“Is Black List number six, Al-Duri with him?”
I took a deep breath. This was my time to test the waters with my Saddam theory. This guy didn’t know what had been going on here the last three months. There wasn’t anyone left here to tell him except me. I could pitch this any way I wanted. “We’re not interested in Al-Duri,” I told him in a confidential tone. “He’s no longer a player. We’ve got other players we’re after now.”
“Like who?”
Over the next forty-five minutes I gave Kelly a full data dump. It was then, for the first time, I spelled out in detail the hypotheses that had been coming together for me over the last few weeks. “Saddam trusted his bodyguards,” I explained. “We know that. We also know that there were thirty-two of them in the inner circle. We’ve identified them all. Some were killed and captured. Some have left the country. And there are some still here in Tikrit.”
“How many?”
“There are probably ten leaders of the entire insurgency here. I think four of them are from the Al-Muslit tribe. All of them were inner-circle Hamaya. They were linked directly to Saddam. Maybe they still are.”
“Where are the reports on this?” Kelly asked.
“I’ve got it all in my head.”
He glanced around the room where we were sitting, the one Rich had used as his office. Pinned on the walls were link diagrams with names in boxes connected by lines of influence and family ties. “Is that what you’re talking about?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Those have been here since before the last group came. None of the people I’m looking for are on those diagrams.”
“Well, put up your own then,” he said. “Get all these diagrams down on paper. I need to get up to speed on this. If you die and it’s all still in your head, we’ll have to start over.”
I could have gone a lot further with Kelly that night. But I didn’t want to overload him. What I had told him was a general overview, but I had already narrowed my focus from the list of thirty-two inner-circle bodyguards Nasir had given me. Through countless hours of interrogation, chasing down numerous rabbit holes, I finally zeroed in on four specific Al-Muslits: the brothers Radman Ibrahim, Muhammad Ibrahim, and Khalil Ibrahim, along with their cousin Farris Yasin. These were the names that kept coming up in talking with detainees and informants. The four had taken an increasingly central place in the link diagrams I had created in my mind, connected to numerous former regime members, Hamaya, and known insurgents. As I’d sifted though hundreds of pages of my notes, I could make out the faint traces of a pattern that kept taking me back to these four men.
But there were still a lot of questions to be answered. Why would the Al-Muslits be involved in the insurgency at all? Most of them had been men of position and rank. They didn’t need money: Saddam had seen to that. The only motive that made any sense was personal loyalty to their leader. These men had been sworn to protect and obey Saddam. Whom could he trust now, if he was in hiding or on the run?
The truth was, I was a lot more convinced that Saddam was somewhere in or around Tikrit than I had let on to Kelly. My evidence was the close proximity of bodyguards in the area, particularly the Al-Muslit brothers and their cousin. Saddam would keep them close. They might still be following his orders.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d made a convincing case to Kelly, but over the next few days I had the opportunity to present my theory again. This time it was to the team’s commander, Bam Bam, as well as to Rod, the new case officer who had replaced Chris. In his early thirties and a former Special Operations soldier, Rod had a great attitude. He was willing to accept that he didn’t know anything about the situation and was willing to learn from anyone who did. I became his primary source of information.
At first it was a little overwhelming for him. Rod tried to write down as much as he could, putting it on a white memo board and hanging it on his wall. He had listed the names of the primary targets I’d provided, along with a brief description of what was known about them.
One particular entry on that white board reflected both the extent of my knowledge and my ignorance of the insurgency network in Tikrit. The name was Muhammad Ibrahim, one of the three Al-Muslit brothers I had identified as prime suspects. Next to it Rod had written “Wildcard.” That pretty much summed it up. The intelligence I’d gathered often referred to Muhammad Ibrahim as the primary insurgent leader. But none of the prisoners or sources had allegedly spoken to him or even seen him since before the war. If he was in any way still connected to the bodyguard brotherhood, he was doing a great job of keeping a low profile.
The same wasn’t true of his brother Radman. Although he was just as elusive, we occasionally got word of his whereabouts and activities. The Three Amigos, the walk-in sources brought to me by Sergeant Olsen, claimed they could hunt him down. So did two Kurds, who had worked as informants for Chris shortly before he left. In early October they came to us claiming that Radman was way out west in the city of Haditha. If we raided the location within the next three hours, we’d capture him. That wasn’t possible. We’d need at least twelve hours to properly prepare for the hit. The Kurds were clearly disappointed, but promised to come back when they could provide a larger window for Radman’s whereabouts. I really liked their motivation. There was no hidden agenda. As Kurds, a persecuted minority under the regime, they hated Saddam. It was as simple as that.
As Rod settled into his new job, he began working more closely with Fred, the young street criminal who was our best source for the teenage gangs that served as foot soldiers for the insurgency. Unlike the Kurds, Fred had a mixed motive for his cooperation. He had aspirations to be the leader of his tribe and encouraged us to arrest any and all of his rivals for the position. He had also developed a crush on Zita, a local female translator who had volunteered to help us. He never came to a session without a gift for her.
Yet we all agreed that it took a criminal to catch a criminal. Rod directed most of Fred’s efforts toward keeping tabs on Munthir, the most notorious of the gang leaders. But it was gratifying when Rod subsequently approached me to double-check the list of targets I had identified. I had reason to hope that he would direct Fred to keep a lookout for the Al-Muslit brothers and their cousin Farris Yasin.
The frequency of hits dropped sharply in the first week following the team’s arrival. They were getting familiar with their new surroundings. But they were also waiting for the intelligence staff to provide them with concrete targets. I had made as good a case as I could for the Al-Muslit connection to Saddam and their involvement in the insurgency, but I still had no hard evidence to back up my claims. Rod asked more than once why we were after guys that he’d never heard of. I needed to give him a reason.
I finally got one when I interrogated Ahmed Yasin, yet another of the nine brothers who made up the Al-Muslit fraternity. Ahmed wasn’t on my list of key Al-Muslit targets simply because his name hadn’t come up during interrogations or source meetings. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t worth interrogating. One of the most important lessons I had learned during the last two months was that completely innocent people could provide important information about extremely guilty people.
No more than twenty years old, Ahmed, the overweight kid brother in the family, had been picked up by the local police a week earlier. He’d been held for four days before being transferred to the 4th ID.
After six hours of fruitless questioning he finally started to break. “What is your involvement with the insurgency?” I asked.
“I already told the other interrogators everything I knew.”
I looked around. “Do you see those guys here?”