He coined the phrase, ‘the devil made me do it.’ Yup, shift the blame. And a person who gets really good at shifting the blame becomes a psychopath.”
“So, Bennie, who or what do you think Joe is going to blame this on?”
“The literature, including my own contributions, points to people who are close to the psychopath. But let's back off psychopathy for a moment and get back to our simple human condition. A wife asks, ‘Why didn't you empty the dishwasher?’ The husband says, ‘If you didn't give me so many other things to do I would have.’ It wasn't me who failed to empty the dishwasher, it was you who prevented me from doing it.”
We took a short break while I laughed hysterically. Bennie has a way of describing the human condition so perfectly he should go into stand-up comedy. So a guy blames his wife for his not emptying the dishwasher. It's funny, but also it's starting to make me uncomfortable. I think I see what's coming next.
“So, Janice, Who do you think your guilt-ridden husband will blame for what he was about to do?”
“Well, there are two obvious candidates. Number one is Admiral Frank, aka Ayham Abboud, the intelligence mole who lied to him for 20 years. The other is me, if for no other reason that I lived with him and, well, your dishwasher analogy is perfect.”
“I'll tell you who's number one, Janice. It's you.”
“Why me?” Oh shit, notice how I'm trying to shift the blame somewhere else?
“A few reasons, Janice. Number one, Frank's cover, as far as we know, hasn't been blown. All Monahan knows is that ‘Sheik Abboud’ has been missing. So if the memory of this big brother figure persists, Monahan's not going to blame him. And he's definitely not going to blame his religion, or the perversion of the religion he bought into. No, if it weren't for his sexy heathen wife he would never have been distracted, he would have pulled off his plan. But forget the logic of it. You're the one who will be in front of him, you're the one who will get the blame, or at least a big part of it.”
“Bennie, I think you nailed it. He's gonna blame me. So he's a fucking nut case – Is that an apt description?”
“Let's call it a working diagnosis.”
“So it's all my fault, fine, it got it. But here's my problem with this whole inquiry. Ben, you're a good shrink, an amazing shrink. But I'm an engineer, a pretty good one if I don't say. I'm trained not just to diagnose problems, but to find solutions. I need to solve problems. So we diagnose his mind as being disposed to blame everything on yours truly. Great, but where does that get us? I believe the problem we're looking to solve is to get Joe Monahan to lead us to where the bombs are. Without that we'll be wasting our time just to give him an emotional catharsis. Bennie, we've got to find the fucking bombs.”
“That's where we're going next, Janice. By the way, and I know this sounds strange coming from a foul mouth like me, but I notice your language is getting saltier and saltier.”
“Thanks for pointing that out, Ben. I really have to reign in my tongue. I always cuss a lot when I'm frightened. It's immature and stupid. I promise to watch my vulgarity.”
“Well, that's a solid piece of self-knowledge. When you're frightened you use vulgar language. Knowing that about yourself is a great thing for your mental health.”
“Bennie, if you don't mind me asking, where do you get your delightful potty-mouth speech patterns? Sometimes listening to you is like sitting in a sports bar on payday. Is it a cop thing?”
“Well, Janice, since we're sharing honest details about our subconscious thoughts, I'll be happy to answer your question. I curse to look and sound tough. That's right. I'm a short, chubby, balding intellectual who deals with cops every day. I deal with cops, overworked prosecutors, and a lot of criminals. I don't want them to know that I graduated from Harvard; I want them to know that I'm tough. It's both practical and also a self-deluding defense mechanism. So that's my potty mouth story.”
I wouldn't expect anything less than complete honesty from Bennie, my favorite shrink. I'm glad he helped me realize my foul language is an attempt to make the fear go away. But fear is a part of life. It doesn't mean I have to be an obscene loud mouth just because I'm afraid of something. I really have to work on this. Using four-letter words all the time is dumb, immature, vulgar, and disrespectful of other people.
Fuck it, I'm scared.
