Secret Justice

by James W. Huston

  Hotary had seen enough. He had to get his men aboard the ship now. He told the rest of his men to stay put and headed for the decrepit three-story hotel that stood three blocks from where his men were gathered. The paint was peeling off the outside walls in large chunks. He walked into the lobby alone and headed straight for the rickety stairs. He walked up to the third floor without looking right or left, like someone who had walked up those stairs hundreds of times. He went to the room number that he had memorized and rapped gently on the door. Satti opened the door and Hotary quickly stepped through.

  “Is everything ready?” he asked quickly.

  Satti replied, “Here are the papers.”

  “Did you have any trouble?”

  Satti didn’t want him to know the full details. But he might already know more than he would let on. “Some.”

  Hotary looked at Satti quickly. “What have you done.”

  Satti smiled cautiously. “A little C4 in the car of a relative.”

  Hotary’s look hardened. “You have caused unwanted attention.”

  “I had no choice.”

  Hotary was furious. “Was there an investigation?” he asked, controlling his voice.

  “Yes, a comedy of Liberian police with a few foreigners.”

  “What foreigners?” Hotary asked.

  “Some Americans, I think. They did not wear identification, but my sources inside the police tell me they were FBI.”

  “Did you not anticipate that?”

  Satti’s smile faded. “I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in one small event in Monrovia, Liberia. And the director of shipping refused. He absolutely refused. We were not going to get on the ship. I had to take drastic action.”

  Hotary walked closer to him until their faces were inches apart. “You should have thought of something more creative. Something that would not have drawn attention. I sent you here because I thought you could do it quietly. And you set off a bomb drawing attention from the United States?”

  Satti raised his voice, trying not to yell. “What would you have had me do? Beg? Pull out a gun and hold it to his head? What would you have done?”

  “I would have been smarter.”

  Satti knew better than to respond anymore. He had already stepped across the line. He knew who “Tayseer Hotary” was. He knew very well. And he knew that no one else had any idea. He changed the subject. He pointed to the packet he had given Hotary. “Your papers will get you aboard the ship. The containers should already have been transferred by now.” He checked his watch.

  “What time do we sail?”

  “High tide. Just before midnight.”

  “I need to get the men aboard now. They are too conspicuous.”

  “I’m sure I can arrange that.”

  Chapter

  19

  The attendees at the meeting were gathering up their papers and placing items in briefcases, ready to depart. President Kendrick asked casually, “Anything else for the good of the cause?”

  St. James hesitated. She had to stop Rathman’s trial. She had to stick her neck out for him as he had done so many times for her. In the political world of Washington it was stupid for her to even bring it up. She knew that. But she owed it to Rat to make one last try. “The trial of that Navy lieutenant is set to begin tomorrow, Mr. President.”

  President Kendrick gave her a tired look. “I know. It’s been in the newspapers every day for two weeks. The press is foaming at the mouth. In fact,” he chuckled, “did you see that political cartoon in the Washington Times yesterday? It showed a new drink at Starbucks; it’s called the Journalist. It’s nothing but foam.”

  St. James waited for the President to stop chuckling. She asked, “Do we really want to go forward with this trial? Do we really want to air our dirty laundry before the entire world?”

  His face grew serious. The others in the room stood silently, wanting no part of the discussion. “Seems to me we already have. Everyone knows he’s on trial for torturing a terrorist. What would you suggest we do now? Shut it down right before he’s given a fair trial? Just dismiss it? What would that say to the world? Sure, he may have tortured somebody, but we don’t care?”

  St. James sat forward. “No, sir. I think what it would say is that there isn’t sufficient evidence to convict him—there was a fight, people were killed and injured—including Americans—but putting someone from Special Operations on trial is inappropriate based on the evidence.”

  “How could I say that? I don’t know what the evidence is. Sounds to me like they may have the evidence. He tortured that man, and he died. We can’t be out there torturing people regardless of the reason. We have to maintain the moral high ground. If we’re torturing people, what does that say about us?”

