The Faithful Spy

by Alex Berenson

  “He was free to come and go?”

  “Seemed that way.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Big guy. Tall. Had a beard like everybody else.”

  “Any distinguishing features?”

  “If there were, I didn’t see any. It wasn’t that kind of camp.”

  She leaned close to him and smiled. His breath smelled rank and acrid at the same time, like a rotten orange. They probably weren’t brushing his teeth much. “Can you remember anything else?”

  He seemed to be thinking. “Can I get some water?”

  Exley looked at the sailor by the door. He shrugged. A stack of plastic cups sat beside a metal sink in the corner of the room. She filled one and brought it to Keifer, tipping it gently to his lips.

  “Thank you.” Keifer closed his eyes. “The American—Jalal—guys said he was a real soldier. Tough. He’d been in Chechnya. That’s what they said.” He opened his eyes, looked at her. “What else can I tell you?”

  What she really wanted to know were questions she wasn’t supposed to ask. How much of the Koran have you read? Do you really hate America, or was it just an adventure? By the way, when are your friends going to hit us next? Where? How?

  And as long as she was chewing over unaskable, unanswerable questions, how about this one: Whose side is he on? Jalal, that is. John Wells. The only CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda. A man whose existence was known to fewer than a dozen agency officials. A singular national asset.

  Except that the singular national asset hadn’t bothered to communicate with his CIA minders—in other words, with Exley—in two years. Which meant that he had been of zero help in stopping September 11. Why, John? You’re alive, and not a prisoner. This kid had confirmed that much, if nothing else. Did you not know? Or have you gone native? You always were a little crazy, or you never would have gone into those mountains. Maybe you spent too many years kneeling on prayer rugs with the bad guys. Maybe you’re one of them now.

  “What else?” Exley said. “I can’t think of anything.” She put down the empty cup and stood to leave. Keifer’s eyes met hers, and now he really did look like a scared kid. He’s just beginning to understand how much trouble he’s in, she thought. Thank God he’s not my problem.

  “What about the lawyer? You promised—”

  “I’ll get right on it,” she said, walking out the door. “Good luck, Tim.”

  WELLS AND HIS men now stood a mile from the Americans. They had left their horses a few minutes before. He led his men into a narrow saddle, a rock ridge that hid them from the American position. Once they left it they would have no cover, only open ground between them and the enemy. Exactly what Wells wanted. He had no illusions that his squad could get closer without being spotted. The ridge was nearly treeless, and the Special Forces had night-vision equipment far superior to his goggles.

  He split his men into two groups. Ahmed would lead three men north in a direct attack on the position, while Wells, Hamid, and Abdullah—the unit’s toughest fighter—would dogleg to the northwest, moving higher up the ridgeline, then swoop in from above.

  “We must move quickly,” Wells said. “Before they can call in their planes. Without those they are weak.” His men clustered around him, fingering their weapons excitedly.

  Now the important part. “As your commander, I declare this a martyrdom mission,” he said. The magic words. They were to fight until they died. No retreat, no surrender. “Does everyone understand?” Wells looked for signs of fear in his men. He saw none. Their eyes were steady. “We fight for the glory of Allah and Mohammed. The enemy has put himself within our grasp. Praise Allah, we will destroy him. Allahu akbar.”

  “Allahu akbar,” Wells’s men said quietly. God is great. They were afraid, but excited too, Wells saw. There was no greater glory than to kill an American, or die trying.

  Ahmed chambered a round into his AK and led his men out of the saddle. Wells followed, angling up the ridge. Minutes later, still a quarter mile from the Americans, he lay down behind a crumbling boulder, signaling Hamid and Abdullah to do the same. “Wait,” he said. “Ahmed attacks first.” Things would happen very fast now. He peeked around the rock. Through his binoculars, he could see the Special Forces readying for the attack, setting up their .50-cal and spreading out behind huts and boulders, not quite running but moving quickly and precisely, their training evident in every step.

  When Ahmed and his men closed to one hundred yards, the Special Forces opened up on them with a fusillade that echoed across the hillside. Ahmed survived the first wave of fire. The other three men went down immediately, their bodies mauled by the .50-caliber, dead before they hit the ground.

