Afraid of the Dark js-9

by James Grippando

  “Not even the police believe that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A homicide investigator came to talk with me.”

  Jack did a double take. “When?”

  “Several times. In between the time McKenna died and when her mother disappeared.”

  “What about?”

  “There were e-mails or Internet chat communications or something of that sort that Shada Mays was having. I don’t know specifics, but the detective made it clear enough to me that the police suspected Shada was onto something.”

  “What do you mean ‘something’?”

  “Chuck Mays wasn’t the only person in that family who knew how to use a computer. Shada was tracking her daughter’s killer on the Internet and got too close to him.”

  “The detective told you that?”

  “Yes. Because the theory was that Jamal killed McKenna, and that McKenna’s mother was talking with him online, luring him back to the States so that he could be brought to justice.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about that.”

  “Of course you haven’t. Because it doesn’t wash anymore. The theory was that McKenna’s mother talked Jamal into meeting with her in person, but when she tried to turn him in or get him to turn himself in, Jamal killed her and covered his tracks by making it look like suicide. Now the cops know that Jamal was in Guantanamo when McKenna’s mother was having those online chats with her daughter’s killer. I may be going out on a limb here, but I don’t think enemy combatants at Gitmo had Internet.”

  Jack went cold. He’d smelled cover-ups before, but this one had a capital C. “So they can deny that Jamal was in a black site in Prague when McKenna was killed,” said Jack.

  “But they can’t deny that he was locked up in Gitmo when McKenna’s mother was talking to McKenna’s killer.”

  “Which, of course, leaves the big question,” said Jack. “Who was Shada Mays having those online communications with?”

  “Answer that,” she said, “and I think you’ll know who killed McKenna Mays. And her mother.”

  Jack was beginning to wonder if this could also explain the inexplicable, the thing that had puzzled him since his meeting with Chuck Mays. It was one thing for the victim’s family to question whether the police had the right man. It was another thing entirely for Chuck Mays to express those doubts to Jack, the lawyer for the man accused of murdering his daughter.

  “Thank you,” said Jack. “This has been an eye-opener.”

  “I didn’t come for ‘thanks.’ I want to know what you think.”

  Jack walked around the desk to his phone, ready to speed-dial Neil Goderich. “If what you’re saying is true, I think your son has sat in jail long enough.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Andie rode the Green Line into Washington for a status meeting with the supervisory agent in charge of her undercover operation. Her Metro stop was U-Street/Cardozo, near Howard University, and she took the escalator up to the Thirteenth Street exit. A cold front was pushing through that afternoon, and the temperature had dropped almost ten degrees since lunchtime. January was not her favorite time of year to visit the capital, and this latest trip north had confirmed that her Seattle roots had dissolved and that she was officially a thin-blooded Floridian.

  Andie cinched up her coat and started toward the Hotel LaDroit. Her undercover role was a round-the-clock commitment, and meetings at FBI offices were out of the question. Andie wondered what Jack would have said about her meeting an ex-marine like Harley Abrams at a cheap hotel. Before she could even laugh at the thought, however, Harley stopped her on the sidewalk. He’d just walked out of Ben’s Chili Bowl-A WASHINGTON LANDMARK, the sign above the window said, famous for its place in civil rights history and its “Chili Smokes” hot dogs.

  “Whoa, I don’t need to eat for a week,” said Harley. “Let’s talk while I walk this off.”

  Andie was almost shivering. “Aren’t we meeting indoors?”

  “This way,” he said. “Ten minutes, tops.”

  “Let’s make it five,” said Andie. She set a brisk pace to the corner, where Harley led her up a side street.

  “This wasn’t on my original agenda,” he said, “but I got another call this morning from Justice about your fiance. To put it mildly, there are serious concerns about the direction his defense strategy is taking.”

  They stopped at a traffic light. There was a dentist’s office on the corner, and it occurred to Andie that between the worsening weather and the continuing assault on Jack-this was not the first conversation with her supervisor about Jamal Wakefield-today’s status meeting was turning out to be about as pleasant as a root canal.

  “How do they know what Jack’s defense strategy is?” she asked.

  “Well, the lawyers at Justice are making certain assumptions.”

  “They can assume all they want,” said Andie. “It’s like I told you before: If Jack wants to defend Jamal Wakefield, that’s his decision.”

  The light turned green. Andie buried her hands in her coat pockets, and Harley matched her stride across the street.

  “Don’t get defensive,” he said. “I’m sharing this with you only because I thought you should know. That’s all.”

  Andie paused to consider the source. Harley was one of the good guys, and it was pointless to kill the messenger. “Okay, sorry. I appreciate the heads-up.”

  Harley stopped midway down the block. Andie was eager to find warmth inside a comfortable lobby, but there wasn’t a hotel in sight. In fact, the neighborhood had turned questionable.

  “Don’t tell me you got us lost,” said Andie.

  They were standing in front of a hardware store, but Harley’s gaze had drifted toward a small shop across the street. The plate-glass windows were blacked over, but the sign on the door-CAPITAL PLEASURES, it read-featured a tall blonde in tight black leather with strategically placed nickel studs.

