The Prisoner of Guantanamo (4 page)

Yet, for whatever reason, Adnan had clung to the one piece of information Falk wanted most: the name of his sponsor from Sana's local al-Qaeda cell. Not the propagandist or imam who had sold him on the idea of jihad in Afghanistan, but his sugar daddy and bankroller. Because somewhere higher up in Falk's chain of command, either in Langley or Foggy Bottom or at the Pentagon, the high priests had concluded that Adnan's paymaster was someone important, a face card without a face in their well-thumbed deck. So they wanted the name, of course, and the sooner the better. Which meant that Adnan, despite the scoffing among Falk's peers, was still a regular customer, even if lately all they seemed to discuss was home, or growing up, or the special way that his mother cooked lamb for the holidays.

This morning, Falk saw to his pleasure, Adnan was already adrift, looking neither right nor left, but totally relaxed. Now if Falk could just get the young man to take the next step and look him in the eye. For a while he tried small talk, gradually working his way around to the question that always stumped them. It was shortly before 3:10 a.m. when Falk made his play.

“So who was your sponsor, Adnan?” he asked coolly during a pause. “Who was Mister Moneybags with the air tickets and the big talk? The man with the plan?”

Adnan, caught off guard, briefly looked up from the table, eyes expressing mild betrayal. Then he shrugged, looking down again. At least it was better than his usual reaction, which was to look upward to his right and say, “I don't remember.”

On previous occasions Falk had tried coaxing him further with treats, but treats had only made him babble more about home. Perhaps Falk had become a pushover. Even when dealing with a sensitive case like Adnan, putting a little steel in your voice never hurt from time to time.

“Maybe we should ask your sisters, then. What do you think, Adnan? Shall we send someone to Sana to say hello? They'd probably know, wouldn't they?”

Adnan looked up at Falk, glaring. It wasn't as if Falk would actually go that route—security goons of the home government bashing down a door, grabbing the first young women they found. But Adnan didn't know that, and now he was glancing at the two-way mirror as if someone else might be the source of this new approach.

“No one back there tonight, Adnan. Just you and me and the bedbugs. But the time for snacks and laughs is over. You know me and I know you, and you know what I need to help get you safely out of here. So level with me. 'Cause you know what? I won't be here forever, and the moment you get a new boss then they really will start thinking about asking your family a few questions. And you know as well as I do that the Yemeni Interior Ministry won't be handing out any baklava. So what do you say, Adnan? Who's the man?”

Adnan stared back angrily, yet he also seemed on the verge of some other emotion. It was an expression unlike any Falk had yet seen. Adnan looked down at the table for a few seconds, as if marshaling his thoughts, and when he looked up he was calmer.

“All right, then. I will tell you.” He paused, looking directly at Falk, who didn't dare reach for pen or notebook. “It is Hussein. His name is Hussein.”

“Hussein?”

“Yes.”

“And what else? Hussein
what
? His full name, Adnan.”

“That is all you need.”

“Which narrows it down to a few thousand Husseins.”

Christ, he'd been had.

“Not Hus-
sein.
Hus-
SAY.
”

Hussay? Now what the hell kind of name was that? Some Yemeni variant? If so, it was none Falk had ever come across, although he had already learned repeatedly how little he really knew about the country's various cultural tics. Perhaps the name was unusual enough that it would really help, so he'd better make sure he had it cold.

“Hu-
say
? Is that it? Or Hu-
sie
? Say it again, slower.”

“Hussay!” Adnan shouted it, slapping a hand on the table. Then he scowled and shook his head, annoyed and upset. His leg irons clanked. “I have given you a great gift, and you are too stupid to see it,” he said, his voice rising on every word. “A great gift! Because my secrets, they are just like yours!”

“Like mine?” It made no sense, yet it was oddly disconcerting.

“Do you not see it? Are you so stupid?”

Falk had never seen the like of it. Adnan was fairly spluttering with rage, a liveliness he had always hoped for but never expected.

It was at this point that Mitch Tyndall had waltzed through the door, smelling of a shower, a shave, and the humidity of the night, brisk as a game show host as he smiled and pointed to his watch, tapping the face of an oversized Rolex.

“Sorry to interrupt, buddy, but I left a notebook in here earlier. And I've got a big fish coming in from solitary in about five minutes. So if you don't mind …”

Obviously he hadn't been watching from next door, much less monitoring their conversation with an interpreter. He'd simply barged in, assuming as everyone always did that any conversation with Adnan was expendable.

