by Gary Mulgrew
When the plane finally taxied to a stop in Houston, the stewardess announced that there were some ‘dignitaries’ on board and that everyone else must remain seated until they were deplaned. Almost immediately, armed marshals appeared to help escort us ‘dignitaries’ off the plane and the existing six marshals were reunited with their weaponry. Still seated, I watched the curious relationship between American law enforcement and their guns. They seemed to relax visibly as soon as they were ‘packing heat’. I noticed Beefcake pat his gun about four or five times and then subconsciously, I hope, he began stroking it. It occurred to me just how much he would enjoy using it.
I had no luggage, nothing, no change of clothes, not even a toothbrush. Our lawyer, Mark Spragg, had advised us that anything we brought to America would get ‘lost’, so I had entered a whole new level in travelling light. In some ways the lack of any possessions added to the surreal feel of the experience. Getting off the plane was awkward, because they wanted two officers in front of us, then one on each side, gently leading us by the elbow, and then two behind. In the confined space of the aircraft bulkhead, this became somewhat farcical, but eventually we stumbled the length of the plane, submerged in marshals. Strangely and movingly, the UK press corps sitting towards the front and the middle of the plane began to applaud. Some stood up. ‘Good luck, lads!’, ‘Bloody disgrace!’, ‘Stay strong!’ were among the shouts I heard. Hearing those distinct regional British accents – some Cockney, some Northern and Scottish – really affected me. Maybe I hadn’t lost my country after all. I mouthed ‘thank you’ as I caught the eye of a reporter I recognised from a few articles he had written – there seemed to be genuine sympathy in his eyes.
When we reached the front exit of the plane, things became even more chaotic. We were told to wait just outside the plane door as suddenly shouts and instructions seemed to emanate from every direction. Out of the morass of bodies came one marshal, small and rotund with a ruddy complexion. He was carrying our handcuffs – the confirmation that our freedom was over; that we were theirs now and that they controlled our lives. He shook loose the first set and with minimal fuss clipped them straight onto David’s wrists. I noticed he made no eye contact with David and didn’t speak to him, turning his wrist one way then another, checking them quickly and brusquely to see if they were tight enough. No one else seemed to notice. Quickly, he moved onto Giles, as the shouts and noise continued around us. That was just in the background though; all I could hear was the rustle of the chains and a cricking sound as the second set of cuffs was attached to Giles’s wrists. David still stood transfixed, head bowed, staring at his cuffs. His earlier confidence had evaporated; he now looked frightened and I worried he might start to crack.
Next minute the marshal came to me and clipped mine on. ‘Hey, how was London, England?’ he said – not to me, but to the older of the two marshals who had been escorting me. They kept talking as he turned my wrists around and checked the tightness of the cuffs, still not looking at or talking to me.
‘Fuck you,’ I thought, enjoying my height advantage over him. ‘Fuck the lot of you.’ But then I chastised myself. I couldn’t allow myself to get angry or emotional. ‘Cuffs not too tight, Mr Mulgrew? Sorry about all this hassle!’ – that was the kind of polite consideration I still expected. But I should have known I wasn’t going to get it; I had to get a grip on myself.
A huge officer grabbed David by his elbow and started jogging down a long walkway with him. He looked like a linebacker, at least 350lb, and dwarfed David, who was pretty small to start with. I noticed David swallow hard as he peered up at the officer so brusquely guiding him along, but then I could see him reasserting himself as he stood upright and jogged along at pace, his army training no doubt coming to the fore. We were all jogging now. Someone had my elbow, also pulling me into a jog and shouting, ‘Clear, clear!’ to anyone foolish enough to come close. I counted twenty-seven officers in total, all armed, some with FBI jackets, some with ‘ICE’ (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) jackets, some marked ‘US Marshals’ and some just in plain police uniforms. The officer at the front of this entourage was clearing a path through the stunned onlookers as we jogged on. I looked at my guide, a youngish marshal, blonde, blue-eyed and serious.
