Dr. Karl Maxwell stood behind the large observation mirror with his arms folded, watching the prisoner’s body language. The relaxed posture and defiant smirk broadcast the message that he believed himself impervious to this place—the victor. Maxwell was pleased with the display of confidence. It was critical that Abu Dahl believed he was in complete control. Using his ego against him would be the assassin’s undoing that would help carry this mission forward.
“Are they ready for us next door?” Maxwell asked.
Sergeant Dobbin picked up a wall phone, keyed in four digits, and waited. There was a click, then a soft female voice responded, “Department twelve.”
Dobbin said, “Department twenty-two, we are a go.”
“Department twenty-two stand by.” There was a short silence before the voice answered, “Department twenty-two confirm status. We are a go.”
Dobbin hung up the phone and nodded to the doctor.
A moment later, there was a rap on the outer door. Bolinski pulled it open, allowing two technicians clad in green scrubs to push a gurney into the room. On top of the stretcher were patient restraints, monitoring equipment, a face mask connected to a small green cylinder, and gas masks. One of the techs grabbed two of the masks and wordlessly handed them to the guards. Bolinski and Dobbin both pulled them on and adjusted them down over their faces. The techs each grabbed one of the remaining masks and put them on.
Dr. Maxwell pushed a button mounted beneath the observation window. A red light flashed in the interrogation room, signaling the intelligence officer that it was time.
Gante noticed the light. Without breaking eye contact with the prisoner, he gave a slight nod toward the mirrored glass. He rose, still staring down into the eyes of the evilest man he had ever encountered. He imagined the blood from thousands of innocent victims dripping from those cuffed hands. This bastard would walk free, and the killing would begin again. The irony was that Gante knew he could end Abu’s violent rampage right here and now by simply sending a forty-five slug into the man’s brain. Bang, splat, done.
He paused as he pictured the scenario. He could feel the pressure on his finger as he slowly squeezed the trigger, the temporary elation from blowing this piece of shit to kingdom come. The euphoria would be short-lived, however. He would pay the price for his actions behind bars for the rest of his life—another demented twist in today’s lopsided version of justice.
Still, he thought, his life in exchange for the thousands that he would probably be saving? It seemed like an easy choice. Scores of would-be victims would never know they owed their next breath to a man who sat languishing in prison for blowing the head off their would-be executioner. Tempting.
He smiled down at the face of evil, imagining the man’s brains spraying onto the white concrete walls in a butterfly pattern of blood, bone, and gray matter. The vision had a surprisingly calming effect.
Gante had imagined many phrases or catchy comments he wanted to say to this beast on their last day of interrogation. They had all drifted through his mind at one time or another, begging to be the line used to close this dark chapter of his duties at Guantanamo. But now that the moment had finally arrived, none seemed appropriate. He drew a blank. Rather than feeling flustered at the loss of words, he took it as a positive sign that his conscience was clear. Who else could have sat with this man day after day as he recited his atrocities against humanity? The prisoner had smugly acknowledged each as more of an achievement than the maniacal theft of life. For Gante, maybe it meant that his own life had hope of returning to near normalcy after so much time in the belly of the beast. He had failed to ascertain any meaningful intel from the man. That was not his fault, but that of his own system working against him. It had denied him the proper tools to extract the information needed. In another place and time it would have seemed incomprehensible not to use any means necessary to probe the mind of an enemy bent on your destruction. He knew such passivity would never be considered in this man’s war camp where the punishment for even the most menial crime was death. Still in all, Abu Dahl’s release marked the end of a terrible chapter in his own life. He had given his best effort and now accepted the outcome. He leaned in close to the prisoner, smiled again, and said the first words that came to mind.
“Fuck you.”
He turned and walked toward the control room, leaving Abu Dahl for once suffering from a lack of words. The door latched behind him as he watched the prisoner through the two-way mirror, still imagining the top of his head blown off. He had a strong premonition that someone else would do it for him. That this man would lay buried in a shallow grave sometime very soon. The thought brought a satisfied grin and closure.
Maxwell shot a glance at Private Frazier and said, “Do it.”
Frazier nodded, then hit a switch killing the audio and video feeds. He rolled his chair over to a tall white cabinet covered with large gauges and mushroom switches. It was connected to the interrogation room wall by a pair of clear hoses. He pushed one of the buttons, and the needle on the largest gauge sprang to life. There was a slight hissing sound from the cabinet as gas began to flow into the adjoining room. Dr. Maxwell checked his watch as he observed the prisoner, waiting for the desired response. It didn’t take long for the man’s eyelids to begin drooping and then close. The prisoner’s head dropped to the table with a soft clunk, out cold.
“Cut it,” Maxwell called out.
The private hit the other two switches on the cabinet, stopping the flow and tripping an exhaust fan. He watched as the needle on the gauge monitoring the level of gas in the room slowly descended. When it neared the safe region, he turned to the techs and gave a thumbs up.
