“Good luck,” he added.
And couldn’t help reminding her that it was now Thursday and the weapon would be deployed the day after tomorrow.
In perfect Arabic, Claire said, “I must apologize, Mr. Bennabi, Jacques…May I use your first name?” She was rushing into the cell, a horrified look on her face.
When Bennabi didn’t reply, she switched to English. “Your first name? You don’t mind, do you? I’m Claire. And let me offer you my deepest apologies for this terrible mistake.”
She walked behind him and took the hand restraints off. There was little risk. She was an expert at aikido and tae kwan do martial arts and could easily have defended herself against the weak, exhausted subject.
But the slim man, eyes dark from lack of sleep, face drawn, simply rubbed his wrists and offered no threatening gestures.
Claire pressed the button on the intercom. “Bring the tray in, please.”
A guard wheeled it inside: water, a pot of coffee and a plate of pastries and candy, which she knew from his file Bennabi was partial to. She sampled everything first, to show nothing was spiked with poison or truth serum. He drank some water but when she asked, “Coffee, something to eat?” he gave no response.
Claire sat down, her face distraught. “I’m am so terribly sorry about this. I can’t begin to describe how horrified we are…Let me explain. Someone—we don’t know who—told us that you’d met with some people who are enemies of our country.” She lifted her hands. “We didn’t know who you were. All we heard was that you were sympathetic to these enemies and that they had some plans to cause huge destruction. Something terrible was going to happen. Imagine what we felt when we heard you were a famous professor…and an advocate of human rights!
“No, someone gave us misinformation about you. Maybe accidental.” She added coyly, “Maybe they had a grudge against you. We don’t know. All I can say is we reacted too quickly. Now, first, let me assure you that whatever threats Andrew made, nothing has or will happen to your colleagues or family…That was barbaric what he suggested. He’s been disciplined and relieved of duty.”
No response whatsoever.
Silence filled the room and she could hear only her heartbeat, as she tried to remain calm, thinking of the weapon and the hours counting down until it was used.
“Obviously this is a very awkward situation. Certain officials are extremely embarrassed about what’s happened and are willing to offer, what we could call, reparation for your inconvenience.”
He continued to remain silent but she could tell he was listening to every word.
She scooted the chair closer and sat, leaning forward. “Mr. Bennabi…Jacques, I have been authorized to transfer one hundred thousand euros into an account of your choice—that’s tax free money—in exchange for your agreement not to sue us for this terrible error.”
Claire knew that he made the equivalent of fifteen thousand euros as a professor and another twenty as a journalist.
“I can order all of this done immediately. Your lawyer can monitor the transaction. All you have to do is sign a release agreeing not to sue.”
Silence.
Then she continued with a smile, “And one more small thing…I myself have no doubt that you have been wrongly targeted but…the people who have to authorize the payments, they want just a little more information about the people you met with. The ones in Tunis. They just wish to be reassured that the meeting was innocent. I know it was. If I had my way I’d write you a check now. But they control the money.” A smile. “Isn’t that the way the world works?”
Bennabi said nothing. He stopped rubbing his wrists and sat back.
“They don’t need to know anything sensitive. Just a few names, that’s all. Just to keep the money men happy.”
Is he agreeing? she wondered. Is he disagreeing? Bennabi was different from anybody she’d ever interrogated. Usually by now subjects were already planning how to spend the money and telling her whatever she wanted to know.
When he said nothing she realized: he’s negotiating. Of course.
A nod. “You’re a smart man…And I don’t blame you one bit for holding out. Just give us a bit of information to verify your story and I can probably go up to a hundred fifty thousand euros.”
Still no response.
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you name a figure. Let’s put this all behind us.” Claire smiled coyly again. “We’re on your side, Jacques. We really are.”
Friday
At 9:00 a.m. Colonel Jim Peterson was in the office of the rehabilitation center, sitting across from a large, dark-complexioned man, who’d just arrived from Darfur.
Akhem asked, “What happened with Claire?”
Peterson shook his head. “Bennabi didn’t go for the money. She sweetened the pot to a quarter million euros.” The colonel sighed. “Wouldn’t take it. In fact, he didn’t even say no. He didn’t say a word. Just like with Andrew.”
Akhem took this information with interest but otherwise unemotionally—as if he were a surgeon called in to handle an emergency operation that was routine for him but that no one else could perform. “Has he slept?”
“Not since yesterday.”
“Good.”
There was nothing like sleep deprivation to soften people up.
Akhem was of Middle Eastern descent, though he’d been born in America and was a U.S. citizen. Like Peterson he’d retired from the military. He was now a professional security consultant—a euphemism for mercenary soldier. He was here with two associates, both from Africa. One white, one black.
Peterson had used Akhem on a half-dozen occasions, as had other governments. He was responsible for interrogating a Chechen separatist to learn where his colleagues had stashed a busload of Moscow schoolchildren last year.
It took him two hours to learn the exact location of the bus, the number of soldiers guarding them, their weapons and passcodes.
No one knew exactly how he’d done it. No one wanted to.
Peterson wasn’t pleased he’d had to turn to Akhem’s approach to interrogation, known as extreme extraction. Indeed, he realized that the Bennabi situation raised the textbook moral question on using torture: you know a terrible event is about to occur and you have in custody a prisoner who knows how to prevent it. Do you torture or not?
There were those who said, no, you don’t. That it is better to be morally superior and to suffer the consequences of letting the event occur. By stooping to the enemy’s techniques, these people say, we automatically lose the war, even if we militarily prevail.
Other said that it was our enemies who’d changed the rules; if they tortured and killed innocents in the name of their causes we had to
