The Enemy Inside

by William Christie

  Tamiraev was visibly impressed. “This is a much better system. No bank, no government will interfere with the private money of an Arab millionaire. And since they go everywhere and do business everywhere, money wired everywhere raises no alarms. Brilliant.” And then a wolfish grin directed at Nimri. “But a considerable temptation.”

  A Chechen was a Chechen, Nimri thought. They would happily throw themselves on a hand grenade with the name of God on their lips. But if you were not under their protection they would steal the last gold tooth from your mouth, whether you slept with it open or not. “We are all responsible to The Base, for everything we do,” he said pointedly. This was the literal translation of al-Qaeda. The Base. “All of us. With our lives.”

  “Of course, my brother,” said Tamiraev, still grinning wolfishly. “Of course.”

  “Then we are in agreement, my brother?”

  “Unlike some of these idiots, like the Libyan, you know how to plan an operation, my brother. Where you go, I will go with you. Where you fight, I will fight beside you. Until the end. This I swear.”

  Chapter Eight

  Nasser Saleh had his earphones on and was really hitting his computer keyboard. Two Palestinians in Charlotte had gotten in touch with a military surplus dealer who evidently had some crooked Marine combat engineers at Camp Lejeune working for him. The Palestinians were negotiating to buy C-4 plastic explosive to ship to Gaza.

  A hand touched Nasser’s shoulder, and he almost jumped out of his skin. It was Barry, his supervisor.

  “Sorry, Nasser. I need to talk to you for a second.”

  “What is it, Barry?”

  “Why don’t you come to my office?”

  Something was wrong.

  Nasser followed him in. Barry shut the door. “Sit down, sit down.”

  Nasser did, and Barry put the desk between them. “We need to talk about your evaluation of the New Orleans audio.”

  “What about it?”

  “The case agent complained.”

  “About the translation?”

  “No, about your evaluation. They’re putting a lot of effort into that case, and they didn’t appreciate you telling them it was nothing.”

  “That’s not what I wrote.”

  “Now, don’t get excited. You certainly implied it.”

  “Barry, they asked for an evaluation. And I gave it to them.”

  “And they didn’t think it was either fair or correct.”

  “Barry, I listen to these conversations all the time. These guys are Salafist fundamentalists. They like to pretend they’re radicals. They go to mosque, listen to some violent sermons, get themselves all fired up, and go home and drink tea and talk.”

  “And they’re talking terrorism.”

  “They talk about jihad and loving death and martyrdom. But it’s all talk. Barry, Arabs talk. They talk big. And nobody talks bigger than an Arab.”

  Trying to cool him down, Barry said, “Hey, if I said that, there’d be a grievance filed.”

  The attempt at levity didn’t go over. “It’s like most things, Barry. If it’s about what I am I can say it—you can’t.”

  “Okay, whatever. But you’ve got to understand that talk turns into action, Nasser.”

  “I’ve done a lot of listening, Barry. There’s the ones who talk about what they’re going to do. And then there’s the ones who just talk. These guys in New Orleans are just talk.”

  “I’m not going to keep arguing the point with you. You aren’t trying to cut down on your workload, are you?”

  Typical. The Arabs were always trying to get over. “Barry, the less unimportant stuff I have to wade through, the more time I have to translate something important.”

  “Listen, Nasser, you’re a young guy.”

  And it always got said in that condescending tone. Nasser really hated that.

  “This happens all the time with translation,” Barry went on. “You’ve been doing it just long enough to think you’re an expert now. But you’ve got to understand you’ve got a lot to learn. Right?”

  “I may have a lot to learn, Barry, but I’m right on this one.”

  “Hey, hey, calm down here. This just makes my point. With a little more experience under your belt, you’ll realize that we support the field agents, we don’t direct them. I’m going to expect you to keep that in mind in the future. Evaluate the conversation you’re translating, and leave the analysis to the professionals. Okay?”

  “Whatever you say, Barry.”

  “Good. I don’t have time to deal with complaints from the agents in the field. I hope you took this the right way. I’m just looking out for you here.”

  “Sure, Barry.”

  “Better get back to work.”

  Back at his cubicle, Nasser felt like putting his fist through the monitor screen. His stomach hurt, because he didn’t stand up for himself. “Come suck my cock, you bastard son of a whore!” He whispered it in Egyptian Arabic, and Udi in the next cubicle started giggling. Nasser stopped, now furious and embarrassed.

