The Prisoner of Guantanamo (27 page)

“Falk. Revere Falk, special agent with the FBI.”

Badusky got him to spell it, and then wrote it down.

“What about these OGF exceptions in here? Shouldn't they have all included an ID number, instead of just the NCOIC?”

“Probably,” Badusky said, beginning to sound like he wished he'd never gotten into this. “I did kind of wonder about that when you showed me.”

“Are there any other records for those sessions?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Could you check, just to make sure? Who's your CO?”

“I'll get him,” Badusky said, tight as a drum.

As soon as he slammed the door behind him, Falk carefully tore out each of the pages with OGF references, plus the sheets for the corresponding days from the MP duty ledger. He folded them away in his briefcase, then put everything back in order before placing the ledger and sign-up folder back on the sergeant's desk.

A few minutes later, Badusky entered with a disgruntled-looking captain, who spoke up loudly before Falk could even introduce himself.

“Sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises, effective immediately.”

“No need to get upset, captain, I'm on my way. Just one last question about those special notations.”

“The answer is no, we don't keep a separate log. If you want any particulars, you'll have to ask the NCOIC in question.”

“That's going to be kind of hard,” Falk said. “It was Sergeant Earl Ludwig.”

Badusky and the captain exchanged surprised glances, suddenly at a loss for words.

He eased past them out the door.

         

O
UTSIDE THE GATES
, Falk eyed the sky. Clifford was beginning to make his presence felt. The wind had picked up, and ragged clouds were racing west. It felt like rain, but there still hadn't been a drop. It was too hot to just sit there in the car, so he started the engine to run the air conditioner while he checked his map of the base. The road he wanted was unpaved, and it wouldn't be easy to spot unless he knew exactly where to look. He drove back through the checkpoint, looping up and around Kittery Beach Road toward Bay Hill. Then he turned left up a winding paved road that led to the highest point on the base, John Paul Jones Hill.

Marines liked to run to the top of this hill on occasion, just to prove they could do it, setting their sights on the American flag that waved from the top. The hill was rich with Cold War relics: artillery emplacements that had long since been abandoned, a radar station, plus dugouts for riflemen, also vacant.

The latest Pentagon plans called for the construction of a row of big white windmills along the ridge, to help take up the slack for the base's diesel-burning power plant, which grew more expensive to operate every day, thanks to the same upheavals that had brought prisoners to Camp Delta.

Falk drove by the radar station, offering a halfhearted wave to the crew seated in a shaded tent. A little farther on he stopped when he thought he had found the turnoff, a track of hammered coral leading down the face of the ridge. He turned and inched onward, the Plymouth creaking on its aging springs and shocks.

After a quarter of a mile he reached his destination. It was another tented position dug into the hillside, inhabited at the moment by a few Navy Reservists from New Jersey, members of a Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Unit. They had mounted an oversized pair of binoculars to a swivel along the wall facing the sea. From up here nothing could move out on the ocean below without these guys seeing it, although Falk wondered how much was visible after dark, even with night-vision lenses.

The two men on duty got to their feet, stepping from the shade as Falk climbed from the Plymouth.

“Howdy, fellows.”

“You lost or something?” No hint of sarcasm. They seemed genuinely puzzled to have a civilian visitor.

“You're the guys I wanted to see, believe it or not. Revere Falk, FBI.”

The Bureau ID generally cut more ice with Reservists than it did with regular Army, especially once you were outside the wire. The two fellows seemed suitably impressed.

“Just double-checking some items from events last week, and you were on the checklist.”

The vagueness didn't seem to bother them, and they both nodded.

“Is there ever much to watch out there? By way of boat traffic, I mean?”

They smiled and shook their heads.

“Sometimes you get small craft like fishing boats, or maybe a yacht on a Caribbean cruise, a mile or so offshore,” one answered. “Anything closer and it's usually either the supply barge out of JAX or a patrol boat. Ours will come right down in front, and sometimes you see theirs over in that direction.” He pointed east. “But you can bet that if it's out there, we'll spot it.”

“Great. You keep a log of every sighting?”

“Sure,” the second one piped up.

“You still have it from a week ago, say last Tuesday?”

“Probably.” He turned back toward the tent to fetch it, still talking as he went. “What's your authorization on this?”

“General Trabert,” Falk said without missing a beat. It was true enough, even if the general had later rescinded his authority.

“Good enough for me,” the first one said.

