Afraid of the Dark

Chapter Nineteen

On Monday evening Jack got his first taste of Somali cuisine. It was at Cafe Nema-in Washington, D.C.

Proving that Jamal had been held at a secret detention center in Prague was step two of the alibi defense. Step one was proving that a facility had ever existed in the Czech Republic in the first place-an even bigger hurdle. The defense team needed a heavy hitter, and it was Neil who had arranged for them to meet with Stan Haber, a corporate litigator who believed that everyone deserved a lawyer. That belief wasn’t incompatible with profit: Over the years, Haber and his powerful Washington firm had logged thousands of billable hours trying to convince juries that Big Tobacco didn’t know cigarettes were addictive. Lately, he’d spent his time defending Gitmo detainees free of charge.

“Who ordered the sambousa with basmati rice pilaf?” the waitress asked.

Flaky fried triangles of dough filled with curried vegetables weren’t exactly exotic, but Cafe Nema was more about the experience. At the basement level, a few steps below U Street, the dimly lit room was ripe for conversation, a cozy mix of foreign ex-pats and hip U-Streeters. Battered brick walls displayed a collage of brightly colored oil paintings, and a large Somali flag hung on a section painted fire-engine red. Photos of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington hung above the worn wooden bar, where counter and stools bore the nicks, scratches, and other badges of use. Older men spoke French and Arabic, savoring plates of kibeh (a torpedo-shaped pastry filled with beef and onions). Students from nearby Howard University gathered at tables to kibitz or send text messages from their cell phones. Jazz music set the mood without interfering with the buzz of voices.

“Sambousa is mine,” said Jack.

The waitress served the platters and quickly brought another round of beers. Neil steered the conversation back toward business.

“Stan has been on top of black detention sites ever since the Washington Post broke the story in 2005.”

Jack already knew all that, but Neil’s brief segue was all the encouragement Haber needed to remind them that he had been among the first volunteers to visit Guantanamo, and that he’d played a key role in securing the game-changing decision of the Supreme Court that detainees must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

“Obviously, we’d love to have someone like you on board,” said Jack. “But here’s my concern. Our job is to get Jamal acquitted on charges of first degree murder. Nothing more. I don’t want to turn his case into a foreign-policy battle where my client is collateral damage in a war against the CIA.”

“Then you’re dreaming,” said Haber. “The CIA doesn’t care why you want the information. You want to prove that secret detention sites existed in Eastern Europe-something the United States and every Eastern European country has denied for years. Even the Red Cross had to push for five years to get access to the detainees, and they still didn’t get information about all the black sites.”

“Are you saying you can’t help us?” asked Neil.

Haber emptied his beer bottle into a tall glass. “When you represent a detainee from a black site, you’re fighting every step of the way for information that the CIA does not want to be made public. My client is a good example. Mohammed was thrown into the back of a van by a group of strongmen who wore black outfits, masks that covered their faces, and dark visors over their eyes-probably commandos attached to the CIA’s paramilitary Special Activities Division. He was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location. It’s the beginning of a process designed to strip the detainee of any dignity.”

“Sounds like what Jamal described,” said Jack.

“Disorientation is also a big part of it. For my client it was twenty days in a pitch-black cell with Eminem’s ‘Slim Shady’ and Dr. Dre blaring nonstop. Then it was day after day of ghoulish Halloween sounds, always in total darkness, always in solitary confinement. They’d chain him to the ceiling hanging by his wrists so that his toes could barely touch the ground, then they’d bring him down for waterboarding. He spent hours in something called a dog box, which, as the name, implies isn’t big enough for a human being. These are all tactics that were used effectively by the KGB, but you have to remember that the KGB was interested in securing false confessions to crimes against the state, not the gathering of reliable intelligence. It got to the point where my client tried to kill himself by running his head into the wall. Didn’t work. He just knocked himself unconscious.”

“He’s probably much better at flying airplanes into buildings,” said Jack-and he’d shocked himself, the words having come like a reflex.

“Whoa,” said Neil.

