“I don’t know what the letter said.”
“What happened to the two missing detainees?”
“The letter’s wrong. Anything else?”
“What was it like over there?”Wells said. “Did you get along?”
“I went over this already. With the FBI, and your buddy, too.”
“Jerry Williams’s wife, Rachel Callar’s husband, they both told me the squad was having problems. And that something went wrong at the end.”
“I can’t help you.”
“We’re trying to save your life, Brant,” Wells said. “Why won’t you let us?”
“Six of your guys dead and you don’t seem worried for your own safety,” Shafer said. “A cynic might wonder.”
“Full-time guards for me and my family.”
“Maybe Duto should pull them,” Shafer said. “If you’re not going to cooperate.”
“Let him try,” Murphy said. He stood. “Now you need to leave. Or I really will call security.”
“THAT WENT WELL,”Shafer said when they were back in his office.
“He’d rather get killed than tell us what happened over there.”
“Or maybe he’s got nothing to worry about from the killer.”
“You think that’s possible.”
“I don’t know. It’s time to go at him. I’m going to get Duto to open up his 600s”—the financial disclosure forms CIA employees had to file. “His polys. We don’t need a warrant for that. You, you’re going to talk to his neighbors. Don’t sugarcoat it, either. Tell them Mr. Brant Murphy is under investigation—”
“Ellis—”
“He’s telling us to shove it. And he knows we’re working for Duto. His ultimate boss. He’s got nerve.”
“He’s got protection.”
“Then we’ll force it into the open. Whoever’s shielding him, Whitby, whoever, we’ll make him come out. He’s the pressure point. He’s the weak link.”
“I don’t like it,” Wells said. “It feels forced.” Though the move made a certain amount of sense. Murphy was acting like he was untouchable. They needed to find out why.
Shafer’s phone trilled. “Yes. They’re positive?”Pause. “No. I’ll tell him. Yes. I’m sorry, too.”
Wells knew even before Shafer hung up. “Jerry Williams?”
“Louisiana, Terrebonne Parish. A fisherman found his body today. In the swamp.”
Wells remembered Jeffrey Williams, curled on his mother’s lap, awaiting sleep, awaiting his father. What would Noemie tell him now?
“They’re sure.”
“His wallet was in the jeans. And the body had a Ranger tattoo. Looks like he was shot in the head, but they won’t know for sure until the autopsy. Bodies in the swamp, you know—”
“Ellis. You’re talking about someone who was a friend of mine.” Wells felt his gorge rise at Shafer. Then realized he should direct his anger at whoever was behind this.
“Sorry,” Shafer said mechanically. “You going to the funeral?”
“I don’t think Noemie would want to see me. And you’re right. It’s time to lean on Brant Murphy. Past time.”
WELLS HAD ALWAYS DRIVEN with a heavy right foot. His WRX, a nifty little Subaru that looked like a five-door hatchback but could outrun the average Porsche, only made matters worse. Not his finest character trait, though he’d never had an accident.
He was running at eighty on the Beltway, playing tractor-trailer slalom, when he saw the black Caprice sedan with Virginia plates sneaking up behind him. He figured the Caprice for an undercover statie. He eased off, wondering what the ticket would cost. The Commonwealth of Virginia had raised the price of speeding to extortionate levels.
But the Caprice didn’t try to catch him, instead ducking behind an Audi three cars back. Wells peeked again at the mirror, saw a gray Chevy Tahoe sliding in behind the Caprice. Of course, unmarked government vehicles choked the Beltway at all hours. These two might have nothing to do with him. But the way they’d paced him made Wells think they did.
Only one way to be sure. He was three miles from his exit now. Plenty of time to move. If they were on him, he would lose them, get off the highway before they recovered. He tightened his seat belt, feathered the gas, felt the WRX’s engine rumble. There. One lane right. Between two eighteen-wheelers. Then into the far right lane, a quick left-right-left around a FedEx van . . . and then he’d see.
