The Identity Thief (14 page)

"In time Allah will speak to him and he will do the right thing," X replied sagely. "Only he can choose his destiny."

X tried, as in that case, to affect Solomonlike wisdom, while actually saying next to nothing. Usually he borrowed from that indispensable list of aphorisms, plagerized fortune cookies or adapted quotes from kung fu movies.

The only area he steered clear of was religious matters. Men debating finer points of the Koran would come to him for his opinion, and he would modestly say they should turn to someone more qualified to resolve the argument, because he was no expert. Putting it mildly, since the only thing he knew about the Koran were the verses he and Asar had read to each other and the dubious contentions of a former partner who'd gone straight in the joint and joined the Nation of Islam.

As his legion of followers grew in number, X began to feel a sense of pride at their high regard. Holding court under the blazing sun, he would momentarily forget that he was NOT Ali Nazeer, not a heroic defender of Islam. His beard had come in, and he looked the part as well.

One morning he was strolling about the exercise yard when a dark, skinny Egyptian named Amir clapped him on the back.

"Everyone in the prison has heard how you stood up to the Americans and word has spread to the outside world as well," Amir informed him. "We are all so proud of you. We know you will not let us down, or Muslim people around the world down."

X looked at him quizzically. Amir leaned in.

"They say you are to be interrogated again today," he whispered conspiratorially. "The real deal. A torturer brought in from Iraq, a true sadist who used to work for Al Amn Al-Khas, Saddam's secret police. The word is that at his hands, a man either breaks or dies."

And Amir was just warming up. "He's a European, some say he was trained by the KGB in the art of pain. They call him The Monster."

X was screwed and he knew it. Because this time his tormentors wouldn't stop until they got the information out of him. And he didn't know anything. Which meant there was a real possibility he would be tortured to death.

* * *

Sure enough, two hours later, X hung upside down from his ankles, looking like a crucified, inverted Jesus, in a dimly lit, barren room.

This time, at least, he wasn't naked; he'd been allowed to keep those over-tight jockey shorts. Nevertheless, it was freezing and he shivered as he hung waiting interminably. He was determined to give this torturer extraordinaire nothing; to spit in his face.

"I am Ali Nazeer, leader of the Jihadist Brotherhood. I fear nothing but Allah," he told himself. The real Ali Nazeer would not cry or buckle and neither would he. He said it again and again, a mantra.

The door opened and a fat man entered, his face shrouded in darkness. He was wheeling a cart, which squeaked unnervingly. The cart entered a pool of light and X saw that it was loaded with implements of torture. Some were recognizable as relics of the Spanish Inquisition; others more modern like pliers, an adjustable wrench, dental tools and a cattle prod. It was like some kind of dessert cart from hell.

This master torturer must have passed the cell block, giving other detainees food for thought about what they, too, would face.

This went far beyond water-boarding (delicately described as a "harsh interrogation technique" by the American press). X had heard tales from other prisoners of torturers breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; splashing ice-cold water on naked prisoners; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; sodomizing a prisoner with a chemical light five times and then a plunger for a change of pace. And sure enough, among the items on display on the table was a foot-long, studded dildo that looked like it was designed to satisfy a mare.

That is going in me,
X realized.
I'm going to be raped with it
.

The Monster picked something from the table. X couldn't see which of the items it was but he lost it.

To hell with the goddamned Jihadist Brotherhood!

"Look, please, I'm not Nazeer," he jabbered in Arabic. "This is all a mistake. Please, please, please. You've got to listen to me. Please, I'll do anything, just stop, please. Just wait."

The man put a finger to his lips and, pressed a button on the object in his hand. A recording of high-pitched screams erupted from it. X would have perhaps preferred a manlier yell as an imitation of his cries, but under the circumstances, he was relieved that the sounds weren't coming from his own mouth.

The man stepped into the light and X, even upside down; eyes blurry from tears, recognized him at once. It was the pipe-smoking Santa Claus from the Giza Hotel and Casino. Mr. Jones.

"Who are you?" he asked hoarsely, daring to speak in English now for the first time in weeks.

"You can keep calling me Mr. Jones," the man said. "I suppose the million-dollar question is who are you?"

It took a moment for the import of the question to sink in. And now, for the first time in more than a decade, X uttered his real name.

"Oh, yes. Born in Washington, D.C.," Mr. Jones said. He proceeded to rattle off the identity thief's date and exact time of birth, his mother's name, her mother's maiden name, his Social Security number, his home addresses dating back seven years and a litany of other personal details, as he unstrapped X and gently lowered him to the ground.

The guy's done his homework; he would make a class A identity thief
, X thought.

"I wonder what role your mother's suicide played in the formation of your pathology," Mr. Jones pondered aloud.

For a man considered a cipher by even his closest associates, it was as if X had suddenly become transparent. Although Mr. Jones gave him back his numbered orange jumpsuit, X felt more naked than he had ever been before in his life.

"You know ... who I am," X gasped. "For how long?"

"Since you checked into the Giza."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"We knew you couldn't be Ali Nazeer. Because this is Ali Nazeer."

Mr. Jones handed X an 8 by 10 photograph showing a man who looked eerily like himself lying on a slab, a half circle of bloody bullet holes in his chest. Two dots in the right place and you'd have a smiley face.

"He was killed in a raid in Pakistan eight weeks ago - not long before you decided to step into his shoes."

X shook with righteous indignation.

"You bastards have let me be hunted like an animal and tortured, knowing that I'm innocent."

