Miracles and Massacres (36 page)

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed turned toward Qahtani and said, “You stupid Bedouin.”

As he lost control and began to sob, Qahtani ran from the guesthouse and hid inside one of the tunnels of the obstacle course. He hugged his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth inside the sweltering culvert. The encounter at the Orlando airport five weeks earlier kept running through his mind.

Nineteen others had made it. He had not. Bin Laden and Zawahiri had recruited him, selected him, and trusted him.

And he had failed.

Tora Bora Mountains, Afghanistan

Three months later: December 2001

After the reports of United Flight 93 reached the training camp, Qahtani thought he would be killed immediately to send a message to
the other fighters. “Each plane with five men was successful,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had said. “The one plane with four men—the one you should have been on—was not. So you tell me, Qahtani, what should be the price for your failure?”

He expected death, but what he got instead was a one-way ticket to Tora Bora to fight the Americans. Now, cowering with thirty others in a dark cave, he sat, waiting for the moment that an American daisy-cutter bomb would carry out the sentence he'd been spared just months earlier.

But the bomb never came.

A few days into his stay in the mountains, Qahtani's commander gathered the men. “Our position has been compromised,” he said. “The Americans and Northern Alliance are just over the ridge. We must go.” They left the cave in a rush and fled toward Pakistan.

Less than thirty minutes after their departure, Qahtani saw the explosion before he heard the sound. Their cave had taken a direct hit from an American bomb.

•   •   •

Hours later, as night fell, Qahtani heard machine-gun fire in the distance, followed by the thump of two mortars. The echoes of combat reverberated from the mountains onto the valley floor near Parachinar, Pakistan. The Americans were closing in from the north.

He pressed forward quickly through the narrow streambed. The other fighters followed behind him in single file, sometimes turning to spray random rifle fire at the advancing enemy.

With his senses deadened from lack of food and sleep, Qahtani at first missed the noise. By the time he realized that he was hearing engines idling, they were too close. And it was too late.

Automatic weapon fire began to ping overhead as armored vehicles closed in around them. Qahtani's first instinct was to flee. He ran toward a canyon about a hundred yards away. Reminded of his escape from Panjshir, he was encouraged. This was an opportunity for redemption directly from Allah. He may have failed in Orlando, but he would not fail here.

The thought was just beginning to take hold in his mind when he was tackled from behind and handcuffed by a group of Pakistani
soldiers. He and his comrades were dragged along the ground and loaded onto the backs of several trucks.

The soldiers placed a burlap bag over his head and he was soon transferred to the Americans. He heard their voices. Crisp and authoritative. He felt someone with large hands grab his fingers. One by one they were pressed into something soft and cold and then rolled from side to side.

Camp X-Ray

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

January 2002

Sergeant Raul Romeo watched the military C-17 Globemaster airplane taxi and then drop its ramp. Military personnel escorted the prisoner onto the hot tarmac. The man wore an orange jumpsuit, white shoes, black socks, earmuffs, and a black cloth over his eyes.

An experienced interrogator, Romeo was excited about the inbound package. He was a fresh capture and rumored to be a highly placed Al Qaeda operative. He waited with his hands clasped behind his back until the man was directly in front of him.

“This is prisoner number 063,” the escort said. “Says he was in Afghanistan as a falconry expert.”

Romeo smiled. “Falconry? That's what they all say.”

The handler returned the grin. “He was captured with an AK-47 and twenty-nine of his best falconry buddies.”

For all the details the handler seemed to know about this man, he still could not answer the most basic question:
What is his name
?

Camp X-Ray

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Ten months later: November 17, 2002

On a warm November morning, Sergeant Romeo's commander called him into his office. Romeo reported with a sharp salute. “Sergeant Romeo reporting as ordered, sir.”

“Two things,” the major said. “Look at this.”

Romeo took the piece of paper from his commander and saw that he was looking at a fingerprint analysis between a set of prints taken on August 4, 2001, at Orlando International Airport and a set taken in December 2001 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

“Your guy was the twentieth hijacker,” the major said.

Romeo read the report and looked up. He and his friends had heard all of the speculation about a missing hijacker, but it had just been rumor.

The major continued, “Detainee 063 is Mohammed al Qahtani. Nothing he has told us since he's been here is true.”

Sergeant Romeo gathered himself. “You said there were two things.”

“Right,” the major replied, handing him another sheet of paper. “New interrogation techniques, hot off the press—and approved all the way up the food chain. How's that for timing?”

Romeo scanned the sheet.
Restraint on a swivel chair, deprivation of sleep, loud music, prohibition of praying, threats of rendition to countries that torture
.

His commander just shrugged. “Let's see what it gets us.”

Camp X-Ray

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

November 28, 2002

Sergeant Romeo called Sergeant Lisa Smith and said, “Get 063. It's been over a week. We're ready.”

The interrogation room was musty. Romeo directed Smith to place the blindfolded prisoner in the swivel chair in the center of the empty room with the air conditioner set at maximum blast.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Romeo removed Qahtani's blindfold. “Take a look at these.”

On the table Smith had laid out pictures of each of the hijackers. Qahtani looked down and then quickly looked away.

Romeo paced behind Qahtani. “Go ahead. Look at your successful brothers. You failed them, didn't you, Mohammed al Qahtani?”

Romeo watched as Qahtani visibly reacted to his name.
Now we're getting somewhere
, he thought. He exchanged glances with Smith, who was now stationed directly in front of Qahtani.

Smith pointed to the Arabic words she'd written on the chalkboard in front of Qahtani:
Liar, Coward, Failure
.

“This is you!” she shouted.

Qahtani closed his eyes and shook his head. “Na'am.”
No
.

Romeo leaned in from behind him and shouted into his ears.

