Free How to Break a Terrorist by Matthew Alexander Page B

males in a farmhouse. The team also killed five foreign suicide bombers in the raid.” Randy pauses for effect. Even on the slowest days he can get our attention. We’ve been in country for only a few weeks, but his relentless energy has set a brisk pace for our unit. He is seemingly immune to exhaustion, and behind his back we’ve debated if he’s even human. But this morning he doesn’t need tricks to get our attention.
    “The guys we picked up are well dressed and well educated. These are not your typical lowlifes building bombs in their basement. As of now, they are our top priority.”
    Randy pauses, then continues, “It’s time to turn it up a notch. You’ve all heard what the colonel keeps telling us. These guys could be very close to Zarqawi. Let’s get after them!”
    Randy throws in a few expletives for effect, and the meeting breaks up.
    We rush to the ’gator pit. Bobby and I are teamed with Cliff again. He comes over, leans on my desk as he wipes his nose, and says, “Care for some photos?” He hands a file folder to me, and I extract one. It is beyond horrible. The suicide bomber blew himself in half. His entrails blend with the earth below his torso. His face is pale and his black beard, thin and sharp, forms an outline around his face.
    “We need to get these guys identified, if possible.”
    “What about evidence?” I ask Cliff while flipping through more photos of head shots.
    “Not much. There was a video camera. Probably for filming last rites. There is a map of Baghdad that leads us to believe the targets were in Baghdad, but nothing definite.”
    “Okay, so what are the prisoners saying so far?”
    “All of them say they’d gone to the house to attend a wedding.”
    “A wedding?” I ask, surprised. “Where was the bride?”
    “Yeah, that’s what I said. There was no bride.” Cliff pushes his John Lennon glasses back up his nose, then hands me a few more documents. I see that I’ve been assigned to a prisoner named Abu Gamal, who is in his early sixties. A white sedan and a blue truck had been parked in front of the farmhouse, and Abu Gamal had the keys to the sedan in his pocket.
    I look up at the whiteboard where the day’s assignmentsare written in blue ink. One of the other members of the Group of Five has been assigned to Nathan and Steve, and two members to Tom. The last member has been removed from the interrogations schedule by the doc for medical reasons.
    “What else do we know about Abu Gamal?” I ask Cliff.
    “Well, he was caught in the same room with the other four. They were all huddled in a circle. We have no idea where these guys fit into the network—or even what network, for that matter.”
    Cliff pauses to blow his nose again. He tosses a tissue toward a wastebasket and misses.
    “Sorry I can’t provide more background info.”
    “Don’t worry,” I say and smile at Bobby. “We’ll work some magic.”
    “Look, we’re starting from scratch here. Here’s what we need to know.”
    I take notes as Cliff lays out the objectives for the day’s interrogation. “What group do they work for? Why were they at the house? Who’s in charge? Most important, though, we need to figure out where these guys fit in the chain of command. That’s the top priority for now.”
    As Bobby runs to the refrigerator for the first of the day’s four Cokes, I ease into my chair. It groans in protest but holds firm. Its black plastic legs and wheels have been abused so badly that it rolls like a broken grocery cart.
    I throw the one-page summary of yesterday’s raid onto the desk and study it again, searching for inspiration. Then I look back over the biographical sheet. Strategy is the key to any interrogation and to discovering a detainee’s motivations. If I’ve identified what he wants, I can craft an incentive.
    Bobby has watched me treat every detainee with civility and respect, and I do it because it is the right thing to do. But I also do it to establish