“OK, Habib, I am going to be honest with you up front. This can go real smoothly, or we can make this far less comfortable for you. I will ask the questions, you respond, and everyone has a good night. OK?”
Habib didn't respond but instead gave Shafi a death stare. Most Talibs had just as deep a hatred for Afghans who worked with Americans as they did for America, if not more.
“Let's start with a simple question. What is your name?”
Interrogators would often go through a series of questions that were common knowledge, doing so to gain control and gauge how the detainee responded to certain types of questions.
No response. Habib sat quietly and refused to answer.
“Shafi, step outside!” Derek yelled.
Derek stood and walked toward the door, grabbing something from his cargo pocket. He removed a flash-bang and pulled the pin as he tossed it into the small room just before closing the door.
A loud bang echoed through the basement.
Derek opened the door, and he and Shafi reentered the room. “I told you we can make this really easy or really difficult. It's your choice. I won't play nice until you do.”
Habib cowered in the corner of the room and struggled to see Derek and Shafi.
“What is your name?” asked Derek calmly.
Habib responded, “I am sorry, my friend, but I am not the man you think I am.”
“Really? How do you know who I think you are?” Derek said in a calm tone. Then, suddenly, he screamed, “Answer the fucking question!”
Rahman looked to the side and sighed. “I am Farid, son of Ghulam Ali.”
“OK. You sure?”
“Yes.”
Derek and Shafi again exited the room, leaving a flash-bang behind for their uncooperative guest. This time, a loud scream echoed from the room after the blast. The flash-bang would not only rattle Habib's insides but would severely damage both his hearing and vision if the bangs continued.
Derek needed to be careful not to blind the man because ideally he would later help them map-track or even show them the way to Malawi Rafiq himself. He waited several minutes this time to allow Habib to think before he entered the room. “Shafi, grab a fucking notepad and pen!” he yelled as he began to walk back into the room.
Habib was in bad condition this time. He had pushed himself into the corner and looked as though he were in some stage of shock. Blood ran from his ears; the blasts had ruptured his eardrums. He covered his eyes in fear of another blinding light.
“Write this down and shove it in front of his face: What is your name?”
Shafi quickly wrote the question in Dari and shoved it in Rahman's face.
“Habib Rahman!” yelled the battered man.
“Good. You are a smart man. OK, Shafi: Where is Malawi Rafiq?”
Shafi again wrote the question and flung it on Habib's lap.
Rahman pondered the question for a while and shrugged his shoulders. Derek instantly drew his Glock and fired a round into Rahman's right shoulder.
Rahman let out a blood curdling scream and rolled over.
Derek grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head, slamming it against the concrete wall. “Shove the note in his fucking face again!”
Rahman tried to muster up the strength to speak as he began to cry. Derek lodged his pistol against the other shoulder, indicating that he was taking too long.
“He is in Pakistan!” screamed Rahman, not able to control his volume.
Derek looked to Shafi. “No shit, he is in fucking Pakistan! Where? Koja? Write it!”
Shafi wrote another note and placed it in front of Rahman.
“He is in North Waziristan, Pakistan. He has several safe houses and moves around all the time. I have no way of knowing where he is,” said a now far more visibly panicked Rahman.
“Ask if he can hear me.”
Shafi leaned in and conveyed the question.
Rahman nodded yes.
“OK.”
Derek lowered his weapon. “Listen to me, Habib. How would you get in touch with Rafiq if you were free to go to Pakistan today?”
Shafi relayed the message. Habib didn't think long before he responded. “I would contact his driver, Ikram.”
“Ikram who?” asked Derek.
“Ikram Hussein,” replied Rahman.
Derek had heard of Ikram many times from sources over his years in the country. Ikram had been a loyal friend and servant to Rafiq for years, but the US intelligence community had failed to catch him, though trying on numerous occasions. “How would you contact him?”
“Probably in person, just at one of the houses or something.”
“OK, but you aren't going in person. So how else would you contact him?”
“He doesn't carry a phone, so it would have to be in person. There is no other way.”
Derek decided to take a different route and see who the facilitator in Kabul was, hoping that person might have been in contact with Rafiq. “Who orchestrated the attack on the prison today?”
“I have no idea.”
Derek slowly reached for his gun.
Habib shot upright and stared at Derek. “I honestly do not know. I know it had to be ordered from Pakistan, because that's how it works, but I don't know who in Kabul helped conduct the attack. I was in prison.”
“Wrong answer.” Derek slashed the barrel of his pistol across the bridge of Habib's nose, and more blood streamed down his face. “I am getting frustrated, Habib. You know as well as I do that being in that shit-hole prison doesn't keep you from talking to whomever you want, whenever you want. Who was the facilitator?”
