The Prisoner of Guantanamo

by Dan Fesperman

  “All right.” Fowler was all business now. “Enough playing around. You can make this as hard as you want. But don’t give me any guff about warrants, or your rights as a civilian, because you know exactly where we are and what that means as far as anyone’s rights are concerned. The Constitution? Never heard of it. We’re in the zone of exclusion, and I’ve been authorized by the highest authority possible, so pay attention. Now how ’bout if we both have a seat?”

  Falk returned to the living room while wondering what Fowler meant by “highest authority possible.” On the base? In the task force? Or back in the States? Which would be a different matter altogether. Maybe Fowler was bluffing. But he was right about one thing. No one would be reading Falk his Miranda rights anytime soon.

  “Maybe you should take that wet jacket off,” Fowler said, settling back onto the couch. “This could take a while.”

  As Falk unzipped the jacket he felt the rigid wafer of the fake passport in his right pocket, and it was all he could do not to flinch. One quick patdown by the MP and he’d have been a goner. He gingerly placed the dripping jacket on a coat hook by the door, as if it had been wired to explode. Then he sat down in a chair opposite Fowler.

  “Frankly I’m surprised you came back from Jacksonville,” Fowler began. “When I heard you’d skipped town I figured you’d hang out there until everything blew over, then come creeping back like nothing had ever happened.”

  “You’ve obviously never spent much time in Jacksonville.”

  “You haven’t either, from what I’ve heard. Took off due south and weren’t seen again until the day of the flight. Care to tell me where you went?”

  “I’ve got to account for my leave time now? Hell, I’m not even military. I’m civilian. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Look, I know you may think of me as an overly patriotic blowhard. Plenty of others around here do. It’s like some sort of Gitmo combat fatigue. Two months of mission and everyone’s a cynic. So go ahead, but be forewarned. Right now your loyalty is in question.”

  “Loyalty to what?”

  “This task force, and everything it stands for. Your country, your employer.”

  “Care to explain what makes you think that?”

  “Do you really want the list?”

  “Yes. Because frankly I’m not sure who’s working for what anymore, or why. And that includes my closest friends and colleagues, and it certainly includes you.”

  “Since you brought it up, let’s discuss your friends. Ted Bokamper, for one.”

  “What about him?”

  “What’s he up to? And what’s your role in it?”

  “Look, I’m not sure what delusions you’re operating under. But I’m not involved in anything. Whatever my friend Ted Bokamper does is his business. If I’ve done a few favors for him along the way, then that’s all they’ve been, favors for a friend, and maybe I’d like to know what the hell they were for, too, now that they’re attracting so much unwanted attention.”

  Besides, he just bugged my goddamn car! Falk wanted to say, but he restrained himself.

  “So you have been helping him.”

  “I’ve passed along the usual rumors. Offered him my opinion on the lay of the land. It’s no secret that your little team hasn’t exactly been the happiest development in the history of Camp Delta. Some see it as a needed cleansing, some see it as a witch hunt. But everybody I’ve talked to seems to be as much in the dark as I am about what’s really going on.”

  “I’m not here to talk about the arrests, or our little security investigation, and I think you know that. I’m talking about the extracurricular activities that your friend Mr. Bokamper and some of his local colleagues have been involved in. Van Meter. Lawson. And you. That’s four pieces I know of, and we’re looking for more, so how ’bout some straight answers.”

  Every time Falk thought he had something figured out, the tables turned again. He was more confused than ever.

  “Then you’d better ask Bokamper. Because I’m not a part of it, and don’t want to be.”

  “You really still think you’re immune, don’t you? Is it because you work for the Bureau? Or because of Bokamper’s sponsors, and who they represent? I’m here to tell you that you’re not protected by either. In fact, you’ve got a couple of major weaknesses that none of them have.”

  So here was where Fowler began talking about Cuba, Harry, and Paco, he supposed. Here was when they decided to search the house, and turn the place upside down.

