Man in the Middle (45 page)

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?”

He stared at me. I don’t think he got the funny hat part.

I continued, “I bring this up . . . only because . . . well, I have this amazing story. Small world and all that. See, a close pal of mine was a helicopter pilot over there. You remember the Apache helicopters? Big ugly things bristling with all those missiles and machine guns that just mess up your day.”

Ali bin Pacha was now staring at me with interest bordering on intensity. I continued, “Anyway, one day Mike—that’s my buddy’s name, Mike—well, one day he came back from this mission and we were sitting around, knocking back brewskis, joking about how many assholes we just killed. And he swore he saw an Arab . . . and he claimed—hey, look, you know how pilots are, okay? Well, maybe you don’t. Just trust me, bin Pacha, those guys, they’re such bullshitters, they even make up even bigger sins to tell their own priests . . . So, where was I? Oh, yeah, Mike—anyway, he swore he fired a missile and blew off this Arab guy’s leg.”

I smiled at Bian. “Boy, for a week that’s all everybody talked about. Ahab the Arab . . . Ali Baba and the forty one-legged thieves . . . the sheik of where’s-a-my-fuckin’-leg.”

Bian laughed.

Bin Pacha looked a little upset.

I asked him, “Hey . . . you don’t think that was you down there? . . . I mean, Mike amputated this Arab jerkoff, and you’re missing a leg, and . . . What are the odds, huh?” I smiled at him.

With typical Arab nonchalance, he replied, “Allah arranges our fates as he wishes.”

“Allah-schmalla. He didn’t cripple you, pal. It was the United States Army. Come on, how about a little credit?”

He examined my face a moment. “When my leg was injured, I knew it had to be cut off. I ordered my men, saw it off, no anesthetics.

Listen, American—I wanted to feel this pain, to savor this feeling, to remember it always.”

“Believe me, I understand. We were drinking
warm
beer over there. That sucked, too.”

He smiled. “And am I incorrect in recalling that we drove the American crusaders out of Somalia, that you ran home after we killed your soldiers? I think maybe you should not be boasting about Mogadishu.” His smiled widened. “I personally killed one American soldier, and . . . I enjoyed it so much I decided to kill more.”

Asshole.

He turned and looked at Bian. He asked, “You are Vietnamese, yes?”

“I’m an American soldier.”

“No, you are Vietnamese. From the south, I am sure. So I think that makes you twice the whore. You give yourself to American men, and you serve the American Army that betrayed your people.”

“I serve the American Constitution. And who I sleep with is none of your fucking business.”

“You spread your filthy legs for these white men who murdered your people. Our Arab women would never do this.”

I could feel Bian heating up beside me. I squeezed her hand.

“I have studied this Vietnam War,” he continued, sounding just like an arrogant college professor. “Millions of your people died. Your country was bombed, your forests poisoned, your rice fields mined, your cities obliterated. And once the Americans lost too many soldiers, they ran like cowards and left your people to suffer and despair. So it will happen here.
Inshallah.
You will see.”

After a moment, Bian replied, “Have you been to Vietnam lately?”

“I have no interest in visiting infidel lands.”

“That explains your ignorance. Today, the streets of Vietnam are lined with McDonald’s, American luxury hotels, American movies, and American businesses. Guns, dollars . . . whatever it takes, we always win in the end.” She smirked at him. “Always.”

Whatever he thought about this, he kept it to himself. He turned to me and observed, “You wear the collar insignia of a lawyer.”

“Hey, very good. I understand that you study our military manuals.” I pointed at the crossed dueling pistols on Bian’s collar. “Crossed spoons. She’s a cook.”

Somebody kicked my leg.

He replied, “I find it curious that your army sends women and lawyers into battle.”

“Really? Is it more curious than your movement using one-eyed cripples?”

