Page 99 of Whisper

“Yes.”

“Before any enhanced interrogation techniques were applied?”

“Yes.”

“If I understand your personal political position correctly, Mr. Caldera, from the numerous screeds you submitted to the White House Counsel’s Office, only intelligence gained outside of enhanced interrogation techniques is considered valid. Useful.” The vice president paused. “Is that correct?”

“Torture is completely ineffective, Mr. Vice President. Once you go down that road, everything you get is tainted. There’s absolutely no guarantee that anything revealed is truthful—”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“—Torture goes against everything this nation stands for—”

“The detainee program has stopped attacks from happening in Yemen, Singapore, Saudi, and right here, in DC and New York City and Chicago. It’s broken up cells all across Europe—”

“—torture violates the Geneva Conventions and goes against the Declaration of Human Rights—”

“Kris!” Director Thatcher grabbed his elbow.

“They don’t have human rights!” the vice president bellowed.

Silence. The director gasped, quietly. He kept his hand on Kris’s elbow.

“Animals that murder thousands of innocent civilians don’t get human rights! They don’t get international protections! They don’t get to go crying to the Red Cross for nicer treatment. Not when they want to murder every American on this planet!” The vice president’s voice shook the bulletproof glass in the windows, rattled the water glasses on the table. “They don’t deserve anything more than what they’re getting.”

Kris’s fingernails dug into the folders he gripped, scratching against the manila cardboard. “What is the status of Zahawi’s interrogation?”

“That’senough, Kris,” Director Thatcher said quietly, leaning into him. “You’ve made your point.”

“What is the status of Zahawi’s interrogation? Did you send him to Egypt like al-Shayk? Or have you finally succeeded in killing him? This government was trying its hardest to!”

“Caldera!” Thatcher barked.

The vice president sat back, his seething rage replaced by the visage of a man who had sucked on the sourest lemon. He gazed at Kris like Kris was a traitor. No, was worse. Was one ofthem. Was a terrorist. “The interrogation of Zahawi has ended.”

Dan. He came through. He ended it. “He didn’t give you anything after you tortured him, did he? Not a Goddamn thing.”

The vice president didn’t blink. “What he did give us through your questioning was Saqqaf. An al-Qaeda operative who went to Iraq. Who is working in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein.”

“You’re twisting the intelligence around. That’s not an accurate representation of what Zahawi told me, or of Saqqaf’s current status in Iraq.”

“What does it matter, Caldera?” The vice president sighed, shaking his head. For the first time, he let his exasperation show. “What the fuck does it matter that we want to take him out? Saqqaf murdered our diplomat in Jordan two months ago. He is committed to killing Americans. Waging war against the West. So is Saddam. Now they’re in the same country, sharing resources.”

“He’s not al-Qaeda. He’s not even a big player. He’s a low-level jihadi flunky who has been searching for an outlet for his reckless criminal activity and his murderous fantasies. He’s isolated in the Kurdish region. If you want to take him out, send in a strike team, or a half dozen ICBMs. Both will eliminate him and solve the problem.”

“Look, Caldera, if there’s aone percent chancethat they are working together, even just one percent—” The vice president spread his hands, as if to say the decision was out of his hands. “We cannot lighten our vigilance. We cannot take our foot off the gas. We have to win this war.”

It matters because David is going to be fighting this war of yours. David, and a hundred thousand other men like him. Fighting for reasons that aren’t truthful. Fighting a war that can be won another way. Fighting enemies that are propped up, made larger than life. Fighting for the wrong reasons, and fighting based on lies gained from torture. A lot of people are going to die for this, and if they die for lies, then what are they dying for? It matters because they want us there, they want us to take out Saddam, fight in Iraq, help them create the eschatological hellscape they crave, bring out the end of the world through bloodshed and the apocalypse—

But he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t get the words out. His wrath, his fury, gummed up his throat, ground his voice to silence.

“I want everything on Saqqaf. Everything the Jordanians have. Every intercept we have on the man. Every source on the ground, every rumor, every whisper of this man. I want to know where he is. I want to know what he’s doing. I want to know what time of day he eats. What time of day he takes a shit. When he goes to sleep, and where. Got it?”

This is how the war will begin. Kris gritted his teeth, biting down so hard his jaw hurt. There were other reasons for the invasion—the administration had tasked another team with tracking down Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—but the link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was the vice president’s holy grail.

“We’re going to nail this son of a bitch.” The vice president stood. Everyone followed.

Kris was the last to rise.