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He drove very slowly, which made me nervous. After a few minutes of silence, he began talking about the interrogations and our investigation. We discussed the evidence we were building up and the progress that was being made. Eventually he said to me, “I believe Quso is a good, simple youth. I believe that Badawi is the man who needs to be prosecuted.”

It was strange that he was trying to portray Quso as a good person and place the blame on Badawi. “Well, it seems that there are a lot of people who are bad and are involved,” I replied, and he returned to the hotel without raising the topic again.

Ansi also got agitated when our investigation led us to al-Qaeda sympathizers among Yemeni officials. At one point we interrogated two Yemeni police officials, Yasser al-Surruri and Mohammed al-Murakab, who, under questioning, admitted to having helped terrorists obtain fraudulent passports. We had found these two officials through Quso’s friend Mamoun al-Musouwah, the corrupt policeman. As I emerged from the session with Surruri and Murakab that had yielded that information, I saw Ansi—in the courtyard of the PSO prison where we were conducting the interrogation—and asked, “Can we have the pictures of the operatives Surruri and Murakab identified?”

“No.”

“Why? They’re possible suspects and we need to look into them.”

“No,” Ansi repeated. “Why are they important, anyway? You don’t know if they’re involved. Just because they have beards, it doesn’t mean they’re terrorists.”

“You’re missing the point,” I replied. “These are known al-Qaeda members getting fraudulent documents. Surruri and Murakah already admitted it. And, yes, they are terrorists.” The next time we spoke to Surruri and Murakab, Ansi yelled at them for speaking directly to us rather than to Yemeni interrogators and slapped Murakab.

Ansi later complained that, by talking directly to suspects, we were violating the rules agreed upon by David Kelley and the judge, as the rules spelled out that we were to ask the Yemeni officials our questions for them to repeat. But this system soon broke down: once we had established rapport with the Yemeni interrogators, they saw no reason for us not to ask questions directly. It was comical for me to ask a question in Arabic and then for the Yemenis to repeat it; it made no sense and just wasted time. Even the suspects got frustrated.

Our problems with Ansi continued to multiply. One day, when I arrived with FBI agent Andre Khoury to conduct interrogations, a PSO guard told us apologetically, “Sorry, there will be no interrogations today.” I asked why. “Hussein Ansi told us so.” Again I asked why. “We don’t know. That’s just what he ordered us to say.”

Andre and I went looking for Ansi and found him at his desk, reading the Quran. “Good morning, Hussein,” I said to him as pleasantly as I could. “We were told there would be no interrogations today. What’s going on?”

“I am busy today,” he replied, a smirk briefly crossing his face.

“I can see,” I said, pointing to the Quran. “It is heavenly work you are busy with.” He smiled. “So we can’t talk to suspects today?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. We both smiled, continuing the pretense.

I started walking around his office. His desk was opposite the door; chairs and couches surrounded it. Behind were bookshelves filled with memorabilia, books, and binders. I paused in front of one of the bookshelves. Ansi tried to look at the Quran but kept nervously glancing up to see what I was doing. I pretended not to notice him looking and started removing memorabilia and books, as if I were interested in their content. After taking out something, I would deliberately put it back in the wrong place. Andre did the same.

“Don’t touch my things,” Ansi said after about a minute, his eyes flashing in anger. It apparently drove him crazy that we were ruining the organization of the shelves.

“He has nothing else to do,” Andre said with a smile, “so he is going to mess up your office until you give him something to do.”

“Okay, okay,” Ansi replied. “You have access to the prisoners.”

“Thank