Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (12 page)

“I didn’t know anything about that building when I was a prisoner.”

“But you talked to them later, they called you. Do you remember, they called you?”

“I don’t remember that.”

“When you were in that cave, let’s see for over a week….that’s a long time. They can put a lot of shit in your head in a week…what did they ask you?”

“They wanted to know how much we knew about them. They wanted to know if we had a plan to assassinate their leader. They wanted to know if we had any agents who had infiltrated their band.”

“And you told them everything.”

“You need to believe me, I tried to resist.”

“But you told them everything.”

Jonathan was now openly sobbing, “Yes.”

“Why would you do that Jonathan? Why would you give up your country?”

“Because I had no choice.”

“So you decided to join them?”

Jonathan didn’t answer.

“I said, when did you decide to join them?”

“I would never join that group of mangy animals.”

“But you told that group of mangy animals everything they wanted? Isn’t that the same as joining them, becoming of one mind with them, getting fucked by them.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”

“How long before they contacted you here in the United States?”

“They never contacted me.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Have you ever known anyone associated with a terrorist cell?”

“Only someone we arrested.”

“Let’s go back to when you were a POW. What did your captors do to you?”

Each memory was like an electric shock to Jonathan and he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“I’ve told you everything, leave me alone.”

“You haven’t told us everything and we’re not going to leave you alone until you tell us the truth! I’m going to ask you again, what did your captors do to you?”

Jonathan took a deep breath and mumbled, “They knew I was a CIA agent and wanted to know my mission and the mission of the other agents.”

“You said they tortured you. What did they do to you?”

The pain of the beatings returned to his mind and he had trouble repeating it.

“Jonathan, what did they do to you?”

“They hung me upside down inside a cave and beat my back, my butt and the bottom of my feet with a stick until one of them couldn’t swing the stick anymore and then they handed the stick to another one. And they shocked my testicles with a cart of automobile batteries, over and over and over.”

“And then you talked?”

“No, that was the easy stuff.”

“So what the fuck did they do to you to make you talk?”

He shivered when he thought of the rest. “I was gang raped by men with hoods and then they took the other people who were with me and put their decapitated bodies and their heads in my cell and their flesh began to rot and stink. I can still see them looking at me. And then it happened. Something snapped. I talked, I told them the names and the targets. I compromised everything.” He started to cry, “I couldn’t hold out, I couldn’t hold out.”

“What did they want to know about our domestic intelligence?”

Jonathan didn’t hear the question and was still repeating, “I couldn’t hold out.”

Burton slapped him hard across the face, “I asked you a question. What did they want to know about our domestic intelligence?”

“They were very interested in how much the agency knew about their leader, Osama Bin Laden and I told them I didn’t know but thought that we knew very little and didn’t see him as a threat. I think they kept me alive, because I was cooperating and knew I had a wealth of knowledge and they had more questions. When the answers ran out, I was pretty sure that I would be killed like the rest of them”

“Did you meet Bin Laden?”

“Yes.”

Surprised, Burton repeated, “You met Osama Bin Laden.”

“Yes, he was there.”

“What did he ask you?”

Jonathan pictured the tall slender bearded man in his Abaya, holding an AK-47 in one hand and a shepherd’s staff in the other. He had with him an English translator. “It was a very strange conversation, mostly philosophical. He didn’t understand why Americans thought the way they did and had such small regard for their souls. He was very curious about why the United States persecutes his people and why I would be part of such a murderous system. He spoke of divine retribution.”

“Did he say that they were planning an attack? Did he say anything about the World Trade Center in New York?”

“No, he seemed quite fascinated with how we thought and seemed more of a philosopher than a terrorist.”

“What else happened?”

“Nothing, after he left, I was rescued that evening.”

Burton looked over at the mirror and said, “Can I cut through the bullshit? An affirmative answer must have come through his headset, because he increased the intensity of the lights until Jonathan yelled in pain and then he quickly brought them back to normal.”

