since: Kirkov had told Wells his men had overheard Hani, an Islamic State commander detained in Bulgaria, bragging he had crucial information. Shafer and Wells wanted to send Wells to the prison to find out what Hani meant. Kirkov had agreed to the plan. Shafer had created a f
ake identity for Wells. And finally, Wells believed he had the best chance of success if a Special Ops team captured him in Afghanistan and transferred him back to Bulgaria.

  Wells watched the men throughout. He saw no alarm, merely incredulity. Green and Crompond showed the most skepticism. Near the end, Crompond gave Green a Can you believe this? eyebrow raise. Pushkin seemed to stop paying attention after a while. He stared at his hands like a guy stuck next to a subway preacher, waiting for the next stop so he could switch cars. Ludlow, who knew firsthand what Wells and Shafer could do—and how close they were to Duto—was less dismissive.

  “So we only need your approval,” Shafer said. “And to give COS Kabul his part, handle any questions that might come up when John’s file goes live.”

  The room was silent until Ludlow said, dry and quiet, “Anyone have questions?”

  “John, did Kirkov mention if this detainee offered specifics about what he knew?” Pushkin said.

  “No specifics.”

  “Was this taped? Anything we can hear?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Hani happened to be speaking in front of a guard who knows Arabic and has kept that fact to himself to spy on the detainees.”

  “Let’s hire him, then,” Green muttered.

  “This could be anything from a loose nuke to nothing at all?” Pushkin again.

  “Exactly.”

  “Why did he pick you anyway?” Green said. “Why not come straight to us? We pay for that place.”

  “You’d have to ask him, but he knows me from a couple of years ago.”

  “Don’t even know where to start with this,” Crompond said. “You want to get yourself rendered under a fake name on the strength of a thirdhand conversation in Bulgaria? How about this instead? We interrogate this guy Hani. We’re allowed, you know—”

  “And you know he’ll never talk,” Shafer said.

  “Least I understand now why you have that beard,” Pushkin said to Wells.

  “John, if you’re this bored, come work with me,” Green said.

  “Tell me you’re hiding something and this isn’t as dumb as it sounds,” Crompond said.

  “I have a question, Ellis,” Ludlow said, and his low voice quieted them all. “I suppose you have the finding already?” Is Duto on board?

  “Yes.”

  “Signed?”

  “Ask Vinny.” Shafer deliberately using Duto’s first name to emphasize the relationship.

  “In that case, I suggest we wish John the best of luck.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Crompond said. “You’re rolling over for this?”

  “Your concerns are noted, Walter. For the record.”

  Crompond looked at Wells. “For the record, I want to say this is going to get you killed.”

  Ludlow pushed himself up from his chair.

  “I’ll ask the President to send over that finding and we’ll talk about next steps, what we’ll tell Kabul,” Ludlow said. “Thanks for coming to see us, gentlemen.”

  —

  NEITHER WELLS nor Shafer spoke even after they cleared the gates at the Route 123 exit. Wells doubted anyone would risk bugging Shafer’s car, but this wasn’t the moment to be sloppy. As Shafer drove, Wells mulled over the men. Crompond had been the most opposed, Pushkin the most interested in exactly what Hani knew. Green had asked the best question, the one most likely to unravel the scheme, when he wondered why Kirkov hadn’t simply gone to the agency with his story.

  No real answers.

  Shafer parked outside a Safeway and they stepped out.

  “Running countersurveillance?” Wells said.

  “Going shopping. Fridge is empty.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “I think they more or less bought it. I wonder whether Ludlow wanted to protect Crompond or shut him up.”

  “It’s not Ludlow.” The words surprised Wells. But he knew as soon as he spoke them that he was right. “You hear him? All he was worried about was Duto.”

  “I’ve thought all along he was wrong. He doesn’t have the background. There’s something”—Shafer paused—“intimate about this kind of betrayal. The others are closer to the Islamic State.”

  “You can never just admit I’m right, can you?”

  “The others are more likely, that’s all. Anyway, whoever it is, he’s not going to make a move right away. He knows he has time. You ready for this, John? Say good-bye to that cute little girl?”

  I better be.

  8

  LANGLEY

  IN THE HOURS after Shafer and Wells came to the seventh floor, the man who called himself Wayne did his job with a sullen heart and a straight face. He refereed a conference call about a potential operation in Somalia. He watched three General Dynamics engineers demonstrate a prototype drone no larger than a Frisbee. All along, he wanted to drive as far from the campus as he could. Head for I-66 and a false escape into the so-called heartland. Like he’d last a week, with every cop in the country looking for him. He had no cash hoard, no second passport, and, most important, nowhere to go.

