“So are you going to open it?” Playful, not challenging, but there was no way he was going to unseal it in front of Pam. If Harry had taken this kind of risk, it figured to be something urgent.
“I’m sure it’s not important,” he said. “Besides, there’s a lot I need to ask you. Who does all the questioning, for starters?”
“Fowler mostly, and he’s the most insistent. But sometimes it’s Van Meter.”
“They work together?”
“No. But they ask a lot of the same stuff. I’m beginning to see why it drives the detainees nuts. Same questions, over and over. You’d think they’d compare notes. The only time Fowler didn’t come alone he brought Cartwright, the one in uniform. Just what I need, having a lieutenant colonel breathing down my neck.”
“And Van Meter? Alone?”
“Except once.”
“With Lawson or Rieger?”
“Neither. With Bokamper.”
“Bo?”
She nodded, as if that closed her case. But Pam didn’t know Bokamper the way Falk did. He had probably come along to keep tabs on Van Meter. Snooping on the snoop. Maybe he had also been keeping an eye on Pam, on Falk’s behalf.
“Well, say as little as you can to Van Meter.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I’m serious. He’s mixed up in something that goes way beyond this mess. And if—”
She shushed him again, the footsteps returning, this time stopping just outside the door, followed by a muffled knock.
“Pam?” One of her roommates, sounding concerned.
“What is it?”
“You okay in there?”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s just that I thought I heard—”
“What?”
“Crying. I don’t know. Sounded like a sob.” Or a deep voice, perhaps?
“Really, I’m fine. Just talking to myself. Playing music and babbling away. That’s what happens when people cut you off.”
“It wasn’t my choice, you know,” she replied with the aggrieved tone always adopted by those who are only following orders. The footsteps retreated without a further word.
“You should go,” she mouthed, barely whispering. “She’d report me if she knew. Seriously. Maybe she already is.”
“The phone is still hooked up?”
“Only the one in her room. Which she keeps locked when she’s not here.”
“Lovely people.”
“No worse than your friends, believe me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
It was apparent that the dislike between Pam and Bo was still mutual, and this was how it was playing out under pressure, with each pointing a finger at the other. Not particularly becoming of either. But where did that leave Falk?
They kissed again, lightly this time, the commuting husband on his way to catch the train. Then they flinched as she unlatched the window, the sash squeaking open onto the industrial clatter of the storm. He clambered across the sill and turned to say good-bye. When she whispered now it was all he could do to read her lips. “Leave that way,” she mouthed, pointing in the opposite direction from the way he’d come. “So you won’t have to pass her window.”
“Thanks,” he mouthed, water pouring off his hat. “I trust you.”
Right now he figured that was the best he had to offer. But instead of nodding or mouthing anything back, she leaned across the sash, out into the rain, her face close to his, and he instinctively turned an ear for her parting message.
“When we’re out, when this is over—if it ever is over—I want you to be there for me.”
“I will,” he said, knowing then that he meant it. So he said it again, if only to convince himself. “I will.” Like a vow, an advance to higher ground that would have to be held at all costs.
She nodded, brushing his lips with hers, and drew back inside. Her hair dripped onto the floor as she slid the window shut, still gazing at him. Then she pulled the curtains back into place, the line of communication severed. Falk felt his stomach knot, and he took a step in the wrong direction before catching himself, a soldier who’d nearly tripped the mine.
Already he could think of a dozen questions he had meant to ask. But of all of them, the most crucial was this: When all of this was over, would she still be there for him? He knew what her answer would be now, but what about when she found out more about his own involvement, his own past missteps? His track record wasn’t exactly the sort you could afford to be associated with when you were trying to climb the chain of command.
Watching warily for a burst of light, or the appearance of a sentry, he headed across the soggy lawn and between the buildings to the rear, back through the rainy night toward his car.
He was still soaked by the time he pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later, and after switching off the engine he sat for a few seconds as rain hammered the roof. It was a relief that it had gone off without a hitch. Now he even felt comfortable enough to check on what Harry had delivered. Falk flipped on the dome light, then tore back the tape on the old envelope and reached inside, reminded of the days when he poked his hand into boxes of Cracker Jacks, groping for the prize at the bottom.
Inside was a British passport, belonging to Ned Morris of Manchester, with Falk’s picture inside. It was an updated version of the one he had used on his trip to Havana. The photo was also new. Now when had they managed that? he wondered. Sometime in Miami, perhaps. There was no note inside.
His first impulse was to come up with the quickest possible way to destroy it. Were they trying to set him up? Then a sharp rap on the passenger window nearly made him jump out of his skin. A pale, dripping face peered through the glass. It was Tyndall.
“Let me in!” A muffled shout. “Open up!”
Falk shoved the passport and envelope into a jacket pocket, then unlatched the door. The noise of the downpour entered with the CIA man, who was almost as wet as Falk. A flash of lightning lit the sky, and you could see the rubber trees out front whipsawing in the wind.
“You scared me half to death,” Falk said. “Where were you hiding?”
