The Faithful Spy

saul wanted to break Farouk today, give the folks from Langley a show. He didn’t feel any need to hide his methods from them. They weren’t from the Red Cross or snot-nosed reporters. They were on the team. They were cleared to see. So let them see. t h e l i e u t e n a n t e s c o rt e d Exley and Shafer to a thick concrete building at the northern edge of the compound. building 12. restricted access: level 1 tf 121 clearance required said a small sign in red letters. A tall, unfriendly man in a floppy hat stood guard by the building’s steel doors, trying to find shadow from the afternoon sun.

“Mr. Shafer, Ms. Exley, this is as far as I go,” the lieutenant said.

“But I’ll wait for you there when you leave.” He pointed to a building they had passed.

“Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” He turned and strode away. He couldn’t wait to get away from this building, Exley saw. the man on the infrared monitors hardly moved. They couldn’t see his face, which was covered by a hood. But they could hear his sobbing. “Does he always cry like this?” Exley said.

“He started to cry late in his third session,” Saul said. “Now he cries almost constantly after a couple hours.”

“And how many sessions has he had?”

“Eight. He’s progressing nicely,” Saul said. “When did he mention Wells?”

“About a week ago. I can go back over it with him if you like. He’s very cooperative about things we’ve already discussed.”

Saul had shown them the building before bringing them in here. The hole was in its own wing on the first floor, specially proofed against sound and light, he said. Normally such rooms were built underground, but the coral on Diego didn’t permit deep construction.

“Please,” the man on the screen said. “Please.” His sobs thickened. If any of the interrogators noticed, they didn’t comment.

“How long has he been in there?” Exley asked as neutrally as she could.

Saul glanced at his watch. “Only nineteen hours. But his tolerance for the room seems to be breaking down.”

“That doesn’t always happen?” Shafer said.

“Some of these guys get stronger for a while, which makes things tough. But Farouk — I think he’s about ready to break completely.”

“So now what?” Exley said.

“We typically introduce an additional stress element at some point in his sessions. Sometimes early, sometimes late — we don’t want him to be able to anticipate it. Now seems like a good time.”

the dark dark dark. Farouk tried to count to one thousand, but he couldn’t keep the numbers straight anymore. He had tried to recite bits of the Koran, but each time he said Allah’s name he felt more forsaken. So he quit that too, and just sat in the dark. The American was right, Farouk thought. This was worse than being dead. In fact, maybe he was dead already. Maybe he had died on the roof in Baghdad and he was in hell. But it couldn’t be. He had served Allah as best he could. He belonged in heaven.

“Heaven,” he said aloud. “Heaven.”

As he said the words an intense electrical shock flooded his legs. He threw his head back and screamed in pain. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably, tightening and loosening over and over. He had never felt so much pain, up one leg and down the other.

“STOP STOP STOP!” he screamed.

Finally it did. “Allah,” he said. It had lasted only a few seconds, he realized. Thank God. He couldn’t have taken much more. His legs were still quivering from the shock, and the muscles felt. warm, as if he had been running. He tentatively shook them. They still worked.

Then the pain came again, up his left calf and thigh and across his waist and down the other leg. “STOP! STOP!” He felt his heart thumping, but he couldn’t move. Time no longer existed. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t even guess, how long the shock flowed through him.

The electricity stopped. He had time for three quick breaths before it started again. Somehow it hurt even more this time. He tried to tell himself that they couldn’t keep shocking him like this unless they really wanted to kill him. but that knowledge didn’t help. He wanted to beg them to stop, but the words melted on his tongue and he merely moaned until the electricity stopped flowing. He could take no more. He would tell them anything, everything, not to have to sit in here and wait for this agony. He wrenched his head from side to side.

“Please. please. please. ”

“let him calm down a little and then get him out of there,” Saul said, watching Farouk twist. “I think it’s done.”

They had just used a Taser on Farouk, an electrical gun that produced 50,000-volt shocks that caused involuntary muscle spasms, Saul said. The gun’s barbs were attached to Farouk’s ankles and didn’t need to break the skin to deliver the electricity, so Farouk probably had no idea where the pain had come from. “I’ve had it done to me and it hurts,” Saul said. “But it works.”