  “Allahu akbar,” Ahmed shouted, brave and doomed. He ran toward the American position, fire flashing from the muzzle of his AK. He was dead in seconds, as Wells had expected. Wells couldn’t help but admire the Americans’ skill.

  Wells double-checked Ahmed and his men. They were silent and unmoving. He stood and crouched, careful to remain in the shadow of the boulder. For a moment he paused. He had known Hamid and Abdullah for years, broken bread with them, cursed the cold of these mountains with them.

  He pulled out the Makarov he carried in a holster strapped to his hip. Pop. Pop. One shot into Hamid’s head, one into Abdullah’s. Quick and clean. They twitched and gurgled and were still. Wells closed his eyes. I’m sorry, he murmured through closed lips. But there was no other way. He hid himself behind the boulder and listened. Silence, but he knew the Americans had heard his shots and were looking his way. He would need to move now, or never.

  “American,” he yelled down the hill in English. “I’m American. Don’t shoot. I’m friendly.”

  A burst of machine gun fire whistled close above his head.

  “I’m American,” he yelled again. “Don’t shoot!”

  “If you’re American, stand up!” a voice yelled. “Where we can see you. Arms over your head.”

  Wells did as he was told, hoping they wouldn’t cut him down out of fear or anger or just because they could. He could hear men walking up the slope toward him. Two searchlights popped on, blinding him. “Step forward, then lie prone, arms out.”

  Wells planted his face in the rocky dirt and kissed the earth. His plan had worked. He’d made contact.

  BEHIND WELLS THE soldiers scuffled around. “What the hell?” someone said as they found Hamid and Abdullah. A spotlight illuminated the ground around Wells as a rifle muzzle pressed into his skull.

  “Stay very still, Mr. American,” the voice said, close now. “Who the fuck are you? And what happened to your friends back there?”

  “I’m agency,” Wells said. “My name’s John Wells.”

  The muzzle jerked back. A sharp whistle. “Major,” the voice above him said. A whispered conversation, then a new voice. “What did you say your name was?”

  “John Wells.”

  The muzzle was back on his skull. “What’s your EPI, Mr. Wells?” Emergency Proof of Identity. A short phrase unique to each field agent, allowing him to prove his bona fides in situations like this. Normally not to be revealed to anyone outside the CIA. But Wells figured he’d make an exception, because they’d obviously been briefed that American agents might be operating behind the Taliban lines. And because of the rifle poking at his cranium.

  “My EPI is Red Sox, Major.” More seconds went by. Wells heard the soldier above him paging through papers.

  “No shit,” the voice said, friendlier now. A light southern accent. “So it is. I’m Glen Holmes. You can stand.”

  Wells did, and Holmes—a short, muscular man with a crew cut and a reddish-blond goatee—shook his hand. “I’d love to offer you a beer, Agent Wells, but they’re back in Tajikistan.”

  “Call me John,” Wells said, knowing Holmes wouldn’t. Wells could see that the Special Forces didn’t really trust him. They took his rifle and pistol and the knife strapped to his calf for “safekeeping.” But they seemed to believe hi
m when he told them how he had maneuvered his men into their ambush so that he could talk to them. In any case, they didn’t hog-tie him or put a bag on his head to make him more cooperative.

  So he told them what he had come to tell them, what he knew about the Qaeda camps, the training that the jihadis received, Qaeda’s experiments with chemical weapons. “It was tenth-grade chemistry. Mix beaker A with beaker B and see what happens. Kill a couple dogs.”

  “What about bio? Nukes?”

  “We didn’t even have reliable electricity, Major. We—they—” As Wells switched pronouns, confusion overcame him. He was American, now and forever, and he would never betray his country. But after years in the camps he had grown to like some of the men in them. Like Ahmed, whom he had just helped kill. Wells shook his head. He would sort all this out later.

  All the while Holmes watched him, saying nothing.

  “They would have loved to get that stuff, biological weapons, nukes, but they didn’t know how.”

  “Does it feel weird to speak so much English?” Holmes said suddenly.

