Extraordinary Rendition (10 page)

Hal Rana held up his right hand, as if giving a pause signal. “Much of what the government has is national security material. There are documents and surveillance tapes, for example, that are highly confidential and not discoverable in a terrorism case.”

Byron Johnson spoke into the pause after Rana’s voice trailed off. “If that’s the case, then how does the government ever plan to prove these complicated, very serious charges?”

Justin Goldberg said, “I imagine that the government believes it can prove its case in a more focused way than by advancing what Mr. Rana describes as not just one but many mountains of evidence.”

“You know, Judge, in many ways it doesn’t matter at this stage what the evidence is that Mr. Rana wants to use to prove his case at trial. What matters is, in fairness, to give Mr. Ali the opportunity to review the evidence that has already been put together and that could be used against him, not just the evidence selected by the government that it will use against him at trial. We need to look at those mountains of evidence to identify and follow leads, to go down avenues that might be useful to defending Mr. Ali, to ask questions and raise issues. Even to find material that exonerates him.”

“That’s a nice speech, Judge,” Hal Rana said. “It would be a nice idea in the typical big civil case Mr. Johnson is a master of, but this is a criminal case, a unique one, the first of its kind in an American court, with serious consequences for the security of this country.”

“Serious consequences?” Byron asked. “This is a death penalty case. That’s a direct, serious consequence to Mr. Ali—death—not some nebulous possibility that national security will be jeopardized.”

Justin Goldberg’s voice was abrupt. “Enough speeches. Here is what we are going to do. Mr. Rana will write me a letter detailing the information the government has about Mr. Ali, the charges in the indictment, and an overview of the national security interests that might be implicated. After I review that letter, we will have another conference.”

“When will I have a chance to respond to the letter?”

Justin Goldberg feigned surprise. “To respond to the letter? You’ve missed something, Mr. Johnson. Mr. Rana’s letter is for me only, at least at this stage. It will contain, I’m sure, national security information that can’t be shared with you or your client.”

Byron felt angry, but he controlled the tenor of his voice. “I have to object, so the record is clear, to the procedure. One-sided communication from the prosecution to the Court? That was unfair two hundred years ago, and it’s unfair today.”

Justin Goldberg said, “You’ve made your record clear, counselor. We’re adjourned.”

He stood, looked at Byron Johnson as if he were an alien presence, and left the courtroom.

Ali Hussein, moving awkwardly in the bulletproof vest that encased his arms and chest, was literally hustled out of the courtroom. Five United States Marshals, all in combat-style uniforms, surrounded him so closely that the collective movement of their bodies seemed to lift Hussein off his feet and carry him into the holding area. Somewhere—probably in Herman Melville—Byron had read a description of a sudden, unexpected death as the
bundling out of life
. Those were the words that came to his mind as he followed closely behind the group of men whose large bodies almost hid Ali Hussein.

As Hussein was handcuffed to a horizontal bar that ran along one of the walls in the holding area, Byron asked, “Who said I can have only ten minutes with him?”

The oldest of the guards, a man whose name was sewn into the fabric over the left shirt pocket of his uniform, said, “It doesn’t matter who said it. It’s ten minutes.”

Byron glanced at him, suppressing a flash of anger. He asked, “Officer, can we take off the vest?”

“Not a chance. Not until he’s back in his cell.”

Almost deferentially—he didn’t want to lose the opportunity to spend even ten minutes with Hussein—Byron asked, “Can we at least have enough room for a private conversation?”

Still in a crescent formation around Byron and Hussein, the five guards stepped backwards, almost in military formation. The M-16s each of them carried were pointed downward. Byron could smell traces of cordite and gun grease.

When he pressed close enough to Hussein so that they could whisper to each other, Byron Johnson smelled yet another odor in the room. Ali Hussein, who had been so calm
and passive in Miami during their conferences, smelled of sweat, of fear, of rancid and poorly digested food. His dark eyes rapidly darted from the five armed men to Byron.

