The Prisoner of Guantanamo (17 page)

“We have to meet next time I'm stateside,” Falk said. “I have some information that might help you, depending on what your boss thinks of it.”

He didn't say more because even then OPSEC was a concern, although it went by a different name. A month later they met at Bo's house in Alexandria, his first kids already crawling on the wall-to-wall carpet. Bo took the news calmly enough, and they agreed to discuss it with his chief, Saul Endler, who Bo said had long-standing connections to the intelligence community.

They spoke briefly at the office, Endler maintaining a poker face and offering little comment. Then they reconvened the next night at Endler's town house in Georgetown, discussing their next move between wall-to-wall bookshelves while Stravinsky played at a discreet volume on very pricey speakers and Mrs. Endler served them iced tumblers of bourbon.

“Latin America and the Caribbean are a special part of my bailiwick,” Endler explained, “and Cuba is my particular passion, so I can certainly understand how it so quickly became yours.”

He relayed all this in the calm, superior manner of a professor who has agreed to extend office hours, just this once, for a wayward scholar. The words “betrayal,” “treason,” and “espionage” never came up. Between those tactful omissions and the bottomless supply of food and drink, Falk was soon hanging on the man's every word. In for a penny, in for a pound, as Ned Morris might have said.

“Let's play them a bit longer, and you can start reporting directly to me,” Endler proposed, pleasantly making it sound as if the whole arrangement with the Cubans had been Falk's idea. Then he poured a final round of bourbon, one for the road. Falk sensed the guilt lifting from his shoulders along with his sobriety. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that a flushed Bo was beaming. Perhaps the intimacy of the occasion signaled some sort of ascension for him, up another rung on the Foreign Service ladder.

Well, if so, what were friends for?

“Will you tell anyone else?” Falk asked. It was the last worrisome question on the checklist of his conscience.

“Based on what I've heard, there's really no need. The information you provide will help inform my own judgment on certain matters. As long as Havana doesn't escalate its requests, there's certainly no need for anyone else to know.”

“Not even the Agency?” Bo asked. It was his one faux pas of the evening. Endler scowled.

“The Agency,” Endler said, assuming a lecturing tone, “would only screw it up for all concerned. Our friend here might even face charges.”

“But what if, like you said, they escalate their requests?” Falk asked.

“A reasonable question.” Endler nodded, again the old mentor. “Should that ever occur, we'll deal with it accordingly. Even then I wouldn't foresee an immediate need to reveal your name. The Agency expects us to have some of our own sources. You might have to carry out a few extra favors, of course. But nothing more. Don't worry, it's not likely to become an issue.”

Bless me, Father, Falk felt like saying. It must be the way devout Catholics felt upon receiving absolution, and for the rest of the evening he levitated in a tipsy state of grace.

Soon afterward they said good-bye. Bo stayed behind for further consultation, while Falk offered a soulful handshake and wobbled down the brick walkway to a waiting taxi. As the cab pulled away he turned in his seat for a parting wave, but the door and the curtains were already shut tight.

The meetings with Harry continued a while longer, each request as mundane as the last. But after Elena's tearful apology arrived three months later, the requests stopped. Had they figured out he had told someone? All Falk knew for sure was that his next visit to Harry produced little more than a shake of the head.

“Our business is finished, señor,” Harry said curtly, looking up from a workbench where he was filing down a hunk of metal in a vice.

Endler sent word to try one more time, but Harry wouldn't even let him in the door. During his next leave to the States, Falk returned to Little Havana on the State Department's tab and visited the dance bar for three nights running. But there was no sign of Paco.

There was no more Endler either, in Falk's world, and Bo never mentioned the man's name when the two of them met, usually either at a D.C. sports bar or at Bo's house, where conversation was inevitably swamped by the noise of the children.

The topic came up directly only one more time, when Falk was undergoing the FBI's background security clearance. Bo was one of his references, and when the Bureau called Bo for an interview he, in turn, telephoned Falk to suggest a meeting at a swank restaurant on K Street.

The surroundings made Falk uncomfortable from the start. It was more of a lobbyist haunt than the raffish sort of joint where they usually met, and Bo only added to his unease by getting straight to the point while they were slurping down a dozen raw oysters.

“You sure about this gig? I mean, the Bureau. Are you really the type?”

“Hell, no. I'm not the type at all. But the work sounds interesting, and with my Arabic skills I'm actually a hot commodity.”

