Thirst for Justice

by David R. Boyd

  “What the hell is a legat?”

  “Legal attachés. Special agents, usually with additional language expertise or extensive foreign experience.”

  “Okay. Scramble a team from wherever’s closest. Pick this bastard up and take him somewhere close for interrogation.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Stryder. “Rwanda or Uganda would be good options for that.”

  “Wherever. We need to know two things ASAP: who he’s working with and what city they’re planning to hit next. We’re already dangerously close to the deadline.”

  “And if he’s not in Goma?” Stryder asked.

  “Then I want an immediate callout through Interpol to every police force on Earth. Arrest his family and his friends. Squeeze them hard. Seize computers and bring them in. We don’t have a moment to waste.”

  “Assuming we bring him into custody, can we use enhanced interrogation techniques, sir?” asked Stryder.

  “Do whatever’s necessary to get answers. We desperately need that information.”

  Cassie recalled what she’d said to Dom and rebelled. “With all due respect, sir, are you giving the CIA the green light to torture an American citizen?”

  “Did I say that? I’m telling them to use the tools necessary to get the job done. If finding out the location and timing of the next attack means bending the rules then screw the rules.” The president slammed both of his fists on the table. “There are thousands of innocent American lives at stake here, and this guy is our best bet, maybe our only bet, for averting disaster.”

  Cassie made a calming gesture with her hand that was luckily off camera. She had no qualms with playing hardball, but torture was a line she was reluctant, and maybe unwilling, to step over. “I’m sorry for pushing this point, sir, but I need to remind you of the problems at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Those scandals would look like tempests in a teapot compared to presidential authorization of force against an American doctor working for an acclaimed humanitarian organization. We need to remember that this suspect is entitled to the presumption of innocence. All of our evidence thus far is circumstantial.”

  “Drop it, Cassie,” barked the president. “This is your suspect, so don’t go soft on me now. We’re covered by the attorney general’s legal opinion on torture; American law allows presidential authorization of force under compelling circumstances. Force probably won’t be necessary. It’s a last resort. This doctor may cooperate. Get him into custody and get him to talk, fast. Anything else?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “All right. Good work, Cassie. Billy Joe, I want to hear from you as soon as he’s in custody.”

  Cassie’s next call was Chief Gilhooley.

  “Interesting development at the crime scene, Cassie. Our team just found two plastic perc jugs. Ten liters in total. Also a pair of thin plastic gloves, the medical type.”

  Bingo, Cassie thought. “Where?”

  “About fifty yards from an old logging road that runs from the highway down to the reservoir. Right where our two eye­witnesses placed the lone cyclist. We’re bringing the jugs to our lab for fingerprinting.”

  “That’s great, Chief. Now let me share something that’s strictly for your ears only. We’ve identified a prime suspect, as well as physical evidence, and are in the process of making an arrest.”

  “Here in Seattle?”

  “No. We believe this individual left the United States soon after carrying out the attack and is currently in Africa. I wish I could tell you more but I have to run. Let’s just say he should be flying home in handcuffs in a matter of hours.”

  Chapter 27

  Michael was wrapping up his first operation of the day, a Cesarean section on a shy fifteen-year-old girl who refused to answer any questions about her pregnancy, her parents, her home, or the child’s father. She turned her head away when Michael held the small baby boy up for her to see. Tears streamed down her cheeks as Michael cut the umbilical cord and worked to stitch the six-inch, sickle-shaped incision. The girl was HIV positive, but they had treated her with nevirapine and would administer the drug to the newborn within the next forty-eight hours. These simple interventions would reduce the odds of the baby being HIV positive by over fifty percent.

  At least they could give the boy a fighting chance. But he would probably have to grow up an orphan. Maybe the girl was raped. Maybe she’d been forced into prostitution. Maybe she just didn’t care. You could tie your soul in a Gordian knot trying to figure these things out. Michael needed to focus his attention on the next patient.

  The intense pressure of performing an endless stream of emergency operations in the challenging circumstances of the Congo was a relief to Michael. He’d worried that his nerves would fray, that the rope connecting him to the world might finally snap. But he was feeling better than he had for weeks, months even. The medical work demanded his full attention, consumed all of his energy, and provided an unambiguous sense of doing good, without the endless and corrosive barrage of doubts, failure, and frustration that had haunted his life this past year. The events in Seattle were unreal here, like the remnants of a bad dream. He hadn’t had a suicidal thought since he landed in Africa.

  He paused as he heard a helicopter approaching from the east. The walls of the surgical tent billowed inwards. The chopper was landing inside the compound.

  “What now?” he asked no one in particular. Helicopters seldom brought good news, except for the occasional overdue shipment of supplies.

  Daniel burst into the surgery, eyes agog. “Doc Mac! Doc Mac! Men with guns, asking for you—”

  Daniel was roughly elbowed out of the way by two burly men in military fatigues and mirror sunglasses, pistols drawn.

  “Dr. Michael MacDougall?” Both men trained their guns on Michael.

  Disconnected thoughts spiraled through Michael’s mind, images of Laurent’s bloody face and the Mai Mai general. He bit his tongue and said, “That’s me. Who are you, and what’s this about?”

