When he said nothing she realized: He's negotiating. Of course.
A nod. "You're a smart man...And I don't blame you one bit for holding out. Just give us a bit of information to verify your story and I can probably go up to a hundred fifty thousand euros."
Still no response.
"I'll tell you what. Why don't you name a figure? Let's put this all behind us." Claire smiled coyly again. "We're on your side, Jacques. We really are."
FRIDAY
AT 9 A.M. COLONEL Jim Peterson was in the office of the rehabilitation center, sitting across from a large, dark-complexioned man, who'd just arrived from Darfur.
Akhem asked, "What happened with Claire?"
Peterson shook his head. "Bennabi didn't go for the money. She sweetened the pot to a quarter-million euros." The colonel sighed. "Wouldn't take it. In fact, he didn't even say no. He didn't say a word. Just like with Andrew."
Akhem took this information with interest but otherwise unemotionally--as if he were a surgeon called in to handle an emergency operation that was routine for him but that no one else could perform. "Has he slept?"
"Not since yesterday."
"Good."
There was nothing like sleep deprivation to soften people up.
Akhem was of Middle Eastern descent, though he'd been born in America and was a U.S. citizen. Like Peterson he'd retired from the military. He was now a professional security consultant--a euphemism for mercenary soldier. He was here with two associates, both from Africa. One white, one black.
Peterson had used Akhem on a half-dozen occasions, as had other governments. He was responsible for interrogating a Chechen separatist to learn where his colleagues had stashed a busload of Moscow schoolchildren last year.
It took him two hours to learn the exact location of the bus, the number of soldiers guarding them, their weapons and pass codes.
No one knew exactly how he'd done it. No one wanted to.
Peterson wasn't pleased he'd had to turn to Akhem's approach to interrogation, known as extreme extraction. Indeed, he realized that the Bennabi situation raised the textbook moral question on using torture: You know a terrible event is about to occur and you have in custody a prisoner who knows how to prevent it. Do you torture or not?
There were those who said, no, you don't. That it is better to be morally superior and to suffer the consequences of letting the event occur. By stooping to the enemy's techniques, these people say, we automatically lose the war, even if we militarily prevail.
Others said that it was our enemies who'd changed the rules; if they tortured and killed innocents in the name of their causes we had to fight them on their own terms.
Peterson had now made the second choice. He prayed it was the right one.
Akhem was looking at the video of Bennabi in the cell, slumped in a chair, his head cocked to the side. He wrinkled his nose and said, "Three hours at the most."
He rose and left the office, gesturing his fellow mercenaries after him.
*
BUT THREE HOURS came and went.
Jacques Bennabi said nothing, despite being subjected to one of the most horrific methods of extreme extraction.
In waterboarding, the subject is inverted on his back and water poured into his nose and mouth, simulating drowning. It's a horrifying experience...and also one of the most popular forms of torture because there's no lasting physical evidence--provided, of course, that the victim doesn't in fact drown, which happens occasionally.
"Tell me!" Akhem raged as the assistants dragged Bennabi to his feet, pulling his head out of the large tub. He choked and spit water from under the cloth mask he wore.
"Where is the weapon? Who is behind it? Tell me."
Silence, except for the man's coughing and sputtering.
Then to the assistants: "Again."
Back he went onto the board, his feet in the air. And the water began to flow once more.
Four hours passed, then six, then eight.
Himself drenched, physically exhausted, Akhem looked at his watch. It was now early evening. Only five hours until Saturday--when the weapon would be deployed.
And he hadn't learned a single fact about it. He could hardly hide his astonishment. He'd never known anybody to hold out for this long. That was amazing in its own right. But more significant was the fact that Bennabi had not uttered a single word the entire time. He'd groaned, he's gasped, he'd choked but not a single word of English or Arabic or Berber had passed his lips.
Subjects always begged and cursed and lied or offered partial truths to get the interrogators at least to pause for a time.
But not Bennabi.
"Again," Akhem announced.
Then, at 11 p.m., Akhem sat down in a chair in the cell, staring at Bennabi, who lolled, gasping, on the waterboard. The interrogator said to his assistants, "That's enough."
Akhem dried off and looked over the subject. He then walked into the hallway outside the cell and opened his attache case. He extracted a large scalpel and returned, closing the door behind him.
Bennabi's bleary eyes stared at the weapon as Akhem walked forward.
The subject leaned away.
Akhem nodded. His assistants took Bennabi by the shoulders, one of them gripping his arm hard, rendering it immobile.
Akhem took the subject's fingers and leaned forward with the knife.
"Where is the weapon?" he growled. "You don't have any idea of the pain you'll experience if you don't tell me! Where is it? Who is behind the attack? Tell me!"
Bennabi looked into his eyes. He said nothing.
The interrogator moved the blade closer.
It was then that the door burst open.
"Stop," cried Colonel Peterson. "Come out here into the hallway."
The interrogator paused and stood back. He wiped sweat from his forehead. The three interrogators left the cell and joined the colonel in the hallway.
"I just heard from Washington. They've found out who Bennabi was meeting with in Tunis. They're sending me the information in a few minutes. I want you to hold off until we know more."
