500 Days (30 page)

Hamdan saw only the shooting; he knew nothing of the grenade. He believed that the Pashtun could be frighteningly brutal—he had heard stories about some of their fighters playing soccer with the head of a Russian soldier during the war against the Soviets. They had just searched his car, and now they would be coming for him. He couldn’t stay. He didn’t want to die.

Hamdan ran up a ridge alongside the road and slid into a gully, illogically hoping that the Pashtun soldiers would be unable to find him. Within seconds, the fighters yanked him out and dragged him back to the road. They hit him, knocked him to his knees. They were going to kill him, one soldier snarled as he pointed a gun at Hamdan’s head.

•  •  •  

Major Henry Smith of the army heard the commotion.

He and his soldiers were fighting alongside the Northern Alliance in the battle for Kandahar and had just survived a Taliban ambush the previous night at Takteh Pol. Now, as his team was preparing for the next leg of the attack, the shouting and gunfire erupted. Some Afghanis ran to Smith, stuttering that something important had happened. He walked to the checkpoint, where angry Pashtun were milling around. He glanced to the right and saw fighters pulling a man who was struggling to get away.

A Pashtun soldier approached, motioning to the back of the Toyota. “Take a look at this,” he said.

The hatchback was open. Inside, Smith saw two SA-7 antiaircraft rockets. He realized that this was the car of the man he had just seen being dragged off. He walked over and heard the Afghans saying they were about to kill him. Smith stepped in.

“No, no, no,” he said, his hands raised.

He called out to some of his guys. “Take positive control of this man,” he said, pointing at Hamdan.

The American soldiers took Hamdan away and secured him under guard to ensure that the Afghanis had no opportunity to murder him. He was taken to an empty building where he was restrained with a hood over his head. A medic examined him, and the soldiers gave him food and water.

Hamdan understood that Smith had saved his life. And soon, the major would learn that his quick actions had led to the capture of a critical source of intelligence—Salim Hamdan was Osama bin Laden’s personal driver.

•  •  •  

That same day, hundreds of Taliban fighters gathered on a dusty desert road near Mazar-e Sharif. It was a hazy, cold Saturday, and the soldiers had just fled Kunduz, the latest target of the American air assault. They had come to meet the Northern Alliance. And surrender.

General Dostum, who had led the Northern Alliance in capturing Mazar-e Sharif weeks before, handled the negotiations. He offered the Taliban representatives a deal: If the native Afghanis laid down their weapons, they could go home. But the foreigners fighting alongside them would have to be turned over to Dostum. The Afghanis agreed and returned to their men.

“Surrender your gun in the name of the Koran,” a Taliban leader called out, explaining nothing about the terms of the agreement with Dostum.

The weapons were taken from the fighters by Dostum’s men and laid on the ground. As promised, the Afghanis were released; the foreigners were told to climb into the back of flatbed trucks. Uncertain if they were to be killed or imprisoned, the men hid guns and grenades in their clothing. The Northern Alliance failed to search them.

“Take them to Qala-i-Jangi,” Dostum called out.

His forces knew the location well—it was a sprawling, nineteenth-century fortress that served as their commander’s headquarters. Hundred-foot pale
yellow walls surrounded the two compounds inside, sealing them off from entry or escape.

As the sun set, the convoy reached the main gate on the east side of the stronghold. The trucks pulled to a stop, and Northern Alliance soldiers unloaded the enemy fighters.

A prisoner hid a grenade in his hand as Nadir Ali, one of Dostum’s senior commanders, approached. When Ali was a few feet away, the Taliban fighter pulled the pin and waited. Seconds later, the abrupt explosion pierced the sounds in the courtyard, tearing both men apart. Later that night, another grenade, another Northern Alliance leader killed. Soldiers herded the surviving prisoners to cells in the basement of a pink building. But even with the two attacks, there was no reinforcement of the guards.

•  •  •  

The plot was hatched that night in the basement cells at Qala-i-Jangi. If the foreign Taliban members were released the next morning, they would leave without incident. If not, they would revolt—the Northern Alliance still hadn’t searched their prisoners well, and a few had been able to sneak their weapons into the cells. When the time came, the armed detainees would lead the fight.