  “Harley, this seems inappropriate.”

  “That’s why I’m going to let one of our female agents handle this. Cherie Donner from the Washington field office is sort of an expert in this field. She’ll be here any minute, take you inside, and show you around. Then the two of you will meet in private. She can explain everything.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “Your undercover role is entering a new phase.”

  Andie let it sink in. She’d played a prostitute on her first undercover assignment in Seattle, but this was her first venture into the world of leather and chains.

  “Are you asking me to play some kind of dominatrix?”

  “I would have volunteered myself, but does anybody really want to see me in a getup like that?”

  Andie shook off the thought in a hurry. “Definitely not, but I-”

  “Relax,” he said. “I was just kidding about wearing the stuff. It’s more of an education into a lifestyle and certain male fetishes that Agent Donner will introduce you to.”

  She took another quick look across the street, wondering what Jack would say about her visit to Capital Pleasures.

  Honey, do you like the riding crop with the rhinestones, or without?

  “You’re okay with this, right?” he asked.

  “Sure, I’m fine. There’s just one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t expect me to whip my husband into dropping his case,” she said as she thumped him on the chest.

  Chapter Nineteen

  On Monday evening Jack got his first taste of Somali cuisine. It was at Cafe Nema-in Washington, D.C.

  Proving that Jamal had been held at a secret detention center in Prague was step two of the alibi defense. Step one was proving that a facility had ever existed in the Czech Republic in the first place-an even bigger hurdle. The defense team needed a heavy hitter, and it was Neil who had arranged for them to meet with Stan Haber, a corporate litigator who believed that everyone deserved a lawyer. That belief wasn’t incompatible with profit: Ove
r the years, Haber and his powerful Washington firm had logged thousands of billable hours trying to convince juries that Big Tobacco didn’t know cigarettes were addictive. Lately, he’d spent his time defending Gitmo detainees free of charge.

  “Who ordered the sambousa with basmati rice pilaf?” the waitress asked.

  Flaky fried triangles of dough filled with curried vegetables weren’t exactly exotic, but Cafe Nema was more about the experience. At the basement level, a few steps below U Street, the dimly lit room was ripe for conversation, a cozy mix of foreign ex-pats and hip U-Streeters. Battered brick walls displayed a collage of brightly colored oil paintings, and a large Somali flag hung on a section painted fire-engine red. Photos of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington hung above the worn wooden bar, where counter and stools bore the nicks, scratches, and other badges of use. Older men spoke French and Arabic, savoring plates of kibeh (a torpedo-shaped pastry filled with beef and onions). Students from nearby Howard University gathered at tables to kibitz or send text messages from their cell phones. Jazz music set the mood without interfering with the buzz of voices.

  “Sambousa is mine,” said Jack.

  The waitress served the platters and quickly brought another round of beers. Neil steered the conversation back toward business.

  “Stan has been on top of black detention sites ever since the Washington Post broke the story in 2005.”

  Jack already knew all that, but Neil’s brief segue was all the encouragement Haber needed to remind them that he had been among the first volunteers to visit Guantanamo, and that he’d played a key role in securing the game-changing decision of the Supreme Court that detainees must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

  “Obviously, we’d love to have someone like you on board,” said Jack. “But here’s my concern. Our job is to get Jamal acquitted on charges of first degree murder. Nothing more. I don’t want to turn his case into a foreign-policy battle where my client is collateral damage in a war against the CIA.”

  “Then you’re dreaming,” said Haber. “The CIA doesn’t care why you want the information. You want to prove that secret detention sites existed in Eastern Europe-something the United States and every Eastern European country has denied for years. Even the Red Cross had to push for five years to get access to the detainees, and they still didn’t get information about all the black sites.”

  “Are you saying you can’t help us?” asked Neil.

  Haber emptied his beer bottle into a tall glass. “When you represent a detainee from a black site, you’re fighting every step of the way for information that the CIA does not want to be made public. My client is a good example. Mohammed was thrown into the back of a van by a group of strongmen who wore black outfits, masks that covered their faces, and dark visors over their eyes-probably commandos attached to the CIA’s paramilitary Special Activities Division. He was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location. It’s the beginning of a process designed to strip the detainee of any dignity.”

  “Sounds like what Jamal described,” said Jack.

  “Disorientation is also a big part of it. For my client it was twenty days in a pitch-black cell with Eminem’s ‘Slim Shady’ and Dr. Dre blaring nonstop. Then it was day after day of ghoulish Halloween sounds, always in total darkness, always in solitary confinement. They’d chain him to the ceiling hanging by his wrists so that his toes could barely touch the ground, then they’d bring him down for waterboarding. He spent hours in something called a dog box, which, as the name, implies isn’t big enough for a human being. These are all tactics that were used effectively by the KGB, but you have to remember that the KGB was interested in securing false confessions to crimes against the state, not the gathering of reliable intelligence. It got to the point where my client tried to kill himself by running his head into the wall. Didn’t work. He just knocked himself unconscious.”

  “He’s probably much better at flying airplanes into buildings,” said Jack-and he’d shocked himself, the words having come like a reflex.

