Mind Virus

by Charles Kowalski

  “You don’t look quite as excited as I’d have expected.”

  “Well, I’ve told you the good news. The bad news is that so far, we haven’t been able to get anything else on him. Even supposing that the first name is one he gave himself when he converted to Islam, we haven’t been able to track the surname down anywhere. Our best guess is that it’s a shortened form of this Polish name, which I can’t even pronounce.” He showed Fox on a piece of paper: Renclawowicz. “But in any case, no leads on it.”

  Kato and Fox headed back into the interview room. Fox noticed that Harpo’s eyes looked less defiant than they had last time, and more dazed, as though he had gone through the night without any sleep. He also saw that some of the hair around his temples had been shaved.

  “Good evening, Mr. Renclaw. Or may I call you Rashid?”

  He continued to stare dully into the middle distance. Fox’s hopes sank a notch. Either Harpo was too exhausted to show any reaction, or that was not his name.

  “Or should I say: Dzien dobry, Pan Renclawowicz?”

  He showed no sign of comprehension. It was just as well; that greeting had all but exhausted Fox’s store of Polish.

  “How was your trip to Turkey?”

  No reaction. Fox’s hope began to evaporate. The We Know All approach was getting them nowhere. Either Harpo had been working hard at perfecting his poker face since their last interview, or nothing Fox was saying struck any chords with him.

  Very well, he thought: if this was a case of mistaken identity, he would take it and run with it.

  “Did those Syrians bother to tell you what they were planning to do with the sample you sold them?”

  He said nothing, but looked slightly puzzled. Understandably so, since Fox had made that up on the spot.

  “Or maybe you haven’t heard. You must not get much news in here,” he continued. “This morning, there was an attack during Divine Liturgy at the main Orthodox church in Aleppo. Using—you guessed it—the Zagorsk virus.”

  He watched Harpo’s face very closely. Anyone faced with a groundless accusation like this would naturally proclaim his innocence, by facial expression if no other way. But once Harpo’s initial curiosity had passed, he showed no further reaction. Fox’s story was completely improvised, but it seemed to be coming as no surprise to Harpo.

  “ISIS claimed responsibility,” he went on, “and Syrian intelligence is very anxious to know who supplied them.” He gave Harpo a hard stare. “What do you think we should tell them?”

  Kato laid a hand on Fox’s arm. His mind raced to think of a subtle way to signal to her: Just play along.

  She leaned toward him. “You can’t be serious. Threatening him with rendition to Syria?” She said this in a whisper calculated to be overheard, while giving his arm a conspiratorial squeeze. There had been no need to worry about her. She was a seasoned interrogator too.

  “Hey, who’s threatening anyone with anything?” he countered. “All they’re asking for is information. Now, of course it’s possible that the two incidents are unconnected. But still, two attacks on Christian worship services, one week apart, both using Zagorsk—does that sound like a coincidence to you?”

  This was supposed to be Harpo’s cue to protest: You’re making a mistake! I’m not Rashid Renclaw! I don’t know anything about any Syrians! But he kept his gaze on its accustomed spot on the floor.

  “But if he won’t confirm or deny it,” Fox went on, “then all we can do is get back to the Syrians with what we’ve managed to find out on our own. We have a suspect caught trying to disperse Zagorsk at an American prayer rally, and we have Venera Goridze’s admission that she sold a sample to a Rashid Renclaw, who by her description sounds a lot like our boy here. They can make the call themselves.”

  Once they were out of the interview room, Kato gave Fox a sidelong glance. “I would never have thought you’d be such a good liar.”

  “I guess I should take that as a compliment,” he replied as they entered the conference room. “You’re not such a bad actress yourself. But unfortunately, we’re no further ahead.”

  Adler was looking expectantly in their direction as they came through the door. They briefed him. “I’d say it’s a safe bet that Harpo is not Rashid Renclaw,” Fox concluded. “He didn’t even seem to recognize the name.”

