You Will Tell Me Things We Want to Know

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

—Edmund Burke, Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies

I acted sterner, more of a judge, or an accuser from the moment I walked into the interrogation room the following day. I wanted him to feel to his marrow the forces that controlled him, and how implacable they, and I, were. I let my anger build as I spoke—and found that I in truth became as angry as I had begun by simulating. I wanted to appear as ruthless as I could. CAPTUS needed to understand how he was linked to large stakes, in the grip of forces far beyond his power to imagine, and that he was in real danger of . . . of what? I wanted his imagination to work, imagining terrible things, but leaving them largely unspecified. Our imaginations are much stronger than our realities.

“Before we begin our questions today,” I told him coldly, “I want you to know why you are here, what my government and I are doing, how important what you say is for you, and for any future you might have. I want you to know what might happen to you, and who I am. No one has told you these things clearly. Is that right?”

CAPTUS nodded his head warily. “I know nothing.”

“CAPTUS, you know that I am American. Is that right?”

He nodded his head again. He held one hand inside the other on his lap.

“I am an American intelligence officer. I am from the CIA.”

I looked at him for a moment in silence.

“It is the CIA that took you off the street and brought you here. Do you know what the CIA is?”

CAPTUS nodded his head.

“We had been watching you for some time. We know all about you. We know many things. We decided it was time to stop you from working with al-Qa’ida—we believe you are part of al-Qa’ida. This means”—I said this part acidly—“that you are in tremendous trouble. You are in very, very deep trouble. We have only begun with you, when we took you off the street. You saw then, already, that we can do whatever we want, wherever we want. We were easy on you, CAPTUS, because my organization, because the CIA, wants me to talk with you. You will tell me things we want to know. This will be good for you.

“That is why I am sitting here. CIA officers do not travel around the world to waste their time. You will not waste my time, for I will know if you are wasting it, and I will become very angry. You do not want to make me, or my superiors, angry.”

I was working myself into a state. For one of the only times during my months interrogating CAPTUS, I stood up from my chair and paced back and forth in front of him, hands on hips from time to time, stopping to stare at him, pacing again, pointing my finger at him and raising my voice in concert with what I was saying. CAPTUS followed me with his head, slowly, but dared hardly move.

“We took you off the street and took you out of your life because we wanted to.”

I looked directly at him, paused, and lowered my voice.

“We can do anything we want, CAPTUS. I can do anything I want. Do you understand? No one knows what has happened to you. No one. You have just disappeared. You are gone from the world. This is your world now. And we have just begun with you.

“Three thousand of my countrymen are dead, in part because of you. Some of my friends are dead. They were burned alive. Some of my friends were burned alive in the al-Qa’ida attacks on September 11. Others fell—jumped!—five hundred meters, from the top of the towers, so that their heads burst like eggs when they hit the ground. No one does this to Americans, CAPTUS. Our hand is now reaching out to find and to crush the killers who did this. The CIA hand is everywhere. I am part of it—and you are now in my hands—and I will do what I need to do to find the men who killed my friends.

“Now, you are in tremendous trouble. My countrymen are dead. They were innocent. But my colleagues and I are not innocent, easy men. You are mine now, but there are nastier men than me in the CIA. And so far as we are concerned, you are in part responsible for my countrymen’s deaths.

“So what am I going to do with you? What will happen is this: I will ask you questions. You will answer me with the truth. This is what you can do: You can tell me the truth when I ask you questions. This is in your power. I will know, or will find out, if you do not tell me the truth. Things are bad for you now; you do not want to make them worse. And that is your decision. I will recognize honesty. I will appreciate it. It will help you with me and with the CIA. I will tell my superiors in America, in the CIA, if you tell me the truth. It will make your life here better; that is in my power, too.

“Fahimt?!”

I did not want to give him any hint that I could be flexible at this meeting. This meeting was intended to terrify him, and yet leave him some sense that he had free will on some crucial decisions. I sought to lead him where I wanted him to go so he would answer my questions truthfully. They had to come from him; I could not extract them by force. I knew that the personal relationship between detainee and interrogator was the single most important tool to ascertain the truth. But intimidation and fear could be useful psychological tools. I would use all the psychological tools I had.

“Yes, I understand” was all CAPTUS said, wise enough to perceive that he should not at that moment protest his innocence or engage at all with someone so furious. I did not want to talk to CAPTUS just then, either. I had worked myself up, and I wanted him to mull over what I had told him.

“I am leaving this room now. I do not want to see you. I am too angry at you. You are part of al-Qa’ida, which has murdered my countrymen. You have misled the man who was here before me. I think I have come around the world and that you will waste my time now, too. I will not allow you to do that to me.

“Think about what I have told you, CAPTUS. Think about it. I will come back later. I will have questions to ask you then. You will need to answer. So you think now.”