Truth or Die Read online

  “Yes,” I answered.

  I explained how it had happened. His head dropped. “It’s my fault,” he said. “Everything.”

  “Claire would’ve been the first to tell you that isn’t true,” I said. “And I’d be the second.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was with her before she went to meet you. This was her job, Owen. It’s what she did.”

  “So you knew about me?”

  I smiled. “No. Claire never discussed her sources. I don’t even know how she found you.”

  “She didn’t—I found her,” he said. “I knew her work. That’s why I called her.”

  “When was this?”

  “She and I spoke two days ago,” he said. “I was planning on coming up here next week.”

  “What changed?”

  He reached into his pocket, taking out his iPhone. After a few taps, he handed it to me. On the screen was an obituary from the online edition of the Sun Gazette down in Virginia. “Dr. Stephen Hellerman, 48, Leading Neurologist,” the headline read. A picture of a clean-cut, good-looking guy was underneath.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “My boss.”

  I leaned in, squinting to read the first few sentences. “ ‘An early-morning home invasion’?”

  “That’s what it was made to look like. They shot him in the head. Then, last night, they almost got me, too.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I was hoping Claire could tell me.”

  Were we homing in, I wondered, or just going around in circles? “Why would she know?” I asked.

  “The piece she wrote last year about the CIA black site in Poland.”

  I knew the article well, if only because Claire was in Warsaw for two weeks researching it, and missed my birthday. “The secret jail?”

  “Yeah, in Stare Kiejkuty,” he said with a perfect Polish accent. Impressive.

  Stare Kiejkuty was a Polish intelligence-training site tucked away in a forest about two hours north of the capital. Claire got a guided tour of it from Polish officials, the key word being guided. As she described it, the whole purpose of the tour was to convince her the CIA wasn’t using a spare room or two to interrogate suspected Muslim terrorists outside the reach of US legal protections.

  “So you have actual proof that it’s a CIA black site?” I asked.

  The kid shook his head slowly. “No, what I have goes way beyond that,” he said. “Way beyond.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “DO YOU know the name Abdullah al-Hazim?” Owen asked.

  “No,” I said. “Should I?”

  “He was thought to be the number two guy in Al Qaeda,” he explained. “Of course, it’s pretty silly how we imagine terrorist groups to be structured like our own government, with a neatly organized line of succession. Let’s just say al-Hazim was one of the ringleaders based in Yemen.”

  “Was?”

  “About a year ago, the State Department announced he’d been killed by a drone attack in the Shabwah province,” Owen said. “If I’m not mistaken, the Times gave it two columns above the fold in the International section.”

  Two columns above the fold …

  “You sound like Claire,” I said. “There was the story, and then there was where the story was placed.”

  “In this case, though, the story was wrong.”

  “The guy’s still alive?”

  “No, al-Hazim is dead, all right. It just wasn’t a drone attack that killed him.”

  With that, Owen slid out of the booth and joined me on my side. I didn’t know what he was doing until he removed a small device from his pocket, attaching it to the Lightning dock on his iPhone. It was one of those tiny portable projectors. We were going to the movies.

  The backrest of the bench where he’d been sitting became the screen. The video was black-and-white and as grainy as the leather of the booth, but it was clear enough to see what was happening … and to whom.

  “That’s al-Hazim in the chair,” said Owen.

  The Middle Eastern man was probably in his late thirties, with a short beard and rimless glasses. I was hardly an expert on body language, but this was an easy read. Al-Hazim was trying to act defiant but was clearly scared to death.

  “This is from Stare Kiejkuty?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  The room was average-sized and well lit, albeit with no windows I could see. The chair al-Hazim was shackled to—hands and feet—was the only furniture, at least in front of the camera. There were two male voices in the background speaking English, but I couldn’t make out the conversation.

  I turned to Owen. “What are they saying?”

  “I haven’t been able to make it out,” he answered. “Keep watching, though.”

  I leaned forward for a quick peek toward the front of the tavern. I couldn’t see anyone, and no one could see us; this was truly a private screening. If I hadn’t been so intrigued, I would’ve been more aware of how surreal this all was, even by New York standards.

  What the hell am I about to see? Torture? Some sort of confession? A combination of both? Or is it D, none of the above?

  I kept watching. Seconds later, three men entered the picture. Two were in suits and ties, while the third was wearing a white medical smock. That man, presumably a doctor, was holding something as he approached al-Hazim.

  “Is that a syringe?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not getting a flu shot, is he?”

  Owen shook his head. “Nope.”

  CHAPTER 28

  THE TWO men restrained al-Hazim, one of them gripping him in a headlock as the doctor swabbed the side of his neck with an alcohol pad. Quickly, the doctor injected the contents of the syringe into the carotid artery. All three then stepped out of frame.

  As al-Hazim simply sat there as he had before, I was about to ask Owen what was going on. That was when I heard a man clearing his throat off camera. This sound, unlike the previous conversation, I could hear perfectly.

