Black Horizon

by James Grippando

  “To be honest—” Gonzalez started to say, but the judge shut her down.

  “That’s my ruling,” the judge said, her glare like a laser.

  Jack was never one to miss an opportunity to capitalize on the court’s ire for opposing counsel. “Judge, we would also request the opportunity to cross-examine the affiant.”

  “That’s absolutely unacceptable,” said Gonzalez, repeating her error.

  “There you go again,” the judge said, chiding her.

  Jack pushed. “Your Honor, the government is asking to stay my client’s case indefinitely. That is a huge setback. The FBI’s criminal investigation could go on for years. Evidence will be lost, witnesses will disappear, and memories will fade. We should have the right to cross-examine the government’s one and only witness before the court takes this step.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts,’ ” the judge said. “We’ll reconvene at four p.m. That should be plenty of time for the government to get its witness here from Washington. We’re adjourned.”

  “Thank you, Judge.” Jack pushed away from the table quickly, knowing better than to hang around after a favorable ruling and give the other side a chance to change the judge’s mind. In less than thirty seconds he and Cassie were out the door, down the hallway, and waiting at the elevators.

  “That was unbelievable,” said Cassie.

  “Pure luck,” said Jack.

  The elevator doors parted, and they stepped inside. “Let’s hope your luck continues when you cross-examine the associate executive assistant schmuck,” said Cassie.

  Jack hit the lobby button. The doors had nearly closed when Gonzalez thrust her hand into the gap, forcing the doors to reopen. “Swyteck, I need a word with you.”

  Jack had seen Gonzalez angry before, but not like this. A crowbar could not have pried her fingers away from the elevator door she was holding. Jack told Cassie he’d catch up with her downstairs, stepped out into the hallway, and let the elevator go.

  Gonzalez spoke low so as not to be overheard by anyone, but harshly. “This four o’clock hearing cannot happen.”

  “It’s going to happen,” said Jack.

  “No,” she said, wagging her finger as she spoke. “You are going to notify Judge Carlyle that your client has agreed to stay her case pending the outcome of the FBI investigation.”

  Jack took a step back from the wagging finger. “This has nothing to do with national security, does it?”

  “That’s all this is about,” she said.

  “I’m on to you, Sylvia. The more you protest, the more I smell a cover-up. I’m fully aware that the computer technology behind the faulty alarm system on the Scarborough 8 was developed and manufactured by Barton-Hammill. This is about protecting the Pentagon’s number-one contractor from civil lawsuits that could tally in the billions. That’s not a national security issue.”

  “You are talking way out of school.”

  “I’m not agreeing to stay Bianca’s case. In fact, Cassie and I have talked about this. We are going to prove sabotage. And after we settle with the oil consortium, we are coming after Barton-Hammill.”

  “That will be very difficult for you to do when you’re behind bars.”

  “Are you seriously still threatening to prosecute me over a trip to Cuba?”

  “It’s the law. Up to ten years in prison, two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar fine.”

  “No one has ever been put in jail for traveling to Cuba, and no one has ever been fined anywhere near the maximum.”

  “There’s always a first time. And even if you get off with a small fine, it’s still a felony. I’m betting that somewhere along the line you lied to a U.S. official about the purpose of your trip, so tack on additional felony charges under Title Eighteen as well. The Florida Bar may have something to say about a convicted felon practicing law.”

  “Are you really this desperate?”

  “I granted immunity to Mr. Knight, not to you. So back off Barton—” She stopped midsentence, catching her gaffe, then continued. “Do the right thing on the national security issue,” she said, correcting herself, “or you will be prosecuted.”

  “Nice try,” said Jack. “But my answer is twofold. First, any lawyer who would sell out his client to save his own skin should be disbarred. Second,” he said as he pushed the call button, “go to hell.”

  The elevator opened. Jack entered, then turned and faced the government lawyer in the hallway, their eyes locking until the doors closed. Then he rode down to the lobby alone.

  Chapter 46

  Andie had a lunch meeting with Long Wu outside of Chinatown. She hadn’t specifically asked him to bring Noori, but she knew he would. Some said Long Wu didn’t go anywhere without his bodyguard. Andie had a different take: the aging Long Wu was training his handpicked successor to his multimillion-dollar underground business.

  “How you like merchandise?” asked Long Wu.

  “First rate,” said Andie. “All of it.”

  They were sharing a table near the window at a restaurant called Spice Market in the Meat Packing District in lower Manhattan. The old brick warehouse made for a cavernous dining area, which designers had warmed up with valuable period antiques from Rajastan, South India, Burma, and Malaysia. Raw timber beams were part of the original warehouse, offset by teak floors from a Bombay palace and an ambient color scheme of violet, indigo, ocher, and deep red. Embroidered silk curtains, wood-screen room dividers with elaborate carvings, and pretty young waitresses in traditional Southeast Asia dress completed the transformation. Andie was seated on a Thai porcelain garden stool on one side of the rosewood tea table. Opposite her, the low-slung Colonial-style sofa with appointed white leather was just the right size for Long Wu, but Noori looked like a grown-up on dollhouse furniture, his knees higher than the tabletop.

