“After Mandera,” the Falcon replied, rising from the settee. “I must rest before morning prayers. Then I will fly to Mandera to instruct my men.”
“Please, this is exciting to me. How many men are waiting in Mandera?”
“Six servants of Allah.”
“Only six?”
“Allah will be with them. They will not fail.”
“How many of them will be returning here with you on my helicopter after the attack?”
“None.”
Umoja Owiti's compound
Outside El Wak
T
he four blades atop the Eurocopter EC175 were spinning idly when the Falcon boarded. Umoja Owiti had ordered his staff to paint over the aircraft's blue-and-gold exterior markings as a precaution even though he knew the chances of any governmental agency noticing the aircraft were slim. Neither Kenya nor its neighbors had radar equipment that reached into the lawless North Eastern Province along the Kenya-Somalia border where the levels of poverty, unemployment, and underdevelopment were among the highest in Africa and a major contributor to crime, insecurity, and alienation. Mandera, the province's largest city with 40,000 residents, was legally part of Kenya but was actually governed by local clans.
As soon as Owiti bid his guest good-bye, the helicopter headed north. It touched down a few miles outside the city where a Toyota pickup, six men, and a wooden crate had assembled. The Falcon instructed the pilots to wait for him as he exited to greet his men.
Now that he had arrived, the crate was opened and as the Falcon watched, each of the six men stepped forward, removed a suicide belt from the box, and strapped it around his waist. Next, each claimed an AK-47, the most prevalent assault rifle in the world.
“Today we will strike a blow against the sons of Zion, the worshippers of the Cross, and betrayers of Allah,” the Falcon declared. “Today, you will teach the world that our enemies, who support America, the head of infidelity and the symbol of aggression and tyranny in the world, will be punished by our Lord and Master, Allah, blessed be His name.”
The men chanted in unison. “
Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
”
“Do not be deceived, my brothers,” the Falcon continued. “America is leading a Crusader campaign to fight Islam. It is poking its head where it does not belong, bringing behind it an alliance of the Crusaders and their apostate agents. The head of the infidel's beast is America, but before we destroy it, we must remove its limbs.”
“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”
The young men had formed a circle around the Falcon. Each man placed his arms on the shoulders of the man next to him and swayed as if they were football players in a huddle, all the while quietly repeating: “
Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
”
“The West will call you âsuicide bombers' because their media is controlled by Jews who by their birth are ignorant and liars.”
“Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.”
“You are
fedayeen
. You will not kill yourselves today. That would be blasphemy. You will kill our enemies in battle and for your fidelity and sacrifice, Muhammad has promised you a vast reward in paradise.”
“Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.”
“Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah,” the Falcon said, quoting from the Quran, “be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.”
“
Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
” The men's voices were growing louder as they became more excited.
“Let us remember the teachings of the Ayatollah Khomeini who said, âthe purest joy in Islam is to kill and be killed for Allah!'”
Next came another quote, this one from the Hadith, which is a collection of the teachings by the Prophet Muhammad.
“Nobody who enters Paradise will return to this world, even if he were offered everything on the surface of the earth, except the martyr who will desire to return to this world and be killed ten times for the sake of the great honor that has been bestowed upon him.”
At this point, the men released their arms from each other and the Falcon stepped from one to the next, embracing each and handing him a red-and-white-checkered kaffiyeh, to cover his face.
“
Allah be with you!
” he declared.
The Falcon returned to the Eurocopter, while the men boarded the Toyota truck and sped toward Mandera.
Twenty minutes later, the terrorists reached the Technological Processes College campus, which consisted of five modest buildings inside a two-block area encircled by eight-foot-high mud walls. The college had only one street entrance, which was protected by two unarmed sentries. Both men were leaning with their backs against a wall in metal folding chairs, smoking Rooster brand cigarettes, the cheapest in Kenya, when the Toyota approached them. There was no gate at the entrance, no door, simply a gap between the walls under a corrugated metal canopy that contained the school's name.
