Rule of Law

by Randy Singer

  “About a hundred times.”

  “Long live the Alamo,” Wyatt said.

  Paige blinked back the tears. This was sounding too much like a last good-bye. “Be careful over there,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about me. The Houthis are nothing compared to that snake pit you’ll be in.”

  “Thanks. I feel a lot better now.”

  Wyatt gave Paige a hug, wrapping her in the smell of cheap cigars. She was already missing the man, and he hadn’t even left. He had an infectious boldness, and just having him around made her feel more confident.

  After he pulled away, he retrieved a letter from his backpack and handed it to her. It had a single name on the outside. “If anything happens to me, would you give this to my son?” Wyatt asked.

  “Of course,” Paige said.

  “Thanks.”

  He turned, walked toward security, and didn’t look back. Silently, Paige prayed that she would see him again.

  76

  Wyatt had paid extra for a direct flight on Emirates Airlines, but he was still in the air for thirteen straight hours. His flight left Dulles at 10:55 Saturday morning, and he arrived in Dubai on Sunday morning at a few minutes after eight. He was haggard and exhausted and kept wondering what he had been thinking when he agreed to take this trip. They had served no alcohol on the flight, and he was squeezed into a window seat next to a big man who should have been required to buy two seats himself. Wyatt’s neck was stiff and he felt scuzzy as he exited the airplane into the Dubai International terminal.

  It was not at all what he expected. The terminal was glistening and spotless and teeming with people from every part of the globe. All of the signs were in both Arabic and English, and he heard lots of travelers speaking his native tongue. The airport featured lush little gardens of palm trees and shrubs set off by glass railings. It was a sharp contrast to the arid and brown landscape he had seen as the plane came in for a landing.

  Wyatt was wearing a pair of jeans, boat shoes, and an old gray T-shirt, yet he didn’t feel at all out of place. Walking toward customs, he saw only a few women in traditional Arab garb with their heads or faces covered. He passed a Starbucks and stopped for breakfast at the cleanest Burger King he had ever seen. He used the bathroom because he knew it might be a long time before he had accommodations like this again.

  He traded in his dollars for local dirhams and passed through customs without a glitch. Wyatt had steeled himself during the flight for life-threatening dangers once he hit the ground, but he was starting to think this might not be that bad.

  On the other side of customs stood a wall of people waiting for travelers, holding signs in a variety of languages. Wyatt stopped and looked around. The plan, according to Gazala Holloman, was for somebody to meet Wyatt right here, carrying a sign with his name on it. That person and a few others would sneak Wyatt across the border and take him deep into Yemen, where he would meet with Saleet Zafar and the people who knew about the drone strike at the adobe house where the sheep offering had taken place.

  But Wyatt saw no signs with his name. He looked around for a few minutes and was finally approached by a short man with a full black beard and bright brown eyes.

  “Mr. Jackson?” The man had a thick Middle Eastern accent.

  “Yes,” Wyatt said, extending his hand.

  The man shook it. “Come with me,” he said, nodding toward the doorway. “May I take?” He grabbed for Wyatt’s backpack but Wyatt pulled it back.

  “No. I’ve got it.”

  Wyatt followed the man, who continually turned and peppered Wyatt with questions. Good flight? You sleep? How is your family? You are hungry?

  Wyatt learned that his bubbly and energetic host was named Mahmoud. And according to Mahmoud, Wyatt was looking at a nearly thirty-hour road trip along the northern coast of the United Arab Emirates, through Saudi Arabia, and into Yemen. It wasn’t the most direct route, but it was apparently the fastest.

  “Are you going with me?” Wyatt asked.

  Mahmoud smiled and gave his head a vigorous little shake. “Oh no. I stay here in Dubai.”

  “Will anybody speak English on the trip?”

  “Yes. Sure. Saleet Zafar speak English.”

  “No, I mean, will anybody in the car with me during the thirty-hour car ride speak English?”

  Mahmoud smiled, shaking his head again. “It’s okay,” he said. “They show you what to do.”