Everyone in the room had drilled for what came next. The gurney was rolled into the detainment cell by the two techs, with Bolinski and Dobbin following behind. The prisoner was lifted on, strapped down, and fitted with a face mask that supplied a steady flow of the general anesthetic. Dr. Maxwell, the anesthesiologist for this operation, checked the gauges for the proper oxygen to gas mixture, then stepped back to follow the gurney.
The small caravan pushed the unconscious patient out of the room and down a long corridor. A wide door opened, and they entered a surgical suite where they were met by an awaiting medical team. The group surrounded the patient and slid him onto an operating table, preparing him for the quick procedure.
An ear, nose, and throat specialist walked over to his right side while a general surgeon stood to his left. Maxwell stepped forward, removed the face mask, and then worked a thin tube into the patient’s mouth. A mobile C-arm X-ray was rolled into place to image the patient’s head as the three doctors donned lead aprons. The resulting images were immediately displayed on two large overhead monitors.
The ENT specialist reviewed the images, tracing the sinus cavities of the patient with his finger. “It’s a little tighter than anticipated,” he said, “but still within range to proceed.”
The general surgeon nodded his agreement. “May I have the device, please?” he asked.
A physician assistant rolled over a tray covered with various tools and a small gray box. The doctor opened it and extracted a tiny chrome device, and examined it closely. It looked similar to a pharmaceutical cold capsule but less than half the size. He carefully twisted the body of the device and felt it click, activating the on-board electronics. There were no lights to indicate the gadget was functional. Instead, he glanced over to another tech who was watching a display similar to a radar screen. Within seconds, a small blip appeared on the monitor. A low level, five-millisecond microwave pulse, generated every eight minutes, was now being transmitting. The signal was detectable from up to two miles away by specially equipped drones.
The tech turned, gave a thumbs-up, and announced, “The device is active.
The surgeon nodded, then inserted the tiny beacon into a receptacle at the end of a stainless steel rod. On the other end was a trigger assembly. He looked to the ENT and announced, “Going for the ful
l six-point five-centimeter insertion.” The surgeon gently worked the rod with the device attached up into the right sinus of the sedated prisoner. Once he reached the desired position, he stepped back. “Can we get an image of this, please?”
The mobile X-ray technician pushed a button on his console. Another view of the man’s head appeared, this one showing the long rod protruding from his right nostril.
Both doctors studied the image for a moment before the ENT said, “I think another three to five millimeters would lodge it a bit more securely.”
The surgeon noted the incremental markings on the insertion rod and slowly pushed the device further into the man’s sinus cavity.
“That was four millimeters. Can I get a picture of that, please?”
Another X-ray was taken, and the results pleased both doctors. “He will never feel a thing,” the ENT offered. “Nicely done, doctor.”
The surgeon nodded and squeezed the trigger on the insertion tool, releasing the device. He carefully slid the tool out and asked for one more image. The results were as desired. The device was firmly in place and functional.
Both doctors moved away as the physician assistant stepped up and laid ice packs over the man’s nose. This was just one more step in the process. It was critical to reduce any sign of swelling or discomfort before the man was allowed to come out of the anesthetic. He could suspect nothing, or the entire mission would fail.
The prisoner was rolled into a recovery room with his guards walking alongside. Once there, he was fitted with a wrist strap device that monitored oxygen levels, blood pressure, and heart rate. A digital wall clock had been set and now counted down the time from twenty-two hours.
The entire plan hinged on making one full day in this man’s life vanish. He had been kept in his cell away from other prisoners and had not seen daylight in weeks. Over the last thirty-two days, his timetable had been gradually adjusted to drop forty-five minutes from each day. With no timekeeping devices visible and no reference of day and night from the sky, his body clock accepted the alteration in time with little protest. Up until this day, he had been kept in interrogation for longer and longer periods and always allowed to fall asleep in his chair. He would be awakened and told that he had been sleeping longer than he actually had. The end effect had worked as the psychiatrist had predicted. The prisoner was oblivious to the minute changes that had taken place each day. He now believed that his release was three days away, when in fact, it was actually four.
Private Jerry Frazier sat at a control console in a soundproof room. A pair of video monitors displayed the recordings made over the last six weeks during interrogations of prisoner 4135.
Frazier selected portions of each session, then copied and pasted them onto a new track. He ensured the data streams never appeared broken, reviewing each change before moving on to the next. The prisoner’s own smugness had helped make this job easier. He’d sat in the bolted-down seat in nearly the same position day after day, slightly slumped, hands folded defiantly on the table. The camera remained zoomed in on the prisoner, so there were no worries about synchronizing the movements of the interrogator.
Frazier worked through the night, sipping coffee as he reviewed the newly completed twelve-hour video. He completed the major portion of his task ahead of schedule, then moved on to the last step. He used a cut tool to carefully crop around the clock that always appeared in the upper right corner of the videos. This was the only place where one could see any trace of the edits as the clock jumped from different times of different days. He ran a subroutine that deleted the clock, then selected an image that had been created with the desired date and time. With expert skill, he pasted the new continuously running clock over the void. Another few mouse clicks later, and the entire video repopulated. The new clock now appeared in precisely the right position on each frame. The final product showed prisoner 4135 as he had been on every other day of interrogation. All evidence of his being drugged and rolled out of the room unconscious was now deleted and would pass the tightest scrutiny.
