by Bob Mayer
“I’m not running a whorehouse, so don’t call me ma’am.”
“That would be madam,” Smith corrected her. It was a game they played every so often, a very subtle way, after years of interaction, of judging the forecast. Today it was stormy, with a chance of a tropical storm blowing in, if not a hurricane.
“Connect me, please,” Hannah said. There was a click, then the secure line was open to the Ranch. “What can I do for you, Ms. Jones?”
“My people just did an operation in Nebraska. A Bent Spear.”
“Summarize, please.”
Ms. Jones did so in three minutes, even more succinct than Moms had been in her office upon returning to the Ranch during debrief.
“And your concerns?” Hannah asked when Ms. Jones came to an end.
“Naturally, my first priority is that a nuclear missile under the control of SAC was targeted at Area 51.”
“That is troubling,” Hannah murmured.
“I have not been able to ascertain what Pinnacle refers to,” Ms. Jones said. “I am also concerned about the weapon being reported as destroyed. Forgotten or lost is one thing. But someone deliberately covered this up.”
“Someone quite a while ago,” Hannah said.
“This incident happened this week. Over the years I have had concerns about the handling of nuclear warheads. There have been too many incidents. Perhaps there are more warheads that are believed dismantled that were never taken to depot?”
Hannah leaned back in her chair and considered that as she hedged on answering. “The impending treaty has everyone on edge.”
“Do you know what Pinnacle is?” Ms. Jones asked.
Hannah closed her eyes. It had just been a matter of time before the Nightstalkers crossed paths with Pinnacle.
“The Cellar has lost four agents investigating Pinnacle over the years,” Hannah replied. “Mr. Nero advised me to leave it alone, but perhaps times have changed.”
There was just the slight hiss of static on the phone as Ms. Jones waited for clarification.
Finally Hannah spoke again. “Pinnacle is a program the military started in the very beginning. Our very beginning, right after World War II. When that first Rift opened and Majestic had to deal with it, and other problems. Some of the men on that committee were military and while they were handpicked by Truman, they still owed allegiance to their services.”
Ms. Jones was quick to the mark. “They didn’t trust we could handle a Rift. So they targeted Area 51 with a nuke.”
“No one knew what a Rift or Firefly was,” Hannah said. “We still don’t. And the unknown frightens people. And frightened people act in irrational ways.”
“The question I have,” Ms. Jones said, “is that the only nuke in Pinnacle?”
“No.”
“How many are targeted at Area 51?”
“We don’t know.”
“And how many more are targeted elsewhere?”
“We don’t know. But Pinnacle is concerned with more than just Area 51. Treaties such as SALT, START, RAD, and others always bothered many in uniform.”
“That is troubling,” Ms. Jones said. “How can my team help?”
“I’ll contact you when needed. Until then, call off your Acmes checking on Pinnacle, please.”
Hannah cut the connection and leaned back in her seat. She felt the buzz. Misanthropes might call it woman’s intuition, but Nero had described it to her and it was not gender specific. It was a sixth sense of information beginning to coalesce into intelligence. The world was full of information; the Internet boiled over with more than any human could ever dream to process even in a thousand lifetimes.
Intelligence was useful information. Hannah had the ability to process large amounts of information from sources, both deliberate and random, and distill out of that quagmire threads to be pursued. Sometimes they led nowhere. But sometimes they led to great unravelings. The fact that Ms. Jones had seen fit to call about this was part of it. But there were rumblings in DC and Hannah paid attention to that.
Hannah knew from Neeley’s report of the package being compromised that someone in the CIA wanted that family dead. They never planned on paying out 25 million to some Pakistani garbageman and, more importantly, they wanted to keep their Zero-Dark-Thirty glory. That was very apparent. It was why she had co-opted the extraction mission rather than let the CIA send in a merk team to be massacred with the resulting bad press. She knew she’d made more enemies over at Langley by doing so, but it was better to know one’s enemies and accept there were no friends.
