The Prisoner of Guantanamo

by Dan Fesperman

  Now the spot was a convenient getaway, the site of frequent cookouts and parties for blowing off steam. There was no moon out tonight, but the beach was alive with flashlights. Four MPs searched the sands in the manner of kids hunting ghost crabs on summer vacation.

  At the sound of Falk’s arrival the beams went still. The MPs probably thought he was an officer. He noticed with amusement that all four were working with their backs to the water. The night sea often had that effect—all that limitless blackness, slurping and crashing unseen, as if threatening to beckon you deeper into the unknown if you stared for too long. Or maybe they were spooked by the possibility that Sergeant Ludwig’s body was out there, bobbing toward them on the tide.

  Falk wasn’t at all unsettled, mostly because he’d grown up around the ocean. The coastline of his memories was a cozy place with coves, islands, and green treelines, of stony reefs where gulls and cormorants clamored. To him the night sea was as comfortable as a familiar room in a darkened home. He knew he could always find his way to the door without stumbling.

  The wind had picked up, and the peaks of pearling waves flared iridescently. Despite what the MP who had fetched him had said, it looked as if the scene had been disturbed pretty thoroughly. Hardly a surprise, since someone must have checked the wallet for identification. But he was disappointed to see boot prints covering nearly every square foot of sand.

  An MP helpfully turned his beam on Ludwig’s belongings, a forlorn little pile with a wallet, a camouflage cap, and a set of keys. Now what were the keys for, unless the man still carried his set from home? Falk doubted a mere sergeant would have access to his own car. Gitmo’s small rental motor pool had long since been gobbled up by top officers and civilians like him. Everyone else made do in shared vans, or by shuttling around the island in a fleet of old school buses, Camp Delta’s version of mass transit. A few soldiers bought decrepit “Gitmo specials”—used cars passed down from one hitch to the next—but that rarely happened with Reservists.

  Ludwig’s uniform was indeed missing. Unless the man had walked here in swimming trunks, he had either gone for a dip in boots and cammies or had hiked off into the nearby hills after inexplicably removing his hat and wallet. Both seemed unlikely, but if Falk had to pick one possibility it would be the latter.

  “We had to move his stuff, sir,” the nearest MP said. “The tide was coming in.”

  That meant any path of Ludwig’s boot prints marching toward the sea was gone by now, and there was virtually no way to distinguish his other bootprints from everyone else’s. For all the talk of Camp Delta being home to the world’s most dangerous criminals, it was woefully ill-equipped for the processing of an actual crime scene. The Shore Patrol on the naval base was more likely to have the right equipment than anyone here. The biggest push among their officers for better equipment seemed to involve creature comforts for the restless natives—big-screen TVs for watching sports via satellite dish, Internet kiosks, a big new deck for Club Survivor, which was Camp America’s beachfront version of the Tiki Bar. Dozens of new sea huts were still being built, and the outpost was starting to resemble one of those boomtowns that accompany gold rushes and military occupations. Just last week the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation folks had flown in a rock band from the States. Earlier Jimmy Buffett had landed in the bay in his seaplane. A stand-up comic was due over the weekend. There were golf tournaments, boat rentals, softball leagues, scuba lessons. The fun never stopped.

  “Who saw him last?” Falk asked.

  “Private Calhoun. He’s up in the barracks.”

  “And your name, soldier?”

  The MP glanced down at his uniform, realizing with embarrassment that he hadn’t removed the duct tape from an earlier shift inside the wire. He tore it off.

  “Belkin, sir. Corporal Belkin.”

  “Well, corporal, I’ll need to speak to this Calhoun as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Calhoun?”

  “Ludwig.”

  “Yes, sir. From my unit. Mobilized out of Pontiac, Michigan.”

  “Know him well?”

  Belkin shrugged. “Well enough, I guess.”

  “Does he drink?”

  “He’ll have a beer or two. Not much else.”

  “Does he like to swim?”

  “I’ve seen him in the pool before. Never down here. But I don’t come here much.”

  “Anyone alert the foot patrols? In case he took to the hills?” Marines still walked the base perimeter at all hours, and in the winding paths around Camp Delta there were often Army patrols, four soldiers in single file decked out in grease paint and forty pounds of gear. Falk knew the routine all too well.

  “Yes, sir. They’ve all been questioned. Not a sign.”

  Falk nodded, then looked Belkin in the eye, trying to read his face in the darkness.

  “What about suicide? You think he’s the type?”

  “No way, sir.”

  “Why not? They try it.” Falk nodded toward the blob of light above Camp Delta. “Why not us?”

  “Then where’s the note?” A hint of sass. Maybe Ludwig was a closer friend than Belkin had admitted.

  “Not his style, huh?”

  “No, sir. Wife and kids. Good job.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Bank manager. He’d been promoted just before deployment.”

  So he was probably the careful type, good at following orders. But Falk wasn’t ready to concede the point just because he might piss off a buddy.

  “The note could have blown away. Maybe the bank’s in trouble. You check his wallet?”

  “Just for ID.” The tone was surly now. Belkin was definitely peeved. “Figured you’d want to do the rest.”

