61 – Cape Cod, Massachusetts
The Echo team at the detention camp had a surprisingly easy time identifying more than three hundred detainees as members of the Israel Defense Forces. After that, however, the interrogations ran into a brick wall. What they did not appreciate, at first, was how deeply the military was involved in Israeli life, far more so than in the United States. In contrast to the United States’ struggle to maintain an all-volunteer army by offering richer and richer incentives to recruits, service in the Israeli military was compulsory for every 18 year old in the small nation, with only few exceptions, compulsory not just for men, but for women, also. After their compulsory service - three years for men, two for women - service in the active reserve up to age fifty was also compulsory.
One result of this deep penetration by the military into civilian society was that Israeli soldiers did not look like the soldiers the American interrogators were used to seeing. A forty-five year old woman with an attractive teenage daughter could be a commander of a Reserve tank battalion. The teenage daughter could be an infantry grunt.
What this meant for the Echo Team interrogators was that just about every detainee, both at Camp Echo and in the less strict portions of the base, at one time or another served in the IDF. Almost all the men, and most of the women, were still reservists.
The Israeli military was particularly sensitive to the risks its soldiers faced if they were captured. In the U.S. military, advanced SERE training – Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape – was provided only for specialized units such as the Army Rangers, Navy SEALS and fighter pilots likely to be shot down behind enemy lines. SERE training included undergoing hours of mock interrogations and advanced sessions learning how to deflect interrogation techniques.
Because Israeli soldiers captured by Arab and Palestinian forces could expect to be tortured, or worse, such advanced counter-interrogation practice was part of routine training for virtually all members of the IDF. In fact, Israeli interrogators helped the United States Air Force design the first formal American SERE training after the Korean War.
The young American Echo Team members were not trained for this kind of job. After a week of round-the-clock tag team interrogation sessions of the entire Camp Echo population, they had made no progress in identifying the twenty soldiers whose dog tags were recovered from Boston Harbor.
“We pretty much know who was in the IDF,” Maj. Dancer, the camp commander, told Homeland Security Director Paterson and acting Attorney General Harrison when they visited the camp for a progress report. “Just about everybody we’ve got, that’s who. And we know there was a discreet military unit on the two ships, one on each ship in fact, because the divers found their equipment and lots of gear.
“But picking out who was in those units and who was just some forty-year-old reservist, well, we’ve gotten nowhere with that. These people are tough, strictly name, rank and serial number types and they lie about that, we know they’re giving phony names. That’s all we get, that and demands to see their lawyers.
“Goddamn Jews and their lawyers,” he laughed.
“Those results are not acceptable, Major,” General Paterson was not used to having subordinates report their failures to him. “We could wake up any morning and learn that Chicago or Tampa or Seattle is a pile of radioactive rubble. If this interrogation team is not up to the job, we’ll bring in a new team, one that can get the information the President insists we get. Is that understood, Major?”
“Understood, General,” he answered. “In all fairness to the Echo Team, though, sir, the problem is not the personnel. The problem is that their hands are tied. It’s all those laws that were passed after Guantanamo, sir, those ‘we don’t use torture’ laws. These men, and women, have been trained not to even look cross-eyed at anybody they’re interrogating.
“As you know, sir, I was at Guantanamo, back during the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, whatever we’re calling it now.”
General Paterson nodded.
“We were able to make our own rules then, Sir,” the major continued. “We were told the Geneva Convention didn’t apply to those detainees. For a little while we had all those lawyers coming down representing our detainees there, but Congress put an end to that when they suspended habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees. Once the lawyers were stopped, and once the detainees couldn’t go to court any more, well, sir, all of a sudden people started talking.
“By that time we’d been holding them for five or six years so they didn’t have much fresh information to give us, but they broke. And we learned an awful lot about how to break them down. Pretty quickly, too, if we’re allowed to do so.”
“I understand all that, Major, but that was then. We have laws on the books now that out and out say we can’t use torture, no matter what. Isn’t that right, Mr. Attorney General?” Gen. Paterson turned to Harrison, who stood silently to the side during the conversation, smiling slightly to himself. He stepped in front of the two military men, as if he were about to address a class, then gestured toward his briefcase on the table behind the men.
