The Prisoner of Guantanamo (24 page)

“Tell me about Pam,” Falk asked as soon as they were under way. “What happened while I was gone?”

“She hasn't been charged. That's the good news. They questioned her for about a day and let her go. Then last night they put her back under house arrest.”

“What the hell's that all about?”

“You, apparently. Whoever's behind this wants to keep the two of you from comparing notes. Either that or they're worried you'll be angry with her, so they're doing it for her protection.”

“Angry with her?”

Bo shrugged his shoulders.

“Think about it. Maybe she's been saying things you wouldn't want her to. Telling tales. Anything she knows that you wouldn't want repeated?”

“Nothing that would be anybody's business here.”

Then he remembered the rumor from breakfast, the one about the ex-Marine. Now that he knew a Cuban had once worked with Adnan, he could begin to fathom how the story might have spread. Office gossip from Havana making its way to a field man in Yemen. Pam had agreed to keep what she heard under wraps, but maybe it had come out under pressure.

“Looks like you thought of something.”

“Nothing concrete. What are you hearing?”

“You'll have to ask Fowler. They don't tell me specifics.”

“Is that who questioned her?”

“Him. A few others.”

“And you've heard nothing about it?”

“No
specifics.
But the general implication is that you'd better watch your step. Hardly surprising, given what's been going on around here.”

“More arrests?”

Falk was trying to keep his tone light, but his stomach felt like lead. Would Pam do that to him? Would he have done it to her, if the roles were reversed? Who knew what you might say when they had enough leverage, plus all the time in the world? And down here they would have both, the same way it worked with the detainees.

“Are you listening or what?” Bo must have been going on for a few seconds now.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I said the word is that more arrests are coming by the end of the week. No names, but as many as a dozen people are under suspicion.”

“A
dozen
? Where the hell is this coming from?”

“Where isn't it? It's all anybody's talking about. That and goddamned Clifford. Everybody has a favorite theory, and everybody's got a scapegoat. You should have stayed at JAX, buddy.”

“Somebody wanted me to.” He told Bo about the canceled reservation.

“Fowler or Trabert would be my guess. Guess they didn't want to be too obvious, or they'd have just nixed you altogether. Trabert can do that, you know.”

“It crossed my mind. So am I one of the dozen?”

“Like I said, no names. But it's apparently not a good time to know Arabic.”

Another strike against both him and Pam. There was an awkward pause, then Falk posed the question that had been prowling the back of his mind since they got in the car.

“So did you see her while she was out? Pam, I mean.”

“Just once.” Bo kept his eyes on the road.

“And?”

“And what? I got the impression she doesn't like me. So it's not like she told me a hell of a lot. Mostly we talked about you.”

“Anything you can share?”

“Look, Falk.” Bo slowed down, turning to speak. “I'll level with you. She's up against the wall. Whatever it is she knows about you, she's either already told them or will before it's over.”

“And you know this how?”

He accelerated, turning his attention back to the road.

“Because that's the kind of person she is. A careerist.”

“Like us, you mean. Or like you, anyway.”

“No. Like every other woman in the military who wants to climb the chain of command. The only way they can make the grade is by showing they're even tougher and more willing to take one for the team than the boys are, even if it means burning their friends. Not fair, but that's the way it's set up, and she knows it.”

“So you think she'd give me up for another stripe. Assuming there's anything to give up, which there isn't.”

“Forget the stripe. She's just trying to survive. Get out of here in one piece before Fowler tears her career limb from limb. Between her closeness to Boustani and now to you she's practically radioactive by current standards. Don't ask me what it is about you that makes the needle jump—our little arrangement aside, of course—but you've apparently earned a prominent spot on Fowler's latest little flowchart of Gitmo conspiracies. And if Pam can sketch in a few more arrows for him, she'll do it. So don't mourn her loss, that's all I'm saying. You two would have been finished when this gig was over anyway.”

