by Barry Eisler
He tried to let it go. Ruminating about the past, happily or otherwise, wasn’t a luxury he could afford just now. It was the future he needed to worry about. He tried running worst-case scenarios in his mind. Ordinarily, this kind of exercise would calm him. This time, though, the scenarios were exceptionally horrific. If Clements screwed the pooch on the tapes, and if Ulrich’s backup failed, too, he was going to be left with not much more than the gobbledygook Condi Rice had been caught stammering in response to those little Stanford shits. What was it again? The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture … and by the way, I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency. That they had policy authorization subject to the Justice Department’s clearance … so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. People laughed at her at the time. But what else could she say? She had to say something.
Yeah, it was feeble enough when Rice said it. In Ulrich’s case, it wouldn’t work at all. Because his name—his signature, for God’s sake—was all over the authorizations.
He heard the chime of incoming email and checked the message. Damn, this was good. Daniel Larison, former JSOC operator. The name sounded familiar … one of the people they’d suspected when the tapes first went missing? But hadn’t that guy been dead? He’d look into it, figure out the discrepancy. He tried not to hope, but maybe, just maybe they actually had a shot at getting this genie back in the bottle.
At the bottom of the message, he noticed an attachment. It was a photo of a blond guy, mid- or early thirties. The guy’s eyes were closed, but even so, somehow there was a hard look about him. Ulrich thought for a moment, then moved the photo into a new email—Who is this? One of yours?—and forwarded it to Clements. He’d send the rest of the information after he heard back. These days he trusted the CIA less than ever.
He blew out a long breath. It was going to be a long five days. Well, with a little luck, or a lot of luck, more likely, maybe this could be resolved more quickly.
He opened his office safe, removed an encrypted thumb drive, and popped it into his computer. He was like a home owner with a raging fire bearing down on his house. It made sense to take a fresh look at his insurance policy.
On the thumb drive were unredacted copies of the Office of Legal Counsel memos, the secret opinions the administration had made the Justice Department draw up to legalize enhanced interrogation techniques. Everyone involved understood that worst case, no matter what else happened, the memos would give them legal cover: Senator, we were just doing what the Justice Department told us was legal. The CIA certainly understood the game. They’d had it played on them not long before: Senator, we were just following the CIA’s intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hell, if you were in Washington and didn’t know this was the way the game was played, it meant it was being played on you.
But Ulrich understood the memos would serve an additional purpose, one most people didn’t recognize. Ulrich was familiar with the concept of “force drift,” which was basically the notion that when you set a fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, you did so knowing that in fact people would drive at seventy, instead. So when he had instructed the Justice Department to create the memos, he knew two things. First, that no matter what the memos authorized, looked at properly, the authorizations could be construed as limitations. Second, that no matter what the limitations were, men in the field would exceed them. And when they did, and should those excesses come to light, Ulrich could shape the narrative away from The administration authorized torture, toward Field personnel exceeded the administration’s clear legal limits.
The plan had worked nicely to contain the damage from the Abu Ghraib photos. The question was, would it also work now, if the interrogation videos came to light?
He considered. There was an unwritten rule of American politics: the sacrifice had to be commensurate with the scandal. For Abu Ghraib, it had been enough to sacrifice a few enlisted personnel. Watergate, on the other hand, had required the resignation of a president. And the rule had an important corollary: the more the politician could invoke national security as a justification, the more the impact of the scandal could be blunted. That’s why Clinton’s blow job almost killed him, while war crimes accusations were so easy to deflect.
The question was, where along that continuum would the tapes land him? He could play the national security card, certainly. It wasn’t as though he had much else. But the Caspers … it was hard to see how even national security was going to get him around that. Yeah, the tapes alone would be a God-almighty fire, but the Caspers … the Caspers would dump gasoline onto the blaze. Against a conflagration like that, a few enlisted personnel or some field agents would be a pretty puny firebreak. Something bigger would be required. And why not him? After all, his name would be at the center of the interrogation program. He would be a big enough sacrifice to sate the public, but not too big to cause undue discomfort. Certainly the public would prefer the sacrifice of a high-level facilitator to, say, the trial of a former president and vice president, and because they would prefer it, it would be easy for everyone who might otherwise be vulnerable to make it so.
Yeah, they would come after him. And he’d make an appealing villain, too, like Jack Abramoff in his black fedora. He could imagine the descriptions already, how he’d “traded on his government service” to become a “lobbyist fat cat” … and the way his enemies would ply the media with not-for-attribution tales about his periodic outbursts at idiots, his judgment … Yeah, he knew the way it would be played. He’d played it that way dozens of times himself. Of course, knowing how the game was played and being able to defend yourself when you had become the game’s object were two different things.
He pulled the thumb drive and put it back in his safe. Well, he’d checked his insurance policy, only to discover a massive deductible. Only to realize he was the deductible.