"Well, innocent may not be exactly the right word, now is it, young fellow?" Mr. Jones said, lighting his pipe.

X could only respond with a hostile glare.

"Personally, I have no respect for identity thieves," Mr. Jones said. "A fellow who has the testicular fortitude to knock over a bank with a .357 Magnum in his hands, yes. But you - stealing from old ladies, taking the names of dead babies. Tut tut. Not exactly the stuff that would make you a folk hero like Dillinger. You seem to enjoy being treated as folk hero by your peers though, Mr. Nazeer."

X wasn't in the mood to be lectured.

"What is this all about? What do you want?"

"We need you to infiltrate the stronghold of The Chief - as his ally, Ali Nazeer."

X guffawed so loudly that pain shot through his ribs. He wasn't one to follow international affairs, but he'd seen enough cable news in passing and heard enough reverent jabber from Asar to know who The Chief was. The head of the Warriors of Allah, and grand wizard of the loosely organized alliance of terrorist outfits to which the Jihadist Brotherhood belonged. He was the mastermind who, it had been learned in recent years, was the boss of Osama bin Laden and a rogue's gallery of other terrorist bigwigs.

"So all that rough stuff, in front of the prisoners ... " he asked.

"A charade. You're a hero to them now. There is no question about your loyalty, your dedication to the cause. Your courage, your piety."

X shook his head. "Not interested."

"Interested or not, that's exactly what you're going to do."

"So I have no choice?"

"Certainly you have a choice. Play ball or get shot attempting to escape."

"I'm an American citizen. I have rights."

"You're a man who doesn't exist. You've gone to such lengths to erase your true identity that if you disappear off the face of this Earth, no one will miss you."

X knew this to be true.

"Let's say I go along with this harebrained scheme of yours. What do I get out of it, other than, of course not being shot in the back?"

"A full presidential pardon. The 50 or so counts of grand larceny the attorney general has on his desk just go away. As a cherry on top, your charming girlfriend Samantha Adamson will also be pardoned. The authorities are hot on her tail, you know."

X hadn't thought of Samantha in weeks, he realized with some shame - a rare emotion for him. He needn't have lost any sleep over this. As it happened, his partner in crime had made it to Brazil, where she took up with a soccer player. Because the jock was a fitness freak and twisted her arm into jogging, she'd even lost weight and was now a size 2.

X sighed with resignation.

"What am I expected to do - kill The Chief? I'm no assassin.'

"No, you're going to do what you do best - rob him blind."

The organization to which Mr. Jones belongs has a storied past, although it's a story few will ever hear. Originally known as the Committee of Secret Correspondence, it dates back to the American Revolution, when it was helmed by none other than our versatile founding father Ben Franklin.

Under its auspices, Franklin established a secret navy that distributed gunpowder and supplies to pirates paid to disrupt the British Navy. He coordinated the activities of secret agents, gathered information on enemy war plans and secured clandestine funding from nations that were ostensibly friends of England.

These field agents were equipped,
à la
TV's
Wild Wild West
, with nifty gadgets of Franklin's own design, such as a boot with a hidden compartment storing lock picks that could defeat even the most skillfully designed locks of the time and an opiate strong enough to make the user immune to torture.

The author of
Poor Richard's Almanac
also concocted misinformation and propaganda distributed by Committee operatives. The fearsome Hessian mercenaries fighting for the Redcoats had become a growing menace to the Continental Army. Ben forged a letter from a German prince to the commander of his mercenaries ordering the officer to leave his wounded for dead rather than have them unfit to serve their prince. The Committee also saw that a bogus news article detailing the horrible deaths of Hessian soldiers at the hands of the American Indians found it way their homeland. Thanks to the campaign of lies, the demoralized Hessians soon withdrew from the war.

Most of the papers from this time were so sensitive that they were destroyed. Officially, the Committee was disbanded soon after the British surrender, but in fact it continued its work secretly, often in concert with America's greatest Revolutionary War ally, France.

During the war of 1812, the Committee joined forces with agents of Napoleon to engineer the U.S. invasion of Canada, and to undermine the relationship between Britain and Indian tribes. In the First World War, Committee operatives worked hand in glove with the French Foreign Legion to defeat the Turks and Germans in North Africa.

In the early years of World War II, when the United States was officially neutral and long before the OSS got into the act, the Committee teamed up with the French Resistance. The secret partnership also came into play, with varying degrees of success in trouble spots like Vietnam, where Committee spies aided the Frenchies in their fight against the Communists long before America's official foray into the war. In Haiti, French and American spies joined forces to quietly dispatch a dictator without bloodshed.

It should be noted that the Committee's efforts were unknown to the CIA, the Secretary of State and even to the President himself. Funding came not from Congress, but from monies raised from various enterprises - those notorious pirates in the early years, and even more unsavory characters in the present. The upside of this is that not a single dollar of U.S. taxpayers' money went toward the Committee's work.

None of this did Mr. Jones share with X. He told him only that the Committee was so secretive that only two other people in the prison were aware of the mission.

"How are we even supposed to find The Chief?" X demanded. "The CIA, the Marines, everyone else has been hunting him for years."

"Ah, that's where your young cellmate comes in."

"Asar? The Chief's driver?"

"The only man in U.S. custody who knows The Chief's whereabouts. It's no accident that you were placed in his cell and given an opportunity to earn his trust."

"So the plan is..."

"You and he escape from jail and he leads you to The Chief's hiding place."