Akhem hesitated. Reluctantly he put the scalpel away. Then the large man stared at the video screen, on which was an image of Bennabi sitting in the chair, breathing heavily, staring back into the camera.
The interrogator shook his head. "Not a word. He didn't say a single word."
SATURDAY
AT 2 A.M., on the day the weapon would be deployed, Colonel Jim Peterson was alone in the office at the rehabilitation center, awaiting the secure email about the meeting in Tunis. Armed with that information, they would have a much better chance to convince Bennabi to give them information.
Come on, he urged, staring at his computer.
A moment later it complied.
The computer pinged and he opened the encrypted email from the skinny government man he'd met with in his Reston, Virginia, office on Monday.
Colonel: We've identified the people Bennabi met with. But it's not a terrorist cell; it's a human rights group. Humanity Now. We double-checked and our local contacts are sure they're the ones who're behind the weapon. But we've followed the group for years and have no--repeat--no indication that it's a cover for a terrorist organization. Discontinue all interrogation until we know more.
Peterson frowned. He knew Humanity Now. Everybody believed it to be a legitimate organization.
My God, was this all a misunderstanding? Had Bennabi met with the group about a matter that was completely innocent?
What've we done?
He was about to call Washington and ask for more details when he happened to glance at his computer and saw that he'd received another email--from a major U.S. newspaper. The header: Reporter requesting comment before publication.
He opened the message.
Colonel Peterson. I'm a reporter with the New York Daily Herald. I'm filing the attached article in a few hours with my newspaper. It will run there and in syndication in about two hundred other p
apers around the world. I'm giving you the opportunity to include a comment, if you like. I've also sent copies to the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, seeking their comments, too.
Oh, my God. What the hell is this?
With trembling hands the colonel opened the attachment and--to his utter horror--read:
ROME, May 22--A private American company, with ties to the U.S. government, has been running an illegal operation south of the city, for the purpose of kidnapping, interrogating and occasionally torturing citizens of other countries to extract information from them.
The facility, known in military circles as a black site, is owned by a Reston, Virginia, corporation, Intelligence Analysis Services, Inc., whose corporate documents list government security consulting as its main purpose.
Italian business filings state that the purpose of the Roman facility is physical rehabilitation, but no requisite government permits for health care operations have been obtained with respect to it. Further, no licensed rehabilitation professionals are employed by the company, which is owned by a Caribbean subsidiary of IAS. Employees are U.S. and other non-Italian nationals with backgrounds not in medical science but in military and security services.
The operation was conducted without any knowledge on the part of the Italian government and the Italian ambassador to the United States has stated he will demand a full explanation as to why the illegal operation was conducted on Italian soil. Officials from the Polizia di Stato and the Ministero della Giustizia likewise have promised a full investigation.
There is no direct connection between the U.S. government and the facility outside of Rome. But over the course of the past week, this reporter conducted extensive surveillance of the rehabilitation facility and observed the presence of a man identified as former Colonel James Peterson, the president of IAS. He is regularly seen in the company of high-ranking Pentagon, CIA and White House officials in the Washington, D.C. area.
Peterson's satellite phone began ringing.
He supposed the slim man from Washington was calling.
Or maybe his boss.
Or maybe the White House.
Caller ID does not work on encrypted phones.
His jaw quivering, Peterson ignored the phone. He pressed ahead in the article.
The discovery of the IAS facility in Rome came about on a tip last week from Humanity Now, a human rights group based in North Africa and long opposed to the use of torture and black sites. The group reported that an Algerian journalist was to be kidnapped in Algiers and transported to a black site somewhere in Europe.
At the same time the human rights organization gave this reporter the name of a number of individuals suspected of being black site interrogators. By examining public records and various travel documents, it was determined that several of these specialists--two U.S. military officers and a mercenary soldier based in Africa--traveled to Rome not long after the journalist's abduction in Algiers.
Reporters were able to follow the interrogators to the rehabilitation facility, which was then determined to be owned by IAS.
Slumping in his chair, Peterson ignored the phone. He gave a grim laugh, closing his eyes.
The whole thing, the whole story about terrorists, about the weapon, about Bennabi...it was a setup. Yes, there was an "enemy," but it was merely the human rights group, which had conspired with the professor to expose the black site operation to the press--and the world.
Peterson understood perfectly: Humanity Now had probably been tracking the main interrogators IAS used--Andrew, Claire, Akhem and others--for months, if not years. The group and Bennabi, a human rights activist, had planted the story about the weapon themselves to engineer his kidnapping, then alerted that reporter for the New York newspaper, who leapt after the story of a lifetime.
Bennabi was merely bait--and I went right for it. Of course, he remained silent the whole time. That was his job. To draw as many interrogators here as he could and give the reporter a chance to follow them, discover the facility and find out who was behind it.
Oh, this was bad...this was terrible. It was the kind of scandal that could bring down governments.
It would certainly end his career. And many others'.
It might very likely end the process of black sites altogether, or at least set them back years.
