A Cold Day In Mosul (23 page)

Sam noticed his gaze. "He was fairly shaken up after the RPG attack. William probably roughed him up a little, too."

"Look at me," Ethan told the man. "I said look at me!"

Those eyes managed to focus on him.

"All this effort and loss of life to grab you," Ethan said. "You better be worth it."

Al Taaraz couldn't answer, of course, not with his mouth taped.

"Going black." Sam produced an abaya from the backpack beside her and proceeded to pull the robe over the man's body. She completed his look with a niqab. For all intents and purposes it looked like a woman sat there.

Sam lowered her own veil, and Ethan did likewise.

Maaz drove with the flow of the traffic; for Ethan, it wasn't fast enough.

"How far to our destination?" Ethan asked him.

"Not far," Maaz answered.

Three Islamic State technicals roared past in the opposite lane, weaving between traffic. One truck bed contained a ZU-2, the others several militants. Likely men from a nearby checkpoint who had heard the call for backup and, eager for martyrdom, hurried to the site. Many more fighters would come, Ethan knew; they would probably cordon off the entire neighborhood to search for the emir.

Ethan retrieved the smartphone stowed in his abaya and activated the GPS app. He wanted to know exactly where the driver was taking them. Sam was probably doing the same on her laptop behind him.

Maaz turned onto a side street and slowed the Rio. He leaned toward Ethan to count the hand-painted house numbers on their right and stopped in front of a squat-looking building labelled thirty-three in Arabic. A cobbler's shop, judging from the poster of a sandal on the window. The shoe was displayed at an angle that hid the sole, of course.

Ethan glanced in the rearview mirror; the other Rio had halted just behind them.

"Stay here." Maaz left the vehicle and entered the house. He peered from the doorway a moment later and beckoned the others inside.

Keeping their niqabs lowered in case any of the neighbors were watching, Ethan and Sam left the vehicle. They lifted the fully-veiled Al Taaraz from the backseat and, sharing his weight between them, carried him to the front door. He didn't struggle.

Doug, William and the other driver joined them, and they shut the door behind them.

The grizzled proprietor turned over the sign on the window so that the outer portion read "closed." He then rolled one of the many area rugs aside, revealing a wooden trapdoor set into the stone floor. He pried it open.

Within, stairs led down into darkness.

"Welcome to our temporary black site, people," Sam said.

twenty-five

T
he Islamic State leadership had a tendency to casually sweep the kidnapping or death of a high ranking official under the rug, since it happened more often than anyone dared admit. There would be no announcement regarding Al Taaraz; a new emir would quietly assume command in Mosul and the Caliphate would act as if the man had been in charge the entire time. But it would be a few days before any of that transpired. The Shura council would have to be notified, first, likely via courier. Then an Internet meeting would be arranged. Finally, the new official would take office.

Sam and company had to contact the courier before anyone else did, as it was possible he might be the one selected to notify the Shura council of the kidnapping. Time was of the essence. The interrogation had to proceed immediately, with Al Taaraz's cooperation expedited.

To avoid any irksome congressional inquiries, Sam usually utilized interrogators hailing from the local foreign intelligence service of the country she resided in. Obviously she didn't have that luxury in the current situation. But even if she did, she didn't have time for the usual "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

Sam had specifically asked for Ethan's involvement that day. "You're very menacing when you want to be," she'd told him.

What happened next was to be strictly off the books, and would never be reported in any email or document. When Ethan eventually obtained the intel, Sam would simply write:
The High Value Target betrayed the courier.

Ethan descended into the square-like basement room. A light bulb hung from the ceiling, but it was inactive of course. Instead, a ChemLight glow stick had been tossed into one corner, bathing the stone walls in low intensity chemiluminescence. An aperture in one wall presumably allowed oxygen exchange with the upper floor when the ceiling trapdoor was sealed.

At the center of the room Al Taaraz hunched in a wooden chair, his feet bound, his hands tied behind his back. He glowed green in the chemical light. In front of him was a table arrayed with various tools and instruments of torture. The psychological breaking had already begun.