“How you guys like it up here?”

“Better than being down there,” the first one said. He nodded toward the distant rooftops of Camp Delta, which even from here looked like they were broiling in the haze. “Decent shade. Steady breeze. Maybe a little lonely.”

“Here you go,” the second guy said, approaching with a logbook encased in a metal box. “The page for last Tuesday looks pretty open.”

Standard stuff. A mention of weather conditions and visibility, all clear and normal. No overnight storms or rain or notable wind shifts. Just like the guy at the port control office had said. The only mention of boats was a Cuban fishing vessel, far in the distance to the east, plus a Navy patrol boat sighted during daylight hours.

The rest of the page was blank, with no activity after dark. With so little to keep them busy, Falk wondered if they napped, or played cards. He sure would have as a Marine. And all the more reason they wouldn't have missed anything. They'd be downright eager for business.

“Thanks,” he said, handing it back. “Must get pretty boring.”

The first guy shrugged. “Some of the foot patrols stop by. They get kind of bored, too. Of course they think we've got it made. One of them calls this place the gazebo, like we've got our feet up all night, drinking beer. Same with the guys in the inflatables. They'll pay us a visit on their way to the put-in, and sometimes they'll make a crack too.”

“Inflatables?” He tried not to sound too interested.

“Army counterintelligence runs 'em into the surf sometimes,” he said. “They run sort of an informal coast patrol after dark. Not that anybody's supposed to know about it. Which is why we don't write it down.”

“But Trabert okayed it,” the second guy said.

“Yeah, it's kosher and all that.”

“How often do they run it?”

They both shrugged.

“It's not like they post a schedule,” the second one said.

“What's their put-in?”

“Blue Beach. They pass here to get to the access road.”

It was a few miles west of where Ludwig went in.

“They come by here last Tuesday night?”

The two of them thought about it for a minute, and then shook their heads.

“They'd have stopped. They almost always do.”

“
Almost
always?”

“Always.”

“Same crew every time?”

“Don't know if I'd call it a crew. Two per boat. Different guys. I guess they've got a rotation.”

“Who's their admiral, for lack of a better term?”

“Captain Van Meter. He always stops. He's a good guy.”

“Yeah. I know him. Very hands-on.”

“That's why his men like him. Never asks them to do anything he wouldn't.”

Such as riding an inflatable through the surf at night. But not that night, apparently. Or not from here. In fact, if you were putting in for a quick trip down to Windmill Beach, Hidden Beach would have been a more convenient choice than Blue, especially if you didn't want to be spotted on the way to the put-in. Not only was the beach more secluded but Falk had just noticed on his map that it was officially off-limits, closed in order to protect the fragile ecosystem. One of those quirks you found from time to time on military installations, like an eagle sanctuary located next to an artillery range.

“The general give you any kind of orders you could show us?” the first one asked, perhaps beginning to have second thoughts. “Anything on paper?”

“Nope,” Falk said, turning to go. “Just a verbal. You'll have to take it on trust.”

“Trust?”

“Yep. And I thank you for it. One other quick question. When's the last time you had any rain up here?”

The second guy, still seemingly okay with everything, flipped back through the log, then whistled.

“Not a drop in twenty-two days.”

Meaning well before Ludwig disappeared. Good.

“Thanks, fellows. Have a quiet night.”

“We always do.”

         

H
E DROVE NEXT TOWARD
the road that led down to Hidden Beach. It took a couple of false starts and wrong turns, but eventually Falk found a track used by the mechanized patrols that seemed headed in the right direction. Fortunately there was still plenty of light, even though the clouds were heavier than ever. Up here the wind was getting fierce, a good fifteen to twenty knots. The last he had heard, Clifford was in no danger of strengthening into a hurricane. The storm was supposedly weakening, but it was still brisk enough that the Coast Guard would probably soon call in its Boston Whalers from patrol. No sense risking a rescue of your own boats when no one else was out on the water. The air felt as if the heavens were about to open at any moment, and Falk knew he had to hurry.

He parked after following the track as close as he could get to the beach. Then he located a wide trail that led downhill, and he walked several hundred yards toward the beach. It was crushed coral, meaning it wouldn't easily show footprints.

The moment he set off down the hill he was startled by a sudden rustle in the brush to his left. He froze, tense, hands out in front like a wrestler's to fend off an attacker. It was like being back on duty along the fenceline, only now he was deep inside American territory. He listened a while longer, but there was no further sound or movement. Probably just an iguana, running for cover.

