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No Safe Harbor
by Douglas DeBono, 2004

PROLOGUE

Tucked away in a forgotten piece of ocean called the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) lies an insignificant collection of rock and coral. During both Gulf Wars, these islands served as a stationary base for B-52 bombers as they lifted off to deliver their deadly cargo. In those brief moments, news commentators and military analysts enlightened the public regarding the strategic significance of these forgotten islands.

Diego Garcia is best described as an oblong, horseshoe shaped island that encircles Rambler Bay. The land area is a mere sixty square kilometers, while the bay encompasses far more surface area. The United States maintains a permanent base called the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia (NAVSUPPFACDG), which services British and American warships.

Unlike Guantanamo Bay, Diego Garcia is two thousand miles from anywhere. Except for the odd submarine or bomber crews during war time, NAVSUPPFACDG is easily forgotten, and never shows up on the itineraries for congressional junkets or human interest stories. The locals consist of donkeys, sand crabs, and gulls. While they might make the news on Animal Planet, they do not have the same allure of the cigar chomping dictator ninety miles south of Miami

Everyone knows about the six hundred al Qaeda prisoners held at Gitmo. The orange jumpsuit figures shuffling from cage to cage have become monthly fair for slow news days on CNN. As the War on Terror progressed and higher value prisoners were snared by allied operations, a more private prison was needed—a place where pesky civil rights and probing media cameras never visited.

The much maligned CIA and the secretive MI6, better known in the trade as the Company and the Firm, set up a secret prison inside BIOT, and Diego Garcia became another lonely outpost for American Marines on the opposite end of the island from NAVSUPPFACDG.

Shortly after the World trade Center collapsed, Langston Rothwell gave up his corner office at Vauxhall Crossing to begin processing the flood of prisoners apprehended by American Special Forces and British Special Air Service (SAS) troops. Low level prisoners were sent to Gitmo to soothe the political need for visible progress. A successful disinformation campaign suggested that higher value prisoners end up guests of any number of allied countries where civil rights remained a curiosity. Neither Langley nor Vauxhall Crossing liked the odds of maintaining security inside Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait. They opted for Diego Garcia.

Randy Larson organized the interrogation teams insulated from the Defense Department and the FBI. A secret executive order gave the Company license to pursue al Qaeda, the Taliban and their ilk to the ends of the earth and beyond. Everything came together in a chain-link compound where the Indian Ocean surf pounded on one side and Rambler Bay waited like a mirror on the other.

Larson and Rothwell employed a full arsenal of psychosomatic drugs, sleep deprivation techniques, and cultural taboos. Everyone eventually broke; when they did information came out like a raging torrent. What remained were mere husks, and when the husks no longer held any secrets, they were turned over to bright-eyed public affairs officers.

The two intelligence officers reviewed the prisoner roster on a monthly basis. The rest of the time they spent processing intelligence product or relaying their findings to their respective agencies. No one wanted to stay on Diego Garcia any longer than necessary.

The chain-link cells stretched in long narrow columns. Unlike Gitmo, no one bothered to readily provide prayer rugs or register anything under the Geneva Convention. The Red Crescent remained ignorant of their existence. Inquiries were quickly brushed off by the State Department and the Home Secretary, because no one bothered to pass on a prisoner list. Presumably, someone at the cabinet or sub-cabinet level knew about the secret prison, but they studiously avoided the topic when discussing the war with their political leadership.

Nor did anyone pry too deeply when pertinent information related to identities, bank accounts, codes, safe houses, and dead drops were passed on to the FBI and MI5. The counterintelligence operations inside America and Great Britain had enough threats to chase. No one could afford the luxury of probing the methods used to secure al Qaeda’s secrets.

Yet there remained one group of people, who suspected such a place as Diego Garcia existed. They were the ones not rounded up. What remained of Russia’s satellite reconnaissance network might have captured the changes on the southern end of the island, but Washington kept Moscow supplied with fresh leads on the Chechen Rebellion. Great Britain kept France and Germany off balance, suggesting the real action was in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. China posed the greatest security threat, but even Beijing feared Anglo-American ire.

Larson picked up a folder marked: New Arrivals.

The two spooks walked the chain-link corridor between cells until they came to their new charge.

The prisoner kneeled on the hard ground. His form bent obsequiously towards Mecca. Since the prisoners did not really know where they were, Mecca tended to have several different azimuths.

Larson checked the photograph. A clear-eyed, professorial man, sporting a neatly trimmed beard stared back at him. Most of the photographs either portrayed a prisoner in native mufti or urban camouflage. “Who is he?”

“He calls himself Hambali,” replied Rothwell. “He thinks he’s a preacher.”

Larson paged through the file. “There’s not much here.”

Rothwell folded his arms and shrugged. “Not much to tell. We know he fought with bin Laden in the eighties against the Soviets in Afghanistan, returned to Malaysia and founded an import/export company called Konsojaya, and received a great deal of oil money in 1994.”

Larson grunted. “Konsojaya—what’d they export?”

“Besides terrorism?” quipped Rothwell. “They claimed to be in the palm oil business. Their major customer was the Taliban regime until you put the Taliban out of business a couple of years ago.”

Larson leaned against the fence. “So why is he here?”

“The Bali bombing for one thing—the Australians seem to think he masterminded the whole thing, and there is ample evidence to suggest that his group, Jemaah Islamiah, provided the manpower and explosives.”

“A real-up-and-comer, huh?” mused Larson.

“Eh, yes,” Rothwell replied, resorting to his English boarding school background. The Yanks tended to butcher the Queen’s English.

Hambali cocked his head up and swiveled his neck to consider the two spies. A howl boiled out of him as he pointed an accusatory finger in their direction. “My people shall come for me!”

Rothwell sighed, “He does this anytime he thinks he has an audience.”

Larson nodded understandingly.

Hambali levered himself to a standing position. “The infidel is cursed by Allah, and his demons shall drag you all to hell!”

“Maybe you should have thought twice before you took us on,” muttered Larson.

Hambali paused and his eyes glazed a bit. “’Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate,’” he quoted.

“Ah yes, more lessons from the Koran,” observed Rothwell.

Larson shook his head. “When do you start pumping him full of happy juice?”

“Another couple of days,” replied Rothwell. “My team will continue to study his behavior. When we have the base profile done, then your people can start working on him. I think he might be more difficult than some of the others.”

Larson turned away from Hambali and started walking along the chain-link corridor. “They all talk in the end.”

“They will come!” ranted Hambali.

“Indeed they do,” agreed Rothwell.

“You will burn!” scream Hambali at their retreating backs.

Sometimes, even psychopaths speak the truth. It might be twisted and shredded, but a small glimmer rings true.

This was one of those times.

Douglas De Bono / DouglasDeBono.Com Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota E-Mail readermail@DouglasDeBono.Com