by Lia Conklin
That’s how she wanted to feel, yet her anger was mixed with questions. Where was he? What had happened to him? Had he left her forever? Like they had? More than retribution, she wanted answers. How would she find the answers? Then she remembered Connie’s words, “Angel, we’re in this together.” And with a modicum of peace, she closed her eyes.
Chapter 58
Connie brought Amelia a cup of coffee once she was seated, even after Amelia insisted she rarely drank it, at least not American coffee. She had been spoiled on freshly ground Honduran coffee, fresh roasted with raw sugar over an open flame, filtered through a nylon stocking, and mixed with goat’s milk. It had replaced the treats Amelia was never allowed—that they could never afford. Out of politeness, though, Amelia sipped the coffee, immediately wishing she hadn’t. Black American coffee. Were the Quakers responsible for taking even the color out of coffee?
Connie didn’t seem to know the coffee experience she was missing as she took several gulps from her own cup; either that or she was too tired to notice, having been roused from bed at 4:00 in the morning by Amelia’s frantic knocking.
After a few more hearty gulps, she settled back in her chair and studied Amelia.
“So, what was so urgent you couldn’t wait for a decent hour to see me?” she accused, somewhat in jest but more grumpily than she probably intended.
“Connie, my father’s missing,” Amelia blurted without preamble. “The airport security guards in Houston led him away on our way here for my aunt’s funeral. I didn’t think he’d actually been detained, so I just left him there and boarded the plane. No one in Honduras or Minnesota has heard from him in four months.”
Connie looked at her for a moment in silence.
“And…you didn’t think to tell me this earlier?” she admonished. “And I don’t mean at 3:00 a.m. but maybe last month?”
“I didn’t know. I mean I didn’t know for sure. I called Honduras last week and found out there had been an incident. I mean something bad had happened. I flew there to see what was going on. And he wasn’t there, anywhere.”
Amelia spent the next ten minutes explaining her recent trip and what she had learned.
“And I came here straight from the airport. I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“Well, you did the right thing, Angel,” Connie consoled, “even if it is at 4:00 a.m.,” she winked. “But to be honest, and this is going to surprise you, I’m not surprised.”
“You’re not?” exclaimed Amelia, indeed surprised.
“Not after what happened after ya’ll went away and what he’s been up to since. Let me get you a refill on your coffee first. This won’t be easy to hear.” Amelia was too distraught to point out that her coffee cup was already filled to the brim, so she watched as Connie dumped and refilled it with another round of its distasteful blend.
“The year after 9/11,” Connie began, “marked a turning point for your father. He became obsessed with every aspect of that terrorist action and the War on Terror in general. I know you were only a few years old at that time, but did you read any of his articles later on?”
Amelia shook her head.
“Your father became convinced 9/11 was a government conspiracy.”
“A government conspiracy?” Amelia responded incredulously. “I have to admit that sounds pretty out there.”
“Yeah, a lot of people felt that way. He claimed, however, to have credible sources who assured him that the Administration’s blatant disregard of pre-9/11 intelligence was intentional and that the events of the day didn’t add up. First, on the morning of the attack, five different government agencies were involved in ‘war games’ that both weakened our domestic protection and confused our security forces. Then there was the way the Twin Towers collapsed, like a controlled demolition, which even mainstream news anchors reported. Building 7 which housed the CIA and Secret Service among other high-level agencies, was destroyed, which according to his anonymous source contained information that made these agencies complicit in the attacks. Finally, Even Flight 93 that supposedly crashed down in Pennsylvania seemed to leave questions unanswered. Even our Defense Secretary, himself, referred to the plane as ‘shot down…over Pennsylvania.’”
Connie paused to sip her coffee. Amelia noticed again the deep lines that had wound their way around the corners of her mouth, further emphasizing the fullness of her lips that glistened as she passed her tongue across them. A couple of gulps later, Connie continued.
“Now, pretty much anytime a significant news event occurs, there are unanswered questions and conspiracy theories that sprout up to answer them. 9/11 was no different. More than likely, your father’s conspiracy theory was no better or worse than any that preceded him. However, your father truly believed the government was responsible for 9/11, using it to justify initiating U.S. military actions in the Middle East, which obviously came to pass.
“But,” she continued, tangling her fingers into her wild locks as she shook her head, “your father never could convince me of a government conspiracy that would go so far as to kill so many Americans. I didn’t much care what evidence he thought he had.”
Amelia had to agree. No matter how elaborate her father’s conspiracy theory had become, it was more plausibly a paranoid rant than a mass-murder plot by a government she was so happy to once again call her own.
“He took this same skeptical line with every step the government took in the War on Terror,” Connie continued. “He knew long before it came out in the mainstream media that the WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, were the ‘fake news’ of the time. And he didn’t report it like the mainstream media did as an ‘Oops, we made a bitty mistake,’ but as a ‘ploy’ to increase our military response to the Muslim threat and, most importantly, to line the pockets of the defense contractors for many years to come. This wasn’t a hard sell for a lot of our readers since our vice president had been the CEO of a defense contractor that incidentally, or I mean not so incidentally, had its defense contracts increased tenfold in two years. Follow the money, they say.”