Would they? Maybe Bo was just jealous. Either way, now Falk was pissed off.

“Hey, just because a woman doesn't fall for you doesn't mean she's bad news for every other male.”

Bo grinned sardonically.

“I hope you're right. But keep it in mind. No need to go to the wall for her if she's the one who's placed you there. That's all I'm saying.”

“In your opinion.”

“Yes. In my humble opinion.”

         

T
HEY WERE QUIET
for the next quarter mile, then pulled up to the checkpoint leading to Camp Delta. The sentry leaned in the window to see their papers.

Having been away for a few days, Falk discovered that he again had a fresh eye for the sights here. It hadn't occurred to him until now how much a military operation—even one that only builds a prison—puts its mark on a landscape. He couldn't help but notice the sandbagged positions dug along the dune line near the beach. The ground had been slashed open for fencing and bunkers. On the camel hump of a mountain in the near distance to the east he saw a Cuban watchtower in plain view. Perhaps someone up there was following their progress at this very moment. Up to the right, on a rocky cactus hillside looming over the barracks of Camp America, military patrols had painted their unit numbers and other graffiti, their dubious reward for having completed a climb to the top, often out of boredom.

Finally they arrived at the beach and parked on the shoulder. No one was on the strand or in the picnic area, but Bo didn't get to the heart of the matter until they were down by the ocean, where every word would be swallowed up by the sound of the pounding surf.

“So I'm assuming you didn't spend the entire two days with Paco.”

“We had about an hour together, tops.”

“Where'd you finally meet up? Endler's people lost you at the People Mover.”

“Thought so. They took me to Miami Beach. Some marina at the south end. He was waiting on a borrowed boat with a fake registration number.”

“Sounds like he thought of everything.”

“I was impressed. We took a little cruise across the bay. Dropped me about four blocks from the car.”

“Which you then left behind, you sneak. So what did he want?”

“He gave me an assignment. One he didn't believe in, mostly because he was convinced I was blown. I didn't bother to tell him he was right. But he passed it along anyway. It's funny, I got the idea he
wanted
our side to know. Either way it was a damned weird request.”

“Which was?”

“To take out Adnan al-Hamdi.
My
Adnan. The one who is now in Camp Echo. The Cubans want him either silenced or shipped home. Anything to keep more Americans from getting a crack at him.”

Falk figured he should also tell Bo about Adnan's “great gift” of the name “Hussay,” or, as he now understood it, José. But he bit his tongue without being certain of why. This was a dangerous place for loose information, even among friends, as Pam's arrest had already showed him. He would hold on to what he could until he learned more.

“That's pretty amazing,” Bo said. “They sound desperate.”

“That's what I said, and he agreed. And it gets better. He told me some off-the-books theory of his about a Cuban op in the Middle East who's gone AWOL.”

Bo raised his eyebrows.

“He laid it out for you like that?”

“Yeah.”

“You're right. They do want us to know, as long as it's the right people.”

“And who would the ‘right people' be?”

“Endler and me, of course.” Bo grinned.

“How does any of this tie in with all the arrests?”

“I'm not convinced it does. Maybe they're just a smoke screen.”

“Pretty damned destructive for a smoke screen.”

“All the more reason I need you to go back inside the wire and get those interrogation schedules for me. When this team departs, I'll have to go with them, and I'm running out of time.”

“And it's still the Yemenis you're interested in?”

“Them and whoever's been talking to them.”

“Adnan's a Yemeni.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“Well, somebody certainly took an undue interest in him, if he's been moved to Echo.”

“That's been established. So focus on the other ones now.”

“Do you think they've got some sort of Cuban link?”

“It's one of the many things I'm trying to find out. With your help, of course. I need dates and times, anything that looks out of the ordinary. And I don't just want copies. I want the originals.”

“Whoa, now.” Falk stopped in his tracks, the waves coming within a few feet. “You're asking me to steal the pages?”

