The Prisoner of Guantanamo

by Dan Fesperman

  Needing a pretext for his visit, Falk scanned the kitchen by the morning light and settled on the blender. To make it convincing, he tossed in a banana, a cylinder of frozen OJ and half a tray of ice, then pressed the Puree button. He would at least get a breakfast smoothie out of the deal. The ice cubes leaped and jolted as the little motor whined. Eventually the slush ground to a halt in mid-twirl. Falk watched the digital time display on the microwave change to 6:04 while he waited for the blender’s motor to burn out. He didn’t hit the Off button until smoke began seeping from the vents in the back.

  After a quick drink and a rinse of the plastic container, he carried the blender to the Chrysler and set out across the base. He felt a little foolish about the ruse. As a Marine he had never taken such measures. But that was before 9/11, Camp Delta, “Think OPSEC,” and his weekend banishment by a two-star general.

  No one was on Sherman Avenue. The ball fields and parking lots of the schools and stores were empty. The base always looked odd at this time of day, when hardly anyone was out and about. The residential architecture and layout, straight out of Leave It to Beaver, seemed out of place on this parched and exhausted landscape, like a skin graft that hadn’t taken.

  Harry’s shed was atop a small rise. Falk turned up a long driveway of crushed coral as a big land crab skittered out of sight, red claws waving defiantly. Harry’s face poked out the door before Falk had even switched off the engine.

  “Buenos días, señor!” He was beaming. You’d have thought they were old friends. “So many years, Señor Falk. And you are so important now, yet I still think of you as a soldier.”

  “Yeah, well.” Falk climbed from the Chrysler. “Old habits die hard, Harry. How’s your family?” The conversation felt more bizarre by the second. Falk had never asked after Harry’s family before, but Harry answered without missing a beat.

  “They are well. They are well, señor. Please tell me what it is you need repaired. Ah, I see. The blender, no? Adelante. Come in, come in.”

  Inside it was already ninety degrees. The place smelled like machine oil. Harry’s battered steel desk was covered by tools, spare parts, and repair invoices. He shoved the mess aside and set the blender in the clearing.

  “Perfect, señor. So tell me, what is the news for you?”

  “More of the same, I guess.” Falk looked around warily. They seemed to be the only ones here. Harry’s coworkers, a Filipino and a Puerto Rican, lived on base with a few hundred other contract workers in a dilapidated high-rise called Gold Hill Towers. They weren’t due here for at least another hour.

  “Actually, Harry, I was more interested in any news you might have for me.”

  Let’s get this over with, he thought.

  Harry nodded jauntily as he fingered the buttons on the blender, making tiny clicks as he progressed up the scale from Grate to Puree.

  “These are all false, you know. So many names for these settings, but they all do the same thing. I suppose it is to make you feel like you are getting more for your money. It is very clever, yes?”

  Falk nodded.

  “I think I can fix it okay. But I may need a part from the yard. If you will follow me.”

  Harry nodded toward the rear door, which led to the scrap yard. Then he smiled and raised both arms, gesturing toward the walls and ceiling as if to say, “You never know who might be listening, eh?” He had never taken such precautions before. Perhaps he, too, was spooked by the new climate. Or maybe this time the stakes were higher. He picked up the blender and they headed for the door.

  Being back outside was a relief, although the sun already glared harshly off cracked windshields and battered sheets of metal.

  “Over here, I think,” Harry said, glancing over his shoulder back at the shed.

  “Yes,” Falk answered, finding that the tension was contagious. He had known all along that this meeting could mean trouble. It was why he had put it off. But only now had he considered the real implications: Whatever Harry said next could change his life, and probably not for the better.

  “Do you remember your friend Paco, in Miami?” Harry’s smile had lost its wattage.

  “I remember him well. You’re also a friend of his?”

  “Of course.” Another glance toward the shed. Harry probably wouldn’t know Paco from the minister of the interior. “He wishes to see you again. Soon. He says to me, and these are his exact words, ‘Tell Mr. Falk to drop whatever he is doing and visit me in Miami.’ Same accommodation as before, he said.”

