WESTERN USA
“The Beast of the East” rides a Harley.
Rory Larkin spent ten years in the Middle East conducting hostage rescue missions. Every year on the Fourth of July, he receives thank-you texts from Americans he saved from beheading. Rory Larkin is not his real name. The ex–Navy SEAL prefers not to publicize his personal heroism, living by the code of Special Forces soldiers who defer always to “brothers” in the teams who have been killed in action.
Rory is a stickler for keeping his word and living by the code of honor he learned in the military. He is single, no kids, his lone marriage to a former Playboy model a casualty to constant deployments. He has a dog named for a popular Irish whiskey. The graying warrior, now in his fifties, also has a titanium ankle, a compression fracture in his lower spine, and constant back pain, all caused by injuries suffered while stalking terrorists.
Rory Larkin also has a “rage problem.” He refers to his occasional fury as an “Irish wolfhound.” He deals with the situation by contacting other military people who have shared experiences. It’s kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous—when he feels his anger rising, he contacts someone to calm him down.
Larkin attended the United States Naval Academy and went straight to the navy’s Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training in Coronado, California, the first step in earning his trident. After completing training, the newly minted operator attended Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He doesn’t hesitate about his motivation at the time. “When you make the choice to join Special Forces you know you’re going to war. That’s why most of us join—we want to defend our country. We want to be warriors. We want to be downrange.”
But after ten years in uniform, Larkin chose to leave the service for precisely the same reason he joined: America was not at war. No amount of training could substitute for actually going into combat.
Then came 9/11.
On September 12, 2001, Larkin phoned a navy recruiter. Their initial conversation was brief: “I served as a Navy SEAL officer but resigned my commission four years ago. Can I return to the naval service?”
“How soon can you come to my office?” the recruiter replied.
“I can be there today.”
One week later, Larkin formally returned to the military. Soon, he was in Iraq, working hostage rescue missions—and not just for missing Americans. Larkin’s first operation was to rescue two Bulgarian truck drivers kidnapped in Baghdad, Iraq. He failed. The men were eventually beheaded by al-Qaeda and found floating in the Tigris River; the ransom demand for their return was not paid.
Rory Larkin is openly critical of the US State Department and, in particular, the FBI, which focused their efforts on Americans only. He claims he took “calculated risks” but, just to be sure, carried three guns at all times—a rifle, a pistol, and a small 10mm handgun hidden on his ankle—“so I had a gun if I was thrown into the trunk of a car.”
Larkin constantly went “outside the wire”—secure US bases within Iraq and Afghanistan—with Special Forces teams to gather intelligence. “When SEALs or Green Berets go out at night, they are hunting,” he says. “They believe their skills are the best. Special Forces go out because we want to be in the fight. We carried on our shoulders guilt and remorse when we couldn’t be in the fight.”
Larkin well remembers the morning he awakened to reports that a CIA “spy” was in the hands of al-Qaeda. The year was 2006. He opened a video link and saw an Iraqi local tied to a small chair. A sign with the handwritten letters “CIA” dangled from his neck by a string. The handheld footage was grainy, and the images wobbly. One captor held up a small brown identity card for the camera. At the bottom was a yellow strip, signifying that the man was allowed to enter the US Green Zone in Baghdad. In essence, the Iraqi was being accused of being a spy because he cleaned toilets for the Americans.
“This is for all of you,” the terrorist captor said. A small group of jihadis stepped into the frame, gathering for a group photo around the terrified man tied to the chair. “Like it was a trophy hunt,” Larkin remembers.
The lead terrorist then lifted a three-foot broadsword from a table behind him. Raising it high, he brought the sword down on the “spy’s” neck.
While telling the story, Larkin’s voice becomes measured but enraged. “The guy’s head falls to the floor, and there’s blood spraying everywhere, and these guys are dancing around in a frenzy, all of them chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘God is great.’”
Larkin, a Roman Catholic, finds these last moments of the five-minute video the hardest to watch. “I just don’t understand how a religion can glorify murder.”
In all, Rory Larkin worked 448 cases involving kidnapped hostages from all nations. “No day was normal; they were all different, but they usually started with a beheading video.” He spent ten years in the Middle East before returning home, taking with him a case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but leaving behind the “Beast of the East” nickname earned for his unstoppable work ethic.
After all his years in the field, Rory Larkin is reflective on the battle against terrorism.
“How we wage war and how the terrorists see it are completely different. It’s about ideology and has everything to do with religion. These are hard-core fundamentalists. Their religion drives them to kill—they even murder people who share the same faith. Iraqi victims of this terror are in the tens of thousands since 2003. No one making US and coalition strategy in the Middle East wants to say this, but religion is the difference.
“Let’s put it this way: those brothers of mine who carried out the bin Laden raid and got al-Baghdadi are the baddest MFers on the planet. No one badder. Every time they get on a bird to fly into a mission, they know there’s a good chance they could die. But we were willing to die for our cause; [the terrorists] wanted to die for theirs.”
Larkin chooses his next words carefully.
