by Rich Foster
“Ah, it’s nice to be outdoors,” said Eddie.
“I’d rather be at home. That’s if we had air conditioning.”
“I spend too much time breathing A.C., give me the great outdoors.”
Lisa rolled her back toward him. Despite giving birth to three children she was trim and lean.
Eddie ran his fingers down her back and one fingertip into the top of her bikini.
“Spread sun block, Eddie.”
“Gladly,” he said with a mischievous grin, while letting his other fingers roam around toward her swimsuit top. Lisa smacked his hand away.
“This gives me ideas for tonight,” he whispered.
“Not if it’s still this hot.”
“It’s going to get hotter,” he answered, letting his hands roam. She pushed his hand away.
“Too hot, no playtime.”
On the way home from the beach, Eddie stopped at Home Depot. The children were tired and waited in the car. Ten minutes later he came out with a large box on a shopping cart.
“Ahh,” the children said, sprawled across the bed in their parent’s room. The cold air from the window air conditioner slid across them. Lisa opened the bathroom door leaving a vaporous cloud.
”Its freezing in here!” she shrieked.
“I think it’s nice,” said their eldest.
“You said you wanted it cool if it was going to get hot,” Eddie added escalating to a lecherous grin.
“Later hot shot.” Lisa retreated to the bathroom as she toweled her hair.
*
Late that night, Lisa lay spooned against Eddie. They had made love until it seemed the air conditioner was not working. The children slept in their own rooms, despite protests of how it was unfair that the grownups got everything.
“Is anything wrong??”
“What do you mean, babe?”
“You’ve seemed bothered by something.”
“Its just things.”
“Things like me, our family, or your work?”
“Work. There’s something going on that I’m not too sure about.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”
Eddie started fooling around with his hands. Soon Lisa forgot about her questions.
*
Three weeks earlier, Eddie had gone in for his annual physical. He spent two hours in Dr. Worley’s office. Ten minutes filling out paperwork, one hour waiting, fifteen minutes with a nurse who took his blood pressure, pulse, temperature and an EKG, five with the phlebotomist who took three vials of blood, fifteen minutes undressing and re-dressing and fifteen minutes with the doctor who tentatively, depending upon blood panels, prescribed him as fit.
Doctor Worley worked under contract to the federal prison. He performed all the physical exams for Praxis employees and applicants. He also was in charge of the prison infirmary, but with only four hundred inmates it was not a full time job. He maintained a private practice in Red Lake.
It was ten o’clock before Eddie finally reached the Praxis parking lot. On the far side the grass was sodden, the pavement wet, and a backhoe operated in a sea of mud, despite the total lack of rain during July. He wandered over. A group of men stood watching two men actually work. Trucks nearby bore the logo of the Canaan Water District.
“What happened?” he asked a man in a blue jumpsuit, yellow hardhat and safety orange vest.
“That idiot landscaper was trenching for a drain line when he struck the eight-inch main serving the prison with his backhoe. He knocked the whole prison out an hour ago.”
“How long will it be off?”
“At least two more hours. We had to pump the pit. We’ve almost cleared the mud around the line. When that’s done, we can patch it, flush the pipe, and purify the lines for contaminants.”
Another load of muck hit the ground. Then the crew lowered steel plates in on either side of the trench. As Eddie walked away the workers installed pressure jacks that would hold the safety wall in place.
Checking in at his Supervisors office he was told to report to D block.
“But I just finished that rotation,” he protested.
The secretary nodded her head in sympathy.
“We know, but the officer on duty has his physical this afternoon so you get to cover for him.”
“Why don’t we just do these things in the damn infirmary?” Eddie groused.
“Ours is not to wonder why, ours…”
“I know,” Eddie said, waving his hands to cut her off. He trudged off toward D block.
The man he replaced was happy for the short day at the monitors. He left the control room whistling. Eddie dropped into the desk chair and thought about lunch. He daydreamed away an hour as the prisoners went about doing whatever one can do in a seven by twelve foot space.
Lunch would be up in an hour. On the monitor Zhou Zhengzhong trotted around in an oval in the small exercise yard. A buzzer sounded, like a rat in a Skinner box Zhou scurried toward the exterior door of his cell. Any inmate who proved recalcitrant in moving inside would lose his limited privileges, no movies, no books, and no hot water. If they refused to move at all, the dogs were released into the yard. Eddie had never seen it, but heard it happened on a rare occasion.
On his monitors, the other inmates puttered, doing meaningless things to pass the time, knocking off seconds of a sentence that ran into eternity.
Zhou reentered his cell. The steel door closed behind him. It was all automated, programmed into the central computer. Eddie’s job was not to throw switches to make things happen, his job was to sound alarms if something did.
Zhou peeled off his clothes and stepped over to the curtain-less, corner shower. A depression in the concrete collected the water. Zhou pushed the button on the wall where preset 105-degree water would come out. There was no selection for personal taste.
He’s in for a surprise, Eddie thought, watching the monitor. But it was he who was surprised when water sprayed out and Zhou had his shower. They finished sooner than they estimated, he silently thought.