  Presumably meaning the same ratty hotel near Little Havana. Damned if Endler hadn’t been right, which made Falk wonder again about the origins of his weekend leave. It made him wonder about a lot of things.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No.” Beaming again. Relieved, perhaps, that he’d remembered all his lines and that the performance was almost over. “But he insisted you come. And if you don’t …”

  “Yes?”

  Harry assumed a grave and careful manner, fondling the blender pensively.

  “Then he says he will tell all of your cousins and uncles that you have been an unfaithful friend.”

  “Well then, I’d better go see him, hadn’t I? Tell him I’ll be in Miami tomorrow. Maybe even tonight.”

  If Harry was surprised, he didn’t show it.

  “I will tell him,” he said. “And your blender. When you return, it will be fixed.”

  “Very good.”

  Falk turned to go, taking the path around the shed.

  “Perhaps I will even add another setting or two,” Harry shouted from behind. “Make it even more clever than before.”

  “Yes,” Falk said, not bothering to turn. “You do that.”

  EVEN WITH A GUARANTEED SEAT, Falk needed to arrive at the Leeward Point terminal an hour before take-off to deal with the security rigmarole. If his flight was like most planes out of here, it would be packed with noisy Navy families of sniffling children and screaming infants, the overhead bins bulging with strollers and portacribs.

  He had just enough time to swing by Bo’s on the way to the ferry to pass along the latest development with Harry. Endler, doubtless, would be pleased to have his hunch confirmed. Cartwright answered the door in his pajamas, coffee mug in hand. He seemed surprised by the visit, even wary. When Falk asked for Bo, he shook his head.

  “He took off pretty early this morning. Got a phone call around five.”

  Endler, perhaps?

  “Tell him I stopped by, and that I’ll see him Monday.”

  “Will do.”

  He barely made the ferry. Dolphins were already leaping in the bay, flashing into the sunlight while Falk stood at the sternward rail, watching the base recede in their wake. He wished he’d had time to see Pam. It would have been even nicer having her next to him at the rail, headed to the States with him.

  The waiting room at the hangar was a zoo, and Falk stood outdoors with the smokers as long as possible, which left him last in the boarding line. A soldier thoroughly checked his bags and his briefcase, but didn’t show the slightest interest in the letters for Ludwig or any of his papers. He had made a copy of all his notes before dropping off the originals the night before at J-DOG headquarters, in a big envelope for Van Meter.

  The tarmac was already soft from the heat, and the runway was rank with jet fuel. The idling engines were loud enough that he could barely hear when an MP next to the stairway said something as he was about to climb aboard.

  “What?” he shouted over the noise.

  Instead of yelling again, the MP pointed toward the hangar, and Falk turned to see Bo sprinting toward them, with another MP in angry pursuit.

  They both reached Falk at about the same time, although the running MP got in the first word.

  “Sir, you’re unauthorized!”

  “I told you, goddamn it, I’ve been cleared.” Bo flashed a piece of paper that Falk glimpsed just enough to see General Trabert’s letterhead. It seemed to do the trick. The pu
rsuing MP even saluted, then retreated to a safe distance while Bo leaned closer to shout in Falk’s ear. The engine wash flapped their shirts like flags.

  “Hell of a morning, huh? What happened with Harry?”

  Falk cupped his hand at Bo’s ear and shouted back.

  “I tried to find you at your place. Endler was right. Paco wants a meet.”

  “In Miami?” Bo yelled.

  Falk nodded.

  “I’ll be staying at the same fleabag as before.”

  Bo reached into his pocket and pulled a card from his wallet, nearly losing it in the wind.

  “Call this man as soon as you’re stateside.” It was like having a conversation in a wind tunnel. “Use a pay phone.”

  The card had a State Department number and title, but Falk didn’t recognize the name. His immediate reaction was outrage.

