Gone Tomorrow

He tried. He failed. He said, ‘At least tell me why I shouldn’t destroy it.’

‘You know what I know.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Or maybe you don’t know what I know. Because you’re too close to yourself. Me, I’m just a member of the public.’

‘So?’

‘I’m sure you’re a hell of a guy, Sansom. I’m sure you’d be a great senator. But at the end of the day any senator is just one out of a hundred. They’re all fairly interchangeable. Can you give me a name? Of one individual senator who truly made a difference to anything?’

Sansom didn’t answer.

‘Can you tell me how you personally are going to screw al-Qaeda?’

He started to talk about the Armed Services Committee, and Foreign Relations, and Intelligence, and budgets, and oversight. Like a boilerplate speech. Like he was out on the stump. I asked him, ‘What part of all that wouldn’t be done by whoever else might get the job, assuming you don’t?’

He didn’t answer. I asked him, ‘Imagine a cave in the northwest of Pakistan. Imagine the al-Qaeda brass sitting there, right now. Are they tearing their hair out and saying, holy shit, we better not let John Sansom make it to the U.S. Senate? Are you top of their agenda?’

He said, ‘Probably not.’

‘So why do they want the photograph?’

‘Small victories,’ he said. ‘Better than nothing.’

‘It’s a lot of work for a small victory, don’t you think? Two agents plus nineteen men plus three months?’

‘The United States would be embarrassed.’

‘But not very. Look at the Rumsfeld photograph. Nobody cared. Times change, things move on. People understand that, if they even notice at all. Americans are either very mature and sensible, or very oblivious. I’m never quite sure which. But either way, that picture would be a damp squib. It might destroy you personally, but destroying one American at a time isn’t how al-Qaeda operates.’

‘It would hurt Reagan’s memory.’

‘Who cares? Most Americans don’t even remember him. Most Americans think Reagan is an airport in Washington.’

‘I think you’re underestimating.’

‘And I think you’re overestimating. You’re too close to the process.’

‘I think that photograph would hurt.’

‘But who would it hurt? What does the government think?’

‘You know that the Defense Department is trying like crazy to get it back.’

‘Is it? Then why did they give the job to their B team?’

‘You think those guys were their B team?’

‘I sincerely hope so. If that was their A team, we should all move to Canada.’

Sansom didn’t answer.

I said, ‘The picture might do you some local damage in North Carolina. But apparently that’s all. We’re not seeing any kind of maximum effort from the DoD. Because there’s no real national downside.’

‘That’s not an accurate read.’

‘OK, it’s bad for us. It’s evidence of a strategic error. It’s awkward, it’s embarrassing, and it’s going to put egg on our face. But that’s all. It’s not the end of the world. We’re not going to fall apart.’

‘So al-Qaeda’s expectations are too high? You’re saying they’re wrong too? They don’t understand the American people the way you do?’

‘No, I’m saying this whole thing is a little lopsided. It’s slightly asymmetric. Al-Qaeda fielded an A team and we fielded a B team. Therefore their desire to grab that photograph is just a little bit stronger than our desire to hold on to it.’ Sansom said nothing.

‘And we have to ask, why wasn’t Susan Mark just told to copy it? If their aim was to embarrass us, then copying it would have been a better idea. Because when it came to light, and sceptics claimed it had been faked, which they would, then the original would still be on file, and we couldn’t have denied it with a straight face.’

‘OK.’

‘But Susan Mark wasn’t told to copy it. She was told to steal it, effectively. To take it away from us. With no trace left behind. Which added considerable risk and visibility.’

‘Which means what?’

‘Which means they want to have it, and equally they want us not to have it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You need to cast your mind back. You need to figure out exactly what that camera saw. Because al-Qaeda doesn’t want to publicize that photograph. They stole it because they want to suppress it.’

‘Why would they?’

‘Because however bad it is for you, there’s something in it that’s even worse for Osama bin Laden.’

SIXTY-NINE

SANSOM AND SPRINGFIELD WENT QUIET, LIKE I KNEW THEY would. They were casting their minds back a quarter of a century, to a dim tent above the Korengal Valley floor. They were stiffening and straightening, subconsciously repeating their formal poses. One on the left, one on the right, with their host between them. The camera lens, trained on them, aimed, zoomed, adjusted, focused. The strobe, charging, then popping, bathing the scene with light.

What exactly did the camera see?

Sansom said, ‘I don’t remember.’

‘Maybe it was us,’ Springfield said. ‘Simple as that. Maybe meeting with Americans looks like bad karma now.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s good PR. It makes bin Laden look powerful and triumphant, and it makes us look like patsies. It has to be something else.’

‘It was a zoo in there. Chaos and mayhem.’

‘It has to be something fatally inappropriate. Little boys, little girls, animals.’

Sansom said, ‘I don’t know what they would regard as inappropriate. They have a thousand rules over there. Could be something he was eating, even.’

‘Or smoking.’

‘Or drinking.’

‘There was no alcohol there,’ Springfield said. ‘I remember that.’

‘Women?’ I asked.

‘No women, either.’

‘Has to be something. Were there other visitors there?’

‘Only tribal.’

‘No foreigners?’

‘Only us.’

‘It has to be something that makes him look compromised, or weak, or deviant. Was he healthy?’

‘He seemed to be.’

‘So what else?’

‘Deviant from their laws or deviant like we mean it?’

‘Al-Qaeda HQ,’ I said. ‘Where the men are men and the goats are scared.’

‘I don’t remember. It was a long time ago. We were tired. We had just walked a hundred miles through the front lines.’

Sansom had gone quiet. Like I knew he would. Eventually he said, ‘This is a real bitch.’

I said, ‘I know it is.’

‘I’m going to have to make a big decision.’

‘I know you are.’

‘If that picture hurts him more than it hurts me, I’m going to have to release it.’

‘No, if it hurts him at all, even a little bit, you’re going to have to release it. And then you’re going to have to suck it up and face the consequences.’

‘Where is it?’

I didn’t answer.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I have to watch your back. But I know what you know. And you figured it out. Which means I can figure it out. But slower. Because it ain’t rocket science. Which means the Hoths can figure it out too. Are they going to be slower? Maybe not. Maybe they’re picking it up right now.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Maybe they are.’

‘And if they’re going to suppress it, maybe I should just go ahead and let them.’

‘If they’re going to suppress it, that means it’s a valuable weapon that could be used against them.’

Sansom said nothing.

I said, ‘Remember Officer Candidate School? Something about all enemies, foreign and domestic?’

‘We take the same oath in Congress.’

‘So should you let the Hoths suppress the picture?’

He was quiet for a very long time.

Then he spoke.

‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go get the Hoths before they get the picture.’

I didn’t go. Not right then. Not immediately. I had things to think about, and plans to make. And deficiencies to overcome. I wasn’t equipped. I was wearing rubber gardening clogs and blue pants. I was unarmed. None of those things was good. I wanted to go in the dead of night, properly dressed in black. With proper shoes. And weapons. The more the merrier.