I’ve heard that before, Amelia thought as Bull’s giant head came into view. Seems to work in more than one context though, she mused.
“And then there was his reporting on the Iraq war itself, how he believed the Administration misrepresented or fabricated intelligence about ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and ignored or was indifferent to the fact that Al Qaeda used the vacancy of power to build a stronghold in Iraq. And then there was Abu Ghraib, Al Qaeda’s retaliation, and the London bombing…” Connie paused. “But that’s another chapter. Let’s eat something before we go around that bend in the road.”
Chapter 59
Amelia contemplated the overload of political information over bites of a stale powdered sugar donut. “Okay,” she finally said, after dusting her mouth off with the back of her hand, “that is all very interesting, but what exactly does it have to do with the fact that my father’s missing?”
“I’m getting there,” Connie assured her, grinning for a second before replacing the grin with a knitted brow and pursed lips. “But first you need to understand the background. Abu Ghraib was the next story your dad latched onto. Your father was like any other reporter when the news of the abuse and torture of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison broke. He was determined to showcase the criminality of the situation and the US government’s role in it.
“And then came the retaliation. The Islamic website of the group Muntada al-Ansar posted the video of the decapitation of Nick Berg. In the gruesome video, Al Qaeda not only claimed responsibility for the act but also touted it as retaliation for the events at Abu Ghraib. The media tide turned. No one was interested any longer in the abuse of Iraqi inmates. Except for your dad.”
Connie reached for another donut, took a few bites, and then continued with a thoughtful look in her eyes.
“He would follow a story until it gave him what he needed or it died a slow, agonizing death. Abu Ghraib was tha
t slow, agonizing death. All other newspapers had moved on. The American public had moved on, but your dad kept slogging through it. Readers jumped ship, sales went down. It was one big journalistic slump.
“And then,” Connie continued, raising her eyebrows dramatically, “it all changed. As bombs went off in the subways of London, your dad renewed his journalistic vigor. Before other journalists knew what was happening, he was publishing scoops on the 2005 London suicide bombings that killed 52 people. Our readership picked up, including a sizeable online British readership as your dad had more information than the British media seemed to have. While other papers pondered the possibility of Al Qaeda involvement, your father asserted that Al Qaeda had indeed masterminded the attack according to ‘an anonymous source close to the bombers.’ His assertion turned out to be true several years later, but by then, as you know, he was far away and out of the newspaper-making business.” Connie leaned back looking up at the ceiling, reluctant to continue.
“And then? What happened next?” Amelia insisted.
Connie lowered her eyes to meet Amelia’s.
“The explosion, Angel. That’s what happened next.”
They both sat silently for several moments looking into each other’s eyes, until Amelia broke her gaze to fumble with her fingers.
“And they’re connected somehow?” she finally asked, restoring her gaze.
“Not the explosion, Angel, but what I can say is that your father’s reporting finally did win him some attention at the federal level. Within weeks after the funeral, you were on a plane to Honduras. Did you ever wonder why you left so quickly?”
“I just figured my father was running away from the tragedy,” Amelia conceded, beginning to formulate what Connie was going to disclose next.
“He was running away, but not necessarily from the tragedy. Two days after you left, the FBI came through his office and tore it apart. They took every box your father ever touched as well as the computers. That’s the major reason we went bankrupt.”
“Seriously?” Amelia exclaimed, shaking her head as if to displace this fact as well as the other Toby had revealed.
“I demanded to know under what authority they were confiscating all our things—without a warrant, mind you—when they informed me that the Patriot Act gave them every right to confiscate anything that belonged to a person suspected of ‘terrorist ties or activities’.”
“Terrorist ties? His source. That’s what they were after, weren’t they?” Amelia interjected.
“Yeah. That’s exactly what they wanted. They even brought me in for questioning. They didn’t learn much from me since I had no idea about any of it, but I did learn more from them. They insisted that your father had been in contact with several well-established members of the Al Qaeda network. They said the documents they confiscated would give them the proof they needed to convict your father and prove my collaboration. I said they were crazy. They told me the next time they saw me, I’d be behind bars for conspiring with a terrorist. It’s been over thirteen years, haven’t seen them since. Must not have been too much in those boxes.”
Amelia nodded. She could see how even legitimate journalist activities in such a sensitive, volatile context could be perceived as terrorist collaboration. Suddenly she saw Bull’s face, larger than life from across the flames.
“So, they put him on a ‘no fly’ list?” she ventured.
“That’s a very probable scenario,” Connie replied.
“But why after thirteen years would they detain him?”
“Well, that’s where it gets even more complicated. Your father may have been physically out of FBI reach for the past thirteen years, but he’s been anything but inactive. You know that he worked for the Central American Liberty Radio, right?”
