A split second later, another shell came from behind us and scored nearly a direct hit. The helicopter erupted into a massive fireball. I covered my head and shielded my eyes, but it hardly did any good. The searing heat was more than anyone could bear. Scraps of molten metal were falling from the sky. The wretched stench of burning jet fuel and human flesh was overwhelming. And the mortars kept coming.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” shouted the warden and the head of the security detail, grabbing Ismail and me by the collars and hauling us to our feet.
I was limping. I was in pain. But I was moving.
Then I saw Ismail. His face was covered in blood. He had shrapnel wounds all over his body. I could see the fear in his eyes, and I knew we were both in a fight for our lives.
We followed the warden back into the building and soon were moving through the corridors as fast as we could, though to where I had no idea. Were the guards taking us to a safe room to ride out the attack? Or to the motor pool to grab some Humvees and make a break for it? There were no air options at the moment. But Ismail wasn’t talking, and the warden was ashen.
We soon reached the security command center. The warden and his men assessed their options while I helped Ismail sit down. I took off my jacket and draped it over him to keep him warm.
Though I’d had several years of Arabic and was conversational in most situations, these guys were talking too fast for me to follow. But amid the fog of war, one thing was clear: our options were limited and rapidly closing.
Though my vantage point wasn’t ideal, I had a partial view of a bank of video feeds from dozens of security cameras positioned all over the enormous labyrinth of prison facilities. I could see what appeared to be the remains of a truck—an 18-wheeler or perhaps an oil tanker—sticking out of the main gates of the prison, engulfed in flames. I guessed that an ISIS loyalist might have stolen the truck and used it for a suicide mission to crash the gates and create an opening for jihadists to pour through.
It wasn’t just the main gates, however. On the video monitors I could see multiple car and truck bombers had hit all the prison gates, maybe even simultaneously. That, and the never-ending barrage of mortars, had pinned down the security forces inside the prison and created a breach in the outer perimeter for the hundreds of ISIS forces I could now see making their way inside.
That was when I began to get scared. The initial shock of the attack and its magnitude was rapidly giving way to the realization that these soldiers and guards assigned to us might not be able to stave off this onslaught. A prison doctor rushed over to Ismail and began administering first aid. The warden, meanwhile, was on the phone. I couldn’t get much of the conversation, but the words reinforcements and air support cut through the noise. As soon as he hung up, he turned back to me.
“We need to get you men to a safe room,” he said calmly.
“Where’s that?”
“Directly below us, two flights down. These men will take you there.”
I was about to thank him, but the head of the detail spoke first in rapid-fire Arabic. I didn’t get much of it but it was obvious he was insisting that the warden go to the safe room as well. There was a brief argument, but when a series of mortars struck no more than a hundred meters from our position, the warden accepted the counsel of his men.
With a dozen soldiers creating a phalanx of security around us, we started moving down the corridor toward a bank of elevators located around the corner to our right. But at that moment we saw a grenade go skittering across the floor of the hallway directly ahead of us.
We dove for cover as it exploded.
Then someone threw two more grenades, which detonated one after the other, shaking the building and filling the corridor with smoke and debris.
The jihadists were in the building.
I told myself not to panic. I was in good hands. The men guarding us were trained professionals.
But then a group of masked men burst through the exit doors in front of us, firing automatic weapons. The soldiers in front of us never had a chance. Four of them fell immediately, dead or dying fast. I hit the deck as the rest of the detail returned fire. I heard an explosion at the other end of the corridor. Turning to look, I saw that an exit door had just been blown to smithereens. Another group of masked rebels was storming toward us.
One by one, the members of our security team dropped to the ground. Most were dead, but some were writhing on the floor in agony. That didn’t last long. The commander of the attacking group, wearing a black hood and a flak jacket with an ISIS patch sewn on the front, drew a pistol and shot each of them dead, one by one. And then he turned to Ismail, the warden, and me.
We were all unarmed. There was no way out and no hope of mercy.
Ismail was already badly wounded, but he was a rock. He showed no fear, only a steely determination I found remarkable. But the warden was shaking. His entire body was quivering uncontrollably.
I was just as scared but forced myself to lie completely still. I kept my eyes open, though. I’m not sure why. Instinct. Fear. Shock. I really don’t know. But there was no point playing dead. I wasn’t going to fool any of these men. They were going to shoot me anyway.
With mortars still landing and one explosion after another shaking the building to its core, the warden started to beg for his life. But the hooded ISIS commander would have none of it. He ordered his men, who were surrounding us now, to tie up the warden’s hands and feet and put duct tape over his mouth to shut him up. They did the same with Ismail. Next someone opened a backpack and pulled out a tripod and video camera. Another fighter opened his backpack and set up two stands of movie lights. Instinctively, I tried to back away until I felt a boot on my neck and the barrel of an AK-47 pressed against my temple.
When I looked over and saw a bloodstained machete in the commander’s hands, I shut my eyes and waited for the end. I wish I could tell you that I prayed, that I cried out to God for mercy. But the honest truth is my mind went blank. I was too terrified to think or speak or pray or beg.
