that--an act. Beneath that veneer of cool apathy probably lurked a first-class thespian and a sophisticated intellect firing on twelve cylinders. I had known senior Army officers who employ this same technique. It's about power, the power to appear bored, to display bad manners in the presence of underlings. It's all illusion, of course; just like power. Anyway, I ended our spiel by recommending, "We believe Abdul Almiri should be turned over to the military as quickly as possible." I turned to Phyllis and observed, "The Baghdad field station can handle that without exposing our fingerprints."
Waterbury answered for her. He said, "I'll handle it."
"How will you handle it?" I asked.
"That's none of your business."
"Mark, it is our business," Phyllis interjected.
"All right, I'll . . . I'll tell the Army one of my people is over here and arrested him."
I exchanged looks with Phyllis. She artfully suggested to Waterbury, "Don't you think they'll wonder why the Pentagon special unit has people over here? You could blow this entire operation."
"Maybe . . . Well, I'll consider it." We all were left with the impression that he might accept that cost as long as he got official credit for capturing a bomber. I had this mental image of Waterbury back home, seated with his pals, smoking a big stogie, rolling a snifter of cognac around his palm, and saying something like, "So let me tell you how I bagged the biggest, baddest bomber in Baghdad . . ."
If this man were any stupider he would have to be watered twice a week.
Phyllis changed topics and informed Bian and me, "Doctor Enzenauer called about an hour ago. Ali bin Pacha's wound was cleansed and sutured. He's recovering in the post-op."
"So he's going to be okay?" asked Bian.
"The risk now is an internal infection, and that will have to be watched. But in Enzenauer's opinion, he should be ambulatory in about two days."
Bian looked a little relieved, as well she should. Had bin Pacha expired on the operating table, she would've had a few difficult issues to explain.
Everybody was now smiling, and I decided to burst their bubbles, commenting, "I don't think we're going to crack this guy."
"What does that mean?" asked Phyllis.
So I spent a moment regaling her and the others about what we learned from Abdul Almiri regarding Ali bin Pacha, closing with an interesting personal observation I picked up while he was pointing a gun at my head. "There was this moment," I told them, "a millisecond . . . when we just looked into each other's eyes. Melodramatic as this might sound . . . it was like we looked into each other's souls. What I saw in that instant was hatred, a rage that bordered on madness."
Bian smiled and said, "I wonder what he saw in your eyes."
Waterbury cracked, "Were you expecting him to smile, Drummond? He had comrades who were dead or shot. He had just been captured."
Actually, I recalled, bin Pacha had smiled. I said to Waterbury, "How would you know? I don't recall you being there."
He gave me a nasty look.
Phyllis intervened before this turned even nastier and asked, "What's your point, Sean?"
"Breaking bin Pacha will require ingenuity, luck, and time. Months, maybe years. He won't fall for the usual interrogatory tricks and gimmicks, nor will he be goaded into the sloppy mistakes you associate with common criminals." Glancing in the sheik's direction, I added, "In the event anybody is considering beating the truth out of him, pain will only fuel his indignation and rage."
Phyllis asked, "Are you inferring bin Pacha has a martyr complex?"
"Well . . ." What was I inferring? "Think of this man like steel. He prefers heat. It tempers him, makes him stronger."
Waterbury regarded me a moment, then said, "You claim to know a lot about this man. Yet you admitted that you never spoke with him, so that strikes me as . . . absurd."
I smiled back. "I have a strong intuitive sense. For instance, I didn't like you three seconds after we met."
He thought this deserved a serious response and replied, "Yes, but we actually spoke for a while."
Why do I waste my wit on guys like this?
So I ignored him and looked at the other faces around the table. Deciding to treat this like a courtroom summation, I said, "Let's review what we do know about Ali bin Pacha. He has been a terrorist his entire adulthood, having survived over a decade in a business we've done our best to