But that was okay. He had the one other policy, the ultimate policy. The audiotapes that thank God he’d had the sense to make that morning at Arlington National—and other times, too.
But he’d play that card only if he had to. Only if he’d run out of every other option.
His secure line buzzed and he snatched up the phone. “Ulrich.”
“Okay to talk?” It was Clements.
“Go.”
“The photo you sent. His name is Ben Treven. He’s an army guy.”
“So not one of yours?”
“Definitely not.”
Ulrich should have known the guy wasn’t Agency. If he’d been Agency, he would have been bringing up the rear, not closing in on the target.
He stared at the photo on his screen. “You think he’s one of Horton’s?”
“Hard to say. His MOS is classified. Even just the photo took some doing to match. I could try to find out, but asking would reveal that we know.”
“Well, it really doesn’t matter what he is. He wasn’t part of the original program, he’s answering to I don’t know whom, and it looks like he’s already five steps ahead of you in finding whoever is trying to leverage those tapes. Now, listen. I’ve got other information to forward you. How fast can you get your Ground Branch team to San Jose, Costa Rica?”
There was a slight pause. “Four hours, if that. Where are you getting this information?”
“Don’t worry about that—the information is solid, that’s all you need to know.”
“No, that’s not—”
“I don’t know what name Treven is traveling under, but now that you know what he’s looking for, you should be able to anticipate him. Find out what he knows and who he’s working for, get him out of the way, and find those fucking tapes.”
There was another pause. Clements said, “Let me clarify something for you, Ulrich. You don’t give me orders anymore. You’re just a
lobbyist now. The only reason I’m even talking to you is out of courtesy.”
“Yeah?” Ulrich said, his voice rising, some dark part of his mind suddenly joyous at the prospect of having someone to bully, to dominate. “Well, let me clarify something for you. You’re talking to me because you need me to run political interference for you, which I have. And because without the information I just gave you, you couldn’t find your own ass with both hands and a flashlight. And because if someone smarter than you doesn’t tell you what you need to do, you’re going to be in newspaper headlines in less than five days and in a prison cell not long after that. You got it? Are we clarified now?”
Silence on the other end of the line. Ulrich slammed down the receiver, stood, and paced back and forth for a minute, concentrating on his breathing, trying to calm himself. He knew he shouldn’t have snapped at Clements: it would chafe worse now than in the days when one of his tirades had been backed by the power of the office of the vice president, and so was apt to be counterproductive. But damn, it had felt good to be in charge again, giving orders and not suffering idiots, if only for a moment.
He went back to his desk and forwarded Clements the information he would need. He hoped he was making the right call. Treven was obviously cleverer than the CIA, and so logically stood a better chance of recovering the tapes. The question was, what would he do with them if he did? Ulrich decided he couldn’t take that chance. He didn’t trust the CIA, but at least he understood their motives.
JSOC just felt like a wild card. He’d deal with them accordingly.
13
The Sound Was Always the Same
Larison shot bolt upright on the mattress, his body slicked with sweat, the awful screams still ringing in his ears. His heart was pounding combat hard and he was practically hyperventilating.
A dream. Calm down, it was just one of the dreams.
He grimaced. God, if he could only take a pill. Anything to dull the sound of those screams, to obscure the terrorized faces behind them.
He realized he was gripping the Glock. Must have snatched it up without realizing as he woke. A protective reflex, useless now. Against the dreams, the gun wasn’t even a talisman.
He could still hear it. A naked man, strapped to a table, eyes bulging in panic, past words, past screaming, just making … that sound. He was awake now, but he knew it would be hours before the echoes would fade from his brain.
He got up, turned on a light, and started pacing. He kept the Glock in one hand and compulsively touched surfaces with the other—dresser, walls, a lamp shade—pressing, patting, poking, anything to remind himself he was awake, he wasn’t in the dream anymore.
People didn’t know. They didn’t know that sound, the sound a man made when you took him past the point he could endure. Every man made the sound, and it was always the same. It started with bluster. Then there would be begging. Then bawling and babbling. Childlike sobbing, shrieks for mercy. And finally, when everything had been tried, every remaining human effort and desperate stratagem and fervent hope, and all of it had failed, there would be nothing but that sound, that wordless, keening wail, the melody of a soul being snuffed, a psyche cracking open, the birth cries of an animal devolving from a man. And no matter how many times you heard it, it never pierced you less. The hair on the back of your neck would stand up no less, your scrotum would retract no less, your nausea afterward would subside no sooner. Once you heard the sound, you could live to a hundred and you would never, ever get it out of your ears.
And God help you if you were the one who did what produced it.
And all that bullshit about how it was for a good reason. As though a reason would have made any difference, as though a reason could do anything to make you forget even one single moment of it. It was worse than the stink of blood and the slime of viscera. You could acclimate to killing. Torture was different.