When the Toyota reached the campus, its driver swerved off the street and drove directly into the opening between the mud walls, effectively blockading it. While he was doing this, an Al-Shabaab fighter riding in the truck's bed fired a burst from his AK-47, killing both of the startled guards and causing chickens wandering nearby to squawk and scatter.
Leaping from the vehicle, that same jihadist again fired his rifle, this time at the Toyota's front and back tires, turning it into even more of a barricade.
The sounds of gunfire and the sudden appearance of six gunmen racing into the campus courtyard caused an immediate panic. Students seated on the ground and strolling between their morning classes ran into the nearest school buildingâa four-story dormitory. Al-Shabaab had murdered 148 people during an attack at Garissa University College in 2015 and two years prior to that massacre had killed 67 and wounded 175 during a mass murder attack inside a Nairobi shopping mall.
The attack leader stood in the center of the dirt courtyard while his five comrades gave chase inside the dormitory. Within minutes, terrified students were being herded from the building back into the courtyard with their fingers clasped together behind their heads. Some two hundred students were soon forced to lay helpless on the groundâtheir clothing creating a patchwork of rainbow colors under the morning sun. The terrorists walked among them like shepherds controlling sheep.
“
Allahu Akbar!
” the leader shouted and then in Swahili, the official language of Kenya, he yelled, “Who here is Muslim?”
Having heard the terrorist praising Allah, all of the students immediately raised their hands.
“What? There are no Christians here?” the leader shouted in an incredulous voice. Reaching down, he grabbed the shoulder of a female student wearing a hijab and jerked her to her feet. “Are you a Muslim?”
The terrified woman answered: “Yes!”
Pressing the barrel of his AK-47 against her temple, he said, “Recite for me a verse from the Holy Quran.”
“Allah and His angels send blessings on the Prophet.”
Lowering his rifle, he said, “Sister, you may go.”
But she didn't move.
“Leave!” he yelled. “Or I will shoot you!”
She glanced around, clearly frightened and uncertain what to do. Then she bolted toward the school's main gate, which was blocked by the Toyota. Everyone watched her running, unsure if the attackers would shoot her. But she reached the disabled truck and escaped out the opening by climbing over its hood and roof since there was no room on either side of it for her to pass through.
The Al-Shabaab terrorist ordered another student to stand. “Tell me a scripture,” he ordered.
“Allah sends blessings on the Prophet,” the man said, repeating exactly what he had heard the now freed woman proclaim.
“You think me a fool? A different one,” the gunman demanded.
The student didn't reply and the gunman fired a single round into his head, spraying the students lying on the ground near them with blood and bits of brain. Several coeds screamed.
“Quiet!” he yelled.
His next target was a sobbing male, whom he ordered to stand.
“Muslim?”
“Yes,” the student answered in a shaky voice.
By now it had become obvious that having every Muslim student in the courtyard quote a different scripture would be impossible. The Christians hiding among them would simply repeat whatever verse they'd overheard.
“What separates Sunnis and Shiites?” the terrorist demanded.
“Sunnis followed Abu Dakr, the Prophet's advisor. Shiites followed Ali, the Prophet's cousin. This is the difference between them.”
It was the correct answer, but rather than freeing the student, the gunman pointed his AK-47 at a woman lying close by.
“Muslim?”
The male student looked at her horrified face and then at the gunman threatening him. “I don't know her,” the student said.
The gunman stepped back and fired, killing the male student, who fell dead.
“Any Muslim who is not with us is our enemy,” the jihadist declared. “Do not act as if you don't know these infidels. If you betray your faith and your people, you will share their fate.” He pointed his rifle at another male student and ordered him to stand.
“Are you a follower of the Cross?”
“No,” the student replied. Without being asked, he hollered in a loud voice, “Allah has full knowledge of all things, chapter thirty-three, verse forty-one.
Allahu Akbar!
”
Convinced, the terrorist aimed his rifle at the same woman on the ground that he'd asked about earlier. “Is she a Muslim?”
“No, Christian,” the student answered.
The gunman fired several shots into her. Now that he had found an informant, he began moving more quickly from student to student.
“Yes,” the informant would declare. “No.”