Falk would have leaped to his feet cursing had he not been so desperate to salvage the moment. As it was, he clung tightly to his seat with both hands. But one glance at Adnan told him the cause was lost. The young man was staring at him, dumbfounded, with a crestfallen look of betrayal. Hadn't Falk just told him that only the two of them were here? That no one else would know? So Adnan had presented his “great gift,” no matter how cryptic, only to be greeted by this smiling lout in a suit.

Falk snapped.

“Goddamn it, Mitch! Just five minutes, okay? Five fucking minutes and I'm out of your hair.”

Tyndall backpedaled, the smile fading but not gone. No one was ever supposed to lose face in front of the detainees. This type of dressing-down was strictly verboten.

“Easy, fella.” He glanced again at his watch. “It's right there in the back. I'll just pick it up and go. I'm outta here.”

Falk didn't answer, didn't even nod. And when the door shut he looked imploringly back at Adnan, trying to convey outrage and apology in a single expression.

“I didn't know,” he said. “I really didn't know. And I'm sure he didn't hear a word, or he never would have interrupted. He's an asshole in a hurry, that's all. A walking joke.”

Adnan didn't see the humor, of course. And some of Falk's hasty vernacular probably hadn't translated into Arabic as smoothly as he would have liked. What, indeed, would the concept of a “walking joke” mean to a Yemeni?

Adnan wouldn't say another word, and when the MP returned to escort him back he placed his arms around himself in an unwitting imitation of a straitjacket, refusing to meet Falk's glance as he glared toward the open door.

Fabulous, Falk thought. Just great. Nothing like wasting weeks of work. He was sure that was what had just transpired. Adnan's “great gift” now lay in ruins upon the table, still a mystery beyond the single name of “Hussay.”

He left the booth before Tyndall returned, not wanting to risk a confrontation if he saw the man's face again. His footsteps crunched angrily across the gravel, emotions sizzling as he waited for the MP to unlock each and every gate. And now, back at the house, having just hung up the phone on Tyndall's “peace offering,” he grabbed a second beer and strode back onto the lawn, still trying to cool the heat of his anger.

But what was this now, coming toward him in the dark? Headlights were approaching from the direction of the camp. It was a Humvee, judging from the wide spacing of the lights, rolling past the golf course, then pausing before turning up his street, Iguana Terrace. It moved slowly, deliberately. A business call for sure.

The beams crossed him in a blinding flash as the vehicle swerved into the small driveway. Falk considered his appearance—khakis and black polo, hair damp from perspiration. A soldier stepped from the driver's seat and headed for the front door. Somehow he hadn't spotted Falk on the lawn, and now he was knocking briskly, big knuckles rattling the screen.

“Out here, soldier.”

A gasp of surprise, the soldier turning quickly. Falk wondered if he was reaching for a sidearm, but couldn't tell in the darkness.

“Mr. Falk, sir?”

“That's me. At ease, soldier. And you don't have to call me sir.”

“Yes, sir.” Flat accent. Yet another Midwesterner.

Falk strolled closer, feet tingling on the grass. He pulled open the creaking screen and motioned the man to follow him indoors, where the air was thick enough to choke on. When Falk flipped on the ceiling fan it was like stirring a kettle of warm soup. He turned toward the door, but the soldier was still out on the porch.

“Well, come on in.”

“Actually, sir, I'm here to pick you up.”

“Trouble inside the wire?”

The soldier hesitated.

“Well?” Falk asked. Then a thought occurred to him that made him panic. “It's not Adnan, is it?”

“The Pakistani Adnan or the Saudi Adnan?”

“The
Yemeni
Adnan. He didn't try to … ?”

“No, sir. Not this time.”

Suicide was the subject they were skirting. There had been five attempts inside the wire in the last two weeks, none successful, and more than thirty since the prisoners had first arrived. And those were just the official numbers, a total that had dropped dramatically once the Pentagon started classifying many of them as “SIBs,” or “manipulative self-injurious behavior.” By now more than a fifth of the detainees were on Prozac or other antidepressants.

Adnan had never tried suicide, and he had refused all pills. But after what had happened in the past hour nothing would have surprised Falk.

“So everything's fine, then. Nobody to hose down or sedate?”

“Yes, sir. The problem's on our side.”

Falk was thankful he hadn't yet turned on a light, because for a fleeting moment he almost wobbled, as a tremor out of his past shot through him from head to toe. It reminded him of the way the surface of the water jolts and wavers when a stingray suddenly beats its wings to flee across the shallows. Would a second MP now emerge from the Humvee to arrest him?