Chapter 16
Bennie and I enjoyed a nice dinner of prison slop in the employee's dining room. We had mashed potatoes, at least I think they were potatoes, next to some brown substance with gravy on top, and a side of broccoli that was prepared last month. Even though the room was for prison employees, there were armed guards at the entrance. The lighting was so bright I wished I had sun glasses. Over the sound system wafted the pleasant dinner accompaniment of Bad Man LeRoy Brown. I was in the mood for a vodka martini, but it wasn't on the Leavenworth menu.
Tomorrow Bennie and I will finish our psychological profiling of Lieutenant Commander Joseph Monahan, would be mass-murderer and possible source of critical information. We had rooms at the local Holiday Inn, and we both decided it was a good idea to hit the sack early because we had a lot more work to do the next day. I fell asleep watching re-runs of Criminal Minds.
***
The next morning at 8 AM, Bennie and I enjoyed another meal at Chez Leavenworth. I couldn't tell if the scrambled eggs came from a chicken, or maybe a duck, so I stopped speculating and dove into my burnt toast with a side of bacon that was more like beef jerky.
“I understand that prisons are for punishment,” I said, “but why do they have to take it out on the employees?”
“Brace yourself Janice. It's called ‘empathy training.’ The correctional people are supposedly closer to their charges emotionally if they experience some of the same things the inmates go through. Bon appétit.”
***
After breakfast, Ben and I returned to the interrogation room.
“Janice, yesterday you posed the question, the big question. How do we get Monahan to point us to the bombs?”
“You got that right, Bennie. Unless we get that, this whole trip has been worthless bullshit. Whoops, sorry about my language. Oh, fuck it. Where are we going with this, Ben?”
“So we find, or rather you'll find, that Monahan blames all of his problems on you. What happens next is where you acting skills come in. So let me play Joe Monahan in this process. 'Janice, if it weren't for you, if you had only been more attentive, I wouldn't have strayed in such a strange direction. At home, I felt no emotional connection to you. I only found peace in my new religion. A man can't live as an emotional outcast, and that's how you made me feel.”
“Your response, Janice? From the gut, if you will.”
“Look you weird creep, if you hadn't spent so much goddam time trying to turn me into some kind of Middle Eastern nun, I would have paid more attention to you. Instead of watching TV with me and holding hands, you were in your office listening to Arabic tapes. You created the emotional wasteland, shithead, not me.”
“Congratulations, Kiddo. You got the test 100 percent wrong. There's a reason you never see a bullfighter punch a bull in the nose. The matador knows he can win the fight by feints, not confrontation.”
“Well, you asked me for my ‘gut' response,’ ” I rationalized, shifting the blame to Bennie.
“Yes I did, and thank you for that. But now let's crawl into your bright mind, which is the organ you'll use tomorrow, not your gut. You see, when Monahan starts to unload all of his blame onto you, he'll begin to feel better. I've run experiments on people in situations like this. The instruments actually show that heart rate and blood pressure subside when a person puts off his mistakes onto someone else. Joe Monahan will actually start to feel relaxed. And that's when you invite him to charge your cape, Madam Matador.”
“Have I told you recently how smart you are, Bennie?”
“No, but I love to hear it. Better yet, text my mother.”
“But exactly how do I wave the cape?”
“Right now, Janice I want you to do something for me. I want you to cry.”
“But I'm not feeling sad. How do I just cry?”
“I'm sure you've heard about method acting, the way all modern actors perform their roles these days, at least the good ones. It was invented by a guy named Stanislavski, but was brought to the American screen by Lee Strasberg, the actor and director. He's the guy who played the mobster Hyman Roth in The Godfather. It's simple, really. The actor drags up a distant memory of something sad, frightening, or funny, and uses the resulting emotions to give a more realistic portrayal of a character. That's what we need you to do.”
“Sounds good, Ben, but how?”
“I just told you how. Just do it. Cry.”
