Operation Dark Heart (34 page)

“I’d like you to come back as soon as possible,” he said.

“I’ll ask,” I told him.

In a message that day to Bruce Gains, the desk officer for Afghanistan for Defense intelligence, I told him I’d like to return and asked him what he thought. I liked Bruce. He could stay calm and make decisions when things went haywire, and he had an encyclopedic memory. Bruce told me he also wanted me to go back and that his boss, Col. Greg, Bruce also thought it best that I return.

I ran convoys right up until I left. I figured if the bad guys hadn’t gotten me yet, well, they might get me, but I’d take my chances. I worked with 1099 on its upcoming spring mission, Operation Shadow Matrix. I think the command recognized that its tools and techniques needed to be refined. Winter Strike had routed the enemy out of their winter havens, but it appeared many who hadn’t already fled to Pakistan had done so this winter.

Everyone needed to take a step back and rethink the tactics. I agreed to think about the scout program and how to better use indigenous Afghan scouts in the upcoming operation.

I also was asked by my boss, Bill Wilson, to try to capture the methodology that we had either stumbled on, or figured out, for integrating intelligence capability into combat operations. General Lloyd Austin, new commander of 180, had sent a note of appreciation to Defense HUMINT congratulating us on the success of the integration effort. I knew that would piss off DIA because the top bureaucracy didn’t want to see me succeed.

The going-away party for me was subdued—just a small cookout with what remained of the group I had worked with. Brad borrowed the CIA tent, and there was a band playing that night from the USO—Varicose and His Itchy Veins or something like that. We all stood around and yapped. I had a nonalcoholic beer, while the others in the group, the nonmilitary types, shared a bottle of wine.

The LTC had been dismantled because of fights between the senior intelligence officer and the senior operations officer of Task Force 180. It had been reduced to nothing more than a small cell of analysts that would put together very detailed, very lengthy reports that would be received with enthusiasm by senior leadership, who would pick it up once, look at the cover, and put it down, never to pick it up again. The information would be useless to anyone since it would not be timely or actionable.

The original team that I served with from summer to early winter—Colonel Negro, Dave Christenson, John Kirkland, Tim Loudermilk, Bill Wilson, Lisa Werman, and John Hayes—had departed. Although in some cases, the replacements were outstanding, a more conventional, conservative thinking was taking hold. There was a return to a more conventional approach—nothing cross border—that focused on securing locations rather than going after the enemy. Essentially, it was a defensive, rather than an offensive, posture.

Aside from the challenges I was leaving behind in Afghanistan, I had some upcoming issues in my personal life. Rina and I had agreed to spend some time together over the holidays and see if anything was still there. Rina. She was such a free spirit. She’d had her doubts about settling down. When it came to kids, I wanted more; she wasn’t sure. Despite that, we decided to try our relationship again. She had put together a dynamite trip to New York City: to hang out in Chinatown for a few days, then on to a remote bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York afterward. One-on-one time would do us good … or bad … one way or another, time would serve as a catalyst to answer the question of our future.

Then there was Kate. We spent my last night in Afghanistan together at the Safe House. No sleep. No sex. We just lay awake and held each other. Just as the first gray rays of light crept to the top of the window, came the unforgettable, haunting call to prayer from the mosque across the street from the House. Both of us knew this was coming to an end, and that real life was about to return.

I felt changed, from the inside out. I was finally able to accept myself for who I was. Maybe it was because I’d never known my real dad that I had kept trying to prove I was a man with high-risk behaviors—always thinking that if I survived, I must be worthy and a good guy. The ghosts that had chased me and pushed me to “prove” my worth were gone. Maybe it was the first time I felt complex. I was more flexible—and less fearful—dealing with life.

I went through the CIA pipeline to get back to the States, flying on a **********-chartered flight from ***** ** ********* *********** DoD case officers were allowed to travel there to decompress during our tour, but I’d never taken them up on it. There were troops in Afghanistan for a full year. If I was there only six months, why should I get R&R and not them? Didn’t make much sense.

As I looked out the window of the Bombardier turboprop aircraft, my mind still going at 100 miles an hour, I kept thinking about Dark Heart. If I went back to Afghanistan, I might be able to influence events so that they led more in that direction in ’04. **** ** ********** * *** ** *** **** *** ******** ** **** ******** Always a strange disorientation at first to answer again to my real name, no matter how many times I made the switch.

Bruce Gains walked me down to navy Capt. Mike Anderson’s office. He was about to become the chief of DH03, the Pacific division of Defense HUMINT, which included the Mideast. Gregarious and friendly, Captain Anderson was becoming a skilled inside operator in DIA. He knew how to work the system, though he’d come out of *** and didn’t have a history with the bureaucracy within Defense intel. He’d seen the request from Colonel Ritchie and recommended that I be sent back to Afghanistan out of cycle. Colonel Becker, who was being replaced by Anderson, seconded that idea. That was a shocker; Colonel Becker was usually one of my adversaries at DIA and had even originally opposed my deployment.

Before going back, however, Captain Anderson wanted me to work on the desk for a couple of months because Ward was being transferred to another unit down at Fort Belvoir. I agreed, as long as it was a temporary assignment and I could get back to Afghanistan for the spring surge.

Before starting my temporary assignment, I took three weeks off to decompress. Rina and I took the trip to New York. I thought about the war and Kate. She was so young and so certain about where she wanted to go with her life. I had turned into her mentor rather than her lover—probably a better role for a long-term relationship and one surely to be less dramatic.

Rina and I began to be comfortable about being real with each other and were upfront about the relationships we’d had. I told her about Kate, and she told me about the romance she’d developed but had ended. We decided there would be no pressure this time around. We would enjoy the moment and see what came of it. Yet I had this feeling of hope, of being accepted for who I was without regard for the past or the future. I made the same effort with Rina.

