Purpose of Evasion Read online

“Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar.”

  ***

  When they finished praying, Sami fastened the cuffs again. He placed the restraint back around Hasan’s waist to allow the prisoner to sit up on the cot. He returned the keys to Andy at the top of the stairs. He barely settled into the chair before Hasan began.

  “You pretend to be a Muslim— “

  “No.” Sami interrupted. The next sentence came out as if there were periods after each word. “You pretend to be a Muslim.”

  “I have only stopped pretending to be an American. The rest of the country stopped pretending that one could be a Muslim and an American long ago. I made my choice.” Hasan said.

  Things were beginning as expected, if not as planned. The team understood that the conversation could get confrontational. It was an interrogation. Sami could let Hasan speechify, but not filibuster.

  Don’t let him kill time.

  Don’t let him distract from the priority intelligence.

  If he gets too far off track, shepherd him back by revealing what we already know.

  Sami ran through these instructions in his head as Hasan continued.

  “The American Dream is tragedy clothed in myth. Americans are the only people in the world who don’t know it. The stories of American greatness are varied, but many more are the stories of great loss. A father, a brother, a mother, sons, and daughters. They come here, but few of their stories adhere to the global myth. Freedom. Safety. Wealth. I have lived this fantasy. I have traveled the world. And I have studied politics and literature and culture. The whole of the American Dream was a post-World War II amplification of the 19th century’s Horatio Alger stories. And now the world is catching up.”

  “Technological parity is America’s enemy. Their longstanding advantage, the investment in resources to deliver propaganda, has been decimated by global connectivity. When people discover these myths of America, when they are presented with alternative facts, they see the truth. There is no opportunity here. 1% of your people hold your wealth. Mexicans are your modern field and house slaves. The blacks, who had the audacity to throw off that yoke, now wallow in prisons or ghettos. Asians, here or in their home countries, are your garment workers. And Muslims,” Hasan paused, “we are your whipping boys.”

  Sami drew a breath to speak, but Hasan had only paused.

  “When that myth fades away and America’s moral decrepitude is exposed, there is but one American export that remains. Murder. American history is murder. American Indians felt the sword first. In Mexico, they bore the brunt of your muskets. Americans could not resist the urge to divide by North and South and murder each other. A hundred years later, the only country ever to drop a nuclear bomb. The My Lai massacre. Juntas and coups in South America and the Middle East. And now, the forever war. Until Islam is gone.”

  This time Hasan paused long enough to warrant a response. Interrogation is about control. Asserting it and then leveraging it. Like poker, winning by bluff was more indicative of skill than winning with good cards, for it concealed much. Like a game of chess, the speed to victory matters to virtuosos. How many moves does it take? How few will it take to win? Sami’s team expected that they might get to this point, but they were here already. No interrogation had been necessary. Sami waited, replaying Hasan’s words and combing his memory for the right response before he began.

  “For his willingness to expose this hypocrisy,” Sami said, haltingly at first, “Karim Sulemani takes his rightful place among the Shahid. Allah’s chosen martyrs.” Now he gained speed. “And from Karim’s brave act of shahada, we must all take a lesson. If a normal American like Karim could strike a blow to explode these myths, then so might any Muslim.”

  On the cot, Hasan’s eyes widened in surprise. Sami stood and walked to the stairs. He didn’t look back when he spoke.

  “I’ve heard that speech. I know every word.” Sami hoped this would make it obvious to Hasan that they had his computer and were inside of it. When Sami turned back toward Hasan, his expression of deflation confirmed this.

  “We have everything. Every word you have written and spoken. Every email sent. You may be an educated man and a smart one. But not in the ways of war. As you have so eloquently indicated, we are rather knowledgeable in those ways. You have won a victory. A painful one for us, yes, but not a decisive one.”

  “You were prepared to sacrifice others to inflict harm on America. Perhaps we are matched in our cowardice, because we are willing to sacrifice you to protect America. Someone else was willing to sacrifice you as well, Hasan.” Sami climbed the steps.