  “There’s just one problem,” said Andie.

  Long Wu dropped his dumpling. “Problem? What problem?”

  The waitress poured more tea for Noori. His hands made the teacup look miniature, too, but the waitress seemed to fancy the oversized young man with the rugged good looks, if her demure smile was any indication. Andie waited until the server left them alone at the table, then continued.

  “I have to be very direct with you,” said Andie, her gaze fixed on Long Wu. “My people are concerned.”

  “Why concerned? No need be concerned. Highest-quality goods. Delivery guaranteed. Good price.”

  “I’m sure all that is true,” said Andie. “But you have to understand. The people I represent do not sell knockoffs out of a hovel on Canal Street. My clients are reputable boutiques, and even department stores in some of the most prestigious malls in America.”

  “Yes, understood. High quantity get you volume price.”

  “Price is not the issue. It’s . . .”

  “What?”

  Andie’s hesitation was no undercover act. She had truly been struggling over the best way to elicit the necessary information, and she wasn’t absolutely certain that dropping a bomb on Long Wu and seeing where the dust settled would be the best approach. But she went with it.

  “They are concerned about doing business with anyone who may have terrorist connections.”

  “What?”

  The response was from Long Wu, but Andie was gauging Noori’s reaction. She pressed the point. “Noori? Any idea what I’m talking about?”

  His face reddened, but not with embarrassment. Noori’s hand wrapped around the teacup so tightly that Andie thought he might crush it.

  Long Wu answered for him. “Noori is not terrorist.”

  “It is our practice to investigate new suppliers very thoroughly,” said Andie. “We know that Noori was a detainee at Guantánamo.”

  “I know, too,” said Long Wu. “Also know he not terrorist.”

  “That’s good for you. But how can you give me the same level of comfort?”

  “I’ll tell you how,” said Noori. “You learn the facts.”

&
nbsp; He speaks. And with conviction. “Okay,” said Andie. “Tell me the facts.”

  “I am a Uighur. Do you know anything about Uighurs?”

  “I know they are Chinese Muslims.”

  “We are Central Asian. Twenty million Uighurs live in western Xinjiang province of China, but we are Turkic-speaking. My name, Dawut Noori, is not Chinese. I understand almost nothing Long Wu says, unless he speaks English. He speaks Cantonese, like most Han Chinese from Guangdong. In China, Long Wu and I would not be friends.”

  Long Wu smiled. “It work well for me here. People hear I have Uighur bodyguard from Gitmo, they no mess. Even Chinese Mafia scared.”

  “So you use the Uighur connection to your advantage,” said Andie.

  “Prejudice makes it easy to do that,” said Noori. “This may be a surprise to you and most Americans, but not all Uighurs are terrorists.”

  “Not all Uighurs have spent time at Gitmo.”

  “Okay, but let me tell you how I ended up there. When the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, I was eighteen years old and living in Xinjiang. Right after those attacks, the Chinese government cracked down big time on the Uighurs. They said me, my brother, all the young men at our mosque were affiliated with al-Qaeda. None of it true.”

  “Why would they say it?” asked Andie.

  “For decades Uighurs have wanted freedom and independence from China. To get it, we need support from the whole world. The Chinese government is not stupid. They know no one in the world will support Uighurs who share a border with Afghanistan and support al-Qaeda.”

  “So you’re saying they made false accusations to discredit your movement,” said Andie.

  “More than accusations. They arrested me and three of my friends.”

  “For what?”

  “For nothing. They put us in the back of a truck with about a dozen other men. For the next twenty hours, we ride blindfolded. Finally, the truck stops. The soldiers order us out at gunpoint. We are in the middle of the Afghan desert. I think we are going to be executed. But no. They give us guns. No ammunition, just guns. And the truck drives away.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We start walking. I don’t know anyone except my friends, but I do know that two of the men in our group are not Uighurs. We walk all day. Finally, we stop to sleep. American troops wake us up.”

  “They think you’re al-Qaeda?”

  “Yes. Because the two men who are not Uighurs—they are al-Qaeda. And when we go back to the American interrogation camp, they tell the Americans we are all al-Qaeda. I guess you will tell anything if you are waterboarded.”

  “From there, I presume, you were sent to Guantánamo.”

  “Where I stayed for the next seven years,” said Noori.

  Andie studied his expression. If Noori’s story wasn’t true, he had been telling it to himself for so long—night after night in detention, perhaps—that he had come to believe it himself. It was that convincing.

  “Finally, a judge in Washington ordered us released. All the Uighurs. Problem was, sending us back to China would have been a death sentence. Some of us were allowed to stay in the U.S. In Virginia.”

  Where my assignment started.

  Long Wu joined in. “This is what Chinese government do. Disgrace Uighurs. Turn world against Noori. Like Scarborough 8.”

  Andie tried not to seem too interested, but her heart was pounding with excitement. “The oil spill?” asked Andie. “What do the Uighurs have to do with Scarborough 8?”

  “Nothing,” said Noori. “But the rig is Chinese. So of course the Chinese government will blame Uighur militants for blowing it up. Make the world hate Uighurs so they can continue the oppression.”

