The Faithful Spy

farouk khan was having a very bad day. Not that day or night meant much to Farouk anymore; his concept of time had vanished in the weeks since the Special Forces put a hood over his head and took him to an underground cell at Camp Victory. Though Farouk’s passport was fake, his Geiger counter was real enough, and Task Force 121 immediately understood his importance. Within hours word of his capture reached senior officers at both the CIA and Centcom — United States Central Command, which runs American military operations across the Middle East. By the time the sun rose the next day in Washington, the White House had been informed. Before noon the president had signed an executive order designating Farouk as a C-1 enemy combatant. The United States had used the C-1 label only six times since 2001, when it began exempting al Qaeda detainees from the protections that the Geneva Convention offered to traditional prisoners of war. In legal terms, the designation meant that the United States government had determined that Farouk might have knowledge of imminent (Category C), large-scale (Category 1) terrorist attacks. As a result, Farouk would be excepted from both the Geneva rules and the rights that the Supreme Court had required for prisoners held in Guantánamo.

In less legal terms, the designation put Farouk neck deep in shit. Of course, the United States government did not condone torture, even for prisoners like Farouk. Civilized nations do not torture captives. But torture had been defined rather narrowly in the manual that specified the permissible interrogation techniques for C-1 detainees like Farouk. The manual, called the White Book because of the color of its cover, noted that interrogators should weigh the harm inflicted on detainees against the potential danger from terrorist acts. Thus the White Book said interrogators could do anything that did not cause “severe and permanent” injury. The conjunction was italicized so that the manual’s point would be clear. Severe injuries were allowed, as long as they were not permanent. Similarly, psychotropic drugs were banned only if they produced “severe and permanent” brain injury or mental illness. The same rule applied to sensory deprivation, restrictive confinement, and denial of food and water.

The White Book also noted that pain was a subjective concept, differing from one person to another. Thus any amount of pain was allowed, as long as it did not produce “severe and permanent” injury. The White Book also noted, dryly, that “pain should not necessarily substitute for more traditional methods of interrogation. The threat of pain is often more effective than pain itself.”

farouk’s journey had begun in Baghdad.

They locked his hands behind his back even as he was still on his knees, on the roof, with Zayd’s body a few feet away. A man in an American military uniform pulled a hood over his head and tightened it around his neck. The world went black. The hood was too tight. They surely hadn’t meant to make it so tight. He couldn’t breathe. He took one shallow breath, then another, fighting for air through the bag. Soon he was panting like a dog. His throat tightened as he began to panic. He was going to pass out. He was going to die up here. His breaths came faster and faster, until he was hyperventilating and the roof seemed to fall away under him. Stay calm, Farouk told himself. They wouldn’t kill you this way. Relax. Breathe. He slowed down his breathing. And after a few minutes he realized he was still alive. He focused on his other senses, the shouting of the men around him, the rough fabric of the hood touching his face, the wetness where his saliva had trickled onto the inside of the hood.

Two men grabbed him and pulled him up. He stumbled. A moment later he felt a punch into his thick stomach. He grunted and fell. He rolled onto his side. The pain and surprise were enormous, and now he really couldn’t breathe. He mashed his face against the rough roof, hoping he could drag the bag off his head.