Whisper

by Tal Bauer

  “Uncovering the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq is protecting the homeland! Saddam Hussein is a state sponsor of terrorism! You can see for yourself!” The vice president waved to his files.

  “What I see is a man who confessed under torture to whatever his interrogators wanted to hear!”

  “Kris—” Thatcher hissed.

  “Al Shayk confirmed it. In 1999, al-Qaeda sent two operatives to Iraq for Saddam to train in chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons systems!” The vice president slammed his hand down on his padfolio, over the Top Secret folders. “He admitted it!”

  “He confessed to stop the torture!” Kris snapped. “Egyptian prisons are notorious for their torture and their forced confessions! They’re fingernail factories!”

  “Kris!” Director Thatcher glowered at him.

  “I was there, in Afghanistan!” Kris barreled ahead. “My team walked through the remains of al-Qaeda camps. We read through the training manuals al-Qaeda had for their chemical and biological weapons program. You know where everything came from? The United States. Most all of their manuals were reprinted United States military training manuals. Not a single piece of information we picked up from their training camps came from Iraq!”

  “Al-Shayk is a senior al-Qaeda officer and in charge of military operations. He is exactly the right person to know about external outreach attempts by al-Qaeda.”

  “And his information is dead wrong, obviously falsified to stop his abuse. He only said that two people were sent. He can’t say who. He can’t say where. He can’t say who in Iraq he planned the training with. He can’t say when these two trainees supposedly returned. His intelligence, for all intents and purposes, is worthless!”

  “The information is exactly what he said it was. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, working together. Saddam, sharing his chemical and biological weapons technology with terrorists.”

  “Mr. Vice President, al-Shayk intentionally misled his interrogators. He lied.”

  Flashes of memory came at Kris from all sides, monkey trills in the jungle and the sound of rain, Paul’s sneer. Water being poured. “In my experience questioning Abu Zahawi, I discovered that al-Qaeda is anticipating the United States’ invasion of Iraq. Zahawi asked me if the US had invaded yet. They’re waiting for your attack. They want you to take out Saddam. They’re no friend of his.”

  “And why would they want us to take out Saddam?” The vice president’s voice had dropped, like he was suffering through a conversation with a child.

  “Because their apocalyptic prophecies foretell it.”

  The vice president tossed his head back and laughed.

  “‘If you see the black banners coming from Khorasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them’.” Kris quoted. “‘And they will finally reach Jerusalem, where they will erect their flags’. Khorasan. Afghanistan. The land of the Hindu Kush. Bin Laden has been using this hadith for years, drawing his fighters to his vision of a holy war. He’s always wanted to push the fight toward Iraq. To turn Iraq into the next Afghanistan, and then onward, until they strike Jerusalem. Until they take out the West.”

  The vice president stopped chuckling.

  “This is the fulfillment of their prophecies, Mr. Vice President.”

  He blinked. Stared at Kris from under his furrowed brow. Tossed his pen onto his folders. “Tell me, then, about Saqqaf.”

  Kris’s gut clenched. The floor seemed to drop away, a swirling vortex opening beneath his feet.

  “You, out of everyone, know about Saqqaf.” The vice president’s head cocked to one side. “I’ve read all the cables.”

  “Saqqaf is a thug. According to the Jordanian Mukhabarat, he was a drunk and a gang member, and when his family tried to straighten him out with religion, he went overboard. He found a new addiction and a new outlet for his rage and his cruelty. He went to Afghanistan and he begged to meet Bin Laden. Wanted to join up. But Bin Laden was disgusted by him.” Kris flipped through his notes, cables from Jordanian intelligence, reports from his interrogations of Zahawi. “In my interrogations, Zahawi said there was a man named Saqqaf who operated a training camp near Herat. He was unsophisticated. Crude. He didn’t have a good command of Islam, Zahawi said. He wanted to be a part of al-Qaeda, but al-Qaeda wouldn’t have him. He promised to open a foothold in the Near East if they backed him. He was put on a probation of sorts. They asked Saqqaf to set up a training camp. They’d provide the funds if he provided the training. They wanted to see what he could do.”

