Page 81 of Whisper

“Why are you doing this? Why did you keep me alive? Why…” He waved to his IV bag, the door David had walked out of.

“I told you. I want to talk to you, Abu Zahawi. I want to know what’s in your mind. Understand you.”

“But you are American.”

“Yes.” Kris crossed his legs. “I’m not what you expected?”

“Not at all.”

Kris let the moment stretch long, let silence fill the room. “I have questions, Asim.” He used Zahawi’s birth name, his given name. “Help me understand you. Help me understand the pain you’re in. Not the physical. Help me understand your Muslim pain.”

A trail of tears ran down Zahawi’s cheek and fell from his chin. “I will never be free, will I?”

“That really depends on how much you help us, Asim. Help us understand.”

Zahawi nodded. “I will answer your questions,” he whispered.

Jesus fucking Christ. Kris could only imagine the faces in the control room, the expressions on the other officers’ and interrogators’ faces. For days, he’d had to fight off demands to go in hard, treat Zahawi brutally from the moment his eyes opened. He’d pushed back, insisted over and over on sticking with his methods.

Everyone had waited for him to fail.

“You were born in Riyadh. Your father is a teacher.” Kris walked through Zahawi’s childhood, his early years. Zahawi seemed shocked at some of the things Kris knew, lifted from his diaries. Good. Kris needed Zahawi to think he knew everything, that lying to him about anything was pointless. “You were married, once, after your studies. But you divorced her. Tell me about that.”

Zahawi cringed. “She was obsessed with sex. But I did not want her that way.” He looked away, his eyes skittering to the corner.

“Abdullah Azzam’s sermons lit a fire in you, after that. Made you want to travel to Afghanistan?”

Zahawi nodded. He took over, detailing how he’d joined the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets. How he’d been filled with fury over the attacks against his fellow Muslims, the occupation of the Soviets in Muslim lands.

“Tell me. How did you feel?”

Zahawi squirmed. “What do we have left of ourselves? Everything in the world is touched by the West. Corrupted by you. From cars to clothes, washing machines to food. Everything in our life is corrupted by you. You’ve taken it all. We have nothing left. We are totally dependent on you. It is shameful.Humiliating. Once it was exactly the opposite. You Westerners once looked to the Arabs and saw thebestof humanity. Now you look at us like we are dogs. Filth.”

“I understand. You may not think I do, but I do. Iknowwhat it’s like to be hated by the West.”

Zahawi squinted.

“I know what it’s like to be hated for who you are. To have your life dictated by others, your choices made for you. To have that rage in your chest, all the time. That scream, that says you are more than this. The desire to prove everyone wrong.”

“Thatis Muslim pain,” Zahawi breathed.

They stared at one another, silent for a moment.

“Tell me about your injury, years ago,” Kris finally said.

“I don’t remember it. They say a mortar came into our position. That I was hit in the head. My brothers took me to the hospital. When I woke, I did not remember anything. Not even who I was.”

Kris held up one of Zahawi’s journals. Zahawi’s heart monitor beeped, pulsing faster. “You started keeping journals after your injury.” Zahawi nodded. He never took his eyes off his diary. “These are very important to you?”

“Yes.”

“They are safe. They will be returned to you after questioning. And we’ll arrange for a fresh notebook and pen to be provided to you.”

More tears spilled from Zahawi’s eyes. “Shukran.”

They kept talking. After Zahawi had recovered from his head wound, and had pieced together most of his memories, he’d gone to work as an instructor at an al-Qaeda-run training camp. He’d worked on the firing range, and he had cooked and maintained guesthouses for the recruits. He was back in the arms of a community again, embraced by his brothers. He had felt at home.

But he’d wanted more.