“No one argues with these men. I think they would have taken it all, but the man I’m staying with, he stops them. And a few days later, they come back, take more phones, more money.”
“You didn’t want them to? You weren’t there to help them? Tell me the truth.”
“I went there to do business! After they come the second time, I call my friend to ask him, maybe I should just come home. He tells me to stay. Tells me, ‘Stay with Amr. Do the deal. Sell the rest of the phones. We can still make money.’ A very good friend.” His voice was low and bitter.
“You couldn’t go home?”
“They told me, don’t try. They said they watch the bus stations, GMCs. They’ll kill me if I try.”
If the story was true, Alaa had been either betrayed by his host or, more likely, set up from the start as an unwitting courier. Wells imagined this quiet man in Baghdad in late 2007, with Iraq teetering close to anarchy. Markets and roads and police stations under attack daily. Wandering into the wrong neighborhood meant certain death. And Alaa, holed up in a house, unable to trust his host, waiting for the insurgents to return, and return again, until the money and the phones were gone and he was left with only his own skin to give them.
Unless, of course, he hadn’t been set up at all. Unless he’d gone to Baghdad to deliver cell phones and money to the jihadis. But if that was his goal, why hadn’t he dropped off his cache and gone back to Cairo to pick up another load?
“What happened next?” Wells said.
Alaa ran a hand through his hair. “What happened? Two days later, the Americans came. Many of them, maybe fifteen. It was the middle of the night. Amr went for his AK, and they shot him.”
“Were there any Iraqis with them?”
“I don’t think so, no. Just Americans.”
By that point all the regular combat operations were joint Iraqi-American, so American-only meant a Special Forces unit.
“They tie me up and put a bag on my head and put me in a helicopter. They say I’m a jihadi, they’re going to throw me out if I don’t tell them the truth. I tell them no, I’m there for the cell phones, I don’t know anything about the jihadis. The jihadis stole my money; they would have killed me if you hadn’t come. But the Americans didn’t believe me. When the helicopter landed, they beat me. This went on for a few days. I told them to look at my passport, my name. But they said they found a computer at the house with messages from Al Qaeda. They said Amr was a big man in the insurgency. To this day I don’t know whether what they were saying was real. Amr never said anything about jihad to me. They told me, just tell us the truth.”
“But you lied.” Wells understood now how Alaa had ended up in 673’s hands.
“I told them about what happened,” Alaa said. “But I didn’t say who sent me.”
“You made up a name.” Wells still wondered why Alaa had been so reticent to give it up, but he decided not to press. The answer would come.
“Yes. This was when I was still in Iraq. They beat me; they kept me in a room like this, no windows, very hot. Finally, I told them a name so they would stop. And they were happy; they stopped beating me. Then a few days later they got angry. They told me they knew I was lying and that I wasted their time. And they said they were going to send me someplace I wouldn’t like. Then the next day they put a hood on me and tied my arms and gave me a shot—”
“With a needle—”
“Yes, with a needle. And I fell asleep, and when I woke up I was on a plane. And then I was somewhere very cold.” Alaa shivered at the memory. “I don’t know where. Since I got out, I tried to figure it out. I think somewhere like Germany. But maybe not.”
“They never said.”
“No. And I couldn’t see anything about it, where they kept me. If I ever left the building, they put a hood on me. But it was Americans who ran it, I’m sure of that. It had a special name. They told me. They were proud of it. They called it ‘The Midnight House.’ ”
“Midnight House.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why they called it that?”
“They said it was always midnight for the prisoners.”
“Were there a lot of prisoners?”
“Not that I saw. Mostly, I was alone.”
“And they hurt you?”
“These men, they were much different than the ones in Iraq.” He closed his eyes, took a slow, deep breath. “I know I must talk about it, what they did, but—”
He broke off. The room was silent, the only sound the faint buzzing of the bulb overhead. Somewhere outside, a dog barked fiercely.
“They told me, it’s very simple to hurt you. And it was. They make me stand all the time with my arms out, make me stay awake, hit me with the electricity. They put me in a very small cell, so small I can stand only like this—” Alaa hunched over. And even though he held the position for only a few seconds, his face went slack in fear and pain, the muscle memory overwhelming him. He stood up, slowly.
“Nothing that ever left a mark,” he said. “I would look at myself and wonder if I had dreamed it all. Yes, sometimes, when they stopped, brought me back to my cell and I fell asleep, I thought the sleep was real and the torture was the dream. I said, ‘Allah, Allah, help me, help me escape these evil dreams, sleep in peace.’ But he never helped. And you must see, they never stopped. Not like Iraq. In Iraq, the guards and soldiers, they came and went. They had many prisoners. But in this place, this house, it was only me, and they never stopped. And after a while, I don’t know how long, maybe three weeks, I couldn’t resist anymore. I didn’t know if they would kill me or send me back to Iraq or what they would do, I only knew I couldn’t resist.”
“Anyone would have done the same,” Wells said. “But what I don’t see, even now, is why you protected this man who sent you to Iraq at all.”
Alaa laughed, low and bitter. “Not to protect him. To protect my family. Do you know who it was, the man I drove? Samir Gharib. He owns half of Heliopolis”—a wealthy neighborhood in northeast Cairo. “His daughter is married to Mubarak’s grandson.”
“And it was his son who sent you to Baghdad?”
“Do you see now, Kuwaiti?” the imam said.
Wells saw. The American government supported Hosni Mubarak, for all his flaws, because he was viewed as a reliable ally against radical Islam. If his family had been connected to the Iraqi insurgency, the outcry in Washington would have been immediate and intense. Congress might have ended the billions of dollars of aid the United States gave Egypt every year. And Mubarak would have lashed out, setting his men on Alaa’s family. Angering a pharaoh was never wise.
What Alaa hadn’t realized was that his confession would be so toxic that the agency and the army had no alternative but to bury it. Then, with no reason to keep him, they’d told 673 to let him go.
Amazingly enough, the truth had set Alaa Zumari free.
IN THEORY, Alaa might still be responsible for the 673 murders. But why? His captivity had lasted only a few months and had ended with his regaining his freedom. Now he simply wanted to be left alone. Nonetheless, Wells figured he should ask about the murders.
“Are you angry with the Americans?” he said.
“The ones who hurt me? Sure, I’m angry.” Though Alaa’s voice was even. “I wish that they would see how it feels. But not the woman. She was kind.”
“The woman.”
“One was a woman. A doctor.”
“Did she talk to you?”
“Only a few words. I don’t think she knew so much Arabic. But she had a kind face. That’s the only way I know how to say it.”
“Do you know what’s been happening to them?”
“What do you mean?”
“This unit that held you.” Wells paused. “They’re dying.”