  “I’ll let you think a while.” Just before he closed the door, Sami shouted down “Come up with something new to say. You have been successful. Your attack has changed things. The next time I visit you, something that was written before the attack will not suffice for you to avoid punishment.”

  ***

  When compared to humanity, psychology is in its infancy. Psychologists sought to identify sufferers in the 19th Century so they could be quarantined and to analyze everyone in the 20th Century so they might be treated. Still, in the 21st Century, there is much to learn about the pathology of the mind. Unfortunately for Hasan Khalifa, when it comes to the normal and expected behavior of a subject when responding to certain stimuli, American intelligence knew more than he would have wanted.

  Interrogators at the Intelligence School in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, or at The Farm near Dam Neck, Virginia learn techniques that will make a subject to talk. The wise old hands at those schools also know how to break the will when someone does not want to talk. These techniques all make use of psychology.

  The first lesson? Interrogation mind games were for city detectives and FBI agents in golf shirts. That’s how they play the game when the Constitution was in play. In law enforcement, they had to sit there and let some little shit act hard and clam up. All those guys have is their wits. It was chess. Chess isn’t war.

  When hotels are blowing up, its war.

  It is said doctors can develop a God complex. They save a life or bring someone back from the dead and the feeling eclipses pride. It becomes compulsion. But the doctor moves on to the next case. He gets in his Benz and gets stuck in traffic. He goes home and the dog puked on the rug in the front hall. The God complex takes hold only where the pathology is strongest.

  Interrogators also develop a variation of the God complex. Despite the horrific - and sometimes apocryphal - stories of torture training academies where sadism is fine-tuned, it does not take much training or creativity to figure out how to fuck someone up bad. Especially not someone who is tied to a cot without food or water for days on end. It doesn’t take waterboarding.

  Put someone in a cell alone for a few days – no lawyers, no phone calls - and you control their world. Interrogation is about control. Not manipulation. Control. Putting someone on, like a puppet you wear, and pulling the strings they didn’t even know were there. Control their thirst and hunger. Decide if they sleep and for how long. Control whether they shiver or sweat.

  If you do all of that, and you do it right, you can control the beating of their heart. Food, water, light, dark, pain, comfort. That’s not psychology. That’s reality. God made real.

  Sami was not a professional interrogator, but he understood the biggest misconception about interrogation. People think it is about getting answers. Big answers.

  Where did the money for the trucks come from?

  Who made the bombs?

  Who was the delivery man?

  What was the next target?

  Sami needed those answers, but he didn’t think he would get them. From a true mujahid? No chance. Hasan? Maybe.

  Hasan was not likely to give answers to questions like that. No amount of control can compel a person to say something they don’t know. Sami’s instinct was that Hasan was isolated from the operational side of the plot. What Sami needed were the missing pieces of the puzzle.

  If you can starve a g
uy for days until he’s catatonic, then wake him up, force feed him, throw him in an ice bath and ask for one small but critical piece of uncertain data, he will lack the ability to deceive. He doesn’t know whether you are asking something he wants to keep secret, or why it might be important. Even the best in the world cannot cloak their deception under those circumstances. That was the game.

  Sami did not have days. They knew there were more Council of Muhammad members from Hasan’s cell, more guys with trucks. These trucks were bought and given for a reason. There was a plan.

  The team met around the dining table, in a small alcove at the back of the kitchen. There were three chairs around the table and a bench seat built into a bay window, affording a view of dense overgrowth behind the house. It was Sami’s turn to face the team’s questions. Known as a debrief, this was the first chance he had to talk about the events inside the hotel.

  “Karim was shocked. He had no idea he was being set up,” Sami told them, after recounting the frantic rush to the garage.

  Yoda, who had been dubious of Karim’s innocence before the bombing, asked the question the entire team was pondering. “Why did he stay?”

  “He wanted to get the truck out of there. He ran to the valet office to find his keys and he hoped that he could get to the truck and get it out before the bomb hurt anyone.”