“Still.”

“Still what?”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

“Havana, you mean.”

“Obviously.”

“That's been over for years.”

“That kind of thing is never ‘over,' not when you're taking this kind of job.”

“So you're going to tell them?”

“Of course not.”

“Is Endler the one with the problem?”

“No. We're both uneasy. It's just awkward, that's all.”

“As long as the two of you keep your mouths shut, like you promised, why should it be a problem? But just say the word, and I'll withdraw my application.”

Falk's stomach sank as he said it, but he knew the offer was necessary.

“You'd really do that?” Bo said, and for a moment Falk was sure his friend was going to leap at the chance.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I suppose I would. You guys bailed me out, so it's the least I could do.”

“Forget it. I'd never ask you to do that.”

“Endler would.”

“But he's not here, is he? Look, I guess I just wanted to remind you that by giving you a clean bill of health I'm putting my ass on the line every bit as much as yours.”

“Understood.”

It would later occur to him that Bo's choice of restaurant, with its hushed tones and starched tablecloths, had been his way of tipping Falk to the seriousness of what lay ahead, a signal to let him know that, if Havana ever got back in touch, they might not be the only three players in on the secret. His new job was raising the stakes, by pushing him—and any future entanglement involving the Cubans—into the thick of the Washington power establishment.

It was a sobering thought, but until yesterday morning when Elena's letter had arrived, it had never seemed like one he would have to take seriously. Now, out here on the turquoise waters of Guantánamo Bay, the matter was an angry cloud on the horizon.

Falk told Bo about Elena's most recent letter, then about Harry's secondhand request for a meeting.

“Harry's still the postman?”

“Yes. Unbelievably. I've always wondered how he kept his job.”

“Endler thought about getting him fired. But it would have tipped them that you were blown. As far as the Doc knows, you were his only client. Besides, Harry is searched every day, coming and going. It's not like he can leave with the crown jewels. And it's not like he's in position to see or hear anything they wouldn't already know.”

“And it's not like I ever gave them much. I always wondered why they bothered.”

“I guess we're about to find out. Maybe they think of you as some kind of sleeper agent. Well placed and moving nicely up the food chain.”

“Great.”

Bo chuckled.

“Why do you think I had the heebie-jeebies right before you joined the Bureau?”

“I saw him one day, you know. Harry. My first week back here.”

“Where?”

“McDonald's.”

“I thought he hated McDonald's. Didn't you take him once?”

He had, as a gesture of normalcy, a halfhearted attempt by the naive Marine to justify his friendship with the little handyman, in case anyone ever asked about his regular visits to the machine shop. Harry had eaten only a few bites of his burger before rewrapping the rest and tossing it in the trash.

“Cuban food is better,” he had said, sitting in silence through the rest of the meal while Falk's embarrassment grew.

“Yeah, he hated it all right,” Falk said. “Which is why I figured the only reason he was there was to get a glimpse of me. Or to let me get a glimpse of him. Show his face so I'd know he was still around.”

“How'd he know you were coming?”

“Good question.”

“You've had no other contacts? From anybody on their side?”

“C'mon, Bo.”

“A simple ‘no' will do.”

“No.”

“Sorry. It's the business we're in. If this got out, all hell would break loose.”

“You're telling me. So how did you know I'd heard from them?”

“I didn't. It was Endler's hunch.”

“Based on what?”

“You'll have to ask Endler. But it's one of the reasons he sent me.”

“What difference would it make? Unless Fowler's work has some tie-in to Cuba.”

“Well, he's Homeland Security, and Cartwright is Pentagon. Not to mention that those two travel in administration circles that are sticking their noses into everything else these days, so why not Cuba?”

“You'd think they'd be a little preoccupied with Iraq right now.”

“Mission accomplished, as far as they're concerned. They got their war. Maybe now they're looking for the next target. Fowler's one of the new breed, part of the bunch that think they can make up reality as they go. Their work is easier to understand if you think of them as mergers-and-acquisitions specialists. Only it's countries, not companies. The minute the ink's dry on the next set of papers they're looking for something new. They don't concern themselves with aftermath. They just want to be the first to broker the next deal.”

“But with Cuba?”

“Or Iran, Syria, North Korea. Wherever opportunity knocks first.”

“So this whole security investigation is a front?”