  Falk stooped to pick it up. It was a folding wallet of dark brown leather, already so damp from the sea air that you had to pry the sides apart. There wasn’t much inside. A few charge cards. A limp twenty. A couple of receipts from the Naval Exchange, a Michigan driver’s license, and a wrinkled old deposit slip, probably from his own bank. No snapshots of the wife or kids, meaning there were probably some posted by his bunk.

  Falk’s inspection was interrupted by the arrival of another Humvee. He gently placed the wallet back on the sand, turning in time to see the headlights go out. In the dimness you could just make out a small banner with two stars. The brass was here.

  Striding toward them was Major General Ellsworth Trabert—“E.T.,” as he was sometimes called, although never to his face, mostly for his penchant of seeming to materialize from out of nowhere, as he had just done. He was spit-shined and freshly ironed, as if he always rose at this hour.

  Trabert had been in command of Joint Task Force Guantánamo for six months now, presiding over all operations from an administrative building on the far side of the base known as the Pink Palace, for the color of its stucco. He was an old paratrooper from Alabama, and never tired of mentioning both, a wiry man who put his faith in the Airborne, the Bible, and Crimson Tide football. Slow to bestow the level of trust on subordinates that made the chain of command function smoothest, he was nonetheless a nuts-and-bolts perfectionist and insisted on doing everything by the book.

  The problem was that no one had yet written the book on how to run a place like Camp Delta, and the general was having to make it up as he went along. So far, Falk’s employers at the Bureau weren’t exactly thrilled with the results.

  Falk heard rumblings from other agents months before his own arrival—vivid accounts of shouting matches at the Pink Palace, Trabert going red in the face as he leaned across the desk to mete out deadlines and tactical suggestions to civilian interrogators.

  “If your methods are so goddamn superior,” one Bureau memo had quoted him as saying, “then you bring me some results by the end of the week. If you’ve still got nothing, then we’ll do it my way.”

  His way had consisted largely of throwing legions of hastily trained but highly m
otivated military interrogators into the fray, with a minimum of preparation and an excess of dramatic props—strobe lights and loud stereos, hoods and short chains, snarling dogs and miniskirts. As if they’d all been watching the same bad movies where subjects spilled their guts at the first sign of either long-term discomfort or a hot babe with cleavage. It was the sort of stupid business Falk had alluded to in his earlier snit with Tyndall: Turn up the air conditioner, strip the detainee naked, then leave the room for a few hours while he squirms uncomfortably, bent double because he’s shackled to the eyebolt by a two-foot chain. Strobe them for an hour or two while playing heavy metal at top volume, or maybe the theme song from Barney. Then return and demand answers at the top of your lungs while an interpreter dutifully translates every obscenity.

  Not all the sessions proceeded that way, of course. But Falk had seen and heard enough to make him shake his head from time to time. And like his predecessors, he had complained to headquarters and sought counsel on what he should do about it. Every reply from the Hoover building sounded the same note: “Bottom line is FBI personnel have not been involved in any methods that deviate from our policy. The specific guidance we have given has always been no reading of Miranda rights, otherwise, follow FBI/DOJ policy just as you would in your field office. Use common sense. Utilize our methods, which are proven.”

  The upshot was that Falk was now forbidden from accompanying or observing any Pentagon-run interrogation, for fear he’d be tainted for future testimony before any civilian jury back on the mainland. The banishment also pertained to interrogations run by the CIA—as if the Agency would have allowed him in the room anyway.

  Falk’s complaints inevitably made their way back to General Trabert. It was one reason he would never be convinced that the data lines for his laptop were secure, despite Pentagon assurances. So you might say that the two men weren’t exactly predisposed to have a pleasant chat at 4:30 a.m. on the beach.

  The MPs went still as the general crossed the sand. He looked like MacArthur at Corregidor, only coming by land instead of by sea. Two of the soldiers pointed flashlights to light his way, and salutes snapped from all around. Falk had to restrain himself from raising his own right hand.

  “Honor bound,” a couple of the MPs blurted.

  “Defend freedom,” the general answered as he returned the salutes. Trabert had ordered those phrases to be injected into the daily mix of salutes, borrowing them from the slogan that appeared on the omnipresent logo for Joint Task Force Guantánamo: “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.” Falk always enjoyed the irony of watching soldiers shout “defend freedom” within the walls of a prison, but otherwise found it too gimmicky for his tastes, although he had to admit that for some of the MPs it seemed to have actually boosted morale.

  After a few seconds of awkward silence it was clear that no one above the rank of corporal had yet taken charge, the sort of lapse you would find only with a Reserve or Guard unit, so Falk took the initiative. In doing so he summoned up some old codes of behavior he had never quite shaken. He nodded sharply—the civvy version of a salute—then spoke up in a voice that was firm and crisp.

  “Morning, General Trabert.”

  “Morning, Falk. They get you out of bed for this?” With a look that seemed to ask whose bed.

  “No, sir. I was up and about.”

  “That’s right. You’re one of the night owls.”