  “OK,” Alexa added, “Let’s assume that he didn’t know. Doesn’t that leave a lot to chance?”

  “It does,” Sami agreed, “But it is still a lot easier than finding four or five American Muslims to commit suicide attacks.”

  “He’s right,” Emily said. “The plan is effective because it leaves the bombing to pros, whoever detonated the bomb last night by remote. All that the Council of Muhammad members do is keep living their lives. Go to work. Go on their business trips. They are vehicles. They don’t know that Karim was set up. There will be another attack. It will be the same M.O. It will happen soon.”

  “Won’t they all get suspicious when Hasan is missing, too?” Yoda was being more than the Devil’s Advocate. He was playing an important role in challenging their assumptions. Testing their analysis.

  “We’re the only ones who know he’s here. But he had to go missing, right?” Alexa’s question floated over the table before she continued. “The plane ticket was Dulles to Toronto. This morning I confirmed that the rest of the itinerary took him to Dubai.”

  “Are our tracks covered there?” It was Andy, speaking for the first time.

  “Of course.”

  Alexa’s was annoyed to be asked for more, but Andy inclined his gaze to show that he expected details.

  “The airline rep was as concerned as me when I told her that my husband never texted that he arrived in Toronto. After I had what I needed, I told her I just had a text from him at his hotel in D.C. Hungover and embarrassed that he missed his flight. She couldn’t have been more sympathetic.”

  Andy was pleased. “Excellent. So, let’s play this out. Hasan was leaving the U.S. to encourage the next round of attacks?”

  “He’s a great candidate to become the new Anwar Al-Awliki,” agreed Sami. “Al-Awliki created the archetype for modern-day YouTube jihad. His mistake was to become operational. That was how we found him and targeted the missile that killed him. But I think Hasan learned from that. Spouting bullshit about jihad against the U.S. on YouTube is much safer than carrying out jihad against the U.S. And remember, his mujahid are patsies— “

  “As far as we know!” Yoda’s patience was at its limit. “We know about this group. The group close to Hasan. Physically close, in Annapolis. We don’t know who else is out there! We don’t know what might come next. Because we’re close to this group, and these attacks, we’re assuming this is the plan. What if it’s only part of the plan?”

  “What’s the rest?” Andy asked.

  “We have him. Downstairs! We have his comms— “

  Andy held a hand up to stop Sami. He wanted to tease this out. It was how analysis worked.

  “Go on, Yoda. What are you thinking?”

  “Think about it! Have you ever been to a hotel in Israel? India? Pakistan? A lot of them have vehicle inspections to access the garages. They inspect luggage, open the bags and hand check everything before it comes inside. There are metal detectors. American hotels don’t do that.”

  Everyone considered the point for a moment before Andy pressed.

  “Give me worst case.”

  “It is the easiest thing in the world to check into a hotel room with a giant roll-aboard. It’s expected! No one thinks twice when you walk into the lobby like that. No one knows what’s in any of those bags! Think about the Mandalay Bay shooting. What were there, two dozen long guns? I think it is probable that there are others in Hasan’s group. Maybe not in the physical cell, but others here in the U.S. who are prepared to launch hotel attacks.”

  “And within a week, American businesses stop allowing corporate travel,” Emily added.

  “That’s business travel,” Andy nodded, “Disney would be a fucking ghost town! You assess that as highly probable— “

  “This is bullshit!”

  “Dost! Enough.” After correcting Sami, Andy turned back to Yoda. “I asked for worst-case.”

  “That there are others in the cell is highly probable. That some might attack, it follows, might also be probable. I think the worst case is that they planned this well. They know they don’t even need to die like the guys doing bombs in high-security areas with checkpoints. It's jihadi recycling. Instead of killing themselves in a bomb attack, or being shot by cops, they check in, set up the bombs and detonate them remotely. They do it again and again.”

  “If Hasan is the new Al-Awliki, he doesn’t need a ton of acolytes,” Alexa said.

