The Prisoner of Guantanamo (6 page)

“Yeah?”

She seemed reluctant to continue, so he waited, staring. It was her eyes that you wanted to win over the most, he decided. Deep blue and searching, almost yearning. You wanted to be what they yearned for. Maybe that was her secret with the Arabs.

“Yeah,” she finally answered, glancing down at a bruised wedge of cantaloupe, then looking back up. Those eyes again. “Your name came up. It was weird.”

“My
name
?” Just what you wanted to hear, that someone inside the wire had pierced your veil of anonymity. Maybe a pissed-off MP had cursed his name within earshot of a cell.

“Not your actual name. But a description that sounded an awful lot like you. Ex-Marine, formerly posted to Gitmo, now a government interrogator.”

“That is weird. Who was the subject?”

“Niswar al-Halaby. Syrian nutcase. Says he heard it from the Yemenis. Camp Three grapevine. Have you told Adnan all that?”

“Adnan thinks I'm a cop from California. And I've never said word one about the Corps.” They routinely lied about themselves to even the most cooperative subjects. No sense offering any tools for leverage. “But you know how it goes. Talk to them long enough and hints of the real you come out anyway. Adnan's a smart kid. Maybe he pieced some of it together, or he might have just made it all up and gotten lucky.”

“Did you have any connection with him or any of the other Yemenis from before? From the
Cole
investigation, maybe?”

“I'd never laid eyes on him until two months ago. Same with the other Yemenis.”

“I didn't ask if you'd met them. I asked if you were connected. Maybe through a file, or a witness. Through any of your previous work.”

“What is this, Pam? Should we go to a booth?”

“You tell me.”

They had lowered their heads and their voices. To the rest of the table it probably looked like an intimate argument, or the arranging of a tryst. Falk glanced toward the end of the table and saw Tyndall watching with the air of a connoisseur. Then Pam leaned forward, her hands nearly touching Falk's between their trays as she dropped her voice to a whisper.

“I just want to know what I should do with this, that's all. If the Bureau made any previous inquiries about any of the Yemenis, or put them on some kind of watch list even before they got here, whether through your work or not, then it would help to know. But you seem to be saying that didn't happen.”

“Not to my knowledge.” She gave him a sharp look. “That's not a dodge. I really don't know. But I'm told there's no file on him or any of the others I deal with. Not from the
Cole,
anyway. If anybody else has designated him as some kind of figure of interest, then it's above my security clearance. Maybe you should ask Tyndall.”

“Not even from a Cuban angle?”

“Cuban? As in Gitmo?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, this gets weirder all the time.” Now it was his cheeks turning hot. He hoped he wasn't blushing.

“Yeah. I thought so, too.”

“So what the hell did he say, exactly?”

“If I'm leaving it out of my report, then I probably shouldn't tell anyone else. Even you. Not until I can go over it with Niswar again.”

Falk wasn't sure how he felt about that. Was she omitting the detail to spare him or to avoid heat from above? Both, perhaps. With the military interrogators, there were always extra considerations involving your superior officers, and how they might react.

But Falk was even more puzzled by where the information must have come from. In the course of his give-and-take with Adnan, he would have sworn he hadn't let slip any specifics about his past.

“So who else was in there?” he asked.

“No one, fortunately. Just the MP, who doesn't know a word of Arabic. Don't worry, if it ever goes into a report you'll be the first to know.”

“Thanks. I think.”

She smiled, a bit grimly perhaps, but before she could say another word Tyndall interrupted, settling into a seat that had just opened up to Falk's left.

“Life gets sweeter by the day down here, doesn't it?” He gestured to a swirled mound of chocolate soft-serve ice cream. It was the mess hall's newest attraction, although Mitch was the only one among them who ate it for breakfast. “Next week they'll probably be throwing steaks on the grill.”

When neither Falk nor Pam answered right away, Tyndall awakened to the possibility he was intruding.

“Sorry. Bad timing?”

“No more than usual,” Falk said.

“Like I said last night, I'm really sorry about that. It's just that I only had two hours to try and get a whole network out of my man Muhammad.”

“Whatever,” Falk replied.

“Hey. Blame our team leader. Demanding son of a bitch, especially where trivia's concerned.”

