Inside Out Read Free Page B

secured. If we need their cooperation, I’ll make sure we have it.”
    Clements nodded. “How much are you going to tell the vice president?”
    “Let me worry about that. For now, everything is need-to-know. And speaking of which, communication on this is face-to-face or by secure phone only. No writing, no paper trails.”
    Ulrich glanced down at a small sign in the pathway next to him. Through the frost obscuring the face of it he read
Silence and Respect
.
    He took off a glove, reached into his coat pocket, and clicked off the Dictaphone he’d been running since this otherwise off-the-record meeting began. Then he came out with a tube of ChapStick to conceal what he’d really been up to. He rubbed the ChapStick across his lips, dropped it back into his pocket, and pulled the glove back on. It wasn’t the first time he’d taped these sorts of conversations and he doubted it would be the last. He knew he would never need the recordings, but it would still feel good to have them. If his enemies ever breached all his other defenses and threatened to close in on him, he could brandish his recordings like a suicide bomb. A last-ditch threat in case the worst should ever happen. And the worst had never looked more likely than it did right now.
    Still, on balance he was starting to feel a little better. He’d been rattled there for a moment, true, especially when they’d mentioned the Caspers, but that was before he’d had a chance to consider the options. Now, the more he thought about it, the more he realized he had assets he could deploy. Everybody was exposed on this, ifnot legally, then at least politically. The main thing was, he had a plan. And no one could work a plan the way he could.
    “Remember,” he said. “The
New York Times
. Two interrogation tapes, as far as you know, destroyed years ago. Now go. Get it done.”

The New York Times , December 6, 2007
    CIA DESTROYED TAPES OF INTERROGATIONS
    WASHINGTON—The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of congressional and legal scrutiny about the CIA’s secret detention program.
    The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects—including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody—to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy.
    The CIA said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the CIA itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.

PART ONE
    All told, more than three thousand suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies
.
    GEORGE W. BUSH
    They literally were chaining people up for days …. If they ever had videos of this, it’s something out of the thirteenth century
.
    BOB WOODWARD
    So it appears we now have evidence Ghul was in a CIA prison. Where he is today is still a mystery …
.
    JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL MEMO
     
    The New York Times , March 2, 2009
    U.S. SAYS CIA DESTROYED 92 TAPES OF INTERROGATIONS
    The government on Monday revealed for the first time the extent of the destruction of videotapes in 2005 by the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that agency officers destroyed 92 videotapes documenting the harsh interrogations of two Qaeda suspects in CIA detention including the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding.

1
About a Hundred Percent
    Ben Treven could feel the Australians looking at him again, sizing him up for whether he’d make a good victim tonight. He brushed his blond hair out of his face