Byron said, “You understand what happened in there?”

The precise, terse certainty with which Ali Hussein usually spoke was gone. “I’m not sure, I’m confused.”

“Did you listen?”

“I thought they were talking about somebody else. Not me.”

“Do you know what they’re accusing you of?”

“Money, Mr. Johnson. I don’t know anything about money except how to count it for other people. I’m a bookkeeper.”

“Do you want me to tell you what money laundering is?”

“It’s all a fantasy, Mr. Johnson. I lived in New Jersey, I took care of my family, I worked, I went to Germany for two weeks. These people are crazy, Mr. Johnson.”

“These people say that huge amounts of money—cash, wires, checks—were sent to you and that you in turn arranged to send that money all over the world. Did that happen?”

“Never, no. How could I do that?”

“These people say you took instructions from clerics and sleeper terrorist agents who you knew were directing money for terrorist training and attacks. Is that true?”

Their faces were close together. Ali’s breath was foul. He was sweating. So was Byron. “No.”

“They say you arranged to put cash into the hands of Mohammad Atta so that he could pay flight schools for training before nine-eleven.” Byron paused. “And is that true?”

“Mr. Johnson, I liked living in this country. I had friends here. My kids went to school here. I liked my work. These people are crazy.”

“Is it true, Ali, that you arranged to put cash into the hands of Mohammad Atta?”

“No, never.”

“Do you understand that they want to execute you? Kill you?”

Hussein’s black eyes were sunk even deeper in the dark pouches that encircled them. He nodded. His lips were dry. Byron saw the tiny, moistureless cracks on the man’s upper lip, like cracks in the soil in a place of drought.

Hussein whispered, “There was a man in that courtroom who used to come to see me.”

“See you where?”

“Wherever I was. He followed me from place to place.”

“What man?” Byron tried to recall the faces of the very few people who were in the sealed courtroom. There were five or six men, all seated in the gallery. It was clear to Byron Johnson that they were government agents, since no one else would have been allowed there. Armed guards had stood at the doors to the courtroom. Byron had barely noticed them, since when he was at work in a courtroom he was completely focused on the people in front of him—the judge, the jury, the stenographer, the witness—and not on the people behind him. Look forward, not backward.

“Older than the others.”

“I wasn’t paying attention to them.”

“The one with the mustache and the three-piece suit.”

“What do you want to tell me about him? Do you know his name?”

“I haven’t known anybody’s name except yours, Mr. Johnson, for years.”

Byron whispered, “We don’t have much time today. We need to start talking about these charges, you need to help me understand the facts so that I can defend you.”

Ali Hussein said in an intense whisper: “He used to spend hours and hours with me. He asked me questions all the time. He asked me questions about the
Koran
, about where I was born, who my relatives were, and where I traveled. He asked me about the names of banks, mosques, airports, people.”

“And?”

“I never said anything.”

Byron stared at him. “That doesn’t mean he won’t swear that you told him things. You understand that, don’t you?”

“He was the one who beat me.”

“I know, you said that.”

“He is a very strong man, Mr. Johnson.”

“When was the last time he hit you?”

“Just before I was taken to Miami.”

“Did he use his hands or a weapon, a stick, a baton?”

“His hands. And he used water.”

Water?
It was only after the invasion of Iraq that Byron had first read in the
New York Times
about waterboarding. He understood that it involved forcing a man’s head under water so that he feared he was being drowned. There was no way, Byron thought, that this sweating, frightened man could ever have heard the word waterboarding. He had spent years in total isolation. “Tell me more.”

“I was tied up and lowered into water. I started suffocating. Water filled my nose and my mouth and then my lungs. I couldn’t even scream.”

“Did that man do it?”

“No. He had other people do it.”

“Where was he?”

“Always there. He decided when they could pull my face up out of the water.”

Byron imagined that anyone near him in this fetid room could smell his own fear. The ten minutes were rapidly coming to a close. “Is any of this happening now?”