“The President and I discussed this very situation,” he said, pausing to emphasize that he and President Quaid were on conversational terms with one another. “I have a document, a Presidential Directive, in my brief case that should be of great assistance to your Echo Team, Major. I’ll read it to you, then you can read it verbatim to the team members.”
Harrison opened the clasp on the leather briefcase and removed a black folder with a one-page document stapled inside. He flipped open the folder and read from the document.
“By the authority vested in me by Article II of the United States Constitution as commander in chief of the military forces of the United States of America, I find that this nation is faced with an extraordinary military threat to national security posed by the Armed Forces of the State of Israel.
“I hereby order and direct that all military forces subject to my ultimate command are authorized to use whatever means are necessary and effective to defend the United States of America for so long as this crisis continues. In furtherance of this defense, I find that all laws, statutes, regulations and directives limiting the use, threat or application of coercive force, both physical and psychological, against enemy combatants, short of the application of torture, are hereby waived and suspended to the extent necessary to fully and adequately protect and promote the national interest.
“Signed, Lawrence Quaid, President.
“What do you think of that, gentlemen,” Harrison asked. He was beaming. “The President signed this yesterday. Actually, I drafted it.”
“Well, that should help,” Maj. Dancer said. “But run that part about ‘short of torture’ by me again, will you. I don’t understand that part.”
“To be completely honest with you, Major, President Quaid inserted those words into my draft. I’m not quite sure what it means, either,” Harrison sighed. “Sometimes the President has difficulty fully committing himself. But that’s just my guess. Anyway, I had legal research done on that point. Here’s some guidance for your boys.”
Harrison removed another document from his brief case. This was several pages long, stapled in the corner. Gen. Paterson took it from the acting Attorney General and flipped through it, then he frowned.
“Our interrogators are soldiers, not lawyers,” he said. “This looks like it was written for a judge.” He tossed the document onto the table. “So what do we tell them they can and can’t do?”
Harrison carefully lifted the papers from the table and returned them to his briefcase.
“My assistant is setting up a laptop and projector in the mess hall right now,” he said. “I had a little Power Point presentation put together. Let me summarize it for you.
“First thing, the President said we can use force but we can’t torture. No big deal, right? America doesn’t torture anybody, right? We didn’t use torture before Congress banned it. We haven’t tortured anybody since that ban. The President says we won’t torture anybody in the future.”
“That’s clear enough,” Maj. Dancer said. “The team’s already had that drilled into them. No torture. Use torture during an interrogation and you’ve bought yourself a ticket to Leavenworth, right?”
“Uh, not quite right, Major,” Harrison said. “It turns out that torture, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” He chuckled.
“We aren’t the first White House team to try to define torture, of course. I, sorry, the President and I, after much thought have decided to adopt a definition of torture with historical precedence. It was first prepared during the administration of the second President Bush, prepared, in fact, by a man who went on to hold the same position I now hold, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
“This is in my Power Point for your men, of course. It’s a memo called the Bybee memo. Let me quote for you.”
Harrison scanned through the legal memo he’d taken from the table, turning pages until almost the end. “Here it is,” he said, “straight from President Bush the Second to President Quaid today.
“For an act to constitute torture, it must inflict pain that is difficult to endure. Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as major organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.
“For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture, it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.”
Maj. Dancer whistled softly. “So, anything short of causing failure of a major organ is Kosher, right. That’s what you’re saying? We can do anything that doesn’t leave major permanent damage, right?”
“Even more important,” Gen. Paterson interrupted, “that’s what the President is saying? That is what you are telling us?”
Harrison nodded. “President Quaid saw and approved the same Power Point presentation,” he said. “Between his directive and this legal memo, your men ought to be able to do their jobs.
“And one final note, gentlemen, in case anybody has any misgivings about this, keep in mind that we aren’t plowing new ground with any of this. Major, these are the same operational guidelines as were used at Guantanamo, correct?”