“It may be the only way to nail this down.”

“Then I'll copy the info. Not in my notebook—on a machine. If there's anything incriminating you can get the originals later.”

Bo shook his head, adamant.

“Once they hear you've been poking around in there—and believe me, they'll hear—the first thing they'll do is go back in to clear out anything that might hurt them. Hey, it's not like you can get into any more trouble than you're already in.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Yeah, well, joking aside, it's worth the risk.”

“For you, maybe. Maybe I don't share your urgency.”

This time it was Bo who stopped, digging in his heels as he pivoted quickly in the sand, face stern, the look of a man prepared to give anything to do his job. It was the loyal soldier in him that Falk sometimes forgot about when they were laughing or sharing a beer.

“Do you have any idea what some people could do with certain kinds of information from down here, even if it's only remotely close to being true?”

“What, some vague Cuban link to al-Qaeda, you mean? Embarrass Fidel, I guess. Make a stink at the UN for a few days.”

“Make a war is more like it. If it fell into the wrong hands, with the right spin behind it. Cuba as an al-Qaeda sponsor would be diplomatic dynamite.”

“Then why not just ask us to get it for them?” Especially considering that Falk had probably already gotten it.

“Because you guys will put it in its proper context, and that's how the clientele would receive it: a dumb cowboy in the field who overstepped his authority and mixed with the wrong crowd. Which would let Havana wriggle off the hook. Context is everything. And whoever gets the information first controls the context.”

“Still.” Falk shook his head, skeptical.

“How do you think Iraq got started? Four or five neocon theorists, totally committed to the cause, taking a few discredited reports from a handful of paid informants, completely unreliable, plus one forged memo on yellowcake uranium and a satellite photo of a mobile chemical lab that turned out to be making insecticide instead of anthrax. Pretty thin stuff, huh? But next thing you know, 135,000 troops are slogging through the desert toward Baghdad. Context is everything. And if you don't think this anti-Castro crowd could pull off the same trick, then think again. Besides, it's good politics. Which voting bloc do you think decided the last presidential election? Good old Little Havana. And you've got to keep the customers satisfied, at least until the next one. It's all about who gets the information first.”

“Okay. You've made your point. Or Endler's point, anyway.”

Falk gazed out to sea, wondering if he really believed it. It seemed unlikely. But a few years ago, the idea of a war with Iraq would have seemed just as outlandish, and now half the globe was seemingly on alert, waiting nervously to see where the American hammer would fall next.

As he watched the waves he thought again of Ludwig's body, tossing in the sea until it somehow wound up two miles to windward. Even now a rising breeze was pushing the surf west. He scanned the horizon as if it might hold a hint to the anomaly, but there was only the blue line of the sky. When he looked up he saw a bluff, and, at the top, a fence lined with green mesh. Behind it was Camp Iguana, the mini-prison holding three juvenile detainees—and the only place on the island with a commanding view of Windmill Beach.

“So you'll do it, then?” Bo asked, interrupting his thoughts. Still prodding, like a hungry dog demanding a treat.

“Do what?”

“Get those pages from the logbook.”

“I'll try. Let me get back in touch with my tiger team first. Pick up a few fresh names for interrogation, to give me a pretext to get back inside.”

He didn't need to explain to Bo why he felt the need for a pretext. The landscape had changed. His previous habit of strolling the cellblocks after dark wouldn't cut it anymore, now that the place had gone into virtual lockdown, even for the jailers. He checked his watch.

“I better get moving. Our team's weekly debriefing is in half an hour.”

“I'm sure they'll be thrilled to have you back.”

“No doubt,” Falk said. “Everyone loves a pariah.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T
HE MEETING WAS
in session by the time Falk arrived. Most of the usual cast of characters had already assumed their customary Monday afternoon pose, slouched in chairs around a table that was covered with folders and legal pads, a few canned sodas. Two people had plugged in their laptops. The air conditioner was set high enough for fur storage.

