Justice Returns

by William Bernhardt

  The receptionist waved me right into his office. The chief prosecutor, Roger Thrillkill, sat at his desk studying a stack of papers. He was a tall, big man with a ramrod straight back. His shirtsleeves were rolled up with precision, each to exactly the same height.

  Michael Hickman, the associate who’d chastised me in the courthouse yesterday, stood beside him.

  Thrillkill met me as I was halfway into the office, his outstretched hand blocking my progress. “Ben Kincaid. At last we meet.”

  I took his hand. He favored what I thought of as the Vulcan Death Grip, like most politicians in this state. “Sir.”

  “Call me Rog. Everyone does. Ever since I was a short piece of scrub back in Wewoka.”

  There was nothing scrubby about him now. He was something like six foot three, which made him about a head taller than me. He was a bear of a man, round in the middle, but vigorous and strong. He had an eyes-lock gaze and a one-dimple grin that made disliking him challenging. “Pleased to meet you, sir. Thank you for finding time for me.”

  “Least I can do for such a distinguished officer of the court. Who did time in Washington. Handled big cases all over the country. Make the rest of us look like pikers.”

  “I hardly think so. You’ll probably be in Washington yourself in a few.”

  “Me?” Thrillkill pressed a hand against his chest as if I’d just suggested he ran a cockfighting club. “I’m just a small-town boy.”

  “Running the USAG’s office.”

  “And already in over my head.” He slapped me on the shoulder and showed me to a chair. I noticed he did not sit. He preferred to tower over me. “You know more about big-city politicking than I ever will. You’re a Nichols Hills boy, right?”

  He’d done his research. I wasn’t surprised. “Only in a technical way.”

  “And you’ve moved back there. Joined the country club yet?”

  “I’m afraid my golf game isn’t worth much.”

  “Oh, golf, who has time for that? It’s about networking, Ben. That’s what you pay those membership fees for. Say, if you like, I could talk to Frank Hamish about sponsoring you at Gaillardia.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “He runs the History Center, too, and I know they’re looking for board members.”

  I decided to end the tap dance before it got out of control and I actually accepted one of his inducements. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  He spread his arms wide. “That’s what I’m here for. Why did you want to see me?”

  “Well, my first call was to the OSBI, but my contact there said the CIA had more contact with your office.”

  “CIA? The national boys? Sounds like something big. What is it?”

  As if he didn’t already know. I nodded toward Hickman. “I think your associate there already knows. It’s about an old acquaintance of mine. Nowadays he goes by the name Omar al-Jabbar.”

  “Is he your client?”

  “For the moment, he’s a guy who used to date my sister.”

  “Mmm.” Thrillkill leaned against the edge of his desk. “I thought this might be about him. That’s why I asked Michael to join us.” He gestured vaguely toward the man beside him. “You two know each other, right?”

  “We do. Had the pleasure of getting trounced by him in court once or twice.”

  Hickman smiled a little. “That’s not the way I remember it.” But I sensed he relaxed a trifle just the same. Never hurts to compliment a man in front of his boss. “You held your own just fine.”

  “Michael’s the head of the Criminal Department. These days he spends most of his time liaising with the big boys.”

  The Justice Department? The intelligence community? Anytime there was an ongoing federal investigation involving a state citizen, this office was supposed to be notified. “Can you tell me why Omar was arrested?”

  “I don’t know that he was.”

  “Okay, detained.”

  Hickman glanced at the boss. A curt nod gave him the okay to proceed. “The investigation was initiated by the Central Intelligence Agency. They believed your man was engaged in terrorist activities.”

  “My client thinks he was held because he engaged in lobbying activities. That you wanted information about Abdullah Ali. The leader of PACT.”

  Another boss check. Did the man need permission to go to the bathroom, too? “We don’t know anything about that.”

  “And no charges were ever brought against Abdullah.”

  “That’s correct. Although they believe he engaged in dangerous and hostile terrorist activities. But they didn’t obtain enough evidence to proceed.”

  “Even after they held Omar for twenty-one days?”

  Hickman drew in his breath. “Yes, that was unfortunate.”

  “But true?”

  “They got wind of some new terrorist weapon in development and thought your boy knew something about it.”

  Thrillkill gave me an aw-shucks expression. Sort of like Andy Griffith by the fishing hole. “You know how that goes, Ben. Not every lead pans out. But we don’t want the boys in Washington to stop trying. You don’t want another 9/11 on your conscience, right? I know I don’t.”

  “No one does, but that’s not really the point. Holding Omar in retaliation for legal political lobbying would be improper even under the Patriot Act.”

  “Of course you can’t believe everything these camel jocks say.”

  My jaw dropped. Hickman squirmed, then said quietly to his boss, “Actually, Omar al-Jabbar is Caucasian. He changed his name when he converted to Islam.”

  “Oh. Well. I didn’t realize.”

  “What’s more,” I said, “Omar believes he was singled out in what amounts to a vendetta by an interrogator named Nazir. I don’t have to tell you that if that were true, it would be a major civil rights infraction.”

  Thrillkill didn’t say anything right away. Which meant I was getting somewhere.