‘Why are we running?’ I asked, as he continued to lead me by the elbow. He looked shocked, as if no one had told him in the briefing that I might speak; that I was capable of speech. I thought he was about to respond but then he faced resolutely forward again, keeping pace with the gradually strewn-out entourage. Some of the overweight officers were already lagging and out of breath but everyone seemed caught up in the bizarre spectacle, jogging past the departure gates of Houston’s George Bush International Airport, on a balmy Wednesday afternoon in mid July, 2006.
I caught the eye of one elderly woman. She was standing back in surprise, clutching her bag in front of her, her husband’s arm stretched before her in a protective, tender gesture. What was she thinking? I thought I saw something in her eyes – fear maybe, or was it something else? Her husband was saying something to her; I turned my head and evenly kept her gaze while I was whisked past. What was he saying? I doubted it was, ‘Oh look! That’s those three guys who breached their employment contract with NatWest in London. That’ll teach them.’ He probably thought we were terrorists.
A number of turns later and we eventually came to a wing not open to the public, which was controlled by Immigration. Entering a large office, we were positioned in three seats placed against the far wall and sat in silence as the various parties recovered from their exertions. There was an air of real excitement in the room, as some of the officers bent over and tried to catch their breath. They were smiling, laughing and insulting each other about their relative fitness or lack thereof. My despair deepened with the realisation that on one of the worst days of my life, these guys were actually enjoying themselves.
‘Who are these guys again?’ someone asked, drawing attention back to us.
‘The three Brits that collapsed Enron.’
‘Wow, the Enron guys?’ one, sweaty, red-faced FBI agent asked, looking at us intently as he approached.
‘Yup,’ said another, fitter specimen, joining him. You would think we were behind a glass wall and couldn’t hear, like specimens in a zoo.
‘How much did they get?’ asked the red-faced agent, peering intently at us.
‘Millions, hundreds of millions I think. They’re, like, famous in Britain.’
‘Wow,’ the agent said, still staring. We didn’t speak or move and the conversation continued as if we weren’t there. ‘What happens to them now?’
‘We book them in, lock ’em up and then they have a bail hearing tomorrow,’ interjected a silver-haired marshal, who seemed to be emerging as the leader of this rabble. He held a plastic bag with our three passports in it – our sole possessions.
‘They can’t get bail, can they Dave?’ asked a hitherto silent man sitting behind a desk with a sea of paperwork in front of him. He wore glasses and peered over them as he spoke. He had a cardigan on and looked more like your favourite grandad than a police officer.
‘Word is they’re gittin’ it,’ responded the same marshal, Marshal Dave, the would-be leader, who was now edging towards us, eyeing us ever more closely. I started to get a fix on Dave: definitely in charge, angry, a gun-stroker no doubt, and a Southerner. He’d probably claim to have invested his pension, his life savings, his house, and his kids’ school funds in Enron stock when he thought it was a sure-fire winner, just before it imploded. And now he blamed me.
‘How do they get bail? Surely they get locked up?’ the cuddly desk officer asked again, looking straight at Marshal Dave’s back as he crouched in front of us.
‘Nope, the Brits said it would be unfair.’ Dave grimaced. He definitely didn’t like us – probably invested some of his parents’ life savings as well.
‘But they ain’t legal in the US. They don’t have visas,’ the desk sergeant co
ntinued.
‘So?’ said Marshal Dave, rising back up, this comment clearly catching his attention. He started thumbing through our passports. I definitely hadn’t applied for a visa to facilitate any extradition. That was never on my to-do list.
‘So if they are released by the judge, Immigration will have to pick them up and impound them,’ said the desk sergeant. I sat up. This was getting interesting.
‘And then we would have to process them,’ added one of the immigration officers in the ICE jacket.
‘What do you mean, process them?’ asked Marshal Dave, as he threw the passport bag over to the beckoning desk sergeant.
‘Well, since they don’t have a proper visa, we’d have to deport them.’ Bingo, I liked that.
The FBI guy chipped in again; he had a real slow Southern drawl. ‘Hell, we took four years to git ’em here, we sure as hell ain’t gonna deport them. They’re fugitives, God dammit; we’d never find them again.’