“Didn’t you see my car parked out front? I kept waiting for you to get out so I could follow you inside. Then I finally gave up.”
“Sorry,” Falk said, pulse still on overdrive. “Didn’t see it in this mess.”
“I’ve been waiting half an hour. You’ve got your wish, but it has to be tonight, and you can’t tell a soul.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Adnan. Your half hour of glory inside Camp Echo. Now or never, take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Then let’s roll.”
“My car?”
“Do you really want to get soaked again switching?”
“No.”
“Besides, I’d prefer not to be seen leading this expedition. But hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Hurried or not, Falk had to go slow in the rain, the water running now in wavelets across the banked pavement of the curves. The landscape was drinking it in as fast as it could, as if aware it might have to live on this one big gulp for weeks to come, but the ground was already choking on the excess, and streams poured through the gaps between scrub and cactus.
As they swerved around the orange barriers up to the checkpoint, a pair of headlights bobbed up behind them, nearly blinding Falk in the glare of the rearview mirror.
“Who’s the asshole?” Tyndall asked.
“Don’t know.”
“Anybody know you’d be coming here?”
“No.”
“Maybe it’s just a night owl, then. But in this shit?”
The checkpoint MP, draped in a drenched parka, glanced at their IDs and waved them through. The trailing driver must have had his pass ready, too, because he was soon right back on their tail.
“Go past the main entrance to Delta and take the next right.”
He did, but the other car still followed.
“What the hell’s he up to?” Tyndall said, turning in the seat. “Maybe we should turn around, get out of here.”
“Too late,” Falk said. They were pulling up to a gate, where another MP in a parka leaned toward the window.
“Park over there,” the MP shouted, pointing to a small gravel lot to the side. “Then come inside the hut. They’ll get you squared away.”
They pulled to the side, and the second car sidled up beside them.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Tyndall said, and they unlatched their doors to run for the cover of the MP hut. No sooner were they inside than Falk heard a familiar voice.
“Wait up, fellas!”
It was Bo, who was just coming through the door. Falk sighed with relief. Bo was still in his shirtsleeves, not even wearing a windbreaker.
“It’s okay,” Falk said to Tyndall.
Tyndall said nothing, but didn’t look so sure, maintaining a grim expression as Bo stamped his feet, shedding water from his pants. An MP eyed them somewhat incredulously from the security desk.
“How’d you know where to find me?” Falk asked.
“Dumb luck. Was on my way to your house when I saw your car turning off Iguana Terrace. Figured I’d catch up to you. Where are we, anyway?”
“You really don’t know?” Tyndall said.
“Hey, I’m still the new guy. I was just following my pal here.”
Falk tried to read his face for any hint of urgent news, but couldn’t decipher it. Bo would be thrilled with the findings from the sign-out sheet and the MP duty roster. But that discussion would have to wait.
“This is Camp Echo,” Tyndall said.
“Well, now.”
“We get cleared here,” he said, turning to Falk, his body language indicating an almost purposeful snub of Bokamper. “Then an escort will take us to a booth. I’ll have to be present, too, I’m afraid. House rules, since it’s technically our shop.”
“I’m going in to speak to Adnan,” Falk explained to Bo, which didn’t seem to win him any points with Tyndall.
“Mind if I tag along?” Bo asked. “Watching from behind the glass, of course.”
“Three’s a crowd,” Tyndall said.
“Not always.” Bo slipped a folded sheet of paper beneath Tyndall’s nose, so close Tyndall had to back away to read it. Then he snatched it back before Falk could get a look.
“Your friend’s well connected,” Tyndall said. “You mind if he’s in there?”
Now Falk wasn’t sure, but there was no time to debate it.
“Long as he stays behind the glass.” He turned toward Bo. “What’s on that letter? And who signed it for you? For that matter, where’d you get the car?”
“Technicalities, gentlemen, technicalities.” Spoken with a Cheshire-cat grin. “Let’s get going if we’re going, Mr. Tyndall. I thought you said time was short.”
He had, Falk thought, but not while you were present.
Tyndall opened the door, and the three of them ran back into the rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THIS TIME, AT LEAST, they didn’t wake him with loud music. Or with shouting, or water, or a prod to the chest, a slap on the face. Nor did they force him to his knees and bend him over, then leave him there for hours, until his joints locked and the blood stopped and his muscles cramped into hard balls of frozen rubber. No hoods, no strobe lights, no chains—well, no more than the usual ones—and for the time being, no snakes in gray suits, hissing into his throbbing ears.
In this new place where Adnan lived you could burrow as deeply as you wanted, but it was never deep enough, because the hawks and snakes simply climbed in with you. So he had retreated to the only remaining sanctuary—a silence within the remotest reaches of his mind, protected by a shield that became harder and thicker by the hour, almost organic in the way it grew.
They had brought him here nearly six days ago, on the morning after the midnight interrogation by the snakes at the place of the cages, with all the vines. It was a cell unto itself—one of a cluster of about a dozen, judging from what he had seen on his way in—a hut built of concrete blocks with no view of the outside. Inside was his room, even smaller than his earlier burrow. There was also a second room with a table and chairs, the place where they strapped him down and tried to talk to him, visiting several times a day.