Hannah had already made some slight nudges, some pebbles thrown into the dark, scummy surface that covered covert operations.
It was going to be interesting to see which of the ripples brought the desired results.
The scientist held the case containing the hypodermic needle with the same care believers would hold a chalice containing the blood of their Lord. Of course, it was all an act, setting the stage for the big “reveal.” He waited with the impatience of knowledge watching ignorance in action as the contractor poured water into the towel draped over the detainee’s face.
Enhanced interrogation.
The CIA contract thugs had no idea what enhanced was.
The scientist knew they’d been doing this to the subject for six years. What was another few minutes to them? Cavemen. That was what they were. The two doing the work were not government, because even though various judges and the Department of Justice had tacitly, and not so tacitly, approved enhanced interrogation, no one with a federal pension wanted to get their hands dirty. So much easier to pay the contract muscle to do the grunt work.
In fact, the two doing the work weren’t even American. They muttered in low voices to each other as they worked, something that sounded Eastern European. They wore black balaclavas to hide their faces.
The detainee gagged and spit as the wet towel was pulled off his face, retching, nothing more than tainted water coming up as he’d long since emptied his stomach of anything of substance. He had not done the same with information. Not during the six years he’d been held in Guantanamo. And not now.
He wasn’t in Cuba anymore. He was in a strip mall in Springfield, Virginia. In a room with two merks, two scientists, and one soldier. It had once been a lingerie shop, but the front glass was presently covered with sheeting that looked like plywood to the outside—another small business victim of the economy—hiding metal plating covered with thick soundproofing on the inside. All the walls were lined with the same material, except one, which had a twelve-foot-long plate of dark glass from floor to ceiling. On the other side of that glass were twenty-four chairs, stadium seating, to view the room. The viewing room had once housed an adult bookstore.
The scientist looked at Colonel Johnston and raised an eyebrow.
Colonel Sidney Albert Johnston was a distant relative by blood and the years between, but he was close in spirit to the general of the same name who took a bullet behind the knee at the Battle of Shiloh and bled to death because he’d sent his surgeon to care for some “damn Yankee” wounded prisoners. Johnston glanced at the pane of dark glass. According to the memorandum, on the other side were staffers for the congressmen and senators on the committees who voted money to who the hell knew what or wanted to know; high-level Pentagon aides who would go back and brief their bosses; and some suits from the alphabet soups: CIA, NSA, FBI, NRO, and a few that had no initials because they thought they were even cooler that way. They all wanted to be one pane of glass removed from the indictment that might come someday if the bureaucrats and politicians suddenly grew a conscience and remembered America was founded on principles that didn’t include torture. Not likely in Johnston’s opinion or experience with bureaucrats and politicians.
Colonel Johnston raised a hand and the two merks stopped, one with the towel hovering over the detainee’s face, the other with a bucket in hand.
“It’s Doctor Upton’s turn.”
Johnston had a rough, g
ravelly voice that went with his imposing stature. Every inch of him emanated warrior, and his leathery face was lined with the creases of worry a good commander bore from years of leading men into battle. He had a square jaw and his hair was gray barbed wire, trimmed short every week. With a wave of the same hand, Johnston invited the scientist and his assistant to the prisoner, as if allowing them to enter the foyer of a grand mansion.
Upton turned to the black glass. “I am the head of Project Cherry Tree. This”—he held up the syringe case—“is the result of five difficult years of research and development.” His first lie, but the truth would not serve here. Upton nodded over his shoulder at the detainee. “Which is less time consumed by the other methods used on that man, and he has not once ever given up any useful information. He has been waterboarded”—Upton paused—“what is it, Colonel? One hundred and sixty or so times?”
Colonel Johnston’s jaw remained square. “One hundred and eighty-seven.”