  “All right. Tell me about my weaknesses.”

  “One is that you’re here, and already in our custody. With no lawyers and no phones. Yours has been disconnected, by the way. The bigger one is this: There’s no one back in the States who’ll miss you. I’ve checked. No wife and kids. No mom and dad. No bro and sis. No steady. No rich uncle or doting aunt. Hell, Falk, you’re alone in the world except for your employer, and trust me, they’ll agree to play along once they know the stakes. As for your girlfriend, she’s under house arrest. And your best buddy, well, maybe we can’t touch him yet, but if you think he’d lift a finger on your behalf then maybe you really don’t know what he’s up to. But I still think you’re playing dumb, and I won’t tolerate it.”

  Falk shook his head, saying nothing. Fowler continued.

  “Okay, then. Let’s talk about the Yemenis. Seven of them in all, I believe, all but one signed out by interrogators who withheld their ID numbers. Why’d you authorize that?”

  So Fowler had also seen those records, which put his theft for Bo in an entirely new light.

  “I never authorized anything, especially not that. I’d like to know who those people are, too.”

  “For a Bureau man you’re not very good at lying, you know.”

  At that moment Falk could see himself as if in a mirror. Or, more apt, as if he were looking at himself through a two-way mirror, from the viewing room of an interrogation booth. He was there on the couch, still dripping wet, face startled, the light a little too bright in his eyes as his weariness began to show. He was hedging his answers and looking off into the corner. He was avoiding eye contact, professing ignorance even as he admitted knowledge.

  Fowler was right. Falk was being sloppy and acting stupidly or, worse, acting like a liar. Well, he was done with that now. Time to tighten the ship. He turned and looked Fowler straight in the eye while keeping his hands in his lap. No gestures of evasion or futility. He struck the relaxed pose of a man with nothing to hide, but also nothing to offer—well, nothing except one small item to cover the misstep he’d just made by admitting to knowing about the interrogated Yemenis. From here on out he wouldn’t leave a single track for Fowler to follow.

  “Look, I checked those sign-in books, too. Just like you must have done. But I did it in the course of the Ludwig investigation. I was checking all the sign-outs done during his watch. A matter of routine. But none of those people were me, and none were authorized by me. I’ve spoken to probably three of those Yemenis in all, but primarily Adnan. And now he’s been removed beyond my access.”

  “Ludwig? The soldier who went missing?”

  “The soldier who drowned. Then washed up on the Cuban side. You should look into it. Maybe you’d find the tracks of some of your buddies. Van Meter, for one, although you seem to be implying he’s no longer on your side.”

  Falk knew he had gone too far with the remark, but it would keep Fowler busy for a while.

  “Your story doesn’t wash,” Fowler said, but no longer with his previous conviction. “We know that you’ve been after all those Yemenis, and we know—repeat, know—that you’re doing it in tandem with your friend Ted Bokamper.”

  “Sorry. You’re just wrong.” He held the gaze. Kept his hands folded.

  “Then let’s move back to more fertile ground. Bokamper. You still haven’t filled in the blanks on him.”

  Falk was beginning to realize that Fowler wasn’t very good at this, so he decided to say nothing more, not bec
ause he was protecting anyone—were any of his friends even worthy of protection now?—but because he had no idea which end was up. There was a new dynamic at work, one that he had never encountered before, a new code, a new language even. He spoke Arabic as well as any of the non-Muslims here, but in this strange realm dreamed up by Bo, Fowler, Van Meter, Tyndall, Paco, and yes, perhaps also Pam, what he needed most right now was an interpreter, someone to point out all the loaded words and to separate the treasonous from the loyal, the duplicitous from the straightforward, and, frankly, the murderous from the merely pragmatic.

  Until he could speak that language, he was determined to keep his own counsel.

  Fowler played one last card, but it was a pretty powerful one.