A half hour later the food was delivered to the cells. In each cell there was a small opening in the wall. A system of conveyor tracks delivered the trays. When the inmate finished eating, he push it back through the opening and it was mechanically whisked away. If the inmate failed to return everything that was on the tray, excluding food, there would be no other tray until he surrendered the item.
As the inmates ate, Eddie opened his own lunch box. On D block guards remained at the control desk for the whole shift. If they needed to use the bathroom, there was one in the corner, where the guard could still see the monitors. As Eddie often said to his wife, for eight hours a day his life was that of the average inmates.
He wanted to brew coffee to wash down his lunch, but when he turned on the tap, only a tiny trickle of water momentarily fell, and then stopped.
“Great,” he said aloud. “The damn traitors have water and I don’t!”
For the rest of his shift Eddie lived without coffee.
Chapter 8
The Crystal Lake bomber case went to trial in October. Home Land Security and the Administration pressed for an early trial date. Home Land wished to quell the firestorm of criticism the attack generated and President Carrington’s administration wanted it behind them before the mid-term elections.
The United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois was willing to play ball. U.S. Attorney Irving Lentz became the prosecutor. Hoping to end up in Washington one day, he organized a streamlined case.
Wafi was charged with one count of detonating a weapon of mass destruction. If for unforeseeable reasons the case floundered the government could come back for a second bite at the judicial apple by charging Wafi with two counts of murder, or civil rights violations, or weapons acts, or anything that would reasonably put him behind bars for the remainder of his days.
The Government’s case was supported b
y solid circumstantial evidence and numerous witnesses’ positive identification of Nadim. For a terrorist Mr. Wafi seemed astonishingly incompetent at covering his tracks.
Despite this, Justin Cornfield, put on an admirable defense.
Prosecuting Attorney Lentz called a witness to establish means for Nadim Wafi.
“Where do you work, Mr. Granger?”
“At Woodstock Ag Supply.”
“Is there anyone in this courtroom that you have had occasion to do business with?”
“The man at that table, Mr. Wafi.” Granger said, nodding toward the defense table.
“Did he give you his name?”
“No.”
“And what business did you transact with him?”
“I sold him ten fifty pound bags of ammonia nitrate fertilizer.
“And how did he pay you?”
“With cash?”
“Yes. For that amount, cash was unusual, so I recalled it after the bombing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Granger.”
Cornfield cross-examined him for the defense.
“Do you dislike Muslims, sir?”
“I don’t know any.”
“Well do you dislike people of Arabic origin?”
“I don’t know any Arabs, sir.”
“Then would it be fair to say all Arab men might appear the same to you?”
“I watch television. I see different Arab’s on the evening news and they do kinda all look the same to me. But an Arab farmer in our shop, stood out.”
“So you suspected he might be a terrorist?”
“That would be racist, would it not?”
“A simple yes or no, Mister Granger.”
“No, not at the time.”
“Do you have a son, Mr. Granger?”
“I did. He died.”
“Where and how did he die?”
“In the service of his country.”
“Is it not true that your son was killed by an IED in Afghanistan?”
The witness glared at Cornfield. “Yes, he did!”
“I ask you the question I first put to you, do you dislike Muslims?”
Almost inaudible, Granger whispered, “Yes.”
Wafi’s attorney sat[R1] down.
Later, to further his proof of means, Irvine Lentz introduced a fingerprint, collected by ATF Agents, from a pry-bar left at a storage locker in southern Illinois. The explosives lock-up belonged to Quantum Gravel Corp, the licensed operator of an open pit quarry, where during a break-in ten months earlier, Tovex Blastrite Gel and a spool of shock cord were stolen.
It was an unmatched print until Nadim Wafi was arrested. At the trial, a fingerprint expert testified it was a match for Mr. Wafi’s first finger on his right hand.
Justin Cornfield, Nadim’s counsel, did his re-direct.
“Can you tell us when this print was put on the pry-bar?”
“No.”
“Would it be possible for someone to bring the bar and leave it at the site of the break-in to implicate my client?”
“Well, yes but…”
“Were there other fingerprints on the storage container?”
“Yes, but they were all of employees.”
“Did you arrest any of them? Would it not be reasonable that the perpetrator would be someone who had knowledge of what was in the Quantum locker?”
The prosecution objected in that it required the witness to draw a conclusion, the objection was sustained. Justin was content, he hoped to plant seeds of doubt about the prosecution’s theory.
Prosecutor Lents called Jesus Gonzales to the stand.
“Do you know the defendant Nadim Wafi, Mr. Gonzales?”
“Yes, we shared a holding cell.”
“And did you have a conversation with him?”
“Si, I mean yes, I did.”
“What did Mr. Wafi say to you?”
“He said he built a bomb but it went off before he wanted it to. He said he hoped to blow it up in Chicago during the rush hour.”
“Thank you, sir, that is all.”
Justin rose.
“Mr. Gonzales what were you in jail for?”
“Objection!” shouted Lentz, “the witness’s record has no bearing on his testimony.”
The judge thought briefly, “Overruled, I will permit the question, if the answer shows pertinence. The witness will answer.”