His declaration meant either freedom or death. Muslims being culled from the others were permitted to run toward the blocked gate, leaving the corpses of Christians behind. Two of the other terrorists plucked informants from their captors to assist them in identifying targets. The carnage continued. Fearing the inevitable, a Christian student leaped up and ran, only to be cut down by gunfire before reaching the Toyota.
More than two dozen students had been slaughtered when a Mandera policeman who'd arrived outside the walls and positioned himself near the Toyota fired at the Al-Shabaab leader overseeing the killings. His bullet hit the terrorist in his face. The Muslim informant assisting him froze as the terrorist's head literally exploded.
Before the policeman could fire again, the five remaining terrorists dropped to their knees as if they were praying. The Falcon had given them instructions. Do not fight or run when the police arrive. It was time for them to kill themselves.
Time seemed to slow in the courtyard. The students around the masked assailants began jumping up to escape, which made it difficult for the police now entering the courtyard to fire at the terrorists without risking hitting the fleeing students. In the midst of this confusion, the five assailants detonated their suicide vests.
The deafening
boom, boom, boom, boom
was followed by thousands of projectiles flying in every direction, maiming and killing anyone in their paths. Sounds of students crying in agony filled the blood-soaked courtyard.
A police car rammed into the back of the Toyota blocking the gate and pushed it into the courtyard, freeing the opening for police officers and an ambulance crew to enter. Pushing behind them were dozens of men and women who had heard about the slaughter and were related to students. Some were carrying hoes, picks, and machetes as weapons to fight the attackers.
As they raced between the wounded and dead, they discovered one of the terrorists was alive. His vest had not exploded and the students who'd jumped up around him had inadvertently protected him from the sprays of shrapnel from his comrade's vests.
He was shoved to the ground and about to be murdered when a policeman interceded. He warned that the vest wrapped around the terrorist's waist might still explode and that drove the angry mob away from the terrorist long enough for the police to take charge of him.
A military helicopter flew him to Nairobi for questioning and to make certain he was not killed by the families of those murdered.
U.S. Embassy
CIA station chief's office
Nairobi, Kenya
D
arius Hall handed Walks Many Miles a thick binder.
“You'll need to read this,” the Nairobi CIA station chief explained, “and then sign an affidavit.” Hall pushed another document, this one only six pages long, toward Miles. “I'll have my administrative assistant witness your signature when you're ready.”
“You're telling me that I can't talk to Yaasir Sharif, a terrorist responsible for massacring students at Mandera, until I read this binder and sign this affidavit?” Miles asked in a puzzled voice.
“Yep, regulations.”
Miles opened the binder and read its title page.
Rules and Regulations for Detaining and Interrogating Terrorism Suspects.
Fanning through it, he said, “There's a hundred and fifty-eight pages. Is this some sort of jokeâlike college hazingâthat you play on someone who just arrived in town?”
“I wish it were. But no, it isn't. Ever since the release of a Senate report back in 2014 that trashed the agency for using enhanced interrogation techniquesâyou know, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, slapping suspects, rectal infusionâall interrogations with enemy combatants must be done according to these guidelines. If you violate any one of the rules, you could end up in a federal pen.”
“I understand why waterboarding and rectal infusion are no longer tolerated,” Miles said. “People will say anything if they're being tortured. But what's wrong with refusing to allow someone to go to sleep? Wasn't that what broke Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind?”
“Ah, you've been reading about KSM. After the first time he'd been waterboarded, KSM realized his interrogators weren't going to drown him. They did it nearly three hundred times to him and never got him to talk. They watched him and he would count the seconds with his fingers, knowing that after ten seconds, they had to stop.”
“But keeping him awake,” Miles said, “that's when his own mind began torturing him.”
“On page one hundred in the binder, you'll find a rule that requires each terrorist to receive a minimum of four hours of sleep during every twenty-four-hour period. If not, it's considered torture and is illegal. We can't do it.”
“Al-Shabaab rapes women, sells children to sex traffickers, cuts off heads, and buries people up to their necks in the desert all in the name of Allah. Yet if we keep one of these pricks awake past his bedtime, we're in trouble.”