  Adler heaved a sigh of disappointment. “Well, at least now we have the name of someone else in his network.”

  As intelligence went, it was a mixed blessing. It was something, but if Harpo truly had never heard the name before, it meant at least two degrees of separation between him and Renclaw. The network was suddenly starting to look bigger.

  “He didn’t look like he had gotten much sleep last night,” Fox added.

  “Well, I don’t imagine any of us did.”

  “And another thing: Why was he missing hair around his temples?”

  “We had the psych team in to give him an evaluation. They had to rule out the possibility that he was catatonic.”

  “Rule it out how?”

  “Electroconvulsive therapy.”

  Fox jumped as though the same treatment had just been administered to him. “Shock treatment? Did they not tell you that plays havoc with a person’s memory? What good is it if we get him to talk, and he’s forgotten everything he’s done?”

  “It only affects short-term memory. It’s long-term we’re interested in.”

  “John, I’m a little bit unclear about the rules of engagement for HIG, but we haven’t established that Harpo is not an American citizen. If he turns out to be, and it gets out that these…‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ have been used on him, under the supervision of a CIA agent, no less…”

  Adler waved a hand. “It wasn’t an interrogation technique. It was a psychological diagnostic tool. Now, if it happened to have the unintended side effect of softening him up a little…”

  Softening him up. The words opened a door to a long-disused closet in Fox’s brain, releasing a cascade of images and a whiff of a stench that he could perceive as clearly as if it were right there in the room. His stomach contracted at the memory.

  “John!” Fox cut him off. “Just so we’re clear, if you’re going to be using torture, by whatever name you choose to call it, I want no part of it.”

  “Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll make sure you don’t have any.”

  6

  MOSUL, IRAQ

  2005

  As the sun set, loudspeakers crackled to life on minarets all over the city. The call to prayer floated through the evening air, mingling with smoke fragrant with meat and spices, ascending to heaven like a thousand burnt offerings.

  On the base, all eyes were glued to the live feed from an RQ-1 Predator over Samarra. Thanks to the information Abu Hakim had provided, aerial surveillance had managed to identify a white Toyota Corona with the passenger-side mirror missing, just as it was heading into downtown Samarra, and track it until it turned into a parking garage under a large apartment building.

  Browning swore as he watched it disappear.

  “This looks like a job for the door-kickers,” Newcomb suggested.

  Browning started to nod, but the prospect made Fox uneasy. A cordon-and-search operation might provoke Jaffari and his crew to do something desperate. Desperate terrorists with a live virus in the middle of a densely populated city would make a fearsome combination.

  Before Browning could voice his agreement, Fox spoke up. “Can I offer an alternative suggestion, sir?”

  Newcomb glared at him. Browning said, “Go ahead.”

  “They’re likely going to hole up in that apartment block for the night, and move on to their final destination in the morning. Keep the building under surveillance tonight, and follow them when they move out tomorrow. If all goes well, we can track them to their processing plant. Maybe even to Zuhairi.”

  Browning nodded. “Let’s do it. Recommendation for Abu Hakim?”

  “NFIV,” Fox replied. No Further
Intelligence Value. “We should get him home as quickly as possible.”

  “He located Germ Jaffari for us, right?” Browning asked.

  “That’s right, sir. He’s been very cooperative.”

  “Then he must know something more. Keep working on him. If you can’t get any more out of him, then maybe they’ll have better luck at Abu Ghraib.”

  Fox looked hard at Browning’s face for any sign that this was some kind of joke. He saw none.

  “What if he really has told us all he knows, sir?”

  Browning gave him the look of condescending amusement that hard-bitten veterans like to use on naive young recruits. Fox’s thoughts flew to Abu Hakim and his wife and son. Who would have the duty of telling them that there was no knowing when, or whether, he would be coming home again?

  “How about Ibrahim? Get anything more out of him?” Browning continued.