  “You’ll find out if and when we want you to know. Now let’s go. Pronto.” The taller of the two men spoke.

  Michael straightened. “I have to finish this operation. Please wait for me outside.”

  “No. You’re coming now.” The two men advanced toward him, walking in lockstep as though their intimidation was choreographed. A hand clamped onto Michael’s arm and almost lifted him into the air. The tip of the man’s gun poked Michael in his Adam’s apple. No one dared intervene.

  Fear washed over Michael but he managed to bark a couple of instructions. “Daniel, get Chantal to finish the stitches and make sure the baby gets its shots. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Michael tilted his head toward the Congolese girl as he was marched out of the tent and hustled toward the unmarked helicopter. There was no point in resisting. The two men were ripped like a pair of twin Rambos, muscles bulging out of their fatigues. They walked on either side of Michael, each crushing one of his upper arms in their fists.

  The shorter man climbed into the back seat of the chopper. The taller soldier lifted Michael into the middle of the three seats, sat beside him, and fastened both of their seat belts. Then he gave the thumbs up to the pilot and co-pilot, also wearing generic camo clothing. The men in front were smaller but equally stone-faced.

  The helicopter revved up, lifted straight into the air, and headed northwest. Michael was wedged between the two behemoths and again sought some kind of explanation. “What’s going on?”

  “Shut up and hold your hands out.” The tall soldier to Michael’s left barked the command.

  “Why?” Michael asked.

  “Just do it,” the man grunted, brandishing a pair of handcuffs.

  They flew across mountains and forests for thirty minutes in silence, before landing in a clearing that appeared out of nowhere, an ephemeral breach in the jungle that would rapidly disappear unless constantly maintained.<
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  Michael was unsure if he’d been kidnapped or arrested. He was taken from the helicopter and manhandled into a slapdash shack made of rusty corrugated iron. The floor was red dirt. There was a beat-up, sturdy-looking wooden table, and two decrepit folding chairs on either side of it.

  “Sit.” The taller Rambo did all of the talking.

  Michael sat down. He was still handcuffed, clenching and unclenching his hands as the handcuffs slowly cut off his circulation. His ankles were then tied to the legs of the chair. The two men took up positions at the doorway, arms crossed and eyes vigilant, as if Michael might make a break for freedom, running hunched over and carrying the chair on his back into the thick jungle foliage.

  A tall man in beige khakis entered the shack. He had close-cropped gray hair, a heavily tanned and deeply wrinkled face, and cold blue eyes. His face was all angles, and his lean body looked bereft of a single ounce of fat. He was the kind of man you would cross the street to avoid at night. If you saw him coming.

  “Dr. MacDougall.” It sounded like the man was from New York or Boston, the nasal drawl in the way he pronounced the name.

  “Yes?”

  “We need your help.” The man folded his long frame onto the chair opposite Michael.

  “With what? Who are you? Help?” he wondered. Maybe the leader of a rebel group or paramilitary needed medical attention? Were these men mercenaries? Coltan miners? Or was he going to be held for ransom, a bargaining chip in a kidnapping plot?

  “We need you to answer a few questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “About Seattle.”

  Now Michael understood. The American government. How had they tracked him down so quickly? Why had he been brought to such a remote location?

  “You’re responsible for the poisoning of Seattle’s water supply.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  The man was momentarily quiet, as though surprised by the casual ease of Michael’s admission. “How did you do it?”

  “I placed several gallons of perchloroethylene in the Chester Morse Reservoir. Saturday. Early in the morning.”

  “Who are you working with?”

  “IMAF, the International Medical Assistance Foundation.”

  The man leaned forward. “Not funny. I mean who were your co-conspirators in the attack on Seattle?”

  Michael frowned. “Nobody. I did it myself. Who are you anyway? Has the United States publicly committed the money to the war on poverty?”

  The man sprung up from his chair with the coiled power of a cobra. With his face about two inches from Michael’s and his right hand wrapped around Michael’s throat, he shouted, “I ask the questions. You fuckin’ answer them. Who are you working with, or for?” Purple veins bulged in the man’s forehead and along the sides of his neck. Spittle sprayed Michael’s face.

  “Nobody. I—” Michael’s face began turning red as he struggled to breathe.

  “Are you hooked up with ISIS?”

  “No.” The man’s thumb was crushing Michael’s larynx. Michael squirmed but the pressure was unrelenting. Any feelings of relief that Michael had experienced about being arrested rather than kidnapped evaporated.

  “Okay, let’s try a different question. Who’s your next target?”

  “No target,” Michael wheezed.

  “Bullshit.” The man pressed harder on Michael’s throat. “Let me refresh your memory. On Sunday, you and your accomplices sent an email to the White House saying that Seattle was just a warning, and your next attack will kill a lot of Americans. Unless your demands are met. Now let’s try again. What city are you targeting?”

  “None. A . . . threat.” Michaels’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

  “Just a threat?” The man roared and released Michael’s throat, now roughly grabbing his head by the ears. Michael gasped as oxygen flooded his lungs. “You’ve got the entire U.S. on red alert, you’ve got 330 million people scared shitless, you’ve got the government of the United States scrambling to beef up security at over 100,000 community water systems, and you’re saying ‘don’t worry, be happy’? Your time is running out, you dumb fuck. What city?”