Falk hoped Hidden Beach had some sand. Some of the strands around here were all stone and pebble, the stuff that the British called “shingle.” That wouldn't do him any good.

It turned out to be a mixed result. Most of the beach was shingle, but fortunately there was about a ten-foot-wide band of sand that stretched across it a few feet behind the beach, right where the trail came in, and that's where Falk found what he'd come looking for. With no rain in the past three weeks to wipe it away, and with enough protection from the sheltering rocks and underbrush to hold the wind at bay, the sand above the tide line offered a tabula rasa for anyone who would have crossed it during the past week or so. And there in the middle, on a direct line between the trail and the sea, was a faint but unmistakable track, a smooth imprint about five feet wide across the sand. It was a pattern that you'd make by pulling something heavy down the hill, like an inflatable with an outboard motor. He unfolded his map, which he'd brought from the car, and checked the distance against the scale, just to make sure he wasn't overestimating the convenience. Windmill Beach was a mere half mile away, just around the corner to his left as he faced the sea.

As he refolded the map, the first drops of rain began to fall. By the time he reached the car it was pouring, smearing the haze and dust from the windshield into a milky brown ooze. He looked up, face to the storm, refreshed by it in the way that only a mariner could be. By now the flattened little path to the beach would already be gone. The raindrops tasted salty, a gift from the Caribbean, blown here by forces from afar.

Bring them on, he thought. He was ready.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

F
ALK WAITED UNTIL
dark to make his move. By then it was pouring, the rain sheeting at wild angles against the windshield as he prowled up Skyline Drive. He parked about a half mile from his destination, resigning himself to a good soak even though he had thrown on his rain slicker and a wide-brimmed hat he sometimes wore sailing. A flashlight was zipped into a side pocket.

He had never bothered to eat dinner, instead grabbing a pre-wrapped sandwich from the Naval Exchange after his visit to Hidden Beach. He was too nervous for anything more, and all he could think about was Harry, who by now would be warm and dry at his home in Guantánamo City, relaxing after another commute home through the North East Gate. Falk hoped the old man had managed to hold up his end of the deal.

He had to guess on where to cut between the apartment houses as he stalked across the darkened lawns of Windward Loop, heading for the backyard of his eventual target. He lucked out, missing by only one building. The rain, he supposed, was a blessing. It kept everyone indoors and provided a wet veil against prying eyes.

As he approached the back of the apartment he was all too conscious of leaving footprints, already imagining an evidence technician making molds. Reaching the wall, he felt his way along the rough bricks like a rock climber at the base of a cliff.

Her window was the third one down. This was the moment of truth. Rain sluiced off the hat brim as he searched for the all-clear sign. Without it he would turn back and head home, knowing that either Harry had failed or Pam had forsaken him. After what Bo had told him he supposed he wouldn't be that surprised. He reached for the small flashlight, slippery in his wet hands, then flicked it on for barely a second, just long enough to see a small strip of silver duct tape stuck to the bottom right corner of the sash. His heart leaped at the sight, as welcome a sensation as hearing a bell buoy ring out in the fog.

Falk tapped lightly at the window, three times only, just as he had said in the note. The curtains flicked, and he saw a pair of hands working at the latch. The sash came free with a squeak and a slide.

“Quick,” Pam whispered, barely audible above the downpour. “Climb in. I've put towels on the floor.”

The threshold came up to about thigh level, and Falk struggled across the sill, dripping like an old dog and wishing he could shake like one, too. The room went silent as she shut the window against the pelting rain, and then he unzipped his jacket and shed it behind him onto the muddy towels. It was such a relief to see her, to know she'd been waiting. They exchanged an excited glance in the dark, her glimmering eyes looking keyed up, perhaps a bit worried. She was taking quite a risk. Was that really what he had wanted most? A proof of her loyalty? He was about to speak when she placed a finger to his lips and shook her head.

“Not yet,” she mouthed, pointing next door. “Roommates.”

Then, before he could make another move, she slid her arms around him, all warmth and comfort against the dampness of his shirt. He had been on edge for the better part of the afternoon, and it was almost a shock to his system. But in a moment his body relaxed as if he had slipped into a warm tub. Then came the excitement, the smell of her skin and hair, the feel of her hands on his back—all of it producing a surge of attraction that was never far beneath the surface when they were together.