He thought about calling together the staff and telling them to destroy all the incriminating papers and to flee.
But why bother? he reflected. It was too late now.
Peterson decided there was nothing to do but accept his fate. Though he did call the guards and tell them to arrange to have Jacques Bennabi transferred back home. The enemy had won. And, in an odd way, Peterson respected that.
"And make sure he arrives unharmed."
"Yessir."
Peterson sat back, hearing in his thoughts the words of the slim man from Washington.
The weapon...it can do quote "significant" damage...
Except that there was no weapon. It was all a fake.
Yet, with another sour laugh, Peterson decided this wasn't exactly true.
There was a goddamn weapon. It wasn't nuclear or chemical or explosive but in the end was far more effective than any of those and would indeed do significant damage.
Thinking about his prisoner's refusal to speak during his captivity, thinking, too, on the devastating paragraphs of the reporter's article, the colonel reflected: The weapon was silence. The weapon was words.
The weapon was truth.
RECONCILIATION
RANSOM FELLS BELIEVED from a young age that he disliked his father, if not hated the man.
And was all the angrier when his dad up and died unexpectedly nearly a decade ago, before Ransom could find out for certain who the man really was and confront him. Maybe to sever ties forever, maybe to reconcile.
But, talk about second chances, at age thirty-nine Ransom Fells coincidentally found himself in circumstances that did indeed let him learn a bit more about the man.
And at the moment, he was now reflecting on these facts and thinking, too: Be careful what you wish for. Be real careful about that.
Under a gray sky, he was sitting alone in his rental Camry in a city park in Indiana. He peered absently through the windshield at a splashy army of September trees surrounding an impromptu softball field, laid out sloppily by some local teams. The lot and park were empty.
He considered again what he'd just learned about his father, things that he never could have imagined.
And he considered, too, the bigger question they raised: Could a death--violent death--ultimately (and ironically) lead to something positive, a reconciliation of sorts?
Ransom absently touched his chin and felt stubble, turned the rearview mirror his way and gazed back at his lean face, small buttons of gray eyes, hawkish nose, full head of businessman's neatly trimmed black hair. Yes, he'd forgotten to shave. Unlike him. He flipped the mirror back, stretched and lifted his coffee cup to his lips, realized suddenly he'd ordered the cup four or five hours ago. Ice cold. Still he swallowed the sip and took another.
His father.
Impossible.
And yet...
*
YESTERDAY, FOR HIS JOB, Ransom Fells came to this area, northern Indiana, on the cusp of the country's terminally ill Industrial Belt. Chesterton was about ten miles from where he'd grown up and twenty from Gary. This was an area of the United States to which Ransom had never traveled since he left home at age fourteen with his mother and younger brother to be near her relatives in Virginia, after his parents' divorce.
He'd had a few chances to come here for business but declined. Another man at GKS Technology generally handled this part of the country.
And as for a pleasure trip to these parts? No way in hell. There were a few remaining family members nearby, but they were indistinct, distant planets in the solar system of relations.
But he wouldn't have visited even if he'd known them better. No, t
he reason he was a stranger was Stanford Fells, his father.
Coming here would remind Ransom way too much of those gray Saturday afternoons in the fall, when many of his high school classmates would go to the local football games with their dads or--unimaginable to Ransom--to Soldier Field to see the Bears, on season tickets! Stan had taken him to one baseball game, the White Sox, and they'd left at the seventh inning stretch, because his father figured they'd seen enough. "Seven's good as nine. You wait till the end, takes you forever to get out of the lot."
Coming here would remind Ransom that Stan never bothered to tell his son anything about his job as a service tech for industrial power systems, which seemed really neat to the boy, who would've loved to see some of the factories Stan worked in. He never met any of his father's work buddies, never went to barbecues with their families, like the other kids talked about.
Coming here would remind him of Stan silently enduring holiday dinners for forty minutes or so and leaving before dessert and going down to the Ironworks Tavern--yeah, even on Christmas. Preferring the Ironworks to playing with the new football his son had received as a present or helping put together the train set or playing the computer game, even though it came with two controllers.
Coming here would remind him of Ransom and his little brother--Mom dozing--glancing at the curtains of their bungalow when they heard the whooshing sound of a car approaching, lights glowing on the dingy cloth. Was it Stan? Usually not.
But then yesterday fate, God or what have you (Ransom believed in the last of that trinity only) intervened, in the incarnation of a call from his boss. "Joey's sick, I mean fucking sick."
"Sorry to hear that." Ransom's heart fell. He knew what was coming.
"Yeah. Can you take over for him?"
"Where, Chicago?"
"Indiana, north."
Wouldn't you know it, he thought angrily.
"You're from there, right? You know it?"
He debated but in the end decided to stop being a wuss. It was hard to say no to his boss and even though GKS was weathering the bad economy you never knew what the future would hold. Besides, the money would be great and who couldn't use a little extra green? So he'd said a reluctant okay, downloaded Joey's file and read through it. He then picked up a rental car near his home in downtown Baltimore, threw the salesman's sample cases into the trunk and hit the road, growing increasingly edgy as he miled his way west on I-70.