The atmosphere was like that of a teachers' lounge or a captain's stateroom at sea—familiar but respectful, a tepid brew spiked with inside jokes and wry allusions to the high command. Oftentimes there were fresh tales from the front lines of interrogation: “You'll never believe what that wild ass Mahfouz is saying now about his network …” and so on.

What Falk wasn't accustomed to was the effect his arrival had upon the tableau.

Conversation halted. No one said hello. All four colleagues sat up a little straighter in their chairs, gave him a quick once-over, then looked down at their notes. All except for Phil LaFarge, the analyst from Army intelligence, who held his gaze with an expression of absolute disdain, like a party host who'd just spotted a drunk dipping into the silver.

“Was it something I said?” Falk asked.

“Well, no,” answered Jerry Parsons from DIA, the polite one of the bunch. “It's just that we'd heard you might not be coming back. To the team, that is.”

“Where else was I supposed to go?”

Parsons shrugged, looked around the table for help but received none. “They made it sound like you had other fish to fry, that's all.”

“Or maybe that I was one of the fish?”

Parsons smiled, but his cheeks reddened.

“You know how rumors are.”

“Yeah, well, I'm here. And needing some work to get back into the flow. Where's Mitch Tyndall, by the way?”

“You know how it goes with the Agency guys,” LaFarge said. “Sometimes they're with us, sometimes they've got …”

“Other fish to fry?”

“Those weren't the words I was going to use.”

“Never mind. I'll track him down. We're still on speaking terms last I checked.”

Falk had nothing to contribute to the proceedings, having either been away or preoccupied with other duties since their last meeting. He sat back to listen to what the others had to say, but sensed that they were watching their words carefully.

Not that there was ever much of substance reported at these meetings. In the perfect world envisioned by Camp Delta's creators, Falk supposed, these weekly forums were to have become the intelligence equivalent of quilting bees—each person offering a patch of vital information to be fit into the grand design, while everyone looked for patterns, alignments, links.

It rarely happened. Mostly what people offered were threads, not patches, and even then it was often the same frayed material from one week to the next. Of all Gitmo's secrets, this may have been its deepest and darkest. The more the daily millstone of blab turned, the less it produced. The bulk of Camp Delta's population had been tapped out for months. Anyone of real value had either been sent elsewhere in the CIA's unseen archipelago or eased into Camp Echo. Yet this was the one conclusion never mentioned in the reports that reached the public.

It took some prodding, but Falk convinced the team to toss him the name of Khalid al-Mustafa, a young Saudi, for further interrogation. Even by Gitmo standards al-Mustafa was of low value. No one had spoken to him in weeks, and Falk knew him only in passing as a smart-ass who spoke decent English, a wealthy man in his early twenties, college educated, who, with a little more indoctrination and a few more years under fire, might have ended up like a junior bin Laden, having crossed into the realm of the fully committed with the family bankroll at his disposal.

Instead he had proven too soft and spoiled for what he'd gotten into, which was one reason he was captured. According to field reports he had been almost happy to be picked up, until he wound up with a one-way ticket to Gitmo.

Al-Mustafa was supposedly the source of a popular joke that had made the rounds when Falk first arrived: “How do you break up an al-Qaeda bingo game? By yelling ‘B-52!'”

Several weeks ago he had moved to the Haj of Camp 4, with its white jumpsuits, bigger meals, extra exercise, and barracks-style cellblocks.

Tyndall finally showed up toward the end of the meeting. He, at least, didn't seem at all surprised to see Falk, and he offered a nod and a smile, much as he always had. Afterward, Falk took him aside, which wasn't hard since everyone else exited as quickly as possible.

“I'm cashing in my chips on that favor,” Falk said. “I need to get inside Camp Echo to see Adnan. The sooner the better.”

Mitch blew air out his cheeks.