  For the first time Michael saw the wider repercussions: he had been so obsessed with Africa’s need that he had blinkered himself to the impacts on Americans.

  “All right. You’re not going to cooperate, we’ll take this up a notch.” The interrogator nodded to the men at the door.

  The two guards left the shack but soon returned carrying a large galvanized tin tub that they placed on the table between Michael and the man asking the questions. Water sloshed out onto the table.

  The hairs on the back of Michael’s neck prickled.

  “You’ve heard of waterboarding?” the man asked.

  Michael’s eyes grew wide. His breath caught in his throat so he just nodded.

  “You’re about to experience a low-tech version of it. It’s not much fun. I’d prefer to apply electricity to your testicles but that leaves a nasty burn mark, and my instructions are to avoid leaving any physical evidence of our conversation. So let’s try the last couple of questions again.”

  Sweat ran down Michael’s face, his sides, his groin. “I want to speak to a lawyer.”

  The man laughed, a short, rough bark. “You’re speaking to one. Called to the bar in the state of New York and the District of Columbia.”

  Michael shook his head. “I want to speak to someone from a U.S. embassy.”

  The man laughed again. “I work at a U.S. embassy. Any other requests?”

  “Believe me, please! I’m telling the truth!”

  The man responded by lunging across the table, leaning over the tub, grabbing a fistful of hair at the back of Michael’s head and asking, “Names of your accomplices?”

  Struggling to free his head from the man’s grasp, Michael said “No—” before his head was plunged into the tub. He opened his mouth to protest, to scream, and sucked water into his lungs. He tried to lift his head but it was impossible. Time slowed down. He opened his eyes and saw particles suspended in the water, rust streaks and nicks in the metal of the tub. He thought of the medical effects of hypoxia, the condition in which vital organs, particularly the brain, were deprived of oxygen. Hypoxia could lead to unconsciousness, seizures, brain damage, coma, and ultimately, death. His lungs were spasming and his vision was faltering when his head was yanked back out of the water.

  Michael coughed up some water and gulped air greedily.

  “You can’t do this to me,” he spluttered. “I’m an American citizen.”

  “Last chance,” the man said, still gripping the hair at the back of Michael’s head. “What city are you fuckers planning to poison next?”

  Michael didn’t respond. What could he say?

  “Answer me,” the man hissed.

  Michael shook his head. “There’s no plan. There’s no we, only me. You—”

  The man looked at his watch. “Let’s see if he can go two minutes.” Michael’s head splashed in again.

  The other men smiled. While Michael was drowning they made small talk. “I saw a guy on Oprah hold his breath for twenty-three minutes,” the taller soldier said.

  “That’s bullshit,” the boss replied as he held Michael’s head under water. He was CIA now but he’d done a stint with the Navy Seals. “The world record is eleven minutes and thirty-five seconds.”

  “No, sir. This guy sucked pure oxygen for half an hour first. Super-oxygenated his blood and meditated to slow down his metabolism.”

  “Aah, so he cheated.”

  “Maybe,” the soldier conceded. “According to Oprah, there’s pearl divers in Asia who can hold their breath under water for fifteen minutes.”

  “It’s incredible what the human body can be trained to endure. We’ll see what this guy’s made of i
n about sixty seconds. When I was with the Seals, I could almost get to five. But it felt like my fucking head and lungs were going to explode.”

  Michael was pulled back into the oxygen-rich air, coughing and gasping, taking huge gulps of air. He was beginning to think that he might die in this dusty metal shack. Who were these people? What had he done to Maria with his actions? How had he come to this ending?

  “You ready to talk?”

  Michael looked the man straight in the eye, beseeching, pleading. “I’m telling the truth!”

  “Bullshit. Three minutes this time.” The man slammed Michael back into the water.

  Michael began to thrash and the two guards moved in to hold him in place. At about two minutes and thirty seconds, Michael passed out. His head was jerked out of the water, flopping like a rag doll’s, and dropped on the table beside the tub, neck at an awkward angle.

  Michael slowly regained consciousness. He retched up water and blood. He heard the leader say, “While he’s having his beauty rest, I’ve gotta make a quick call, see how far to take this interview.”

  Soon the leader reentered the hut, smiling. “We just got the green light. We’ll go the distance with this guy. If he doesn’t give us what we need then it’s his problem. His life.”

  “Stop!” Michael screamed. “This is crazy. I’m an American doctor doing voluntary humanitarian work. You can’t torture me.”

  The leader ignored him and approached the table.

  “Names of accomplices and your next target. Or you go for the eternal swim.”

  Michael realized that this man was willing to kill him. Continuing to insist on the truth would be signing his death warrant. He shrugged his shoulders in resignation and gave them what they wanted.

  “New York City.” It was the first city that came to mind. Michael dredged his mind for accomplice names, terrified that he would involuntarily implicate family or friends. An unexpected drawer in his mind popped open. “Dave Fleming, Erik Hanson, and Chris Bosio.”