“Our side?”

“There's a Sergeant Earl Ludwig missing. No one's seen him since dinner.”

Falk sighed, half in relief and half in weariness.

“Go on.”

“The men in his outfit thought he must have switched to another shift. When they found out he hadn't, they got worried. About an hour ago somebody found his stuff on Windmill Beach.”

“His stuff?”

“His wallet and his hat.”

“No uniform?”

“No, sir. And no boots.”

“They tell the MPs?”

“Yes, sir. But they figured …”

“That I could help. Being from the Bureau.”

“Yes, sir. Given all of the, well, sensitivity down here, sir.”

A tactful way of saying paranoia. This one had a future.

“Sure. I understand.” Falk's pulse began to calm. “Where to, then?”

“The beach, sir. They've left his things where they found 'em. Treating it like a crime scene, just in case.”

“Good thinking.” Especially for the Army. Or so the Marine in him thought.

But it was the idea of this Sergeant Ludwig that piqued his interest. Going missing at Guantánamo was a major accomplishment, practically unprecedented. He didn't know whether to applaud or worry. He did know that if the sergeant didn't turn up soon it would create a major stir, which would be worth watching, if only for the novelty value.

Life on the Rock was about to get interesting.

CHAPTER TWO

T
HEY FOLLOWED THE BEACH ROAD
until reaching the switch-back maze of barricades at the checkpoint for Camp Delta, where they flashed IDs to a bored MP while another watched them down the sights of a .50-caliber machine gun. As usual, the prison was lit up like the Super Bowl. From this distance the glare of the vapor lamps made it seem as if a pale orange steam was rising from the fences and guard towers. The long white rooftops and ventilator hoods of the cellblocks made the place look more like a chicken farm than a penitentiary.

The Humvee rolled by the front gate, then turned the corner toward Camp America, motoring slowly past the bunkhouses, trailers, and sea huts where more than two thousand troops were sleeping. Windmill Beach was nearly a mile farther along. The pavement ended in a thicket of cactus and bramble at the base of a small coral bluff, and the beach itself was a broad crescent of sand about a hundred yards across. Next to it was a grassy picnic area with tables and a small open-air pavilion with a sheltered concrete slab. Before Camp Delta was built the beach had been secluded and rarely used. Falk remembered a few passionate liaisons here from his Marine days. He'd shared one with an ensign's wife, playing out the beach scene from the movie
From Here to Eternity,
enjoying himself so much in the entwining tide that he had never considered how stupid it was to be screwing the spouse of a Navy officer.

Now the spot was a convenient getaway, the site of frequent cookouts and parties for blowing off steam. There was no moon out tonight, but the beach was alive with flashlights. Four MPs searched the sands in the manner of kids hunting ghost crabs on summer vacation.

At the sound of Falk's arrival the beams went still. The MPs probably thought he was an officer. He noticed with amusement that all four were working with their backs to the water. The night sea often had that effect—all that limitless blackness, slurping and crashing unseen, as if threatening to beckon you deeper into the unknown if you stared for too long. Or maybe they were spooked by the possibility that Sergeant Ludwig's body was out there, bobbing toward them on the tide.

Falk wasn't at all unsettled, mostly because he'd grown up around the ocean. The coastline of his memories was a cozy place with coves, islands, and green treelines, of stony reefs where gulls and cormorants clamored. To him the night sea was as comfortable as a familiar room in a darkened home. He knew he could always find his way to the door without stumbling.

The wind had picked up, and the peaks of pearling waves flared iridescently. Despite what the MP who had fetched him had said, it looked as if the scene had been disturbed pretty thoroughly. Hardly a surprise, since someone must have checked the wallet for identification. But he was disappointed to see boot prints covering nearly every square foot of sand.

An MP helpfully turned his beam on Ludwig's belongings, a forlorn little pile with a wallet, a camouflage cap, and a set of keys. Now what were the keys for, unless the man still carried his set from home? Falk doubted a mere sergeant would have access to his own car. Gitmo's small rental motor pool had long since been gobbled up by top officers and civilians like him. Everyone else made do in shared vans, or by shuttling around the island in a fleet of old school buses, Camp Delta's version of mass transit. A few soldiers bought decrepit “Gitmo specials”—used cars passed down from one hitch to the next—but that rarely happened with Reservists.