“I have read your newspapers on the Internet. I think your army can no longer attract young men to become soldiers. Here we have no trouble finding mujahideen willing to martyr for the jihad. Your young are spoiled, decadent, cowardly. They play their video war games and have no interest in real battles where they might die.” He added, “Your President lied, and now he cannot find enough new soldiers to come to Iraq to die.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in our newspapers,” I replied, or maybe anything you read. “We can send cooks and lawyers against you with a hand tied behind their backs. Look who’s the prisoner.”

“I think not. I think your hired mercenaries caused this.”

“Who? Oh . . . them . . . the Bowery Boys’ Choir. They were here on a USO tour, got a little bored, so we gave them a night off for a little fun.” I winked.

“You are a filthy liar.”

“No, I’m a lawyer.”

He missed the inside humor. He said, “We study everything about you. The longer you remain in our lands, the more we learn about you, and the more dead you will count. We are willing to die for our cause, you are not.”

We locked eyes, and I said, “That’s why we’re here. To help
you
die.”

“Yes, but you
are
dying. Your President loses popularity with each coffin. I think you have a lovely American expression for this—you have bitten off more than you can swallow . . . in the corpses of your soldiers.”

This was going nowhere. We had all taken our best shots, and now we were merely stoking our mutual resentments. So I changed the tone, and the subject, and told him, “We’re here to ask for your cooperation. We want Zarqawi. You’re going to help us find him.”

He laughed.

As we had discussed beforehand, Bian chipped in to remind him, “There’s a twenty-five-million-dollar reward on Zarqawi’s head. You’ve given an eye and a leg to the cause. There’s no shame in cashing out now. Surely he considers you expendable and will not mourn your loss. You should return the sentiment.”

“I told you to shut up, whore.”

I warned him, “There’s the nice way, or the hard way.”

“Yes?” He looked amused. “Explain for me this hard way. Maybe Abu Ghraib, where your whores will ply their sex perversions and your soldiers will march me around in a hood? Or maybe you will send me to your Guantanamo prison and flush my Koran down the toilet?”

“Do you have a preference?”

“I think not. I think the world knows about the disgusting things your soldiers have done to mujahideen in these places. I think you no longer have a hard way left.”

“You can’t imagine how much a morality lecture means from somebody who blows up innocent people and slits the throats of helpless prisoners.”

“You know of what I am referring, I think.”

In fact, I did. I quietly reached down and turned a knob; instantly, a small vial of colorless fluid began squirting into his IV tube.

Ali bin Pacha was every bit the overbaked fanatic Abdul had warned us he would be. Like many extremists, he was emotionally limited, those emotions ranging between fury, hate, and chronic self-righteousness. But he wasn’t stupid, and surely he was cognizant that under enough torture, everybody breaks. I recalled a former client who had been beaten to a pulp by a dumb, sadistic southern deputy sheriff until he confessed to being a bank robber, a child molester, and a serial killer, ending with the astonishing revelation that he was the second man on the knoll at JFK’s assassination.

Even the sheriff, who was a few quarts low of IQ juice, had trouble with that after learning the confessor wasn’t born until 1973. In fact, my client was guilty of nothing except diddling the deputy sheriff’s wife. It was criminally stupid, but it was not criminal behavior. The point: Coerced statements introduce reliability issues. That is, unless you begin the process with a man you
know
is guilty; usually then you’ll get something more credible and useful.

As an attorney, I am of course philosophically opposed to torture under any circumstances, though men like Abdul Almiri and Ali bin Pacha are tempting. On more practical grounds, however, an interrogation ultimately is a form of negotiation—to succeed, there has to be a carrot, and there has to be a stick. Ali bin Pacha was telling me where I could put the stick.

He informed me, “My comrades will know I am a prisoner of your army. You cannot hide or disguise this. They will post my capture on a Web site, and they will notify Aljazeera, and so the world will hear of this. I think your press will be very interested about me.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“I think you know my point. Mistreat me, and your press will create for you another big public problem—another embarrassment your idiot President cannot explain.”

The Army advises that one should never underestimate the enemy, and here, I thought, was a case in point. Bin Pacha’s people had planned for this eventuality, the capture of their moneyman, they were sensitive to the need to shield him from coercive tactics, and they were sure they knew how to do it.