“Wow, you're asking a lot.” He looked around to make sure the others were out the door. “It's not impossible, but I'm assuming there are certain parties you wouldn't want to know about it.”

“You sound plugged in.”

“Not as much as I'd like to be. Maybe you could tell me what's going on between Fowler and Bokamper.”

“You'll have to get that from them.”

“Fair enough. But I can't get you into Echo without Fowler's security team hearing about it. Maybe not right away, but soon enough. And believe me, you don't want to get dragged into what they're doing.”

“People seem to think I already have been, so I'll take the chance. All I need is an hour.”

“I can get you half.”

“Better than nothing. When?”

“Let me check. The problem is that he may not be there much longer.”

“Maybe I should just wait 'til he's back in Camp Three.”

“No. They're talking about a rendition.”

“To Yemen?”

“That's the word.”

“From Fowler?”

“Sorry, Falk. I'm really not at liberty.”

“I can read between the lines.”

“I'm not sure you can. But I can't help you further. Half an hour, but keep it to yourself. And be ready to move at a moment's notice.”

“You know where to find me.”

“I did until this weekend. What was the vanishing act all about? And with Pam in the pokey, no less.”

“If you really don't know the answer, this is worse than I thought.”

Tyndall said nothing, just shook his head and went out the door.

         

F
ALK FINALLY GOT
a chance to drop off his gear at the house. The air conditioner was still working, at least. Nice job, Harry. He checked for mail, but there was only a folded note from Whitaker:

“Finally got a leave from this wretched place. One week (hot damn!). Sorry about Pam, but I hear it's not so bad. I'm betting she'll be out by the time I'm back. Fingers crossed. Keep the beer cold. Whit.”

So Whitaker had finally gotten his wish. Good for him. Or had he, too, seen the writing on the wall and decided he didn't want to be around when things went south for his roomie? Maybe someone else made the decision for him. They would certainly have more flexibility dealing with Falk now that Whit was out of the house.

Falk pulled back the shade in the living room, half expecting to see a parked Humvee and MPs heading up the walk. The sky caught his attention instead. A bank of clouds was creeping in from the southeast, the first trace of Clifford.

His stomach growled, reminding him it was dinnertime. The seaside galley didn't seem like an appetizing option just now. There would only be more stares and further questions. He scrounged up some limp lettuce and a slice of ham from a package three days past the sell date and slapped them between stale slices of wheat bread, then chewed the sandwich at the counter. Gloom settled over the house to the drumbeat of the dripping kitchen sink.

He rinsed the plate, then turned the valve extra hard but still couldn't stop the drip. Another job for Harry. Falk wondered what to do next. There was a night to kill, but he didn't feel like reading and there was no TV in the house. He decided to check his e-mail, logging on via the line the base had installed at the house. He wondered idly if Harry did that work, too, but figured it was probably handled by some private contractor. In a way, those employees were no more secure than Harry. Typical. You build the world's most secure prison, surround it with 2,400 soldiers, then let some private contractor bring in low-wage workers from all over the world to install your most vital lines of communication.

Falk logged on to find that Perkins, his pal at the FBI, had replied only an hour earlier.

“FYI: Insider's name was Lawson,” the message said. “No longer with DEA. Cheers, Perkins.”

Lawson. Almost certainly Allen Lawson, now of Global Networks, and Van Meter's ally on the security team, as well as the corporate rival to the disgraced Boustani. It seemed almost too good to be true, so Falk sent a reply asking for a first name or initial. If it was indeed the same guy, then Lawson would have been cozy enough with the Cayman and Peruvian banks to rig up some sort of quickie transfer through Ludwig's bank. But why, unless Lawson wanted some kind of leverage over Ludwig? His buddy Van Meter already outranked Ludwig. What more leverage could they have possibly needed?

The thought reminded him of Camp Iguana, and its prime vantage point. Even if they turned him away, a visit would sure beat hanging around an empty house.

It was time for a drive.