For a while he had still tried to think of himself as a mouse who had become a mole, but when the extra burrowing proved ineffective he resorted to this other refuge. The taxonomy he had developed so carefully no longer worked in this new place. Everything here was too programmed and artificial to be populated by real creatures. And there were no more calls to prayer to set his inner watch by. Meals still arrived, but seemed to do so at irregular intervals, by whim. Nor was there any network of gossip and shouting. He sensed from the noises—or lack of them—that this was a smaller world. He wondered sometimes if that earlier place even existed anymore. It was as if the snakes and hawks had eaten their fill and denuded the plains of all prey, leaving behind this isolated wasteland. In that sense, he supposed, he was a survivor.
But in keeping with the man-made aspect of his new surroundings, he began to think of his existence as comparable to a single pixel on a TV screen that someone had just switched off, a glowing dot at the center of a blankness that would inevitably swallow him as he shrank and faded from view.
Yet for the moment he must still be visible, because they had found him again and were fetching him in a far more gentle way than was customary. An MP stood at the door, calling his name. Behind the MP was a second man, waiting silently. Then the second man called out, speaking Arabic in an accent he instantly recognized.
“Adnan? Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
It was the Lizard, the patient one who lay still and brooded and watched him with what Adnan had thought was sympathy. Now he knew it for deceit, because no sooner had he given up his one big secret than the Lizard had betrayed him to the others, who had brought him here.
That first night had been almost like the plane trip again, with its vomiting and chill and shivering, teeth chattering so hard that it was like biting concrete, again and again.
Now he heard the Lizard speaking in English to the guard, who was shaking his head, speaking back. The guard pulled him over to a chair, saying something. Was he supposed to sit now, here at the table? The others never had let him sit. They stood him in a corner, or squatted him before a strobe light, or a speaker blaring music. Then they leaned low with their questions: “Tell us about Hussay. Just tell us about Hussay and you can go home.”
The MP nudged him toward the chair, so Adnan sat, still eyeing the scene through the opaque layers he had built around himself. He tried brushing them away, but his hands wouldn’t move, still locked behind his back. They must have done that before waking him. But he was determined to climb back to the surface, if only for a moment. The Lizard had to hear what had become of him. Had to know the price of betrayal. So he would emerge, if he could, just long enough to vent his anger. Then he would retreat. There would be plenty of time later to rebuild all the layers of his shell, to again become the pixel on the screen, the lone dot of light fading to darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FALK HAD TO SPEND at least ten minutes of his precious half hour getting Adnan settled down, and it was easy to see why. The young man was bruised, pale and gaunt, looking as if he had lost fifteen pounds. He had been here only six days, but it might as well have been a lifetime.
The props of his destruction were plain to see. A pair of strobe lights sat on the floor in a corner, next to a tape deck and a hundred-watt speaker—only one, no need for stereophonic quality when volume was your only concern. There were no truncheons, prods, or extra shackles, but that kind of equipment was portable.
Under these circumstances, Falk didn’t want anyone at the table but Adnan and him, but first he had to argue with the MP.
“I’m not supposed to leave,
sir, and this one’s been trouble. They said to never let him out of my sight.”
Falk would have asked who “they” were, but knew he’d get nothing. He had noticed on the way in that no one filled out any forms or otherwise noted their presence for the record. Maybe that was because this visit was off the books. Or maybe every visit to Camp Echo was off the books. His bosses in Washington would have blanched to know he was here, and there was no way he would ever volunteer the information.
“Don’t worry, soldier. I take full responsibility. Just lock him to the floor and wait outside. I’ll call if I need you.”
“Okay, but it’s kind of hard to hear from out there.”
No doubt, Falk thought, eyeing the walls and door. Whoever had built Camp Echo had thought of everything, including sound insulation.
Tyndall and Bo were behind the mirror, waiting for the show to begin. It was cramped and stuffy back there, but so be it. With the time limit, they wouldn’t suffer long, and judging from what Falk had to work with, the half hour wasn’t likely to be productive.
Falk had insisted that neither of them show his face or speak up once the session began. As damaged as the young man was, the last thing Falk needed was another intrusion that might set him off, or push him deeper into whatever place he’d retreated to. Adnan might well remember Tyndall from last week. Even an unfamiliar mug like Bo’s could upset the balance.
Adnan was breathing heavily from the moment he entered the room, and the hyperventilation scarcely improved when he recognized Falk. He said something, but it was unintelligible, coming out as a grunt, and even that took so much effort that it sprayed a white foam of spittle across his chin. His eyes were burning, with either rage or eagerness, maybe both. But it seemed clear that he had something to get off his chest.
“Easy, now. Easy, fellow.” Good Lord, it was like talking to a child, a dog. It was all Falk could do not to reach across the table and stroke him on the head. “It’s going to be okay now.” But it wasn’t, of course, not if Adnan was being handed over to Yemeni intelligence, whose tactics would only be worse.
The Prisoner of Guantanamo Page 29
