know they’d got beaten or it was his way of sending me a message. Earlier that day I had guaranteed an OU victory over Kansas State. That didn’t happen. Maybe I didn’t always know what I was talking about. Maybe I was wrong about the raid, too.
All I could think about were those two infrared silhouettes on the computer screen. Even if we got lucky and managed to find Muhammad Ibrahim at the fish farm again, I would still be facing the challenge of getting him to talk. Over these past few weeks, we had staked everything on the capture of this one man. And there was only one thing worth getting from him: the location of Saddam.
Having dealt with so many of Muhammad Ibrahim’s inner circle, I knew the intense loyalty they had for him. Abu Drees, Thamir Al-Asi, Farris Yasin: these men had been difficult, if not impossible, to break. What would I be letting myself in for when I came up against their leader? Could I even get him to acknowledge that he was a terrorist, much less that he was taking his orders from Saddam? I had wished more than anything else to be able to find Muhammad Ibrahim. In those early morning hours, tossing and turning in my cot, I reminded myself to be careful what I wished for.
The second raid on the fish farm got under way at 0200 the next day. From the start, it looked like we might get a break. Just like the night before, the two fishermen appeared in the surveillance monitor and launched from the shore in their dinghy. This time Baghdad saw it on their system, too. Kelly and I resisted the temptation to get on the radio and tell them I told you so.
After a half hour, the two men rowed back to shore and headed for the fishing shack with their catch. This was almost too easy. There was no place for them to go, no place left to run. We had them cornered. As Kelly and I watched on the screen, the shooters rushed in and secured the location. The radio crackled to life. Two PAKs had been detained. Kelly and I looked at each other. Congratulations were in order—almost.
Then, after a tense twenty-minute wait, another message came through: a dry hole. They were bringing in some detainees, but not the ones we were after.
I felt like I was losing my mind, but I had to pull myself together. I turned to Kelly. “What do you want me to do now?” I asked.
He continued staring at the screen. “I wanted to wait to tell you this,” he said at last in a voice barely above a whisper. “Baghdad called earlier. You need to catch the next flight back. I could have kept you here if we’d found Muhammad Ibrahim, but it doesn’t look like that happened. You’re going home. There’s a helicopter due in at 2100 Monday night. You’re supposed to be on it.” He looked at his watch. “They’re picking you up in seventeen hours, Eric.”
So that was it. My time in Tikrit had officially come to an end. I felt numb. My worst expectations had come to pass. I was leaving without completing my mission. I had interrogated hundreds of prisoners; interviewed scores of informants; wracked my brain to break open the insurgent network that was wreaking havoc on the country; worked endless hours and talked myself hoarse. And it was all for nothing. In seventeen hours I’d be gone and none of it would have made any real difference.
It was time to go back to the guesthouse and start packing my gear. I stood up. “Is there anyone else we need to be looking for?” Kelly asked me as I walked to the door.
“I don’t have anything right now,” I replied in a hollow voice. “I’m sorry.”
Kelly did his best to raise my spirits. “I’ll have photos of the two PAKs from the fish farm sent up here,” he told me. “It’s probably a good idea to have Basim and the boys take a look at them. Who knows, we may have one of the two Muhammads without knowing it.”
I doubted it. The shooters knew our targets. My misgivings were confirmed a couple of hours later when Kelly brought the digital mug shots in. I showed them to the Basim, Amir, and Luay but none of them recognized the men captured at the fish pond.
I couldn’t help it. I vented my frustration on the three prisoners, focusing my anger on Basim. “Look at the fucking pictures again, you asshole,” I shouted. “You think these guys just decided to show up and fish two nights in a row? Who the hell are they?”
They looked at the photos, then back to me, each with the same helpless expression on their face. I think they were just as confused and discouraged as I was. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. What was my next move?
Obviously I needed to talk to the two detainees who had been rolled up at the fish farm. The only problem was, I didn’t have access to them. Since we had found the money, Baghdad’s interest and involvement had disrupted the smooth-running interrogation system we had established. The prisoners had been taken back to BIAP. They’d be questioned there.
I put in a call to Lee, my old friend who was still stationed at the Baghdad airport. I had had occasional conversations with him over the last five months. But I hadn’t seen him since that day in late July when I hopped a chopper ride to Tikrit. On a secure Army line I asked him now to check on the status of the two detainees and to let me know as soon as he found out who they were and what they had been doing at the pond.
A few hours later he called me back. “Hey, brother,” he said. “Those two fishermen you were asking about? They’re just fishermen.”
“Did you question them yourself, Lee?”
“No,” he replied. “I’m not in charge around here anymore. All the interrogators get randomly assigned. But I talked to the guy who questioned them. He seems pretty sure they’re just a couple of civilians. It’s pretty crowded down here, Eric. We don’t have a lot of time or space to waste. They want to let these guys go as soon as possible.”
“Lee,” I begged, “I’m coming up there tonight. Can you hold on to them for that long? I really need to talk to those guys.”
“I’ll do my best,” he replied. I think he could hear the strain in my voice. “But if you have anything on them, tell me what it is. That will make it easy to keep them around for a while.”
“I’ve got nothing,” I admitted. “They were supposed to be two different targets. Muhammad Ibrahim and Muhammad Khudayr.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “Never heard of them,” Lee said at last. “And my guess is, nobody else up here has either. Who are they?”
“It’s a long story,” I sighed. “Just please make sure you hang on to those fishermen as long as you can. I’ll take responsibility for them as soon as I get there.”
“Consider it done, brother.”
I hung up. Talking with Lee had given me an idea. If Baghdad wasn’t going to let me stay in Tikrit, maybe I could take Tikrit with me to Baghdad. I went to find Kelly.
“Look,” I told him as we sat together at the dining room table. “I have to leave tonight. You’ll be left here with all these prisoners we’ve rounded up over the last few weeks. Why don’t I take them to Baghdad with me? I’ll be there for a couple of days. Maybe I can get something out of those fishermen.” What I left unsaid was that I also wanted to have Basim and a few others on hand when I talked to the fishermen. Now that I understood the value of using one prisoner against another, I didn’t want to give it up.
“Which ones do you need?” Kelly asked me.
“Basim,” I said immediately.
“What about Thamir Al-Asi’s son, Amir?”
“No,” I replied. “I think we should cut the kid loose. He’s just trying to survive. Let’s give him a break.”
“And Luay?”
I thought for a moment. “He sat in on all those meetings with Muhammad Ibrahim. We found him in the house with all that money. He may still have something more to tell us. Besides, he’s highly motivated. He’s supposed to get his cherry popped in two days.”
“As long as you’re at it,” Kelly said, “why don’t you take Abu Drees and Thamir Al-Asi? We could use a little
