Suddenly Amjad realized that the reading aloud of names had stopped and that he hadn’t heard his own. Guards were busy removing the selectees from their cells, shackling them at the waist, wrists and ankles, and forming them into a single file, with each prisoner’s right hand placed on the shoulder of the man ahead. None carried anything but the clothes he was wearing. When all were assembled, the guards led them to a door that opened and closed for each man. Whenever the door was open, Amjad could hear a bus’s diesel engine idling outside. Today, at least, he would be spared going with them.
Chapter Fourteen: Loadmaster
“Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.”
–Leon Trotsky
EARLY JUNE, CORVUS BASE
Little more than an hour after the Tetra-owned C-130 dropped its cargo over the Puerto Rico Trench, and only a few minutes after landing at Corvus Base, Zorn remained seated in the cockpit of the freshly landed aircraft, his lap belt and shoulder harness unbuckled, while the rest of the crew ran through their post-flight checklist and talked with the tower by radio. Off to his left, Zorn could feel the steamy midday tropical air waft into the cockpit through the open crew door. There was no point in getting out of his seat yet because no ground team had appeared.
“Message for Clifford Weaver from the tower. Do you copy, Cliff?”
The relaxed drawl coming over Zorn’s headset was that of the middle-aged pilot, Travis.
“I read you loud and clear,” Zorn replied, acknowledging his alias for the flight.
“Word just in from the base chief’s office is that your onward leg to the other transit site and from there to North Africa can’t be completed at this time. It’ll have to be rescheduled. Meanwhile, you’re booked with us for tomorrow’s flight back to Dover.”
“Damn,” Zorn muttered. He had been counting on the trip to North Africa to see how repatriation was handled.
“How about my meeting with the base chief tomorrow morning? Is that still on?”
“Roger that. And the base club is open tonight for drinking.”
Zorn felt disappointed at the change in plan but knew there was no point in arguing. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. It had taken only two days since asking Larry Lawless to arrange his visit to an offshore transit site before Pat Craven called him with an invitation. The original idea had been for Zorn and Craven to take a five-day junket over the Labor Day weekend to a pair of Caribbean transit bases, and from there to a North African repatriation center. Now he was traveling alone to a single Caribbean site.
So why the rush to book the trip over Labor Day if arrangements weren’t solid? And why hadn’t Pat Craven shown up to fly with him? Had Craven known that detainees would be jettisoned over the Puerto Rico Trench with video camera rolling? Was it all a setup?
Zorn could see he had fallen into a trap. He couldn’t report the dumping of detainees to anyone in authority outside of DHS without violating his nondisclosure agreements and implicating himself in the dumping. Yet Craven was clearly the one who’d set him up. On the other hand, if Zorn said nothing on his return, he might later be seen as complicit. And the longer he waited to speak, the worse he would look. That made it essential for him to collect as much evidence of wrongdoing as he could to prove his good intent. After all, he had done no wrong in contracting with DHS for risk assessment and air logistics services. And Triage technology was not in itself to blame for the dumpings. The ones at fault were the people from DHS and Tetra who misused Triage results. Zorn refused to let such people manipulate or destroy him, no matter how powerful they might be.
So how was he to make maximum use of his time at Corvus Base to learn about its detention and transit operations? The base chief wouldn’t be available until morning. He thought back to his days as a young intelligence officer and hatched an idea.
A few minutes later, the crew completed its post-flight checklists and filed out onto the tarmac with Zorn close behind. Though a scorching tropical sun blazed overhead, a sea breeze kept the heat under control. The terrain all around was low and flat. Zorn could see a great distance in every direction. To the north and east lay the blue-green ocean, with a couple of lush islands sitting a few miles offshore, each no larger than a mile or two wide. To the west lay a heavily inhabited area that resembled a town center. And to the south lay a mangrove swamp with densely wooded hills beyond.
The Corvus airstrip and terminal appeared to occupy a peninsula toward the uninhabited northeast end of the airport’s main runway. Both the airstrip’s concrete apron and its prefabricated terminal looked like new construction, as did the taxiway that intersected the runway of what Zorn took to be a sizable commercial airport.
As he gazed out to sea, three trucks drove up to the C-130. Ground crews jumped out at once to unload the hold, refill the fuel tanks, and inspect the engines. After a brief conversation with two of the ground crew members, Travis handed them his flight documents.
Without looking at the papers, the lead ground official asked the pilot to confirm the flight crew’s size and the number of passengers on board.
“Just the five of us,” Travis replied. “Four crew and one official visitor.”
“What about detainees. How many have you got?”
“None this time. No cargo, either. It’s all in the paperwork.”
“Wait a minute,” the ground official said as he read the documents he had been given. “Another fuel leak? That’s the third this week, on three different aircraft. Pretty damn weird, I’d say.” The man gave Travis a sideways look.
The pilot remained unfazed.
“You’re new here, aren’t you?” Travis drawled. His lips smiled but his eyes did not.
“What makes you say so?”
“You think too much. If you have questions about our documents, take it up with the Tetra home office. We’re done here.”