  “That’s right, Lex. He coordinates with one or two at a time. Connects them to the bomb maker, and they go live. If they use aliases and are careful, it takes one or two bombings to find them. As soon as one is caught, he has another one waiting in the wings. The more successful they are, the more followers he gains, the more candidates he has and the more selective he can be.”

  The group let that scenario sink in. After a moment, Sami caught Andy’s eyes and gestured: Can I speak now? Andy nodded but a raised hand commanding that he restrain himself.

  “What you describe could change American life. It would grind the economy to a halt. Most frightening of all, you’re right. It wouldn’t be difficult to pull off. If you assume that they have access to a reliable bomb maker.” Sami scanned every face to make sure they were following.

  “The difference is that Al-Awliki was up to his elbows. Planning attacks, bankrolling recon throughout Europe and the U.S., training attackers. He was on the ground in Yemen. Even if you are right about there being more in the cell, Hasan’s nothing but a mouthpiece. Do we agree that regardless of whether Karim and the other Council of Muhammad members know they are part of a cell, Hasan is not the operational leader?”

  Emily nodded first. Then Alexa. Yoda did too, slowly.

  With agreement on the team, Andy weighed in. “I’m glad we got the worst case on the table. I think it’s important to start from there. But I agree. We don’t have time to chase all of that now. If the person or people behind the attack are smart enough, the firewall with Hasan does not just protect the operational leader, it isolates him. As long as this isn’t ego. If he doesn’t want credit, he could do what Yoda described. Maybe Hasan can’t tell us who his operational counterpart was. He might not recognize this Black Truck Guy. But he has information he doesn’t realize he has. Something we can put into the pile with the other intel to find the source of this shit. We need to get it.”

  ***

  When Sami went back downstairs, he found that Hasan was less coy. He was more willing to listen. It was Sami’s job to make him talk.

  “We know you communicated with your operational counterpart through encrypted messaging. Different apps.” Sami said. “How was the introduction mad
e? How did you first make contact?”

  “He is called Halif. A mutual friend arranged the first contact.”

  Under normal circumstances, the mention of a “mutual friend” would merit lengthy exploration, but Sami did not have time for detours. Nor did he have time to gain access to this friend even if he could determine who it was. He was focused on the discussion that had just taken place upstairs. Find the operational lead. He made a mental note to return to the mutual friend when possible and continued on the man Hasan referred to as Halif.

  “What did Halif tell you? How did he win your confidence?”

  “There were many things on which we agreed. He also watched the American Dream turn to lies. He saw that American life was incompatible with living in faith. The evils of impurity. Miscegenation and homosexuality have not just become accepted but celebrated. This is inconsistent with the principals of Islam. Women are encouraged to live in a manner inconsistent with our sacred texts.”

  Sami was impatient. He would pounce if Hasan got preachy again.

  “His most wise counsel regarded our duty of jihad. He knew of my experiences in Egypt. He shared the feelings I experienced watching the Revolution collapse under the weight of sectarian conflicts. In a caliphate, the true home of the Ummah, those conflicts could be resolved with an eye toward the true enemies of Islam.”

  “Was he Daesh?” Sami used the Arabic acronym for the loose confederation of Salafi jihadists better known as ISIS.

  Hasan smiled. Given his situation, there was not much bravado behind it, but Sami read his meaning. Stupid American. “He doesn’t have to be Daesh.”

  “Hezbollah? Jemaah Islamiya? Come on, Hasan, they don’t teach bombmaking at Al-Aqsa. He’s affiliated with someone.”

  “He is a freedom fighter. Without allegiance to state or sect. That impressed me most. He studied the situation in the Levant. He preached that we cannot hope to win this war if Iranian proxies are funded by Iran, Saudi proxies by the sheikhs, and so on. These states have their own vested interest. Their own swollen bureaucracies and geopolitical entanglements. They are ambitious for more than a caliphate. The only answer is to win and hold territory. To put even the Sunni nation states on notice that first, we deal with America, but they are only first. Later, we will take other sovereign land. Sacred land. And it will succumb to the Caliphs.”