“I know, Shug, but that question is outside our scope,” Stuart said. “Our job is conveyance, not closure.”
“But what do you think is going to happen to them? Once they’re on American soil, then what?”
“Hell, I don’t know, we give them forty acres and a mule?” Stuart’s voice betrayed his exasperation. “It’s all above our pay grade. Our next task is simply to figure out who should come here first.”
“Seriously, Stuart, some of these individuals predate 9/11 by decades, you know; some predate the modern American definition of terrorist. We’ve got rogue trades with other countries from clandestine programs the FBI and CIA officially iced decades ago.”
This was new to Stuart. “What do you mean ‘officially’?”
“Shit, man, remember the Red Army?”
“The Red Army? Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not kidding. And we’ve got one poor slob down there with an FBI file dating back to the early 1960s.”
“Good God. What’s he being held for?”
“I don’t have a clue. There are more gaps in his file than a ten-year-old’s teeth. Best I can discern, there’s some vague connection with the South Lebanese Army and the Mossad in the ’70s, an even more vague link to the CIA when they were stirring up trouble in Syria before the ’73 War with Israel. He ended up in our hands during that brief thaw in relations with Assad’s son, you know, right after 9/11? Even Bashir expressed a modicum of sympathy about the attack on our homeland.”
“Right, we needed their help at the Syrian-Iraq border.” Stuart paused. “Did you say his file goes back to the sixties?”
“With sizeable gaps. Read it for yourself. A summary of each detainee’s profile is in my report. Hey. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Let’s circle back on this in a few days.”
Stuart hung up and leaned back in his chair. An FBI file that dated to the early 1960s? Was Sugarman kidding? Stuart had read as much as he could about the Gitmo prisoners. Most of the information was classified, but enough had leaked out, reports from civil rights lawyers, investigative journalist accounts, and official government records that he thought he had a decent profile of the average detainee. Nothing suggested anyone with that much history. He stared at Sugarman’s report on his desk. He’d get to it this afternoon. Or tomorrow. First he had to survive a weekly departmental meeting.
Just when Stuart didn’t think he could stand one more PowerPoint slide, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at caller ID. John Veranda. He declined the call and started to slip the phone back in his pocket when it buzzed again. Then a text message appeared: Pick up!
Stuart excused himself and went into the hallway. He dialed the number and John picked up before the ring was done. He was not his usual good-ole-boy self.
“John, I’ve asked you not to call me on my work phone.”
“You got your personal cell?”
“It’s in my office. I’m in a meeting.”
“You’ll find about a dozen calls from me on your personal number. If your meeting isn’t life or death, make up some excuse, go outside, and call me back.”
“I can’t talk about the project—“
“This has nothing to do with that. Just do it. This is no joke. You got five minutes and I’m counting. Now.”
Before he could respond, John hung up. Stuart slipped back into the meeting and signaled to his assistant that he was stepping out for awhile. Then he stopped by his office, picked up his personal phone, and headed out the door.
When Stuart passed the security checkpoint and opened the door into the fresh autumn air, he realized it had been too long since he’d been outside his office building at this hour, or even on his lunch hour. He made a mental note to change that, to give himself a break during the day. The atmosphere inside that building was more stifling than the bureaucracy it contained.
He wasn’t even twenty feet from the building when his cell rang.
“What’s the emergency?”
“Stuart, I need a favor. A big one. But first, you owe me after making me the laughingstock of my own town with your confidentiality bullshit.”
“John, you’re exaggerating. We didn’t breach confidentiality. And, I can vouch for Sugarman.”
“Someone in your shop gave up the goods. I don’t know who and I don’t care. And Sugarman’s an A-1 asshole, Stuart, but all that’s off topic.”
“He can be a little brusque, but I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“I damn well do feel that way. Look, I’m giving up my land, my dream, for your detention facility. And from what Sugarman implied, you’ll probably be seeking federal eminent domain over the land my family and I live on.”
“That is nowhere near a certainty.”
“Not only is not a near certainty, I’ll take you to hell and back before you kick my mother out of her house. Unless—”
There was a pause. “Ok. I’m listening.”
“Well, you damn well better be. Here’s the deal, I want you to use every ounce of your bureaucratic authority to find information on a man who disappeared in 1973.”
“1973? You want me to dig through an information trail that went cold thirty-five years ago? This isn’t the movies. I can’t hack into police files to ferret out some missing person.”
“Don’t fucking patronize me, Stuart. This isn’t a regular missing persons case. I need information on an individual by the name of Elias Haddad. He emigrated to this country from Syria in 1962 or thereabouts, settled in Joliet, IL, and disappeared in 1973 during a trip back to Syria to visit his dying father. He hasn’t been heard from since.”
Stuart froze. Haddad. Had dad. The woman in Cairo. Could it be? No. It was impossible. For a moment, he couldn’t find his voice.
“Look, you sonofabitch,” John went on, “my home town medical center might just become your detention facility for the world’s most hardened terrorists. Do this for me. This request is about trying to save one person. It’s about you being a human being, not a fucking bureaucrat. Make a difference in one person’s life. Not the whole world. Not the entire country. Hell, not even the town of Saluki. Just. One. Person. Dig down into that bureaucratic heart of yours and make a difference in one life, not three hundred million.”
