Authors: Roy David
In a panic, he grabbed the phone on his desk that would scramble his call to Langley. Cursing himself, he’d earlier asked the tech boys in Langley’s basement to see if they would retrieve and monitor the emails from Alex’s main server – the one she logged into when she was away from home.
It only just occurred to him that Alex might have kept the one
email he’d sent her just after their affair started. He’d written it in the thrill of the moment, but regretted doing so ever since. Even so, he never thought it would come to this. Women were like that, he thought. So fucking sentimental.
Fuck
, if she had saved it and the boys downstairs read it, he was a definite gonner. Even though he hadn’t sent it in his own name, it was the sort of material the tech boys would follow up and, one way or another, soon trace it back to him. His link with Alex, then and now, would be fatal.
The phone answered, he tried to quell the agitation rising within him.
‘Richard Northwood here – say, you had a look at that computer server I asked about?’
‘Just a moment, sir.’
Northwood heard muffled voices in the background. He could hardly stand the tension, his heart pounding, hands so moist he nearly dropped the receiver.
‘We were just about to get on to it, sir,’ the voice said.
‘Okay, well cancel that. The situation’s been resolved.’
He put the phone back on its cradle with a feeling of utter relief. He was off the hook for now. But he knew he couldn’t sit on this al-Tikriti information forever. Sooner or later he’d have to pass it higher up the line. Maybe they’d order the retrieval of all Alex’s emails. They’d certainly want to know how he was going to contain the problem. Maybe a covert operation on her apartment, one where they’d make it look like a robbery, trash the place – take the computer and hi-fi, the television. The work of a junky.
Maybe he could get the Badgeman involved? Plant drugs, tip off the Feds? Then again, the CIA and FBI weren’t sharing beds at the moment. He’d have to think of a way to get Alex’s computer. It could provide a mine of information.
And it was the only safe way of saving himself.
* * *
Now, Northwood faced one more question: who else had this guy, al-Tikriti, given the information to? There was no knowing if he’d passed on a hard copy to anyone else. Even though they’d recovered one from his safe, was it the only one? Currently in Abu Ghraib prison under CIA jurisdiction, they would soon find out.
Northwood called the Baghdad bureau and spoke to his senior field officer. ‘We’re going to have to hold our man. We need to know who else has seen this stuff. It’s up to you to find out. Just give me the answers. I don’t want to hear how you got them – go to the maximum if necessary.’
Inserting Alex’s memory stick into his modem, he turned his attention to the file. He shook his head, almost in disbelief, as he read the documents. It was a truly damning catalogue of fraud on a grand scale. A shiver ran through him at the thought it might enter the public domain. All these companies had their snouts in the trough.
For a fleeting moment, he broke off, wondering which of the enhanced interrogation techniques his colleagues might use on al-Tikriti. The CIA and US Military Intelligence had a list of measures they could adopt – all approved at the highest level of the Administration where the subject was delicately referred to as an ‘alternative set of procedures’. The word ‘torture’, of course, was never used. Recalling a conversation with Kowolski just before the invasion, Northwood had been struck by Kowolski’s determination to ensure that nuance, particularly of a negative nature, was never to be allowed in media reporting of the war. How funny, he thought, that in Washington the meaning of the word was adopted policy.
Shuddering, he loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, and got back to work.
* * *
The sound of footsteps echoing nearer in the corridor roused Aban al-Tikriti from a semi-sleep. His body stiffened as the steel
door clanged open. Still hooded, he could only sense the number of men entering the cell, but guessed there were three. He waited nervously, desperate for a voice to tell him there had been a mistake and he was free to go home to his beloved family. But no one spoke.
They yanked him to his feet, hands tearing off his dressing gown. Fingers dug into his midriff as his pyjama bottoms were tugged down.
‘No, no, help me, please!’ he pleaded, now terrified.
Strong arms either side lifted him upwards until the pyjama bottoms came free. Gasping for breath, he tried to speak again but only a shocked, pitiful, croak came out as his top was ripped off his back.