  “They provided the funds,” the vice president repeated. “He was affiliated with al-Qaeda.”

  “No. He never swore allegiance to Bin Laden. Bin Laden wanted nothing to do with him.”

  “But he came to Kandahar to fight against the Americans. With al-Qaeda, during the invasion of Afghanistan.”

  “We attacked all foreign fighters in Afghanistan—all the fighters allied against us. That included other units besides al-Qaeda.” Majid, in the mountains with David, had fought both for and against the Taliban, both against and for the Americans. Alliances had shifted faster than the sun rose and set. It had seemed like any choice could have been made there, on the roof of the world. Any choice, any direction. Nothing was clear, nothing.

  “After Kandahar, what happened to Saqqaf?”

  Kris felt like his words were nails, broken glass he had to chew through. “Saqqaf made his way through the mountains of Iran to northern Iraq,” he said slowly. “Our intelligence places him in Kurdistan right now. He’s joined Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamist group.”

  “A radical Islamist group aligned with al-Qaeda. Operating within Iraq’s borders.”

  “Ansar al-Islam operates in the Kurdish north, in an area out of reach of Saddam. It’s protected by our no-fly zones, Mr. Vice President.”

  “Saddam has given sanctuary to this group, and to Saqqaf. He’s allowed a known member of al-Qaeda freedom to operate in Iraq, to continue to operate an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group on Iraq soil.”

  “Saddam has barely any presence in the Kurdish north. He has no control there. We’ve kept him out of the north. We gave room for Ansar al-Islam to take root and grow. We protected the area from any incursions through our no-fly zone after the first Gulf War.”

  “Mr. Caldera, where did this intelligence on Saqqaf originate?”

  It felt like a trap, suddenly. Because it was. Kris fumed. “From my own interrogations of Zahawi.”

  “During your personal questioning of Zahawi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before any enhanced interrogation techniques were applied?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I understand your personal political position correctly, Mr. Caldera, from the numerous screeds you submitted to the White House Counsel’s Office, only intelligence gained outside of enhanced interrogation techniques is considered valid. Useful.” The vice president paused. “Is that correct?”

  “Torture is completely ineffective, Mr. Vice President. Once you go down that road, everything you get is tainted. There’s absolutely no guarantee that anything revealed is truthful—”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “—Torture goes against everything this nation stands for—”

  “The detainee program has stopped attacks from happening in Yemen, Singapore, Saudi, and right here, in DC and New York City and Chicago. It’s broken up cells all across Europe—”

  “—torture violates the Geneva Conventions and goes against the Declaration of Human Rights—”

  “Kris!” Director Thatcher grabbed his elbow.

  “They don’t have human rights!” the vice president bellowed.

  Silence. The director gasped, quietly. He kept his hand on Kris’s elbow.

  “Animals that murder thousands of innocent civilians don’t get human rights! They don’t get international protections! They don’t get to go crying to the Red Cross for nicer treatment. Not when they want to murder ever
y American on this planet!” The vice president’s voice shook the bulletproof glass in the windows, rattled the water glasses on the table. “They don’t deserve anything more than what they’re getting.”

  Kris’s fingernails dug into the folders he gripped, scratching against the manila cardboard. “What is the status of Zahawi’s interrogation?”

  “That’s enough, Kris,” Director Thatcher said quietly, leaning into him. “You’ve made your point.”

  “What is the status of Zahawi’s interrogation? Did you send him to Egypt like al-Shayk? Or have you finally succeeded in killing him? This government was trying its hardest to!”

  “Caldera!” Thatcher barked.

  The vice president sat back, his seething rage replaced by the visage of a man who had sucked on the sourest lemon. He gazed at Kris like Kris was a traitor. No, was worse. Was one of them. Was a terrorist. “The interrogation of Zahawi has ended.”