Oh, how I wished one of our judges in the extradition hearings could have heard this farcical conversation. It was exactly as our expert witness had predicted, exactly what the judges had decided would never happen. David had an I-told-you-so look on his face.
By now the immigration officer had motioned to see the passports. ‘Nope, they don’t have visas,’ he said, thumbing through our passports. ‘These boys are illegals. Did you boys apply for visas?’ he shouted over at us. We all shook our heads.
‘So, if they get bail tomorrow, as soon as they step out of that courtroom, we’ll arrest them and lock ’em up for being illegals!’ he said forcefully.
‘They’ll git bail, then go straight to jail,’ the ICE officer summed up, delighted with his little rhyme, which threw the room into further turmoil. By now our passports, still in their clear plastic bag were being thrown around the room as the tussle between the various strands of US Law Enforcement continued.
‘I’ll hold those,’ said the FBI agent.
‘No, you won’t,’ responded Marshal Dave. ‘Those are coming with us. We’ll give them to the judge.’
‘Oh, no!’ interjected the immigration officer again, holding the bag over his head. ‘These men are here illegally. By rights we should be putting them straight back on the plane.’
This level of organisation didn’t bode well for our time in America. It might have been funny to see how the reality compared to the gritty, heroic and, above all, efficient picture of US justice delivered on our television screens. But these same people had taken me away from my kids. And if they got their way, they would keep me away until my kids weren’t kids any more.
The show broke up when Marshal Dave turned towards me and shouted, ‘You! Stand up and come with me.’
Expressionless, I rose from my seat and followed him and another marshal round the corner into a small side room. I immediately noticed it had no windows. The second marshal took up a position at the far end of this room with his back to the wall. Bizarrely, he was still wearing sunglasses. He was also chewing gum and wielding what seemed to be a truncheon.
‘Turn around and face the wall,’ Marshal Dave barked, clearly still angry about the discussion with Immigration. He sighed heavily as he started placing keys and other equipment on the small table in front of him. This guy oozed danger and intimidation. I sensed he needed only the barest of excuses.
‘Face me!’ he said briskly. I turned around. He stood right in front of me. He was much shorter than me.
‘Don’t you fuckin’ look at me. Did you fuckin’ look at me?’ he growled, as I quickly averted my eyes from his gaze.
‘He fuckin’ looked at you, boss,’ offered the irritant in the corner, tapping his stick gently in one hand.
‘Did you fuckin’ look at me?’ Dave asked again, moving ever close to me.
‘No, er, yes . . . I mean, I didn’t.’
‘Don’t fuckin’ talk to me like that!’ Dave screamed. What the hell was wrong with this guy?
‘You answer me, “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir.” You got that?’
‘Yes, sir, or no, sir,’ repeated the parrot in the corner.
‘Yes . . . sir,’ I replied haltingly. I’d walked into the wrong TV show.
‘Now,’ said Marshal Dave, breathing heavily. ‘Listen up and listen up good: here are the rules. Number one: you answer, “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” – nothing else. If you answer any other way I will deem that as an attempt to escape. You understand?’
‘Attempt to escape,’ murmured the parrot, as if the words tasted of chocolate.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said firmly, my eyes fixed to the floor.
‘Number two. You . . . do . . . not . . . eyeball . . . me . . .’ He stretched the words out for emphasis. ‘If you eyeball me, that is an attempt to escape. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir!’ I barked, feeling like a new army recruit.
‘Number three. You do not converse with me, or with anyone else. You speak only when spoken to, by me or another marshal. Otherwise that is also an attempt to escape. You got that?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Any attempt to escape will automatically result in a new indictment, the penalty for which is another five years!’
‘Another five years,’ confirmed his number two, almost salivating at the thought of an attempted escape, whereupon, no doubt, he would have the pleasure of clubbing me to death.
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir!’ I shouted a little too vigorously.