  “But even if he did what they say he did, which I don’t know, all he did was use water to encourage this man to talk—”

  “Why are we even discussing this?” Kendrick asked. He glanced at Stuntz, then back at Sarah. “Why do you care? I don’t understand why this is so important to you.”

  Stuntz was enjoying the exchange. “Because he’s one of her secret little informants. I think she told you about her little network of people who give her straight—raw as I think she called it—information outside of the usual chains of command or informational routes for intelligence. It was rather successful in allowing her to have some information the rest of us didn’t have, or at least more quickly, or at least untainted by experienced minds and senior intelligence operatives. Of course the fact that some of it was inaccurate or biased certainly didn’t—”

  “I never had any biased or inaccurate information, Mr. President. And I never misused any chain of command or anything else. I resent Secretary Stuntz’s implication—”

  President Kendrick put up his hand. “I don’t want to hear anything more about that. But do you know him?”

  “He is an acquaintance. He has risked his life, he has been very successful in numerous missions, and I’m not sure he’s getting a fair shake. Perhaps Secretary Stuntz can tell us how he came to be charged in the first place. How it is he had the general counsel of the DOD visit the Attorney General and force him to put Mr. Rathman on trial because the secretary didn’t want to court-martial him. Because it might have looked too vindictive of the DOD.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Stuntz said, forcing a chuckle, furious that someone, probably the Attorney General himself, had told St. James about the meeting.

  The President considered for a moment. He turned to the Attorney General. “You do have the evidence, I take it.”

  Carl Dirks, the Attorney General, avoided Stuntz’s glare and answered the President. “Yes, sir, I believe so.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I believe we can prove the case, Mr. President.” He wasn’t sure which way the political currents were running. “But it will depend on witness cooperation, which is very iffy. This Rathman fellow is very popular. He is popular with the public—as you can see from the public opinion polls, which are behind him only about eighty-three percent. The Europeans of course want to string him up, and the ICC is waiting in the wings.

  “But as to the witnesses, I am told that the cooperation of some of the critical witnesses is not assured. We may have to—” the Attorney General looked around the room—“we may have to use a witness who is from a foreign country and subject to code-word control.”

  “You believe you can get a conviction?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  The President continued, “What if you dismissed the case? What would be the implications?”

  “Perhaps if we had discussed this when we debated whether to prosecute it might have made some sense. But now, now that it has made it into the newspapers and everyone in the world knows about it, I think to dismiss it now would be disastrous.” He saw St. James go red. “It would make us look like we were endorsing the conduct. Plus, if we dismiss it, the ICC will prosecute him.”

  Ken
drick hated the idea of the ICC. “I love that.” He smiled. “It might be worth dropping the charges just so we can watch them melt down when we refuse to cooperate.” He looked at Sarah St. James. “Well, Sarah, I think your boy is on his own. I hope he has a good lawyer. And if he didn’t do anything wrong, then he won’t be convicted. Right?”

  “That’s the theory,” she said with deep disappointment. She had tried.

  “Anything else?”

  No one said a word.

  * * *

  The night in Monrovia had turned black and hostile. A mist had begun to fall over the town, dampening the unceasing sounds of the waterfront. It suited Hotary’s purposes. Lisbie had balked at Hotary getting aboard early. Satti had yielded rather then force another confrontation. They had waited under the eaves at the warehouse until it was completely dark. Hotary stepped out into the mist and walked away by himself. Two others waited a minute and followed, with one more following them. They walked to their new ship in groups of twos and threes until they were all heading toward the pier.