“The Special Forces fighting terror carry the burden of the greatest generation, which was our grandfathers in World War II. They fought with honor, and their victory was decisive. We strive to uphold the standards of our forefathers in Vietnam—and I have yet to meet a Special Forces operator from that war who was not successful on every mission.
“We always held ourselves to those high moral and ethical standards. No matter how bad a situation gets on a mission, my brothers would never dream of strapping on a suicide vest to kill.”
After six years, torment remains for Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of Kayla. They still live in the same house on the hill where she grew up. Both are retired. They make it a point to stay busy. Their son, twenty-nine-year-old Eric, lives nearby. Carl is still active in the Prescott, Arizona, Kiwanis Club. But all his activities are shrouded by images of Kayla.
“Around here there’s not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. I truly suffer because I couldn’t get her home,” Carl explains. He is gray-haired and lean, still uncomfortable talking about his daughter’s death. “I just feel like a failure. It’s hard to lose her, and every day I think of that. It’s not the retirement we expected.
“We’re taking things one day at a time. We go on because Kayla would want us to go on.”
Time has not softened Carl and Marsha’s anger over Kayla’s murder. They believe her death was preventable and are now more openly critical of the US government’s handling of Kayla’s disappearance than they were before. Both are patriotic and, before Kayla’s abduction, not the sort of people to question the government. But that has changed.
“Kayla and the other hostages were the first Americans that illuminated the terrible nuisance of terrorism to the world,” Carl Mueller told the authors of this book. “The way the hostages suffered and the way the government handled it was all just a real debacle. America should have done what other countries do—get their people home.”
It is obvious that Kayla’s father replays the horror constantly. He is haunted by what happened. “I think we had eleven or twelve emails back and forth with ISIS. They wanted to get rid of Kayla. They wanted to send her home. But the Obama administration stopped us at every turn. They said they were doing everything they could to bring the American hostages home. We heard that from the FBI, we heard that from Lisa Monaco at Homeland Security, we heard that from President Obama.
“But they weren’t.”
Marsha Mueller adds this: “My faith in our government, my belief in everything they told us, changed. Because I realized Carl had been right all along. He would get mad at me because I had such belief in our government. He would tell me that politicians and bureaucrats weren’t going to bring Kayla home. But I believed those people when they told me they would. It’s heartbreaking when I go back to that. A parent should be there for their child. But the government was after al-Baghdadi, and Kayla was their ticket to him. They just wouldn’t say so.“
Carl and Marsha Mueller did not see caution flags when Kayla first chose to work in the Middle East. It was their daughter’s nature to help people in need, a pursuit that gave her life purpose and joy. Marsha remembers that her daughter’s passion for helping others began in high school, where she received silver and gold presidential awards for volunteer service. After securing a $500 prize for being named Yavapai County Student of the Year, she immediately donated the money to the home for troubled youth where she was working. While at Northern Arizona University, Kayla traveled to Guatemala with the Christian youth ministry and became so determined to help others that she returned to school and graduated in two and a half years—so that she might quickly go out into the world.
Kayla Mueller endured typhoid in India, learned French because many aid agencies require the language, and wrote poems about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a journal her parents would not discover until after her death.
“Our country gives so much to so many other countries because we have so much money,” Kayla’s mother says. “These young American kids are encouraged—and they were especially encouraged by the Obama administration—to go into the world and volunteer. But yet, when they do, and something happens to them, there’s no one there to help them. They’re all alone. And there’s no place for parents to go for help when this happens. That’s wrong. There needs to be some way. We just can’t leave them out there all alone.”
Marsha continues: “I’d always say to her, Kayla, just remember, put the oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on others. But she always gave someone help before she did anything for herself.”
Marsha also remembers a conversation with Kayla the last time she came home for a visit, Christmas 2012. “She had this mindset of, ‘What are we doing? Why can’t we get along? Why can’t we agree to disagree and just figure out some way to make something for the good of everyone instead of just destruction, destruction?’”
The Muellers’ frustration with America’s handling of the hostage situation began shortly after Kayla’s kidnapping, in August 2013. President Obama would not initially meet with the Muellers and the other parents of hostages. “The administration had blinders on and did not believe that ISIS was a threat,” says Kayla’s father. “They just thought they were powerless thugs, and they called them ‘the JV team.’ And because of that, and because they didn’t act, thousands and thousands of people were killed. Thousands of young Yazidi girls in Iraq were raped and sold from one soldier to the next.”
Marsha adds: “President Obama wouldn’t see us in the spring of 2014, when Kayla had already been held for six months. Even as we negotiated with ISIS through the FBI, the administration slammed the door on us at every turn.”*
Having no alternative, the Muellers continued working with government officials to secure their daughter’s release. But, increasingly, they became frustrated and bitter—especially with ISIS taunting them on social media.
Then, a turning point in July 2014: the Special Forces raid on a suspected ISIS hideout in Syria came up empty.† But the rescue attempt infuriated the ISIS captors. And they stepped up their threats against Kayla.