The planning continued for hours among a small group of the Taliban fighters. Others listened but stayed quiet. They might not join the uprising, but they certainly knew it was coming.

•  •  •  

The next morning, two members of the CIA’s paramilitary Special Activities Division walked through an open-air courtyard at Qala-i-Jangi, searching for al-Qaeda members among the detainees. About 150 prisoners were lined up in rows, on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs.

The grenade attacks from the night before had unnerved the Northern Alliance fighters. Rather than questioning the prisoners, one guard suggested that they should shoot them, one by one, until somebody identified the al-Qaeda members. The Americans said no. They would use interrogation.

One agent, Johnny Michael Spann, approached a thin, bearded man dressed in a sweater that was usually issued to British soldiers. This prisoner was of particular interest—someone had told Spann that he spoke English.

“Hey you,” Spann said. “Right here with your head down. Look at me. I know you speak English. Look at me. Where did you get the British military sweater?”

The prisoner did not look up and did not speak, so Spann walked away. Soon after, Northern Alliance soldiers moved the man to a blanket, pushing him down. Spann returned and squatted down.

“Where are you from?” Spann asked. “You believe in what you’re doing here that much, you’re willing to be killed here? How were you recruited to come here? Who brought you here?”

The man said nothing. Spann snapped his fingers in front of the prisoner’s face. “Hey! Who brought you here? Wake up! Who brought you here to Afghanistan? How did you get here?”

A pause. “What, are you puzzled?” Spann asked. He knelt down on the blanket, trying to photograph the man with a digital camera.

“Put your head up,” Spann said. “Push your hair back. Push your hair back so I can see your face.”

Silence again. A Northern Alliance soldier grabbed the man’s hair and pulled. Spann snapped the picture.

“You got to talk to me,” Spann said. “All I want to do is talk to you and find out what your story is. I know you speak English.”

The second agent, Dave Tyson, walked toward Spann and called out to him. Spann remarked that the prisoner wouldn’t talk.

“Okay, all right,” Tyson said. “We explained what the deal is to him.”

“I was explaining to the guy we just want to talk to him, find out what his story is.”

“The problem is,” Tyson said, “he’s got to decide if he wants to live or die and die here. We’re just going to leave him, and he’s going to fucking sit in prison the rest of his fucking short life.”

It was the prisoner’s decision, Tyson said. “We can only help the guys who want to talk to us.”

Spann faced the detainee. “Do you know the people here you’re working with are terrorists and killed other Muslims?” he asked. “There were several hundred Muslims killed in the bombing in New York City. Is that what the Koran teaches? I don’t think so. Are you going to talk to us?”

The man said nothing.

The agents gave up; they had offered the prisoner his chance. A Northern Alliance guard approached and took the man—John Walker Lindh, soon to be known as the “American Taliban”—back to the line.

•  •  •  

The uprising began about two hours later with explosions and gunfire. Taliban prisoners jumped Spann and tackled him, kicking and tearing at him.

Tyson scrambled toward his comrade and shot four of the men with a nine-millimeter pistol and then seized Spann’s AK-47. When a group of fighters charged him, Tyson opened fire, backpedaling as he shot.

The Taliban fighters dashed to the cells and freed their comrades. From there, they stormed an armory inside the fort, grabbing rifles, grenades, ammunition, and rockets. They rushed back out, prepared for battle.

Amid all the shooting and explosions, Spann lay on the ground, shot twice in the head. He was the first American to die in combat since the war in Afghanistan began.

•  •  •  

Ben Bonk was at home when his phone rang early that morning. “One of our people is missing,” the caller said. “Something’s happened.”

Bonk knew that nothing more could be said over the unsecure line. He hurried to his car and drove the short distance to CIA headquarters.

Information coming out of Qala-i-Jangi was sketchy. American Special Operations Forces had descended on the fortress and were fighting for control. Tyson was trapped but alive. No one knew what had happened to Spann.

A group of senior agency officials gathered together in the office of Hank Crumpton, who was heading the CIA effort in Afghanistan. Tenet came down; Cofer Black and Crumpton briefed him on the developments.