Stuart hesitated for a moment. “One person, John?”
“One, Stuart.”
Holly Chicago. That was her name. Stuart took in a deep breath. Joliet. Cairo. Her hair. Her gun. Had dad. “I’ll see what I can do.”
33
April 4, 1968
Elias and Cheryl Halia waited in his taxi at the Joliet train station. Businessmen returning home for the evening meant good fares. A large stack of picture books, chapter books, and the battery-powered portable tape player Elias kept in the taxi separated the two of them in the front seat. The wait seemed longer than usual. The sun had not appeared all day. Business was slow. Everything seemed to move as if something was not quite right with the world.
He put a tape of Dvorak’s New World Symphony into the cassette deck, but he kept the volume low so they could hear each other. If it took a while before a fare appeared, so be it. Filling the idle time to listen and read with his daughter was as important. He’d stopped at the library earlier in the day to make notes about this symphony and composer, even though his reading English was still limited.
“This music is so sad in some places,” Cheryl Halia said. She scooted closer to her father, pressing against the books. She had been watching the birds congregate in the rafters of the highway overpass they were parked under.
“It is also very … what is word … majestic? in places, too. Mr. Dvorak tried to paint a picture of the American land, as he experienced it, with orchestra instruments instead of paint brushes.
After a few more minutes, Halia asked, “Can we read now, Papa?”
Elias paused the tape. “Okay. It is your turn. Read to me. Then I read to you, if time.”
“Okay, Papa. We can read to Bravey,
too,” she said, holding up her worn stuffed black bear with the pinkish hard, brown nose and soft furry ears. Bravey was as familiar with Elias’s taxi as Cheryl Halia.
She opened a large book with pictures and large print, wrapped in protective plastic.
Holly began: “In the great green room, there was a telephone . . .”
“No, no,” Elias said gently, “this story, it makes me to wish for sleep.” He smiled and pretended to yawn.
“But it’s one of my favorites!”
“OK, read to me, quickly. Then another. But you are at higher reading level than this.”
He scanned the waiting area through the windshield. Even though he knew the train wasn’t scheduled to arrive for ten more minutes, some stragglers from the last train were milling about.
Cheryl Halia read as fast as she could. She had fun reading it fast, with no space between the words coming from her mouth. She’d stop at a word she thought her father might not know.
“Fireplace,” Cheryl Halia read again, and pointed at the picture.
“Fireplace,” Elias repeated, slowly.
And on they went. Elias kept scanning the station exit.
“Now the story about a bat who is a poet.” She paused and turned to the first page. Elias put his arm around her shoulder and brought Cheryl Halia and her Bravey bear even closer.
“Once upon a time, there was a bat … a bat is a strange kind of bird, only flies when it is dark out … a little light brown bat, the color of coffee with cream in it.”
“Ah, what I could give for a coffee, a real coffee, not this American drink they call coffee.”
Cheryl frowned at her father.
“I’m sorry, to be interrupting. Keep going.”
She continued, but after a few pages, she stopped, looked out the window, then at Elias. “Papa, what do you want most in life?” She filled the remaining pockets of air between them with her snuggle.
“Paradise! For my Cheryl Halia,” her father said immediately.
“I mean a thing, Papa, What thing would make you happy?”
Again, he barely paused before answering. “A piano.” He pretended to play on the dashboard. “A grand piano,” he went on, “the kind to fill a living room! And for you to learn the playing of this piano, so I can listen for my whole life. Soon, you will take lessons, but you must be older. And we must have the money.”
Elias imagined how small she would appear sitting at a grand piano bench. He glanced out the window. The cackling of the pigeons penetrating the window glass drowned out the music. They seemed angrier, noisier than usual.
Cheryl Halia continued reading until a man in a flashy pinstriped suit, a white shirt topped with a thin tie, and a gray fedora on his head, rapped on the window. Elias quickly waved him in.
“You interested in a fare, or admiring the architecture?” the man asked as he removed his hat and scooted into the back seat, placing his briefcase on his lap.
“Am sorry.” Elias looked with a slight scowl at the man in the rearview mirror. Cheryl Halia turned around to get a closer look at him above the back of the bench seat.
The man barked his destination. Elias smiled. It would be a good fare. He hated to lose his place in line at the station only to take someone a few blocks. This ride would be at least fifteen miles.
Elias looked at his watch. Near to six o’clock. They could drop off the rider, perhaps get something to eat. His stomach began to grumble at the thought.
In no time, they were crossing the Des Plaines River. Elias remembered what he’d learned from one of his riders, a history teacher. Joliet was designed to look like Paris. The city had more drawbridges than any other in America, except its big brother to the north, Chicago. He had gone to the library one Saturday after he had learned this and looked at street maps of both cities. The more he learned about the area, the more conversation he could make with his passengers.
Another sure way to pad his tips was to bring Cheryl Halia along.
She stood up in her seat and faced the man in the back. She stared at him. His eyes met hers. “Did you ride the train to Joliet?” she asked seriously.