Ludwig's uniform was indeed missing. Unless the man had walked here in swimming trunks, he had either gone for a dip in boots and cammies or had hiked off into the nearby hills after inexplicably removing his hat and wallet. Both seemed unlikely, but if Falk had to pick one possibility it would be the latter.

“We had to move his stuff, sir,” the nearest MP said. “The tide was coming in.”

That meant any path of Ludwig's boot prints marching toward the sea was gone by now, and there was virtually no way to distinguish his other bootprints from everyone else's. For all the talk of Camp Delta being home to the world's most dangerous criminals, it was woefully ill-equipped for the processing of an actual crime scene. The Shore Patrol on the naval base was more likely to have the right equipment than anyone here. The biggest push among their officers for better equipment seemed to involve creature comforts for the restless natives—big-screen TVs for watching sports via satellite dish, Internet kiosks, a big new deck for Club Survivor, which was Camp America's beachfront version of the Tiki Bar. Dozens of new sea huts were still being built, and the outpost was starting to resemble one of those boomtowns that accompany gold rushes and military occupations. Just last week the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation folks had flown in a rock band from the States. Earlier Jimmy Buffett had landed in the bay in his seaplane. A stand-up comic was due over the weekend. There were golf tournaments, boat rentals, softball leagues, scuba lessons. The fun never stopped.

“Who saw him last?” Falk asked.

“Private Calhoun. He's up in the barracks.”

“And your name, soldier?”

The MP glanced down at his uniform, realizing with embarrassment that he hadn't removed the duct tape from an earlier shift inside the wire. He tore it off.

“Belkin, sir. Corporal Belkin.”

“Well, corporal, I'll need to speak to this Calhoun as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know him?”

“Calhoun?”

“Ludwig.”

“Yes, sir. From my unit. Mobilized out of Pontiac, Michigan.”

“Know him well?”

Belkin shrugged. “Well enough, I guess.”

“Does he drink?”

“He'll have a beer or two. Not much else.”

“Does he like to swim?”

“I've seen him in the pool before. Never down here. But I don't come here much.”

“Anyone alert the foot patrols? In case he took to the hills?” Marines still walked the base perimeter at all hours, and in the winding paths around Camp Delta there were often Army patrols, four soldiers in single file decked out in grease paint and forty pounds of gear. Falk knew the routine all too well.

“Yes, sir. They've all been questioned. Not a sign.”

Falk nodded, then looked Belkin in the eye, trying to read his face in the darkness.

“What about suicide? You think he's the type?”

“No way, sir.”

“Why not? They try it.” Falk nodded toward the blob of light above Camp Delta. “Why not us?”

“Then where's the note?” A hint of sass. Maybe Ludwig was a closer friend than Belkin had admitted.

“Not his style, huh?”

“No, sir. Wife and kids. Good job.”

“Doing what?”

“Bank manager. He'd been promoted just before deployment.”

So he was probably the careful type, good at following orders. But Falk wasn't ready to concede the point just because he might piss off a buddy.

“The note could have blown away. Maybe the bank's in trouble. You check his wallet?”

“Just for ID.” The tone was surly now. Belkin was definitely peeved. “Figured you'd want to do the rest.”

Falk stooped to pick it up. It was a folding wallet of dark brown leather, already so damp from the sea air that you had to pry the sides apart. There wasn't much inside. A few charge cards. A limp twenty. A couple of receipts from the Naval Exchange, a Michigan driver's license, and a wrinkled old deposit slip, probably from his own bank. No snapshots of the wife or kids, meaning there were probably some posted by his bunk.

Falk's inspection was interrupted by the arrival of another Humvee. He gently placed the wallet back on the sand, turning in time to see the headlights go out. In the dimness you could just make out a small banner with two stars. The brass was here.

Striding toward them was Major General Ellsworth Trabert—“E.T.,” as he was sometimes called, although never to his face, mostly for his penchant of seeming to materialize from out of nowhere, as he had just done. He was spit-shined and freshly ironed, as if he always rose at this hour.

Trabert had been in command of Joint Task Force Guantánamo for six months now, presiding over all operations from an administrative building on the far side of the base known as the Pink Palace, for the color of its stucco. He was an old paratrooper from Alabama, and never tired of mentioning both, a wiry man who put his faith in the Airborne, the Bible, and Crimson Tide football. Slow to bestow the level of trust on subordinates that made the chain of command function smoothest, he was nonetheless a nuts-and-bolts perfectionist and insisted on doing everything by the book.

