THE FILE ON AFZAL TAHA WAS A CONUNDRUM. THE INDEX PROMISED an immense farrago of paperwork from over ten different public institutions; sealed dossiers, letters of transfer, contradictory treatments and diagnoses, rosters of crimes committed, punishments meted out, varied medications, experimental procedures carried out on him, amid a sea of bureaucratic waffle and blame shifting. The body, however, contained only a single volume in close handwriting, the English extremely precise and formal, language typical of someone whose fluency in a second language had been hard won. Small notes had been penciled in cryptic Arabic in the margins, which Sabeen said were mostly clarifications or references to other files, none of which were included in the dossier.
This single report was the work of Dr. Sawad, who had been chief administrator of the restricted wing of the Al-Rashid. His credentials identified him as a specialist in schizophrenia in violent offenders. Stumped, Sabeen and Hoffman took turns trying to decipher the pages, and Hoffman’s attempts were desultory at best. Behruse, near somnolent with the weight of three mid-day meals, lay basking in the glory of his original good idea, flicking ash on the table, scattering flies with his deep rumble, offering advice from afar.
“Here’s Sawad’s CV,” Sabeen said. “Big credentials.”
“Mukhabarat,” Behruse said, looking over the picture. “I can tell.”
“What, he has a secret haircut or something?” Hoffman asked. “Seriously, Behruse, sometimes I think you just make shit up.”
“You think the chief of the ‘restricted’ mental ward of a place like Al-Rashid is not going to be Mukhabarat?” Behruse said. “What do you think ‘restricted’ means? I’ll tell you. Experimental procedures equals: interrogation techniques, biological warfare, chemical warfare. Standard practice for Mukhabarat.”
“You tested interrogation torture methods on mentally ill patients?” Sabeen asked. “That was standard procedure?”
“Hey, it’s better than monkeys,” Behruse said. “From a data gathering point of view, I mean.”
“Listen to this,” Hoffman cut in self-importantly. “I quote: ‘Patient 99% certainty suffers from auditory command hallucination. These episodes are extremely powerful. Patient believes he is communicating with some unidentifiable religious icon. He is extremely secretive regarding these communications and refuses to divulge any details as to the nature of the hallucinations, despite intense questioning. Acute paranoia is present even in periods of lucidity.”
“Hah!” Behruse said. “Intense questioning. What you think that means, habibi? Mukhabarat all the way.”
“Anything about treatment there?” Sabeen asked.
“Some heavy drugs,” Hoffman said. “Speaking of treatment, you wanna give me some more antidote? I’m feeling faint. Also, I think I’m seeing two of Behruse. I could swear he’s gained weight since morning.”
“I gave you a pill just two hours ago, for God’s sake.”
“I’m delicate,” Hoffman moaned. “My insides are burning. I’m not a fat bastard like Behruse.”
“Your insides burn because you’re constantly high or drunk or eating weird shit,” Sabeen said. “Now what were the treatments for this patient?”
“Mostly tranks,” Hoffman said with a martyred air. “Sawad writes that the patient was extremely dangerous and responsible for injuring medical staff on three different occasions. He was kept in isolation and heavily drugged except for specific ‘interview’ days. These interviews were conducted by Sawad himself.”
“And?”
“I can’t find any details on these interviews anywhere. All references and annexure have been removed,” Hoffman said. “Behruse is right. This guy seems to be hiding the good stuff.”
“Wait,” Sabeen said. “He wrote a long note in Arabic here. He’s talking about enough interesting details to make a stand-alone paper. I think he wanted to submit something to the medical journals. He might have pulled all the annexure files for that reason.”
“So we go and find this guy,” Behruse said. “If he’s Mukhabarat, he’ll probably help us. If he isn’t, we’ll have to try out some interviewing techniques of our own. I’ll call my friend.”
An hour later, after a series of conversations, Behruse’s mood had considerably darkened.
“This Sawad prick lived alone and worked alone,” Behruse said. “Typical Mukhabarat. No friends, not much family, and they all appeared to hate him anyways. So no one missed him, really, when he fell off his roof two weeks ago.”