He pushed down on the gas, slid the wheel to the right. The WRX reacted instantly. The Caprice matched his first move but then got stuck behind the FedEx van. Wells accelerated and cut left, barely getting by a Toyota Scion. The Scion’s angry honk faded behind him as he pulled left and left again to a patch of open asphalt in the passing lane.
And now, no lie, he was having fun, the Subaru weaving through its bigger cousins like a fox dodging a pack of hounds. This stretch of the Beltway had just been repaved—Virginians liked their roads smooth—and it was sticky and tight underneath his tires. For the first time in months, he heard the music of the highway, nothing serious today, no Springsteen: “He’s going the distance/he’s going for speed.” Cake.
He boomeranged past a big low-slung Mercedes, resisting the urge to wave. Sixty seconds later, he’d lost any hint of the Caprice or the Tahoe in his rearview mirrors. Easy. Almost too easy.
TWO MINUTES LATER, he swung onto Braddock Road. He was heading for Brant Murphy’s no-longer-mortgaged house in Kings Park West, an upscale neighborhood in the city of Fairfax, fifteen miles from Langley. Per Shafer’s plan, Wells would knock on neighbors’ doors, flash his identification, ask if anyone had noticed anything unusual about Murphy recently. Sudden changes in spending? Late-night trips? Let the neighbors draw their own conclusions. And let Murphy hear the gossip.
He was stopped at a light at the corner of Braddock and Guinea when he heard the helicopter coming in fast and low. He peeked through the windshield, saw it directly overhead. Black, no more than three hundred feet up. Intentionally intimidating, letting him know he was being watched. No wonder the Caprice had let him go so easily.
Then he heard the sirens.
The light changed as the Caprice and Tahoe reappeared. Wells eased the WRX over. Best to settle this now. Spare himself the foolishness of trying to outrun a helicopter.
The Tahoe pulled in front of him, the Caprice behind, boxing him. Two men stepped out of the Caprice. Suits. White shirts. Blue ties. Hands on hips. Federal agents. Or so Wells hoped. Otherwise, he’d made a very big mistake.
19
STARE KIEJKUTY.AUGUST 2008
The Midnight House had five cells. Four were standard prison cells in the basement of the barracks. The fifth was a level down, a single subbasement room. Kenneth Karp had immediately realized its potential.
With a dozen Polish soldiers, Karp and Jack Fisher and Jerry Williams and his Rangers had poured thick concrete walls on all four sides. By the time they were done, the cell was something close to a vault: dark, silent, nearly airless.
Prisoners in the other cells faced all manner of minor indignities and irritations. Karp piped in music while they tried to sleep, sometimes loudly, sometimes so quietly it could barely be heard. He particularly favored Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All,” once putting it on a loop for five nights straight, until even the Poles begged him to stop. He and Fisher forced prisoners to stand on one leg for hours at a time, woke them at 2 a.m. for interrogations.
But in cell five, a prisoner was simply . . . left alone. In the void. Monitored by infrared cameras and microphones. Fed at random intervals through a slot in the two-inch-thick steel door, a tasteless gruel in a plastic bowl with a cup of lukewarm water to wash it down. The cell had no bed, only a metal chair bolted to the floor. A prisoner who tried to injure himself by banging his head against the walls lost even the tiny privilege of being allowed to move around the cell. Instead, his hands and legs were cuffed tightly to steel loops embedded in the floor and a hood pulled over his head. Darkness inside darkness
. The true Midnight House.
A cell five prisoner could not shower or exercise. He was removed only for interrogation sessions and never told in advance when he’d be taken. The Rangers fired tear gas through the meal slot, stormed in, and dragged him out. But Karp believed that a prisoner should be left alone as long as possible once he’d been moved to cell five. Even interrogation, even Tasers and stress positions and waterboarding, came as a relief from the void.
In fact, cell five was so psychologically punishing that Rachel Callar had forbidden 673 from using it for more than four weeks straight. On this rule, she had refused to waver. A prisoner who wouldn’t talk after four weeks of pure solitary confinement could not be broken, only driven insane, she said.