  “Whoa,” said Neil.

  Jack’s mouth opened, but the explanation was on a slight delay, as if his brain needed extra time to process what was going on. “It’s not that I make light of torture,” he said, still trying to comprehend. “I just… I think I had an Andie moment.”

  “A what?”

  “My fiancee,” said Jack. “She’s an FBI agent. You kept going on and on about the treatment at these black sites, and suddenly I could almost hear Andie whispering into my ear: ‘Before you get all ACLU on me, remember what most of these guys would do if given the chance.’ ”

  The other men exchanged glances, and Neil tried to lighten things up. “These things happen with Jack. Not many guys spend four years at the Freedom Institute before jumping ship to be a federal prosecutor.”

  “Ah, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, are you?” said Haber.

  “A sheep in wolf’s clothing, if you ask my fiancee. I lasted only two years at the U.S. attorney’s office.”

  Haber drank from his beer and nodded. “I guess none of us is easy to figure out. Look at Neil and me: a couple of Jews defending Islamic extremists.”

  “Funny, Grandpa Swyteck said the same thing about me.”

  Haber looked confused again, so Jack explained. “Since getting Alzheimer’s, my grandfather thinks that he’s Jewish.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Chicago. Both of his parents were born in Bohemia. Somewhere around Prague.”

  “Are there any Czech Jews named Swyteck?” asked Haber.

  “I don’t know,” said Jack. “The name is another one of those Ellis Island disasters.”

  “For your grandfather to be Jewish, it really matters what his mother was.”

  “Her maiden name was Petrak,” said Jack, “which I checked out on the Internet. It means ‘Peter the Rock’-as in the Apostle Peter being the first pope, the rock upon which Christ founded his church.”

  “That doesn’t sound too Jewish,” said Haber.

  “You never know,” said Neil. “A lot of Eastern European Jews had good reason to assume a gentile surname, even before the Nazis. How do you think Goldsmith became Goderich?”

  Jack hadn’t thought of that.

  Haber said, “Maybe someday you’ll want to go to Prague to check it out.”

  “And while you’re there, look for black sites,” said Neil.

  “Don’t waste your time,” said Haber, his expression turning serious. “Even former detainees can’t locate them. About the only thing my client could tell me about the one in Kabul was that it was underground and close to the airport. Everything else was nondescript or utterly black. The place was known for its absolute lack of light. Detainees even called it the Dark Prison.”

  Jack froze.

  Haber looked at him curiously. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “The Dark Prison?” said Jack.

  “Yeah, why?” said Haber. “Does that strike you as particularly inventive?”

  “Inventive, no. But incredibly coincidental.”

  Jack told him about the informant he was supposed to have met at the Lincoln Mall on Saturday night, the man falling over dead, and the handwritten message Jack found on the napkin when he returned to his table.

  “ ‘Are you afraid of The Dark?’ was what he wrote,” Jack said. “It was a curious message. And I thought it was interesting that the T and the D were both capitalized.”

  Jack looked around the table, and suddenly it was as if the wheels in their heads were all turning in the same direction.

  “But why would you be afraid of a secret prison in Kabul?” asked Haber.

  Jack thought for a moment. “Maybe it wasn’t actually directed at me. Maybe the threat was intended for someone else-someone who’s sure to read it and who has reason to be afraid.”

  “Afraid of what might become public about the black s
ites,” said Neil, “like the Dark Prison.”

  “Or afraid of the things he had done there,” said Jack.

  “You mean afraid of being held accountable for what he’s done,” said Neil.

  “That may be,” said Jack. “But people who inflict torture on other human beings-especially under orders-can pay a heavy psychological price. Being afraid of the dark could be, as you say, the fear of criminal prosecution. But it could also be the nightmares that haunt them for having crossed the line-for having literally and figuratively traveled to such a dark place.”

  Laughter drifted over from the old men drinking large cups of kahawa at the bar, the smell of freshly ground beans in the air. Finally, Neil spoke up.

  “Well, gentlemen, that’s one more thing to look into.”

  “One more thing,” said Jack, his gaze drifting across the room and coming to rest on the Somali flag hanging on the wall. “Just what we needed.”

  Chapter Twenty

  From the backseat of a cab, the lighted monuments of the capital were a blur as Jack and Neil rode in silence to their hotel.

  Stan Haber had lined up several meetings for them in the morning, including one with a representative from the International Committee of the Red Cross, who had presented the “ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen ‘High Value Detainees’ in CIA Custody.” Jack had read the report and had found it interesting that detainees were held in as many as ten different black sites before their arrival in Guantanamo. The Red Cross was careful to point out, however, that “this report will not enter into conjecture by referring to possible countries or locations of places of detention beyond the first or second countries of detention,” and that “the ICRC is confident that the concerned authorities will be able to identify from their records which place of detention is being referred to and the relevant period of detention.” All of that was code for the fact that sometimes the only way the Red Cross gained access to prisoners was by promising to keep certain things confidential, which was just fine for the “concerned authorities.” Probably not so fine for Jamal Wakefield and his lawyers.