  “I’m going to give you a proposition to consider overnight,” he said. “How would you like to end up inside the wire? Someplace where you would be ours and ours alone? I could make it happen, you know. Put you on the wrong side of the table, and for good. You’d be one of the ghosts, with no sponsor, no advocate, and no one back home to ask whatever happened to old what’s-his-name? So think about that tonight while you’re trying to sleep. In the meantime, I’ll post these MPs out front to keep you safe. Not that there’s anywhere to go. In the morning, we’ll talk again. And if you’re still not in the mood, we can try a little of what General Trabert calls ‘pushing the envelope.’ Sleep well.”

  Fowler got up to leave, and the two sentries followed. Falk kept his seat on the couch.

  Snakes, indeed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  FALK DID SLEEP WELL, at least for a while, thanks mostly to exhaustion, a couple of beers, and the hypnotic drumming of the rain.

  Besides, what else could he do? After Fowler left he looked out the front window and saw a sentry on the porch and a Humvee at the curb. At the rate Fowler was going there would soon be a Humvee and a sentry on every block. Maybe the Pentagon would have to call up another Reserve unit, just to tend to all the misfits and security risks.

  Falk awakened to a knocking and scratching sound, as if a giant rodent were trying to come through the wall. Sitting up in bed, he realized it was coming from the window. He thought first of Pam. A return visit? His second thought was to wonder if he would let her in. Instead it was Bo, soaked to the bone in a T-shirt and shorts as he forced back the screen. Falk unlocked the sash. This was becoming Gitmo’s preferred method for social calls.

  “Easy,” Falk said groggily, raising the sash. “Don’t tear it off. I’ll pop it loose.”

  Once again, the security of Fowler’s “house arrest” had proven quite porous. But, again, it wasn’t as if there were anywhere they could go.

  Falk fetched a towel from the bathroom, and by the time Bo was drying off he had remembered all the reasons not to offer a warm welcome.

  “What’s the occasion?” he asked. “You here to bug my bedroom, too? Or have you already taken care of that?”

  Bo shook his head. “Did the living room instead.”

  “When, if I may ask?”

  “While you were gone. After Whitaker left.”

  “So you must have heard Fowler’s little visit?”

  “Most of it. You did well. After kind of a rough start, anyway.”

  “Let’s see what you say tomorrow, after he’s stuck me in Camp X-Ray.”

  “Relax. He’s bluffing.”

  “Easy for you to say. Why doesn’t he just run you in?”

  “Maybe he thinks you’re calling the shots.”

  “Wonder who gave him that idea.”

  “Maybe he just knows I’m better protected.”

  “If it’s true, why are you sneaking around at—what time is it?”

  “Half past midnight.”

  “Jesus, Bo. Well, as long as you’re up, how ’bout getting rid of the goddamn microphone? I don’t want to waste the whole morning looking for it before the Inquisition arrives.”

  They padded down the silent hallway toward the living room.

  “Just keep your voice down,” Bo said in a stage whisper. “The sentry’s on the porch, staying out of the rain. Don’t turn on any lights.”

  Falk answered in a normal tone of voice.

  “You think I’m actually worried about you getting caught?”

  Bo reached under the dining room table and, with a small popping sound, tore loose a device much like the one that had been wired to Falk’s car radio. Then he actually grinned, more impish than embarrassed.

  “So I guess you’re really pissed off, huh?” he said.

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Definitely. I plead guilty with an explanation.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “First I need a beer.”

  Falk found himself oddly ambivalent as he stepped toward the fridge. Yes, he was angry. Bo’s cavalier attitude was especially infuriating. But maybe their friendship still counted for something if Bo was here now. And if Bo had helped back him into a corner, at least Bo seemed to be in the same tight space.

  He grabbed the beer, plus a glass of water for himself. Bo turned on a radio and jacked up the volume. More salsa from across the fenceline. Nonstop, like a heartbeat.

  “You were sleeping pretty soundly for a condemned man.”

  “Is that what I am now?”

  Bo shrugged, finally seeming a little unsure of himself. In a way, it was the most encouraging sign Falk had seen yet, so he pressed the advantage.