Travis waved to the rest of the flight crew to follow him to the black Suburban SUV with tinted windows that had arrived to ferry them to the transit base. Once inside with doors closed, the pilot addressed his crew.
“I don’t suppose I need to remind you that everything about our flight and this base is classified. That means none of us talks to any unauthorized person about what happened on the flight or anything we see at the base. Are we clear on that?”
Clayton, Marcus and the loadmaster, Randy, offered murmurs of bored assent.
“Understood,” Zorn replied in turn, though without feeling bound in any way by his assent. Because having witnessed three dozen detainees tipped out of the back of a C-130, he wouldn’t hesitate to share that and whatever else he saw with Margaret Slattery and the Justice Department.
The SUV drove through the gate and followed a double-layer chain link fence around the uninhabited southern side of the airport for a couple of miles, through fields of tall saw grass, with the sea less than a hundred yards off to the left. Then, at a four-way stop, the driver turned down an asphalt road that led through another double-layer fence to a fortified gate. It was evident at first glance that the barrier secured some sort of detention facility, because its angled fence tops were draped with concertina razor wire and its two layers enclosed a fifty-yard no-mans-land of ploughed earth down whose middle ran a blacktop road. Towers with stadium lights stood along the fence at fifty-yard intervals.
As the Suburban pulled up to the gate, a guard dressed in a navy blue jump suit with Tetra Corp shoulder insignia asked the driver to lower all the windows. Then he walked around the car and checked each passenger’s Tetra ID card against a list he held on a clipboard before he waved the driver through.
The base administration building, supply and maintenance buildings and staff housing were all located around a quadrangle just inside the gate. Further on, yet another double-layer fence separated this area from the base’s heart, where detainees were held in a series of two-story steel-frame structures.
The Suburban halted outside the administration building and Zorn followed
the aircrew to the duty desk to check into their rooms in the visitors’ quarters. Travis, Clayton and Marcus signed in quickly, leaving Randy and Zorn behind. The loadmaster waited while the duty officer gave Zorn directions to his room. Then Zorn returned the courtesy and waited at the desk for Randy. By now it was mid-afternoon.
“Tell me, where can a guy get a drink around here?” Zorn asked the loadmaster.
“Try the base club. We’re not allowed outside the wire, so it’s the only game in town.”
“Do they serve food?”
“You could call it that. I’d say it’s a toss-up between the club and the mess hall. But the drinks clinch it for the club.”
“Are you thirsty yet?” Zorn asked, breaking the tension between them with a smile. “I’ll foot the first round.”
“You’re on,” Randy replied with a look of mild surprise. “Come on, let’s stow our gear in the rooms and freshen up. Then I’ll lead you to the watering hole.”
An hour or so later they stood side by side at the base club, a cinder-block-walled, linoleum-floored, too-brightly-lit space located at the far end of the administration building. Zorn flagged down the young bartender and ordered a draught beer and a double shot of Jack Daniel’s for Randy and some rye on the rocks for himself, paying in cash.
They grabbed bowls of potato chips and pretzels from the counter and made their way to a table as far as possible from speakers that blared country music from the bar. Though the bar had just opened, half the tables were already occupied with jump-suited correction officers and flight crews, whom Zorn noticed kept to their own kind and didn’t mix with the other. But they all shared the same wary, untrusting look, speaking in low tones, not meeting each other’s gaze, grasping their drinks tightly, and sitting with ankles tightly crossed and tucked under their chairs.
“So it looks like I’ll be flying back with your crew tomorrow,” Zorn began as soon as both men were seated. “What time will our ride head out to the airstrip?”
“Wheels up at thirteen hundred hours, so plan on being ready at the front desk no later than noon.”
“Fine,” Zorn replied. “That ought to leave enough time for my morning briefing and tour with the base chief.”
“And plenty of time for me to get shitfaced on cheap beer and hooch before the cutoff.”
Zorn gave the loadmaster a puzzled look and the latter let out a laugh.
“All flight personnel are under a twelve-hour ‘bottle-to-throttle’ rule,” Randy replied, lifting his beer mug. “We’ve got twelve hours to dry out before takeoff.”
“So glad to know you’ll all be in tip-top shape for the flight back.”
“Oh, the other guys don’t drink. They’re all born-again. But no problem. That leaves more of the good stuff for you and me.”
They drank quietly for several minutes, alternately lost in thought and distracted by the blaring music. Randy downed the Jack Daniel’s quickly before turning his attention to the mug of beer.
“Listen, Randy,” Zorn said at last to break the silence. “I know Travis told us not to talk about the flight, but do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Depends on the question.”
“I’m curious. How long have you been working these flights out to the transit centers?”
“Since the sites opened earlier this year. Why do you want to know?”
The loadmaster shot Zorn a suspicious look.
“Then it’s Tetra Air Transport who cuts your paycheck?” Zorn evaded.
“No. Everybody on our crew is an employee of Twin Cities Air Transport, which is under contract to another DHS contractor, Zorn Air Transport. So Zorn is the one that cuts our checks.”
