Full Black

CHAPTER 9

Though no longer part of a working farm, the barn still retained the musty smell of raw earth and animal dung. It was exactly the kind of sensory input a man like Mansoor Aleem would find offensive.

Harvath made a loud show of closing and locking the wide doors behind him as he entered. In the center of the barn, the young jihadist was tied to a wooden chair taken from the farmhouse kitchen. A hood had been placed over his head before they had pulled away from the accident scene.

Though Mansoor had been an unknown up until quite recently, it wasn’t hard to work up a profile on him. In fact, by the very nature of what he did, it was quite easy to understand how he thought and thereby select the best approach for his interrogation.

As far as the real world was concerned, the young jihadist was a loser. He was unremarkable in almost every way. With a poor complexion, unappealing features, and a pair of eyes that bulged just enough to suggest he might have a thyroid condition, he was considerably unattractive. He was too skinny and therefore unimpressive physically. Beyond the bulging eyes, he fit the cyber jihadi/hacker mold to a T.

While he was nothing in the real world, in the digital world he could very well be the heat. He might woo the women in the chat rooms as if he were Don Juan incarnate, but he’d never have the courage to approach a member of the opposite sex in the flesh. Cyber-geeks like Mansoor were all about control; the control of information. It was the only thing they could have power over. Without it, they were impotent. When you placed them in a situation where they were devoid of any authority, or more precisely devoid of any control, it was tremendously unsettling for them.

They were also completely visual. Depriving them of the ability to see tipped them off-balance and made them more pliant to interrogation.

Harvath knew that the young man would still be in shock over what had happened in the car. That shock would only have been compounded since he had been taken prisoner and kept in the dark. He had been stripped down to his underwear and was shivering in the nighttime cold of the barn.

Harvath walked over and stood just behind the man’s left shoulder. He knew Mansoor had heard him enter and he didn’t doubt the man could sense his presence directly behind him. Keeping an eye on his watch, he allowed several minutes to pass, adding to the man’s discomfort.

Without warning, Harvath drew his hand back and slapped the jihadist hard in the side of his hooded head to make sure he was psychologically off-balance and hadn’t manufactured some semblance of resistance or bravado. It was important for the jihadist to understand that he was absolutely helpless.

Harvath stepped back and waited a full three minutes before speaking.

When he broke the silence, he was explicit. “Let me explain to you what is going on,” he said. “The only reason you’re alive is that until now, I have let you live. I can very easily decide to let you die. The choice is one hundred percent mine. The people I work with couldn’t care less what happens to you. Everything that happens from this point forward will depend on whether you cooperate with me. Do you understand?”

Mansoor Aleem nodded.

“Good,” replied Harvath. “I also want you to understand this. We know everything. And I mean everything. We know who you are. We know why you are here. We know all of it. If you lie to me, even once, I am going to kill you. Do you understand that?”

Once again, Mansoor nodded.

Reaching forward, Harvath ripped off the man’s hood. As his eyes were adjusting, Harvath tore the piece of duct tape from his mouth.

“Tell me why you are here,” demanded Harvath.

“I’m cold,” he said, his teeth chattering.

“Answer my question and I may be able to find you a blanket.”

Mansoor tried to lick his lips, but he had trouble creating saliva. “I need something to drink. May I have some water?”

“You’re not going to get anything until you answer my questions,” said Harvath, raising his voice. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know.”

Harvath withdrew his Taser, activated the laser, and pointed it at him.

The jihadist flinched and turned his head away, anticipating another painful jolt of electricity. “I don’t know,” he repeated.

“You’re lying to me, Mansoor,” said Harvath. IT people harbored a collective fear of anything that would impair their computer skills. It was almost 100 percent universal. Threatening their eyes, their hands, or the ability of their brains to function was very powerful. “Maybe instead of killing you, I should hit you with so many jolts of electricity that we take that forty-gig brain of yours down to two kilobytes. How about that?”

“They sent me a ticket. That’s all I know,” he pleaded.

“Who sent it to you?”

“Friends of my uncle.”

“Your uncle Aazim?” demanded Harvath.

Mansoor nodded and dropped his gaze to the floor.

“And why would they do that?”

When the young man didn’t respond, Harvath put the laser dot on the floor where he knew Mansoor could see it and then traced it up his leg to the yellow stain on his underwear. “Why?”

“Because he had been killed,” Mansoor responded as he raised his eyes to lock them on Harvath. “They brought me here to protect me.”

Harvath turned off the laser and tucked the Taser back into his coat pocket. “They didn’t bring you here to protect you, Mansoor. They brought you here to kill you. Just like they killed your uncle.”

The young man didn’t know how to respond. He was shocked. He looked away. A full minute passed. Finally, he said, “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe. I’m telling you the truth.” Harvath wasn’t telling the truth, but that made little difference. If he could convince Mansoor the Uppsala cell had brought him here to execute him, he might be willing to cooperate.

“You think about that for a little bit,” said Harvath as he began to replace the hood over the man’s head.

“What are you doing?” the jihadist implored, his teeth still chattering, his lips azure.

Harvath didn’t reply. Once the hood was in place, he walked over to the doors, unlocked them, and let himself out.