“Yes, Radio Libertad Centroamericano,” Amelia answered.
“Your father has spent the past thirteen years broadcasting information about the U.S. government that would be considered anything but favorable. Whether true or not—I don’t have any of my own research to verify or discredit it—the U.S. would consider this inflammatory and sympathetic to terrorist organizations around the world. Taken together, his past associations and current activities could be viewed very suspiciously by the U.S. government.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Connie taking a few gulps of her now cold, tasteless coffee while Amelia merely stared into hers. It was Amelia who finally broke the silence.
“What would they do with him next?”
“Now that I’m not sure about,” Connie admitted, grimacing from the aftertaste of her beverage. “He most likely would have been charged in Houston, since he was detained there, if he was detained there. We can start by doing an inmate search of the U.S. Detention Centers and see where that leads.”
“I can do that this morning at the library,” Amelia offered.
“Make sure you have his personal information: full name, birthdate, social security number, and the exact date he was detained,” Connie advised.
“Oh Connie,” Amelia said, struck for the first time by her culpability, “had I known how complicated all this was, I would never have taken off to Montana. I would have tried to find him.” She had used her anger and resentment to not only blind her to her father’s possible plight, but also to revel in its very possibility. Now he had most likely spent four months incarcerated while she rode trails—amongst other things, her memory added bitterly.
“I can’t believe I just let them haul him away. I didn’t even ask where they were taking him. To be honest, I didn’t even care. What kind of person am I?”
“One whose family dies and then is whisked away to a foreign country and neglected,” Connie replied, leaning forward to touch her hand. “I know you, Amelia. Had you really known the stakes four months ago, you would have risen to the occasion.”
She was right. Anything other than a mistake would have been absurd. Still was.
“Oh!” Amelia exclaimed suddenly aware of the passage of time. “I have to get the car back to my grandma for morning mass. Can I stop by tomorrow?”
“Promise you will! And don’t worry, Amelia. We’ll find him,” Connie assured her with a tight handgrip that threatened to never let go.
What really worried Amelia, however, was how little she was worried about him. It was her guilt, she realized, that worried her most. Yet that, she finally decided, was a better motive for finding him than none at all.
Chapter 60
“My father’s…missing,” she finally blurted out, looking down at her hands folded upon the desk.
“Excuse me?” Jonathon sputtered, bewildered.
“He’s missing,” she repeated softly looking up at him, her defeated morale evident even in the slump of her shoulders. “I don’t know where he is.”
It was Monday morning and rather than put off till tomorrow what she could do today, she had decided to let Jonathon know that her father would not be participating in the lawsuit. He was surprised to see her and a little irritated that she hadn’t returned his call from the previous week, but he had hugged her, offered her coffee, and seated her across the desk from him all with a warm smile.
Amelia had barely made it through the niceties before blurting out the truth, and, as she had expected, she had shocked him with the information. She knew he would only become more shocked as she shared with him the other details of the story, but she also knew she owed him that much.
“He’s not in Honduras?” he implored.
“No. I had to fly out to Honduras last week. That’s why I didn’t return your call.”
“Wait a second,” he interrupted, stalling her with his hand. “You flew to Honduras? I didn’t mean for you to fly there to arrange the deposition. I thought you were just going to call.”
“I called,” she confirmed, “but I learned that my stepmother and stepbrother had been attacked. So, I went down to find out what I could.”
“Attacked? Amelia,” he said with concern and shock, �
�I’m so sorry. That’s awful! I don’t know what to say.” He reached over to capture her hand as it toyed with the edge of his desk calendar. “Did you find out what happened?”
Similar to her recitation to Connie, Amelia recounted the situation in Honduras and ended by explaining that no one had seen her father.
“When’s the last time he was seen?” Jonathon finally asked after sitting in shocked silence through her account of events.
“He was detained by airport security at the Houston airport a few months ago when we, he and I, were flying to Minneapolis for his sister’s funeral. I haven’t seen him since. I thought they were just going to question him, but there must have been more to it than that because no one’s seen him since.
“Well, if he was detained, there would be a record of it,” Jonathon offered, his legal brain kicking in.
“Except,” Amelia interrupted, “there isn’t. I stopped at the library this morning to check the Bureau of Federal Prison’s database, but nothing showed up. A friend of mine believes he may have been detained by the Homeland Security Department or the FBI because of his connections as a journalist. We haven’t really figured out what to do next,” she ended.
“Wow. What you won’t surprise me with, Amelia,” Jonathon admitted shaking his head in disbelief. “Let me think here for a minute,” he continued, running his fingers through his wispy locks as he looked up at the ceiling before looking back at her. “You think your father was detained by the FBI or Homeland Security. What makes you think that?”
“It’s just that he was detained at the Houston airport, and then I learned about these no-fly lists, his involvement with possible terrorists, his anti-US radio station, and that the FBI had been looking into him after we left thirteen years ago. And well, it just looks like he’s mixed up in something.”