Carl Mueller remembers: “When they did this raid, on the Fourth of July in real life, which we were not informed about, ISIS sent us an email on the eleventh or twelfth, stating that ‘because of what your arrogant government has done, Kayla has just thirty days to live.’”
The anger in Carl Mueller’s voice rises. “I called the FBI negotiator and asked him about the raid. I don’t believe he had any idea what I was talking about. But the administration continued to deny that the raid ever took place, even after Jim Foley was beheaded one month later. So, in order to save face, we finally got a call from the Obama administration, saying the news of the raid had just leaked and they wanted us to know ahead of time.
“This is how we were treated.” ‡
Month after month, the Muellers continued to suffer, knowing their only daughter was in mortal danger. There was no relief, no rest. Carl Mueller defines the situation:
“I think it was September nineteenth of 2014 we got an email from ISIS saying that Kayla’s release was still obtainable. This would have probably been right before she was removed from the prison a day or two later and sent to the home where al-Baghdadi visited. The FBI saw that email, and I’m positive President Obama received a copy, too. But right after that, he started bombing within Syria, and all communication stopped.”
Kayla’s father then recalled the moment he heard on his car radio that the United States Senate had released a study about the torture of captured terrorist suspects. Immediately, Carl thought that put Kayla’s life in danger. “It was two years in the making. Senator Feinstein released it. I have since found out that President Obama had to sign off on it before it was released. I’ll never forget that day. I was heading into town. Shocked me so much. I pulled off to the side of the road. I had Senator John McCain’s cell number in my phone, and I called him. I said, ‘Senator, what’s Feinstein doing? Doesn’t she realize that my daughter is being held by the very comrades of the people she says we torture? Can you imagine what those hostages are enduring from those people now that this report has been released?’” *
Finally, staying in Arizona was too painful for the Muellers. They spent the rest of 2014 traveling the world at their own expense in a desperate attempt to save their daughter: Washington, Turkey, and Qatar. The purpose of their journey was to arrange a ransom for Kayla. They traveled as private citizens, not involving the American government. Along the way, they heard that ISIS was anxious to get rid of Kayla. She represented a liability and put them at high risk.
“We heard they just wanted to get rid of her,” remembers Marsha. “And whether it’s Mexico or the Middle East, they don’t call it ransom, they call it barter. That’s the way they do a deal. They barter. And we were being told the US didn’t pay ransom to terrorists, when in fact, it has been going on all along. The US government doesn’t want to admit it, but they always paid ransom or had somebody pay it for them. That’s why we were in Qatar—to find someone to do it for us.
“We traveled to Qatar to try and save our daughter,” says Carl. “We did it without the government’s consent. They told us they couldn’t protect us and that we were on our own. We met with several officials in the Qatar government. The last important individual we met was their foreign minister. He came into the room and introduced himself. And he said that before the meeting, he wanted to let me know he just got off the phone with Secretary of State John Kerry.
“He informed me that Qatar would not help us pay ransom.”
That shocking statement almost caused Marsha Mueller to collapse. She couldn’t speak. The Muellers both believed that somehow John Kerry had intruded on any deal.
Marsha adds one final disturbing statement: “The government knew who it was that took Kayla out of the prison and was raping her. But they didn’t tell us that. Instead, they led us to believe that they had a proof of life and that she was relatively okay.
“I remember asking the FBI agent who used those words, what exactly did he mean by ‘relatively’? And the person answered: ‘poor choice of words.’” *
Then came the dreaded outcome. Kayla Mueller was murdered in February 2015.
Her parents changed their focus from rescuing Kayla to bringing her body home. There was little activity for the next two years. However, in January 2017, the Muellers gained access to the new Trump administration. They met with Vice President Mike Pence, CIA Director (and later secretary of state) Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, and, eventually, President Trump himself.
“I truly believe that if they would have been in power when Kayla was first taken, she would be here. I truly believe that,” says Carl.
The search for Kayla Mueller’s body is ongoing. COVID-19 has hindered overseas travel, but the Muellers remain determined to find their daughter. They also continue to be mired in an unending tragedy—unable to close the terror-induced nightmare.
To ease their pain, Carl and Marsha Mueller are now campaigning for new laws. They want the world to unite against terror: “There are no laws that pertain to what these terrorists are doing, and they know it. They use our legal system against us, they use our morals against us, and they reveled not only in holding our daughter and making her life miserable but making us miserable as well. From those [ISIS] emails, I could tell they just enjoy having Americans in the palm of their hand and squeezing them.”
Interview complete, Carl adds one final word. “Most people go through life with blinders on. They care only about what color their next SUV is going to be. Or their next house. Or whatever else. They don’t want to know about ISIS.”
Then, Kayla Mueller’s father shared with the authors a very personal piece of wisdom from his daughter. It came in a poem she wrote before going to the Middle East.
“If we can’t handle learning about the darkest places in the world, they will turn into the darkest places in ourselves.”
Carl and Marsha Mueller, whose daughter, Kayla, was taken hostage and murdered by ISIS, make remarks during the fourth and final day of the Republican National Convention on Thursday, August 27, 2020.