Zorn allowed a note of apprehension to slip into his voice, as both men knew that Zorn USA would need at least another quarter or two of ESM revenue to break even. But Lawless waved off Zorn’s concern with the chubby hand he used a moment later to fish the olive out of his martini.
“Winding down won’t be necessary for quite a long while. Not if you and I play our cards right.”
“Meaning?”
“You don’t really suppose the government will suddenly stop hunting Islamists once the rioting stops, do you? A bombing here, a shooting there, a hostage taking foiled somewhere else. The cat-and-mouse game will go on as before, with the emergency measures remaining in place. Along with our budget appropriations. Do you have any idea, Roger, how hard it is to cut a program out of the U.S. defense budget?”
Lawless let out a deep guffaw and downed the rest of his drink before signaling for the bartender to fetch another.
“Tetra is a top-tier U.S. defense contractor. Federal programs come and go, but the money flows on. Imagine having your share of that flow, Roger!”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you could license Triage to us and collect royalties for many years to come, as I’ve suggested before.”
“I’ve already declined that offer, as you may recall.”
“Then there remains the possibility of a broader partnership.”
“By that, do you mean a U.S.-based joint venture, or something more far-reaching, like, say, a global merger?”
As Walter Lang had argued back in Carcassonne, a merger with a company of Tetra’s size could solve nearly all Zorn Security’s financial problems. But was Tetra the right partner? From what Zorn had gathered during the past week, he wasn’t so sure.
“Something like that,” Lawless evaded, settling back into his armchair. “Of course, timing would be key.”
“In what way?”
“At the moment, the ESM program is in its period of highest risk. The terms of any arrangement between us would need to reflect that risk.”
“Let me translate that,” Zorn shot back. “It sounds to me like you’re looking to pick up Zorn Security on the cheap.”
“I’d say that’s a very short-sighted view,” Lawless replied with a strained smile before pausing for the bartender to lay down fresh drinks and remove the empties. “Permit me to present a few salient facts. First: Tetra has sunk a considerable investment into getting the ESM program up and running. We’d like to see a return on that investment. That’s why, in our contracts with DHS, we’ve secured broad discretionary authority over how much we use subcontractors.
“Second: today we’re big fans of your Triage technology. But that could change. We could also shift air logistics work from Zorn Security to other operators. In a short time, your U.S. business could return to what it was before ESM: near zero. On the other hand, if Tetra and Zorn were in the same family, those problems would go away.”
“I see,” Zorn answered, his face giving nothing away.
What Lawless had said about a merger was more or less what Zorn had expected him to say. It was the opening move in what was likely to become a lengthy chess game. For while Zorn had long ago resigned himself to the prospect that his company might be sold, he was determined not to let Lawless, of all people, pick it up for a song.
“Let me think about it,” Zorn added in a noncommittal tone. “I’ll also bring it up with Walter the next time we talk.”
“And when do you expect that might be?”
“Perhaps as soon as this weekend. I’m thinking of flying back to France for the Labor Day holiday.”
Lawless took a long draught from his second pear martini and his lips twisted into a smile.
“Excellent. I have the greatest respect for Walter, as I did for your late father.”
Zorn nodded before reaching for his fresh Americano, which tasted even better than the first. At a momentary loss for what to say next, he asked Lawless about his own plans for the holiday weekend.
“My wife and I have a small place in the Caribbean. We’re flying down to relax and play some golf.”
“Anywhere near the detainee transit sites? Mixing business with pleasure, perhaps?”
Lawless had been the first to mention the offshore transit sites a few minutes earlier. But the instant Zorn referred to them, the Tetra man’s face clouded over.
“This is not the place,” the executive hissed, glancing to both sides to make sure no one had overheard. “Everything about those sites is classified. You know that.”
“And that’s nearly all I know about them, Larry. You just told me that the ESM program is facing its greatest risk right now. After Scudder’s press conference, it seems to me that those sites are a major reason for it. I’d like to know more about them before expanding my commitment to the ESM program. Could you arrange a short visit?”
Lawless swallowed hard before answering in a grudging tone.
“You’d have to talk to Craven. DHS controls who’s cleared to go.”
“Then could you put in a word for me? A recommendation from Tetra ought to carry a lot of weight.”
To ease the tension, Zorn made the appeal in his most charming voice. Lawless appeared to soften.
“Well, if a visit is what you’d like, Roger, I’ll see what I can do. Why don’t you give Pat a call tomorrow, after I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
Then Lawless looked conspicuously at his gold Rolex and knocked back the remains of his second cocktail.
“Sorry, I’ve got to run. Let me know how things turn out with Pat, will you?”
But he was up and away before Zorn could reply. And when Zorn tried to settle the tab, the bartender told him that it had already been charged to Mr. Lawless’s account.