Someone kicked me hard in the stomach. I bit my tongue, trying not to cry out, but I doubled up in pain. Then I heard someone shouting at me.
“Collins! Are you Collins?”
I opened my eyes. What else was I supposed to do? The commander was standing over me, a .45 pistol at my forehead. This was it.
Again the commander shouted at me. “Are you Collins?” he demanded in a thick Syrian accent but nevertheless speaking in English.
Someone pulled the duct tape off my mouth. I tried to speak. I tried to say yes. But I couldn’t. So I just nodded and said nothing.
“Get up!”
Why? What were they going to do? Legs shaking, I struggled to get to my feet.
“Take this!” he said, putting the video camera in my hands. “Put it on the tripod. The world must know what we’ve done.”
This couldn’t be happening. They weren’t just going to make me watch them do it; they were going to make me film it.
I had no choice. I took the video camera and walked a few steps over to the tripod. I set up the camera, turned it on, and waited, but not for long. A moment later, Abu Khalif came around the corner, dressed in his orange jumpsuit.
Khalif walked over to Ismail and the warden and stopped. The terrorists were binding the Iraqi officials’ torsos and extremities with ropes and cords of some kind, making it impossible for them to move their arms and legs. The warden’s mouth was taped shut, but his eyes told me everything he was thinking and feeling. The only time I’d ever seen someone as terrified was when I watched that Syrian soldier die in front of me in Homs. Ismail, however, remained resolute. He too was bound and gagged. But he wasn’t going to beg for his life, not even with his eyes.
Khalif turned and looked at me.
“Start the recording, Mr. Collins,” he ordered.
My hands trembling, I did as I was told. What other choice did I have?
Khalif spoke directly to the camera. He wa
sn’t wearing a mask or a hood. He wasn’t trying to disguise his voice or conceal his identity. He simply spoke in the same eerie monotone with which he had spoken to me just minutes before.
“I am Abu Khalif, the emir of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” he began. “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious and the Most Compassionate, I declare today that the next phase of the liberation of Iraq has begun. We will establish a true Islamic caliphate, governed by Sharia law. We will care for the poor and set the prisoners free. We will drive out the infidels and restore the justice of the sword to those who commit treason against Allah and against the Prophet, peace be upon him.”
Someone handed him the machete.
“Today, the faithful and brave forces of ISIS have captured two of Iraq’s most vile traitors,” he continued. “As Iraq’s deputy director of intelligence, Ismail Tikriti is a criminal. He is responsible for the torture and execution of many loyal servants of Allah. He is a betrayer of all that is good and pure and righteous in the world. The warden of Abu Ghraib is equally complicit in these crimes against Allah and against the true Muslim people. These men are the epitome of corruption and arrogance, and today they will face the sword of true justice.”
I couldn’t bear to watch but was not allowed to look away.
And I knew I was next.
43
MOSUL, IRAQ
I will never be able to erase the memory of seeing a man beheaded.
It was the most revolting sight one can possibly imagine.
In the end, only Ismail Tikriti had been murdered on camera; the warden had been dragged away screaming. At some point, after vomiting so many times that I was dry heaving and gasping for air, apparently I finally blacked out. And when I woke up, I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there or how long I’d been unconscious. I was stunned that Abu Khalif had let me live, and I was emotionally traumatized in a way that defies description.
I found myself chained to a wall in a small, dank, chilly room. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized I was surrounded by filthy concrete walls and men with machine guns—men in hoods, men who began to chatter in Arabic the moment they saw me lifting my head off the wooden planks that served as my bed. Before I understood what was happening, I was hauled to my feet, which were bound in leg irons, and led—handcuffed, with duct tape over my mouth—down a dark hallway. We headed up a stairwell, through a door, and into what appeared to be a modestly appointed living room. There I was told to sit on a tattered, faded-red couch, which I did immediately. It was only then that I realized I had been stripped to my boxer shorts and a T-shirt. But the air in the room was not nearly as cold as it had been below.
As I looked around, I saw that we were on the ground floor of an apartment building. My first impression was that an old retired couple had once lived here. Perhaps we were in the flat of the parents or grandparents of one of the ISIS rebels. But this apartment clearly no longer served as anyone’s real home. There were basic accommodations and family pictures on the walls and knickknacks of various kinds here and there and even an old upright piano in the corner. But to my right, the table and chairs had been removed from the dining room. In their place were stacks of wooden crates, stamped with shipping instructions in Russian. I wondered if they were full of weapons. To my left was a cramped kitchen, but whatever appliances and cabinetry had once been there had been removed. The space was filled, instead, with rather sophisticated-looking communications equipment, computers, and hard drives.
This was a safe house.
There were no movie lights here in the living room, no tripods, and no video cameras. There were no plastic tarps on the floors or any sign of a sword or machete so far as I could see. I knew full well that could change at any moment. But since I was still alive, ISIS must want something. What that was, however, I had no idea.