When the first flush of the moment passed she backed away, turning her ear to the door and listening. She reached to a radio on the bureau and switched on a sudden blare of salsa beaming from across the fenceline, another reminder of just where they were.

Their next embrace lasted longer, with a deep, slow kiss tacked on. But neither of them was taking this risk for an amorous liaison, and as soon as they came up for air the many unanswered questions suddenly loomed between them like another threshold to be scaled. Falk sensed the awkwardness, and since he had called this meeting he felt obligated to speak first.

“Good to see you.” He kept his voice to a whisper.

“I wasn't sure they'd let you back on the island.”

“They probably wouldn't have if they hadn't been afraid to be too obvious. How are you holding up?”

She shook her head.

“Going stir crazy. Cabin fever, plus the worry. Sleeping a lot, if you really want to know, and always wondering if this is the end of my career. Every night it's a different dream, all of them bad.”

Falk winced at the remark about her career. Exactly what Bo had alluded to.

“What about you?” she said. “What's going on out there? My roommates don't tell me a thing. I've become a leper. ‘Oh, we'd better not,' and a lot of other OPSEC bullshit. Guess I've been blackballed from the sorority.”

“Same here. My team would barely speak to me yesterday. And I guess that kind of made me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“What you've been telling your interrogators.” Her eyes darkened. “Let me rephrase that. I've been wondering what they've been asking you.”

“So that's why you wanted a meeting? To find out if I've spilled your secrets? Maybe you're forgetting that I'm the one under house arrest. Did you ever think that maybe it's you who's the problem for me?”

“Sorry. It's just that Bo said—”

“Bo?” She frowned. “Who do you think these jerks are reporting to?”

“Fowler.”

“He's not the only one. It's a lot more complicated.”

“Who says?”

“No one. You can just tell from what they ask, the things they say. Something funny is going on at the Pink Palace, but I'm not sure even Trabert has a handle on it.”

“What
are
they asking?”

“Who's been talking to the Yemenis? Who shapes the questions? How did your friend Falk end up as Adnan's sole interrogator? Whose idea was it? Who let him do it? Who sees our reports? And they wanted to know about the rumor, the one behind the wire.”

“The one about the ex-Marine? I think I—”

Her eyes widened in alarm and she abruptly put a finger to his lips. She looked toward the door, where Falk heard footsteps passing down the hallway. They held their breath, and then Pam slowly exhaled and turned back toward him.

“Yes, that rumor. The one I mentioned at breakfast.”

“But wouldn't tell me any more about.”

“That was for your benefit. I was hoping that would be as far as it went.”

Falk shook his head.

“It's making the rounds. Even I've heard it now from a Saudi.”

“In a way I was hoping you
wouldn't
come back. Much better to be stuck in JAX than here, believe me.”

“Then who would have looked after you?”

“What, by breaking into my room?” She smiled. “It's okay. I was all for it, if only to tell you to watch your step. And to trust no one.”

“No one?”

“Except me, of course. And your deliveryman. What's he all about?”

“Harry? Long story.”

“Another one going back to Marine days?”

“Later, when we've got more time.”

“If we've ever got it. Oh, and he also brought this. Said it was for you. Compliments of someone named Paco.”

It was a shock hearing Paco's name at this time and place. He hoped that the darkness hid his surprise. She handed him a brown envelope with a Department of the Navy letterhead. It was used, with an old postmark and a return address from some supply officer in Washington. It was grease-stained, obviously from the machine shop, and Harry had sealed it with electrical tape.

“So are you going to open it?” Playful, not challenging, but there was no way he was going to unseal it in front of Pam. If Harry had taken this kind of risk, it figured to be something urgent.

“I'm sure it's not important,” he said. “Besides, there's a lot I need to ask you. Who does all the questioning, for starters?”

“Fowler mostly, and he's the most insistent. But sometimes it's Van Meter.”

“They work together?”

“No. But they ask a lot of the same stuff. I'm beginning to see why it drives the detainees nuts. Same questions, over and over. You'd think they'd compare notes. The only time Fowler didn't come alone he brought Cartwright, the one in uniform. Just what I need, having a lieutenant colonel breathing down my neck.”

“And Van Meter? Alone?”

“Except once.”

“With Lawson or Rieger?”

“Neither. With Bokamper.”

“Bo?”