“Trust me, these combatants know our rules better than we do,” Hall warned. “I've had them laugh in my face. They aren't afraid of us. The first thing they demand is a copy of the Quran. Then they start telling me what sort of specialized food they can eat.”
“Before coming here,” Miles said, “I was told we got better and more accurate information if we developed a rapport with a suspect rather than torturing him.”
“That's the current mind-set and I got no problem following it. We're under orders to find some commonality, gain their trust, convince them that it's in their best interest to help us by volunteering information.”
“But you sound skeptical.”
“It works when you're dealing with someone who is from a similar culture. Say the Germans. Remember stories of our guys and their guys singing âSilent Night' at Christmastime in Bastogne and even back in the First World War when both sides declared a Christmas truce and sang Christmas carols. In those days, it wasn't difficult to imagine that the men killing each other on the battlefield might have been chums and shared a beer under different circumstances.”
“You don't believe that's true now?”
“Muslims don't drink beer,” Hall deadpanned. “The prisoner who you are going to interrogate believes Americans are the devil. You think he wants to become friends with Satan or drink a beer with him?”
Hall chuckled at his own comment and added, “I can tell you this. Yaasir Sharif isn't afraid of dying. He believes he's going to have sex with a bunch of virgins as soon as he's martyred.”
“How can I convince him to tell me about the Falcon?” Miles asked. “I just flew in last night with my SAD team. I got a week, at most, to get intel from him.”
Hall stepped from behind his desk, walked to a window in his office and turned a crank, opening it outward as much as he could since there were decorative iron bars around it. “Did you know it all started right here?” the fifty-seven-year-old station chief said, as he lighted a cigarette. “No one in America had even heard of Osama bin Laden or Al-Qaeda until August seventh, 1998. That's when suicide bombers drove trucks crammed with explosives into our embassies here in Nairobi and at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The bomb blast here killed two hundred and thirteen and wounded nearly four thousand. It was our radical Islamist wake-up call.”
Hall took a long drag and continued. “We put bin Laden on the FBI's Most Wanted List after that. Bin Laden claimed he'd targeted our embassies because we'd sent troops into Somalia. Black Hawk Down. But that's not what our intelligence said.”
Hall turned away from the window and looked at Miles. “According to our people, bin Laden was taking revenge against us because the agency had arranged the extradition and torture of four Islamic radicals. His buddies. Do you see an irony now? Torture. The same issue you and I are discussing is what started all of this mess. We do it to them. They do it to us. We do it to them.”
“My people, the Crow, believe you must move into the center of the circle if you wish to find peace and harmony.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Philosophy. The difference between how white men and indigenous people view time and space.”
Hall chuckled. “An Indian philosopher former Marine. Let me know if any of that helps you when you interrogate Yaasir Sharif.”
“Based on the regulations you have given me to read, philosophy might be the only topic I can talk to him about.”
“Sharif isn't afraid of us,” Hall said solemnly. “He knows he's a goner anyway because Kenya is going to execute him for his role in the Mandera attack.”
“I don't see how that will help me. You just said he isn't afraid of death. He's got virgins awaiting him in paradise.”
“I'm going to make it help you. Do you remember General Abdullah Osman Saeed over in Mogadishu from your stint there?”
“That one-eared bastard is difficult to forget. He murdered an American contractor and he's a sadist,” Miles replied. “How's he going to help me?”
“Yaasir Sharif knows he's going to die and he doesn't care, but I've learned that he has a wife, two daughters, and a son, and all of them live in Somalia. His parents are in Mogadishu too. The only relative who doesn't live there is a sister of his who is in the States. The general would be happy to slit the throats of everyone of his family members in Somalia if asked.”
“Isn't slitting throats against the rules?” Miles asked, nodding at the thick binder of regulations now resting in his lap.
“If I spoke to General Saeed, you would not be threatening Sharif. You would not be violating any rules. You would be warning him about General Saeed. You would be telling him that you wanted to help save his family by intervening. Offering to help a combatant isn't against the rules.”
