HILL AND SCOTT emerged from the officers’ hooch and trudged up the chalky hill in silence. Hill ticked through a mental bullet list of logic. The feint operation and counterintel sting had linked the IED that killed Carwile and Conlon to insider threats on his base. Now he had twelve men in custody. If he was going to have to release them, he was going to wring some information out of them first.
Two pieces of intel were crucial: Who the detainees’ local conspirators were, especially those in Jalrez Valley, as well as every scrap of data about any impending attack.
Then there was the bonus round. U.S. detention channels had all but fallen through at this point. But if he and Scott could manage to get confessions, there might still be a chance to fatten the detainees’ evidence packets enough so that the Afghan National Police or NDS would take custody of the spies if their own higher command would not. New intel might not prevent an attack, but if they could keep the prisoners in custody even a little while longer, it might disrupt the intelligence flow, put the enemy off their game plan, and buy some time.
If, just this one time, the detention process could proceed to a productive end, Hill thought—a war-fighting end instead of a public relations end—it could be a game changer. Not only could Dog Company prevent further attacks on civilians and Coalition Forces, they could seize the initiative, maybe even turn the tide in Wardak once and for all.
Hill and Scott entered the coffeehouse. The smoky bite of espresso hung in the air, mixed with the sharp tang of sweat. Britney Spears still shimmied on the television screen. Scott scowled. He was not a fan.
Hill glanced at the counter where one of the cell tower detainees sat with Mo, lifting forkfuls of ramen from a bowl. Moser, Doyle, Frey, and PFC Michael Peake, along with two sergeants, guarded the detainees.
Hill glanced at his watch. For Kassiss and the Dalmars, he had just over twelve hours left on the ninety-six-hour clock. Across the room, he saw Sammy against a wall. Mo and Hulburt had gotten nowhere with their good-cop routine. Now the young terp stared straight ahead, his face a cipher. The word that came to Hill was professional. He ground his teeth together and swallowed.
Leaving Scott in the middle of the room, Hill walked over to the guards and indicated that he needed to speak with them in private. The four men gathered near the counter and Hill spoke in a low tone, “Okay, we’re at a point now where we know nobody’s coming to pick these guys up. We’ve had some of them about eighty hours. The rules say that if we don’t have formal charges pressed in ninety-six, we have to let them go.”
Moser muttered a curse and made a face that looked like he wanted to spit. Hill continued. “I can’t tell you guys everything I know about the detainees, but I know enough to tell you that they’re really bad. With everything they know about us, if we release them, we’re asking for retaliation.”
Hill lowered his voice even further, and the guards leaned close. “We need to turn the heat up a little in this room. I need information. We’re not going to hurt these guys, but we’re going to make them think they’re going to be hurt.”
“Roger that, sir,” Moser said. Doyle and Peake nodded their understanding.
Hill turned abruptly, belligerently. “All right, let’s cut the shit! We know you guys have been spying for the enemy. I want answers and I’m fucking tired of waiting. You are going to start talking, one way or the other!”
Scott stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed, observing. Hill glanced at him, and a signal passed between the two men. Though they hadn’t discussed it, Hill was sure Scott knew what was coming.
Hill pointed at Sammy. “Get him up!”
Moser and Peake walked over and hoisted the blindfolded terp to his feet. They pushed him toward Hill a little faster than necessary, purposely causing him to stumble on the way. Nothing shrinks a man’s balls like helplessness.
Hill brought his face close enough to Sammy’s to breathe on his lips. “You,” Hill said, poking the interpreter in the chest, “are going to translate.”
Hill could have used K.J. to translate, but Hill wanted to keep Sammy off balance. With K.J. in the room, Hill knew Sammy would have to translate accurately. God only knew what kind of crap he’d passed along before. He noted with satisfaction that Sammy’s composure was cracking again, fear tugging at the corners of his mouth. Hill hoped to spread that emotion, stoke it until it filled the room like a choking gas.
“Somebody better start talking!” Hill yelled at the prisoners. “Right fucking now!”
Sammy interpreted quietly, rendering the curse word in its closest Pashto equivalent. Hill popped him in the shoulder. “Louder! You talk the way I talk! If I’m yelling, you yell!”
Sammy repeated Hill’s command. His voice was louder, but it wavered. The detainees shuffled on their blankets, but there was only silence. Hill surveyed the room. The three spies with the most intel value were Sammy and the Dalmars. Those were the ones Hill wanted to crack. The rest needed to feel completely expendable unless they had something of value to offer.
Hill jabbed his finger toward the grader operator, Issa. Striding over, Doyle and Peake pulled the man to his feet and guided him, blindfolded and stumbling, to face Hill.
“Sit down!” Hill said.
Sammy duplicated in Pashto, but the prisoner did not move. When Doyle tried to push him down by his shoulders, Issa resisted.
“Get his ass on the floor!” Hill yelled.
With his right leg, Doyle swept Issa’s legs from under him and he crashed onto his back. Using his flex-cuffed hands as a tripod, he struggled into a sitting position and sniffed the air like prey.
Hill bent on one knee and got three inches from the detainee’s blindfold. “Who do you work for? What information are you passing?”
Sammy echoed the questions in Pashto. Issa swiveled his head back and forth like a radar dish. He flinched back as though expecting a blow, but he did not speak.
Hill raised his volume. “I said, who do you work for? Talk! Now!”
Silence.
Hill felt frustration creeping up his neck. He had read that in Vietnam, U.S. interrogators took Viet Cong fighters for helicopter rides and threatened to drop them from the sky if they didn’t talk. This, however, was the best Hill could do.
He glanced at Scott, who lowered his chin and fixed Hill with a schoolteacher gaze: I get what you’re trying to do here, sir, Scott’s eyes said. But you suck at this.
Scott, the former drill instructor, did not suck at yelling. Again the two men traded signals with their eyes. Then, like a cage fighter, Scott waded in.
Hill turned toward the detainees. “Him,” he said, pointing to Morcos, the FOB labor supervisor. The captain nodded to Doyle and another guard. Both slung their rifles, crossed the room, and hiked the prisoner up by his elbows.
“Why you do this?!” Morcos cried, as the guards dragged him toward Scott. “I don’t do nothing! I promise you with my heart, I don’t do nothing!”
He bucked and struggled, his legs scrabbling on the wooden floor. “No! I don’t do nothing! This not human treatment!”
Daylight and shadow striped the room. Hill noticed that the other detainees were now on high alert, chins up, locked on, listening. He pressed the moment. “You heard me! Lay him down!”
“We’ll have to cut the zip ties, sir,” Doyle said.
“Do it.”
Doyle whipped his blade from his kit and flicked it through the thin plastic strips that bound Morcos’s arms. The other guard pushed the prisoner down on his back.
Immediately, Scott straddled him. “Talk, motherfucker! What do you know?” Scott then drew back his arm and struck the man, hard, across the mouth.
A collective gasp filled the room. Stunned, Morcos let his head drop to the floor—thump. His mouth hung open. Sammy stammered out a translation, stumbling on “motherfucker.” Along the walls, the prisoners shifted and squirmed on their blankets, exchanging a hushed buzz of Pashto and Dari.