The man considered the little girl’s hard stare. “Yes, I did, from Chicago.”
“Is my daughter,” Elias interjected, smiling at the man through his rearview mirror.
“I figured,” the man replied, then breathed deeply, settling in to alternately look out the window and at his watch. Cheryl Halia kept staring at him. He opened a newspaper and began reading, blocking the girl’s view.
“Have you ever eaten baklava?”
He peeked out from the paper. “Yes, I had it once, in Greek Town.”
Our family makes the best baklava in the whole wide world. Cheryl Halia looked at her papa. He smiled at her, motioned for her to sit, and with a firm hand pushed gently on her slender shoulder. She ignored him.
“Do you root for the Cubs or the White Sox?” Halia asked.
The man leaned up towards Elias. “What, she’s a baseball fan, too? How old are you, kid?”
Again, Elias talked as if the words would ricochet off the rearview mirror towards the back seat. “We read sports pages together. I like to understand the numbers, but I don’t know so much about the game.”
“Cubs or Sox?” Halia repeated, firmly.
“The Sox, of course.”
“They came in second place last year.”
“Smart kid. Do you remember who came in first?”
“The Yankees!”
“So what else is new? The damn Yankees always come in first.”
Elias looked over the seat at the man, instead of through the mirror. The passenger pointed to his head. “Where are you from, anyways?”
“Tell him. Tell him where your father grows up, Cheryl Halia.”
“My father is from Syria. It sounds like cereal!”
“My condolences,” the man said. “The Israelis sure did a number on your army last summer.”
“Yes, it was a great tragedy. They are wanting to steal all the land. The Israelis.”
“It’s their homeland. It says so in the Bible,” the man said, a matter-of-fact air to his voice.
Cheryl Halia settled down in her seat, but soon she stood up again and faced the passenger. He looked at her father. “The new season will be starting soon,” she said to the man. Then she bounced once on her rear on the seat and faced her father. “I’m hungry!” she announced.
“Kids,” the man said.
Elias looked at her sternly.
Cheryl Halia watched the cars go by. There were more than usual. Suddenly she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be back in their kitchen, with her mother, and her grandmother. She pressed her forehead to the window and squeezed Bravey Bear tight.
On the way back to Joliet after dropping off his passenger, Elias began to feel uneasy as they got closer to downtown.
He looked at his watch. More people than he was used to seeing were on the sidewalks, moving with purpose, as if they were all going to the same place, like when crowds leave a stadium. Block by block as he approached the bridge, individuals coalesced into groups; groups began to congregate into crowds. Some people were holding sticks. A few had baseball bats. It didn’t look like they were going to play a game.
He had that feeling in his stomach, the stirrings of the unknown, uncontrollable danger in the immediate.
“Do you want me to read to you again?” Halia asked her father.
“It is not the time.” He twisted around, looking nervously out of all of the windows.
Traffic slowed to a crawl. People spilled over into the streets, walking between cars. A block ahead, a negro man jumped onto the hood of a car, made ugly faces as he stomped on the hard metal. Then he jumped off. Six blocks from the bridge, traffic came to a complete halt.
Elias rolled down his window, and shouted at a young white man passing by his car. “What happens?”
“The drawbridge is up, and they won’t let it back down! Been
up for a while.”
Elias got on his radio and called the dispatcher. When Elias reported his location, the dispatcher told him to get the hell out of there. “They got all the drawbridges up. And they’re gonna stay up. The niggers are rioting.”
“But what? Why?” Elias looked at Cheryl Halia protectively.
“You ain’t heard? Martin Luther King’s been shot. He’s reported to be dead. This town’s gonna blow. You’d best get out of there. I don’t want anything to happen to that vehicle, man.”
No sooner had he put the microphone back in its holder, another man, heavy-set, passed by their car holding a bat high over his head. He looked in the window at Elias, at Halia, paused, then moved on to the next car and smashed the windshield.
“Lock your door!” Elias yelled to his daughter. Then he reached over and locked it for her. He stretched for the locks on the back doors, too.
Elias got out of the car and looked behind him. Fortunately, they were at the back of the pile up. It appeared they only needed to get three cars to back up, make an exit off the main road, wind through a residential neighborhood, and hopefully find another way home. He motioned for the driver behind him to back up, signaled the person behind him.
“The bridge, is blocked!” he yelled and pointed, flailed his arms, over and over again.
Most of the people brandishing weapons seemed determined to make their way toward the river, and were not so interested in the stuck cars. Elias worked off of adrenaline and paternal instinct.
Finally, the road cleared. People, including Elias, made U-turns to the other side of the street, even blocking traffic or crossing over the curb. Behind them, Elias could hear another windshield cracking. One car’s chassis scraped the concrete curb getting back onto the street. Someone had thrown a brick through a storefront.
After six blocks, the menacing behavior had subsided. Elias tried to clear his thoughts. The dispatcher said all the drawbridges were still up. He would have to go around the north or the south side to get back to the Interstate, which would not have drawbridges. Then he would have to get back into the city.
The Moment Before Page 25