  “You’re not exactly flying with the angels on this Cuban mess, are you?”

  “I’m flying with Endler, period. I work for people, not causes. I trust the Doc to get it right, and usually he does.”

  “Except this time he threw in his lot with the zealots. It makes me wonder why you didn’t try recruiting me from the beginning. I certainly had all the right qualifications: Talks to Yemenis. Gets results. You could have lied to me just like you did anyway and gotten exactly what you wanted.”

  Never mind that Falk already had exactly what Bo and Endler wanted. But he would rather have shared Adnan’s bombshell with Paco than with this bunch.

  “Believe me, you would’ve been first on the list. But Endler came late to the game, and by then his sponsors were using Van Meter and Lawson. Those guys didn’t think you were ready for prime time. They said you weren’t their style.”

  “Best thing I’ve heard about myself all week.”

  “I agree. Dumb and Dumber, those two. Why do you think I wanted those sign-out sheets? I needed to see how much of a trail they’d left.”

  “The way I remember it is that you wanted me to steal them. To erase the trail altogether.”

  “Did you?”

  Damned if he’d say so now.

  “Couldn’t. The MP was right there the whole time. But I saw their trail, all right. I guess you must already know they killed Ludwig.”

  “Suspected it, anyway. They’d said all along they had an insider, somebody to cover their tracks and keep their names out of the books. Then he got cold feet, so they were going to strong-arm him, put the fear of God in him.”

  “They did that, all right. Fucked around with his bank and then took him for a little boat ride.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “Met him on the beach. Then probably rode him toward the boundary just to shake him up. Only I guess they didn’t know he tended to freak out in small boats, so they must have lost him overboard. Or maybe they pushed him. Either way, like you said, Dumb and Dumber. Is that why they sent you down once Endler signed on? To clean up the mess and keep Fowler’s hands out of the pie?”

  “Only because the Doc told his people he had an insider who could help.”

  “Meaning me. But they still didn’t have the information they wanted. So you decided to get Pam involved.”

  “Pam?” Bo initially looked flabbergasted, then seemed on the verge of laughter. “For that last interrogation at X-Ray, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” Falk wasn’t smiling.

  “Sorry. My
little prank.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That happened my first night here and—how can I put this nicely?—she hadn’t exactly made a good impression. So when we needed a crash interrogation I just told Van Meter to use her number.”

  “Nice guy.” Falk tried not to show his sense of relief. At least someone hadn’t lied to him. “So how’d you get her number? Tyndall?”

  “The Agency? They’re out of the loop on this.”

  “The Pink Palace, then. I guess as chief of security Van Meter had the connections.”

  “Believe what you want. I’ve said enough already. I’m just sorry it came to this.”

  “Why? You’re getting exactly what you want. You even got Adnan moved into Camp Delta.”

  “That was Fowler’s move, to keep him away from us. They’ve been pumping the poor bastard to find out what we’re after. Hasn’t worked, of course.”

  “So you piggybacked on me to get inside Echo. And now, let me guess, Endler’s the one who pulled a few strings to make Adnan a rendition. Let the Yemenis do the dirty work for you.”

  “Sorry, Falk. No more explaining.”

  “Until after you get your war. Or whatever it is everybody’s hoping for. That’ll be a huge public service.”

  “Getting rid of Castro? Damn right it will be. And if some Cuban operative strayed from the leash long enough to crawl into bed with an al-Qaeda recruiter, why not make the most of it? It’s like I told you, it’s not the information, it’s who controls it. If we get it before Fowler, we own it.”

  “Castro will probably die soon anyway. I thought you worked for people, not causes.”

  “I am working for people. You included. You know what Endler wanted? He was getting worried about your reliability, so he wanted you arrested as soon as you were done with Paco in Miami. A trumped-up charge that would let him stick you out of sight until we finished our business. The only reason he didn’t was because I talked him out of it.”