  Dan. He came through. He ended it. “He didn’t give you anything after you tortured him, did he? Not a Goddamn thing.”

  The vice president didn’t blink. “What he did give us through your questioning was Saqqaf. An al-Qaeda operative who went to Iraq. Who is working in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein.”

  “You’re twisting the intelligence around. That’s not an accurate representation of what Zahawi told me, or of Saqqaf’s current status in Iraq.”

  “What does it matter, Caldera?” The vice president sighed, shaking his head. For the first time, he let his exasperation show. “What the fuck does it matter that we want to take him out? Saqqaf murdered our diplomat in Jordan two months ago. He is committed to killing Americans. Waging war against the West. So is Saddam. Now they’re in the same country, sharing resources.”

  “He’s not al-Qaeda. He’s not even a big player. He’s a low-level jihadi flunky who has been searching for an outlet for his reckless criminal activity and his murderous fantasies. He’s isolated in the Kurdish region. If you want to take him out, send in a strike team, or a half dozen ICBMs. Both will eliminate him and solve the problem.”

  “Look, Caldera, if there’s a one percent chance that they are working together, even just one percent—” The vice president spread his hands, as if to say the decision was out of his hands. “We cannot lighten our vigilance. We cannot take our foot off the gas. We have to win this war.”

  It matters because David is going to be fighting this war of yours. David, and a hundred thousand other men like him. Fighting for reasons that aren’t truthful. Fighting a war that can be won another way. Fighting enemies that are propped up, made larger than life. Fighting for the wrong reasons, and fighting based on lies gained from torture. A lot of people are going to die for this, and if they die for lies, then what are they dying for? It matters because they want us there, they want us to take out Saddam, fight in Iraq, help them create the eschatological hellscape they crave, bring out the end of the world through bloodshed and the apocalypse—

  But he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t get the words out. His wrath, his fury, gummed up his throat, ground his voice to silence.

  “I want everything on Saqqaf. Everything the Jordanians have. Every intercept we have on the man. Every source on the ground, every rumor, every whisper of this man. I want to know where he is. I want to know what he’s doing. I want to know what time of day he eats. What time of day he takes a shit. When he goes to sleep, and where. Got it?”

  This is how the war will begin. Kris gritted his teeth, biting down so hard his jaw hurt. There were other reasons for the invasion—the administration had tasked another team with tracking down Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—but the link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was the vice president’s holy grail.

  “We’re going to nail this son of a bitch.” The vice president stood. Everyone followed.

  Kris was the last to rise.

  The vice president nodded to Director Thatcher, reached across the table and shook his hand. He turned to Kris. Glared, and said nothing.

  The Secret Service was waiting for the vice president and his staff outside the conference room. They swept him up, passing him his Blackberry and his cell phone and escorting him through the building and back to his motorcade.

  Director Thatcher slumped forward, bracing both of his hands on the table. He hung his head, his back bowing, shoulders slumping like the weight of the world was pulverizing his spine.

  “Caldera…” He snorted. “That was a bold fucking career move.”

  Chapter 16

  CTC

  Langley, Virginia

  February 5, 2003

  “Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Saqqaf, an associate and collaborator of Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.”

  The secretary of state spoke as Saqqaf’s face appeared over the UN Security Council on a giant projector screen. Saqqaf glowered down at everyone, wrath and murder in his gaze, the image of a hardened devotee to an austere and ruthless brand of Islam, twisting the words of the faith until his followers believed they were walking in the footsteps of the seventh century.

  “Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaeda. These denials are simply not credible. Al-Qaeda has bragged that the situation in Iraq is ‘good’, and that Baghdad can be transited quickly.”

  Kris’s chin hit his chest. He wilted, slumping in his seat as his coworkers in CTC shook their heads and groaned.

  Once again, he was alone, off in the corner, in a desk no one visited. Once again, his coworkers stared at him. This time, not for the clothes he wore, or the rumors about his sexuality.

  But because everyone knew—everyone—that he was the vice president’s most-hated American.