Chapter Thirteen: Corvus Base
“What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
–Thomas Jefferson
EARLY JUNE, CORVUS BASE
Carol Van Ingen (née Nagy) sat quietly with one ankle shackled to a steel picnic table bolted to the concrete courtyard of a newly built detention facility. Though she could not be certain, she and her fellow prisoners believed that the facility was located near a commercial airport on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. At the moment, Carol and twenty other female prisoners were picking at their lunch of cold pizza, a pre-wrapped slice of processed cheese, an apple, and an oatmeal cookie, set out in individual Styrofoam containers. From time to time, Carol heard clanging from heavy boots on a metal catwalk above, where armed guards made their rounds every few minutes.
This was Carol’s second week at the facility. Before then, she’d been held in a solitary cell at an interrogation prison somewhere within a few hours’ drive of Richmond, Virginia, where she’d been arrested. She wasn’t sure how many days she spent there, as her memories were a blur, owing to lack of sleep, marathon interrogations and the total lack of natural sunlight or any other cue to help her mark the time.
Here on the island it was definitely better. Though she hadn’t had a shower or a change of clothes in nearly a week, and the food was awful, she felt less fear now. She and the other women worked hard at keeping each other’s spirits up. And Carol was buoyed by the thought that her parents must know she was missing and would never give up searching for her. During the interrogation, she had denied knowing anything about the bombing and hadn’t implicated anyone else. If she hadn’t been formally charged with a crime by now, it had to mean that the government couldn’t prove anything against her and would eventually have to let her go. After all, they couldn’t hold people like her in secret prisons forever, could they? Meanwhile, she resolved to take life one day at a time.
Today, her fellow prisoners were young American women like her, mostly students, dropouts, or recent graduates who had been active in radical political causes long before the EMP attacks. But man
y had joined the Antifa movement only recently, to protest America’s retaliatory strikes against Iran and Pakistan and the new emergency security measures. The unjust embargo against Islamist regimes had enraged the young women even further. Some had rushed off to join demonstrations that turned into riots under the baleful influence of Antifa organizers, while others had offered their help directly to Islamist front groups.
As a suspect in the Richmond courthouse bombing, Carol’s radical bona fides were impeccable. Though a few inmates thought she might be a stool pigeon because of her unusually long interrogation, most embraced her as a revolutionary comrade-in-arms. When the women weren’t confined to their individual cells, they turned their mealtimes and exercise hours spent together into seminars on anarchist theory and practice.
But today was Tuesday, one of two weekly transfer days at the transit site, and they couldn’t help but worry about what might happen if they were moved out. Already, they feared for friends arrested at the same time who had never arrived at the facility. Rumors of extrajudicial executions were not easy to dismiss, given the history of student disappearances in places like Argentina and Chile, and more recently in Brazil, Colombia, and throughout Central America.
Might the young women be sent back to the U.S. to be held indefinitely in new supermax prisons rumored to have been built in places as remote as the Aleutian Islands? The optimists among them consoled each other with the news that wealthy opponents of the new administration had retained top-flight criminal defense lawyers to defend militant detainees. But the pessimists pointed out that emergency legislation had authorized the president to detain suspect intifadists indefinitely without a hearing. Would the best years of their lives pass away in captivity? Meanwhile, Carol and the other women racked their brains for means to resist, protest, or escape, or at the very least, to let people back home know that they were still alive.
In another detention wing at the same transit site, Amjad Ibrahim waited in his cell for his name to be called, dreading being among those selected for what his captors euphemistically called “repatriation.” Except that it was settled knowledge among prisoners that most deported Muslims were not being returned to their countries of origin.
In the cases of hard-line Islamic regimes with which the United States had severed diplomatic relations, no channel remained for returning current or former citizens. And in secularized Muslim countries, any native son expelled from the U.S. on suspicion of Islamist-inspired violence was viewed at home with deep suspicion. Why would the rulers of those countries take back such people only to toss them in jail again and bear the cost of lengthy incarceration? No, if America were so intent on expelling its jihadists, it would need to make arrangements with regimes willing to take such people with no questions asked. But how could one expect those regimes to treat prisoners humanely?
Amjad had spent less than a week at the tropical transit site, after being held in Minnesota far longer. During his initial FBI questioning, his interrogator had offered him freedom in return for turning informant against his fellow Islamists and for persuading his son Imran to do the same.
“But I’m not an Islamist!” Amjad had protested. “I’m opposed to jihad! I don’t even go to mosque!”
“Okay, so you’ve taken your jihad underground. We see a lot of that around here. But your son flaunts his Islamism openly. And we have the evidence to prove he’s moved on from that to waging all-out holy war.”
The FBI interrogator pushed forward a stack of documents that included pages from jihadist weapons training manuals and bomb-making instructions, along with photos taken of a tactical knife and small-caliber ammunition seized from Imran’s bedroom.
“Your son has two choices, Mr. Ibrahim. One: he can work undercover with us to arrest and convict his terrorist friends. If he succeeds, his cooperation can win him a reduced sentence. Or two: he can rot in prison for the rest of his life.”
“But Imran is no terrorist! He’s just a kid who fell in with the wrong crowd!”
“Tell it to the judge, Mr. Ibrahim,” the FBI man had told him. “Meanwhile, as a father, you too have a choice to make. You can help your son reach the right decision and see the matter through. Or you canwell, let’s not go there. What will it be, Mr. Ibrahim?”
