Man in the Middle (48 page)

Sounded good to me.

But Tirey replied, “What are the odds of
that
, huh?”

My eyes were intermittently weaving between Tirey, Bian, and the video screen. I saw bin Pacha push off the cot and get to his feet. For a moment he swayed back and forth like an unsteady, one-legged drunk, but eventually he achieved his sea legs and steadied himself. His head turned sharply toward the door, then he stumbled, sort of dragging his fake leg, across the small cell.

Bian was telling Tirey, “When I took prob and stats at West Point, we had case studies like this. You know . . . assume a country of twenty-three million people, with ten thousand terrorists, who have fifty thousand direct family members, and who detonate two thousand bombs indiscriminately . . . what’s the probability they’ll blow up their own families?”

Bian was elaborating too much, which, with a cop or a lawyer, is like slicing your wrist in a shark-filled tank.

“Interesting way to look at it,” remarked Tirey, but not all that sincerely. He pulled a drag on his cigarette and said, “Well, here’s another curious thing. I was told you two flew into the country for this operation. Why? What’s wrong with the local talent?”

Not only was this guy smooth, he was sharp.

On the screen, I observed bin Pacha now gesticulating with his hands. Because our viewing angle was a top-down, you couldn’t see his lips moving, though it sure
looked
like he was conversing with somebody. I really wished I’d paid more attention when Enzenauer explained the aftereffects from the drugs and anesthetics. Maybe he mentioned hallucinations during the period when I tuned him out, meaning most of the conversation. I’m not paid enough for medical lectures.

“Don’t read anything into it,” Bian was instructing Tirey. “Our source is still embedded in the insurgency. You know the mantra—extraordinary sources, extraordinary precautions.”

Bin Pacha had crossed the cell and was leaning against the cell door. Now I was sure he was conversing with somebody.

I interrupted their conversation to mention, “Ali bin Pacha’s awake. He seems to be talking. Maybe we should turn up the sound.”

But Tirey was preoccupied with his interrogation and I think he suspected I was trying to divert him, which I was. Clearly, Bian had underestimated this guy, and was digging herself deeper into what law schools call “the liar’s grave.”

Also, I
did
want to know who bin Pacha was addressing, and about what. I mentioned it again, and Tirey answered, “In a minute.” To Bian, he said, “I don’t mean to get into your business.” But of course he did, and he leaned closer to her face. “I’m used to being treated like a mushroom around here—fed shit and kept in the dark. But it helps to know the background before we begin an interrogation. Exactly
how
did you learn about his location?”

She asked, “Why would I lie about this?”

Now bin Pacha was waving his arms and gesturing emphatically with his hands. Whatever he was saying looked insistent and emotional, and he placed his head against the door, moving his ear against what must’ve been an opening.

Tirey was saying, “That’s what I’m asking myself. Why would—” when on the screen I saw a cloud of red mist suddenly materialize from the side of bin Pacha’s skull. In the same instant, his head flew sharply sideways, followed by his body, which landed in a heap on the floor. I yelled, “Oh shit!”

Tirey looked at me, then he turned to the screen, as did Bian, and their eyes shot wide open as they observed bin Pacha lying prostrate, and the arc of blood and gray stuff splattered across the floor. The TV had amazing picture quality, incidentally; you could even see where the tiniest dots of blood had stuck on the far wall.

“Jesus!” Tirey yelled. “What the fuck . . . ?”

There wasn’t time for an explanation. I stood and ran for the door, yelling at Tirey, “Where’s his cell?”

He followed behind me, his gun drawn, with Bian sprinting behind him. We made it down the long hallway in about ten seconds, and fortunately the elevator default setting was on the operations floor. We stepped inside, he pushed the proper button, the doors slid closed, and we began our descent.

Tirey drew a few deep breaths then asked, “Now tell me—what the hell happened down there?”

“He was speaking with somebody. Through the cell door, I think. He moved his ear closer—there must be an opening, right?—and his brains blew out.”

“Shit.”

There was no way to improve on that sentiment and nobody tried. Clearly Special Agent Tirey now knew it had been a big mistake to leave the Saudis in control of the wing. I wasn’t sure if he was in charge of this show or Phyllis. But if his name was on the blameline, the brief picture he had just observed on the video screen was his career flushing down the toilet.