When I was eight years old I had an adorable calico kitten named Soxy. She loved to chase things as much as she liked to eat. She especially loved to chase balls. While out in our front yard one day, my little brother threw a ball into the street. Soxy took off after it. She hadn't yet caught up with the ball when the front tire of a UPS truck rolled over her. I was looking at her when it happened. I saw the tire roll over her.
I put my face in my hands and started to sob like a baby. Bennie handed me a box of tissues. I could feel my shoulders bouncing up and down, up and down, as the sobs rolled through me like waves; hot, nasty, powerful waves. I didn't want it to continue, so I let my mind wander to other thoughts, pleasant thoughts. I touched a tissue to my eyes, took another couple of honks into the tissue, and looked at Bennie.
“Perfect, simply perfect,” said Bennie. “I almost joined you.”
“Let me tell you what I thought about, Ben.”
“No, no, absolutely not. Whatever it is, it's your private thought, your own private sad little thought. You pull up that thought up whenever you need to. Bring that thought to your mind after Monahan dumps his blame on you. You, madam actress, are going to feel terrible that you were such a miserable woman that you led him to murder thousands of people. If only you knew, if only you realized you weren't tending to his needs, this whole thing never would have happened. What a rotten nasty bitch you are.”
“May I puke now?”
Chapter 17
I am Sheik Abbas Haddad, the leader of a small army of brothers who will soon bring America to its knees. I have no doubt that the infidels believe they have scored a big success against us. They saved five American aircraft carriers that we were going to destroy in a few weeks. I do have to give my enemy credit for their intelligence. I also give them credit for picking up on small clues and for mobilizing their amazing technology to stop us. I thought our plan was perfect. I was wrong.
But they are fools if they assume that we had only one plan, that we could be defeated in one operation. All they have done is to force us to make their destruction even worse. Instead of destroying a few naval ships, we shall now strike at the heart of this heathen nation, at its most important cities, at the core of what they call their civilization. They named our thwarted ship explosions the Thanksgiving Attacks. What they don't know is that the Thanksgiving Attacks will happen, and will become a living nightmare for this heathen land. On Thanksgiving Day, just over a month from now, the fist of Allah will strike the Americans. The fist will strike at New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and their seat of government in Washington DC.
I am in Denver, Colorado, the city that houses our second bomb assembly plant. The building is much like the one in Detroit from which we intended to launch our attacks on the ships. The structure is smaller than the one in Detroit, but is adequate for our plans.
Seven of my brothers are here at the plant in Denver, a small group, but small for a reason. Secrecy is essential for our attacks to be successful. None of my brothers here at the plant know where we will attack, and they won't know until it happens. The other soldiers in our little army are the men who will drive the bombs to their targets. Even they don't know where they will go until the day before the attacks.
I, along with my colleagues in Yemen, have kept the secrecy so tight that only my superiors in al Qaeda know the plans.
But there is one problem, a serious problem. Abu Hussein, our brother American naval officer known as Joseph Monahan, is in the hands of the infidels. Brother Abu is only one of four people who knows all of the details of our glorious plan. But he is in the American prison known as Leavenworth. I have no doubt that the Americans will torture him and the other naval officers who were captured. They can torture the others all they want, but Monahan is the only one with the knowledge to keep us from our goal. He is a problem that needs a solution.
Chapter 18
Bennie here.
It's 8 AM on the morning of the big meeting between Janice and Joseph Monahan. Janice and I are in the interrogation room to rehearse my coaching tips one more time. Her meeting with Monahan is set for 10 AM. I think I'm more nervous than she is. Janice is one solid human being. She'll soon meet with her terrorist husband, the man she once loved, and yet she looks calm. I'd like to take credit for my wonderful coaching skills, but it's Janice who reached inside herself and came up with a carload of courage.
There was a knock on the door, which pissed me off because I had given instructions to the warden that Janice and I should not be disturbed. Janice gave me a “now what?” look. I walked over to the door and opened it.