Burton held up a picture of Jonathan’s son Matthew. “Can you see this picture?”

Jonathan’s eyes were blurry, but he knew it to be a picture of his son. “It’s my boy, Matthew.” The thought of him being dead flooded his mind and he once again started to cry. “Where’d you get that?”

“Why did you kill your son, Mr. Anderson?”

Offended, Jonathan pulled against his shackles as if to tear into Burton, “What? What did you say to me?”

“I asked you why you killed your son.”

“You fucker, I would never hurt my children.”

Burton made the light more intense, making Jonathan try to turn away, but he couldn’t, the screaming didn’t help the pain. “Why did you kill your son and risk the life of your daughter? Is this cause of yours so important?”

“No, no, no!” he screamed. “The only way I killed my children was by not stopping them, by finding the emails too late.”

“So there were emails?”

“Yes, there were 2 weeks of emails from a user called
Heliracer
99
.”

The lights became more intense, the red light moved from eye to eye.

“Why did you delete the emails and try to hide the trail?”

“I didn’t delete the emails!”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who could have?”

“Maybe someone from the inside.”

“So you think it’s someone from the inside?”

“I don’t know?”

“Why, are you so unsure?”

“Because I don’t know anyone who could hack that deep into our system.”

“Who trained you? How did they get you to turn?”

Burton then pulled out a device that looked like a stun gun that had several electrically charged sharp needles and stuck it a half inch into Jonathan’s chest. Jonathan contorted from the blow. “I asked you a question,” he said as he shocked him again and turned the light to a blinding intensity.

“I didn’t do anything,” answered Jonathan.

The agent turned down the lights.

“We have proof that you did. Now tell me who these other users are in this email and what significance they have to the operation.”

“I found the email just before the explosion.”

The lights were turned to full intensity and the agent stuck him again with the hybrid stun gun, this time on the side of the neck where it was much more painful. “You need to start cooperating.” He pulled it out of his neck and stuck him again. “They trained you well but we’ll break you, there are many other levels after me.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Tell me what really happened in Afghanistan.”

The drugs and the pain opened Jonathan’s mouth, “They hurt me.”

“How?”

Jonathan held up his right hand, “They cut off my fingers.”

“Did you recognize them?”

“No, they all wore scarves over their faces.”

“What did they ask you?”

“They wanted to know mission directives, the names of informants, and the intelligence on Osama Bin-Laden.”

“Why did you betray your country?”

“I would never betray my country.”

“You did when you divulged top secret information.”

“I had no choice.”

“We always have a choice, so I’m going to ask you again. When did you decide to join Al Qaeda in their war against America?”

“I didn’t join them.”

Burton hesitated, obviously receiving a communication through his earpiece. He smirked at Jonathan, turned down the lights and left. The doctor removed the tape from his eyelids put a soothing solution in each eye, unstrapped him and exited with the other agents.

Jonathan lay in the chair and fell asleep from the exhaustion and the after-effect of the truth serum. When he awoke, the door opened and William Reed came in by himself. He sat down and put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.

“You’ve had a pretty tough time these past months,” he said. “Do you miss your wife and children?”

Jonathan nodded.

“Do you want to find those animals who did this to them?”

“More than anything else,” Jonathan muttered.

“Then help us find those who did this.”

“Mr. Reed, I don’t know who did this. I’ve told you everything I know.”

Jonathan lay helpless and alone with his own thoughts of desperation. William Reed straddled a chair that he pushed to the side of Jonathan’s chair.

After a few moments, he broke the silence, “It’s all over the news network you know.”

Jonathan stared at him bewildered

“Someone’s leaked to the press that we have brought you in under investigation for the July 15th bombing. The world now knows that you’re a traitor. My experts keep telling me that in your own mind you’re telling us the truth, but we believe that you’ve been reprogrammed or brainwashed. Man, did they do a good job with you. And right now we’re the only protection you have. If I turned you loose, every true American would be gunning for you. And your wife and your daughter Carly, God knows what they’ll do to them. We have 6 agents guarding your home as we speak.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” answered Jonathan.

