“We drove up in two cars,” Sarah said. “We’re leaving in the morning, back to Portland. You can drive to Boston in the Honda later in the day.”
“You want me to drive to Boston alone?” Levi asked. “Can’t one of you come along?”
“No, I have to supervise putting all my little bits and pieces together,” Abram said.
“And I have signs to paint,” Sarah said. “And a speech to write. A short speech, but a good one.”
“All right,” Levi said reluctantly. “I’ll go. I don’t know what I can contribute, but it beats staying here and watching TV.”
Reuben looked horrified. “How can you leave again, Chaim?” she asked. “I thought I’d stop breathing when you went to Portland.”
“Stop worrying. Nobody even knows we exist,” Levi said. “I’m more worried about where I can stay in Boston. It sounds like I’ll be away overnight again.”
“Stay in Portland with us,” Sarah said. “You can spend the night at our house. It’s only two hours from Boston.”
“You can help me with some heavy lifting in the morning. We’ll be loading the van,” Abram added. “Bring work gloves.”
“And after that you’ll come right home. And you’ll be very, very careful,” Reuben said.
CHAPTER 41
The Echo Team at the detention camp had a surprisingly easy time identifying more than 800 detainees as members of the Israel Defense Forces. After that, however, the interrogations ran into a brick wall. They did not appreciate how deeply the military was involved in Israeli life—far more so than in the US. In contrast to the States’struggle to maintain an all-volunteer army by offering richer and richer incentives to recruits, service in the Israeli military had been compulsory for every eighteen-year-old in the small nation, with only few exceptions. After their compulsory service—three years for men, two for women—service in the active reserve up to age fifty was compulsory.
One result of this deep penetration by the military into civilian society was that Israeli soldiers did not look like the soldiers the American interrogators were used to seeing. A forty-five-year-old woman with an attractive teenage daughter could be a commander of a reserve tank battalion. The teenage daughter could be in the infantry.
What this meant for the Echo Team interrogators was that just about every detainee, both at Camp Echo and in the less strict portions of the base, at one time or another served in the IDF. Almost all the men, and most of the women, were still reservists.
The Israeli military was particularly sensitive to the risks its soldiers faced if they were captured. In the US military, advanced SERE training—survival, evasion, resistance, and escape—was provided only for specialized units such as Army Rangers, Navy SEALS and fighter pilots likely to be shot down behind enemy lines. SERE training included undergoing hours of mock interrogations and advanced sessions learning how to deflect interrogation techniques.
Because Israeli soldiers captured by Arab and Palestinian forces could expect to be tortured, or worse, such advanced counter-interrogation practice was part of routine training for virtually all members of the IDF. In fact, Israeli interrogators helped the US Air Force design the first formal American SERE training after the Korean War.
The young American Echo Team members were not trained for this kind of job. After a week of round-the-clock tag-team interrogation sessions of the entire Camp Echo population, they had made no progress in identifying the twenty soldiers whose dog tags were recovered from Boston Harbor.
“We pretty much know who was in the IDF,” Maj. Dancer, the camp commander, told Homeland Security director Paterson and Acting Attorney General Harrison when they visited the camp for a progress report. “Just about everybody we’ve got, that’s who. And we know there was a discreet military unit on the two ships, one on each ship, in fact, because the divers found their equipment and lots of gear.
“But picking out who was in those units and who was just some forty-year-old reservist, well, we’ve gotten nowhere with that. These people are tough, strictly name, rank and serial number types, and they lie about that. We know they’re giving phony names. That’s all we get—that and demands to see their lawyers. Goddamn Jews and their lawyers,” he laughed.
“Those results are not acceptable, Major.” General Paterson was not used to subordinates reporting their failures to him. “We could wake up any morning and learn that Chicago or Tampa or Seattle is a pile of radioactive rubble. If this interrogation team is not up to the job, we’ll bring in a new team. One that can get the information the president insists we get. Is that understood, Major?”
“Understood, General,” he answered. “In all fairness to the Echo Team, though, sir, the problem is not the personnel. The problem is that their hands are tied. It’s all those laws that were passed after Guantanamo, sir, those ‘we don’t use torture’laws. These men and women have been trained not to even look cross-eyed at anybody they’re interrogating. As you know, sir, I was at Guantanamo, back during the Iraq War—the Afghanistan War, whatever we’re calling it now.”
General Paterson nodded.
“We were able to make our own rules then, sir,” the major continued. “We were told the Geneva Convention didn’t apply to those detainees. For a little while we had all those lawyers coming down representing our detainees there, but Congress put an end to that when they suspended habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees. Once the lawyers were stopped, and once the detainees couldn’t go to court anymore, well, sir, all of a sudden people started talking. By that time we’d been holding them for five or six years, so they didn’t have any fresh information to give us. But they broke. And we learned an awful lot about how to break them. Pretty quickly, too, if we’re allowed to do so.”
“I understand all that, Major, but that was then. We have laws on the books now that out and out say we can’t use torture, no matter what. Isn’t that right, Mr. Attorney General?” Gen. Paterson turned to Harrison, who stood silently to the side during the conversation, smiling slightly to himself. He stepped in front of the two military men as if he were about to address a class, then gestured toward his briefcase on the table behind the men.
“The president and I discussed this very situation,” he said. “I have a document, a presidential directive, in my briefcase that should be of assistance to your Echo Team. I’ll read it to you, then you can read it verbatim to the team members.
“‘By the authority vested in me by Article II of the United States Constitution as commander in chief of the military forces of the United States of America, I find that this nation is faced with an extraordinary military threat to national security posed by the Armed Forces of the (former) State of Israel.
“‘I hereby order and direct that all military forces subject to my ultimate command are authorized to use whatever means are necessary and effective to defend the United States of America for so long as this crisis continues. In furtherance of this defense, I find that all laws, statutes, regulations and directives limiting the use, threat or application of coercive force, both physical and psychological, against enemy combatants, short of the application of torture, are hereby waived and suspended to the extent necessary to fully and adequately protect and promote the national interest. Signed, Lawrence Quaid, President.’What do you think of that, gentlemen?” Harrison asked. He was beaming. “The president signed this yesterday. Actually, I drafted it.”
“Well, that should help,” Maj. Dancer said. “But run that part about ‘short of torture’by me again, will you? I don’t understand that part.”