  “What is your name?” the man asked.

  Immediately, another voice off camera translated the question into Arabic. I hadn’t suddenly learned the language—there were actually subtitles at the bottom of the frame. It was like a foreign film, albeit not the kind Claire and I would watch at the Angelika down in SoHo.

  Al-Hazim didn’t answer, and everything repeated itself. One voice asked the question again in English, the other translated it again in Arabic. And once again, al-Hazim didn’t respond.

  “Are you a member of Al Qaeda?” came the next question. The translation followed, along with the subtitles. Still, al-Hazim didn’t say a word.

  Then something strange started to happen. It was as if his chair had been electrified, although not with a sudden jolt. Rather, a slow build. His arms and legs began to shake, his face contorting. He was clearly feeling pain.

  “Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?” came the third question, the interrogator’s voice unchanged. It was calm, placid, even as al-Hazim began to shake uncontrollably as if he were having a violent seizure. He was in agony, and no one was laying a finger on him.

  Meanwhile, the question was repeated—louder, finally, so as to be heard above the metal cuffs around his ankles and wrists, which were now clanking and rattling incessantly against the chair.

  “Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?”

  If he was, al-Hazim still wasn’t saying. I wasn’t sure he could even if he wanted to, at this point. His mouth was open as if to scream, but there was no sound coming out. His eyes rolled back. He looked possessed. There was no control, not anywhere. His jumpsuit darkened around his crotch and thighs. He was urinating on himself, if not defecating.

  Suddenly, everything stopped. Like someone had pulled the plug. Al-Hazim collapsed in the chair, his body limp and lifeless.

  The doctor in the white smock reappeared and placed two fingers on
the neck, exactly where he’d administered the shot. He turned and shook his head to those behind the camera. His face was as expressionless as the bartender who had poured me my whiskey.

  “Christ!” was all I could sputter at first. I was still staring at the opposite side of the booth and what was now just an empty white square being projected. It was all sinking in. Finally, I turned to Owen. “The syringe. Whatever was in it killed him, right?”

  “Technically, no,” he said.

  “Technically?”

  He folded his arms on the table. “What you just saw was actually a suicide.”

  CHAPTER 29

  BEFORE I could ask what the hell that meant, Owen reached for his phone and began tapping the screen again. He was bringing up another video. It was a double feature.

  “If this is the same thing with a different prisoner, I don’t need to see it,” I said.

  “Just watch,” said Owen.

  He hit Play and positioned the phone again, the image beaming across the booth as it had before. Same room, same chair, different Middle Eastern man chained to it. His beard was slightly longer, and he didn’t wear glasses.

  The only other difference was that he filled out his jumpsuit more. He looked bloated, puffy where there might otherwise be edges.

  Maybe for that reason alone, his blank stare didn’t seem as determined.

  The same three men entered the frame, the one in the white smock administering the shot. As they retreated behind the camera, I was already bracing for what was to come.

  It came. The man was asked his name in English, followed by Arabic, and he refused to answer, once and then twice. As with al-Hazim, the “symptoms” started.

  “Are you a member of Al Qaeda?” came the next question, and again he refused to answer. But that was when things took a turn.

  As his heavy body shook and convulsed, the man’s face looked as if he were in a tug-of-war. He was trying to fight the pain, not give in to it, but as his teeth gnashed and the tendons in his neck stretched so tight I thought they would snap, he opened his mouth not to scream … but to talk.

  “Yes,” read the translation beneath him.

  The voice of the interrogator resumed. So calmly, so eerily. “So you admit that you are a member of Al Qaeda?”

  “Yes,” the man repeated.

  And no sooner had he done so than the shaking, the convulsing, the outright agony he was experiencing began to dissipate. Quickly, the interrogator followed up.

  “Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?”

  Seconds passed as the man remained silent—and motionless—in the chair. He was clearly deciding what to do, how to answer. His forehead was dripping sweat. He didn’t have much time, and he knew it.

  “No,” he answered. “I don’t know anything.”

  He tried to sell it, his eyes pleading desperately with everyone behind the camera to believe him. The room was silent for another few seconds … and then came the sound. The handcuffs, the ankle cuffs—they began to rattle against the chair. His faced seized up, his dark eyes practically popping out of his head. Everything was starting all over, only faster and more severe.

  “Yes!” he screamed. In English, no less. “Yes! Yes! I know of plans …”

  And for a second time, everything stopped. No more convulsing, no more pain. No more video, either. It ended abruptly.

  Owen turned to me. “Go figure, huh? Of all things, it’s the plans they didn’t want recorded.”

  “How the hell did you get these?” I asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I used to think.”

  I got what he was saying. His life was never going to be the same. Maybe that was why he was eyeing my glass as I threw back the last of my whiskey.

  “You want one?” I asked.

  “No thanks,” he said.

  But it was the way he said it, like it wasn’t even a possibility. “How old are you, by the way?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Are you in school?”

  “No,” he said. “I work.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I design artificial neurological implants.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But Subway wasn’t hiring.”