Totally naked, save for the black, bloodstained hood, they began turning him round and round repeatedly until his head swam. He felt like vomiting, just able to catch the foul taste of the bile that rose from his stomach. His arms were forced backwards until he feared they would snap. The cold of metal dug into his wrists and he heard the click of the manacles closing tight, pinching his skin. Next, his ankles were shackled so he was completely powerless.
A sharp blow to the back of his head forced him down to a kneeling position and he felt the unforgiving courseness of rope being pulled over his head, then tight around his neck. He screamed as he was dragged across the floor, the friction of the rope biting deep into him, the flesh shredding from his knees on the rough, pitted, cement. They pushed his face up hard against the bars of his cell so he could barely move his head and he feared he would suffocate.
Still kneeling and unable to alter position, he heard the cell door begin to close. Summoning one last piece of strength, he managed only one word: ‘Toilet,’ he moaned.
‘Go fuckin’ shit yourself,’ a voice laughed as the door slammed shut.
And, at that moment, with cramp already setting in, all Aban al-Tikriti wanted to do was die.
15
Alex looked in the mirror. The strained half-smile that greeted her did little to ease the anxiety that had been gnawing at her over the last twenty-four hours.
She was concerned about Aban, worried about his email and its ramifications. Northwood’s threat had been implicit. Okay, he had a job to do – but not at her expense. She didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder everywhere she went, waiting for a knock on the door. The CIA could turn over her flat, hack into her emails for all she suspected. There was no time in her life right now for such nonsense.
To make matters worse, she’d just finished an elaborate telephone conversation with Kowolski regarding McDermott’s presentation day. He’d kept the news that most distressed her to the last.
‘Oh by the way, did I tell you we’ve got a big name to pin the medal on McDermott’s chest?’
‘No, who?’
‘The President.’
She put the phone down in a daze. Kowolski had her by the balls. Whichever way she turned, his grip was relentless. Only now after digesting the implications did she realise the whole show was a stunt to boost the President.
If only she’d thought everything through when he first offered her the McDermott job. The outcome never occurred to her. Political chicanery. Shouldn’t she have known it lay lurking in every corner to trap the unsuspecting? Now, she was an integral part of Kowolski’s sophistry. She’d been a fool again. Such a fool.
McDermott deserved his medal as far as she knew. Bravery
was bravery. For whatever cause, it had to be admired. Her distress lay solely with Kowolski and Northwood and their ilk and the greasy machinations of politics.
The venue had been booked for what he called ‘the launching of our star’. A formal lunch in the grand ballroom of a glitzy Midtown hotel. Two hundred guests would be invited, selected members of the armed forces, politicians, a couple of former presidents, city leaders and civic dignitaries, international embassy staff. And, of course, the whole media pack.
Topping the list would be the President himself. He would pin the medal on Matt McDermott.
And the whole world would see it.
Shit
.
* * *
Alex tried to call the only number she had for the al-Tikriti family. Just the sound of an unobtainable line. She’d tried it several times with the same result. What could she do to help?
Hurrying over to her desk, she switched on the computer and went to her emails. Only the one from Richard Northwood, now some six months old, remained. She opened it, reading her former lover’s words with a remoteness which, not that long ago, she would never have considered possible. There was only one course of action she felt she could take. Setting the file to ‘print’, she watched as the paper edged out of the printer bit by bit.
Then she called his number.
‘It’s me again.’
‘And?’ His response was cold.
‘I’m afraid I had to switch on my computer – there was indeed an email from my friend Aban. I haven’t had time to read it yet,’ she lied.
Northwood sucked in a breath. He had to play the game her way at the moment. ‘You must not open it – do you understand?’
She could hear the desperation in his voice. It pleased her.
‘Delete it – permanently – without reading it. You’ll find yourself in serious trouble if you don’t and I won’t be able to protect you.’
‘Well you’re going to have to protect me – and Aban. I’ve just printed off another email from around six months ago. It’s one you’d recognise and it’s in an envelope sitting on my desk. Anyone comes into my apartment uninvited or hacks into my emails is likely to find it staring straight at them – do you know what I’m saying?’