  For some reason that he couldn’t put his finger on, Wyatt instinctively trusted Mahmoud. The man was cheery and making every effort to be helpful. It was like Wyatt was some kind of celebrity and it was Mahmoud’s job to keep him happy. Wyatt didn’t like the fact that Mahmoud was not going with him into Yemen.

  “What are the roads like?” Wyatt asked.

  “They okay. Pretty good.”

  “Rocky?”

  Mahmoud looked puzzled.

  “Rough. Lots of stones and rocks,” Wyatt explained, using his hands to show the shape of a rock.

  Mahmoud nodded. “Yes. Yes. Very many stones.”

  Wyatt let it drop. He decided it was better to just be surprised.

  His first unpleasant surprise came at a small house on the outskirts of Dubai when he met the three men who would be escorting him into Yemen. As Mahmoud introduced them, he was the only one smiling and nodding. The others looked harsh and weathered, staring at Wyatt as if they would rather beat him to a pulp than give him a ride anywhere.

  Mahmoud had blitzed through the introductions so fast that Wyatt couldn’t remember any of their names. But it became immediately clear that none of them spoke English.

  Each wore a long white robe and a red-and-white head scarf tied with a black cord. They were broad-shouldered, and two were nearly as tall as Wyatt. They had long knives tucked into their waistbands, and there was a table in the house full of AK-47s and loaded magazines.

  One of the men said something to Mahmoud, who in turn translated for Wyatt. “They want your backpack,” Mahmoud said. As he was talking, one of the men reached for Wyatt’s backpack, but Wyatt stepped back and stared him down.

  “No,” Wyatt said sternly to Mahmoud. “Nobody touches it.”

  The men immediately frowned and started arguing with Mahmoud in Arabic.

  Mahmoud turned to Wyatt. “They say they must have it.”

  “Tell them to pound sand,” Wyatt said.

  Mahmoud tilted his head and furrowed his brow.

  “I am not giving it to them,” Wyatt said.

  Mahmoud relayed the message, which precipitated another animated discussion between Mahmoud and his hosts. Finally Mahmoud turned back to Wyatt. “They say if you do not give backpack, they not take you to Yemen. It is not for negotiation.”

  Wyatt glanced from one face to the next. He was a master negotiator, but he was dealing with a culture that he didn’t understand. “They can look inside, but they cannot have it.”

  Mahmoud sighed and translated again. After another argument with the three men, this time more animated than before, he turned back to Wyatt. His hand gestures indicated that he was at the end of his rope. “They say it must stay here. They cannot trust Americans.”

  There it was—out in the open. These three men didn’t trust Wyatt, and Wyatt didn’t trust them. He had spent thirteen hours flying here, and Saleet’s testimony had the potential of winning the Anderson case hands down and exposing Director Marcano. But at what price?

  Wyatt decided to do what he always did—try one more bluff. He shook his head no. “Take me back to the airport,” he demanded.

  This time Mahmoud didn’t bother to interpret. He just looked at the three men and shrugged and their body language said it all. They weren’t going to give an inch.

  “As you say,” Mahmoud said, his formerly energetic voice flat and resigned. “Let us go.”

  Wyatt walked out the door with Mahmoud but stopped before they got in the car. “I don’t have any weapons,” Wyatt said. “I don’t understand why I
have to leave everything here.”

  Mahmoud turned and looked at him. This time the little man was frowning. “Drones fall from skies,” Mahmoud said. “Those men in the house have seen friends—” Mahmoud stopped and signaled an explosion with his hands, mimicking the sound of a Hellfire missile. “They have good reason not to trust Americans.”

  Wyatt thought about it for a moment. Even if the Supreme Court ruled against them, Wyatt and his team might be able to prove their case through these witnesses in Yemen. He had come this far. He had waited all his life for a case like this where he could expose the corruption of the government, the same government that had always refused to cut his clients any slack. He was getting old. When would he ever have another chance like this?

  “Okay, you win.” He opened his backpack and stuffed a few cigars in his pocket. Then he handed it over to Mahmoud. “Let’s go back inside and get this trip started.”

  77

  The unpleasant surprises didn’t stop there. Before he left, Wyatt had to follow Mahmoud into a small and dingy bathroom where Mahmoud handed Wyatt a razor and soap.