I sensed Marshal Dave tensing. After a moment’s pause, he spoke more softly than before. ‘You playing with me?’ he asked quietly, coming ever closer. This guy was menacing. He was standing way too close to me, close enough to feel his breath, and I had to suppress a sudden urge to head-butt him.
‘No . . .’ then more quietly, ‘sir,’ I responded, involuntarily raising my head a fraction to look at him.
‘Don’t look at me, boy!’ he yelled.
‘Don’t look at him!’ repeated the parrot, getting ever more excited.
‘Don’t you look at me. I warned you!’ he continued.
The room fell silent. I stared ever more intently at the floor. I could feel the marshal was waiting for a flicker, a reaction, anything. I didn’t move. Bizarrely, I felt complete calm; not intimidated or afraid. Instead in my mind I had one thought – Calum. The pain on his face; the way his body shuddered and trembled as he cried just those few short days earlier when I told him I had to go. There was nothing these people could do to me, nothing that would compare to that agony and the guilt that coruscated through my entire body, my heart, my soul. Looking back, I think I would have welcomed it if they had hit me – perhaps that would have numbed the pain I felt at being separated from Calum and Cara.
Then Marshal Dave spoke again, calmly, methodically, carefully. ‘Now, I’m going to ask you what you have on your person. Think hard before you answer. If you don’t tell me about something and I find something . . . then that will be an attempt to escape.’
The sinister tone was amplified by the failure of the parrot to repeat this. This must be the key bit, I thought. The denouement. The bit where people trip up.
But what did I have in my pockets? I panicked, trying desperately to think if I had anything from the plane or elsewhere. I had a desperate urge to rummage through, but my hands were still cuffed, and anyway I was sure rummaging through your pockets would be deemed an attempt to escape and punishable by another five years’ imprisonment.
‘Now,’ Marshal Dave continued, ‘what do you have on your person?’
I hesitated before responding, ‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Nothing, he said nothing,’ repeated the parrot, edging forward as if getting ready to start on me.
‘You come all the way from England – and you have . . . nothin’?’
I didn’t put anything in my pocket on the plane, did I? I was panicking, my head spinning trying to think of anything I might have accidentally put in my pockets when I went to the toilet or
toyed with the plane food.
‘I am going to ask you one more time. Think carefully before you answer. If I find anything . . . any-thing,’ Dave pronounced it slowly for emphasis, ‘then you’re in deep shit.’
‘Deep shit,’ repeated the extremely annoying parrot. I hadn’t looked at him closely before, and couldn’t look at him now, but in my imagination he had become a RoboCop from an action movie.
‘Nothing, sir,’ I firmly repeated, not entirely believing it myself now.
‘Nothing,’ Marshal Dave said softly. ‘OK, I am going to uncuff you,’ he went on, ‘and you are going to remove each item of clothing as I instruct you. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When you have removed said item of clothing, I want you to turn around, face the wall, and place your hands up against the wall, while I search your clothing. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘OK, I am removing the cuffs,’ he said, and did it quickly. ‘Firstly, I want your shoes, laces and belt. The latter two items will not be returned to you.’ He’d done this before.
I made a mental note to wear slip-ons and elasticated trousers the next time I got extradited as I quickly removed each item.
‘Remove your T-shirt, then face the wall.’
I duly obliged, the move to semi-nakedness making me feel suddenly exposed. Almost involuntarily, I puffed out my chest. I didn’t want to look like some poncey, flabby wanker-banker. I didn’t want to feel like Marshal Dave was dominating me.
‘Git your arms up.’ I lifted them up. ‘Higher!’ he barked.
What a twat! He was really annoying me. Better not think that way, I told myself. Don’t show a chink in the armour; don’t give these pricks the chance to do what they would clearly love to. I stared straight ahead at the wall. It all seemed so unnecessary, although I learned later this was just the standard fare – everyone extradited got to enjoy this experience. Although we had perhaps been the highest profile case, there was a conveyor belt of extradition cases from the UK to the US waiting behind us, and even then I wondered how Gary McKinnon, for example, a hacker with Asperger’s, would ever cope with such a welcome.