Returning to his desk, Hall continued, “When you meet with Sharif, tell him that you've learned from Somali intelligence that General Saeed is planning on raping his wife, slitting her throat and the throats of his children and his parents in retaliation for the murders at the Mandera college. Sharif knows Saeed executes Al-Shabaab fighters and their entire families whenever he catches one. Then tell Sharif that the United States is willing to arrange for his wife, his children, and his parents to move to America where his sister lives. You offer him that carrot and then we'll see how much he hates the Great Satan. And oh, he speaks and understands English, so don't let him act as if he doesn't.”
Glancing down at the binder, Miles said, “And the rules?”
“I'll keep them on the shelf for you to read when you get back.”
An hour later after leaving Hall, Miles arrived at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Nairobi. Growing up on the Crow reservation, Miles was familiar with poverty, but he'd never seen as barbaric conditions as what he observed while being escorted through the ancient prison. Before entering the interior cell blocks, he'd been given a paper mask to cover his nose and mouth to protect himself from tuberculosis, which was rampant, but that filter didn't block the stench of human excrement overflowing from communal troughs and the smells of decay and death. Starving inmates half dressed in soiled blue-striped uniforms were packed so tightly in cells that it would have been impossible for all of them to lie down on the grime-covered cement floors. He refused to make eye contact and kept a safe distance from the inmates who pressed against the cell bars, pleading for help. He didn't want to see the open sores on their faces nor risk being touched by their dirty, outstretched fingers.
Yaasir Sharif was brought into an interrogation room in leg irons and handcuffs. A bandage yellowed by sweat and puss was wrapped around his chest where he'd been wounded during fighting at Mandera. Miles had been in enough barroom brawls to recognize that the bruises on Sharif's faceâhis broken nose, swollen eyes, and cracked lipsâhad come after his capture.
When they were alone sitting across a metal table from each other, Miles said, “I'm an American. What can I do to help you?”
Sharif didn't answer.
“I know you are a deeply religious man; would you like me to bring you a copy of the Holy Quran?”
Sharif showed no reaction and remained silent.
During that first meeting, Miles did not mention anything about General Saeed.
The next day, Miles brought a copy of the Quran and food for Sharif, but he refused to take either and simply glared at his inquisitor. Once again, Miles didn't mention the threat to Sharif's family.
On the third day, Sharif didn't speak, but he did take the Quran with him. Miles considered that a good sign but still did not mention Somalia.
It was on the fourth day that Miles broached the subject. As before, Sharif had remained stoic during their sessions.
“You married?” Miles asked. When Sharif didn't answer, Miles said, “I've found the woman who I want to be my wife, but I'm not sure she would say yes if I asked her. You know, women in America are strong. Are you married?”
Sharif stared ahead at a wall without blinking. It was at this point that Miles let out a sigh. “Listen, I want to help you, but I can't if you don't want to help yourself.”
On the fifth day, Miles arrived earlier than usual and when Sharif entered the room, he said, “Congratulations. You've won. You will go to your death and become a martyr knowing you didn't speak to me. I will not be coming back after today.”
Yaasir Sharif spoke for the first time. “My family has been arrested in Somalia. General Saeed is threatening to rape and butcher my wife and slit the throats of my children and my parents.” He stared at Miles's face, searching for some clue that would tell him if the American sitting across from him was aware and behind the threats.
“I can get your family out of Somalia,” Miles replied. “You will die here. But I will intercede and move every one of themâyour wife, your children, and your parentsâto America to live. They do not have to die. Your children do not have to suffer. Your wife doesn't need to be raped. Your parents don't have to have their throats cut. I understand you have a sister living in the States. I can get them safe passage there.”
The mention of his sister caused Sharif to look at Miles even more suspiciously. But in that same moment, Sharif realized that it really didn't matter. His loved ones were in General Saeed's hands and whether Miles and the CIA had arranged that or the general was doing it completely on his own, the result would be the same.
“If you tell me about the Falcon, I promise you,” Miles said, “I will save them.”