24 I Can Read You Like a Book
to be that person. In addition, you know that this person is known as
Abulhul, or “father of despair.” That’s what the Sphinx is called in
Egyptian, by the way.
You and your buddies kick the door in and find five people in
the room having dinner—a middle-aged Iraqi male and two Iraqi
couples. Everyone in the house appears to be Iraqi because of their
physical appearance and clothing; everyone speaks an Iraqi dialect.
At this point, you have one hour to determine who the terrorist is
and get that person back to your unit.
You ask one of the men, who has a noticeable scar across his
forehead: “What do you do for a living?”
“I sell timers and radios,” he replies. He wrings his hands and
rubs his head. Have you struck gold immediately?
His cousin, one of the other men in the room, admits to being an
electronics repairman. “Don’t listen to that stupid man,” he says.
He explains that his cousin suffered a serious head injury and func-
tions only on a marginal level. He has trouble remembering words;
instead of saying clocks, he said timers. “I try to help him,” the man
says, “by giving him clocks and radios that I repair to sell.”
Suspicion now moves to the electronics repairman. You keep
an eye on him, as he taps his fingers on the table and shifts in his
chair. He clearly resents your presence, but says nothing.
You watch him out of the corner of your eye as you question
his wife. She appears to be a simple woman who gives straight-
forward answers to questions, but clearly hates Americans.