“Not at all. They definitely think of themselves as being here to break up a spy ring, make a few friends at Gitmo, score some points in Washington. I'm just saying maybe there's also more to it. Some tie-ins we don't know about yet.”

“But would like to.”

“With your help, of course. It's one reason I want to see those interrogation schedules. And it's why I want you to meet Harry. Find out what he wants. Who knows, maybe the other side has heard something, too.”

“I'd planned on visiting him tomorrow morning.”

“Perfect. Just keep in mind that this isn't the old days. Don't count on it being quite as easy.”

“That's occurred to me. Van Meter's little witch hunt would have a lot of fun with a guy like me. Unless Endler intervened on my behalf, of course.”

“It would be a possibility.”

“But not much of one, I guess you're saying. Meaning I'm on my own.”

“No. You've still got me. You might say we're literally in the same boat.”

They chuckled, Falk somewhat uncomfortably.

“So what else does Endler think? About Harry and me, I mean.”

“You really want to know?”

Falk nodded.

“He thinks Harry's going to suggest a little reunion in Miami.”

“With Paco?”

“Yeah. And Paco is someone who Endler would very much like to get a look at.”

“And how am I supposed to find time for this little reunion?”

“Things have a way of working out.” Bokamper nodded toward the bow. “Isn't it time we came about?”

They were well up the bay, heading toward Hospital Cay.

“Better get back to the dock if I'm going to make my date with the general.”

“I'll get the jib sheet.”

“The old Bo would've called it a rope.”

“Easy, Falk. We're still friends.”

He sure hoped so.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
HE SPREAD FOR DINNER
at General Trabert's office was nothing special—beef stew, rice, salad, and a square of yellow sheet cake, all of it straight from the mess hall. Some generals were like that, sharing meals with visitors only when it was the common fare of the enlisted man, as if they ate that way all the time.

“They're doing a better job down at the seaside galley every day, don't you think?” Trabert said.

“The food? It's not bad.”

“When I first got here the men were barely past MREs. Nothing hot unless you heated it yourself. Now they serve three squares a day to more than two thousand soldiers, with no single menu repeating for a three-week period.”

“Maybe they need one of those scoreboards like McDonald's. ‘Millions served.'”

Civilian humor. Not to the general's liking. Falk supposed that raves in the world of the brass about the new soft-serve machine earned as many brownie points as the week's best gleanings from interrogation.

“So tell me what you know,” the general said, wiping his chin with a napkin. “What's the current situation?”

“On Ludwig?”

“We'll get to that. You just spent a few hours with Mr. Bokamper. What's his read on where this team is headed?”

“In terms of arrests?” He wished Trabert would get straight to the point.

“In terms of scope. How deep it's going to go.”

All the way to Havana, he could have said, but he doubted the general would understand.

“Bo's a friend, but he doesn't tell me everything. I get the impression that in some ways he's as much in the dark as the rest of us.”

It was a bureaucrat's response, but it seemed to reassure Trabert. Maybe that was what the general had wanted to hear—that Bo and he were still on the outside. It was impossible to say whose side Trabert was on, or what his agenda was.

“Well, they'll be wrapping up their business inside a week, I hope. We need to clean our stables and move on. I was damned pissed off about Boustani, I can tell you that. That man had our trust, and look what he did with it.”

“Do they really have much on him?”

“He's got some friends back in the States you probably wouldn't be comfortable with. There and elsewhere. That's all I can say right now. How are people reacting?”

The general was a fast eater. He had already moved on to the sheet cake.

“About how you'd expect. A lot of gossip. Some think it's a witch hunt, some that it's the worst thing since Aldrich Ames.”

The general nodded.

“Not good, either way. And your work? It's progressing?”

“I could use a little help. The J-DOG intelligence people took Ludwig's mail before I could get a look at it.”

“My mistake,” Trabert said. “I take full responsibility for that.”

“So you'll speak to them?”

“They wanted me to speak to you, actually. Part of the reason for this dinner. Seems I've gotten some noses bent out of shape. I've decided it would be best for all concerned if you turned over your findings to J-DOG. That way you can be released back to your interrogation duties.”

“Is this a suggestion?”

“An order. Effective immediately. In compensation for the time you've put in on this matter, I'm granting you a three-day leave to the mainland, with my compliments.”

“Is that an order, too?”

“Are you turning down a leave?”

“I was thinking the Bureau might have something to say about it.”

“What you do with your time away from here is up to them. Your time at JTF-Gitmo is my concern. When you return from R and R you'll start with a fresh slate.”