  “I am sorry to say but you must shave eyebrows,” Mahmoud said. He was shaking his head from side to side as if apologizing for the request. “You will cross border into Yemen as a Muslim woman. We have passport for you. You will wear a niqab and abaya.” Mahmoud shrugged as if it were natural for a man to shave his eyebrows.

  “Are you kidding me?” Wyatt asked. “I’m not doing this.” The only asset he would have in Yemen would be his tough-guy American persona. If he shaved his eyebrows, he would look like a clown.

  “You must do. These men have worked very hard for planning this trip.”

  Wyatt looked in the mirror and then at his host. He grabbed the razor from Mahmoud’s hand, then wet his eyebrows and soaped them up. Within a few minutes the bushy gray eyebrows, as much a part of Wyatt as his caustic personality, had been rinsed down the sink.

  “You look very beautiful,” Mahmoud said, chuckling.

  “Shut up.”

  Mahmoud giggled some more. Then he pulled out a black eyebrow pencil and handed it to Wyatt. “You may need later.”

  When Wyatt returned to the main room, one of the other men broke into a broad grin. He said something in Arabic to the other two and they all had a good laugh. Wyatt pulled a pair of shades out of his backpack and put them on along with his baseball cap.

  “Now can we go?” he asked Mahmoud.

  “Of course,” said his host, as if they had all just been waiting for Wyatt to ask.

  Wyatt watched the men put the AK-47s and ammo in the deep trunk of a black sedan along with a couple of gym bags. He sat in the back on the passenger side while the youngest of the three men joined him in the backseat. As they rode, his hosts engaged in little conversation, none of which Wyatt understood. He spent his time looking out the window, studying the scenery in the United Arab Emirates and thinking about the next few days of his life.

  The roads were paved and smooth, and people drove on the right-hand side of the road, though it seemed like his vehicle was going exceptionally fast. The scenery was arid but breathtaking, with red rock formations that resembled the Arizona desert. They passed loose camels on the side of the road; one time a camel crossed not too far in front of the sedan. The driver braked, swerved, and continued on as if it happened all the time.

  To keep his sanity, Wyatt nicknamed his three captors. The driver was Moe because he seemed to be the boss and was older than the others. His sidekick in the front seat was Larry—a wiry man, taller than Moe and all business. Curly, in the backseat, was probably in his twenties—the apprentice who carried the bags. He laughed hard at Moe’s jokes and seemed like he was trying to impress. He was restless and full of energy, shifting in his seat, trying to get comfortable. His beard was straggly and spotty, his skin pockmarked. His eyes seemed wary but not as hard as the others’, more open to mirth and sympathy. If there was a weak link, it would be Curly, and Wyatt made a mental note.

  After about an hour, Wyatt pulled out a cigar and held it up to see if it was okay. Curly said something to Moe, and after Moe approved, Curly nodded his head. Using hand motions, Wyatt explained that he needed a lighter, and soon one was handed back from the front seat. Wyatt lit up and instantly started to relax. He offered a cigar to Curly, who smelled it, nodded, and lit up as well. Soon, all four of them were enjoying a nice American Philly.

  For Wyatt, it started to feel like home.

  The weather was hot and dry and apparently the vehicle had no air-conditioning, because the men rode with the windows down. Wyatt finished his smoke and leaned back in his seat. He was hungry and exhausted from the long trip and from the adrenaline that had coursed through his body. He let the hot, dry desert air blow in his face, and before long he had dozed off to sleep.

  He woke when the car came to an abrupt stop. He looked around, gathered his bearings, and discovered that they had pulled over on the shoulder of some deserted road. He wanted to ask a few questions but what was the use? Curly got out of the car and grabbed one of the bags from the trunk. He threw a large black robe and head covering to Wyatt. He motioned with his arms for Wyatt to put it on.

  Wyatt stepped out of the car and pulled the black robe over his head. He put the head covering on as well so that only his eyes were exposed and he threw his sunglasses and hat in the backseat. Curly motioned for Wyatt to take his shoes off, and Curly threw them in the trunk. Curly then retrieved Wyatt’s eyebrow liner from the backseat and had Wyatt lean over so he could get a new thin set of eyebrows. Larry inspected the work and nodded. Then they all climbed into the sedan and started back to the main road.