  “Do you know Nazir?” Thrillkill asked, eventually.

  “Can’t say as I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “I have. Hard working as any man you’ll ever meet, even if he doesn’t believe in our Savior. I don’t believe he would allow himself to indulge in any vendetta. Frankly, I don’t think he has enough of a personal life to have a vendetta.”

  “Who said the vendetta was based on something personal?” I replied. And thank you for the helpful clue. “It might be political.”

  “I just don’t believe it.”

  “Neither do I,” Hickman said, jumping back into the conversation. “But I believe it’s possible someone else might have a vendetta.”

  That caught my attention. “Like who?”

  “I don’t have any names. But anyone who lives the way your boy lives is bound to have some enemies.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Hickman took a step back. “Perhaps I’ve said too much.”

  “Don’t be a tease. Explain your comment.”

  Hickman and Thrillkill exchanged a long sideways glance. Ending with a shrug of the boss man’s shoulders.

  “First, your man’s working for someone we know has terrorist connections, whether we can prove it or not. Abdullah’s involved in an ongoing plot to develop a weapon that will take terrorism to an unprecedented level. We’re talking about the next 9/11 and then some. Something that will make 9/11 look like a minor unpleasantry.”

  “And your proof of this?”

  He ignored me. “Second, your man is messing with the wrong woman.”

  “Are you talking about Abdullah’s sister?”

  “Is that what he called her?” His smile broadened. “Boy, you really don’t know anything about this guy, do you?”

  “Perhaps not as much as I should.”

  “And third, your man works with ISIS.”

  “What? That’s preposterous.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “You can’t prove it.”

  “Has your man denied it
? I don’t think we have to prove openly acknowledged facts.”

  I felt my heart thumping in my chest. ISIS? That would certainly explain the interrogation. “Tell me why you think he’s with ISIS.”

  “Never mind. Just forget it.”

  “It’ll come out in discovery.”

  “Are you threatening us with a lawsuit?”

  “You and I both know that’s a possibility. That’s why we’re having this meeting. And I also know you’ve been surveilling Omar in what is increasingly sounding like illegal data gathering, even given the enormous powers granted by the Patriot or Freedom Acts.”

  Hickman jumped in. “I never said anything about watching your man.”

  “You knew he was in my office yesterday.”

  Hickman did not confirm or deny.

  I continued. “You know a great deal about his activities. And way too much about his personal life.”

  “I had twenty-one days of interrogation transcripts to review. Look, Ben, I tried to warn you off as a personal favor.”

  “Or as an attempt to interfere with Omar’s constitutional right to counsel.”

  He inhaled deeply. “You know, Ben . . . you are starting to make me wish I hadn’t tried to help you.”

  “And I’m starting to think this is exactly the kind of arrogance that leads people to think they can hold someone against their will for twenty-one days and get away with it.”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen.” Thrillkill held up his hands. “Let’s calm down. There’s no need for anyone to do anything rash.”

  “Like file a civil rights lawsuit?” I said. “To draw attention to a gross miscarriage of justice? Just before election year?”

  His smile thinned. For a moment, I almost thought I might see a crack in his jovial armor. But he reined it in. “Did I mention that this current term is not my first time to work in this office?”

  I resented his attempt to derail the conversation. But I went along with it. “No, I don’t believe you did.”

  “I worked here almost twenty years ago as an intern, while I was in law school. Same time you were interning at the DA’s office, I believe.”

  More background research. Scary background research.

  “And before that, I worked under Mike Turpin while he was the state AG. I loved that man. Bigger than life, full of energy, always a good word for anyone he met. He was a huge role model for me. But why was I working there? Not to brag, but I was Order of the Coif, top five percent. I could’ve gone anywhere. I could’ve worked at a big law firm, like you did.”

  “For about ten minutes.”

  “But I didn’t. I worked for the AG because I cared about justice. Just like you. I bet we both went to law school for the same reason. Because we felt justice had disappeared from this country, and we wanted to see justice return. We took low-paying jobs that allowed us to see the justice system up close so we could figure out how to make it work better. Isn’t that why you did what you did?”

  “That,” I replied, “plus I really wanted to piss off my dad.”

  “Sure, we followed different roads later on. You’ve taken all those bleeding-heart cases, standing up for the little guy. I admire that. I went into government work, another keenly low-paying venue, because I was committed to public service. You’re still taking those cases because you see the cracks in the system. But I see something bigger than a crack. I see something that threatens to destroy the entire country.”

  I wasn’t buying it. “If you had any evidence that Omar or Abdullah were planning a terrorist attack, you’d have brought charges. The fact that you haven’t suggests that you’re just trying to scare me off. And you wouldn’t bother doing that unless you thought I had a potentially damaging case.”

  “Ben, you’re not hearing me. If we allow terrorists to destroy the country, niceties like civil rights won’t be anything but a nostalgic glimmer in a downtrodden eye. You think those boys in the Islamic nations care about civil rights? Most of them are worrying about where their next meal is coming from and whether they can get it without being beheaded by the latest fascist of the week.”