A few minutes later, Abu Khalif strode into the room and sat in an old recliner. No longer wearing an orange jumpsuit, he was now wearing a traditional white robe and black- and white-checked kaffiyeh and looking very much like the Arab emir he presented himself to be, perhaps even a Palestinian one, given the color and design of this particular headdress.
“As-salamu alaykum,” he began, the standard Arabic greeting. Peace be upon you.
I did not respond, “Wa ‘alaykum-as-salam,” the standard Arabic reply. Even if I had wanted to—and I did not—my mouth was still taped shut. Several of the guards did it, though, and then Khalif ordered one of them to remove the tape.
I could speak again. I just had nothing to say.
“Welcome to Mosul,” Khalif began, taking a seat directly across from me. “Though you too are an infidel, Mr. Collins, I chose to spare your life for one very simple reason—you are still useful to me.”
He did not emphasize the word still, but it stood out to me all the same.
“I did not want the world to know ISIS had seized those chemical weapons,” he continued. “I believe Jamal Ramzy made my wishes very clear, did he not?”
He paused for me to reply.
“He did,” I said quietly.
There was no point denying it now.
“There are very few people in this world who defy a direct order from me and live,” Khalif went on. “But after your article, I realized there was no point in denying it. I realized I should be proud of our accomplishment, embrace it. We have done what Usama bin Laden and his lackey, Zawahiri, were never able to do—become an army that actually possesses weapons of mass destruction.”
I could tell he had more to say, so I remained silent.
“Here is what you are going to do,” he said. “You are going to serve the Islamic State and prove your ongoing usefulness by writing the story of my escape from captivity at the hands of the traitors to Islam. The story will be datelined from Abu Ghraib. In addition, I will permit you to write the profile of me that brought you to Iraq. That story will be datelined from Baghdad. Under no circumstances will you mention Mosul. Disobedience of any kind will be punished swiftly and severely.”
I knew what that meant. I remembered all too well the way Ismail Tikriti had died.
“You will be given a notebook computer and a quiet place to write,” Khalif went on. “When you are finished, you will be given a thumb drive to save the articles. I will personally e-mail the stories to your editor in Washington. You will have no direct contact with the outside world by e-mail, phone, or any other means for twenty-four hours.”
Against my will, my stomach suddenly growled, and I realized I was starving.
Khalif noticed. “When you are finished writing, you will be given hot lentil soup, bread, and coffee. Until then you will do nothing but write. Do you understand?”
I was offered no choice; nor did I need one. Khalif knew I would say yes. I had no desire to die in the gruesome manner I had witnessed earlier. Besides, this was precisely the story I’d come to Iraq to get.
The second story, at least. Certainly not the first.
I still said nothing. This was clearly not a dialogue or an interview. He was giving me orders. I was expected to obey, pure and simple. I nodded, and once I did, I was quickly led away by several guards. They took me to a windowless room where I found the computer Khalif had assigned to me. Then they left and locked the door behind them.
I checked but the computer had no Internet connection. Either there was no wireless network in the house, or the computer’s ability to connect with it had been disabled. I’m not sure which, and since I’m not particularly tech savvy, all I was left with was the stark realization that I was utterly alone with my thoughts.
Then I noticed my briefcase sitting in the corner. Rummaging through it, I saw that most of my things had been removed. But my notepad was still there, as was the digital recorder. So was the gift from my grandfather, still ticking. I concluded that the sooner I was finished, the sooner I would be able to eat and get out of these claustrophobic surroundings. So I got to work.
For the next seve
ral hours, I worked without a break—without coffee, water, or even the opportunity to use a restroom. I wrote the story of the prison break first, as this was the freshest in my mind. It was a first-person account and included the beheading of Ismail Tikriti, though I did not include the most graphic details. Only then did I set to work transcribing the half-hour interview with the ISIS leader and writing an accompanying profile.
When I was finished proofreading the two pieces and making some minor corrections, I knocked on the door. Two guards led me back to Khalif. He read my work and agreed to transmit it.
“You are a first-rate journalist, Mr. Collins,” he said.
I wasn’t sure how to receive a compliment from a mass murderer.
He asked me for the e-mail address of my editor in Washington, and I gave it to him. He said he would transmit the article and several of the photographs from my Nikon to Allen along with a note written in my name explaining that I was safe for the moment and writing from a “secure and undisclosed location.” Then he said that I should go have some bread and soup and get some rest.
“You will need it,” he told me. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
I didn’t ask him what he meant. I didn’t want to know.
44
The guards woke me up before dawn.
They gave me back my clothes and my toiletries and told me to follow them. They locked me in the bathroom and told me to take a shower. The water was freezing cold, so I essentially took a sponge bath instead. When I had dressed and brushed my teeth, I knocked on the door.
They let me out and took me back to the living room. The shades were shut, but I could tell it was still dark outside. As I sat down—once again in handcuffs and leg irons—a deep sense of dread and foreboding came upon me. Whatever Khalif had meant by the “big day” ahead of me had arrived.