Brian Haig - Man in the middle

After a moment, I mentioned to him, "I don't drink myself. But the lady's a lush."

His smile widened. "Well, it's off-limits to military personnel. Tough luck, huh?"

The nice young man in the white shirt wasn't so nice after all. I asked, "Does your mom know you're here?"

He stared at me a moment. "I can let you go downstairs, but I don't have to let you back up." He laughed.

Sometimes it pays to be polite, and I joined him.

Bian asked him, "What's downstairs?"

"A state-of-the-art interrogation and detention center. Constructed right after the war. The prisoners call it the dungeon. We call it the toilet." He laughed. "Get it? This is where we flush the biggest shits."

Got it. And I'll bet this wasn't the line he used with visiting Red Cross delegations. His phone rang and he answered it. "What?… Yeah… okay, they're here." Pause. "Sure, I'll tell them." He then pressed his left forefinger on a pad on his desk and, after a long moment, a plate in the wall slid open and revealed a cargo elevator. Unbelievable.

He looked at me and said, "Pretty cool, huh? Ms. Carney says to come down. I'll tell your people to bring in the detainee."

Bian and I walked to and then entered the elevator. He pressed another button, the door closed, and we were flushed downstairs. After about ten seconds it reopened and we stepped out into a small operations center, a warren of interlocked cubes where thirty or so people were performing activities that ranged from sitting on their asses, to resting their derrieres, to loafing on their butts, all functions they could as easily do back in the good ol' USA.

A middle-aged gent in civilian khakis was waiting for us, and he introduced himself as Jim Tirey. He had clean-cut, all-American good looks, serious eyes, and he offered me a firm, businesslike handshake and said, "That will be your last obscene gesture into our cameras.

Understand?"

"You must be FBI," I concluded.

"I must be," he replied coolly. "The Special Agent in Charge in country. Follow me."

So we did, down a short hallway, where we hooked a left, and then down a far longer hallway, at the end of which was a conference room that we entered. The air down here was damp and cool, with yellow fluorescent lighting that was intermittently spaced, as though the contractor had overlooked certain sections-but probably generators powered everything and energy conservation was at a premium. The prevailing ambiance, however, was a little spooky, as were our hosts, if you'll pardon the pun.

The conference room itself was small and stuffy, about ten by twelve, with a scarred, worn mahogany dining room table, unupholstered metal chairs, and hanging on the wall, a huge plasma-screen television with wires running octopus-like to a wall-mounted surround sound system. The room smelled of cigarettes and stale sweat, frustration and desperation. Actually I'm making that up; it smelled like lemon Pledge. But on the screen was a top-down view of a cramped prison cell containing only a metal bunk, no blanket, no sheets, and the proverbial pot to piss in.

My CIA friends call this a surveillance room, and my naval friends an observation deck. Same thing, though there's a world of difference in the mind-set.

Phyllis and the sheik stood in front of the plasma screen, slurping coffee from foam cups. Waterbury leaned against a wall on the far side of the room, and at the moment we entered he was regaling them with a tale about his time as an MP, something about how he singlehandedly cleaned up the nastiest post in the Army.

Retired soldiers manufacture more bullshit than cows, but considering the source, it sounded about right.

Phyllis had endured this guy on the drive down and her face now had the fixed look she gets in the presence of insufferable assholes, so I cut in by pointing at the screen. "Nice room. Is it mine?"

She smiled at me. "Don't give me ideas."

Tirey took that as a cue and said, "What you're seeing is a one-way cable feed from bin Pacha's cell. Agents from Turki's service are already there and set up." He went on for our benefit, "The only people in this facility with knowledge of the detainee's identity are inside this room or inside that cellblock. That's it. Hermetic containment. We employed identical arrangements when Saddam was our guest."

He paused to see if we had any questions. We did not, and he pointed a finger at the screen and continued, "That entire cellblock is isolated, and the interrogation room we'll use is on the same wing. The two cells next to bin Pacha's contain Saudi intelligence agents who will impersonate prisoners, attempt to befriend him, and coax him into sharing confidences. Old trick, but a reliable one. It works more than you would believe. The guards in the wing are all Saudi intelligence."

He looked at Sheik al-Fayef and added, "Due to the sensitivity of this investigation, the video feed from this cell-in fact from the entire cellblock to the main control room down the hall-has been rerouted to this room. Only from here can you observe or overhear the interrogations."

He went on awhile with this nickel tour, about how the prisoner would be fed, given medical care, showers, and so forth.

It sounded like these people really had their stuff together-a foolproof charade, supertight security, all the electronic bells and whistles, and the object of this drill was about to be put into play. What was there not to like?

I interrupted his spiel and asked, "Are there any Americans in the cellblock?"

"No. Why?"

"Why not?"

Tirey chuckled like that was a dumb question, which annoyed me a little. He said, "A number of our staff speak Arabic-none, however, are from Saudi Arabia. I'm told the dialect is distinct to the ears of native speakers and… Look, don't worry about it. Everything that occurs in that wing can be seen and can be heard from this room. If a fly bats its wings, we'll hear it. Everything."

The sheik looked happy but not surprised to hear this, and nodded approvingly. One of his French cigarettes was already dangling between his lips and the ashes fell off and left a big mark on his white robe. He asked me, "You spoke with bin Pacha in the hospital?"

"I did. Major Tran and I prepped him."

Bian chipped in, "He'll believe he's awakening in a Saudi prison."

"Yes, yes, this is important." He studied my eyes a moment. Despite, or perhaps because of, our earlier unpleasantness, he seemed to regard me as interesting. He asked me, "And now that you have spoken together, what are your thoughts about him?"

"A tough guy. He enjoys his work, he hates America, and has no fear of spending his life in jail." After a moment, I noted, "I wouldn't want my career hanging on whether he'll talk."

"So you do not believe he will confess his sources?"

"I do not." We locked eyes and I couldn't tell what he thought about this.

Bian helpfully informed him, "I spent six months interrogating suspects and captured mujahideen. Typically, the higher-level ones are superbly trained and conditioned for counter interrogation. Many proved very difficult to break. Some, impossible."

"Is this so?"

"Well, there are the lucky few who immediately blurt everything. But there are others, prisoners at Guantanamo, for instance, who required over a year of exhaustive effort. Some of those we have broken, we suspect their testimony was planted disinformation."

He offered her a faint smile. "We have never experienced this problem."

Waterbury announced, "There he is," and we all turned and observed the video screen. Doc Enzenauer led a pair of gentlemen in civilian khakis who carried bin Pacha on a stretcher into the cell. They gently hoisted him by his feet and shoulders off the stretcher and onto the metal cot. Enzenauer then bent down and efficiently withdrew the IV from the prisoner's arm, a necessary precaution against suicide.