Eric Maddox: Mission: Black List #1

I had no idea where all this was heading. But it was starting to get fun.

The fact that I had been involved in interrogations that were about to lead to significant raids was good news. I had moved a few steps closer to proving my worth to the task force. At least I hoped so. But I still worried about being sent back to Baghdad.

I was sitting at the dining room table as usual, going over my notes, when Jeff and the team’s two senior men, Matt and Jack, sat down on either side of me. “So, Eric,” Jack asked casually, “what did they tell you back in Baghdad about how long you’d be staying up here?”

After five days of trying to prove my usefulness by keeping as busy as possible, this was the chance I’d been waiting for. Whatever the right answer was, I needed to be ready to provide it. But at the same time, I didn’t want to appear overeager. The last thing these guys wanted was eager. The one quality everyone on the task force shared was a cool, calm approach to the job at hand. On a raid, for example, too much enthusiasm could get someone killed. As an interrogator my job was to provide intelligence. The rest of the time I needed to stay out of the way.

“They didn’t say anything,” I responded. “But I think I can be of more use here than I was back at BIAP.”

“Why’s that?” Matt asked.

“I need to get my arms around something,” I told him. “That’s how I work most effectively. In Baghdad it’s hard to know what’s going on. It’s too big to really get a handle on. Every new prisoner has another story. Here in Tikrit, the pieces should be starting to connect. The city is only so big.”

They looked at each other, silently sizing up their options. “Look,” Jack said at last. “We’re going to do the Haddoushi raid in a few days. I can keep you around until then.”

In the wake of the initial series of interrogations, the size and scope of the Haddoushi raid had expanded considerably. The list of eight houses we had identified had grown to almost twenty, including the locations of various “persons of interest.”

That list had grown, too. The night after our interrogation of Haddoushi’s driver, the task force had picked up Salam Shaban, who had been identified as one of Haddoushi’s closest friends. The raid itself couldn’t have been simpler: we drove up to his house and Adam the terp got on a bullhorn and ordered him to come out with his hands up. An elderly and well-dressed gentleman emerged a moment later and immediately volunteered to return to the compound with us. Over the next few hours Shaban told me a lot about Haddoushi. He gave us the names of a whole group of Little Saddam’s buddies who would be invited to feasts hosted by Haddoushi when Saddam was in Tikrit before the war. Haddoushi was described as friendly, outgoing, and a real party animal, providing hookers along with his famous mazgoof.

With the new names and locations, the scope of the roundup grew. The task force requested extra assistance from conventional forces of the 4th ID. The additional manpower required more planning. The details would take time to finalize.

Eventually a routine was established. I’d get up around ten A.M. and spend a few hours going over my notes or hanging out with the operators. They were always busy, repairing vehicles, working out in the gym, or making various improvements on the house. At about noon I started with my first interrogation of the day and work until about 4:30. After dinner, at around 7:30, I’d go back to the guesthouse and continue interrogating until 12:30 that night. Then I’d spend another hour analyzing what we had learned with Jeff before I went to sleep and started all over again the next morning.

One afternoon, shortly before the scheduled roundup, I was sitting in the dining room after a long day of interrogating some low-level detainees. By this time I felt comfortable enough to sample some of the food from the refrigerator. The fact that nobody called me on it seemed like an encouraging sign that, slowly but surely, I was finding my place in the house.

Then, suddenly, my position didn’t seem so secure. I looked up to see the grinning face of another interrogator, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His name was Allen and I had worked with him briefly at BIAP. What was he doing here?

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Just got in,” he replied, dropping his bag and coming over to pick the leftovers off my plate. He was still grinning, an expression I remembered from our time together in Baghdad. I hadn’t gotten a good impression of Allen the arrogant. He had an attitude and wasn’t a team player.

“What brings you out here?”

“They need support for some big raid,” he replied, still chewing.

“I thought you guys were real busy down at BIAP.” I didn’t like where this was going.

He shrugged. “I speak the language,” he said. “I guess I’m in demand,” he added condescendingly.

I’d forgotten about that. Allen was fluent in Arabic. Suddenly I had competition. And he had a definite advantage. I tried to tell myself that there was nothing to worry about. He was just here for the roundup. But I still felt uneasy. The realization of just how much I wanted to stay in Tikrit, to continue the work I started, took on new significance. After only two weeks, I felt like Tikrit was the right place to be. More important, the team needed me as much as I needed them. I liked my job. And I was getting better at it every day. Allen’s arrival might put an end to that before it really even began. Where before I was paranoid my time was limited, now I could see my stay in Tikrit had an expiration date.

It was mid-August and well over a hundred degrees in the shade. The blistering heat had figured into the planning for the Haddoushi roundup. The raids had been set for the eleventh of the month at 1400, the hottest part of the day. The reason was simple: everyone would be in their homes, taking naps to escape the scorching midday sun. The streets would be empty, making it easier for us to move through the city. The targets would more likely be at the locations we’d identified. Jeff had a name for it: the witch hunting hours.

That morning, the pace of preparations increased. Another element of the task force had arrived from Baghdad to assist in the operation. The house was crowded and I could tell by the muffled music in the shooters’ headphones that they were getting themselves ready. There was always more metal rock in the hours before a hit.

I was walking back from the guesthouse, where a small gym had been set up. Exercise was my way of preparing myself and, unlike the shooters, I was nervous and excited about going on the hit. I had at least something to do with bringing this engagement about. More than anything I hoped we would be rolling up Muhammad Haddoushi before the day was over.

I heard a honk and turned to see Matt and Jack pulling up behind me.

“We’ve been talking to that guy you worked with back at BIAP,” Jack told me from the open window of the SUV.

“Yeah. Allen,” I said, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

He nodded. “He said he’d be willing to relocate up here to Tikrit.”

That was the last thing I wanted to hear. But it got worse.

“We don’t need two interrogators, Eric,” Matt added, leaning over from the passenger seat. “They won’t allow it.”

“So you want me to leave?” I sounded pathetic even to myself.

“The guy speaks Arabic,” Jack said. “We wouldn’t need a terp with him. He could do the interrogations here and we could use Adam for the raids.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. There was no reason for them to keep me, except for my vague intuition about bodyguards. And that wasn’t good enough. It was easy to see that they didn’t care one way or the other. I was interchangeable with Allen as far as they were concerned. They just wanted the job done, as simply and straightforwardly as possible. Suddenly everything slowed to a crawl. My thoughts arrived in slow motion. I envisioned the last grain of sand in the hourglass freefalling with a thud, marking the end of my time in Tikrit.