“He reminds me of you,” Hoffman said. “Was it an accident?”
“His apartment was robbed two days prior to that,” Behruse said. “What do you think?”
“The police didn’t investigate?” Hoffman asked.
“Police? In this city?” Behruse said. “Robberies are pretty common, and falling off your roof is pretty common too. Two separate reports were filed with the police station, only because he was a government employee. No follow ups afterwards. I had an old friend pull up the police file. Guess what? The file got ‘left behind’ by accident when they shifted stations.”
“You think it’s the Druze silencing him?” Sabeen asked.
“Someone pretty well connected, anyway.”
“So where’d his stuff go?” Hoffman asked. “Any kin? I thought you guys all had fifteen kids each.”
“One daughter,” Behruse said. “She might know something about his work. She’s also a doctor, but she lives in the green zone. Can you get us in?”
“Hmmm,” Hoffman said. “I might actually be in some trouble over there.”
“For what?” Sabeen asked. “Deserting? Isn’t that a shooting offence? Can we get invitations to the gallery?”
“No, they reprimand you strongly,” Hoffman said, injured. “And you don’t have to sound so excited about it.”
“I’d like to watch if they shoot you,” Sabeen said.
“I’m on a top secret mission, FYI,” Hoffman said. “Full authority from high up. I just haven’t checked in lately. Actually, you guys might be able to help me. You don’t have any WMDs stashed away anywhere? Just a few would do.”
“Are you high?” Sabeen asked.
“Well, I just had that one joint in the car, plus that last dose of the antidote, which, I gotta’ say makes for a sweet head rush.”
“For God’s sake, Hoffman, you’re not supposed to use the antidote to get stoned,” she said, exasperated.
“Maybe Avi could arrange for one?”
Sabeen stared icily, “One what?”
“A WMD.”
“No,” Sabeen said. “And don’t bandy his name about. Not if you want to keep your head.”
“Just something small?”
“For God’s sake, you idiot.”
“I guess we’ll have to improvise,” Hoffman said. “Come on. Let’s go. I might get stopped and questioned at some point. Just play along like a dumb foreigner.”
The path across the Tigris was a continuous snake of traffic, slowed to an inching worm by the check-posts on the bridge. The 14th of July Bridge, originally called after the date of Ba’athist rise to power, had retained its name despite efforts by the Americans to change it to the Fourth of July Bridge, and, bizarrely, by the Georgian contingent to the “Tbilisi Bridge.” The Georgians claimed that they, in fact, had captured the bridge originally and should have the conquerors’ right of renaming it. For some reason, the Georgian name had stuck for some time, and a Tbilisi café had even sprung up nearby. Suspecting a conspiracy, the American high command had rotated the Georgian contingent away from bridge duty to some other part of the green zone; the Tbilisi lobby had faded away, and the bridge had reverted back to the old 14th of July.
The checkpoints here were staggered, manned by Iraqi security forces, and frequently peppered by incendiaries. While killing white skins were always a priority for militants, the new Iraqi army was also a popular target in a junior terrorist training exercise kind of way. Largely derided as imperialist lapdogs by militants, treated with contempt by the white soldiers, sneered at by former republican dogs, and with no esprit de corps or history to fall back on, these men were beset on all sides, on the verge of deserting at all times. Hoffman’s stripes and easy banter got them across the bridge and several hundred meters into the green zone.
Approaching the hospital compound, however, they were stopped by a second checkpoint of American soldiers. The conversation here proved much tougher. Hoffman’s papers were scrutinized, his “mandate” discarded with suspicion, Behruse questioned intensively. Somewhat discomfited by Sabeen’s glare, they left her alone for the large part. Finally, it was decided that they should be escorted to the colonel’s office for verification. The colonel, unfortunately, was detained elsewhere. Hoffman’s status in the office was somewhat of a gray area. While his papers were signed and sealed by the colonel, any further records were consigned into the secret bowels of the vast black ops machinery the colonel purportedly controlled. The colonel, being widely known as secretive to the point of paranoia, did not like his various assets mixing.