Black thought of Spann’s wife, Shannon, also a CIA employee. She was on maternity leave and away from her home in California, taking a mini vacation with her family.

“We’re going to have to tell Shannon before she finds out herself,” Black said.

“You can’t leave Washington,” Tenet replied. “Not in the middle of this.”

The task fell to Bonk. He gathered some of Shannon’s friends and a member of her husband’s unit to join him on the trip to the West Coast. They flew by government jet to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, where other colleagues had already rented cars for them. By the time they reached Spann’s house, Shannon was there. She and her family had returned home after she received a call letting her know that a group from headquarters was on the way.

Bonk rang the bell. Shannon opened the door, a newborn baby in her hands.

“Shannon, can we come in? We need to talk.”

“Sure.”

She handed the baby to a member of her family and led everyone to the living room. Bonk relayed the information that the agency had learned about the shoot-out at Qala-i-Jangi.

“We don’t know where Michael is at this moment,” he said. “But given what’s happened, I think the chances are remote that this is going to work out well.”

Shannon asked some questions but held together. “This is what he wanted to do, and he knew it was important,” she said softly. “We’ll get through this.”

They spoke until there was nothing left to say. All of them would be staying at a nearby hotel, Bonk said, and would keep Shannon updated.

Days passed until word came that Michael Spann had been killed. Bonk returned to the Spann home to break the news.

•  •  •  

The dusty journey of al-Qaeda’s caravan to the mountains of Tora Bora had been, as usual, rough going. As the flat expanse of Jalalabad gave way to the first glint of rocky mountains, the cars clattered over large stones, generating teeth-rattling jolts.

After three hours of tortuous travel, the peaks of Tora Bora loomed above. Cars veered up a steep narrow path, one with no pretensions of being a road. They skirted the cliffs, coming perilously close to tumbling down the mountain. Another hour, and driving became impossible—the fighters had to hike the rest of the way through a barren vista. Thousands of feet up, there were huts that bin Laden had once used as a home; this time, he and his followers would hide out in the mountain’s honeycomb of caves. At the end of the climb, groups of al-Qaeda members were assigned to stay in particular caves. But they soon noticed that their leader was nowhere to be found. Bin Laden had simply vanished.

On the eleventh day of Ramadan, November 26, bin Laden reappeared and joined some of his fighters in their cave at Tora Bora. He sat with them while holding a warm glass of green tea, then launched into his standard refrain about the call to jihad.

“Hold your positions and be ready for martyrdom,” bin Laden told them.

He stood. “I’ll be visiting you again, very soon.”

Followed by his guards, he walked out of the cave and disappeared into the pine forests, leaving his fighters behind to fend for themselves.

•  •  •  

On the morning of November 27, Tommy Franks was speaking with Victor Renuart Jr., director of operations with Central Command. With Afghani fighters in hot pursuit of al-Qaeda and bin Laden, the two generals were working on plans to provide air support in the battle that was moving into Tora Bora.

Rumsfeld telephoned for Franks.

“General Franks, the president wants us to look at options for Iraq,” he said. “What is the status of your planning?”

Out-of-date, Franks said. The Afghan conflict itself presented some issues for the Iraq strategy, called OPLAN1003. Force levels in the region were different, and much of what had been learned in the past few weeks about the use of Special Forces units needed to be incorporated.

“Okay,” Rumsfeld said. “Please dust it off and get back to me next week.”

•  •  •  

The following day, the anxiety was palpable in the hearing room of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The anthrax letter mailed to Senator Leahy, the committee chairman, had been discovered twelve days earlier. Traces of the bacteria were found in three more locations at the Hart Senate Office building. And new cases of anthrax infections—including some that were fatal—had been reported. But the business of Congress continued on this day with the first Senate hearings about the military commissions order.

Among those sitting at the witness table was Neal Katyal, the law professor who expounded to his students what he considered the constitutional horrors of the order. His wife, Joanna Rosen, had begged him not to go to the hearing, out of fear that he might contract anthrax. When he told her that this was something he had to do, she made one request of him: Don’t breathe too deeply.