“Trivia?” A new voice approached from the service line. It was Falk's roomie, Whitaker, looking for a seat. “You're not questioning the value of the product again, are you, Mitch?”

“Take mine,” Falk said, standing. The long hours without sleep seemed to catch up to him all at once as he rose. What he needed most was a shower and a nap. There would doubtless be paperwork to file, colleagues of Ludwig's to interview, plus other leads to pursue, and the general would want it all done by yesterday. But without some shut-eye he'd never get any of it done.

“You're just the man I wanted to see,” Whitaker said. “Especially if you're headed back to our château.”

“You need something?”

“No. Just make sure you check the mail on the kitchen table. It's not every day that a perfumed envelope arrives from Puerto Rico. Nice handwriting, too. Laying the groundwork for your next leave, big guy?”

“Woo-hoo!” Tyndall offered, fanning the flame. No one turned toward Pam, but Falk knew they were dying for a glance. She obliged them by standing.

“Here, Whitaker. Take my seat. I'll leave you boys to the kiss-and-tell.”

She kept it light, but not without a passing glance at Falk that was several degrees cooler than a moment ago. So much for shared trust.

But that was the least of Falk's worries. At the mention of a perfumed envelope—from Puerto Rico, no less—he could already guess at the fragrance, a bouquet now blooming in his senses despite the mess hall's stale funk of overcooked eggs and wet mops. It was an island scent, part hibiscus and part spice, and it called from deep in his past. The idea of that letter sitting out on the kitchen table where anyone might open it made him weak in the knees. He had best be on his way.

“See you later,” he said, moving quickly with his tray. At least no one knew the real reason he was blushing.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE LETTER MIGHT
as well have been booby-trapped from the way Falk approached it. It sat on the kitchen table, as promised, but he was still working up the nerve to touch it. Leaning forward for a closer look, he instantly recognized the handwriting. Then there was the fragrance, streaming like smoke from a campfire. Unmistakably hers, no matter how unlikely.

Up to now his plans for the day had been pretty straightforward. He would tend to the needs of the Ludwig case and try to squeeze in another session with Adnan. General Trabert had told him to put regular duties aside, but it wasn't the kind of work you shut down with the flip of a switch, particularly with subjects like Adnan. A breakthrough could be like a paper cut, clotting quickly unless you immediately dug deeper. Although Tyndall's interruption may have already acted as a suture.

But now there was the letter to deal with. Falk circled the table. He opted first for a delaying action, heading briskly down the hall, dripping sweat in a burst of nervous energy. The heat, his lack of sleep, and this new development had his engine on the verge of overload.

He stopped at his bedroom door for a wary inspection. Nothing had been disturbed as far as he could tell. Not that any change would be noticeable in this wreckage—bed unmade, drawers ajar, a T-shirt still damp with day-old sweat draped on a chair. Newspapers and magazines were splayed on the nightstand, along with a file folder he should have returned yesterday. An appraising eye might have detected any number of reasons for further curiosity here.

He continued this cautious survey room by room, as much to calm himself as to search for anything amiss. Whitaker's quarters were neat as a pin. A half-completed letter home sat on the bedside table next to a humming clock. Falk caught the words “boredom” and “my darling” before moving on, shamed. Whitaker had presumably left the house just before arriving at breakfast, and the letter must have come just beforehand—an early delivery, but the times often varied here. Falk hadn't been at the house since heading to Windmill Beach at 4 a.m. At Gitmo, even in private quarters your privacy wasn't guaranteed. Anyone might have come and gone in the meantime.

He returned to the kitchen and picked up the envelope. It was sealed with cellophane tape, perhaps as an extra precaution. Or had someone on the base done it after inspecting the contents? The postmark was three days old. Not bad for Gitmo. It must have arrived on yesterday's plane out of Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, in Puerto Rico. He pried open the flap, and the smell of hibiscus intensified. For all his momentary paranoia, plenty of pleasant memories stirred as well. He recalled their first dance, her cheek brushing his. Later the scent had filled the hotel room, the young Marine hardly believing his luck. Months later, even when he knew far more, he had never stopped believing in her devotion, at least at some level. She said as much herself, in letters that had looked just like this one, minus the tape. But that was another era, another age here on the Rock.