  The kid definitely had a snarky streak. In a good way, though. Claire would’ve liked him.

  He and I were all alone in the back of the Oak Tavern, everyone else out of earshot. Still, I couldn’t help lowering my voice for what I was about to ask. It was just one of those kinds of questions. “Do you work for the CIA, Owen?”

  He nodded at his phone. “Not anymore, I’m guessing.”

  “And those injections, what we just watched. Did you have something to do with that?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you think the Wright Brothers had something to do with nine-eleven,” he said. He slid out of my side of the booth and back into his before explaining. “I was working on artificial neurotransmitters for the human brain. I’m not a sap, I knew there were possible military applications. But I also knew that they were the cure for dozens of neurological diseases. Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad.”

  “Until you saw the bad with your own eyes,” I said.

  “I was their missing link. They had isolated all the neurological changes, everything the brain does when we lie, but they didn’t know how to manipulate it.” He drew a deep breath, exhaling with regret well beyond his years. “I thought I was curing Alzheimer’s.”

  The irony was inescapable. “They lied to you.”

  “No, not exactly,” he said. “Those people in the recordings—the men in suits, the doctor—I don’t even know who they are.”

  “But they know who you are, don’t they? They know you wanted to go public, and now they want you dead and anyone else you might have told.”

  I leaned back, sinking into the booth as those last words of mine hung in the air for a few seconds. I’d said them thinking entirely about Claire.

  That was when it dawned on me, the morning I’d had. I was leaving someone out of the proverbial risk pool. Me.

  As if on cue, Owen tilted his head and, of all things, smiled. “Welcome to the club, dude.”

  BOOK TWO

  STRANGER THAN FICTION

  CHAPTER 30

  BRETTON SAMUEL Morris, ten months into his first term as president of the United States, shook what remained of his bourbon and rocks, the springwater ice cubes rattling against the crystal of his favorite glass. Tink-tinkity-tink.

  The glass, specially commissioned from Waterford and featuring an etched American flag on one side and a bald eagle on the other, had originally been a gift to Ronald Reagan from the president of Ireland, Patrick Hillery. In total, there were four glasses in the set, but after a visit to the White House by Boris Yeltsin a few years later, only three remained. The Russian leader notoriously couldn’t hold his liquor, and since he was missing the thumb and forefinger on his left hand, he apparently couldn’t hold the glass, either.

  “What time is it?” asked the president, breaking the silence of the Oval Office. He was staring out the window by the east door, which led to the Rose Garden, his back turned to the only other people in the room, his two most trusted advisors.

  Clay Dobson, the chief of staff, glanced at his watch. “It’s approaching midnight, sir.”

  The president drew a deep breath and then exhaled. “Yeah, that figures….”

  In less than twelve hours, the Senate confirmation hearing for Lawrence Bass to become the next director of Central Intelligence was scheduled to begin. With the extensive background check long since completed, confidence in the White House had been riding high. Since the days of George Tenet, no one dared use the phrase slam dunk anymore, but everyone was certainly thinking it.

  Bass, the current director
of intelligence programs with the NSC, did not keep highly classified information on his unsecured home computer; he did not belong to an all-white country club; he drank socially, and sparingly at that; he paid Social Security taxes for his Guatemalan housekeeper; he did not secretly like to dress up in women’s clothing; and he did not have a thing for little girls. Or, for that matter, little boys. Lawrence Bass, the early-to-bed-early-to-rise ex-marine and Silver Star Medal recipient, had been vetted back to his diapers. Checked and rechecked. Everything had come up clean. Spic-and-span. Spotless.

  The president turned from the window, facing the room. “Tell me this much, at least,” he said. “Are you absolutely sure what you’ve got is true?”

  “As sure as we can be,” said Dobson, glancing down at the file in his hands. He then watched as the president nodded slowly.

  “So, basically what you’re saying is … we’re screwed.”

  “That’s one way to look at it, sir,” said Ian Landry, sitting cross-legged on the far sofa. The White House press secretary then shifted to his bread and butter: the spin. “On the flip side, knowing there’s a problem now sure beats the hell out of knowing it after the hearing tomorrow. At least tonight we have some options.”

  “Who do you guys have in mind?” asked the president.

  Dobson didn’t hesitate. “Karcher,” he said.

  “Karcher? He wasn’t even on the short list.”

  “That’s not what the Times, the Post, and Politico will be reporting in a couple of days,” said Landry, all but bragging.

  “And what about Bass?” asked the president. “What am I telling him?”

  With a quick nod, Landry deferred to Dobson. Golden parachutes were strictly the chief of staff’s domain.

  “You simply tell Bass that his support collapsed in the wake of the assault-rifle ban bill, and that he’s the sacrificial lamb for the Republicans on the committee looking for payback,” said Dobson. “I’ll take care of the rest. After three months, he’ll land on K Street clearing a million five a year. Trust me, he’ll play along. He’ll have no choice.”