AFTER TWO WEEKS interrogating bin Zari, Karp and Jack Fisher asked Terreri for permission to move him to cell five. Normally, they would have waited longer. The cell was the squad’s last resort. They’d used it only twice before. Once it had worked, in just over a week. Once it hadn’t, on a Yemeni who’d refused to speak even after four full weeks. They’d had to declare him intractable and ship him to Guantánamo. The Yemeni had been their only real failure, not counting Mokhatir, the Malaysian who’d had the stroke in the punishment box. And the stroke was plain bad luck.
But after running bin Zari through their standard treatments, Karp and Fisher had realized that he seemed to relish them, to view them as a form of combat. They couldn’t break him directly. They would have to come at him sideways, hope that he broke himself. The tactic hadn’t worked on the Yemeni, who had simply locked down. But bin Zari was smarter than the Yemeni, more social—and therefore, theoretically anyway, more susceptible to the isolation of cell five.
FOR A WHILE, bin Zari didn’t seem to mind it. He paced back and forth, regular steps, as if he was trying to measure minutes with his feet. He ran his fingers along the thick pads on the door. He sang. He fell to his knees and prayed. Once he seemed to be reciting an entire cricket match, play by play. He leaned against the door and told him that they would never break him.
They left him for six days. Then they took him out, and Karp promised him that he would remain in the cell until he answered their questions. No threats, no violence. Just the promise of a lifetime in the dark.
His second week wasn’t as pleasant. He walked less, talked less. He spent hours each day standing at the door, waiting for any hint of motion outside. He ran his hands along the smooth concrete walls, looking for cracks. He let his food sit for long stretches, though he always ate eventually. Karp was surprised he didn’t try a hunger strike. His body temperature rose and fell unpredictably, and his breathing became labored, both signs of stress.
After eight more days, they brought him out again. He’d lost weight. Two weeks of darkness had left his skin pallid, his eyes dull, his lips soft and loose. He blinked in the light of the interrogation room and tried to spit at Karp. But the saliva barely left his mouth.
Karp reached into the bag on the table, brought out an apple and a Swiss Army knife. Bin Zari jerked forward, straining against his chains. Karp sliced the apple slowly. He popped a slice into his mouth. The hunger in bin Zari’s eyes was frank and pitiful. His mouth opened, and a thin spool of drool dribbled out before he caught himself and licked his lips.
“Do you have any idea how long you’ve been in that room?”
Bin Zari was silent. He tried to keep his eyes off the apple, but he couldn’t.
“Fourteen days. Two weeks. And yet you look—well, see for yourself.”
Karp held up a mirror, gave bin Zari a look.
“It isn’t right,” bin Zari said. “What you do.”
It was the first time bin Zari had complained, the first time he’d shown weakness.
“You can make it stop,” Karp said, soothing now. “Just tell us.”
“Tell you what?”
Karp finished eating the apple, put the core in the bag. “Who gave you the uniforms and the passes. Who told you how to get through security. Just that. Start with that. And if that’s too much, give us one of your safe houses in Peshawar. Then you can stay up here in the light. Have an apple.”
Karp reached into his bag, extracted a second apple, smiling faintly, a magician pulling rabbits from a hat. See? There’s no end to them.
“But I tell you, Jawaruddin, before you decide, think about it. Because some questions we ask, we know the answers. We use those to double-check, make sure you’re telling the truth. And if we catch you lying, we’ll put you back down there and you’ll never get out. No matter how much you beg. The rest of your life. And you won’t die soon. We’ll make sure of it.”
Bin Zari leaned forward—and spat at Karp.
Back into the cell he went. For two days, the burst of hatred he’d summoned in the interrogation room seemed to strengthen him. He went back to pacing, back to praying. But inevitably, his energy faded. He lay on the floor, trying to see through the crack in the door. On the fifth day, he began to pound his head against the wall, a steady chunking that even Karp found awful, madness distilled to a single echoing thud. Terreri sent in the Rangers. They chained him down, put an IV in his arm with a glucose drip to feed him.