Maj. Dancer nodded.
“I’ll let you two go on to brief the Echo Team. I’m heading back to Washington. I want to hear some results, quickly,” Gen. Paterson said. “The President’s patience is getting thin, gentlemen.”
All interrogations were suspended for the remainder of that morning. The Power Point presentation was followed by a briefing from a man and a woman in civilian clothes. They were introduced to the interrogators as members of a Behavioral Science Consultation Team. Hearing that, the young interrogators looked at each other and nodded, smiles on their faces. BSCTs, “Biscuits” in military parlance, were viewed among interrogators as having almost mystical powers. They were usually Ph.D.-level psychologists who’d spent their careers studying means of programming animals, and people, to do and say about anything.
Biscuits had great success at Guantanamo.
The woman member of the Biscuit team appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties. She wore a white lab coat, apparently to emphasize her status as a civilian professional rather than a military specialist. She was introduced only as Dr. Bayard.
She did little to dispel the mythology surrounding Biscuits in the closed world of military interrogators. Dr. Bayard was six feet two inches tall, plus another three inches of hair of some indeterminate brownish, grayish color piled in a mound on her head. She tended to pause at odd moments in mid-sentence, as if listening to a hidden earpiece for guidance.
She could not have appeared less military if she’d led a cavalry charge on a tricycle. The young Echo team members clung to her every word, as if she held the secret psychological key they’d needed to open the locks behind which their subjects held their secrets. The Echo Team members were told that at least one Biscuit would be present for all interrogations and that suggestions from the Biscuit were to be followed as orders.
The first interrogation that afternoon was of a twenty-two year old woman who gave her name as Dvora Yaron, her rank as Segen Mishne, the equivalent of a second lieutenant, and her unit as Sayerot Mat’kal. She provided no other information to interrogators. However, her unit designation drew the attention of a National Security Agency analyst, an Israeli specialist who was assigned to aid the Echo team.
Sayerot Mat’kal was also known as General Staff Reconnaissance Unit 269, he told the interrogator first assigned to Yaron. Unit 269 was one of Israel’s prime anti-terror special forces units. It first came to U.S. attention after three Israeli airmen were captured by Syria. Israeli military officials decided that in order to be in a position to negotiate their release, Israel would need bargaining chips of it’s own. Sayerot operatives kidnapped five Syrian intelligence officers who were conducting a border tour with Palestinian terrorists at the time. The unit continued such special operations right up to the destruction of Israel.
The Echo Team interrogators did not believe a Sayerot officer, even a low-ranking one, could be a simple political refugee.
Dr. Bayard spent a half hour studying the report of Dvora Yaron’s first interrogation, shaking her head from side to side and making odd chucking noises as she read.
“This woman has ...” Pause. “Received training in counter-interrogation ...” Pause. “Techniques,” Dr. Bayard commented. “Well, we have a few ...” Pause. “Techniques of our own.”
The young Israeli woman appeared cocky as she was led into the windowless interrogation cell by two U.S. soldiers. She walked slowly, almost seductively, between the two Americans, sneaking smiles at her captors, enticing them to smile back. The cell was lit by a single fluorescent fixture. The red light of a video camera blinked from a corner of the ceiling.
The soldiers held the woman’s arms gently. She was attractive, thin as a fashion model but revealing surprising strength when they took her arms. Her face was darkly tanned. Her straight black hair was tied back into a ponytail.
She looked surprised to see Dr. Bayard in the cell with her former interrogator. Bayard was pleased to see the young woman’s eyes dart to take in the stethoscope draped over Bayard’s shoulder. Instead of the plain wooden chair in which she’d been seated for her previous interrogation, a steel desk was brought into the room. The surface of the desk was empty except for a six-foot long by two-foot wide wooden plank lying on its top.
The two soldiers who brought Yaron to the windowless interrogation cell remained in the room, together with the Echo Team interrogator and Dr. Bayard. The doctor was obviously in charge this time.
“Tape her to the board, tightly,” Dr. Bayard barked. “No need to be too ...” Pause. “Gentle. Make sure she can’t slip free.”
