But today, with millions of lives on the line, none of that was necessary.
Harrington knew he had to come clean ASAP if they wanted to stop Schmidt.
The conference room was cleared of everyone except Harrington, Payne, and Jones. They sat at the far end of the long table. They talked softly so no one in the hall could hear.
"I just got word from Washington," Harrington said. "We've been told to do nothing."
Payne didn't flinch. "No shock there. That's what we expected."
"Do you agree with it?"
"We wouldn't have flown in from Korea if we did."
"So, you were willing to go to Mecca?"
Payne nodded. "I'm still willing to go to Mecca."
Jones agreed. "I hear it's lovely this time of year."
"In that case," Harrington said, "there are some things you need to know about Schmidt. Things I should've told you long ago but wasn't allowed. Hell, I'm still not allowed. But if we're going to prevent this tragedy, you need to know everything."
He paused, trying to figure out where to begin.
"In early November, French authorities nailed a terrorist named Abdul Al-Amin, a member of the Soldiers of Allah. They busted him on a weapons charge, nothing too major, but for some reason he started talking. He gave up names, places, exact dates of future attacks. The type of in-tel that can make a difference. Obviously, we were skeptical at first-I mean, this seemed a little too easy-but every time we heard something through the grapevine, we were able to verify it. Small things, big things, everything checked out."
Payne nodded. He had heard the same story from Nick Dial.
"We knew every country in the world wanted to get their hands on Abdul's bosses, men who were responsible for hundreds of deaths around the globe, not to mention millions of dollars in damages and manpower. But how could we let that happen? We were the nation they had targeted the most. No way in hell we were going to let some third-rate country snatch these guys before we could."
He paused, taking a moment to calm down. "We got word that Hakeem Salaam and all of his top advisers were meeting in Kuwait. If true, it was a once-in-a-decade opportunity, because none of us really knew what Salaam looked like, and he was the key to that organization. Thankfully, we had recent pictures of his lieutenants, so we figured if we tracked them, they would lead us right to Salaam."
"Did Schmidt lead the mission?" Jones asked.
Harrington nodded. "Went off like clockwork. We nabbed Salaam and two of his top men. Picked them clean. Took them out through the Persian Gulf and straight to Jeju."
"Why there?" Payne wondered.
"Why not? We figured no one would ever look for three Arabs in Korea, and as far as we were concerned, that was Ihe key. No one could know we grabbed these guys. Not Homeland. Not the CIA. No one. That edict came straight from my bosses. We were the ones who caught these assholes, so we were going to milk them before anyone else got the chance."
"Is that where Sheldon comes in?"
Harrington shook his head. "I know you have a problem with Dr. Sheldon. He told me about your outburst in the cave. But believe me, the guy knows his field. That's why I chose him to re-create the crime scene. I figured he could shed some light on certain things."
"Such as?"
"What really happened in there," Harrington said bluntly. "At first, the interrogations were going well. Schmidt gave me regular updates, most of which paid off. We busted smaller cells, stopped some arms deals, that kind of thing. But nothing major. No grandiose schemes, like we thought we were going to get."
"Why not?" Jones wondered.
"Because Salaam wasn't talking. According to Schmidt, no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get Salaam to talk about anything important. And as you know, that doesn't happen in the real world. This ain't the fuckin' movies. If we want you to talk, we'll get you to talk. You guys should know that."
He paused for a moment, trying to decide how much he should tell them.
"Ultimately, Schmidt got desperate and went way too far. He handcuffed Salaam to one of his advisers-someone who'd been spilling his guts from die very beginning-and shot the bastard in the head. Just killed die guy in cold blood. After that, Schmidt threw them in a cell and left them there for several days. One alive, one dead, but still chained together."
"Jesus," Payne whispered, stunned that it had gone that far. "Did he tell you this himself?"
Harrington shook his head. "We found out about it later. Schmidt was required to keep a video log, describing all the techniques he used and the results he achieved. When we arrived in Jeju, we found some of his files, a whole lot of blood, and three dead Arabs in a back cell."
"Including Salaam?"
"At first, mat's what we diought," he said cryptically. "Remember, we had no idea what Salaam looked like. We had a rough description-age, nationality, and so on-but we couldn't identify him on site. All we knew is that he was meeting with his top advisers in Kuwait, and we snagged everyone in the room. So we assumed we had him."
"And?"
"After we hauled the bodies out of the cave, we ran preliminary tests-ballistics, DNA, et cetera-and came to a disheartening conclusion: the dead guy wasn't Hakeem Salaam."
"How do you know?"
"Because we got a positive ID. And let me tell you, we fucked up bad on this one. Not only wasn't the guy a terrorist, he was a Saudi official who worked for the Ministry of the Interior."
Payne winced, realizing that Schmidt would have known whom tiiey grabbed very early in the interrogation process-if he didn't know from the very beginning. That meant he spent several days torturing a government official, learning inside information about a multitude of topics. In Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of the Interior was responsible for public safety on many different levels, including the police, fire services, passports, and civil defense. In addition, it handled security for all major sites, such as Muhammad's tomb in Medina and, more importantly, the Great Mosque in Mecca.
"Obviously," Harrington admitted, "there's no way of knowing what Schmidt learned. But according to Dr. Sheldon, we have a pretty good idea of how he's going to use it."
39
Dr. Ernie Sheldon appeared on the video screen in the Taif conference room, the same screen that had illustrated the days of the hajj. He was somewhere in a secure facility, no longer hiding behind the mask he wore in the cave. Both literally and figuratively. Harrington had finally given him permission to talk about his work.
"During the past several years," Sheldon said, "we've been conducting human-based experiments in compounds around the world. Ways to extract information and methods to prevent the same. Some people think our biggest concern is how to get secrets from the enemy. Sometimes it's more important to protect your own."
He smiled, crinkles appearing in the corners of his eyes.
"For the sake of clarity, I'll keep the science to a bare minimum. No need to confuse you with a bunch of complex formulas when all you need are the basics. Thirty years ago the Chinese developed a procedure where they isolated a specific emotion in a test subject and elevated it through chemicals and verbal reinforcement."
Payne spoke into the camera. "You mean brainwashing."
"Not actual brainwashing. They weren't able to take a peasant girl and turn her into a crazed assassin. However, l hey were able to take most subjects with a predisposed opinion-let's say a hatred of peas-and raise that hatred lo an unhealthy level. If, for instance, the subject ever saw a pea again, she'd be willing to kill someone to get it away from her."