  He’d practically been accused of disloyalty. That was the tone. Looking out for the Arab homeboys. So now Barry was going to be looking over his shoulder. He didn’t need this shit. He could walk out the door and triple his salary working for the Rand Corporation or one of the military contractors. He’d checked. That’s what he got for working his ass off and being conscientious. People who didn’t do squat in the office didn’t have to take half the shit he did.

  And the field agents didn’t appreciate it. How about that? They were recording conversations they didn’t even understand. It could just as well have been cows mooing for all they knew. But they didn’t want to listen to someone who actually spoke the language telling them they didn’t have anything. Then they might have to get off their ass and investigate a real case.

  That was it, he was quitting. No, he’d put out his resume and get a new job lined up. Then tell them to go fuck themselves.

  At that moment the computer blinked. More incoming files. Well screw them, he was on a work slowdown.

  But after a couple of minutes curiosity overcame him, and he clicked to see what they were.

  Overload from Guantánamo. He didn’t see many of those, because there wasn’t a big FBI presence there. But there was the National Virtual Translation Center, which definitely wasn’t virtual but did tap into FBI, CIA, and Defense Intelligence Agency translators whenever someone had more requirements than capacity. And that was like all the time.

  The military translators at Guantánamo were pitiful. Guantánamo was another circus. The Taliban commanders claimed they were only Afghan farmers, and they got released to go back to fighting. So then the translators thought the real Afghan farmers were Taliban commanders, and kept them locked up.

  Nasser clicked on one of the audio files. Another interrogation. Forget it. He’d get around to that when he felt like it.

  In between the new Guantánamo arrivals was a text file. He never got text. Wait a minute, it didn’t have his address on it. Another computer screwup. Nasser started to send it to Barry. Let him deal with it, he’s so busy. But then he stopped. Screw them. They couldn’t even send files to the right place, let them figure it out for themselves.

  Curiosity gnawing at him again, he clicked on the text file. Classified Secret. A memorandum to the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division.

  Nasser looked over his shoulder to make sure no one could see his screen.

  It was from the Inspection Division. About interrogation of detainees. Looked interesting. Nasser read on.

  . . . members of the Behavioral Analysis Units were deployed to GTMO [that was Guantánamo] to observe interviews of detainees and provide interview strategies and other behavioral assistance as needed ...

  There were many comments made by investigators during my tenure at GTMO that every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative ... T
he next time detainee was interviewed, his level of cooperation was diminished. There were also accusations made by different investigators that Military Interrogators would present themselves as FBI agents to detainees. See attachment ...

  Nasser clicked on the attachment. It was a bunch of e-mails, all classified Secret. He clicked on the one the memorandum had referred to.

  I am forwarding the Electronic Communication up the Counterterrorism Division chain of command. MLDU requested this information be documented to protect the FBI. MLDU has had a long standing and documented position against some of DOD’s [Department of Defense] interrogation practices, however, we were not aware of these latest techniques until recently.

  Of concern, DOD interrogators have impersonated Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI during interrogation where extreme physical pressure has been employed ... These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee ...

  If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done by the “FBI” interrogators. The FBI will be left holding the bag before the public.

  Torture techniques? Nasser clicked on another e-mail.

  Following a detainee interview exact date unknown, while leaving the interview building at Camp Delta I heard and observed from the hallway loud music and flashes of light. I walked from the hallway into the open door of a monitoring room to see what was going on. From the monitoring room I looked inside the adjacent interviewing room. At that time I saw another detainee sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli flag draped around him, loud music being played, and a strobe light flashing. I left the monitoring room immediately after seeing this activity.

  Nasser clicked on another e-mail.

  Special Agent was present in an observation room at GTMO and observed a DOD female, name unknown, conducting an interrogation of an unknown detainee. Special Agent was present to observe an interrogation occurring in a different interrogation room. DOD female entered the observation room and complained that curtain movement at the observation window was distracting the detainee, though no movement of the curtain had occurred. She directed a Marine to duct-tape a curtain over the two-way mirror between the interrogation room and the observation room. Special Agent characterized this action as an attempt to prohibit those in the observation room from witnessing her interrogation with the detainee. Through the surveillance camera monitor, Special Agent then observed DOD female position herself between the detainee and the surveillance camera. The detainee was shackled and his hands were cuffed to his waist. Special Agent observed DOD female apparently whispering in the detainee’s ear, and caressing and applying lotion to his arms (this was during Ramadan when physical contact with a woman would have been particularly offensive to a Muslim male). On more than one occasion the detainee appeared to be grimacing in pain, and DOD female’s hands appeared to be making some contact with the detainee. Although Special Agent could not see her hands at all times, he saw them moving toward the detainee’s lap ... Subsequently the Marine who had previously taped the curtain and had been in the interrogation room with DOD female during the interrogation reentered the observation room. Special Agent asked what had happened to cause detainee to grimace in pain. The Marine said DOD female had grabbed the detainee’s thumbs and bent them backward and indicated that she had also grabbed his genitals. The Marine also implied that her treatment of detainee was less harsh than her treatment of others by indicating that he had seen her treatment of the other detainees result in detainees curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain.