  “Nothing yet, sir,” Fox had to admit.

  Browning sighed and glanced at Newcomb and Mendes. “Well, maybe the next shift will have better luck. We’re adjourned.”

  Fox went back to his IIRs. After a while, he saw Newcomb and Mendes exchange a glance, and stand up from their desks as if in response to an unspoken signal.

  Fox did the same, hoping he could get to the cages ahead of them, but a private appeared from nowhere, stood directly in his path, and saluted. He was barely eighteen, freckle-faced, too small for his uniform, and generally looked much better suited to holding the console of a PlayStation than a rifle.

  “Honor bound!” he shouted in a voice that ricocheted painfully from the marble walls.

  “What?” Fox replied, caught off guard, before he remembered a memo that they had received a few weeks ago. He was astonished that anyone had actually paid attention to it. “To defend freedom,” he replied while returning the salute, completing the prescribed call-and-response routine. “What do you need?”

  He handed Fox a manila folder. “Sir, three new detainees for inprocessing, sir!”

  “Take it down a notch, private. I was never a drill instructor. I still have my sense of hearing.” Fox took the file and examined the first page. “You’re kidding. This one was taken in for getting off a bus at the stop before a checkpoint? That’s all?”

  “Sir, yes, sir. Our leader thought that if she was so anxious to avoid the checkpoint, she must have something to hide, sir.”

  Fox turned to the next one. “And this one. Ten years old? Taken in for throwing a rock at a tank?”

  “Sir, yes, sir. We figured he must either be an insurgent or know someone who was, sir.”

  “And this last one? The owner of a kebab stand? How did he become a person of interest?”

  “Sir, he was seen consorting with a known insurgent, sir.”

  “Consorting how?”

  “Sir, he served him lunch, sir.”

  “For God’s sake!” Fox flung the folder down on his desk. “Can’t you see that we’re trying to run a high-priority investigation here? And every detainee you bring in for ridiculous reasons like these takes manpower away from that! Now get back to your patrol leader and tell him to stop wasting our time!”

  He flinched. Fox immediately felt guilty for losing his temper. After all, this private was only the messenger.

  “Sir, yes, sir.” He finally stepped aside, and Fox ran down the passage to the cages.

  He never envied the guards at the cages their duty. The cell block was a makeshift construction, a decidedly less than palatial addition to the original palace. The odors of sweat, human waste, and military-strength pepper spray combined to form a smell like a toilet inside a locker room where someone had just vomited after downing a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

  As it always did when he walked into the cages, the assault on his ears came a moment behind the one on his nostrils. Hands pounded on bars, or reached between them in pleading gestures, and supplicating voices shouted, “Sayyidi! Min fadhlik!Sir! Please!” The detainees knew that he spoke their language, would be sympathetic to their concerns, and had at least some small measure of authority to get something done about them, so his appearances here always occasioned a welcoming chorus like this. Which was why he tried to keep them infrequent.

  “Sir! Help me! I’m sick, and the guards won’t let me see a doctor!”

  “Sir! Why am I here? How long am I going to be here? Am I going to die here?”

  “Sir! You’ll take care of my family, right? Please! You promised!”

  Fox looked in the direction of the last voice, and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was Abu Hakim. He had undoubtedly figured out what was going to happen to him, and what had become of Fox’s promise that he would soon be released. But there was no tone of accusation in his voice, only anxiety for his family’s safety.

  Fox looked away, his face burning as he did. He resolved to make sure Abu Hakim’s family was properly looked after. At the moment, though, he had more pressing concerns.

  He hurried to the end of the row of cells, where another corridor branched off from the main one. He motioned to the guard, and shouted to make himself heard over the clamor: “What’s down there?”

  “Those cells have just been built, sir,” he answered. “They’re not in use yet. They haven’t even had lights put in, sir.”

  Fox headed down the corridor.

  “Sir!” The guard called after him. “I said there’s nothing down there! Sir!”