Again Hussein ignored that question, too. “There were times, Mr. Johnson, when there was a video camera in the room when this man was with me.”

“What was happening?”

“He was talking, I was sitting. But the video camera was also there when I was pushed down into the water.”

Abruptly the lead guard said, “That’s it, fellas. The show’s over for today.”

The plaza at the front of the impressive new federal courthouse—a congested area of old Manhattan where the other courthouses were all constructed almost a century ago—was teeming with news vans with tall antennas, reporters, onlookers, and dozens of men and women in uniform. On the fringes of the plaza were the ancient Chinese men and women who always seemed to be there, exercising, stretching and gyrating. The warren of streets and alleys that was Chinatown was so close that it almost extended to the steps of the courthouses. The old men and women were, as ever, mute and oblivious to anything happening near them.

Given the size and closeness of all the buildings, the plaza was steeped in shadow even on a bright day. Byron had hoped
to find a rear door from which he could leave the highly secure courthouse, but there wasn’t one that he was authorized to use. He had to leave through the revolving doors at the main entrance, stepping out onto a slightly elevated set of steps. Every eye and camera seemed to turn instantly in his direction. He was ready for this. He had decided, remembering Sandy Spencer’s harsh and critical words, that this time he wasn’t going to act like a deer caught in the headlights.

As several people surged forward in his direction, he paused at the top of the stairs. Microphones were thrust up toward him, and reporters, some of whom he recognized from the television broadcasts he sometimes flipped through at night, raised their voices, asking questions. He found himself unexpectedly calm, with no tremor of the stage fright that had seized him on the steps of the courthouse in Miami.

He heard a strong voice ask: “Who are you?”

“My name is Byron Johnson,” he said. “I represent Ali Hussein. Mr. Hussein has just been indicted, after years in total isolation during which he was brutalized by government agents. He is accused of serious offenses, and I’m here to do all I can to see to it that, even though all the scales of government power are weighed against him, there will be some element of fairness in his trial.”

A sleek black woman extended a microphone toward him. “How long have you represented Mr. Hussein?”

“Several weeks.”

A man’s voice, more strident, interrupted the black woman before she could ask another question. “Does your client know he faces the death penalty?”

“He does.”

“How did he find out?”

“He learned that precisely fifteen minutes ago in Judge Goldberg’s courtroom.”

Another voice overrode the others: “What was his reaction?”

Byron knew he had to stay composed, deliberate, and focused, despite the turmoil and noise surrounding him. “Mr. Hussein is a human being. He lived peacefully and productively for many years in this country before he was snatched up into years of confinement at various places in the world. How did he react? Quietly. But it’s reasonable to assume that Mr. Hussein, as would anyone else, is very disturbed to learn that someone wants to put him to death. Particularly if that someone is a government that has held him totally incommunicado, isolated from friends, relatives, human contact.”

“Is it true that your client met Osama bin Laden?”

“He’s not accused of that. That claim isn’t in the indictment.”

There was a tumult of questions. But one rang out so decisively that Byron had to pay attention: “Why are you representing him?”

It was a question Byron had known he’d be asked at some point. He wasn’t famous in the way that some lawyers were in an age of televised obsession with trials and crime, but who he was and what he did were not secrets. Google, Bing, and other search engines made it a simple exercise to pull his name and details about him from the vast storehouse of information in the ether. Anyone in his profession who looked at the twenty or so entries for him would have been impressed by his credentials and his experience, but to journalists dealing with the huge story of a terrorist accused of a crime in a United States
court, Byron’s credentials and experience would have mystified them. There were criminal lawyers in America who were almost household names. Byron had labored for years in a rarefied field, dealing in cases remote from the trials broadcast on Court TV or discussed at night on CNN and Fox. Until now, Byron had never once appeared on television. It had never crossed his mind to seek out an interview on television, even though the public relations firm that SpencerBlake had hired urged him to do it.

Byron answered, “I was asked to do this by civil liberties organizations, by Mr. Hussein’s family, and of course by Mr. Hussein himself.”