The doctor looked at him with distaste. “Just a few seconds for the drug to get to his brain. But if this is a low dose, the effect won’t last long.”
McGarvey entered the cell and Deyhim took up a position next to him. Higgins came to the door, but remained outside.
“Misae el kher,” McGarvey said in reasonably passable Egyptian Arabic. Good afternoon. He only knew a few phrases.
Bin Ramdi mumbled something that McGarvey didn’t catch.
“I didn’t understand that,” Deyhim said. “Do you want me to have him repeat it?”
“No,” McGarvey said. “Ask him if he is a member of al-Quaida.”
“Sir, we’ve already established—”
“Just ask the question,” McGarvey said.
Deyhim asked the question in Arabic, but he had to repeat it several times before bin Ramdi gave a slurred response.
“Aywa.” Yes.
“I got it,” McGarvey said. “Tell him that we know Osama bin Laden is hiding in the mountains near Drosh.”
Deyhim made the translation.
“Tell him that we know this for a fact.”
Deyhim translated.
“All I want is a confirmation.”
Deyhim translated, but bin Ramdi was shaking his head drunkenly, and muttering something about Allah.
“Repeat all of it,” McGarvey told Deyhim. “I want to make sure he understands.”
Deyhim translated, but bin Ramdi only shook his head.
It was the response that McGarvey had been told to expect. Sodium thiopental reduced the subject’s inhibitions, but it wasn’t the truth serum of fiction. Used in conjunction with a skillful interrogator, some useful information could be gained from some subjects some of the time. But whatever was said to them would definitely place a deep-seated suggestion in their brains, one they would not soon forget.
“Sir, I think this guy is fried,” Deyhim said.
“You’re right,” McGarvey agreed. “Let’s try the next one.”
As Higgins stepped away from the door, he gave McGarvey an odd, pensive look, and then glanced in at the doped-up prisoner.
Richardson and Gloria were coming out of the third cell when McGarvey and Deyhim entered the second where Kamal al-Turabi was seated, shackled to the bench. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, with white paper slippers on his feet. His eyes widened slightly when he saw who it was, but then it was as if a cobra’s hood descended over his face.
“Good afternoon,” McGarvey said in English, and Deyhim translated.
Al-Turabi was having some trouble focusing, but he did not seem as heavily sedated as bin Ramdi.
“Ask him if he works for al-Quaida,” McGarvey instructed Deyhim, who translated.
An answer seemed to form on the prisoner’s lips, but then he smiled and shook his head. “I am a simple dentist from Maryland,” he said in English. His voice was somewhat slurred, as if he’d had several cocktails. “I’ve never seen you before.”
Of course not, McGarvey thought. But you just made one hell of a mistake.
“We know that Uncle Osama has gone back to Somalia, where he has many friends. We would like you merely to confirm this for us.”
Deyhim translated.
Al-Turabi sniggered. “Aywa, that’s what I heard too,” he replied in English. He leaned forward on the bench. “Do you know what little bird told me?”
“No, who?” McGarvey said, and he nodded for Deyhim to translate.
“It was a flock of birds,” al-Turabi said. “Right here. All the hawks know. And so do the scorpions.” He laughed, and his eyes drooped. “Insh’allah,” he muttered.
“Shukran,” McGarvey said. Thank you.
He and Deyhim left the cell as Richardson and Gloria were coming out of number four. “I’m finished with the first two,” McGarvey said.
“Are we getting anything?” Gloria asked.
“About what we expected,” McGarvey replied, and she nodded.
He and Deyhim went into the third cell where Assa al-Haq was shackled to the bench. “Ask if he works for al-Quaida.”
Deyhim translated.
The prisoner looked up sleepily and nodded. He was drooling from the corners of his mouth.
“Tell him that we know that bin Laden has run to Iran and is hiding there now.”
Deyhim gave McGarvey a sharp look, but then translated.
“Tell him we merely want a confirmation,” McGarvey said, and Deyhim translated. But it was obvious that al-Haq had no idea what he was being asked.
“That’s enough,” McGarvey said and he led Deyhim into cell four, where the Pakistani prisoner Zia Warrag was all but unconscious on the bench. “Ask the son of a bitch if he works for al-Quaida.”
“Sir, I think this guy’s out of it,” Deyhim said.
“Ask him, goddammit!” McGarvey shouted. He felt dirty, like a voyeur peeking in a bathroom window at someone sitting on a toilet.
The prisoner looked up at the sound of McGarvey’s voice, and Deyhim made the translation, but there was no response.
Higgins came to the door, but said nothing.
“Tell him that we know bin Laden is hiding in Karachi,” McGarvey said. He wanted to get this over with right now, and get the hell out. “Tell him all I want is a confirmation. Yes or no.”
Deyhim translated, but the prisoner just stared at him.
“Fuck it,” McGarvey said. He turned and brushed past Higgins. “We’re out of here.”
“Did you find what you wanted, Mr. McGarvey?” the intel officer asked.
McGarvey stopped to look at the marine officer. “Yes, I did.” He glanced back at the prisoner in cell four. “The poor bastards don’t have a clue what they’re fighting for or why. They’re just killing people because some imam told them it was what Allah wanted them to do.”
“Are you okay?” Gloria asked after they’d taken off from Guantanamo Bay and headed up toward cruising altitude.
As soon as they’d boarded the Gulfstream III business jet, the steward had handed McGarvey a stiff bourbon, which he’d knocked back. He held his glass up for another, and looked at Gloria. “I’ll live.”
The steward came and replenished McGarvey’s drink.
“It’s like poking through someone’s dirty laundry,” Gloria said. “And I have a feeling that Weiss likes that kind of shit.”
McGarvey held the cool glass against his forehead.
Gloria watched him for a long time. “Now what?” she finally asked.
“We go back to Langley and wait,” he said. “Weiss will find a way to spring those four, and Otto will track them.”
“To bin Laden?”
“Hopefully,” McGarvey said. He wanted to take a very long, very hot shower. If this didn’t work he was going to have to try all over again with a different batch of prisoners. Maybe some of them being held in Afghanistan. But no matter how long it took he wasn’t going to quit.
He looked up. Gloria was staring at him, waiting for him to explain.
“Within twenty-four hours after they get out of Gitmo, they’ll be leaving Cuba. Probably to Mexico City first. And unless I missed with all four guesses I suspect at least one of them will try to warn bin Laden.”
Gloria understood. “When we find out which one of them is not running for a place to hide, we’ll have the bastard.”
“Something like that.”
FORTY-SEVEN
Everyone aboard the Libyan submarine was tired. It had been eighteen hours since they had been forced to submerge north of Benghazi, and for the entire time Graham had run the crew ragged with repeated battle stations missile and battle stations torpedo.