  Without lights, the hall soon grew so dark that Fox had trouble seeing the walls. But at the far end of the corridor, he saw light emerging from behind one of the cell doors. And as he approached, he heard a voice behind the door.

  “Still think you’re so smart, hajji? You don’t start talking soon, this is going to be your bed every night from now on.”

  Fox had no doubt about whose voice it was.

  He looked through the bars. By the dim light of a battery-operated lantern, he saw three uniformed figures: Newcomb, Mendes, and a stranger. Newcomb sat at a small table, on which lay some kind of machine. Cables ran from it to a metal bed frame, and connected to the wrists and ankles of the detainee strapped spread-eagled onto it. A gaunt, elderly man, naked except for a hood over his head.

  The moment Fox looked in, Newcomb pressed a switch on the machine. The detainee convulsed, and went on writhing until Newcomb released the switch.

  “Allahuma, agferlehom,” said the voice from within the hood. “Allah, forgive them.”

  It was Ibrahim’s voice.

  Fox pounded on the door. “Open up!”

  Mendes and the medic gave a guilty start, and the medic, after a moment’s hesitation, opened the door. Newcomb only turned his broad face toward Fox with a malevolent grin.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Fox barked in his best officer’s voice.

  “Just softening him up for you,” Newcomb replied placidly. “And your timing was perfect. Now that hajji-lover Fox has come to his rescue, tomorrow he’ll probably tell you everything he knows.”

  Fox turned to face the stranger. “Specialist! Is that or is that not a medic’s insignia I see on your sleeve? What the hell got into you to be a part of this?”

  The medic took a step back. “Just…just checking to make sure they aren’t doing any severe and lasting damage, sir.”

  “Do the words ‘first do no harm’ mean nothing to you?”

  “Attention,” Newcomb commanded, and Mendes and the medic obeyed. Fox was about to point out that they were a little late in showing due honor to an officer, when he saw that their eyes were not on him, but on the door.

  “Get anything out of him yet?” asked Major Browning.

  Fox stood there, dumbstruck, as Browning’s eyes turned to meet his. He slowly raised his hand in salute, his arm feeling as though a ten-pound weight were strapped to it.

  “Fox, what a surprise,” Browning said. “What brings you here?”

  Mendes answered for him. “He was a little confused about whose authority it was that set this up, sir.”
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  “Well, now we’ve cleared that up, haven’t we? But as long as you’re here…” He gestured to the chair. “Care to do the honors?”

  Fox looked at the chair as though it, rather than the bed frame, were wired with electrodes. “No, thank you, sir.”

  “Let me rephrase that.” Browning dropped his tone of mock courtesy. “Have a seat and take your turn. That’s an order.”

  “Sir, that order is illegal.”

  “Want to take your chances arguing that in front of a court martial?” Mendes asked.

  “You want me to tell a court martial everything I’ve seen here?” Fox said, still addressing Browning. “If that’s the way you feel, bring it on.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it needs to come to that,” Browning replied. “All of us are witnesses that he disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer, aren’t we? Just that would be enough to knock him down a couple of pay grades and have him reassigned to some infantry unit in the Triangle of Death.”

  Fox looked from one to another of their faces. “I can’t believe what’s happening here. Look at this man. Look at him!”

  He thrust his finger at the bound, naked, hooded figure. Their eyes followed his point for the briefest of moments, barely long enough for him to reach behind his back and make an adjustment to the machine. There was no time to check whether it was the right one.

  “Sir, is this the image of your command you want the world to see?” he went on. “Are you trying to make this place into another Abu Ghraib?”

  “The world will never see it,” Browning answered. “No one outside this room will ever know what happened here.” He leaned toward Fox and continued menacingly, “If they do, we’ll know exactly who leaked it, won’t we? Now, sit—your—ass—down.”

  Fox lowered himself into the chair, wondering if this was how a condemned criminal felt when he took the seat from which he would never stand up.