“I stand corrected. One hundred and eighty-seven times. And never said a word. Truly remarkable.” Upton turned from the glass and walked over to a small table. The detainee was strapped to a heavy wood chair with an adjustable back. Right now it was almost horizontal to the floor to allow the water-soaked towel to press against the man’s mouth and nose to simulate drowning. Upton gestured and the two merks put down their towel and bucket and roughly pulled the chair upright, locking it in place. The detainee was blinking, eyes on Upton, waiting for the next chapter in the tragedy his life had become. His forearms were strapped to the arms of the chair, his ankles to the front legs, and a thick leather strap wound about the chair and his chest.
The scientist reached into his pocket for a pair of gloves, and his assistant, a young man named Rhodes, also put on a pair. Rhodes went to the detainee’s left arm and efficiently strapped yellow tubing around it. Then he walked around and waited on the other side.
Upton opened the case. The syringe glittered against black velvet. It was the smallest gauge, 32, and the best metal, designed to have deep penetration and minimal drag force. At least that’s what the ad said. Almost a work of art.
“This is the first clinical trial of Cherry Tree on a human.” Another lie, but it sounded more dramatic for this to be the first.
Only an idiot would walk in here not having tested it, and Upton was many things but not an idiot.
Upton lifted the needle up, higher than needed, so that the audience could see. “We’ve tested it for toxicity and other side effects on rats, but rats can’t tell the truth, can they?” He laughed, alone, at what he thought was a joke. There was no way to tell if those on the other side of the glass got it. He didn’t realize he’d just made a serious logic flaw, underestimating his audience.
Upton lowered the needle, eye level to the suspect whose head was pivoted left, focused on the glittering spike of steel.
Thus he didn’t see as Rhodes pricked him with a small needle in the right forearm, the same used for TB tests, a short 27 gauge, right under the skin.
He reacted though, body jerking away. He spit at Rhodes and glared about, his last refuge of defiance.
“My assistant,” Upton said, “has just injected point-one milliliters of Cherry Tree intradermally into the subject’s forearm.” He waved the fancy syringe. “This was just a distraction.” He put it back in the case and snapped it shut. Then he made a show of looking at his watch. “Cherry Tree is quick acting. Less than one minute.” He stepped back. “All yours, Colonel.”
Johnston came forward, stopping out of spitting distance. “Wahid.”
The prisoner’s eyelids were fluttering as if trying to pull a curtain call on the softening glare.
“Wahid,” Johnston repeated.
The glare was gone. “Osama,” the detainee said with the rasp of a voice that had not spoken in a long time. “He’s in Pakistan. They always, always ask, so there is the answer.”
Johnston straightened in surprise.
“Water,” Upton said with a sharp nod at Rhodes. The assistant peeled off his gloves and went to a table in the corner of the room, grabbing a plastic bottle. He brought it over to Wahid. The prisoner arced his head back and Rhodes dribbled some into his open mouth.
Wahid swallowed. He started nodding, as if memories were flooding his brain. “Osama moved there”—he paused, at a loss for how long he’d been a prisoner—“in 2006. Abbottabad. A compound. I can show you. Pigsty.” Wahid shook his head in disgust. “It’s not even wired to explode. My house was wired. You were lucky to catch me away from it. Very lucky for you. Very unlucky for me. Such is Allah’s will. I cannot fight the will of God. No man can. But why does he curse me so? Why is not all his will and not luck? Good or bad?” Wahid looked at Johnston as if he expected an answer to the question.
Johnston took a step back and glanced over at the glass. “Wahid. We know about Osama. Tell us—”
But Wahid wasn’t listening. His eyes were blinking fast, tears forming. “Please take me back to my cell. My home cell. Not the one here. I miss him. I miss him so much.”
“Miss who?” Johnston asked, but it was like a pebble thrown into a waterfall of words.
“The Jell-O. The lime Jell-O. They must stop serving it. It is disgusting. Not fit for a man or even a beast. I do like the pizza. They serve it every Thursday and that is how I know a week has passed. I should not eat it as it is food for capitalists, but I like it. Not the mushrooms though. I think that is part of the torture. But I eat them to show that you cannot break me. But I am speaking now. Why am I speaking now?” Wahid’s entire body shook as if it were fighting the words pouring out of his mouth.