“Who'd I piss off?”

“Like I said, my screwup. We should have handled Ludwig in-house from the get-go. There's a seat for you on tomorrow morning's flight to JAX.”

“Will my furniture be in the street when I get back to Iguana Court?”

“You'll be more welcome than ever around here once the smoke clears. I'd imagine even your friend Bokamper would agree.”

“Did he know about this?”

“This was my decision, Falk. Mine alone. You're to hand over your notes and any other findings on Ludwig to Captain Van Meter by twenty-one hundred.”

Van Meter again. Another finger in another pie. Falk still had plenty of questions, but it was clear the general wasn't in the mood, and there was no food left on his plate. Maybe Trabert had worked out some kind of a deal. Consolidate all the dirty laundry into one tidy sack—the security investigation, Ludwig, the works—as long as everything was cleaned up fast. That way he won, they won, and everybody's new buddy Van Meter kept building his little empire.

Or had Falk's quick trip out of town been engineered by Endler, perhaps, as a backdoor way of making Falk available to meet Paco?

Trabert stood, signaling an end to the evening. Falk's plate was still half full.

“See you on Monday, then, when you can hit the ground at top speed.”

“I'm certainly leaving at top speed.”

The general stood ramrod straight, unsmiling. Falk had to restrain himself from saluting.

         

H
E PHONED
B
O AS SOON AS
he reached the house. He suddenly had a lot to do and little time for doing it, but the only thing he needed more than time was answers. The most onerous chore was his planned visit with Harry. He would have gotten it over with tonight if possible, but by now Harry was at home in Guantánamo City, twenty miles beyond the fenceline. The Cuban commuters arrived in the early morning, so that would be Falk's best opportunity.

He wondered what he would do on this forced leave, especially if there was no rendezvous with Paco. Maybe he would just hang around Jacksonville. Drive to a nearby beach and veg out. He thought fleetingly of catching a flight to Maine. The possibility of a long walk in the woods, alone and out of touch, sounded pretty good right now. It was strange how much he was thinking about home lately. Coming back to Gitmo had been like revisiting a room from his past. This was the first place he had come after leaving Maine and basic training. In a sense he had returned to the threshold of his boyhood, his point of departure, so why not use it as the portal for his return? He wondered if his father was even alive. Surely someone would know where to find him.

But first things first. Bo, fortunately, was easy to reach.

“It seems I've been voted off the island,” Falk said. “General Trabert has magnanimously granted me weekend leave. Not that I had any choice. I'm on the morning flight to JAX. Any idea what he doesn't want me around for?”

“None.”

“Positive?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“Just thought you might have had something to do with it. You or your boss man. Especially if he thinks my old pal wants a face-to-face.” He didn't dare say the names “Harry” or “Paco” on this line, and hoped Bokamper was wise enough to take the same precaution.

“Easy, Falk. I wouldn't set you up like that.”

“Your boss would.”

“Not without telling me. Fowler's a likelier suspect.”

“Why?”

“I guess we'll find out while you're gone. Which reminds me, do you plan on seeing your old friend before you go?”

“Tomorrow before breakfast.”

“Good plan. So what happens with Ludwig while you're away?”

“Case dismissed. I'm to turn over all notes to Van Meter.”

“Mr. Versatility. When do you get back?”

“Monday. Assuming Trabert doesn't have them bump me off the return flight.”

“I wouldn't think the Bureau would like that.”

“They don't like Trabert, either. So it would hardly matter.”

“Well, I would promise to keep you posted by e-mail on anything you're missing, but from down here …”

“Don't even think about it.”

“Speaking of which.”

“I know. We've said enough already.”

“Give me a shout in the morning. After your, uh, ‘breakfast.'”

“Will do.”

His next call was to Pam, who answered on the first ring, as if she'd been waiting. His news got a poor reception.

“So you're throwing me to the wolves? You know, my rating goes up another three points while you're gone.” Falk couldn't help wondering what would happen if she and Bo came face-to-face. As if to allay such worries, she added, “I guess I could use some early nights. Today's been a drain, with all the uproar over Boustani. Everybody else seems to think it's great entertainment, but our team's a man down. They won't even let us have his notebooks. I had to interpret for two other people in addition to my own interrogations. What I'd really like to do tonight is get hammered, but what I need is a good night's sleep.”

