It was different in Baghdad. Walt’s request for a raid would have been one of many considered by his commander. Approval would be based on hard data, not the sort of instincts I had developed in Tikrit. It was out of my hands.
I arrived at the admiral’s office a little before 1200 and a few minutes later Colonel Walker showed up. He had several copies of the link diagram with him and seemed nervous. I could understand why. As the chief intelligence officer for the task force, he was about to turn over the reins to a mere staff sergeant. If I didn’t make a convincing case, it would be his ass on the line. I wasn’t worried. I knew what I was talking about. I knew it better than anyone. And, despite all our setbacks, I still believed in my theory.
Admiral McCraven was a tall, thin man with a powerful presence. After he and Colonel Walker greeted each other, I was introduced. “Staff Sergeant Maddox is here to give you a briefing on the situation in Tikrit, sir,” the colonel explained.
“Very good,” said Admiral McCraven. “Staff Sergeant Maddox, you are an interrogator, is that correct?”
I was about to answer when Colonel Walker jumped in. “Sir, Staff Sergeant Maddox has spent the better part of the last six months in Tikrit, living with the team up there. He and their analyst Kelly have built a link diagram based on the information he has gathered from detainees and sources. I believe you’ll be very interested in what he has to say.”
“Excellent,” replied the admiral, turning to me. “Are you ready to proceed, Sergeant Maddox?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I could see Colonel Walker out of the corner of my eye. He was still unsure about handing the ball off to me. But I was calm. It didn’t matter who was there. I could brief this link diagram to anyone at any time. I knew it like the back of my hand.
For the next fifty minutes I went into detail, emphasizing the points that I especially wanted the admiral to retain. I reminded him of the $1.9 million we had found. I explained that the money was intended to fund the insurgency not just in Tikrit, but across the whole country. If there was one thing I wanted the admiral to come away with, it was the name Muhammad Ibrahim. I summarized as much of the search for Muhammad Ibrahim as I thought the admiral could absorb in one briefing. By the time I was finished with the former bodyguard, he was worse than the Antichrist. “If we can catch him, he could lead us to Saddam,” I said confidently.
I finished by telling him about my interrogation of the fisherman. “As the cousin of Muhammad Khudayr,” I said, “I believe that this man can lead us to where Muhammad Ibrahim is hiding.” If Walt couldn’t sell the raid on this last target to his commander, maybe I could sell it directly to Admiral McCraven. It was worth a try.
My concluding words were met with a long silence. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d overstepped my bounds. The admiral stared at me as if he were trying to figure out whether I was completely full of shit. Colonel Walker held his breath. I think we were both wondering which option the admiral would choose next: throw us out of his office or thank us for our time and forget about the whole thing.
Neither of us was prepared for what happened next. The admiral looked at his watch and turned to the colonel. “I’m scheduled to fly to Dohar, Qatar, tomorrow, colonel,” he said. “Staff Sergeant Maddox will be accompanying me on that flight.” Then he looked at me. “Sergeant Maddox, I will be briefing General Custard, the J-2 for General Abizaid at CENTCOM, on the status of the situation. I don’t have time to learn everything about this thing.” He gestured to the link diagram on the table. “You will be briefing him on it. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Walker cleared his throat. “Sir, Sergeant Maddox is scheduled to redeploy on Sunday the fourteenth. I assume that will be no problem.”
“None whatsoever,” the admiral replied. “He can catch a civilian flight to the U.S. from Doha. I need CENTCOM to hear what he has to say.” The meeting seemed to be coming to an end. But before it did, I had a request to make.
“Sir,” I said, “I have a partner who arrived in the country with me. He’s also scheduled to redeploy back to the States on Sunday. Would it be all right if he came to Doha with me so that we could return home together?”
“I don’t think that’s a problem,” the admiral replied. I wondered how Lee would feel when he heard that the head of the task force had approved his travel plans. “Colonel Walker,” the admiral continued, “I want to thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
He shook my hand. “Staff Sergeant Maddox,” he said sincerely, “I want to thank you for your hard work. It’s sergeants like you who win wars and make officers like Colonel Walker and me look good.”
From the moment we left the admiral’s office, the colonel treated me as if we were best buddies. He even started calling me by my first name. It didn’t matter that he got my first name wrong. What mattered was that Colonel Walker was on my side.
My first thought was to ask him to push for the raid on the target that Muhammad Khudayr’s cousin had identified. But there was no way I could directly interfere with the decision-making process. Walt was the only one who could sell the raid. He had a connection with the team in Baghdad and they trusted him. Colonel Walker would not have been willing to pull rank and interfere with that relationship. And I wasn’t about to ask. All I could do was hope that Walt was making a good case for the hit.
Meanwhile I hunted down Lee to give him the news. We were going to Doha and were flying there on Admiral McCraven’s personal bird. I had to convince him that I wasn’t bullshitting. We ended the day at a restaurant that had been opened at BIAP for U.S. personnel. It was surprisingly good and I tried my best to enjoy the food. But the fact that I was actually leaving was just beginning to sink in. One of the most significant parts of my life, professionally and personally, was coming to an end. Looking back, I was proud to have worked with so many dedicated men, especially the team in Tikrit. We had tried to stop bad men from doing bad things. We were part of the greater good and had come very close to accomplishing what we had set out to do. Unfortunately, by this time tomorrow I would be on a plane with Iraq far behind me. It wouldn’t matter how close we had ever been to capturing our target, Black List #1. We’d tried and failed.
When I got back to my tent, I lay down and closed my eyes. But I knew it was pointless. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep on my last night in Iraq.
I got up and headed over to the prison. It was where Lee and the rest of the interrogators were hanging out. I was looking for someone to talk to, but I had to be careful. Aside from Lee, the rest of these guys were going to be staying behind for weeks or months to come. The last thing they wanted to hear was somebody talking about what it felt like to be going home. It was just good to be around fellow interrogators. I sat down and picked up an old magazine.
After a few minutes, a major came in and spotted me. “Hey, Maddox,” he said. “Now that they sent your fisherman out on a recon, does that mean we can get rid of him tomorrow?”
I sat bolt upright. “What recon?” I was fully alert now.
“You didn’t hear?” he replied in a deliberately disinterested tone. “They took him out yesterday.”
“Did they find the target?”
“Yeah. In fact, they’re on the hit right now.”
Suddenly we were back in the game. I had a whole new admiration for Walt. He had been willing to risk failure if it offered even the slightest possibility of accomplishing the mission. I had underestimated him and now, at the eleventh hour, he had come through.
The phone rang and one of the interrogators picked it up. After a short conversation he called over to me. “Eric, you know someone named Muhammad Khudayr?”