Brian Haig - Man in the middle

My own two days, if you're interested, were spent in the airplane, monitoring communications and observing the election coverage on cable news; i.e., becoming bored out of my wits.

As before, the polls indicated a dead heat, and an electorate experiencing its usual quadrennial meltdown into terrified indifference. As one pundit put it, the race boiled down to one guy too stupid to spell "principle," yet insisting he had plenty of it, against a guy who spoke a little too much French-if you know what I mean-who had never earned a private-sector buck and now was married to a billionaire with a strange accent, yet was offering himself as the champion of average Joes, underdogs, endangered species, and other people who weren't lucky enough to marry rich. Democracy is great. Iraq should have one, too. Seriously.

If you're still interested, I saw no coverage, or even mention, about the death of Clifford Daniels. A biographer friend of mine likes to say, "When a man dies, the story of his life is no longer his." Apparently the story of this sad little man belonged to people who were working overtime with a big eraser. Ironic, if you think about it. All his life, Cliff had wanted to touch the flame of power and fame; he finally got his wish, and even his ashes were disappearing.

On the second day, the aircrew showed up to turn over the engines. To relieve the monotony, I challenged them to a chess tournament; fortunately, they declined. I had better luck suggesting poker, but they had better luck with the cards, drubbing me for two hundred big ones. The bastards cheated. I cheated, too; they just cheated better.

Anyway, Bian returned early on the third morning without a word about where, or about how, she had spent her days in Baghdad. However, I sensed a new mood of calm contentment with an attitude of cordial reserve toward moi. I assumed this meant she had resolved her internal conflict between Mark or Sean. I won't say I was overly thrilled by this.

Anyway, Bian elbowed my arm and said, "Sean, I think he's waking up."

I looked up and noted that Ali bin Pacha's eyes were blinking repeatedly. Having personally experienced this-twice-I understood what thoughts were passing through his brain.

For starters, you remember your last conscious moments, the images and thoughts playing back like a videotape-you have a bullet inside you, it hurts like hell, you know you might die, you feel a tide of weakness enveloping you, sucking you down into the darkness, and you're thinking… This is it. The End.

Now his nerve endings and synapses were crackling with unexpected sensations. He reached with his hands and touched his face, then rubbed his three-day stubble, his nose, and his eyes, confirming that Ali bin Pacha still was encased in a corporeal body, still breathing, still alive.

His one good eye shifted to the IV tube in his arm, and he noticed his surroundings, that he was resting in a bed, his body was covered with clean white sheets, and somebody-Bian-was watching him. From his expression, he realized this woman in an Army uniform was not one of the fabled Stygian virgins waiting to celebrate his martyrdom.

Then the roving black eye discovered me.

I cleared my throat and informed Ali bin Pacha, "You are in an American Army field hospital in Baghdad. I am Colonel Drummond. This is Major Tran."

He stared back wordlessly.

I continued, "We know you work with Zarqawi and we know you are… were his moneyman. As such, you are not a prisoner of war, you are an international terrorist and will be afforded none of the protections of the Geneva Conventions." I leaned closer and asked, "Do you understand?"

His face remained impassive.

Bian informed him, "You do understand. We know you speak English. In fact, we know a great deal about you."

Which was true, courtesy of the file Sheik Turki al-Fayef had promised and actually delivered the day before, albeit a skeleton of the mighty file it had probably once been. It told us a great deal about this man personally, and nothing about him professionally, which was helpful, though not nearly as helpful as it might've been. She allowed bin Pacha a moment to consider her words, then said, "We know you grew up in Jidda in Saudi Arabia. Your father's name is Fahd, your mother is Ayda. Your father is an importer of fine automobiles, which has made him very prosperous. You have six brothers, no sisters."

I added, "From 1990 through 1991, you were a student at Balliol College at Oxford. On your entrance exam, your English was rated as excellent. In fact, you wrote your first-year essay on the poetry of John Milton."

He did not acknowledge this revealing insight either.

I needed to get a rise out of this guy and said, "I read it. Let me be frank. I found it immature, pompous, and presumptuous. You don't know the difference between iambic pentameter and a pizza pie. And you totally misunderstood Milton's intent. About what I expected from an ignorant, backward camel jockey."

I was sure this crude cultural aspersion was irritating for him-it was meant to be-but his expression was immutable.

Bian's turn. She said, "The colonel has lost friends here. He… well, he's not a big fan of Arab cultures."

Women have a sixth sense for what gets on a man's nerves, and Bian was cueing me to stay on this path. I said to her, "People who wipe their asses with their hands don't have culture. They can make chemical weapons and bombs, but can't figure out how to produce toilet paper?" I looked down at Ali bin Pacha and asked, "Hey, how do Arabs practice safe sex?" He wasn't going to touch this, and I said, "They put marks on the camels that kick."

A choking sound came from bin Pacha's throat. It sounded like he was trying to clear it, or was pushing words through a dry windpipe. Bian bent forward and said, "Oh… you must be parched." She found a glass and a water pitcher by the bed, filled the glass, and held it to his lips. "Here. Drink."

He took a few shallow sips and coughed. Bian placed the glass back to his lips and he drank more heartily. She removed it, bin Pacha turned his eyes to me, and he found his voice. "You will rot in hell."

Now we were getting somewhere.

"Only by the grace of Allah do you still breathe."

"Allah-my-ass. You were too slow on the trigger, pal. Any American kid could've gotten off that shot."

"If there is a second chance, I will kill you. I promise you this."

I laughed. He did not like this, and his eyes sort of narrowed.

Bian said to bin Pacha, "Don't let him goad you. You've just been through a traumatic operation. Don't let him get you worked up."

He ignored her and informed me, "I do not speak with American whores. Do not let her touch me again. Order this infidel bitch to leave my presence."

Bian leaned toward him and said, "Fuck you." Her arm drew back but I grabbed it before she laid one on him.

Well, so much for good cop, bad cop. Now it was bad cop, bad cop, bad prisoner. Obviously, he had a problem with American ladies. This could be a religious or cultural thing, or maybe Ali bin Pacha had some of those icky Freudian issues with his mother, or he liked boys, or girls had never reciprocated his affections because he was a murdering terrorist asshole.

I informed bin Pacha, "American prisons are filled with female guards. They're going to order you around, watch you do potty, and occasionally will strip-search you and do those nasty cavity searches up your butt. Get used to it."

He looked at me. "You are in Arab lands. I will tell you how to behave, and you will conform to my customs. Send her away."

This guy needed to come down a peg and I knew how to do it. I bent toward him and said, "You know what, Ali? You and I, we were in Mogadishu together." This brought a spark of interest to his eyes. "Hey, maybe you and I can join the same veterans' organization. Wear those goofy hats and sit around all day trading bullshit war stories. What do you think?"