Read Online How to Break a Terrorist by Matthew Alexander - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Matthew Alexander
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the morning, I fall asleep repeating those words.
I get back to the ’gator pit at about 10 A.M. , an hour before the night shift ends. Once again, I find Ann typing away at her computer. Lenny sits a few tables away, cursing at something.
“Hey, thanks for that suggestion,” Ann says to me. “He opened up a little bit. It got him talking. Before, I couldn’t get a thing out of him.”
“A little sympathy goes a long way.”
Lenny overhears this and grumbles, “I don’t see why you waste your time with that stuff.”
Ann doesn’t rise to the bait. Neither do I.
There’s an awkward silence until Bobby bounds up to me.
“Hey, you gotta check something out,” he says.
“What?”
“The SF guys captured this shit last night. Unbelievable.”
I follow Bobby to his computer. For a moment, the screen is blank. Then the video opens with a bound man on his knees in a dirt field. Two Sunni insurgents stand on either side of him behind black masks. Their prisoner, who can’t be more than twenty-four, looks like an academic. He wears glasses, is clean shaven, and is distressingly calm. As I watch, I want to scream at him to run. Something very bad is about to happen.
One of the insurgents steps to the camera. He utters a few words as he unsheathes a long, wicked-looking knife. Behind him, the prisoner still appears calm, as if this, too, is God’s will.
The knife-wielding insurgent steps away from the camera, goes behind the prisoner, and pushes him forward. With his arms bound, the academic falls face-first into the dirt. The insurgent reaches down, grabs a mass of his hair, then jerks it upward. His head flies up out of the dirt, and now he’s suspended by his hair, neck stretched, dull eyes on the cameraman. He’s still calm, but now I see fear in his eyes.
The insurgent cuts his throat from ear to ear. Blood spurtsfrom his severed arteries in quick pulses. The dirt before him turns crimson. He’ll bleed out and die on camera. I pray that it is quick.
But the insurgent isn’t done. He brings the knife down again, but this time, instead of slashing, he hacks. The dying man gurgles and coughs. The insurgent saws away at the neck. Blood pours. It is a ghastly sight.
The academic’s head flops and lolls. His body spasms. His fingers and arms twitch. The insurgent starts hacking harder, and I see bone through the gore. The insurgent, unable to sever his victim’s head, grows frustrated. He slashes, then tugs again, and the head tears partly away from the ruined neck. Still, he can’t get it free.
The second insurgent walks over and takes the knife. He swings the blade down and with a few strokes precise to the neck, he cuts the head free. The body lies twitching in a growing pool of blood as he holds up his trophy. The cameraman zooms in on the second insurgent’s face. His eyes show through the peepholes of his black hood. They are triumphant.
The file ends.
“Goddamn,” Bobby says in a voice full of vitriol.
I have no words for it.
I am not a stranger to gore and horror. Back in the States, one of my first cases as a criminal investigator turned out to be about as awful as they come. Two airmen accidentally hit and killed a bicyclist near my base in Tucson. The cyclist’s head went through the windshield and landed on the seat between the two airmen. When I arrived on the scene, one of the airmen had fled, crying “My life is over.” We tracked the runaway airman back to his apartment, where we discovered he’d swallowed a shotgun barrel and pulled the trigger. We found bits of his skull in adjoining rooms…and his intact brain in the bathtub.
“Matthew?”
Bobby’s looking at me with earnest concern.
“I’m all right,” I say.
My mind is replaying the scene we’ve just watched.
“Good. There’s one more, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I’m rooted in place. Bobby clicks on another file. The media player reveals another macabre scene. This time, the camera pans down
I get back to the ’gator pit at about 10 A.M. , an hour before the night shift ends. Once again, I find Ann typing away at her computer. Lenny sits a few tables away, cursing at something.
“Hey, thanks for that suggestion,” Ann says to me. “He opened up a little bit. It got him talking. Before, I couldn’t get a thing out of him.”
“A little sympathy goes a long way.”
Lenny overhears this and grumbles, “I don’t see why you waste your time with that stuff.”
Ann doesn’t rise to the bait. Neither do I.
There’s an awkward silence until Bobby bounds up to me.
“Hey, you gotta check something out,” he says.
“What?”
“The SF guys captured this shit last night. Unbelievable.”
I follow Bobby to his computer. For a moment, the screen is blank. Then the video opens with a bound man on his knees in a dirt field. Two Sunni insurgents stand on either side of him behind black masks. Their prisoner, who can’t be more than twenty-four, looks like an academic. He wears glasses, is clean shaven, and is distressingly calm. As I watch, I want to scream at him to run. Something very bad is about to happen.
One of the insurgents steps to the camera. He utters a few words as he unsheathes a long, wicked-looking knife. Behind him, the prisoner still appears calm, as if this, too, is God’s will.
The knife-wielding insurgent steps away from the camera, goes behind the prisoner, and pushes him forward. With his arms bound, the academic falls face-first into the dirt. The insurgent reaches down, grabs a mass of his hair, then jerks it upward. His head flies up out of the dirt, and now he’s suspended by his hair, neck stretched, dull eyes on the cameraman. He’s still calm, but now I see fear in his eyes.
The insurgent cuts his throat from ear to ear. Blood spurtsfrom his severed arteries in quick pulses. The dirt before him turns crimson. He’ll bleed out and die on camera. I pray that it is quick.
But the insurgent isn’t done. He brings the knife down again, but this time, instead of slashing, he hacks. The dying man gurgles and coughs. The insurgent saws away at the neck. Blood pours. It is a ghastly sight.
The academic’s head flops and lolls. His body spasms. His fingers and arms twitch. The insurgent starts hacking harder, and I see bone through the gore. The insurgent, unable to sever his victim’s head, grows frustrated. He slashes, then tugs again, and the head tears partly away from the ruined neck. Still, he can’t get it free.
The second insurgent walks over and takes the knife. He swings the blade down and with a few strokes precise to the neck, he cuts the head free. The body lies twitching in a growing pool of blood as he holds up his trophy. The cameraman zooms in on the second insurgent’s face. His eyes show through the peepholes of his black hood. They are triumphant.
The file ends.
“Goddamn,” Bobby says in a voice full of vitriol.
I have no words for it.
I am not a stranger to gore and horror. Back in the States, one of my first cases as a criminal investigator turned out to be about as awful as they come. Two airmen accidentally hit and killed a bicyclist near my base in Tucson. The cyclist’s head went through the windshield and landed on the seat between the two airmen. When I arrived on the scene, one of the airmen had fled, crying “My life is over.” We tracked the runaway airman back to his apartment, where we discovered he’d swallowed a shotgun barrel and pulled the trigger. We found bits of his skull in adjoining rooms…and his intact brain in the bathtub.
“Matthew?”
Bobby’s looking at me with earnest concern.
“I’m all right,” I say.
My mind is replaying the scene we’ve just watched.
“Good. There’s one more, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I’m rooted in place. Bobby clicks on another file. The media player reveals another macabre scene. This time, the camera pans down
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