The young woman’s eyes opened wide with the first sign of fear when the two soldiers lifted her onto her back on top of the wooden board. She tried to roll from side to side – as she’d been trained – when they wrapped two rolls of duct tape round and round her body and around the board to hold her immobile to the wooden surface. After a few attempts to flex her arms, the woman stopped struggling.
She knew what was coming. Water boarding. A washcloth would be placed over her mouth and water would be poured on it. She would feel as if she were drowning. Water boarding.
But she’d been trained to resist. It would only feel as if she were drowning, she’d been trained. They would stop. She would not drown. Americans did not kill their interrogation subjects. It was only a simulation, a tactic she could resist if she remained strong. In training, she had resisted. She steeled herself to do so again.
Dr. Bayard walked around the desk so that she was standing behind Dvora’s head. She leaned far forward, looking down at the woman, knowing that she would appear to be upside down to the frightened Israeli, one more effort at disconcerting her. She spoke softly, almost in a whisper, leaning closer to her face, six inches from her own.
“Dvora, they tell me you’ve been a very bad ...” Pause. “Girl,” Bayard whispered, as if none of the three men were in the room with the two women. “I’m going to ask you one question, one time. If I’m not pleased with your answer, I’m going to make you ...” Pause. “Exceptionally uncomfortable. I’ll do my best not to go too far, but you know, sometimes my best just ...” Pause. “Isn’t good enough.
“Do we understand each other Dvora, such a sweet ...” Pause. “Name you have, Dvora.”
The young woman inhaled deeply. It was obvious she was scared, terrified even. It was also obvious she was gathering her inner strength, preparing to do battle with this strange woman in the white coat.
She did not respond to Bayard, giving no indication she even heard her.
“All right Dvora,” Dr. Bayard said. “Let’s begin our little session ...” Pause. “Together.
“Dvora, I want to know the name of the Israeli who smuggled the nuclear bomb into the United States. You will tell me his ...” Pause. “Name right now or I will be so unhappy with you. What is the man’s name, Dvora? Let’s start with ...” Pause. “Just his first name.”
All eyes in the room were locked on the young woman taped to the board on top of the table. Her reaction was completely unexpected.
She broke into loud, howling, uncontrolled laughter, her body shaking as much as the gray tape would allow. Her laughter continued for more than a minute, When she stopped laughing, she struggled to collect her breath, breathing in deeply in great gulps of air. When she could finally speak, the laughter remained in her voice.
“You people are out of your minds,” she said. “I don’t know anything about atom bombs or about anything being smuggled anywhere. I got onto that ship to save my ass. That’s all I know about anything.”
The young woman locked her eyes onto the older woman. Dr. Bayard shook her head slowly from side to side while she spoke.
“You disappoint ...” Pause. “Me, Dvora,” she said. “I told you I would not give you a second chance.” She turned to one of the soldiers. “Tape her mouth ...” Pause. “Closed, then bring the equipment in.”
The soldier tore a six inch strip of duct tape and placed it over the young woman’s mouth, being careful not to cover her nostrils. He went out the door and returned pushing a cart.
Bayard took a three foot red rubber hose from the cart.
“It hurts me so much to have to ...” Pause. “Do this to you, dear Dvora,” she cooed to the woman, standing once again behind the woman’s head. The doctor turned to the two soldiers. “Take the cinder block from ...” Pause. “The cart. Lift the other end of the board and put the cinder block under it. I want her feet ...” Pause. “Elevated. Then come back to this end.”
The two soldiers followed her instructions. The young woman’s feet were higher than her head as she lay on her back on the wooden board. The rubber hose dangled from Bayard’s hands just above the young woman’s vision, swinging in front of her face from time to time. All signs of her cockiness had disappeared. Her eyes opened wide in fear.
Where is the washcloth, she wondered. This isn’t water boarding. What is this madwoman doing to me?
“Hold her head tightly,” Dr. Bayard barked to the soldiers. She leaned forward, holding one end of the rubber hose and snaked it into the young woman’s right nostril, causing the woman to gag as the hose went in at least twelve inches, passing down her throat.