  Hotary wanted to be first aboard to make sure there was no problem with their coming aboard. As he walked down the pier, he noticed how large the ship was that they would be boarding—the M/V Monrovian Prince. It was an enormous container ship, a fairly new ship of a new class. Most container ships were large and slab-sided, and needed to load and unload at specific ports that had special cranes that could lift the containers off the ships easily and move them to nearby truck or train facilities. This ship though had its own cranes, two towering steel cranes, one forward and one aft. They could be used to load and unload the containers. This new style of container ship could go to any port in the world and unload its containers—large steel boxes uniform in size and shape.

  Hotary studied the containers on the deck. He could see their three containers at the very top in the middle of the ship as their instructions had been. Their containers were indistinguishable from the other containers on the ship, and fit into the space that had been saved for them.

  There were three other ships moored at the pier across from the ship they were boarding. Sailors were coming and going in the mist, covering their heads with parkas, newspapers, or nothing at all. No one took notice of Hotary. He went to the gangplank and walked up the slatted walkway quickly. A sailor waited at the top. He stepped out of his covered spot to get in Hotary’s way. “What do you want?”

  “My name is Tayseer Hotary. I am a new member of the crew.”

  “Right,” the sailor replied bitterly. “One of the fifteen new crew we don’t need.”

  Just then two more of Hotary’s men walked up the gangplank and stepped off without incident.

  Hotary said, “Show us to our quarters.”

  The sailor bristled. “You don’t give orders on this ship. You don’t even tell us what you want. We’ll tell you. And if you’re crew, you’ll do what I say. That clear?”

  “Quarters,” Hotary said as three more of his men arrived.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Send for the man to show us to our quarters. Now.”

  “I don’t think you heard me. You don’t give orders.”

  Hotary stared at him without replying.

  The sailor looked down, then back. “Delgadillo will show you. I’ll call him,” the sailor said.

  By the time Delgadillo arrived, all of Hotary’s men stood on the quarterdeck. As Delgadillo pointed forward and beckoned them to follow, Hotary stopped and spoke to the sailor. “What is your name?”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I start issuing orders, I want you to be the first to receive them.”

  “I look forward to it,” the sailor said with a mean smile.

  * * *

  The three days Rat had allotted to race up and down the Dardanelles with James and his magic equipment had passed with no sleep and no results. Ship after ship yelled at them on the radio for approaching too close, and time after time James shook his head. No gamma rays coming from any ship. Beta rays would be harder to find, they both knew, and none were found. At the end of the third day the officer who had procured the boat drove them to Istanbul and Rat flew back to Washington with his jaw clenched to face his trial.

  He sat on the couch in his apartment watching ESPN. He had his bare feet up on the coffee table. It was already late and he knew he should be in bed. He needed to be fresh for the trial that started in the morning. He dreaded it. He felt trapped. He had an attorney that he doubted, and had no real argument to get out of the charge, as ridiculous a charge as he thought it was. But the time had arrived, and there was no escape. He had decided to wear his white Navy uniform, his best opportunity to make a good impression on the judge and the jury. He knew if he went to the trial in a civilian suit he would look and feel awkward.

  Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door. Rat jumped up from the couch and thought of grabbing the handgun he kept in his apartment. He had been jumpy ever since his name and picture had been in the newspaper as the “Special Forces operative” who was being charged with torturing a terrorist from the Duar network. Rat knew better than anyone that all the people affiliated with Duar were not dead. He was sure he had been on their trail in Georgia, and now they might be on his. Georgia had to be left to others, and Groomer promised to report to him when he returned to the Pankisi gorge once more.

  Rat had replaced the cheap hollow door with a solid wooden door for security. He also had two dead-bolt locks on the door. He had gone to substantial effort to install something of a periscope-like peephole in the wall to allow him to see visitors from the side. Rat looked into the peephole and saw Andrea. He smiled. He grabbed the door handle and jerked the door open.

  Andrea stood at the door. “You took off your shirt just for me?”

  He smiled. “I sure didn’t think I’d see you for a while. And not here. How’d you get here?”

  “I flew.”

  He stepped back and motioned for her to come in. “How’d you get off? Take leave?”