“I don't know. But there is an event, a wedding, that I was to attend in Pakistan with some of the other leaders. I can't promise that Rafiq will be there, but he is supposed to be. Without knowing where I am, he might assume that I am telling you this and stay away.”
Derek turned and looked to Shafi as he paused to think for a minute. “When is the wedding?”
“In three days.”
“Where is it?”
“Miram Shah.”
Miram Shah was a hotbed for terrorists. Not only did Rafiq and his crew base themselves out there, but there was a strong foreign influence from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and all the other home countries of major players in the game of terrorism. To make things more difficult, Derek had never been there. Shafi, however, had.
“Shafi, tell him we will be right back.”
The two exited the room together and shut the door. Derek called Randy over to chat with him and Shafi. Involving the others and getting them spun up for the next objective would be key. The men had been through a lot tonight, and the loss of Grimes weighed heavy on their hearts. At this stage of the game, diverting that attention elsewhere and determining the location of Rafiq, who had been a thorn in all of their sides for years, sounded like the only good option. “Shafi, do you still have relatives in Miram Shah?”
“Yes, sir.”
“OK, Randy, here is the deal: He is saying that there will be a wedding in three days with some major players there. Rafiq himself was supposed to be there. It's taking place in Miram Shah, but he is saying Rafiq may not come if he thinks we have Rahman. I tend to agree. It would be too risky for him to make any public appearances.”
“So we kill Habib. That's easy. We should anyways. He's a worthless piece of shit.”
Derek grabbed Randy's shoulder to calm him, knowing he was amped over the death of Grimes. “Well, how about we have the press kill him instead? We need him right now for the wedding location. Once we are done with him, we can do whatever we want to him, but until then, we tap him.”
Randy nodded in agreement as Carson chimed in from across the room, having heard the conversation. “Why don't we use him to find the place and then send the fucker in to detonate and kill everyone else? It's kind of messed up, but we accomplish everything we want.” He laughed.
“I am not opposed to that,” Derek said with a smile. “First thi
ngs first, though. We need Rafiq to think he is dead. So here is the plan: Randy, we need a safe route into Miram Shah. Plan that out. Carson, you slept with a CNN gal out here at one point, didn't you?”
“Well, yeah. How does that—”
“I'm just fucking with you. I do need you to go to the press, though, and get this story leaked. You can borrow Shafi in a few minutes when I'm done in here.”
“Word.”
“Miller, I need you to inventory and see what we have left in terms of gear and ammo. If we need more of something, work with Shafi to get it ASAP. This will not be an encounter of the small sort.”
After the initial game plan was discussed, though it was far from a finished product, Derek grabbed Shafi and reentered the interrogation room.
“Where is the wedding hall?”
“It is on the outside of town somewhere. I do not know. I haven't been there.”
“What is it called?”
“The Yahya Ali Wedding Hall.”
Derek turned to Shafi, hoping he had heard of it.
He shook his head in the negative.
“OK, Shafi, make a call or two and ask some folks out there if this name rings a bell.”
Shafi immediately reached for his phone and searched through his address list before raising the phone to his ear.
Derek couldn't make out what Shafi was saying to his contact, but it sounded as though they hadn't spoken in a long time. Shafi laughed, and the two seemed to return banter back and forth in Dari until finally Derek heard the words “Yahya Ali” come out of Shafi's mouth.
Shafi began to write as he smiled and again laughed with his contact. Finally, after what seemed like entirely too long, Shafi hung up the phone. In typical Shafi fashion, he remained silent at first and waited for Derek to prompt his response.
Derek nudged his shoulder. “Dude, what's the word?”
“He knows of it, sir. It is southwest of Miram Shah.”
“Can he show it to us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“OK, work with your contacts to secure a place to stay and help the boys here do what they need to do. We're moving to Miram Shah in the morning.”
C H A P T E R 19
Friday, January 29
Afghanistan–Pakistan Border
0715 Hrs
The team had been driving for several hours but still had a long way to go. Much like the Washington, DC, area, in this part of the world kilometers were not always an indicator of how long a trip would take. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, roads were extremely weathered or simply nonexistent, and a trip that looked short on the map could take all day.
Prior to leaving, Carson had been able to utilize a contact of Shafi's to leak word of Habib's death to the press in Kabul. It wasn't too difficult to find an eager journalist; Kabul had become a mecca for reporters. With popular opinion waning for the War on Terror, reporters had come from all corners of the world to report on all things Afghanistan. Whether a story was of importance or not, if a reporter got word, it was published. Shafi's uncle, a Ministry of Justice judge, had passed word through official channels that Habib had been killed in the explosion.