“That wasn’t too bad, now ...” Pause. “Was it, Dvora?” Bayard said. Turning to one of the soldiers, she said, “Put that plastic funnel in the end of the ...” Pause. “Hose and hold it up high.”
To the other soldier she said, “Push the cart over here. Dip ...” Pause. “Me one cup of water, please. We’ll start with that.”
The soldier dipped a plastic cup into a pail of water that was on the cart. He went to hand the water to the doctor, thinking she was thirsty. She smiled at him.
“No silly. That’s ...” Pause. “Not for me,” she said. “That’s for our dear Dvora. Go ...” Pause. “Ahead. Pour it in the funnel.”
Before the young soldier moved, he glanced questioningly at the Echo Team member, who had stood silently, knowing the doctor was running this show. He nodded slowly.
The soldier poured the water into the funnel, watching as it drained down the hose into the young woman’s nose and down her throat.
The effect on the woman was dramatic. Her body spasmed with gasping as her throat filled with water. She was unable to swallow because her head was lowered. She was terrified of attempting to inhale, knowing the water would only fill her lungs. The tape over her mouth prevented her from spitting the water out. Her eyes went white with terror and she attempted to thrash from side to side but could not move because of the duct tape wound around her and the board.
“Dip me another cup of ...” Pause. “Water, please,” Dr. Bayard said to the soldier. He again looked to the interrogator, who looked at Dr. Bayard expectantly, then, seeing only impatience, shook his head in the affirmative. The soldier held the cup of water near the funnel, waiting for instructions.
The young woman’s eyes began to roll upwards, leaving a startling amount of white showing in her wide open eyes. Dr. Bayard leaned forward and whispered to the woman again.
“Are you ready to talk ...” Pause. “With me now, Dvora?” she asked softly.
The young woman reacted with enthusiasm, nodding her head up and down vigorously, life seeming to return to her, mumbles coming from her sealed mouth.
“Wonderful,” Bayard said. Then, turning to the two soldiers she spoke quickly. “Get the cinder block out. Take the tape ...” Pause. “Off her mouth. Good. Just one second now.”
Bayard grabbed the rubber hose inches from where it entered the woman’s nose and pulled, yanking it out in one rapid motion.
“Now, stand the board up ...” Pause. “Against the wall,” she said.
The soldiers lifted the young woman, still taped to the board, off the desk and stood her against the wall. She gasped and coughed, spitting and swallowing water at the same time. When she caught her breath she glared at Bayard.
“I thought you were going to kill me, you bitch,” she whispered.
The doctor stepped directly in front of the young woman, who was still bound to the board, which was leaning slightly backward against the wall.
“But that’s the point of ...” Pause. “This medical … procedure, my dear,” she said. “You never know whether you are going to ...” Pause. “Live or die. And do you want to know a little, dirty ...” Pause. “Secret?” She moved to the woman’s side, her mouth inches from the woman’s right ear.
“I don’t know ...” Pause. “Either,” she said, stepping back from the woman. “I’ve never actually done this before. But from what I’ve read, you ...” Pause. “Did quite well. They say that the only person to last ...” Pause. “More than a minute was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, old Osama’s right ...” Pause. “Hand man. They say he lasted almost two minutes before he was begging ...” Pause. “To confess.
“And now your time has come, Dvora. Tell me, tell all ...” Pause. “Of us. Who is this man who brought that big ...” Pause. “Bomb to the United States?”
The look of fear returned to the woman’s face. Good, Bayard thought, she should be afraid of disclosing such information. When her people find out that she talked, they won’t treat her any more gently than I just did.
But what a wonderful technique this is for uncovering the truth, Bayard thought. She'd been taught this method always worked when French paratroops interrogated Algerian terrorists in the Battle of Algiers. And protecting this country against nuclear terrorism certainly justifies breaking a few eggs in the process.
It took the young woman a few false starts before she could speak.