  “I thought only you and Endler knew about this. How many people have you told?”

  “He doesn’t know the details. He just knows you’re a player. I can’t run this from here.”

  “And Endler can’t bother to get his hands dirty?”

  “It’s not like that, believe me. Just call him. Keep it as vague as you like, but call him. I’d have thought you of all people would understand a little confusion after everything that’s come down this morning.”

  Had there been another arrest?

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Bo gave him a hard stare, hair blowing wildly as the shrieking engines revved another notch. The nearest MP stepped forward, reaching to tap Bo’s shoulder.

  “Jesus, didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Pam. She was arrested.”

  The bottom dropped out of Falk’s stomach. The noise and wind became a huge ringing in his ears. The MP tugged Bo by a sleeve, and then shouted toward Falk.

  “Sir, you’ve got to board the plane. We have to pull away the steps. It’s time for your friend to leave the runway.”

  Bo took a step back, but Falk held his ground, still too stunned to move. He felt like a bull in a ring that had just taken a sword between the shoulders. Faces stared down from the small windows of the jet, everyone watching him crumple, the engines roaring like a crowd calling for blood.

  “For what?” he called out, but Bo either didn’t hear or didn’t know, and just shook his head.

  “On the plane, sir. Now!”

  Falk turned dumbly, and as the MP nudged him in the small of the back he wasn’t sure whether to feel enraged or betrayed, so he settled for both, and a knot of impotent anger exploded from the base of his throat.

  “Enough, goddamn it! Take your fucking hands off!”

  He plodded up the steps, the MP on his tail.

  Falk turned at the top of the steps. “I’m going!”

  The MP retreated at the sight of his face. A stewardess with a worried look stepped from the cockpit to take him gently by the elbow and steer him aboard, shutting the door behind him. That put a lid on the noise, and Falk found himself bewildered and staring at the head of the aisle, every face looking forward, soldiers and their families wondering what the hell all that had been about.

  They were rolling almost the instant he buckled his seat belt. Then another thought brought a fresh burst of rage. No wonder Trabert wanted him gone. So they could arrest his girlfriend without protest, question her all weekend without fear of interference. Within the past twenty-four hours, two of the three people he was closest to at Gitmo—it was odd admitting to himself that one of them was a detainee—had been moved beyond his reach, one of them dispatched to Agency oblivion, the other to points unknown.

  Then there was Bo, who may or may not have been lying about having kept Falk’s involvement with the Cubans a closely held secret all these years. He looked at the business card again, and read the benign-sounding title. “Special assistant to the undersecretary.” Him and how many others? How many files out there now had Falk’s name in them, and how widely did they circulate?

  The plane accelerated, then tilted upward as it left the ground. Two rows back a baby began to wail. You and me both, kid. He glanced out the window for a last look at Gitmo as the jet banked over the glittering sea, and he wondered if he would see this place again. If he’d been faced with that prospect a few days ago, he might have said good riddance and opened a cold beer. Now it seemed like the most important thing in the world that he somehow make it back, welcome or not.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FALK FELT WATCHED and harried from the moment he landed. He checked his flanks as he waded through the crowd of relatives waiting outside the Navy terminal. Then he caught a base shuttle bus to the Yorktown Gate on Route 17, where he had arranged for a rental car to be waiting.

  Barely pausing, he headed straight for southbound I-95. But once he hit the open road he realized how shaken he was and pulled off at the first exit, then sat for fifteen minutes in the parking lot of a convenience store, sipping overbaked coffee and chewing a stale doughnut.

  Between the shock of Pam’s arrest and his nervousness over what lay ahead, he felt like a man on the run who had lost a step, a magician without his props. All through his life he had kept a place of refuge within easy reach, whether it was the clapboard library in Deer Isle, some mossy nook in the woods, or, in Washington, a quiet bar just off the Metro’s Red Line, a dim and musty place in Northeast with no Bureau people, no lobbyists, and no staffers from the Hill. At Gitmo there was the relative freedom of the bay. Here, not even the miles of flat, open countryside and the thousands of passing cars could convince him that he had blended into the scenery. He felt exposed at every turn.