The door slid open and we rushed out, then hooked a left and sprinted down a long hallway. We took another left and ended up moving down a short, poorly lit wing with cell doors on each side.

Five armed men in Saudi uniforms were gathered at the end of the hallway, standing casually, chatting, a few smoking cigarettes as if nothing had happened. Appropriately, Tirey raised his weapon and said, “Put down your weapons. Hands over your heads.”

About fifteen yards separated us; they had five guns, we had one. The space was narrow and enclosed, and if this was a shooting gallery, the Kewpie doll was theirs for the taking.

None of the Saudis replied; but nobody made a threatening gesture either, which was a relief. Bian said, “Let me try.” She unreeled something in rapid-fire Arabic and the five men stared back without responding. Bian repeated herself, louder, more slowly, and more emphatically. One of the Saudis replied, in Arabic, and what ensued was a conversation, brief and sharp, and nobody put down their weapons and nobody raised their hands.

Bian informed us, “The man is telling us to relax. He says they’re the good guys. He says we’re on the same side.”

“We’re
not
on the same side,” I told her.

“No shit.”

“Tell them they’re under arrest.”

“Don’t,” said Tirey, who pointed out, “They’re not American nationals. I don’t have the legal authority to arrest them.” He whispered, more ardently, “For Godsakes, don’t put them in a corner. We’re outnumbered.”

Good point. But I don’t like impasses, unless I’m the source and it’s to my advantage. The man who had spoken with Bian seemed to be in charge and I approached him with my palms extended. This was
my
prisoner they murdered. Bian and I had risked our lives to get this guy, now for nothing. I was pissed, but I wasn’t armed, and as Tirey pointed out, there were more of them than us. Clearly, here was a situation that called for adroit diplomacy.

He watched me approach and edged backward a few steps, away from me and toward his group. I stopped about two feet short of him, near enough that I could smell menthol cigarettes on his breath, and near enough that I could be on him before he squeezed the trigger. I gave him a friendly smile. He smiled back. I laid a chummy hand on his shoulder and squeezed, very gently. He sort of relaxed. I landed a hard punch in his solar plexus, a popping sound came from his throat, his weapon dropped to the floor, and he fell to this knees, gasping for breath—as a prelude to diplomacy I thought it was important to clarify that we weren’t on the same side.

I took a step back and regarded the faces of the other men, and I noted that they shared this insight, because now four pistols were directed at me. Well . . . so much for diplomacy. I said, “Lay down your weapons. Now.”

This is what’s called a tense moment. All it took was one misjudgment, and studying their faces, I detected at least two guys who looked mistake-prone.

But at that instant, five Americans, guns drawn, came sprinting around the corner. We must’ve passed a panic button on our way down here, and Tirey had apparently exercised good foresight and punched it. Sounding relieved, Tirey said to Bian, “Tell them it’s over,” and he ordered his people, “Take their weapons and cuff them.”

Bian said something in Arabic, the Saudi guards saw that the jig was up, and one by one they lowered their weapons and placed them on the floor. This was good, because they had all been pointed at me.

But clearly, the hermetic seal around this operation was now blown. In the next few minutes everybody inside this facility was going to know about Ali bin Pacha, and his death would be the topic du jour for weeks. Murder—it upsets even the best-laid plans. Bian asked Tirey, “Where’s bin Pacha’s cell?”

“Over here.”

We rushed to the cell, though there was no real need to hurry, and Tirey poked a button on the wall that electronically unlocked the metal door, which he threw open. We entered a room that felt immediately claustrophobic, and on the door at about head height I noted a three-inch barred opening—this would be the aperture through which bin Pacha had his brains blown out. Already, the pungent, metallic smell of fresh blood filled the air and our nostrils.

A dark hole was in bin Pacha’s temple, and as I looked around at the flesh and blood spattered on the floor, my first instinct was to get medical assistance, though obviously a janitor made more sense.

Bian’s first reaction was to bend over, check his pulse, and then verbalize what had occurred. She said, “He’s dead. Those bastards assassinated him. They didn’t want us to hear what he had to say.”