  “Not really,” Wells said. “Yes. It does.”

  “You want to take a break?”

  “I’m fine. Only…” Wells hesitated, not wanting to seem foolish. “Do you have any Gatorade? I really miss it.”

  “Fitz, we have any Gatorade?”

  They mixed him a packet of orange-flavored Gatorade in a water bottle and Wells guzzled it like a conquistador who’d found the fountain of youth. He told them what he knew about bin Laden’s inner circle, which was less than he would have liked, about the way Qaeda was financed, where he thought bin Laden had fled. The SF guys taped everything. He poured out information as fast as he could, clocking the hours as the moon moved across the sky. He wanted to get back by morning. The more confusion when he returned, the fewer questions he’d face about what had happened to his squad. Hundreds of Talibs and Arabs had died this night. Who would notice six more?

  The sky began to lighten, and Wells knew he had to leave. “That’s it,” he said. “I wish I had more time. But I have to go back.”

  “Back?” For a moment Holmes’s eyes widened. “Don’t you want an exfil?”

  An exfiltration. Don’t you want to go home? Somehow Wells had forgotten even to consider the possibility. Probably because it seemed about as likely as going to the moon. Don’t you want a box seat at Fenway? A look at the ocean? Don’t you want to see a woman in a miniskirt? Don’t you want to leadfoot across Montana toward home? Don’t you want to kneel in front of your father’s grave and apologize for missing his funeral? Don’t you want to see Heather and Evan and your mom?

  The answer to all those questions was yes. Home was life, his real life, and suddenly the pain of losing it hit him so hard that he closed his eyes and dipped his head in his hands.

  “Wells?” Holmes said.

  Then Wells remembered the glee that spread through the camps on September 11, the singing and boasting, the prayers to Allah. He had known something big was coming, but not the details. He should have tried to find out more, but he’d assumed Qaeda was aiming for an embassy somewhere, a Saudi oil pumping station. He hadn’t wanted to raise suspicions by asking too many questions. Not the World Trade Center. It was so grand, so destructive. His imagination had failed, like everyone else’s. And thousands of people had died.

  Wells had made a promise to himself that day: This will never happen again, not as long as I’m alive to stop it. Nothing else mattered. Not that he had much else. Heather had remarried, and Evan probably had no idea who he was. Would he even know Evan? He hadn’t seen a picture of his son in years. His real life, whatever that was, had vanished. What he’d done tonight proved that. Killing the men he commanded in cold blood.

  How would his family recognize him when he couldn’t recognize himself?

  “No exfil,” Wells said. “Can I have a pen and paper, Major?”

  Holmes handed him a pad and a pen. Wells scribbled: “Will pursue UBL”—the agency’s initials for Osama, which it called Usama. “No prior knowledge of 9/11. Still friendly. John.”

  He bit his lip and added one more line. “P.S.: Tell Heather and Evan and my mom I miss them.”

  He tore off the page, folded it, wrote “Exley” across the front. “Will you get this to Jennifer Exley at CIA? My case officer.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t read it.” He handed the page to Holmes.

  “Roger that.” Holmes pulled out an envelope from another pocket and sealed the paper inside.

  “Major, can I ask you something? What was it like?”

  “What?”

  “Two months ago. September eleventh.”

  “Nine-eleven?” Holmes shook his head, seemingly replaying the day in his head. “Like the whole country got smacked in the gut. People just sat home watching TV. Watching those towers fall, again and again. The jumpers, the second plane hitting…. It was unbelievable. I mean, I really couldn’t believe it. If Tom Brokaw had come on and said, ‘Hey, America, we were just fucking with you, ha ha,’ I would have said, ‘Well, okay.’ That would have made more sense than what actually happened.”

  “These guys, they’ll do anything.” Wells knew it was a less than profound insight, but he was suddenly bone tired.

  “My mother died two years ago,” Holmes said. “Cancer. Awful. That was the worst day of my life. This was second. And it was like that for everybody. Some of the Delta guys started driving up to New York, to dig people out, but I didn’t bother. I knew they’d want us at the base.”