She nodded, as if that closed her case. But Pam didn't know Bokamper the way Falk did. He had probably come along to keep tabs on Van Meter. Snooping on the snoop. Maybe he had also been keeping an eye on Pam, on Falk's behalf.

“Well, say as little as you can to Van Meter.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“I'm serious. He's mixed up in something that goes way beyond this mess. And if—”

She shushed him again, the footsteps returning, this time stopping just outside the door, followed by a muffled knock.

“Pam?” One of her roommates, sounding concerned.

“What is it?”

“You okay in there?”

“I'm fine.”

“It's just that I thought I heard—”

“What?”

“Crying. I don't know. Sounded like a sob.” Or a deep voice, perhaps?

“Really, I'm fine. Just talking to myself. Playing music and babbling away. That's what happens when people cut you off.”

“It wasn't my choice, you know,” she replied with the aggrieved tone always adopted by those who are only following orders. The footsteps retreated without a further word.

“You should go,” she mouthed, barely whispering. “She'd report me if she knew. Seriously. Maybe she already is.”

“The phone is still hooked up?”

“Only the one in her room. Which she keeps locked when she's not here.”

“Lovely people.”

“No worse than your friends, believe me.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

It was apparent that the dislike between Pam and Bo was still mutual, and this was how it was playing out under pressure, with each pointing a finger at the other. Not particularly becoming of either. But where did that leave Falk?

They kissed again, lightly this time, the commuting husband on his way to catch the train. Then they flinched as she unlatched the window, the sash squeaking open onto the industrial clatter of the storm. He clambered across the sill and turned to say good-bye. When she whispered now it was all he could do to read her lips. “Leave that way,” she mouthed, pointing in the opposite direction from the way he'd come. “So you won't have to pass her window.”

“Thanks,” he mouthed, water pouring off his hat. “I trust you.”

Right now he figured that was the best he had to offer. But instead of nodding or mouthing anything back, she leaned across the sash, out into the rain, her face close to his, and he instinctively turned an ear for her parting message.

“When we're out, when this is over—if it ever is over—I want you to be there for me.”

“I will,” he said, knowing then that he meant it. So he said it again, if only to convince himself. “I will.” Like a vow, an advance to higher ground that would have to be held at all costs.

She nodded, brushing his lips with hers, and drew back inside. Her hair dripped onto the floor as she slid the window shut, still gazing at him. Then she pulled the curtains back into place, the line of communication severed. Falk felt his stomach knot, and he took a step in the wrong direction before catching himself, a soldier who'd nearly tripped the mine.

Already he could think of a dozen questions he had meant to ask. But of all of them, the most crucial was this: When all of this was over, would she still be there for him? He knew what her answer would be now, but what about when she found out more about his own involvement, his own past missteps? His track record wasn't exactly the sort you could afford to be associated with when you were trying to climb the chain of command.

Watching warily for a burst of light, or the appearance of a sentry, he headed across the soggy lawn and between the buildings to the rear, back through the rainy night toward his car.

He was still soaked by the time he pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later, and after switching off the engine he sat for a few seconds as rain hammered the roof. It was a relief that it had gone off without a hitch. Now he even felt comfortable enough to check on what Harry had delivered. Falk flipped on the dome light, then tore back the tape on the old envelope and reached inside, reminded of the days when he poked his hand into boxes of Cracker Jacks, groping for the prize at the bottom.

Inside was a British passport, belonging to Ned Morris of Manchester, with Falk's picture inside. It was an updated version of the one he had used on his trip to Havana. The photo was also new. Now when had they managed that? he wondered. Sometime in Miami, perhaps. There was no note inside.

His first impulse was to come up with the quickest possible way to destroy it. Were they trying to set him up? Then a sharp rap on the passenger window nearly made him jump out of his skin. A pale, dripping face peered through the glass. It was Tyndall.

“Let me in!” A muffled shout. “Open up!”

Falk shoved the passport and envelope into a jacket pocket, then unlatched the door. The noise of the downpour entered with the CIA man, who was almost as wet as Falk. A flash of lightning lit the sky, and you could see the rubber trees out front whipsawing in the wind.

“You scared me half to death,” Falk said. “Where were you hiding?”

“Didn't you see my car parked out front? I kept waiting for you to get out so I could follow you inside. Then I finally gave up.”

“Sorry,” Falk said, pulse still on overdrive. “Didn't see it in this mess.”