Two pages of pink stationery were folded inside. Before reading them Falk looked over his shoulder, then walked to the front screen, glancing down the street toward the golf course before shutting the door. He sat down on the big brown couch by the window. First he counted the paragraphs. Five. The real business was always transacted in the third, but out of nostalgia he started at the beginning:

Dear Revere,

I have miss you much and so greatly. It has been so many years, and still can I see you with me. Do you remember our nights so wonderful together? We are in my dreams dancing late into starlight.

Same as always, so far—the halting English, charming in its clumsy syntax. If she was a professional, shouldn't it be flawless? But how could anyone not fall for a line so perfectly misshapen as “dancing late into starlight.”

Last month I hear you are in Cuba, doing work for the country. It is for you very good. I hope you will find the time there to think of me and write to me.

Now for the business at hand.

Do you remember Harry our friend who lives nearby? He is wanting to see you also, and will wait for it to be soon. That way when you visit you can see us all.

The summer has been not so bad, and I have sometimes a new job.

And so on, for another several sentences of little consequence, small talk that fell flat after such a promising beginning. Then the usual conclusion, with its flourish of schoolgirl confections.

Love,

Elena

XXXOOO

Hugs and kisses, like always. Only this time they seemed like regular X's and O's, game pieces waiting to be deployed, with the outcome uncertain.

He sighed, folding the delicate paper back into the envelope. Should he burn it? Shred it?
Eat it,
for Chrissakes? Every option seemed belated. By now its presence must have been noted somewhere on the base. So he stuffed it into his pants pocket, realizing too late that he would now be carrying the scent if he met Pam later.

The news, it seemed, was that their “old friend” Harry wanted a meeting. Well, it would have to wait. Perhaps Falk would even ignore the summons altogether. In any event, what he needed most right now was a little sleep, tortured or not.

He was good at resting under pressure, having learned at an early age to shut his eyes as all hell broke loose in the next room, pushing himself beneath the surface of the sheets as if swimming for deep water, a chill refuge where no one else would care to follow. At Gitmo the technique was doubly helpful, easing him away not just from his troubles but from the heat, which settled heavily onto his chest the moment he crawled into bed. Deeper now, he thought, his breathing steady and slow. The light faded as a strange pressure built in his ears, as if he were a diver, and soon enough he had reached the desired level.

In what seemed like only seconds he was fighting for the surface, drawn by a persistent noise that he could no longer ignore. He lurched upward, gasping, bathed in sweat. And there it was again, a banging at the screen. A voice called out, vaguely familiar.

“Sir? Mr. Falk?” Then another round of knocking. “Are you here, sir?”

It was his MP escort from this morning. He checked his watch, shocked to see that it was almost 2 p.m. He had slept for five hours.

“In here, soldier. I'm coming.” He threw on a shirt, still fighting the grogginess. On his way to the door he couldn't resist a glance toward the kitchen table, and was alarmed to see that the letter had disappeared, but then he remembered he had stuffed it in his pocket.

“What is it?”

The MP stepped forward, cap in hand.

“It's Sergeant Ludwig, sir. They found him.”

“Alive?”

“No, sir. Drowned.”

Bad news, but a blessedly quick resolution. Easier for the family and certainly easier for Falk. He'd wager that a blood test would show alcohol, no matter what the man's buddies thought. Almost everybody succumbed to it eventually down here, if only for one night.

“Sorry to hear it. But thanks for letting me know. Guess I should get down there.”

“Actually, sir, I'm supposed to take you to a meeting.”

“A meeting?” Probably a damage-control session. Trabert's idea.

“With the Cubans, sir. At the North East Gate. He washed up on their side.”

“No way.” It was stunning. Downright impossible.

“Yes, sir. The general wants you to accompany Captain Lewis when he goes to retrieve the body. I gather they're a little upset over there.”

Damn right they were. Unless centuries of wind and current patterns had suddenly reversed course, or Ludwig had gone on some sort of record endurance swim, it should have been impossible for him to have ended up on the Cuban side.

So much for quick resolutions.

“Lead the way, soldier. It'll be just like old times.”