Jack’s mouth opened, but the explanation was on a slight delay, as if his brain needed extra time to process what was going on. “It’s not that I make light of torture,” he said, still trying to comprehend. “I just… I think I had an Andie moment.”

“A what?”

“My fiancee,” said Jack. “She’s an FBI agent. You kept going on and on about the treatment at these black sites, and suddenly I could almost hear Andie whispering into my ear: ‘Before you get all ACLU on me, remember what most of these guys would do if given the chance.’ ”

The other men exchanged glances, and Neil tried to lighten things up. “These things happen with Jack. Not many guys spend four years at the Freedom Institute before jumping ship to be a federal prosecutor.”

“Ah, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, are you?” said Haber.

“A sheep in wolf’s clothing, if you ask my fiancee. I lasted only two years at the U.S. attorney’s office.”

Haber drank from his beer and nodded. “I guess none of us is easy to figure out. Look at Neil and me: a couple of Jews defending Islamic extremists.”

“Funny, Grandpa Swyteck said the same thing about me.”

Haber looked confused again, so Jack explained. “Since getting Alzheimer’s, my grandfather thinks that he’s Jewish.”

“Where’s he from?”

“Chicago. Both of his parents were born in Bohemia. Somewhere around Prague.”

“Are there any Czech Jews named Swyteck?” asked Haber.

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “The name is another one of those Ellis Island disasters.”

“For your grandfather to be Jewish, it really matters what his mother was.”

“Her maiden name was Petrak,” said Jack, “which I checked out on the Internet. It means ‘Peter the Rock’-as in the Apostle Peter being the first pope, the rock upon which Christ founded his church.”

“That doesn’t sound too Jewish,” said Haber.

“You never know,” said Neil. “A lot of Eastern European Jews had good reason to assume a gentile surname, even before the Nazis. How do you think Goldsmith became Goderich?”

Jack hadn’t thought of that.

Haber said, “Maybe someday you’ll want to go to Prague to check it out.”

“And while you’re there, look for black sites,” said Neil.

“Don’t waste your time,” said Haber, his expression turning serious. “Even former detainees can’t locate them. About the only thing my client could tell me about the one in Kabul was that it was underground and close to the airport. Everything else was nondescript or utterly black. The place was known for its absolute lack of light. Detainees even called it the Dark Prison.”

Jack froze.

Haber looked at him curiously. “Did I say something wrong?”

“The Dark Prison?” said Jack.

“Yeah, why?” said Haber. “Does that strike you as particularly inventive?”

“Inventive, no. But incredibly coincidental.”

Jack told him about the informant he was supposed to have met at the Lincoln Mall on Saturday night, the man falling over dead, and the handwritten message Jack found on the napkin when he returned to his table.

“ ‘Are you afraid of The Dark?’ was what he wrote,” Jack said. “It was a curious message. And I thought it was interesting that the T and the D were both capitalized.”

Jack looked around the table, and suddenly it was as if the wheels in their heads were all turning in the same direction.

“But why would you be afraid of a secret prison in Kabul?” asked Haber.

Jack thought for a moment. “Maybe it wasn’t actually directed at me. Maybe the threat was intended for someone else-someone who’s sure to read it and who has reason to be afraid.”

“Afraid of what might become public about the black sites,” said Neil, “like the Dark Prison.”

“Or afraid of the things he had done there,” said Jack.

“You mean afraid of being held accountable for what he’s done,” said Neil.

“That may be,” said Jack. “But people who inflict torture on other human beings-especially under orders-can pay a heavy psychological price. Being afraid of the dark could be, as you say, the fear of criminal prosecution. But it could also be the nightmares that haunt them for having crossed the line-for having literally and figuratively traveled to such a dark place.”

Laughter drifted over from the old men drinking large cups of kahawa at the bar, the smell of freshly ground beans in the air. Finally, Neil spoke up.

“Well, gentlemen, that’s one more thing to look into.”

“One more thing,” said Jack, his gaze drifting across the room and coming to rest on the Somali flag hanging on the wall. “Just what we needed.”