He slowed his pacing, breathing deliberately, in and out, through his nose. He could feel his heart rate beginning to slow. Okay. Okay. He was okay.
If he could only sleep.
He remembered one guy, one of the Caspers, they called him Bugs, for Bugs Bunny, because he had these big, protruding ears. They’d run a routine on Bugs: sleep deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, beatings. They buried him alive in a box. The box is what broke him. Afterward, just seeing his captors approaching his cage, he would scuttle into a corner and fetal up and start making the sound. It was some Pavlovian thing. No one thought he was acting. No actor could make that sound.
And the Pavlovian thing worked in reverse, too. Just seeing Bugs scuttle off and hear him start making the sound … it was like someone pressing the nausea button in Larison’s brain. He’d come to hate Bugs for the way he felt about himself. As though Larison’s own agony had been Bugs’s fault. And Jesus, what he’d done to the guy as a result. Jesus.
He’d tried to rationalize it all by telling himself it was to save lives, prevent attacks. But they never got anything useful. And so much of what they were being tasked with wasn’t even about attacks. It was about whether there’d been a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. He remembered the first time they’d issued him a list of Saddam-AQ questions. He’d done it. It wasn’t as though he’d been in the habit of thinking much then, it was easier to just do what he was told. But afterward he wondered what the hell he’d just done. He’d just endured the sound again, and for what … to provide someone political cover? That was his job now? That’s what he was being used for?
And if they would use him for that, what else would they use him for? And what would they do when they were done using him?
Despite his fearful secret, somehow he’d always believed the military would do right by him. He’d given the army everything, endured horrible things, the kind of things you could never utter, not even to other men who had done them, too. Things that made him wonder whether there was a God, that made him fear some inevitable reckoning he sensed but couldn’t name. He needed to believe the military would reciprocate, that in return for his sacrifice they would support and protect him.
Then Abu Ghraib happened. He saw the way the brass and the politicians closed ranks to blame the enlisted personnel. He remembered reading an article by a guy named Jonathan Turley, about how the rank and file always got scapegoated, about the abdication of command responsibility. He started to think about what he was doing, and about what the politicians would do if it leaked. Graner, England … how was he any different? He’d be the perfect fall guy, especially for the Caspers.
He didn’t want to accept it. He wanted to believe what he was doing was different, that he was different, and that anyway it would never leak, it was too closely held. But he knew that was all bullshit. Nothing was more important in combat than avoiding denial and engaging reality, and the habit of combat helped open his eyes to political reality, too. Eventually it would all come out. They’d need a fall guy then. The fall guy would be him.
Once he realized it, he could see it clearly. They’d talk about his temper, which ironically was why they’d had him working the Caspers in the first place. They’d call him a steroid freak. They’d dig for other dirt. If they discovered his secret, they’d crucify him with it. Rogue. Sadist. Nutcase. Homo. They’d say he volunteered for this detail so he could be alone with detainees, so he could work out his twisted fantasies on naked, helpless men. And then, to prevent him from talking, to prevent him from revealing what he knew about the Caspers and taking everyone else down with him, one morning he’d be found hanging in his cell.
Yeah, that’s the way it would happen. If he let them.
So he found a way to not let them. A way to protect himself, bring down the hypocrites who were going to set him up, and create a new life for himself—and for Nico—all at the same time.
His heart rate had returned to normal. He turned off the light and lay back down on the mattress. He kept the Glock in his hand.
All he had to do now was stick to the plan. After that,
Costa Rica. Costa Rica was where the dreams would stop.
He just had to get there.
14
Projection
At some point during the flight, Ben nodded off. He was still recovering from three near-sleepless nights in the Manila city jail and a lot of time zone shifts after, and he was glad for the chance to get a little shut-eye.
When he woke, Paula was looking at him the way he’d been at her earlier. “What?” he said, scrunching up his face and blinking. “Was I drooling?”
She cocked an eyebrow and gave him a bored look. “Not that I noticed.”
He saw she was holding an iPhone, like his. “You like it?” he asked, gesturing with his head.
“Love it. Does just about everything but shoot bullets.”
He laughed. “iBullets. Maybe one day.”
He looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky. He checked his watch. Damn, he’d been asleep for almost an hour. They didn’t have far to go.
“So how’d you get into this line of work?” he asked, sitting up and cracking his neck.
“What, you mean a nice girl like me?”
“I don’t think you’re nice.”
“Oh, but I am.”
“All right, a nice girl like you, then.”
She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and he thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer. But then she said, “Nine-eleven happened during my senior year of college. I was planning to go to grad school for an M.A. in psychology—psychology was my undergraduate major—but I decided to do something to make a difference, instead.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Making a difference?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard, sometimes. Getting anything done in this bureaucracy is like trying to swim in molasses. But I’ve found ways.”
“You work in the D.C. headquarters building?”