>>SERE
posted 9:38 PM
Tito watched the old man fold the copy of the New York Times he’d been reading. The light was going. Fading above this other ocean, the Pacific, which Tito had never seen before.
“I remember proofs of a CIA interrogation manual, something we’d been sent unofficially, for comment,” the old man said. “The first chapter laid out the ways in which torture is fundamentally counterproductive to intelligence. The argument had nothing to do with ethics, everything to do with quality and depth of product, with not squandering potential assets.” He removed his gold-rimmed glasses. “If the man who keeps returning to question you avoids behaving as if he were your enemy, you begin to lose your sense of who you are. Gradually, in the crisis of self that your captivity becomes, he guides you in your discovery of who you are becoming.”
“Did you interrogate people, yourself?” asked Garreth. The three of them were seated in the back of an open jeep, the black Pelican case under Garreth’s feet.
“No,” said the old man, “I only reviewed the product. It’s a terribly intimate process. An ordinary cigarette lighter will cause a man to tell you anything, whatever he thinks you want to hear. And will prevent him ever trusting you again, even slightly. And will confirm him, in his sense of self, as few things will.” He tapped the folded paper. “When I first saw what they were doing, I knew that they’d turned the SERE lessons inside out. That meant that we were using techniques the Koreans had specifically developed in order to prepare prisoners for show trials.” He fell silent.
Tito heard the lapping of waves.
williamgibsonbooks.com |