  “That’s not—”

  “I don’t want to live in a nation like that. I see the world the same way Dick Cheney did. You’re either with us or you’re helping the terrorists. He leveled a squinty-eyed glare. “And right now, it doesn’t look like you’re with us.”

  10

  I tried to get Oz on the phone, but he didn’t pick up, so I moved to the next interview on my list. Preliminary research can be tedious, but it’s the only way to get the information you need to make smart decisions. I’ve tried farming this kind of work out to associates in the past, but I usually regretted it. With the exception of Christina, no one ever got the information I needed to answer the questions that mattered. So I had to tough my way through the grunt work. If we went to trial, life would be plenty exciting in a hurry.

  Getting in to see Nazir was a good deal more difficult than seeing the prosecuting Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But necessary. I never like filing a suit naming someone I haven’t met, but that was especially true here, when different people were spinning different stories and some of them didn’t make sense. Maybe Nazir would provide the key piece of information that made sense of the puzzle.

  Probably not. But I wanted to give him the chance.

  I managed to get in just before the end of the day. The location was an unmarked hard-to-find former strip mall in one of the less pleasant parts of OKC. The signage suggested that this was a HUD office, but I suspected that was a cover for the CIA. No one would tell me Nazir’s status or job title. At first, they wouldn’t even acknowledge that he existed, till I identified myself as an attorney and made noise about a possible wrongful imprisonment suit. Once someone contacted Nazir, I got an appointment.

  There was only one possible explanation. He wanted to see me just as much as I wanted to see him.

  “Mr. Kincaid. How can I help you?” Unlike Oz, Khalid Nazir was Middle Eastern, as his dark complexion and hair made apparent. He spoke with an accent, slight but discernible. He was about my age, trim, obviously athletic. I did not believe for a minute that this man worked at a desk most of the time, even if he was currently poised behind one.

  He moved straight to the point, so I did him the courtesy of doing the same. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know why I was here. “I understand that you were an interrogator during the interrogation of Omar al-Jabbar.”

  His gaze dropped a notch. His lips pursed. “Yes. That is correct. That was an unfortunate business.”

  So he denied nothing but, at the same time, suggested regret. “He believes he was held improperly. Unconstitutionally.”

  Nazir shrugged. “Perhaps he is right.”

  This response I did not expect. “Is that an admission?”

  “That is an acknowledgement that I am not a lawyer and know nothing about such legal niceties.”

  “Omar says he was mistreated. Not because you thought he was a terrorist but because you thought he had information about his boss, Abdullah.”

  “I cannot comment on that. Except to say that as an interrogator I do not choose my targets nor determine the goals. My job is simply to determine how best to achieve those goals.”

  “Did you have evidence that Omar was involved with terrorism?”

  “The term is ‘suspicion of evil.’”

  “Okay. Did you have ‘suspicion of evil?’ Is that why he was detained?”

  “You’re asking the wrong man. I did not make that decision. I was asked to interrogate, and so I did.”

  “Did you ask Omar about Abdullah or about himself?”

  “Anytime someone works with a known terrorist, there is cause to inquire. That does not mean it was the primary reason he was detained.”

  “He says he was tortured.”

  “Our government does not define waterboarding as torture.”

  “Then our government is kidding itself. I thought President Obama banned w
aterboarding.”

  “And President Trump has said he believes it is necessary.” Nazir smiled. “If you had seen what I have seen, particularly in my home country, you would see waterboarding as little more than—what is it they call the standard interrogation technique here? Good cop, bad cop? The waterboard is the bad cop.”

  “And the strip searches?”

  “A security necessity.”

  “Repeatedly?”

  “Sometimes weapons are smuggled into holding facilities. You know this.”

  “Taking his clothes. Leaving him naked.”

  “Weapons are easily concealed in clothing.”

  “The loud music? Filthy living conditions.”

  “All standard interrogation practices. Not forbidden by the Geneva convention, even were it applicable.”

  “You have no end of excuses, Mr. Nazir. But it all adds up to improper treatment. In violation of the US Constitution.”

  “A piece of paper.” He looked down at the desk. “And completely meaningless, if there is no nation to be governed by it.”

  “So the end justifies the means? I have to tell you—that’s not the view of the law. Or the Supreme Court.”

  “Is it not? I understood that constitutional infringements are permitted when there is . . . what is the term? Substantial state interest.”

  I was expecting a brute, not a man so articulate and obviously intelligent. It threw me more than I cared to admit. “Maybe for small matters. Time, place, and manner restrictions on the right to speech. But here we’re talking about holding a man who was not charged with a crime but held prisoner for twenty-one days. And tortured.”

  Nazir walked up to me and, before I even knew what was happening, placed his hand on my shoulder, digging his thumb firmly in the space behind my clavicle. His gaze was penetrating, plainly intimidating. He wasn’t interrogating me, at least not officially, but he still made my heart beat faster and my tongue get thicker. If I were naked and tied to a waterboard, he would be terrifying. “Terrorism is serious business, Mr. Kincaid. Do you understand that?”

  “Of course.” I willed my voice not to tremble.