John Walker Lindh

[dramatic music] I'm Raza Jaffrey, and this is The Spy Who, an Audible Original.

In the last episode, the CIA's Team Alpha helped the Northern Alliance take Mazar-i-Sharif, and the Taliban agreed to surrender the pivotal city of Kunduz and hand over hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda fighters.

But then, those prisoners rose up, overwhelming their guards.

Now, CIA officer Mike Spann is dead, and his colleague, David Tyson, is trapped in the fortress of Qala Jangi, overrun with armed Al-Qaeda militants.

He's lying on the floor, his rifle pointed out through a large window on the upper floors of the fort's headquarters.

Behind him, a small wooden staircase leads down to where German TV reporter Arnim Stout is taking cover with his crew.

Tyson's eyes are fixed on the small gateway that separates the northern half of the fortress from the southern half, where the Al-Qaeda fighters are.

It's about 100 yards away.

I worked at the Justice Department as an ethics advisor.

And in the aftermath of 9/11, I was called about giving ethics advice on the interrogation of the so-called American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, an American who had been caught abroad fighting, supposedly, with terrorists.

And by that point, there were pictures circulating worldwide of him blindfolded, naked, bound to a board with duct tape, with epithets written on his body.

It was clear he was being tortured.

Yeah.

Jess, I wanna reiterate this in case our listeners didn't fully understand.

John Walker Lindh was an American citizen.

He was grabbed by the FBI overseas in... by the military and then he... overseas in Afghanistan.