  Holmes looked at Wells. “You okay, John? Maybe Freddy should check you out.”

  “Beat, that’s all,” Wells said. “I should go.” He stood and looked down at the plain. “That front line isn’t gonna hold much longer.”

  “Your guys won’t last a week,” Holmes said.

  “My guys.” Again Wells felt a strange vertigo.

  “No offense.”

  “No,” Wells said.

  “Look,” Holmes said. “When you make it home, call me. I’m under my wife’s name—Debbie Turner. Siler City, North Carolina. I’ll take you fishing. Beautiful country.”

  “Almost as nice as Montana.”

  “When you get home, John.”

  “Might be a while,” Wells said. He stood. Holmes gave him back his weapons. Wells strapped on the knife and pistol and slung the rifle over his shoulder. Holmes put out his hand and Wells clasped it in both of his.

  “Major,” he said. “One more thing.”

  “Yessir?”

  “I need you to shoot me.”

  Holmes took a step back, suddenly wary.

  “In the arm. It won’t look right otherwise. I can’t come back in perfect shape and all my guys gone.”

  “No chance,” Holmes said.

  “Major. Then I’ll have to do it myself.”

  “Christ.”

  “A flesh wound. A through and through. No bone.”

  Holmes hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Turn around and start walking.”

  “Start walking?”

  “I’m Delta, Agent Wells.” Holmes used his best Carolina drawl: “I can shoot the dick off a possum at one hundred paces. Which arm?”

  “Better make it the left,” Wells said. He turned and walked away, slowly, holding his arm out. A few seconds later the shot came, burning through the skin and muscle of his left bicep as if a hot knitting needle had been jabbed into him. “Cosumaq,” Wells said, a nasty Arabic curse, as the blood sputtered out. Your mother’s cunt. He sat down and looked at Holmes, who was still cradling his pistol. Just in case.

  “Nice shot, Major.” It was true. The wound was clean and neat.

  “Want another?”

  Wells laughed, at first slowly, then harder, the breath coming out of him in short gasps as his blood pulsed down his arm. Holmes surely thought him crazy. But Wells couldn’t help himself. The Taliban didn’t make jokes like that.

  “One’s fine
,” he said, his laughter slowly subsiding.

  “Want a bandage?”

  “I better do it myself.” Wells ripped off a piece of his robe and tied a loose tourniquet around his arm, cutting the flow of blood to a trickle. The pain returned, burning intensely up his arm and into his shoulder. He’d felt worse. He’d live. He stood, feeling lightheaded. He closed his eyes until the dizziness subsided.

  “Siler City,” Holmes called out after him. “Don’t forget.”

  Wells turned away and trudged south into the Afghan night.

  Langley, Virginia

  EXLEY’S OFFICE WAS standard issue for a midgrade analyst. No windows, a wooden bookcase filled with histories of the Middle East and Afghanistan, two computers—one for a classified network, the other linked to the Internet—and a safe barely concealed behind a generic print of the English countryside. She did have a couple of pictures of her kids on her desk, and a cute birthday card from Randy, but the CIA discouraged its officers from showing too much individuality. The implicit lesson: here today, gone tomorrow.

  Wells’s note took four days to reach her. She supposed the Special Forces had more important things to do. In the interim, Kabul had fallen to the Northern Alliance. The Shamali battle had proved that the Talibs—like everyone else—could not stand up to American airpower. Now Exley sat at her desk, reading the cryptic note and the even more disturbing after-action report that had arrived with it. “Wells requested that Maj. Holmes shoot him in the arm so that he would appear to have engaged American forces…”

  Exley squeezed the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, but when she opened them nothing had changed. David and Jess would be asleep when she got home, and Randy would be watching television and very obviously not sulking, very obviously not asking how long he would have to put up with her late nights and weekends at work. Saving the world was hard on a marriage. Especially when the wife was doing the saving.

  “He’s not coming back.”

  She looked up to see Shafer, her boss, standing in her doorway. He enjoyed showing up unannounced in her office. One of his less attractive traits. Along with his uncertain grooming. He held up his own copy of Wells’s note.