  That he’d bitched out the vice president.

  And that he’d lost.

  “Saqqaf and his network are responsible for the murder of an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan. After this despicable act, we demanded that Saddam Hussein turn over Saqqaf so that he can stand trial. However, Iraqi officials protest that they are not aware of the whereabouts of Saqqaf or any of his associates. These protests, again, are not credible.”

  The secretary of state went on, outlining the United States’ case for invasion. Images of mobile weapons production facilities, storage bunkers, and surveillance overflights at Iraq’s nuclear sites were shown to the world.

  On Kris’s computer, Saqqaf’s image stared back at him. Dark, soulless eyes, void of spark or life. A diffuse rage seemed to linger in his stare, a promise of brutality.

  By all accounts, Saqqaf had been born a monster. The Jordanian Mukhabarat hadn’t been able to contain him. Twice he’d slipped their bonds, running off to Afghanistan.

  Kris tapped away at the finishing touches on his report, a projective analysis of post-Saddam Iraq.

  Without significant post-war planning and an immediate transition to a functioning, representative government, chaos and discontent will open the door to sectarian tensions. Chaos and sectarian tensions may be capitalized by foreign jihadists searching to destabilize both Iraqi reconstruction and/or any American/Western-allied endeavor. We should expect to meet significant numbers of foreign fighters in post-war Iraq if security and stabilization operations are not immediate benchmark successes.

  An intercept from Jordan had picked up a message Saqqaf had sent days before. The printout lay on Kris’s desk, underlined over and over until his pen had gone through the paper. “Iraq,” Saqqaf had said over the scratchy phone line sucked up by the Mukhabarat listeners, “will be the graveyard of the Americans.”

  ODA 391

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  February 7, 2003

  “Haddad!”

  David bristled. He waited for his sergeant, his stomach clenching.

  “Haddad, you aren’t bringing it. You’re consistently lagging behind the rest of the unit. In the last exercises, you failed. You aren’t making it, Haddad. You’re a fucking embarrassment.” His sergeant’s vitriol burned into h
im, bellows that were more appropriate for a recruit than the fourteen-year veteran he was.

  Nothing had gone right since his reassignment. His new unit hadn’t deployed to Afghanistan. They’d stayed in the homeland, watching as anthrax attacks paralyzed the nation in fear, as a Muslim shooter opened fire at LAX, as paranoia and hostility ratcheted higher and higher, turning to a hatred against Arabs and Muslims so thick and rancid David was choking on it. The guys talked about “getting some” and “taking their turn” at the “jihadis” and the “camel jockeys”. The “goat fuckers”.

  And worse.

  Haddad, the outsider with the Arabic name, the quiet one, the weird one who left on the weekends, wasn’t invited to their testosterone party. Willfully obstinate in the face of idiots, purposely distant and hostile toward people he found distasteful, he’d widened the gulf between him and his new unit into a canyon.

  “I swear to God, Haddad, you act like you don’t even want to be a part of the Army anymore. You getting soft for your little Arabic friends? Wanna ‘conscientiously object’? When we get over there, you gonna be with us or against us?”

  The countdown was on. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t a maybe any longer. When was the only question.

  David’s eyes narrowed. “I have nothing to prove, Sergeant. I’ve served honorably for fourteen years. All of a sudden, I need to prove that I’m not a bad guy? ’Cause of my skin? My last name?”

  “No, ’cause of your piss-poor attitude and your fucking abysmal performance.”

  David didn’t have the energy for this. He didn’t have the energy for anything anymore. He was in the field more nights than he was at his shitty apartment. They trained for days, weeks. Leaping out of helicopters, storming pretend Iraqi villages, taking down pretend Saddam army checkpoints and bases and installations. Planning for assaults on Baghdad and fighting street by street. Urban warfare was drilled into them, and they spent their nights occupying buildings in their pretend Iraqi training city, taking out the entrenched Saddam forces, red team members from another unit posing as Iraqis.