  As for Pam, where the hell must they have put her? A cell at Gitmo? Or might she already be en route via charter to a Navy brig in Norfolk, or South Carolina? Perhaps they had only confined her to quarters. Bo had said “arrested,” but he hadn’t said “charged.” It was a distinction to cling to, the only item of hope still afloat in the wreckage.

  Falk found himself wondering how he would approach her as an interrogator, knowing what he did of her wants and weaknesses. She had grown up on a farm, self-appointed peacekeeper between a strict father and a weary mom. The constant between then and now was the call of duty or, from Falk’s point of view, the rituals of obedience. The military’s itinerant lifestyle demanded plenty, but in return you were freed from making many of life’s toughest decisions. If they needed something from her it would be pretty easy to get it simply by threatening her way of life. Just tell her that they were going to pull the plug on her career, withdraw support of the one institution she relied on. Then show her how its needs were the same as hers, and appeal to her loyalty, her deep need to make things right.

  Those same factors made it unlikely she would have done anything to jeopardize all that. Had she unwittingly colluded with a detainee? Even that seemed out of the question. If true, then she had fooled everyone—but hadn’t Falk already done that for years? Maybe they were well matched in ways he hadn’t fathomed.

  He thought back to their recent conversation at breakfast, when she had warned him about a tale making the rounds inside the wire. Falk had been so preoccupied with other matters that he’d barely given it a second thought—something about a Syrian babbling about an ex-soldier and Cubans. Impossible, yet there it was—a thread of truth somehow plucked from his own life by a jailed Arab.

  So maybe all they wanted from her was information, secrets she would otherwise be reluctant to give up. Involving him? Boustani? Her notes?

  Falk turned the key in the ignition, then sat a moment longer. He fished out his wallet and retrieved the business card Bo had given him on the tarmac. Chris Morrow. An unknown. This had always been his worst nightmare about the setup with Endler and Bo—that they would widen the loop. Or maybe Bo had told the truth, and this fellow Morrow didn’t know any details. The only way to find out was by calling, as Bo had instructed, so he shut off the engine and walked to the pay phone at the corner of
the parking lot.

  He called collect, and Morrow picked up on the first ring. It was a young voice, mid-twenties at the most, Falk guessed, feeling insulted. Morrow’s damn-glad-to-meet-you enthusiasm made him sound like just the sort of fellow who would be talking about this over lunch.

  “I was expecting you,” he said. “Bo said you’d call.”

  Bo. Like they’d been friends for ages.

  “You spoke with him?”

  “Got an e-mail. All I know is that you’re to be looked after once you reach Miami. The boss is making the rest of the arrangements.”

  “Endler?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Did Bo say anything about Pam?”

  “Pam? Was he supposed to?”

  “Guess not. Next time you hear from him, tell him I asked.”

  “P-A-M? Like the cooking spray?”

  Jesus. “Yes.”

  “Will do. And he, uh, he said I should ask you for the latest. See if you had set up the meet. Get your whereabouts.”

  “The meet with who?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Good. My whereabouts are Florida. I expect to be in Miami in six or seven hours. I doubt I’ll know more ’til then.”

  “He mentioned some fleabag motel where you’re supposed to be staying?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Got a name?”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “A forwarding number?”

  “Like I said, I’ll call later. And, Morrow?”

  “Yes?”

  “Next time I want to speak with Endler. Him or nobody.”

  “I’ll pass it along.”

  Before Falk even shifted into reverse, he began to worry about the rental car. He had phoned in the reservation yesterday, which left plenty of time for someone to have arranged for a bug, or a homing beacon. An outlandish idea, perhaps, but the conversation with Morrow bothered him enough that he checked the map for the nearest Hertz office. When he saw it was only ten miles away, he turned the car north. He would backtrack a little, demand a new car, and then watch the attendant to make sure there was no funny business.