The next day, Amjad agreed to do whatever he could to persuade his son to cooperate, despite the risk that Imran’s treachery might be discovered and lead to his death. A few hours later, father and son were brought together and left alone in a six-by-eight-foot cell that Amjad assumed was being monitored by closed-circuit television.
Imran looked unwell. His complexion was sallow, his cheeks hollow, his hair and beard matted, and he stank from not having bathed and having soiled himself. As the cell contained no furniture, both men sat on the floor with their backs against the wall.
Amjad spoke to his son in low tones until the boy raised his head to face him.
“Have you eaten?” Amjad asked once he had Imran’s attention. It was a lame question, but it was the first one that came to mind.
Imran shook his head.
“Have you slept?”
The boy shook his head again.
“They keep waking me up,” Imran answered in a weak voice. “This morning was the longest they’ve ever left me in peace.”
“Have they told you what they want from you?”
A stubborn look came over Imran’s youthful face.
“They think I’m a terrorist. They want me to go find people I know from the mosque and help catch them. I told them no way.”
Amjad took his son’s hand in his.
“I keep telling them you’re not a terrorist. But I need to hear it from you, Imran. You haven’t actually done things with those guys to hurt anyone, have you?”
“Never!” the boy burst out, his bloodshot eyes bulging. “We talked about jihad many times, but that’s all we ever did. I swear, Dad!”
“I believe you, Imran. But the FBI has total control over your fate. Wartime rules are in effect. They can use whatever they found in your room to lock you away for life. Your only way out is to cooperate.”
“But that’s crazy! I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“I know, I know,” Amjad soothed his son. “It’s not fair. But you’ve got to do something to save yourself. And if you don’t do it today, it may be too late.”
“But what they want from me is to betray my Muslim brothers! Allah won’t allow it. And I refuse! Better to rot in prison for a lifetime than to burn in hell for eternity!”
“But why protect the people who gave you those bomb recipes? You owe them nothing!”
Imran shook his hand loose from his father’s grip and looked him in the eye.
“Look, Dad, nobody from the mosque gave me that stuff. I found it by myself, online. If that’s what the case against me is based on, then I have no one but me to blame.”
All at once Amjad realized he had run out of arguments. He thought of asking Imran to save himself for his mother’s and sister’s sake, but he knew that would be wrong. Didn’t Imran’s Islamist friends have mothers, too?
He took his son’s hand again and the boy didn’t resist.
“It’s your choice, Imran. If you did nothing wrong, you have the right to assert your innocence. All the same, think where it may lead.”
Minutes later, guards returned Amjad to his cell. The next day, he agreed with the interrogator to try one more time with Imran. Amjad found his son sitting on the floor, back against the wall as before. Imran spoke without raising his head when Amjad entered.
“I asked them what I had to do to go free.”
“And what did they say? Can you make it work?” Amjad asked, his heart fired by hope as he sat beside his son.
“It’s no good. I’m a terrible liar. The guys at the mosque would know right away that something wasn’t right.”
“But the FBI could coach you through it.”
“No, Dad. It’s all wrong. I won’t do it.”
“I understand.”
Father and son sat quietly until the guards opened the cell door to take Amjad away.
That night, Amjad had a nightmare in which he returned to his family’s suburban house only to find it vacant and emptied of all their possessions. Entering Imran’s room in the dream, he had a powerful feeling that he would never see his son again. In the morning, he begged his FBI interrogator to let him try one more time to persuade Imran to cooperate. But an hour later word came that the boy had refused a third meeting with his father. That final “no” was the last word Amjad Ibrahim ever received from his son.
For nearly two months after that, Amjad had been left to speculate on his son’s fate. Had Imran changed his mind and turned informant, after all? Or were the authorities still holding him in hopes of changing his mind? Or had Imran refused to cooperate and been deported because he was of no further use to them?
Amjad Ibrahim looked through the barred door of his second-floor cell onto the tropical detention wing’s atrium-like courtyard. One floor below, a guard read out the names of prisoners who had been selected for transport. To Amjad’s knowledge, all the inmates in his wing were Muslim, and he heard scattered shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” echo through the courtyard, nearly drowning out the names being read.
Then a frightening thought occurred to him and his legs turned to rubber: what if Imran were taken for repatriation and didn’t arrive at the transit site until his father had gone? Or what if Imran had already been repatriated? How would the nineteen-year-old survive in a strange land without his father’s help? Even if Imran were fortunate enough to land in Bangladesh, how could he be sure that his son would reconnect with extended family and get back on his feet? And what if, as some prisoners claimed, Imran were turned loose in some remote village in Chad or Yemen or Afghanistan to fend for himself?
Today was only the second transfer day that Amjad had spent at the facility. But the rise in tension among the prisoners had been palpable all day. Some of the men, he had learned from his fellow inmates, were eager for resettlement so they could join ISIS or Al-Qaeda and do jihad. But most prisoners, out of faith or superstition, left the transport selection in Allah’s hands. These men avoided doing anything that might attract attention, lying low all day with the thought: better the hell I know than the one I don’t.
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