October 17th, 2340 Hours 7 miles north of Wana, South Waziristan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan.
He didn't think he was in the sheep barn very long before they came again. He was shivering, which with the cold temperature, meant he couldn't have been lying on the floor wet that long, or he would be hypothermic. Shivering was good he knew that from SEALS training. As long as you were shivering your body was working, keeping the blood moving. Hurt the ribs and the rest of Ash'ari's handiwork something nasty, but at least his list of woes was long enough now, it took his mind right off his ribs. Always find the silver lining, Crane.
The fast turn around on the torture session was good he told himself as they dragged his sorry ass back across the compound. Meant they were really in a hurry because any idiot could keep track that only an hour had passed. That wasn't going to disorient him, which was the purpose of the back and forth from torture to sheep barn. Meant that they were anxious to know what he knew. Also meant if he played this right he could still get them on the road in the dark.
He tried to look around the sheep barn as they hauled him across the dirt floor. He thought he could see the hostages all grouped in the corner, now with the addition of armed guards standing over them. Al-Qaeda a much more serious proposition altogether than poor Gul Zaman and his Salarzai.
Bin Basamed had to know that if he found himself in this compound under attack by the Taliban he was going to be in a great deal of trouble, outnumbered and deep in the tribal territory with a camp full of dead tribesmen. The only force able to rescue him from that much firepower would be the Pakistani army. Sending an army unit into Waziristan was going to catch someone's attention with all the media currently in Pakistan. So Lee thought no one was coming to rescue bin Basamed and company.
Yup, Lee figured bin Basamed was going to want to get out of Dodge soon if he felt a Taliban threat was near. He suspected all that was holding up the parade was bin Basamid's bizarre concern about a SEAL team. A concern Lee Crane was about to do his best to lay to rest.
Once they got back into small building where he'd had his tea and his lunch and his last torture session Lee let them have another half hour before he called time out. The electric shock was excruciating, but he had been down that path before and knew he could live through it. The knife was of more concern to him, as he couldn't tell exactly what they were doing with it. He knew it hurt, as it was meant to, he just couldn't tell if it was going to incapacitate him later, and he hoped he would still need to help with the hostage rescue tonight.
So when Ash'ari gave up on the electricity and really got going with the knife he figured he'd better rat everyone out and see if this was working or not.
"Enough, Enough, please Allah, enough," he said in a weak voice. The weak voice turned out to be very easy to do. It was quite a bit weaker, actually, than he had intended, he hoped it wouldn't sound like he was acting.
"Not enough, unless you have something to tell me?" Al-Ash'ari said holding the knife where Lee could feel the heat coming off the red tip on his face.
"This is not a matter of the Dakar," Lee had no trouble sounding tired and discouraged, it had been a long 48-hours. "For the Dakar I would tell you nothing. But this is a Taliban matter. I owe them nothing more."
"I don't care about the Taliban. You're no Dakar. You're an American, a leader of SEALS. So tell me where are your comrades?" Al-Ash'ari said, touching Lee with the end of the knife again somewhere on his chest.
After a moment, when he was able to speak again, Lee said, "Enough, Arab, I'm trying to tell you, enough," Lee was pleased, well to be honest he was fairly ecstatic, to see Al-Ash'ari take a step back. Enough already with the damn knife, Lee thought, not for the first time.
"I'm a scout for the Taliban… I was to make sure the Americans were here… To find which building… to lead them to the prisoners." Lee thought that sounded fairly coherent. It took him a little while to get it all out. He had to keep stopping and catching his breath. The way they had his hands tied over his head made it difficult for him to breathe.
"I don't care about the Taliban. We know there are Americans. We know about the SEALS here. Where are they?" Al-Ash'ari insisted.
This again struck Lee as absurd, but he decided he had better give him something American in case some how or other the SEAL team had allowed itself to be identified by a local Al-Qaeda snitch. "No American Army. There's an American spy with the Taliban. He teaches them to shoot. He comes with them here."
Lee almost glanced up at Al-Ash'ari to see how that story went over. He knew Army Special Forces had advisors embedded with some of the tribal groups in Afghanistan. He very much doubted that was the case in Pakistan. But they were very close to Afghanistan here, so maybe a paranoid Al-Qaeda torturer would believe this scenario. He wanted to know how it sounded to Al-Ash'ari before the hot knife hit his chest again, but he hadn't made eye contact with him through out the interrogations he sure couldn't start now.
One minute stretched into two and he began to feel a bit hopeful. Maybe this was going to work.
Damn. The knife again, he thought he was ready for it but it still caught him by surprise. He guessed it was the change of location to his arm instead of his chest.
"Not Army. This is a SEAL team. You understand SEAL team. Your SEAL team?" Ash'ari insisted his face inches from Lee's as the he screamed at him.