The problem was that no one had yet written the book on how to run a place like Camp Delta, and the general was having to make it up as he went along. So far, Falk's employers at the Bureau weren't exactly thrilled with the results.

Falk heard rumblings from other agents months before his own arrival—vivid accounts of shouting matches at the Pink Palace, Trabert going red in the face as he leaned across the desk to mete out deadlines and tactical suggestions to civilian interrogators.

“If your methods are so goddamn superior,” one Bureau memo had quoted him as saying, “then you bring me some results by the end of the week. If you've still got nothing, then we'll do it my way.”

His way had consisted largely of throwing legions of hastily trained but highly motivated military interrogators into the fray, with a minimum of preparation and an excess of dramatic props—strobe lights and loud stereos, hoods and short chains, snarling dogs and miniskirts. As if they'd all been watching the same bad movies where subjects spilled their guts at the first sign of either long-term discomfort or a hot babe with cleavage. It was the sort of stupid business Falk had alluded to in his earlier snit with Tyndall: Turn up the air conditioner, strip the detainee naked, then leave the room for a few hours while he squirms uncomfortably, bent double because he's shackled to the eyebolt by a two-foot chain. Strobe them for an hour or two while playing heavy metal at top volume, or maybe the theme song from
Barney.
Then return and demand answers at the top of your lungs while an interpreter dutifully translates every obscenity.

Not all the sessions proceeded that way, of course. But Falk had seen and heard enough to make him shake his head from time to time. And like his predecessors, he had complained to headquarters and sought counsel on what he should do about it. Every reply from the Hoover building sounded the same note: “Bottom line is FBI personnel have not been involved in any methods that deviate from our policy. The specific guidance we have given has always been no reading of Miranda rights, otherwise, follow FBI/DOJ policy just as you would in your field office. Use common sense. Utilize our methods, which are proven.”

The upshot was that Falk was now forbidden from accompanying or observing any Pentagon-run interrogation, for fear he'd be tainted for future testimony before any civilian jury back on the mainland. The banishment also pertained to interrogations run by the CIA—as if the Agency would have allowed him in the room anyway.

Falk's complaints inevitably made their way back to General Trabert. It was one reason he would never be convinced that the data lines for his laptop were secure, despite Pentagon assurances. So you might say that the two men weren't exactly predisposed to have a pleasant chat at 4:30 a.m. on the beach.

The MPs went still as the general crossed the sand. He looked like MacArthur at Corregidor, only coming by land instead of by sea. Two of the soldiers pointed flashlights to light his way, and salutes snapped from all around. Falk had to restrain himself from raising his own right hand.

“Honor bound,” a couple of the MPs blurted.

“Defend freedom,” the general answered as he returned the salutes. Trabert had ordered those phrases to be injected into the daily mix of salutes, borrowing them from the slogan that appeared on the omnipresent logo for Joint Task Force Guantánamo: “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.” Falk always enjoyed the irony of watching soldiers shout “defend freedom” within the walls of a prison, but otherwise found it too gimmicky for his tastes, although he had to admit that for some of the MPs it seemed to have actually boosted morale.

After a few seconds of awkward silence it was clear that no one above the rank of corporal had yet taken charge, the sort of lapse you would find only with a Reserve or Guard unit, so Falk took the initiative. In doing so he summoned up some old codes of behavior he had never quite shaken. He nodded sharply—the civvy version of a salute—then spoke up in a voice that was firm and crisp.

“Morning, General Trabert.”

“Morning, Falk. They get you out of bed for this?” With a look that seemed to ask whose bed.

“No, sir. I was up and about.”

“That's right. You're one of the night owls.”

Some of the MPs had complained about Falk's nocturnal patrols, carping that it got the inmates unnecessarily agitated, making their jobs harder. Trabert, to his credit, had told them to buck up, although he probably hadn't liked it either.

“You been briefed on this yet?” Falk asked.

“I'm told we have an AWOL. A first down here, at least on my watch.”

Trabert hadn't seen eye to eye with his predecessor, a brigadier from a California Guard unit. One of his first acts had been to put a stop to the huge block parties held in neighborhoods of base housing that had been taken over by Camp Delta's minions. He didn't like the idea of all those loose lips in one spot, with alcohol flowing and civilians mixing easily with soldiers. But his greater obsession was making the trains run on time, and all the trains carrying intelligence back to Washington were supposed to leave the station fully loaded with new findings.

“Had time to form any theories?” the general asked.