Tirey, now gawking at bin Pacha’s corpse, observed, “This . . . this Saudi arrangement . . . this was . . . you know, the CIA’s bright idea.” He looked at me, and it dawned on him that I was part of the Agency brotherhood. “It did . . . it originated with your people. I . . . I merely followed orders and . . .” He drifted off to a corner of the cell.

His first instinct was to cover his butt, and at the same time to get his beloved Bureau off the blameline. Somebody was going to be held accountable for this, either the CIA or the FBI, and the early bird was already humping the worm.

Actually, he looked badly shaken—I didn’t blame him—and I approached him, squeezed his arm, and reminded him, “This is a crime scene. Treat it as one.”

“Uh . . .” He looked around the cell, trying to decide his next move.

I asked, “Was the killing recorded?”

He stared back and did not reply.

I repeated the question.

“Uh . . . no. As I mentioned, the video feed from the cell . . . it was, well . . . disconnected from the central control room. The sessions in the interrogation room . . . we only intended to record those.”

He looked unhappy to confess this, and I looked even unhappier to hear it. I said, “All right. This was a close-range shooting, right? Probably there’s blood splatter on the weapon, probably fingerprints on the trigger, and definitely there will be powder residue on the hand of the shooter.” I squeezed his arm again. “Jim . . . Find the killer.”

He looked at me, and in true Bureau spirit said, “I . . . This is going to be really sensitive. I have no legal authority over the Saudis.”

“Do you think you’re building a case for an American court? Screw the legal niceties.” I pointed at bin Pacha’s corpse. “They did.”

“Okay, yeah.” He stepped back into the hallway and fell into the groove, ordering his people to separate the prisoners, even as he dispatched a man upstairs to retrieve a crime kit.

Bian started to say something, but I placed a finger on her lips. I pointed up at the light fixture.

I removed my finger from her lips. She took a deep breath and exhaled, “It was all for nothing, Sean. Everything . . . for nothing.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

H
ere’s a sad fact about a land where death by violence is ubiquitous: The aftermath machinery works with stunning efficiency.

Ali bin Pacha’s body was bagged, tagged, and deposited in the base morgue—a long metal shelf in a refrigeration van sequestered from the dining facility. The Saudi weapons were all collected, dusted, and tested for powder residue. Simultaneously, the five Saudi guards and the two agents planted in the bordering cells were interrogated by linguists, fingerprinted, swabbed for powder traces, and then locked, individually, into separate cells.

All of which is SOP whenever conspiracy is a factor, and in this case it was a waste of effort, time, and cell space. We had to assume this was a coordinated conspiracy run by professionals; ergo, the Saudis had been prepped and rehearsed long before we laid eyes on them. Still, after a big screwup everybody pays painstaking attention to procedures they should’ve obeyed before. Human nature. I do it.

Regarding me, for nearly forty minutes, Tirey’s people forced me to recount, over and over, what I had observed. This also is SOP, having the witness repeat the story as you look for flaws, deviations, omissions—anything that indicates the witness isn’t reliable, or overlooked an important detail, or isn’t credible. There were no deviations—bin Pacha was dead, we had been caught with our pants down, and now everybody was scrambling to figure out how, and why. But the subtext here was who should be blamed, rather than who did the crime.

Solving a closed-room mystery, after all—especially with abundant forensic evidence—is no more challenging than tying a hangman’s knot. But putting a name to the killer would look good on paper, at least. Everybody was regretful, embarrassed, and uptight. A high-value detainee had been whacked under their noses, in their own ultra-high-security prison. This isn’t supposed to happen.

When the Feds were finally bored with taking my statement, Tirey informed me that Phyllis wanted to see me in the observation room.

I shut the door behind me as I entered, and I found Phyllis and Bian alone, seated side by side at the conference table, sipping pale Iraqi tea and enjoying an amiable chat, the topic of which was not bin Pacha, not this case, not even Iraq. At the moment I entered, in fact, Phyllis was informing Bian, “. . . incredible shoe sale, twice a year at Nordstrom. The best brands. Usually about half off.”

To which Bian had replied, “I’ll be sure to watch for it.”

I mean, you forget these are women, with a life outside of spying and soldiering, with feminine interests, quotidian things like shopping, cooking, knitting. Somebody get me a gun.