“The absolute God’s honest truth, doctor, is that I don’t know anything about any atom bombs. I really and truly don’t. I admit I’m in the Army, even in the special forces. I’ll tell you all about how we sank those Coast Guard boats. I’ll even tell you I fired one of the RPGs. Or all of them. I’ll tell you everything I know.
“But I really and truly don’t know anything about atom bombs. I don’t. I don’t.”
A defiant look came into the young woman’s eyes.
“You can pour as much water as you want into me. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
Bayard shook her head from side to side.
“Oh how you break my ...” Pause. “Heart, Dvora,” she said. “You disappoint Dr. Bayard so much, you bad ...” Pause. “Bad girl. Now I am going to have to do that all over again. And you know that ...” Pause. “This time you will tell me the truth. Please, Dvora, don’t make ...” Pause. “Me do this to you again.”
The young woman was silent, then she spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” she said.
“Put her back on the ...” Pause. “Desk,” Bayard said to the soldiers as she took the rubber hose in her hand. This time, the young woman did not resist as the hose slid into her nose, a resigned look in her eyes. Before the tape was placed over her mouth, she softly said the first words of the ancient prayer, “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu ...” The tape interrupted her but she mumbled the last words undeterred.
“Pour the first ...” Pause. “Cup,” Dr. Bayard said. She was angry at the woman for forcing her to do this.
As before, the young woman gagged and choked when the water entered her throat. Her body jerked against the duct tape. She rocked from side to side on the desk top.
“Keep her from falling.“ Pause. “Off, for God’s sake,” Bayard shouted at the soldiers. She stared at her watch. After sixty seconds she said, “Pour in another cup, slowly ...” Pause. “This time.”
The water drained down the hose but seemed to have no effect on the woman, whose struggles gradually subsided. As Bayard was trying to decide whether to order a third cup of water, the woman’s struggles stopped entirely. Her eyes rolled completely upwards, only the whites showing.
“Shit,” Bayard said as she pulled the stethoscope from over her shoulder, placed the ear cups into her ears and placed the end against the woman’s chest. She tore the tape from the woman’s mouth. The woman did not move. Dr. Bayard leaned down again, placing her stethoscope on the woman’s chest.
“Shit, shit ...” Pause. “Shit,” she said. “She’s ...” Pause. “Dead.”
The Echo Team interrogator pushed the doctor aside, placed one palm on the Israeli’s chest then covered it with his other palm. He began a rhythmic pumping, pausing only to pinch her nose and breathe into her mouth. He continued this frantically for several minutes, sensing that his efforts were futile. Finally, he looked at Bayard angrily. “So much for the scientific method, Doctor.”
Bayard stormed from the room, furious at the woman for dying. Nothing in her training even hinted that a second session might be necessary. Her rapid stomping faded away.
“Carry her to the infirmary,” the interrogator told the two soldiers, who used the board as a stretcher to carry the woman’s body from the cell. “Quickly. Then continue CPR until I tell you to stop.”
The Echo Team interrogator remained alone in the room for several minutes, his mind racing. Leavenworth, he thought. Use torture and you’ll rot in Leavenworth, he’d been trained. He made his decision.
The young soldier walked quickly from the interrogation cell down the corridor to the Echo Team office. Three 8 millimeter digital video recorders stood on a shelf. Only one was turned on, the one with a 3 by 5 file card scotch taped to it saying “Interr. Room 2.”
The soldier popped a small tape cassette from the machine and inserted it into a slot on a Dell PC on the desk near the recorders. An icon saying “Tape device” appeared on the screen. He then removed a digital DVD from a stack on the desk and slid that into a second slot on the computer. Another icon, saying “Unnamed blank DVD,” appeared.
Using the mouse, the soldier dragged the Tape device icon and dropped it on the DVD icon. A window appeared on the screen with the words “Burn DVD. Cancel? Execute?” under it.
Using the mouse, the soldier double-clicked on “Execute.” The machine whirred for several minutes. First the tape and then the disc ejected from the computer.
The soldier returned the tape to the recorder.
He placed the DVD in his pocket, then walked to his bunk to lie down and stare at the ceiling.