“Okay, then so be it! If you talk to us you’ll live. If you keep up this little game of yours I’m going to release you to those conservative animals out there and you’ll die. You’re forgetting that every American has the right to bear arms.”

“I want to go home,” answered Jonathan.

Jim Burton and Harry Davison sat in William Reed’s posh office on the dark brown leather sofa in front of the Director’s desk. Bill Reed sat in one of his leather office chairs which he had turned to face the sofa. Reed was slumped forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his clenched hands under his chin. He sat up just enough to free one hand and spin a globe he had on his desk and mumbled, “Jesus Christ!” Then he started speaking as if he had just received a revelation from God, “We’ve got a real problem here boys. Someone’s on the inside blowing up buildings and leaking dog shit to the press. The President wants this resolved immediately and we can’t break the only real suspect we’ve got. Once the administration loses confidence with us, and they’re pretty close, we’ll all be on the street. Shit, it’s got to be him.”

Burton sat upright and nodded, “It’s him.”

“Then why won’t he talk?” asked the Director.

“It’s our own fault. He’s a tough one, we trained him.” answered Burton.

“He talked to Al Qaeda, his very words.” The Director reached over and grabbed the transcripts from his desk and read Jonathan’s confession.

Burton smiled, “I think it was the decapitated heads that did it. He didn’t say it, but I’m guessing they killed those Israelis one at a time right in front of him. ‘Tell your mission’…..he doesn’t answer…..whoosh there goes another head….over and over until he broke. I’m thinking that maybe we need to get a little more primitive in our methods, you know cut off a few heads and leave them with him while he thinks about it.”

“Any more primitive and we’ll kill the son of a bitch. Jesus Christ, we beat him, drugged him, and practically blinded him and he still is convinced he’s innocent,” answered the Director.

“Yeah, but there’s still another stage. People can stand themselves being hurt a helluva lot more than someone they care about. Bring me his wife and then we’ll know for sure,” said Burton.

“Come on Jim, be serious. We’re not going to do that,” answered the Director.

“I’m just trying to help. We still don’t know for sure and this way we would.”

Bill Reed looked over at Harry who was staring into space and massaging his temples with his hand. Large purple veins surfaced on his bald head. “You’re awfully quiet over there, Harry,” said the Director.

Harry lifted his head but was slow to speak, as if the words were caught in his throat, “I think he’s telling the truth.”

“What?” scoffed Burton.

“I don’t think he was involved.”

The Director perked up, “How can we be sure?”

“I’ve interrogated hundreds of these fuckers down at Guantanamo, insiders trained at Bin-Laden’s camps and they all broke. With what we put him through, it would come out. We went through 5 stages with the guy. If he knew anything it would have been out by stage 3. All that stuff about being a POW was years ago and irrelevant.”

“What about the emails?” asked Burton. “He didn’t remember anything about the emails and then next thing you know, pooof! He remembers. There’s more to this guy than he’s letting on. I say we have another go at him.”

“The emails were different,” answered Harry. “He didn’t tell us about them, because he still had a hope that he would be able to solve this without us. They were his only line back to the terrorists. You got to remember we cut this guy completely off and he’s mad as hell.”

Bill Reed scratched his chin, “He didn’t remember much of anything until we introduced the Remionize 44 and then we got it all. It came out of him like diarrhea. The stuff’s like ex-lax for the soul, it’s impossible to lie with that stuff. I’m beginning to think like Harry. I think we got it all and I’m 95% sure he wasn’t involved. But shit, I want him to be. Actually I need him to be.”

Harry got a diabolical twinkle in his eye, “Then let’s make him. Who the hell will know the difference? The guy’s finished here at the agency, the press has already indicted him, so let’s say he confessed. He won’t remember anything now that the Remionize has worn off. Put the confession together, and have one of our experts forge his name.”