Sam lurked in a shadowy recess, almost invisible in the green light because of the dark abaya and lowered veil she wore. Ethan meanwhile had doffed his woman clothes, and entered wearing only cargo pants and black gloves, his chest completely exposed. Sam had wanted Al Taaraz to see his physique. Wanted him to understand the sheer force of the man Al Taaraz was going up against. Before descending, Ethan had completed several pushups to pump up his arms, and the body heat the exercise generated had the added benefit of making him seem immune to the chill.

He approached the emir.

"Where is Abu Afri?" Ethan said quietly. He towered over the man.

"Do you know who I am?" Al Taaraz asked imperiously.

"Yes, you're my prisoner." Ethan offered him a steel canteen. "Water?"

The man eyed the vessel suspiciously and then shook his head.

Ethan shrugged and took a short drink. When finished, he dumped half the contents of the canteen over Al Taaraz's head. The man began to shiver as the cold water trickled down his naked body.

"I am Al Taaraz Abd Al Wajid," the man said, trembling wildly from the cold. "Emir of Mosul and regional commander of Dawla. I demand immediate release."

"Say again? I couldn't hear you."

"I am emir—"

"I think we need to clean out your mouth." Ethan squeezed the man's nostrils.

Al Taaraz tried to wriggle free but Ethan held him fast. When the man's mouth shot open for air, Ethan poured the canteen down his throat, pausing whenever Al Taaraz closed his mouth, and resuming when his lips reopened. Al Taaraz was spluttering and coughing by the time the canteen was empty.

Ethan felt slightly nauseous. He hated that kind of work, however necessary it might be. He glanced at his own gloved fingers, toward the slight humps over the fingernail regions caused by the bandages underneath, and reminded himself that the Islamic State had done worse to him.

It didn't make him feel any better.

"Where is Abu Afri?" Ethan said.

"You will burn in hellfire for this, infidel," Al Taaraz spat.

"You don't know, do you?" Ethan said.

Al Taaraz didn't answer.

"The courier you use to communicate with Abu Afri. Tell me how you contact him."

Al Taaraz's eyes glinted defiantly.

Ethan glanced at the black ghost that was Sam. She waited until Al Taaraz gazed her way as well, and then she inclined her veiled head.

Ethan turned toward the table, where the various tools and other instruments of torture were arrayed in full view of the prisoner. To obtain the items, Maaz had done a quick supply run, visiting various hardware stores nearby. Sam had provided the last two items—a vial of acid from an electroplating company, and a Smith & Wesson 640 revolver.

Ethan grabbed the vial from the table and released a drop of acid on Al Taaraz's pant leg, just above the knee. The man began to squirm as the liquid ate through the cotton to his skin, but his expression remained defiant.

"Acid is going to take too long." Ethan set aside the vial. "Let's speed things up and have some fun while we're at it."

He grabbed the 640 and calmly inserted three rounds, leaving two of the firing chambers empty. He gave the lubricated cylinder a good spin, then swung it back into the main revolver; he turned the cylinder one last time to make sure it locked.

"I hear you are employing some Russian mercenaries," Ethan said. "There's a little game they like to play. Have you heard of it?"

Ethan aimed at the emir's temple and squeezed the trigger.

CLICK.

Al Taaraz jerked, the fear obvious in his eyes.

"How do you contact the courier you use to communicate with Abu Afri?"

The man's jaw set.

Ethan swung out the cylinder of the revolver, gave it a good spin, and closed it. He pointed the 640 at Al Taaraz once more and repeated the question.

When the man didn't answer, Ethan squeezed the trigger.

CLICK.

Al Taaraz swallowed nervously.

"We can do this all day if you want," Ethan said. What Al Taaraz didn't know was that the rounds were dummies.

"I'll never talk," Al Taaraz snarled.

Ethan repeated the cylinder-spin ritual and pointed the 640 at the man.

CLICK.

Al Taaraz was shivering worse than ever.

Ethan glanced at Sam. "I think he's in a susceptible mental state. Let's try it."

"Try what?" Al Taaraz tried to sound defiant, though the quaver in his voice betrayed the raw fear. "I told you, I'm never going to talk. Torture me all you want. All day, as you say. I await my glorious death. Tonight I awaken in paradise!"

Ethan made another show of spinning the cylinder.