He shifted into Arabic, the words flowing, the tape recorders capturing every one. Johnston gave up for the moment, stepping farther back, letting the man who had never spoken, speak, with the recorders catching it all. The moment went to minutes. Three times Rhodes had to come forward and give Wahid some water, a dark twist considering the waterboarding. Minutes passed into an hour and then a second hour.
There was no doubt somewhere in that flow was information that was going to lead to a Predator drone or two, letting loose Hellfire somewhere in the world.
By now, even the ones in the interrogation room could sense the impatience of those in the viewing room. Wahid might be giving up every element of Al Qaeda, but they had places to be and things to do. Cherry Tree worked. That was obvious.
Then Wahid shifted into English once more. “He watches me.”
Johnston jumped into the slight pause. “Who does?”
“The man in the next cell.” Tears began to stream down Wahid’s face. “He watches me all the time. I cannot stop him. I cannot stop myself. He watches me in the shower. He watches me when I please myself, late at night, between the guards coming through. I cannot stop myself.”
The watching-room audience, which had first listened with rapt attention, then some impatience during the Arabic, shifted with unease.
“But I do not really mind,” Wahid continued. “I watch him too. He is beautiful.”
Johnston looked at Upton. The truth was good, but perhaps too much was too much? Everyone fears unadulterated truth, the cutting edge of it ripping into a man’s soul, his darkness and his despair, and worse, his longings.
Wahid slipped back into Arabic, his voice rattling to a rough whisper.
Johnston definitely knew enough was enough. He turned to the glass, stepping between the muttering prisoner and the observers. Upton stood by his side.
“Gentlemen, do you have any questions for Doctor Upton?”
A disembodied voice came out of the speaker. “How long does the effect last?”
“Four hours,” Upton said. “Give or take a deviance of two percent, which is very precise overall.”
“Aftereffects?” a different voice asked.
Upton shrugged. “None that we’ve seen but we’ll be monitoring the subject at a max security facility.”
“Outstanding,” a third voice echoed
out of the speaker, startling even Johnston with its easily recognizable Boston accent. General George “Lightning Bolt” Riggs, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the number-two ranking military officer in the country and the man who did the dirty work for the chairman. He had not been noted on the attendance list in the memorandum for the experiment.
That’s the way Riggs worked. Be where no one expected him to be, keep his finger on the pulse of the darkest of secrets, looking for opportunity and also for danger.
The door next to the glass opened and Riggs stepped into the room with a man in civilian clothes next to him—the Joint Chiefs of Staff scientific adviser, Brennan. No one else who’d been behind the glass mattered now.
Colonel Johnston took an involuntary step back, perhaps some genetic memory of his ancestors facing Riggs’s “damn Yankee” ancestors on battlefields during the War of Northern Aggression. Perhaps just a normal reaction to Riggs’s imposing presence. Angry with himself, Johnston reclaimed the lost step.
“Good morning, General.”
Riggs walked over to Wahid, who was muttering in Arabic. “Broke the son of a bitch and didn’t have to touch a hair on his head. Outstanding,” he repeated. “The bleeding-heart cowards who wail about rights won’t have dick to say about this. A little prick of the skin to get the prick talking.” His coarse language betrayed his Beacon Hill accent, a strange combination. The result was something Riggs had practiced since his upper-class years at West Point upon realizing it kept others off balance, not sure who or what they were dealing with.
Riggs snapped his attention from Wahid to Upton. “I assume you have more of this… what did you call it?”
“Cherry Tree, sir.”
Riggs smiled. “Cute, very cute. We have more trees to chop down. Do you have to inject it?”
Upton blinked. “Well, we’ve, uh, always injected, but it could probably pass through the stomach lining and have an effect. Perhaps even be absorbed through the skin. It doesn’t take much in the bloodstream, as long as it gets to the mind.”