Thus, they were largely ignored for several hours, until the arrival of Captain Fowler brought the office to life.
“Hoffman!” Fowler ushered them into a debriefing chamber. This was where the friendlier conversations took place. “Where the hell is your squad?”
“Searching out leads, captain!” Hoffman yelled at parade ground volume. The glass vibrated.
“At ease, soldier,” Fowler glared at his companions. “What are you doing with these two I-raqis? This fat one looks like a criminal.”
“They can speak English, sir!” Hoffman shouted.
“Sit down, all of you,” Fowler said. “Explain yourself now, Hoffman. Colonel Bradley is most displeased with your lack of progress—and reports. Just the other day, we were discussing your court martial over a grilled squid brunch.”
“Captain, these I-raqi citizens have helped me track down what we are looking for!” Hoffman said. “We are on the verge of a breakthrough.”
“You mean it?” Captain Fowler leaned forward.
“The real thing, sir!” Hoffman brought forth a small carton of laundry detergent. “I have brought a small sample for you and the colonel!”
“What is this?” Captain Fowler took the box. “It smells like detergent.”
“It’s a partial weapons grade anthrax, sir!” Hoffman said. “Please be careful, sir! You have some on your cuff there.”
“What?” Captain Fowler thrust the box back. “Anthrax? In laundry detergent? They have weaponized laundry detergent?”
“Precisely, sir!” Hoffman said. “Weaponized laundry detergent. Imagine our barracks flooded with this stuff, no shirts safe, no pants safe, not even skivvies.”
“A devious plan,” Captain Fowler stroked his cleft chin and then abruptly began to shake his infected cuff. “Precisely what we were looking for. You’re onto something here, Hoffman. What are their production capabilities? Where are their processing plants? We’ll bomb them to hell!”
“Sir, we are on the verge of finding this out,” Hoffman said. “We need more time. And, er…, more cash funds, sir, for intelligence gathering. Also, a gunship on call in case I, er, need to call an airstrike.”
“Right, that sounds reasonable,” Captain Fowler said. “Weaponized detergent. I’d never have believed it. The devious cock suckers. The colonel will be apoplectic.”
“Right, sir,” Hoffman said. “I myself was extremely excited by the discovery. There are large caches of this stuff hidden away. Al Qaeda could get to it any second. We’re on the right track. It’s an amazingly delicate time. Any stray action can wreck our chances. In fact, we were on the way to interrogating someone in the hospital compound when we were violently stopped. By Sergeant Evans. You might want to investigate him. He looked a little uppity to me…probably a traitor…might even be CIA?”
“Hmm, yes, well don’t worry about that. We know how to deal with other agencies trying to muscle in and take credit. Evans, you said? I’ll post him to Kandahar. He won’t be spying on us anytime soon. You get back to work. I’m giving you full clearance in the green zone,” Captain Fowler said. “I need a written report, Hoffman.”
“Reports, right, captain, Private Tommy has been making reports nonstop,” Hoffman said. “I’m surprised you haven’t gotten them yet.”
“And give that sample to our hazmat team,” Captain Fowler said, gingerly poking the detergent with a pencil. “We need to analyze it.”
“Right, sir,” Hoffman said, rising to leave. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”
Outside, a very young West Point graduate handed Hoffman a wad of unmarked bills, both Iraqi and US currency. In earnest tones, he quoted to Hoffman relevant passages from the CIA guidebook to bribery: Technical Assessment of Alternative Reward Based Systems (TAARBSTM), and made him sign and fingerprint various forms in triplicate. He then provided Hoffman with a hefty sat phone, capable of connecting directly with the pilot of Col. Bradley’s personal AH64-A Apache, which apparently had gilded machine gun barrels and a bourbon bar in the rear cabin. A sealed file carried protocols and firing codes.
“See this?” Hoffman waved the phone at Behruse. “This is your gunship right here.” He looked at the wads of cash in his hands and grinned “Get your dancing shoes on, boys and girls, we’re gonna party green zone style.”