Collision of Evil (22 page)

Peters noted his host’s acknowledgment of this deference to Turkish sovereignty, always a delicate issue with the proud Ottomans.

“As I mentioned, Ibrahim Baran is tied to a dubious group of people in Europe. We believe they’re engaged in planning terrorist activity, but we lack evidence and details at the moment. Ibrahim can provide those details. We judge that he’s here in Turkey on terrorism-related business, making him, no doubt, of interest to your service as well as ours.”

The Turk nodded agreement, his dark countenance displaying no emotion.

“We propose a joint interrogation. We get this guy off the street, unsettle him, and see how he sings. He has information we can exploit in Europe, and he may have leads in Turkey of interest to you.”

“Yes,” said the Turkish officer, sipping again at the cup of tea, collecting his thoughts. “He certainly has operational contacts here and we want to know who they are. We’ll work with you on this case. We need to consider the mechanics of it. We don’t know exactly where Ibrahim is residing, other than that he is in Ankara, along with millions of other people.” He offered a fleeting smile. “But we don’t need to find him. We know that he will be in the airport in three days, we know his name, and we know he is going to Munich. So, we let him come to us. I’ll have my people at the check-in counter. When he presents his ticket to the airline clerk, we move in and grab him. You follow so far?”

“Sounds good,” Peters allowed. “A simple plan is always best. What happens next?”

The Turk clasped his hands in front of him and pursed his lips. “It stays simple, really. We toss him in a car. Being accosted like that will unnerve him. We don’t identify ourselves. We blindfold him and drive him to a safe house not far from the airport. Then we start the psychological games. Your people can participate in the interrogation. Acceptable?”

“Acceptable, good in fact. I can have a Turkish-speaking officer available. Ibrahim will know from the accent that he isn’t Turkish, but he won’t be able to tell more than that. He might think our man is German, or Israeli for that matter.”

The Turk gave a quick burst of laughter, revealing perfectly white teeth that contrasted with his swarthy features. “I’m sure he would be happy thinking he is in the tender hands of the Mossad. That deception might pay dividends.”

“Exactly,” replied Peters, smiling as well.

“One other point,” the Turk said, his demeanor more serious. “We need to clarify something beforehand. In the interrogation, the techniques we employ to elicit Ibrahim’s cooperation. How far are we prepared to go?”

Peters squirmed in his seat. He hated this aspect of joint interrogation discussions, not least because saying the wrong thing could be a career-ender. “Well, no torture. I know that there are
competing definitions of what constitutes torture, but we should keep this as clean of physical coercion as possible. Especially as this case might result in legal indictments in Europe. We both know how supercilious the Europeans can be.”

The Turk nodded agreement. “Our European friends can indeed be complicated. They whine about how we deal with the PKK insurgents, although they have no idea what it means to have civil war waged in a part of your country. But we will keep it clean, as you put it. No torture. Still, I think you understand that we might need to get a little unorthodox. This Ibrahim is certain to be a tough character, and he’s not about to cooperate just because we cuff him. What else do we need to consider?”

Peters thought a moment before answering. “We have to keep our eye on actionable intelligence. We can’t let the cell members in Germany suspect that their buddy in Ankara has a problem. That means we might have to get Ibrahim’s cooperation to call them or send them a parole that he’s all right. We’ll need to think about this once we get Ibrahim talking.”

“
If
we can get him talking,” said the Turk.

“I don’t even want to consider that alternative, not for a second,” Peters replied. “This guy is our best bet to stop a likely terrorist attack in Germany before it happens. If we get him in our hands, we’ve got to break him. First things first; that means grabbing Ibrahim at the airport. Right now I’m just hoping that he actually shows up and doesn’t change his mind at the last minute.”

The Turk finished his tea with a last swallow and smiled at the American. “Relax. It will be okay. I can feel it—they say that Turks have good instincts.”