“I thought that might be,” Zorn noted, allowing a smile to form on his lips. “You see, my true name is Roger Zorn. And I happen to own Zorn Air Transport. So, technically, I suppose, that would make me your boss.”
It was a risk, to be sure, but sometimes one had to share a confidence to gain one. And it’s not as if any veteran of the air logistics business couldn’t have recognized Zorn from a photo in a trade magazine.
Randy Hellman swallowed hard and nearly spat out his beer. But in an instant his eyes narrowed and he looked at Zorn with disbelief.
“Owning the company doesn’t necessarily give you clearance for restricted flight information,” he replied, fixing Zorn with a cold and heavy stare. “If you have any more questions, Mr. Zorn, I think you’d better hold them for the base chief. Or, better yet, wait till you get home.”
“Oh, I have all the clearances I need for classified flight information, Randy. My company is DHS’s second-largest ESM contractor after Tetra. But sometimes finding answers is a matter of knowing where to ask.”
Zorn swirled the whiskey and ice around in his glass before taking another sip. His smile broadened.
“You know, Randy, one nice thing about the air logistics business is that we all get to know each other. People from different companies work closely together and we figure out over time who we can trust and who we can’t. Good men are always in demand. And if someone’s unreliable, we find ways to let others know. It would be a pity if something like that happened to a fellow as capable as you…”
“That wouldn’t be a threat, would it?” the loadmaster asked, sitting up suddenly to lean across the table. Zorn noticed a slight slur in Randy’s speech. Was the alcohol getting to him already?
“Oh, not at all. Take it as an invitation to gain some career visibility. Everybody likes getting ahead. Being noticed by someone in senior management can be a big help.”
At this the loadmaster’s face appeared to soften.
“Well, Mr. Zorn, if you put it that way, I suppose I can see your point.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind if I asked you another question? Or two?”
The loadmaster nodded warily and reached for his beer.
“As I said,” Zorn went on. “I’m fully cleared for TITAN material, so there’s nothing you can say that I’m not authorized to hear.”
“And if you’re seeing the chief tomorrow, I don’t imagine there’s much I could tell you that you wouldn’t hear from him, anyway. Only you didn’t hear it from me, okay?”
“Scout’s honor.”
Zorn popped a potato chip into his mouth and took a sip of rye before continuing. It never ceased to amaze him how easily people of wealth and status could wield influence over those who lacked them by holding out the hope of advancement and the risk of reprisal. It used to be called throwing one’s weight around. The new term, Brandon Choe had told him, was social engineering.
“About the fuel leak, then. Could there really have been three fuel leaks in one week on flights headed to Corvus? I’ve seen entire fleets grounded for less.”
The loadmaster remained unruffled, though droplets of sweat appeared on his forehead.
“Travis wrote it up as a sensor malfunction. Not my place to quibble with that.”
“Then how about when you called me back into the cargo bay to lower the ramp on those poor devils? Did you honestly think the plane was running out of fuel?”
“Not going to touch that one,” Randy answered, breaking off eye contact.
“Do you enlist VIP passengers very often for that kind of help?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Okay, then, let me approach it differently. Back at Dover, while I was driven out onto the tarmac, I passed a couple dozen detainees in orange jumpsuits getting injections while they waited for their flight. It was about the same number as body bags on our flight. In the queue, I noticed a tall, gangly kid who looked a lot like the ‘corpse’ I saw writhing around in his body bag before he went overboard. What do you say, Randy? Coincidence?”
“I didn’t see them being injected. I wouldn’t know.”
Zorn persisted.
“I was told before boarding that your aircraft was carrying live detainees to Corvus Base. But when the fuel sensor malfunctioned, you said we were ca
rrying corpses? So which were they, Randy? Alive or dead?”
“Corpses, for sure. You can check the paperwork.”
“Hmmm, I wonder what kind of story the government will give their families.”
“Probably that the corpses were cremated and can’t be returned for burial,” Randy answered with a sly expression. He gulped more beer, spilling some of it down his chin, before biting into a pretzel.
“That ought to go over well,” Zorn answered, leaning back in his chair. “Cremation is forbidden in Islam, you know.”
But the loadmaster remained unmoved.
“Too bad. The bastards should have thought of that before taking up a life of jihad.”
“I won’t argue with that. But if this sort of malfunction happens often, don’t the missing bodies create record-keeping problems? I mean, doesn’t the base have to account for every detainee flying in and out?”
“Sure they do. But there’s shrinkage.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, some jihadis are listed as deported but they never make it to a transit base. So the base has to make adjustments.”
“What kind of adjustments?”
The loadmaster glanced around him, as if to confirm that no one was eavesdropping.
“As I said, not everyone who leaves the U.S. makes it to a transit base or a repat center, let alone back to his country of origin.”
Slowly the loadmaster was opening up under Jack Daniel’s gentle sway.
“But the shrinkage isn’t quite random, is it?”
“Mr. Zorn, we’re talking about people who could never, ever, be set free,” Randy pointed out in a low whisper. “You understand that, don’t you?”
Root and Branch Page 21