"You awake in paradise tonight with an eternal erection?" Ethan shoved the 640 into Al Taaraz's crotch. "What if we decide not to kill you? What if we decide to let you live? But without a certain reproductive organ?"

Al Taaraz's eyes bulged with fear.

CLICK.

Al Taaraz exhaled in obvious relief, and began to gasp for air.

Ethan turned toward Sam. "He's definitely susceptible now."

"Do it," Sam agreed.

"Do what?" Al Taaraz said, all the defiance gone from his voice.

"Wafeeq?" Ethan called.

William came down the steps, holding a syringe.

* * *

After the injection, Ethan opened a laptop on the counter. Doug had set up the Iridium Go on the rooftop, and the resultant Wi-Fi gave him Internet.

Ethan turned the laptop toward the man and instructed him to summon the courier. The emir logged into a Yahoo account after several failed attempts—he had problems typing his password in that drugged state—and when he finally got in, he drunkenly clicked on the draft folder.

Ethan took over at that point, and spotted two other messages sitting in the folder. Unencrypted. That was good, because without access to the public key file from his copy of The Mujahadeen's Secrets, Al Taaraz wouldn't be able to help them. Even so, the messages were somewhat cryptic in and of themselves.

The first read 022013. The second 030413. Eventually, after some carefully worded questions that required Al Taaraz to either nod or shake his head, Ethan and Sam determined that the numbers were dates and times. The first set of numbers was equivalent to February 20th, thirteen o'clock. The second, March 4th, same time. The location was obviously implied.

Ethan launched Google Maps and told the emir, "Show me the message hand-off location."

Al Taaraz clumsily navigated with the mouse, finally marking a street corner near a mosque.

Ethan left a new message in the draft folder, using the same format, choosing thirteen o'clock the next day. He deleted the previous two messages and left another that read, in Arabic,
Please delete the contents of this folder when you get this.

Satisfied that the interrogation was successful, Sam tagged Al Taaraz for pickup: sometime during the week, probably in the next day or so, other operatives would transfer the emir to a secure location outside Mosul. Until then, the resistance would have to hold him.

Ethan and the others left Al Taaraz in the care of the cobbler and a resistance guard, then made their way back to the forward operating base to prepare for the next phase of the mission.

* * *

Hands in his pockets, Ethan walked along the sidewalk, dressed in a winter cap, jacket, sweater and slacks. Sam had applied a light coat of foundation to his face, covering the bruises.

Ethan reached the designated street corner five minutes early. No one was present, save for an Iraqi seated on a nearby curb in front of a parked Hyundai Cerato. The haji was playing with his phone, ostensibly looking for a network signal. He looked very ordinary in his winter clothing, and like many Iraqis, wore a mustache rather than a beard. The courier? No. The man didn't really resemble the file photo.

Ethan waited. A few passersby came and went.

Ten minutes passed.

Ethan began to wonder if the courier was going to show up. He studied the Iraqi by the curb once more. That couldn't be him. Then again, the picture he had seen had been very blurry.

As Ethan watched, the individual abruptly got up and approached.

Ethan realized why he hadn't recognized the man from the photo. His mustache had grown thick in the intervening years, as had his brow, which had become almost a unibrow. His face was far more weathered, too, with fine lines throughout, like sun-dried earth.

"Salaam," the man told him. He rubbed his nose.

"Salaam," Ethan answered cautiously.

"You are not the usual messenger."

"I am the new messenger," Ethan said simply.

The man stared at him, waiting. He rubbed his nose again. "And what is the message?"

Sam had almost given Ethan a tracking device in the form of a memory stick, but she believed the courier wouldn't trust a new messenger enough to deliver something like that. Instead Ethan was to recite an oral message.

"The Prince of the Faithful must call a meeting of the Shura council soon. There is a new member the emir of Mosul wishes to nominate. An Islamic scholar named Kareef Al Bayati who promises much funding. He has an extensive social media following, with many videos on YouTube."

For several moments the courier simply stared impassively, as if hesitant. Did the man consider the message too unimportant to relay? Ethan had argued for sharing the news of Al Taaraz's kidnapping instead, but in the end Sam decided against it. Perhaps that had been a mistake.