The plan worked. As the team drove toward the Pakistani border, they heard local radio discussing the death of Rahman and the attack that had occurred at Pol-e-Charkhi the night before. According to the news report, Habib had been killed in the second of two major car bombs that had rocked the prison during the middle of the evening.
The question was, would Rafiq hear the reports? And more importantly, would he believe them?
Shafi and Randy had worked out a route traveling south through Ghazni Province and then east into Khost Province, from which they would eventually cross into Pakistan. Shafi had arranged for the team to meet a friend in Khost City, where the team switched from their Hilux pickup into a Toyota Town-Ace minivan. The TownAce was commonly used as a taxi or transport vehicle for Afghans and would draw little attention.
The team moved to the backseat of the vehicle, allowing Shafi to drive, and put on the traditional baby blue burkas that were commonly worn by Afghan women.
“Dude, I feel sexy as shit in this thing,” laughed Carson as he reached jokingly toward Miller's leg.
“Get your hand off me, fucker,” Miller said with a squirm. “I am not that gay, and your big goofy ass in a burka doesn't turn me on.”
The team had been through a lot the night before, and while they were, of course, willing to fight their way into Pakistan, the plan this time was to simply have Shafi pay off the border checkpoints and make their way toward Miram Shah.
Derek knew that perhaps the most corrupt of all government officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan were those working the border. Between terrorists having to get back and forth across the border and the checkpoints having complete control over the supply lines that came into Afghanistan, it only made sense to charge everyone for passage.
Friday, January 29
Pakistan
North Waziristan
1634 Hrs
After successfully crossing the border, Derek's team continued eastward toward Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan. They were now officially in tribal country. If they hadn't broken every rule the US government had set out before, they certainly had now. American troops were not allowed to set foot in Pakistan for operational purposes at any time whatsoever without express approval from the government of Pakistan.
It was a surreal experience for Derek as he hit the outskirts of Miram Shah. He had received locations on high-value targets across the border many times in the past but had never been able to do anything about it. The CIA had always put the halt on anyone going over, and by the time a request had made its way up the proper channels and to the Pakistani government, the information was useless. It had been a major source of frustration for him and many other officers working in country. Now he was here and doing what needed to be done. The team was headed into Hell to take out the devil himself. This was a place where just about everyone was an extremist who would kill Derek and his men on sight and then parade their corpses around for the whole world to see. The potential for disaster was astronomically high.
The men would remain in the backseat with their weapons covered until they reached the safe house in Miram Shah where Shafi's friend would be waiting.
Friday, January 29
Miram Shah, Pakistan
Safe House
1822 Hrs
After a long surveillance detection route though the city, Shafi pulled the vehicle straight into his friend's compound as the doors were closed behind it.
Derek slid open the back door to the TownAce as the men pulled their burkas up and over their heads. The team exited the vehicle and began an initial search of the compound to ensure they were there alone.
Randy had instructed Shafi to tell his friend not to have any visitors or family members present when they arrived. The team could not risk anyone outside of their operation knowing they were there. With the wedding still more than a day away, any hint of their presence was sure to spook Rafiq into not attending.
“Clear,” yelled Carson as Randy and Miller echoed the same from the opposite side of the house. The compound was empty.
Derek and Shafi pulled Habib from the back of the vehicle, where he had lain tied up and gagged.
Habib had been given some basic medical care before leaving Kabul to ensure he would make the trip, but he was still in a good bit of pain.
A local man, staring with widened eyes from Shafi to the rough-looking Americans who had gotten out of the van, approached with slow steps. Derek guessed he must be Shafi's contact.
“Shafi, introduce me to your friend.”
Shafi waved the intimidated man over to Derek. “This is Aziz, sir.”
Derek extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Aziz. Thanks for your help.”
Aziz was visibly hesitant about the whole thing. Housing Americans was a very quick way for him to get killed, but Shafi had assure
d him he would be paid well and protected while they were there.
“OK, Shafi, I need you and Aziz to take our friend here somewhere that we can lock him up and keep him quiet.”
Shafi nodded. The two grabbed Habib and ushered him toward the main house in the compound.
The team gathered in the courtyard to discuss the plan. “OK, boys, here we are in fucking Miram Shah, Pakistan,” Derek said. “Who would have thunk it, huh? I am going to send Shafi out in the morning with Aziz to locate the wedding hall and get a description of the area. We'll stay put until then. If you want to make any phone calls back home on the sat phone, feel free. Otherwise, we're just keeping this place secure and quiet until it's go time. Let's make sure we're organized with our gear and the plan so we can discuss it further later today. Oh, and Carson, make sure our wedding gift is ready. I wouldn't want Habib to go to the party without a gift.”
The Maverick Experiment Page 15