"Ok, not Army… the man must be a SEAL thing then… He's an American though…. He speaks Pashto… but terribly, nearly impossible to understand…. He's an American," Lee allowed an edge of panic into his voice. The tone of a man who would now confess anything and was telling all he knew, telling all he knew and trying to shape it to satisfy his interrogator. "I'm sure he must be a SEAL," Lee finished raising his head with difficulty looking at Ash'ari with pleading, "I'm sure he must be a SEAL…. Maybe he said he was a SEAL," the last with a touch of doubt. He didn't want Ash'ari to think he was fabricating just that he was telling everything he knew and trying to satisfy him.
"How many Taliban?" Al-Ash'ari asked.
Lee allowed a little of the relief he was feeling to bleed through to his tone. Ash'ari would know he wasn't a stupid man or a coward or he wouldn't have been selected to come into the compound. That Ash'ari asked about the Taliban meant that he maybe believed him about the Americans. Anyone confessing would want to be believed. Would feel relief to know he was believed.
"There were thirty three … Taliban freedom fighters …, the American SEAL and.. uh… ten from the Tarkhani tribe," Lee figured this sounded like a small enough number that they could conceivably be hidden in the hills and not seen by anyone but a large enough group to concern the twenty-five Al-Qaeda he'd seen. The Al-Qaeda would not have killed the Salarzai without taking casualties so this should nicely out number them.
While Al-Qaeda had nothing but contempt for the local tribesmen they would be concerned about going up against a group that included Taliban. Even if they only half believed him they would want to get out of town fast before an attack could pin them down in the compound. They would not fear such a group in the dark though. The Taliban had no better night fighting gear than Al-Qaeda.
"When do you meet them?" The next question was the one Lee had expected.
He wanted the Al-Qaeda to figure they had enough time to get away but he didn't want them waiting around until tomorrow night. That last was purely selfish. He figured the longer they sat around waiting the longer they had for questioning him. He was frankly tired of being questioned.
"I was to meet them tonight... The Salarzai were taking me to Wana... I would meet a man with a jeep there… He takes me to the Taliban and the SEAL man…. They're in the hills…. They didn't tell me where exactly… but close." Lee figured if he was a Taliban, or a SEAL he wouldn't trust a Dakar spy with any more information than necessary and he knew the Al-Qaeda were at least as suspicious as the Pashto.
That was the last question. Al-Ash'ari turned to bin Basamed who had been sitting in the corner watching the whole thing, dozing. Apparently the screaming of torture victims didn't prevent him from sleeping. Lee leaned his head against his left arm and watched the two men conferring.
He could see Gul Zaman's and several other bodies in the opposite corner of the room where they had been dragged and thrown into a pile. He thought he saw Chanir's shirt near the bottom of the pile. He noted the shirt, but didn't allow himself to feel anything about the man, who might have been his friend had the world been a different sort of place. This wasn't the time for that. If he were alive tomorrow, maybe, he would think about the man who had stood with him in the compound when Al-Qaeda had wanted to know if the Salarzai would stand with a lone Dakar. He could see the bloody hole in Gul Zaman's head. That must have been one of the finishing shots he'd heard after the main firefight, Al-Qaeda killing the Sarwar of the Salarzai for his defiance. So much for Islamic brotherhood.
Al-Ash'ari left the room followed by all but one of the guards. Bin Basamed continued to study Lee in the light of the single overhead bulb powered by the generator Lee could hear running outside. "So Dakar," bin Basamed stood and walked toward him. "So, one American and an army of Tarkhani and Taliban?"
Lee could hear the doubt in his voice. "Not what I was told." The old man stopped right in front of where Lee was hanging and looked up into his eyes. "Are you lying, Dakar, American? Do you know what it is to lie to Al-Qaeda?"
He spoke to him again in English, "American SEAL. We will continue this conversation later."
Lee said nothing, just closed his eyes. He'd given this his best shot. He really didn't have a fall back position from where he was right this moment. They either believed this story. Or if they didn't believe it all the way, believed it enough not to take a chance on its being true, or he just shut up and sucked it up. There was no plan C.
He tried to straighten out his legs, see if he could take a little of the weight off his arms, but he couldn't quite reach the floor. His wrists were rubbed raw by the rope he was hanging from. It wouldn't have been so bad, the hanging, but every time he moved the rope twisted on his wrists. He had no feeling in his hands any more and he was sure that wasn't a good thing although just at the moment it sure felt better than his wrists. He tried to stay perfectly still but the shivering made that impossible. He just needed to wait this out. Everything ended eventually.
He closed his eyes and thought about his last dive. He and Chip had gone to Mexico for a week, diving off the Yucatan. The water had been perfectly clear and warm, so warm. On the last day they had spent the afternoon laying on the beach, just enjoying the sun, warm sunshine, warm water. So warm, nice and warm. He never heard bin Basamed leave the room.