The morning broke clear and hot with the prospect of getting hotter. Ibrahim took a taxi from downtown Ankara to the airport. His single, battered suitcase was in the trunk; the carry-on was on his lap. The bored taxi driver was playing Turkish pop music at high volume on his tinny-sounding radio, which was fine with Ibrahim
as it made conversation impossible. Ibrahim detested conversation with strangers. It made him nervous.

The taxi, which clearly needed shock absorbers, bolted down the broad highway through a nearly treeless countryside. The terrain was a succession of mauve hills, barren and unattractive. Every now and then they would pass the ruined detritus of shantytowns that the government had forcibly removed, evicting the tenants. The only remaining structures in these devastated, illegal settlements were the mosques, holy places that government officials were reluctant to raze lest it stir the violent enmity of the fundamentalists.

Rise up, Ibrahim thought as he surveyed silent minarets, rise up and slay the unbelievers. The apostates are surely even worse than the Crusaders and Jews, those sons of pigs and descendants of apes.

The taxi continued through the countryside toward the airport. There was little traffic on this early morning. Ibrahim wanted to be there in plenty of time for the 8:30 a.m. Turkish Air flight to Munich. The taxi slowed momentarily to permit passage across the highway to a scrawny-looking herd of half-wild goats, the outlines of their ribs clearly visible. Accelerating again, the driver pointed ahead and muttered a few words that were half-consumed by the whining music. Sunlight reflected on glass and stone. The Attaturk Airport loomed ahead, its modern terminal testimony to the expansive aspirations of this antique former empire.

The taxi deposited Ibrahim in front of a set of tinted, automatic doors. He paid the driver, collected his luggage, and entered the refreshing, machine-induced coolness of the spotless terminal. He passed a shop whose sole product seemed to be portraits of Mustapha Kermil Attaturk. The former Young Turk glowered sternly from the pictures, communicating well the look of the “Historic Man,” and one with a taste for the sartorial fashions of the day. In most of the portraits Attaturk sported a tailored western suit. Ibrahim gritted his teeth and moved past the display, his eyes searching for the sign indicating the Turkish Air check-in desk. The airport was newly constructed, and polished marble seemed to be everywhere, the vast
spaces broken by atriums and fountains. They are aping the airports of the Infidel, Ibrahim concluded. One day they will pay for their apostasy.

He found the Turkish Air counter and was pleased to see that there was almost no line, even for economy class. He touched his shirt pocket to ensure himself that his passport and plane ticket were there. His piece of ersatz black leather hand luggage contained candy and small gifts, to provide the appearance of a typical Turkish resident of Germany returning to his exile home. He had written some cryptic phrases into a small, blue spiral notebook. He had tried hard to memorize al-Masri’s instructions, but found that he had no talent for that sort of thing. As a precaution, he had committed the remarks to paper in his own personal code so that it would appear innocuous if examined. The elderly woman passenger at the counter before him gathered up her carry-on bag and trundled away.

It was his turn to check in.

Ibrahim forced a false smile at the young, smartly dressed and unveiled check-in attendant and produced his passport and ticket, laying both out on the counter. Westernized whore, he thought, as he continued to smile vaguely, brushing aside an incipient, unsummoned strain of desire.

The young woman regarded the passport briefly and held the ticket in her manicured hand. “Ibrahim Baran, traveling economy class to Josef Strauss Airport, Munich?” Her inquiry sounded pro forma.

“Yes. I’m returning to Munich. My German residency permit is in the passport.”

The attendant smiled in a plastic way and began to use the keyboard of the computer in front of her.

The passenger could not see the computer screen but presumed she was entering the usual sequence of flight confirmation data. In fact, as instructed early that morning by a Turkish intelligence officer, she had clicked on another icon and entered a secure messaging area unrelated to the airline’s booking system. She typed simply: It is him. Ibrahim Baran is at the counter in front of me.