“Look at the pictures, Qahtani! You are the twentieth hijacker! Tell me about your training! Tell me about your commanders! Where is bin Laden?”

Qahtani jumped at Romeo's voice. He looked down at the pictures and began to quietly sob. Romeo knew he must be feeling guilty for not completing his mission. Guilt was something he could use.

“Who was your leader?”

“Osama bin Laden.”

Romeo stopped. For the first time in nearly a year of captivity, prisoner 063 had provided a truthful answer.

“Why did you go to Orlando?”

“I wasn't told the mission.”

“Who was meeting you?”

“I don't know.”

Romeo spun around and slammed his hands on the table, the carefully spread photos bouncing into the air and landing askew, some skittering to the floor.

“Who was on the plane with you?”

“I was by myself.”

“You're wasting my time!” he lied. The truth was that these answers were, for the first time, getting them somewhere.

“Give me one name! One name of someone who trained you!”

Qahtani looked up, tears streaming down his face.

“I have to use bathroom. Please.”

“One name!”

“Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Taught me Internet.”

“Internet? You're going to fly an airplane into the White House and you give me the name of your tech support guy?”

Romeo walked out of the room, calling over to Smith. “I'm done with him. Make him go to the bathroom in the bottle in front of you.”

Returning to his cube, Sergeant Romeo quickly entered this new name,
al-Kuwaiti, into the database:
063 claims Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti taught him how to use the Internet. Follow up with Defense and Central Intelligence Agencies
.

Islamabad, Pakistan

Seven years, nine months later: August 4, 2010

CIA paramilitary operative “Ron” listened intently to the voice on the intercept.

For years, Ron and his teammates had been trolling for any usable scrap of information—but, like the tip lines the police use after a serious crime, most of the information they'd received was only marginally useful at best. Ron was on the lookout for names of highly placed operatives or mentions of weapons of mass destruction. But long ago, when the hunt for bin Laden had first begun, they'd decided that messengers would help lead to the ultimate quarry.

“We've got someone talking about a courier!” Ron said to the small group huddled in the plywood-paneled communications room of the safe house.

“What's the name? We need a name!” the station chief answered.

“He's calling him Sheik al-Kuwaiti.”

“That's
got
to be the same guy.”

“I've got his number and recorded voice. We're triangulating his position right now,” Ron confirmed, simultaneously relaying the information and coordinates to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

“Abbottabad, Pakistan,” Ron reported. Quickly the satellite spun to the location on the outskirts of the capital of Islamabad. It was a large compound framed by a trapezoidal wall.

Looks fit for a sheikh
, Ron thought to himself.

Abbottabad, Pakistan

May 2, 2011

2:00
A.M
.

The point man from Navy SEAL Team Six's Red Team had rehearsed it a thousand times, but he was still shocked when he saw the unmistakable face of Osama bin Laden staring right back at him.

The SEAL fired his Heckler & Koch 416 carbine as bin Laden dove back into his bedroom. While the SEAL's index finger reflexively squeezed the trigger, he thought about Jeremy Glick and the brave passengers on Flight 93, all those who had perished in the 9/11 attacks, and all those who had come before him in the wars.

Stepping into the bedroom, he saw that bin Laden was on his back, two of his wives shouting at him. A teammate shot one of the women in the leg and pushed them away. Another pumped two more rounds into bin Laden's heart.

The point man made the call over his radio: “Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo!”

Osama bin Laden was finally dead. And while it may have been a Navy SEAL's bullet that struck the fatal blow, it was a long-ago airport encounter between a young Saudi extremist and Jose Melendez-Perez, a veteran who continued to serve his country, that first sealed his fate.

This story is dedicated to all of the American heroes who've fought in the War on Terror. Melendez-Perez is a perfect example of how an ordinary person can make an extraordinary difference, but he's not the only one. Each of us has the opportunity to prove that every single day.

This book comprises twelve stories that took place over a period of about 230 years. Not one person alive today was alive when even half of these events actually took place. That means we are left with history books, biographies, oral accounts and, in some cases, court transcripts and official reports to tell us what happened. Like anything that spans so much time and, in some cases, is so controversial, these accounts often conflict with each other. It is up to all of us to read all of the evidence and discern what is fully true, what is exaggerated, and what is a lie.

This section is meant to help you better understand the research and writing process for each story, including any key decisions we made regarding major facts, characters or scenes. A chapter-by-chapter accounting is below, but there are also a few things that apply to the entire book that I want to point out.

1. We sometimes modified quotations for clarity. This mainly applies to quotes from the revolutionary period, but we occasionally modified more modern quotes as well if we felt that they left the reader confused. We tried to be as delicate as possible and we
never
changed the meaning of any direct quotations.

2. In some cases we imagined characters or scenes. Whenever we did this we were careful to ensure that nothing we created contradicted anything that we knew to be true from the historical record.

3. Dialogue and character thoughts were often imagined based on the historical record. None of this dialogue contradicts anything about the characters or story that we know to be true.

Chapter 1: Jack Jouett: The Ride That Saved America

Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following sources:

“Charles S. Yordy, III: The Pennsylvania Line Mutiny, its Origins and Patriotism.”
Unearthing the Past: Student Research on Pennsylvania History
, Pennsylvania
State University.
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/pahistory/folder_2.html
.

Crews, Ed.
Captain Jack Jouett's Ride to the Rescue
. Colonial Williamsburg.
http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Summer06/ride.cfm
.

Jack Jouett: Louisa County's Revolutionary Hero
. Louisa County, Virginia.
http://www.louisacounty.com/LCliving/jouett.htm
.

“Jack Jouett of Virginia: The ‘Other Ride.' ”
Valley Compatriot
. February 1984. Donal Norman Moran, ed.
http://americanrevolution.org/jouett.html
.