  He was learning that knowing the theoretical risks of his crimes felt very different than being hunted.

  Though he wasn’t, actually. Or was he? He had known of Hani even before Shafer mentioned him, of course. Months before, the imam had asked Wayne to find out where Hani was being held. But Wayne couldn’t imagine Hani had any idea who he was. The imam understood the importance of protecting Wayne’s identity.

  In any case, Hani might be keeping a different secret, most likely that Daesh was planning a big attack on the United States. And none of this mattered unless Wells could convince Hani to talk, a prospect that seemed the longest of shots.

  Yet Wayne didn’t want to underestimate this threat. Shafer and Wells pretended to be cowboys. But history showed they were canny operators. They had set up this plan in secrecy, convinced Duto to buy in, brought it to the seventh floor as fait accompli. They knew Hani might lead Wells to a traitor. Shafer had raised the possibility after the bloodbath in Raqqa.

  Wayne wished he could have probed Shafer and Wells further at the meeting, figured out what they knew. But Ludlow had shut it down. Give ’em all the rope they want, he’d said afterward. It’s dumb, but if the big man is on board . . . The director was furious the President had undercut his authority without even bothering to tell him in advance, Wayne thought. Though Ludlow was both too proud and too dependent on Duto to say so.

  Along with Wayne’s urge to flee, he had an equally counterproductive impulse, to run his own back-channel investigation. Pull every record he could find on Wells, ask the sys admins what Shafer had said when he’d put together Wells’s cover identity. But asking those questions would make him a suspect faster than anything else. For the same reason, Wayne didn’t see how he could track Wells’s progress. Staying in the dark would be maddening, but he had no choice.

  His last meeting finally ended. Wayne choked down four Advil, sat at his desk, tried to relax by scanning the most important reports of the last twenty-four hours. They covered everything from chatter about attacks in Istanbul to an analysis of a new Taliban militia. Nothing surprising . . .

  Until he found a statement from a Daesh defector who had worked in Raqqa before fleeing to Kurdish-held territory. The defector—code-named Yellowfin in the cable—claimed that chemists for the Islamic State were making what he called death gas somewhere in the city. The gas was colorless, odorless, and caused death almost immediately, Yellowfin said. The scientists had tested it on two prisoners and killed both.

  Yellowfin acknowledges he did not personally witness the prisoner tests, which he says were conducted outside Raqqa. Nonetheless, we consider his report credible. Of special note, he reports a rumor the Islamic State may film further CW tests for release as propaganda. He does not know whether the chemists are able to produce large
quantities of poison or only experimental quantities.

  Colorless, odorless, and caused death almost immediately meant nerve gas. Most likely, sarin. Wayne smiled to himself. We bring the monster to life and we’re surprised he wants to learn our tricks?

  —

  THE OFFICES around his emptied. The agency never shut down, of course. But most senior officers worked relatively stable hours, in by 7:30 or 8 to beat D.C.’s terrible traffic, out between 5 and 6 for dinner at home. Wayne sometimes imagined the agency as an old-time traveling salesman. On the road, anything went. But at Langley, officers faced trouble if they didn’t behave. The agency had been hit with enough sexual harassment suits to have developed an allergy to edgy behavior.

  Wayne reread the report and then joined the exodus. Just another day at the office. Yet something had changed. One way or another, the end was coming. He couldn’t stop Wells from going to Bulgaria. He needed a plan of his own.

  By the time he’d reached home, he’d come up with two moves. He needed the imam’s help for both.

  Luckily, his wife was at her monthly book club. She went out without him once or twice a week. He never asked too many questions. Sometimes he even hoped she were having an affair, a balance to his treason. As if the two could be compared. But he knew the truth. Her life was as simple and open as it seemed. If—when—everything crashed down, he ought to leave her a note, tell her she’d had nothing to do with his crimes, that she hadn’t known him at all.

  On second thought, maybe skip the note.

  He used simple precautions to talk to the imam outside their normally scheduled meetings, burners and standard gmail accounts that he tossed after every couple of uses. He knew firsthand that the NSA could crack anything that he had the technical skills to handle. Better to hide in the weeds of ten billion spam accounts. He hid the burners in a locked toolbox in his garage. His wife wouldn’t stumble on them. A thorough search would, but no one would knock on his door with a warrant unless they already had him.