  About fifteen minutes later, they approached an area that looked like a customs checkpoint, and Wyatt assumed they were heading into Saudi Arabia. The men handed Wyatt a passport as they waited in a long line of cars. When they finally pulled up to the booth, two customs officers approached the car, one on each side. Everybody spoke rapidly and brusquely, and it seemed to Wyatt like they were all talking at once. His eyes shot back and forth from the customs officers to his escorts. The driver handed one of the men some papers that he glanced through. Another customs officer came to the back door and stared at Wyatt for a moment. He said something in Arabic and held out his hand. Wyatt handed him the fake passport and the man looked it over, his eyes shifting from Wyatt to the passport and back again. He stamped it, grunted something, and tossed it back in the car.

  Wyatt let out a breath, and within minutes they were on the road again, driving through Saudi Arabia. Wyatt started to take his head covering off and Curly reached over and jerked it back down.

  “What are you doing?” Wyatt asked.

  Curly grunted something that Wyatt didn’t understand.

  It was time to test the young man’s resolve. Wyatt started taking the head covering off for a second time, and Larry turned around and pointed a pistol at his head. He barked an order that Wyatt didn’t need translated. Leave it on while we’re in Saudi Arabia.

  When Larry turned back around, Wyatt glanced over at Curly. The young man had an I-told-you-so look on his face. This was going to be a long ride.

  At noon the men stopped on the side of the road, pulled prayer mats out of the trunk, and conducted their midday prayers while Wyatt watched from the backseat. An hour later they stopped at some kind of restaurant but made Wyatt stay in the car. This time Curly stayed with him, a pistol on his lap to keep Wyatt in line.

  While Wyatt waited, his concerns mounted about the way he was being treated. He was alone in a foreign country, and nobody in America knew his precise location. These three men were supposed to be on Wyatt’s side, taking him to Saleet Zafar, but they were treating him more like a prisoner. Somewhere near the border with Saudi Arabia, things had gone from cordial to hostile.

  Wyatt thought about his meeting with Mahmoud at the airport. Why no sign as they had originally planned? Had some other group found out about Wyatt’s arrival and k
idnapped him? Were they taking him to an al Qaeda or ISIS leader? Why wouldn’t they let Mahmoud, the one man who also spoke English, go along on this trip?

  When Moe and Larry returned to the car with two plates of food, Wyatt decided it was time to act. He got out of the car and started arguing with them—English and Arabic flying like missiles. Wyatt ripped off his head covering, drawing the attention of a rapidly growing crowd, staring at a tall American with white hair wearing an abaya. Moe and Larry threw their plates down and shoved Wyatt into the vehicle. In the chaos, Larry pistol-whipped Wyatt, stunning him, then climbed into the backseat along with him and held the gun to his temple.

  The others jumped in and they sped away, leaving a gawking crowd behind. Larry and Moe were both yelling at Wyatt, who touched the wound on his forehead gingerly as blood trickled down his face. From the front seat, Curly handed Wyatt some type of rag, and Wyatt put pressure on the wound, stanching the flow of blood, eyeing Larry suspiciously as he did so.

  They eventually pulled over to the side of the road and forced Wyatt to get out of the vehicle. They handcuffed his bloodstained hands in front of him, using plastic ties that they had apparently brought for just such an occasion. They pulled the niqab back over his head, but this time put it on backward, covering his entire face. They tied the bottom of it around his neck. Then they shoved him back into the vehicle and drove off in silence.

  It was hot, dark, suffocating, and painfully uncomfortable. And it was how Wyatt would ride for the next several hours as the foursome made their way across the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia to its border with the sovereign nation of Yemen.

  78

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Paige woke early on the biggest day of her professional life. She had slept for maybe a grand total of two hours the night before, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling, cases churning through her mind. When she finally dozed off, she found herself answering questions in her dreams after arriving late for court and confusing the names of all the justices.