On the train ride to New York City, we sat across from Tony Snow and his family. A former speechwriter for President Bush, he was just starting his new radio show on Fox News Radio. We talked about the war. I told him I’d refused to shake Geraldo Rivera’s hand when I ran into him at Bagram as he came out of a Porta-John. “Smart move,” Tony had remarked, “at a number of levels.”

When I got back to Clarendon, things started to get weird.

Captain Anderson called me into his office. Something seemed different.

“I know you want to go back, and I know they want you back, but DIA leadership is very concerned about the Inspector General issues.”

I was under investigation by the DIA IG, although for issues that were so minor that I couldn’t understand why an IG had even gotten involved.

“I know what the IG issues are,” I told him. “They’re bullshit.”

“I agree, they’re bullshit,” Captain Anderson said, “but there’s something else.”

I couldn’t think of what the hell else there could be.

“What do you mean, there’s something else?” I asked.

He wouldn’t tell me. “There’s something else,” he repeated.

Now I was getting ticked off. “I don’t have the right to know what that issue is?”

“Yes, you do, but they aren’t talking to me, either. But they’re really pissed at you.”

I figured he knew but wouldn’t tell me.

“By the way,” he added, “they’re unhappy that you got the Bronze Star.”

That blew me away. I’d earned that damned thing.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Nope, I’m not,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out a way to pull it back.”

“They can’t do that,” I shot back.

Captain Anderson said their position was that any award given to someone serving in a DIA billet overseas should be processed through DIA.

“Captain, I know you’re navy, but that’s not how the army award system works,” I snapped. I pointed out that, by regulation, anybody can nominate anyone for an award, and the army can choose to issue it based on the merit of the nomination.

“And, further, DIA can’t issue Bronze Stars,” I said. “They’re not a combated command.”

Captain Anderson, who was from the navy, said he wasn’t familiar with that army regulation. “With all due respect, sir, what they’re telling you isn’t correct,” I added.

Captain Anderson tried again.

“I think they’re looking at it as a policy issue,” he said. “DIA wants to control any awards.”

“It ain’t gonna happen,” I said. “DIA doesn’t have that kind of authority. Plus, as you may recall, sir, Bill Wilson was awarded a Bronze Star by Task Force 180 six months ago. Are they going to try to pull his Bronze Star?”

Captain Anderson sighed deeply. He seemed to be staring over my shoulder.

“This isn’t about the Bronze Star,” he said after a short silence. “This is about you.”

Oh, great, I thought. The love fest between me and DIA continues.

Captain Anderson tried to reassure me. “I want you to go back,” he said. “There is no doubt that you are fully capable and competent to return to your duties and continue the work you were doing. I do need you to help Chris Boston get up to speed on the desk. Can you do that?”

U.S. Air Force Colonel Chris Boston had been pulled from out of retirement just after the war in Afghanistan had started. He was one of thousands of military personnel brought back after the September 11 attacks. He was a highly experienced case officer who had spent decades doing human intelligence, most of that spent working issues relating to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was assigned to be the first Defense attaché in the newly established American Embassy in January 2002. He had conducted a successful tour there for about eighteen months.

“Absolutely,” I told him, “but I want to be back in Afghanistan before the spring offensive.”

“I understand,” Captain Anderson said.

* ******* ******* ** *** ***** ********** *********** ******** ** *********** *** ********* Colonel Boston and I instantly hit it off. He told me early on that there had been a high-side (top secret) by-name request for me by the Rangers. They wanted me to be integrated with their task force in the spring surge. Since I wasn’t a Ranger, it was the ultimate vote of confidence.

I tried then to follow up on other business left undone from my first tour. I called the 9/11 Commission, as Philip Zelikow had asked me to do back when I made my presentation to him in Afghanistan.

I didn’t have a good feeling dialing that phone. Nothing good was going to come of this, I remember thinking. Nothing good. I knew DIA was going to be pissed off that I had talked to the commission in the first place about the problems it had put in front of me on Able Danger, even though I’d gotten approval from the army to discuss it with the commission. It had the potential for making the DIA controversy over my Bronze Star look like a kindergarten spat. Still, I felt it was the right thing to do—to make sure that Able Danger issues were fully disclosed to the commission.

I did inform Colonel Boston before I called and told him I’d go through official channels to notify DIA that the commission wanted to talk to me. I wasn’t trying to hide it.

One of Zelikow’s deputies answered the phone. * ********** ****** ** **** ******* *** **** *** *** *** *** ***** ** ****** **** ******* ***** * ********* ****** ****** **** ** *****—that Dr. Zelikow had asked me to call him after I returned from deployment.

“I remember you,” he said. “I met you. I’ll talk to Dr. Zelikow and find out when he wants you to come in.”

I told him they needed to formally request this through DIA. He said he understood and would get back to me after talking to Dr. Zelikow.

I also told him I had copies of the Able Danger documents with me. I had tracked them down in Clarendon and put them at my desk: two boxes of material, a leather briefcase where I kept the most sensitive documents, three large charts—including the one with the photo of Mohamed Atta—and some smaller charts rolled up in a tube. Along with the cover plan (the documents that conceal the true purpose of the papers) and copies of legal documents, I had a complete copy of the essential papers on Able Danger.

One of the most crucial documents was the operational plan signed by Gen. Hugh Shelton, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In it, the operational objectives of Able Danger and the operational techniques and the technologies and methodologies were laid out in significant detail. I also had records of our dealings with *** on its database and on the MIDB (military intelligence database).