AT THIS POINT, Callar protested to Terreri.
“You said he could have four weeks,” Terreri said.
“He’s lying in his own filth. Deprived of any stimuli. This is how you provoke a complete psychotic break. Irreversible.”
“You said he could have four weeks,” Terreri said again. “We’re nineteen days in. I’m going to give Karp the last nine days.”
“What am I doing here?”
“Major, believe it or not, I listen to you. If not for you, I’d keep him in there forever.”
“That supposed to make me feel better, sir? Because it doesn’t.”
Callar walked out of the barracks and into the cold night air, across cracked concrete to the edge of the base. Stare Kiejkuty didn’t have much security. An eight-foot fence, a few spotlights, guard towers at the four corners, usually unmanned. It didn’t need more. Poland was its own security. There were no Chechens here, almost no Muslims at all. And after centuries of being batted back and forth between Russia and Germany, Poland had finally found a protector it could trust, a protector with no interest in swallowing it whole. No wonder the Poles loved the United States.
Outside the fence, life. Peasants sitting around their kitchens, eating boiled pierogi dipped in runny applesauce. The old ones gossiping about their children’s children. The young ones drinking buffalo grass vodka and texting one another—yes, even here—as they looked for their escape, to Warsaw or even farther west.
Did the peasants have any idea what was happening here? Would they care if they knew? No, Callar decided. Two generations before, they’d watched the Nazis feed Jews into ovens. They hadn’t protested. They hadn’t cared. More than a few had helped. The Poles were not a sentimental people. The tread of foreign armies had stamped the sentiment out of them long before World War II.
Nine days. They’d put bin Zari through hell for nineteen days already. What were nine more? Nine more might break him. It might.
“Nine days,” Callar said aloud.
She thought of how she’d gotten here: her decision to join the reserves, her tours in Iraq, Travis’s suicide. Along the way, each step had made sense, or seemed to. But taken together, they had the empty logic of a dream.
When they’d signed up for this squad, they’d all been promised two two-week leaves, recognition of the intensity of the work. Callar had taken one, halfway through. The trip had not gone well. Steve loved her, she knew. The blunt truth was that he loved her more than she loved him. He’d grown up in an army family, raised to obey. Unlike most kids, he had accepted the rules without question. His parents had died while he was in community college, his dad of a heart attack and his mother of breast cancer that had refused to answer to chemotherapy. After they were gone, Steve had retreated into himself while he waited for someone new to obey
. Probably he should have been a soldier, but the military’s machismo didn’t suit him. So he went to nursing school and moved to California, where he found his way to the VA hospital where they’d met.
He was a handsome man, Steve, but he’d had only one previous girlfriend, and their relationship had ended badly. She said I was too in love with her, Steve said. That I never said no. I don’t understand how you can be too in love. Rachel hadn’t tried to explain. But she knew how his ex had felt.
Still. He was smart and funny in his sly way, a simple and good cook, a considerate lover—sometimes too considerate; sometimes she wanted to tell him to hurt her a little, but she never did because she knew he wouldn’t understand—and he supported her without question. He was the opposite of her father, who sucked all the oxygen out of every room he was in, who demanded unending attention as the price of his love. When Rachel went away, Steve wrote her every night, the quotidian details of life on the ward where he worked, misbehaving patients and hospital politics. She cherished the letters, cherished the knowledge that life went on back home. But she hardly wrote back. And he never minded, or if he did, he never complained.
Children would have changed him, she thought. Children would have given him a new focus. He would have been a wonderful dad. But she’d miscarried and then had an ectopic pregnancy and miscarried again, and after that, the docs said she couldn’t risk another pregnancy. They’d talked about adoption but hadn’t done anything, not yet, so it was just the two of them.
He’d argued with her, really argued, only once, when she’d told him she wanted to go to Poland. He’d warned her: You’re more fragile than you think, Rach. What if it’s too much? What then?
It won’t be too much, she said. And if it is, I can always leave. It’s only fifteen months—eighteen, max.
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