  Some of the MPs had complained about Falk’s nocturnal patrols, carping that it got the inmates unnecessarily agitated, making their jobs harder. Trabert, to his credit, had told them to buck up, although he probably hadn’t liked it either.

  “You been briefed on this yet?” Falk asked.

  “I’m told we have an AWOL. A first down here, at least on my watch.”

  Trabert hadn’t seen eye to eye with his predecessor, a brigadier from a California Guard unit. One of his first acts had been to put a stop to the huge block parties held in neighborhoods of base housing that had been taken over by Camp Delta’s minions. He didn’t like the idea of all those loose lips in one spot, with alcohol flowing and civilians mixing easily with soldiers. But his greater obsession was making the trains run on time, and all the trains carrying intelligence back to Washington were supposed to leave the station fully loaded with new findings.

  “Had time to form any theories?” the general asked.

  If someone from the Bureau had posed the question, Falk would have simply said no. For Trabert he did a little tap dancing.

  “Same as anybody else’s, I guess. If he drowned, then he’s probably still in uniform, boots and all, which seems damned strange unless he was suicidal. I’m told by a buddy he wasn’t. If he’s off on a hike, the patrols missed him, and nothing’s gone off in the old minefields tonight to my knowledge. If he’s drunk, I guess he could be passed out under a bush somewhere, meaning he’ll turn up after daybreak. But apparently that’s not his style, either. I haven’t had time to ask yet if he might be shacked up somewhere.”

  The general flinched, as if you didn’t talk about that sort of thing in his Army, at least not in front of others.

  “Well, I’ve been led to believe by people who should know that he’s just gone. Plain and simple.”

  “By his CO?”

  “By people who should know.”

  It was clear from the general’s tone there would be no further elaboration. Falk wondered who had made the decision to wake up the general on this matter and who else had been notified. For almost everyone at Gitmo, military or civilian, there was always another level you weren’t privy to, some point where you’d reach a line and know it couldn’t be crossed without special permission. The alphabet soup here was a rich and complicated blend of flavors, and under Trabert it always seemed to be on the boil. It meant, among other things, that this little beach party was rife with opportunities for going astray.

  “Well, for the time being, Falk, why don’t you scale back on your regular workload and take charge of this investigation. Assuming you’re comfortable with that responsibility. I gather that lately the Bureau has been employing you as more of what used to be called an Arabist than as any sort of gumshoe.”

  He said it with a curled lip, as if he’d plucked “Arabist” from some DOD watch list.

  “Just because I’m doing Q and A in Arabic full-time here doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to be a cop,” Falk said. “I’m still a special agent, which means I’m at home either running an investigation or handling a crime scene.”

  “Assuming this is even a crime scene. In fact, I’m assuming otherwise until someone shows me evidence to the contrary.”

  “I’d be a lot more comfortable with that assumption if your men hadn’t trampled the scene.”

  “MP training today is geared more toward security and force protection, Mr. Falk. In the Global War on Terrorism there’s not much call for a soldier who can dust for fingerprints.”

  “Then I guess your men won’t mind if I offer some friendly advice from time to time while looking into this.”

  Trabert nodded tersely.

  “Whatever needs to be done. In the meantime …” He consulted the luminous dial of a huge wristwatch. “At first light, about half an hour from now, we’ll launch a full search and rescue op. Air, land, and sea. The works.”

  He was obviously overlooking Guantánamo’s peculiar limitations.

  “That’s liable to be a little restrictive, isn’t it, sir?”

  It took a second or two, but the point hit home.

  “Cuban airspace, you mean.”

  “And territorial waters.”

  “I guess that could complicate things, him going into the water so close to their side. What are we, about a mile from the fenceline?”

  “More like two. But from what I remember of the currents he should make landfall with us. Unless the sharks get him, of course.”

  “You grew up on the water, right? Some kind of fishing village?”

  “Deer Isle, Maine. You g
uys at the Pink Palace must do a lot of reading for you to know that.”

  “Comes with the territory.”

  The general turned to leave, but stopped after only a few steps.

  “There’s something else you should know,” he said. “By late tomorrow some reinforcements will be arriving. With any luck you’ll be able to return to your regular duties. Washington is sending a team.”

  “A team?”

  “Two or three people. For security purposes.”

  “Kind of early to call in the cavalry, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe anywhere else. Not here.”

  “They coming on a regular flight?”

  Trabert shook his head.

  “Charter. Gulfstream out of Washington.”

  Just like for the visiting bigwigs from Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. Which said more about the urgency of this matter than anything had yet. Gitmo charters were like gold. Sergeant Ludwig’s little swim, if that was what it was, was already making some wide ripples.

  CHAPTER THREE

  We all work very hard in the Joint Task Force Guantánamo and we like to unwind just as hard. Unfortunately, we tend to divulge information that is best left unsaid when we’re in the company of others. Being sociable and popular is fine; however, when applied in the midst of the wrong crowd, it can compromise operational information. There are many popular meeting places on this island and many people with which to discuss topics of the day. Ensure that when you meet your friends or coworkers for lunch, a movie, or just casual conversation you police and sanitize your topics and think before you speak. You never know who may be listening to your “casual” conversations. “Think OPSEC.”