  “I tried that,” she said, setting her purse on the floor and taking off her jacket. “I got subpoenaed.”

  “By that U.S. Attorney?” he asked, horrified.

  “No, by Skyles.”

  “What for?”

  “He said I’d be a good witness and I should come.”

  “I thought you hated me.”

  She frowned. “I had to think about it a lot. I still don’t know if what you did is exactly the right thing, but I don’t like the fact that you could go to jail for it. If the Navy wanted to send you a letter or something, fine. But the Justice Department? A U.S. Attorney? I think you’re right. It’s political.”

  He nodded, studying her face. “We’re okay?”

  She nodded back. “I’m here to help.”

  “They might actually convict me, you know. I took a look at the witness list. They’re calling people who were there. People who saw what happened.”

  “We’ll just have to see what they say.”

  “I’m not going to prison, Andrea. Not ever.”

  “Meaning what?” she asked, her face clouding at the thought of him actually being convicted of a crime.

  “I would disappear. And believe me, I know how to do that.”

  She sat next to him on the couch. “Let’s think more positively. You’re going to get off.”

  Rat raised his eyebrows once quickly. He wasn’t so sure. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “So am I,” she said. “Now. What can I do to help you get ready?”

  “What are you going to say when you testify?”

  “I’ll show you,” she said. She bent down and pulled out a handful of pages that she had printed out and brought with her.

  * * *

  Ray Winter, DeLong’s fellow CIA officer and his assistant in Monrovia, was in his late twenties and questioned everything. He shook the rain off his poncho, hung it on a hook in the entryway, and headed straight to Bill DeLong’s office. DeLong wa
s burning the midnight oil as he did every night. Winter knew he would be there. He knocked smartly on DeLong’s door.

  DeLong had turned off the overhead light and was operating with only a small desk lamp. The ambassador’s instructions to preserve electricity had been very clear. Not so much to save on their electric bill, but because power in Monrovia was often in short supply and they didn’t want to be seen as sucking more than their share of electricity from the community grid. The embassy had its own power generators, but they didn’t like to use them either as that was perceived as arrogant.

  “What’s up?” DeLong asked, always happy to see Ray Winter, especially at odd times, which usually meant he had discovered something or had some curiosity that he was pursuing, always worth talking about.

  “That car bomb thing.”

  “What about it?

  “You told me to keep an eye on the dead woman’s son—the guy who works at Liberian shipping.”

  “Right, so?”

  “So I, or some of our friends, have been keeping an eye on him ever since.” Winter began moving his hands expressively while he spoke. “His name is Thomas Lisbie. Solid guy. Community guy. Never been in trouble, not political, never crosses anybody. But he looks around a lot. It’s like he suspects somebody is watching him. I can’t imagine that he thinks we’re watching him. He’s concerned about somebody else. Maybe the same person that whacked his mother. Anyway, he’s been very predictable. Never overworks, never stays late, rarely in his office after dark, goes right home, comes right to work, goes out to dinner now and then, but nothing really noteworthy at all. Until tonight.”

  DeLong nodded to encourage him.

  “So tonight, there he is in his office, overlooking the harbor, with the lights burning in his office. One hour, two hours, three hours after sunset. So we’re like, what the hell? We start looking around. The only thing significant that happened—this seems bizarre—is a ship came in from the Black Sea. The Tbilisi. Pulls in and off-loads three containers, which are immediately put aboard another ship. A large container ship. That in itself is not that unusual. Ships switch containers all the time. But the really strange thing, and at first we didn’t even notice, but then one of our friends pointed it out to me, fifteen men who got off the Tbilisi got on board the other cargo ship, the one where the three containers got moved to. That to me is odd. They waited behind a warehouse until it was dark, then walked to the other ship in groups of two, like they were married. And there’s Lisbie, looking over the whole thing, like he’s making sure it comes off.”