  Andie paused. The Chinese government was in fact making that very accusation, at least according to her contacts in Operation Black Horizon. But she had to tread carefully.

  “I have not heard that,” said Andie.

  “You will,” said Noori. “I get information from family and friends in Xinjiang. They say the Chinese government is working very hard to convince the Americans that it was the Uighurs. It’s more convincing if the Americans make the accusation. The Chinese government is suckering the White House again, same as it did when it got the U.S. to ship me off to Guantánamo.”

  Long Wu put down his chopsticks. “Okay. We way off track. Back to business. You smart woman. You tell your people Noori not terrorist. Is all B.S. We talk again tomorrow. Deal?”

  Andie drew a breath, struggling to process the information and remain in role. She would indeed tell her people.

  “Okay,” she said. “Deal.”

  Chapter 47

  At four p.m. Jack and Cassie were back in court. The Justice Department lawyers were at the mahogany table to Jack’s left, closer to the empty jury box. Lawyers for the oil consortium filled the first row of public seating, essentially spectators—in fact, the only spectators. In a city that was gripped by an ongoing oil disaster, Judge Carlyle’s courtroom was eerily quiet, closed to the media and the public.

  Judge Carlyle adjusted the gooseneck microphone, her voice reverberating in the empty courtroom. “The noon deadline to deliver an unredacted version of the affidavit has come and gone. My clerk advises that the government failed to produce one. Is that correct?”

  Jack rose. “Your Honor, we didn’t get one either. It’s our position that the government’s request to stay our case should be denied for lack of evidence.”

  “Let’s hear from the government first,” said the judge.

  Jack yielded, and Gonzalez went to the podium.

  “First, I apologize to the court,” she said. “Try as we did, the witness was unfortunately unavailable. However, we have a new witness who is prepared to testify. Dr. Richard Cooper. He is the executive vice president and director of research and development for Barton-Hammill Companies.”

  “Judge, I object,” said Jack.

  “On what grounds?”

  “First off, I don’t know how hard the government actually tried to bring in the witness from FBI’s National Security Branch, so I’m not going to comment on that.”

  “You just did.”

  Busted. “That aside, what I’m sensing here is the ol’ switcheroo. Ms. Gonzalez is afraid that if she brings in a witness from the FBI, this court might compel that witness to answer questions that the FBI would rather not have answered. So the last-minute substitution is a Barton-Hammill employee, a private citizen who is suddenly the government’s star witness on national security.”

  “I understand your point. Objection overruled. Ms. Gonzalez, proceed.”

  “Thank you,” said Gonzalez. “But first, there are so many reasons to grant the government this protection. National security is a broad concept that includes environmental security, economic security, and—”

  “Ms. Gonzalez, call your witness.”

  “The United States of America calls Dr. Richard Cooper.”

  The deputy unlocked the doors in the back of the closed courtroom and brought Dr. Cooper down the center aisle. Cooper was a man of impressive physical stature who beamed with confidence as he swore the familiar oath and took a seat. Jack had seen many men shrink in a witness stand. Cooper wasn’t one of them.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” said Gonzalez. “Could you please introduce yourself?”

  Jack listened and took a few notes over the next few minutes, as Gonzalez elicited Cooper’s impressive credentials. Military service in the Gulf War. Ph.D. from Cal-Poly in computer engineering. Assistant director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Department of Defense. And on it went. More telling than his résumé, however, was his demeanor. He looked entirely comfortable as a witness, conveying the distinct impression that this was not his first courtroom proceeding involving issues of national security. He radiated a certain vibe, and it wouldn’t have surprised Jack in the least to hear that Cooper made most of his “business” phone calls using top military-level cell-encryption metho
ds.

  “Dr. Cooper, are you familiar with the computerized alarm system on the Scarborough 8?”

  “Yes, I am. The technology behind the system was developed by a multidisciplinary team at Barton-Hammill. At the time, I was the head of that team.”

  “Broadly speaking, what was the function of that alarm system?”

  “The goal of any such alarm system is to prevent an oil disaster. Ours was a state-of-the-art system designed to monitor every critical function on the rig. Most pertinent to the issues before this court today, it was designed to be highly resistant to unauthorized misuse and manipulation.”

  “Such as computer hacking by terrorists?”

  “That would be one form of unauthorized use and manipulation.”

  Gonzalez turned the page in her outline and continued. “Now, it is my understanding that Barton-Hammill is a U.S. corporation. How did antiterrorism technology from a U.S. corporation end up in a Chinese rig operating in Cuban waters?”

  Cooper looked up at the judge, as if to convey the importance of his answer. “A request to share that technology came to Barton-Hammill—to me, specifically—from the National Security Branch of the FBI.”

  “What was the basis for that request?”

  “As I stated earlier, the goal of the alarm system is to prevent an oil disaster. It was in everyone’s best interest for state-of-the-art technology to be on a rig that was engaged in ultradeep-water drilling just sixty miles away from the United States.”

  “Dr. Cooper, as we all know, there is a trade embargo against Cuba. Did that present any kind of obstacle to the use of your technology on the Scarborough 8?”