There was a chilly silence for half a minute. She wanted him to be the one to break the void but she finally gave in.
‘You’re not the only one capable of dirty tricks so the ball’s in your court, Mr Northwood.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Safe passage for me and Aban. Call the dogs off.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. And the emails?’
‘I’ll delete the Aban email,’ she lied. ‘The other will have to stay put – let’s say for insurance purposes.’
‘Alex, you’re a fucking bitch,’ he said slamming down the phone.
* * *
He paced the office like a tiger in a small cage, turning this way, stopping, peering out of the window at a grey New York afternoon, turning back, scowling.
Richard Northwood had crucial decisions to make, yet he felt incapable of making any. Twice he’d picked up the phone to the Baghdad bureau, hesitated, and replaced the receiver. In the mood Alex had just portrayed, he felt she might well have made several copies of the file. Its incriminating contents could be winging their way to every news outlet in the country for all he knew. And he was powerless to stop it.
The doubts and frustration gnawed at him, spreading like a rash. He’d half dismissed the idea she might shop him to his wife although he couldn’t be certain. Under attack, who knew
what lengths she’d go to? He took a deep breath and forced himself to think rationally. Okay, her moves so far appeared to be purely defensive. He consoled himself there was no reason to suspect she would switch play for the time being. No point yet – she didn’t know they possessed her memory stick. And if she had made further copies, wouldn’t she have tried to post them at the same time as their pick-up?
For the moment, he had to believe just as she’d told him; she didn’t have the time or the inclination for anything other than to see the McDermott job through to the end. If there was only the one memory stick then he was home and dry.
Could he rely on that assumption? No, of course not. The more he turned things over in his mind, the more irrational his thoughts. Maybe he would have to retrieve the goods from her apartment himself.
But the thought of it immediately filled him with panic. Would he be up to it? What if someone saw him and raised the alarm? How the hell would he explain his actions if he was caught? He was good at directing other people to do the dirty work. Doing it himself scared him half to death.
He slumped forward in his chair, head in his hands, and let out a loud groan.
* * *
They half-dragged Aban, naked, along the bleak prison corridor.
He could only moan, a pitiful wailing noise that echoed off the grim bare walls. Splayed against the bars of his cell all night, excruciating pain had tormented his body, relieved only when he’d blacked out. Twice they doused him in cold water, once after he lost control of his bowels. The shock of it set him shivering uncontrollably, each tremor intensifying the agony of the tight manacles that dug into the flesh of his wrists and his ankles, the noose around his neck chafing ugly red blotches on his skin.
It was known in CIA circles as the softening-up process.
Delirium now numbed his mind. Still hooded, he felt himself being shuffled into a room. Was he back home? Weird visions of Farrah and their boys taunted him, playing tricks. Farrah stretched a hand out to him, then she was gone. He could no longer tell whether his eyes were open or closed.
A sickening smell of cheap disinfectant assailed his senses.
Fried onions
.
Rough hands gripped his arms and legs, lifting him horizontally. His body tensed as he was manoeuvred onto a hard wooden bed, tilted so his head was lower than his feet. Leather straps pulled tight, pinning his legs and his chest.
His head swam, disorientated, faint and dizzy. Suddenly, a blinding light as the hood was removed, dark figures around him. A towel was draped loosely over his face. A voice, very close to his right ear. American; low and earnest.
‘Who else did you send it to?’
Was someone talking to him? Or was he hearing things? Send it to? What did they mean?
‘Fried onions,’ he slurred, incoherently.
A hand touched his temple, resting firm and sure. He tried to move his head to see precious light but the towel was suddenly twisted tight from either side of him, blinding him once more, and covering his nose and mouth so he could hardly breathe.
He felt a trickle of water over the towel. It seeped into his mouth. Instinct taking over, he tried to cough, move his head aside, but he was totally powerless. A one-second pause, then another trickle, this time heavier. He could feel the water slowly filling his nose, starting to dribble down his throat.