With the task complete, Frazier copied the video onto a blank DVD and labeled it as the interrogation that had started the day earlier. He then cleaned house, erasing all signs of his work. He reformatted the archive and ran another program that erased the hard drives multiple times. It would be impossible to retrieve any of the old information.
Frazier carried the new DVD back to the observation room. He loaded it into the video storage system that held all the backup data from the central computer. He did not alert anyone that his task was complete. That call was to be made only if something had gone wrong and the results were less than perfect. He then headed back to his quarters for some well-deserved shut-eye, content with the outcome and quite proud of the handiwork that could never be shared with anyone.
3
Stuttgart Army Airfield, Germany
Disciplinary hearings were something base commander George Phillips endeavored to avoid. Every soldier under his command, no matter how seemingly cocksure or combatant, sometimes broke the rules. Phillips believed that an otherwise untarnished military career should not be destroyed due to one careless night of over-imbibing or an argument that digressed into a fistfight. These were soldiers, after all, trained to kill for their country. Sometimes it was difficult to channel that rage, and he believed in second chances. Most of them deserved it…most of them.
The personnel file that lay open on his desk told the story of a soldier who did not. A West Point honors graduate who, by all rights, should be enjoying an ascending career in the military. But the lieutenant would likely never reach the rank of captain. You could only lead a man onto the path, Phillips reminded himself. The rest was up to the one doing the walking.
The lieutenant in question had earned average ratings and remarks from his first commander and now Phillips. He had also exhausted a charitable number of second chances. Yet, he retained the habit of turning minor scraps into significant problems rather than taking his lumps and moving on.
Phillips recalled some of the issues between the lieutenant and other base personnel and shook his head. The man had obviously set out to prove his mental superiority. Instead, he alienated himself, earning a reputation as a hot-headed, egotistic loner. The damage was irreversible. His fellow officers and most of the enlisted men detested him. Even among those who had attended the academy alongside him, there was no connection. This man had managed to graduate from the centuries-old military institution of Patton, Eisenhower, and McArthur, earning high academic achievement and little else. He had not learned to lead, or for that matter, how to follow a leader. He had proven himself incapable of either, even though he was brilliant by most standards.
Phillips now believed his problem came down to misguided motivation. The brash lieutenant had entered the military looking for what it could do for him, not the other way around. He imagined the rude awakening when this man found himself in a school full of what he had referred to as ‘gung ho, easily led Dudley Do Rights.’ Commander Phillips acknowledged it was time to rid himself of the young lieutenant and the aggravation that accompanied him.
He still chose not to wade through the piles of paperwork that came with writing up a negative rating. Let someone else figure it out, he thought. It won’t take long.
He thought back again to the well-oiled machine his base had been before the arrival of the troublesome officer. Months of turmoil had followed. And yet, the man was as brash and uncontrollable today as he had been on that first trouble-plagued day.
Phillips had never transferred a man off his base for insubordination and first dismissed the idea out of principle. No man is beyond reproach and repair. No man is disposable. He now admitted that, in all the years spent adhering to that philosophy, he had been wrong. There were exceptions, even to this rule. He conceded his failure. He had not made a better soldier from the one who had walked through the door. He may even encounter a few more before he reached retirement. But he would not allow
the defective internal mis-wiring of one man to destroy an otherwise sound code of ethics. He would continue the tradition instilled in him by his father. “Leave no man behind.” There was now one caveat to be added to that noble goal; you can only save those who seek to be saved.
Phillips closed the file and held it another moment, waiting for his conscience to tell him this was the wrong thing to do. It didn’t. He nodded, exhaling a breath of finality, then stamped the file cover with his transfer authorization. The problem was someone else’s now. Good riddance and God help the next commander of Lieutenant Dennis LaMonk!
4
Los Angeles, California
“Mr. President, you have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear on the American people. For years, they have begged for help from a system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor. Well, now they have turned to me, sir. They have told me what they need, and by God, I am the one that can and will deliver it to them! I have solutions. I am the solution!”
“Senator Karlson,” the president retorted calmly, “you, madam, are a brilliant orator. When you speak, even I want to believe you. But there is no substance to your words. The promises you make are impossible to keep. You have a convenient habit of glossing over the details and skipping right to the happy ending. You also suggest that change in itself is the answer. It is not. Being president requires making difficult decisions for the good of the entire country. Not just those who yell the loudest at your paid protests. I wonder if you are even capable of listening—”
“How dare you, sir!” Karlson struck back like a coiled viper. “How dare you suggest I’m not capable of listening. It is you who ignores the pleas of the hungry while offering tax breaks to your wealthy friends. You and your party spend billions on an unpopular war on foreign soil while your nation begs for help. Oh, I’m listening, all right. I’m listening to the muted voices you refuse to hear with an instinct you don’t possess. It is called compassion. I hear their cries, and I say enough is enough. Now we do things my way!”
ENEMY WITHIN THE GATES Page 3