  FBI agents observed detainee after he had been subjected to intense isolation from over three months. During that time period detainee was totally isolated (with the exception of occasional interviews) in a cell that was always flooded with light. By late November, the detainee was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to nonexistent people, reporting hearing noises, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end). It is unknown to the FBI whether such isolation was approved by appropriate DOD authorities ...

  Transfixed, Nasser clicked to another attachment.

  On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been there for 18, 24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air-conditioning had been turned up and the temperature was so low in the room that the barefoot detainee was shaking with cold. When I asked the MPs what was going on, I was told that interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved. On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

  Nasser felt sick to his stomach all over again. It was unbelievable. Of course the stories had come out about Guantánamo. But from the people and groups you’d expect to want terrorists set free. But this ...

  No one expected terrorists to be treated with kid gloves. But how could you get information from them by driving them insane? Or having a woman grab a man’s balls during Ramadan? Even the FBI was saying that no one could be prosecuted after using these techniques. How could you justify it?

  Nasser heard a noise behind him. He grabbed the mouse and closed the file.

  An old girlfriend who worked in sales for a computer company had given him his key ring with the portable storage drive on it. He’d never used the flash memory stick—he just thought it looked cool.

  Without really thinking about it, Nasser fished the key ring out of his pocket and popped the drive stick out of its holder. He inserted it into his computer’s USB port. And saved the file to it. Then he sent the file to the archives.

  When he snapped the drive stick back onto the key ring, his hands were shaking.

  Chapter Nine

  The operations workroom was nothing more than an interior office. A table for everyone to sit around, big whiteboards and cork bulletin boards on the walls. And in the corner a computer loaded with all the special operations software planning tools.

  It wasn’t a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a special location supposedly shielded against electronic eavesdropping where matters of the highest security classification were supposed to be conducted. Terms like “code word clearance” or “above top secret” were bandied around by the ignorant. It was SCI, Sensitive Compartmented Information.

  Ed Storey thought it said something that the unit’s founders had decided not to piss away a few million dollars building themselves a SCIF on one of the nearby military bases. Instead they chose for a headquarters one of the literally hundreds of nondescript office parks in Rosslyn, Virginia.

  It was the same security philosophy adopted by the CIA in embassies behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. They assumed, as a matter of course, that the Russians had everything in the embassy bugged: walls, typewriters, copy machines, toilets. So they held all their meetings and debriefed walk-in agents in the janitor’s broom closet among the mops and jugs of floor wax. Because who bothered to bug a broom closet? And what enemy intelligence service wastes their resources conducting surveillance on suburban office parks instead of the Pentagon?

  The unit operations officer was Lieutenant Commander Moneymaker, formerly an assault group commander at SEAL Team Six. About as far a cry from the XO as you could get. He, Storey, and Troy were the only o
nes in the room.

  Moneymaker passed around folders. “Your guy in Paraguay made ten trips to Brazil, Rio to be exact, in the last three months.”

  There was a long pause after that. Troy looked over at Storey, who was wetting his fingers and flipping through his folder. When Troy couldn’t take it anymore, he said, “Do we know why, sir?”

  “No idea,” Moneymaker replied.

  Troy knew what was going to happen as soon as he looked over at Storey. But he did it anyway. And, yes, Storey was giving him that you dick look.

  The silence continued apace and then, still unable to help himself, Troy repeated, “No idea at all, sir?”

  “He hasn’t mentioned it to the interrogators yet,” said Moneymaker. “DIA checked his various passports against flight records. His credit cards show rental cars and meals but no hotels. So he stayed with someone. Whoever that someone is, that’s the next link in the chain.”

  Storey was thinking about the incredible waste of time and resources having the Defense Intelligence Agency do the work the CIA should have been doing. All because of the continuing intelligence turf war between the Pentagon and the CIA. It was going to get someone killed someday, Storey thought. Probably him.

  “That’s it, sir?” said Troy.

  “That’s it,” said Moneymaker.

  At that point Storey looked up from his reading and spoke his first words. “We’re going to need someone who speaks Portuguese, sir. As fluent as possible, and has some experience with low-visibility operations.”