Ibrahim noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Not until he felt himself being raised off of the polished floor and thrown backward. For a few seconds he could not imagine what was happening. An earthquake? He felt himself crash back onto the floor, his shoulder blades throbbing suddenly with the jolting, hard contact. There were hands on him, holding him down. He looked frantically about and saw that two large men in dark suits were pinning him to the floor.

The young woman at the counter had vanished. There was no one else around. He tried to push the men away without success. They were strong and determined.

“Let me go,” he began to scream at the top of his voice.

A fist slammed into his nose, breaking it. He felt numbness around his nostrils and became aware of a warm sensation passing his lips and working into his beard. He was bleeding. Wide-eyed, he noted that one of his assailants had a chrome-plated revolver clipped to his belt. Police, Ibrahim thought, or maybe worse. Why were they doing this? he thought in a blur of confusion. What did they suspect?

He was lifted to his feet like a rag doll and was aware that he was being half-carried, half-dragged across the smooth tile surface of the terminal toward the exit. The automatic glass doors opened, and he felt again for a fleeting moment a blast of brutally searing Turkish heat.

A second later he was shoved into the back of an idling black BMW sedan. A large man was seated to his left, his features obscured by reflecting sunglasses. This man, as taciturn as the officers who had wrestled Ibrahim to the ground, smiled coldly. A large ham of a hand pinned Ibrahim’s head to the back of the plush seat. The man deftly inserted a long syringe needle into the bulging vein in Ibrahim’s neck and withdrew it an instant later. Ibrahim moaned softly, his brown eyes wide with rampant fear. The sound of the smooth car engine and its whispering air conditioner drifted far away and Ibrahim slumped forward, aware of absolutely nothing at all.

He did not awaken at once; rather, regaining consciousness was a process, a series of stages taking the better part of an hour. He rose
up slowly from the void, like a deep-sea diver trying to reach a distant surface while avoiding the bends. Ibrahim determined eventually that he was seated in a rude wooden chair, his hands shackled to its sides. His feet were manacled to the cold concrete floor. His vision was not entirely clear yet; he wanted to rub his eyes, but could not because of the metal restraints. He saw that he was in a small, windowless room, its neglected walls damp and stained with moisture; a basement perhaps. Two metal chairs and a folding table were set up at a remove from him. There was no other furniture. His face felt odd and he determined that it was tightly bandaged at the bridge of his nose. His mouth felt very dry and he wanted water.

He considered his situation and was overwhelmed with feelings of shame, self-reproach, and fear. He could not envision how things might possibly turn out well for him.

The single door entering into the room opened. Two men entered, surveying Ibrahim as if he were prey. Both men were middle-aged but otherwise very different. The one who entered first was obviously a Turk, his ethnicity betrayed by his visage. He was wearing a suit and tie, but the refined clothes did not cloak the brutal earnestness of his expression. The Turk might have been one of the men who had accosted Ibrahim at the airport; he could not tell for sure. The second man was obviously not from the region. He was blond, with short, thinning hair and he carried himself with assertive cockiness. An American perhaps, Ibrahim wondered, or perhaps German. Were the Bavarians somehow onto them?

The two visitors pulled up the metal chairs and sat in them, the legs scraping the raw floor. Communicating not at all, they stared at their captive for minutes, as if contemplating what species he might represent. Seizing the moments of silence, Ibrahim whispered “water.”

“What’s that?” the Turk inquired, his eyebrows raised.

“Water. I need water. I am very dry.”

The Turk in the charcoal suit, whose first name was Ahmet, snorted. “You think this is a hotel? You make requests and we scurry around to carry out your wishes? Not likely, friend. But then, maybe
water will loosen your lips. We’re looking forward to enjoying a nice, informative chat with you. Okay, I’ll get you a glass of water, just so you don’t think that I’m a monster. But in the meantime, I want you to listen to my friend. He has been so interested in meeting you that he traveled here from far away. I wouldn’t disappoint him if I were you. I’ll be back with your glass of water.”