Her reference to work shook loose a thought.

“Adnan,” Falk said.

“What?”

“Sorry. You reminded me. I should check in with Adnan before I clear out. Bad enough I haven't touched base since the other night. If I let three more days slip by who knows what he'll think. He's probably already feeling used and abandoned.”

“Join the club. At least he gets a farewell visit.”

“Hey, this isn't my call. Trabert practically ordered me off the base.”

“Remind me not to be sitting with you next time the general walks into the mess hall.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It's a joke. Although I do think you've forgotten the way things work in the military. I have to be more careful about making an impression than you do, that's all. But you're right about Adnan. You need some face time, even if only on the dawn patrol.”

“It'll take more than that. We need a sit-down. As if I didn't have enough to do. Long night ahead.”

“Guess I won't see you 'til breakfast.”

“Not then, either. Got an errand to run.”

“For Trabert?”

“For Bo. Can't go into details.”

She pouted after that, and the conversation didn't end the way he would have liked, only in a lukewarm good-bye that bothered him. He also wondered about her crack about being seen with him by the general. Maybe it was just a joke, but he could only imagine how she would react if she found out he was damaged goods.

He threw his suitcase on the bed, then noticed Ludwig's letters, still lying on the pillow. He was about to tear one open when something told him to slow down, use caution. Maybe it would be better to let Van Meter think he hadn't read them. Whitaker was still at work, so Falk took both letters to the kitchen, filled a teakettle at the sink and turned on the stove. When it began to steam, he held the letters in the jet, working the flaps free without tearing the paper.

It was a familiar routine, not from his days as a special agent—the Bureau had far more sophisticated methods for this kind of chore—but from his childhood. He had become a snoop in his own house, searching for hidden answers when things began to fall apart. As his mother disappeared and his father drifted into uselessness, Falk had watched the notices from the tax men and the bill collectors pile up on the couch, neglected and unopened. So he had steamed them open in an empty house and delved inside, secretly reading the signposts on his family's road to ruin. He had known before anyone else of the coming foreclosure and the tax auction, and also of the letter postmarked in Boston from a defiant wife on the run, vowing never to return. This, by comparison, was nothing. Just another sleuth's trick taken from the playbook of Frank and Joe Hardy at the Deer Isle public library.

He read the personal letter first, jotting down the name of Ludwig's wife, Doris, along with their address in Buxton, then the name of a brother-in-law, Bob, mentioned on the first page. Bob was eager to go fishing next time Ludwig was home, and wanted to know what was biting in the Caribbean. It sounded like Ludwig was at least somewhat comfortable on the water.

Most of the letter was small talk: The tomato plants had blossomed, but the fruit was small and the leaves were curling; the baby's ear infection was better; their daughter, Misty, still missed her daddy; Ed from the bank had called and said he would be in touch; that nice widower Mr. Williams from down the street had died and left everything to his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Packard, who for the moment was still married; a new Sam's Club was opening on the bypass, thank goodness, twenty miles closer than the one in Revell. Four pages later Falk slipped the pages back into the envelope, then smoothed down the flap. It opened back up, of course, and he had nothing with which to reseal it. So much for old tricks.

He considered leaving the letter from the bank untouched. But something about the first letter's reference to “Ed from the bank” nagged at him. He pulled it back out.

“Ed from the bank called to get in touch, so I gave him your address and he'll be writing. It's about business.”

Wouldn't the bank have had his address already? This sounded more like a veiled warning than news, so he pulled the letter from the second envelope.

It looked official enough, typed and single-spaced, with the “Farmers Federal” letterhead across the top. The writer was branch vice president Ed Sample, a lordly title for a fellow who probably outranked only a handful of tellers and loan officers. The first part was boilerplate. Hope you are well, business has been steady, blah-blah. The rest was odd, to say the least.

“I am still wondering exactly what to do about the wire transfers you authorized last week involving the banks in Peru and the Caymans. I have placed a ten-day hold on the transactions pending your further instructions. Please advise.”

Then, back to the boilerplate, as if the query about the transfers had been the sort of thing that any banker in rural Michigan might ask about. Mentioning “Peru,” “Caymans,” and “wire transfer” in the same breath was like waving a red flag to banking regulators and the Drug Enforcement Administration. In a game of word association the answer would be “cocaine money.” It would take balls to authorize something like that from anywhere, but to do it from Gitmo seemed foolhardy in the extreme.