Free 500 Days by Kurt Eichenwald Page A

woman he planned to marry so that she could move to Canada. The file for that type of request went through the intelligence service, which had to give its approval. Maybe, the agent suggested, that application might be stopped if he refused to cooperate.
    “You know, Ahmad, we are mukhabarat, ” White said.
    El-Maati recoiled backward as if he had been slapped in the face. In Arabic, mukhabarat generally referred to government units involved in gathering intelligence. Perhaps White was attempting to make clear that he was not part of a criminal prosecution.
    But, El-Maati feared, perhaps not—in the popular parlance of the Middle East, mukhabarat had come to mean something more sinister. It referred to the secret police departments in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria that imposed state controls over their citizens; the mukhabarat were renowned for snatching up people and making them disappear into prisons where they were tortured while under interrogation.
    El-Maati wasn’t sure how to respond. “You speak Arabic?” he asked.
    “Well, a little bit.”
    El-Maati let out a breath.
    “You know how the mukhabarat here in Canada deals with its citizens,” White said. “We’re soft on our citizens. There are laws that control what we do. And you know how the mukhabarat deals with people back in the Middle East.”
    Hesitation. El-Maati believed they were telling him that if he didn’t speak now, he would have to deal with the mukhabarat in his home country of Egypt.
    “Are you threatening me?” he said.
    White held up his hands. “No, no. Absolutely not. We just want you to cooperate.”
    No chance. “I think you are threatening me, and I insist that I have a lawyer.”
    White asked something else. I want a lawyer came the response. Then another question. I want a lawyer. Again and again El-Maati responded with the same words; it became almost laughable, with the agents joining El-Maati in saying I want a lawyer after their last query.
    The interview ended. El-Maati asked for the men’s names again. White wrote them on a piece of paper and handed it over.
    As he watched the agents depart, El-Maati took a deep breath. The map. He was terrified.
    Years would pass before El-Maati learned the truth about the map. It was a decade old. The sensitive buildings it depicted had not existed for years before El-Maati crossed the border. It had been drawn not by terrorists, but by the government of Canada, a visitors’ guide printed up by the hundreds.
    But by the time that was discovered, it would be too late to stop the terrible events caused by unfounded suspicions about a meaningless piece of paper.
    •  •  •  
    At Offutt Air Force Base, just outside Omaha, Bush hurried into an underground command post that resembled a Hollywood depiction of a crisis center, a vast room with high-tech wizardry of astonishing diversity. The president took a seat in front of a screen projecting the videoconference; the chair was a particularly comfortable one.
    He listened for several minutes as Cheney, Rice, Hadley, and other officials gave him the latest news. The potential number of casualties was as many as ten thousand, he was told. But for now, it appeared the attacks were over. Government agencies had set up defenses. The FAA had successfully grounded all commercial airliners. A carrier battle group had put to sea. The Coast Guard was boarding ships. Immigration was locking down the border.
    “At this point, Mr. President, I think it’s safe to come back to the White House,” Cheney said. “And that’s probably the wisest course of action.”
    “I agree,” Bush replied. He wanted to speak to the nation again, this time from the Oval Office.
    Deputies from the State Department—the secretary, Colin Powell, was en route home from South America, so couldn’t be on the call himself—gave a rundown of contacts they had received from foreign governments, both to express condolences and to offer help.
    The president jumped