Both Janice and I shouted at the same time, “Buster!”
Buster is a spy, a high level CIA agent, and a guy both Janice and I had gotten to know and like in our weird recent few weeks. We have no idea how or why he got his nickname Buster, but having seen him in action it seems like an appropriate moniker. His real name is Gamal Akhbar. About six feet tall with a muscular build, Buster is a Coptic Christian born in Lebanon. His appearance is decidedly Arabic, and he speaks the language fluently. Buster was our official CIA team leader when we called ourselves The Thanksgiving Gang. Among Buster's many talents is his ability to conceal his identity when he needs to. He also has a habit, no, more like a well- honed trait, of showing up unexpectedly. The man is a total professional at what he does, and I was happy to see him here with us.
We exchanged high fives and Janice gave him a hug.
“So what have you been up to recently?” I said.
“You know I can't answer that question, Ben.”
They don't call these guys spooks for nothing.
“Director Carlini ordered me to come here. I wanted to get here last night but I got sidetracked,” Buster said.
“You got sidetracked for reasons you can't disclose,” said Janice with a laugh.
Buster shrugged as if to say, “You know me by now.”
I brought Buster up to speed on my coaching sessions with Janice, and what we were expecting from Monahan.
“To put it in a nutshell for you, Buster,” I said, “I expect to see a man in what I call ‘psychological survival mode.’ He's been caught, nailed, his plan totally thwarted. A more normal person would feel remorse, maybe even guilt, but this man is not a normal person. This is a cold blooded-killer, or at least that's what he planned to be. Janice's job is to get him to open up. Expect him to pass blame onto Janice, maybe even feel self-righteous about it.”
“Bennie,” said Buster, “what's the objective here? A psychological drama from Monahan sounds interesting, but what are we really after? I know what it is, but I want to hear it from you.”
“The objective is simple,” I said.“We want to find the bombs. I want to see any indication at all from this guy that he knows about Plan B, the bombing of the cities. If he does, then we begin serious interrogation. I see this guy as a bomb-sniffing dog.”
Chapter 19
So it's finally going to happen, my meeting with Joseph Monahan, the would-be mass murderer, the man I once loved who turned himself into a terrorist.
Bennie's done a great job of preparing me for this, or I hope he did. At least he cut down on my fear. Yes, I still have some butterflies, but I'm rea
dy to meet this man, this stranger, this mystery. I know what to expect, thanks to Bennie.
It was 10 AM when I heard the door at the back of the room being unlocked. It seems that everything in a prison is preceded by clanging and jingling noises, keys noisily turning locks and bolts sliding.
Two armed guards, each holding one of Joe's arms, escorted him in. As expected, he wore leg irons and his hands were cuffed. One of the guards hooked his handcuffs to a chain under the table, leaving him just enough arm movement to scratch his nose if need be. He wore a bright orange prison uniform. As Ben had coached me, I sat and looked at Joe with as little expression on my face as possible. I was waiting for the smugness, the arrogance that Bennie predicted. Here it comes, I thought, and I'm ready.
But he looked sad, on the verge of tears. He looked like somebody who knew he did something wrong. He put his head down near the table top and stroked his forehead with his shackled hands. He looked like he was feeling guilty. He's not supposed to look this way, I thought.
“Hello, Janice.”
“Hi, Joe.”
Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at me, and they streamed down his face. These weren't the kind of tears that just slip loose when you can't hold them in. These were the kind of tears that take over. The tears were in control. There was no stopping them, no way to make them go away. This man was really crying, and I didn't think it was method acting.
“I'm sorry, Honey,” Joe rasped, “Goddamit I'm sorry.”
Joe then broke into sobs, deep upsetting sobs, the kind of sobs you see in a child who just got spanked. He either couldn't control his crying or didn't want to try. I shoved a box of tissues across the table to him. I'm not a psychiatrist, that would be my friend Ben on the other side of the mirror, but I know enough about people to realize that I was not looking at an act.
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