In truth, on any other day it might even have been a workable plan. I turned to Bian. “These people are smart, aren’t they?”

“I guess so.”

“I mean . . . this is . . . you know . . . ?”

“I know. This guy so much as gets an infected pimple, and the whole world will scream that we’re Nazis.”

“That seems to be the general idea.”

“Very clever.”

“Would you ever have—?”

“Nope. Not in a million years.”

Bin Pacha’s smile now looked a little less certain; it looked wobbly, actually.

Bian grabbed my arm. “Well, he has been unconscious for three days.”

Bin Pacha had not a clue what we were talking about, but he was reading our body language and picking up the sarcasm in our voices. I looked at him and said, “Which do you want first, pal? The merely bad news or the crap-in-your-drawers news?”

The smile disappeared. But maybe he didn’t understand the question.

“Well . . . why don’t we ease into it?” I continued, “Bad news first. The morning you were captured, the Army and Marines kicked off a big-time assault on Falluja. Last report I heard—this was two hours ago—about three hundred of your fellow terrorists are dead, many dozens more are buried in the rubble, and who knows how many have been turned into mist or paste by tank and artillery shells.”

In case he didn’t get the message, Bian added, “Your compatriots will never know whether you’ve been captured, blown to pieces, or just buried in the rubble.”

He had asked for it and it was time for the kicker. I said, “Last chance—will you cooperate or not?”

“Rot in hell.”

I turned to Bian. “Can’t say we didn’t try.”

“Sure did.” She glanced at bin Pacha. “Poor soul.”

Bin Pacha now looked very interested in this exchange, dealing as it did with his fate. He insisted, “I am more than willing to live the rest of my life in your prisons. You are fools to think I am fearful of this.”

“I’m sure you are not.” And I was sure it was true.

Bian had endured this guy’s abuse with commendable stoicism—well, but for that one minor incident—and it seemed only fair for her to be the bearer of the worst tidings. I glanced at her, and she nodded.

She faced Ali bin Pacha. “You’re being turned over to Saudi intelligence. I’ve never seen them so anxious to get their hands on a prisoner.”

I added, “Your countrymen play by different rules. You’re aware of this.” I added, “If you’re interested, they already have your family in custody.”

His eyes went a little wide, but he didn’t look as upset as I expected. In fact, I thought I saw a faint smile. This guy had more bullshit bravado than an Army Ranger, which is saying something.

Bian advised him, “Some parting advice.” She may have been an infidel slut, but she now had his undivided attention. “Don’t hold on to it too long. I’ve seen prisoners who tried. They were missing body parts, and in some cases, missing family members. And you know what? They all talked.”

I assured him, “You’ll talk as well.”

Bian added, “How much agony and how many parents and brothers are a few hours or days of silence worth?”

Ali bin Pacha’s eyelids were fluttering. You could see he was fighting to maintain consciousness, and you could also see that Doc Enzenauer’s magical mickey had already coursed through the IV tube, through his veins, and straight to his evil brain.

He tried to say something and what came out was, “Oh . . . I . . . ugh . . .”

To send him off on the right note, I said, “Ali, you’re going home.”

His eyes closed.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I
n a convoy escorted by a platoon of detached military police, we drove for more than an hour from the Army field hospital and ended up at the entrance of a small military base. A metal sign by the entrance read, “Forward Operating Base Alpha”—in military jargon, FOB Alpha.

The base was entirely encased within ten-foot-high concrete blast walls and concertina wire, and if, say, you had forgotten you were in a war zone, this forbidding exterior reminded you that there were two worlds here—the violent, hazardous one outside the gates, and these highly fortified bases, like Old West cavalry forts.

Directly outside the gate on the roadway were five oversize speed bumps and a series of oil barrels filled with sand or concrete, arrayed in a winding maze so you had to slow to a crawl and make about ten short-angled turns. Also there were two twenty-foot concrete towers, from each of which the worrying snouts of big .50 caliber barrels followed our progress.