“I was arrested for perjury.”
“And where did you allegedly perjure yourself? Was it on your tax returns? Was it when talking to the police? Or where?”
“During a trial.”
“And were you convicted of lying while under oath?”
“Yes.”
“That is all.”
Irvine Lentz systematically built a case that gave Nadim Wafi, motive, opportunity, and means. The bomb was in his van. It was made from materials that a witness swore he purchased. His fingerprint was at the site of the Tovex theft. He lived at the site of the explosion. And a witness swore that Nadim claimed he intended to cause mass destruction.
Fortunately, the Prosecutor conclude, he erred with the timing mechanism and thus his plan failed. Yet, tragically, two of his neighbors were brutally annihilated.
Justin Cornfield addressed the jury.
“We have a witness, who knows no Arabs personally, yet swears the person he sold fertilizer to six months ago was my client.
“Did you know the Innocence Project has exonerated two hundred twenty-six defendants on death row? People who were sent there by witnesses who through error or malice put them there? Witnesses who claimed certitude that they recognized the defendant?
“The prosecution has a finger print on a tool. This could easily have been planted; by someone wishing to implicate my client.
“We heard a convicted perjurer testify that Nadim Wafi confessed. The courts have established that witness’s lack of credibility. Secondly, why would Mr. Wafi confess? Do you think my client is so stupid that if he were guilty he would admit it to a stranger who might well be a government informant? Would he confess only to then plead not guilty?
“The hardest evidence is circumstantial, the bomb was in my clients van. Yet we have heard expert testimony that it was sealed in a plastic drum. Anyone could have broken into Mr. Wafi’s vehicle and placed it there.
“But why, you may ask? Why should someone want to frame my client? The answer to that is sufficiently broad to give reasonable doubt. May I remind you of the vitriol and hate that was expressed at Mr. Wafi by his neighbors, the racial epithets hurled at him, or the religious insults? An Arab, Muslim, male is a convenient target of hate. He is a useful tool of racial hate groups or political intrigue.
John Cornfield delivered one of his most passionate and eloquent performances. In later years, his memory of this oratorical moment was spoiled only by the fact his client was quickly convicted. The jury returned their verdict in an hour and twenty minutes.
Three weeks later, Judge Helen Torgenson of the United States District Court sentenced Nadim Wafi to life imprisonment. In 30 years he could petition for parole, most likely he would never walk free again.
Nadim’s eyes were wide with disbelief as the sentence was handed down.
“But I am innocent!” he gasped.
No one listened.
To everyone’s relief, the case ended in time to make headlines and then drop from the news cycle before Election Day.
Chapter 9
A JPATS flight set down at Beaumont Airport. The citation jet taxied past the small terminal and continued to the end of the airfield where private hangers were located. Two black SUV’s with black tinted windows drew alongside as the hatch opened. Nadim Wafi was hustled off the plane, manacled and wedged between two agents from the US Marshals Office.
The agent behind the mirrored sunglasses pulled out paperwork. One of the men from the lead SUV scrawled a signature. The first agent surrendered Nadim and the key to his manacles. The BOP officers quickly moved him toward the second SUV.
Before the two vehicles reached the exit beside the hangers, the citation’s stair was retracted, the hatch closed, and the plane began to taxi toward the end of the airstrip. It roared down the tarmac, quickly passing the SUV’s, driving on the parallel frontage road. It lifted off.
From the rear seat Nadim asked, “Where are we?”
Neither guard responded.
“How far is it to the prison?”
His question met truculent silence.
“I didn’t do it.” Nadim said softly.
The guard, riding shotgun, turned. He pointed the barrel of his Glock 22 through the steel mesh separating the front and the back.
“My son died on 9-11 at the Pentagon, so shut your dirty little trap before I put a bullet between your eyes and report your attempted escape.”
An hour later they arrived at ADX Praxis. Large steel doors opened. The SUV glided into a secure area. As the doors cut off the landscape, the guard said,
“Say good-bye to the outside world you little shit. That’s the last time you’ll ever see it.”
Nadim shuffled across the pavement to a door marked “Receiving”. His manacles rattled with each step. From a tower looming above a guard held a rifle at the ready.
Inside they entered a sally port. Behind mirrored armored glass a guard observed them.
“Follow the yellow line forward.” The disembodied voice spilled from an unseen speaker. It was harsh and lacked human sentiment.
Wafi took three steps forward until steel bars stopped his progress. Behind him, other bars closed. He was caged alone. He glanced back over his shoulder in time to see his escorts leave. The outer door closed behind them cutting off the natural light.
“Do not move.” The electronic voice ordered.
Inside the gunroom a guard watched a monitor as a backscatter x-ray exposed Nadim’s body.
“All clear!” spat out the voice. A buzzer sounded and the steel bars opened into the prison where two guards armed only with their own brute strength and billy clubs waited. Unbidden he stepped forward toward the guards. There was a flash of movement as one guard swung his billy club around hard and slammed it into the meaty flesh on the back of Nadim’s thigh. He fell to the floor.