Extraordinary Rendition

21

“AND EXPLAIN THAT TO the Grand Jury, Agent Hurd, what these numbers mean?”

Andrew Hurd used the small silver wand to project a narrow, precise beam of light at the rows of numbers displayed on the big white chart. “These are numbers that our experts have told us are, and in some cases were, actual bank account numbers at banks in the US, Iceland, Ireland, London, Yemen, and Venezuela.”

“How did you and your agents develop these numbers?” Hamerindapal Rana asked.

“Over time, a pattern emerged that correlated to the book, chapter, and verse numbers of the passages from the Koran that the prisoner was giving to Byron Johnson for transmittal to people outside the prison.”

It had been years since Rana had presented a witness to a grand jury. That work was almost invariably done by younger and less experienced lawyers because it was easy to question witnesses who were in front of a grand jury. No judge was present to supervise what was happening; there were no defense lawyers and no spectators in the courtroom. For centuries, the process of presenting witnesses and evidence to the grand jury was secret, and the secrecy and the absence of any critical eyes made the job a vehicle for the training of young lawyers. The twenty-four people who now sat in the sealed courtroom had been gathering once a week for many months, and Rana and the other government lawyers who were managing the grand jury had come to know the members by name, to joke and banter with them, and even to ask some of them how their children were. Something verging on workplace camaraderie had developed over time. There were coffee cups everywhere after just a few minutes together.

Even though this was easy work, and despite the relaxed relationship he had developed with almost all the people in the courtroom, it still irked Hal Rana that Hurd had insisted that he and not some junior lawyer in the prosecutor’s office ask the prepared questions and listen to the scripted answers. But in all his fifteen years in the Justice Department, he had never had to deal with an agent with as much authority, influence, and power as Andrew Hurd. Every other investigating agent in the FBI, the Secret Service, and the NSC and those elite officers in the criminal enforcement division of the Postal Service were subservient to attorneys at Hal Rana’s level. Not so Hurd. Hurd spoke, you jumped.

“What can you tell the grand jurors about these numbers?”

“Our experts call them ideograms. They’re drawn from innocuous, sometimes mundane and unpredictable sources. They could be the sequence of numbers you see etched in black on cereal containers. Or barcodes on a magazine cover. We have seen those numbers used to provide guides to counterfeit hundred dollar bills, for example. It’s a matter of detecting a pattern.”

“What was the pattern here?”

“During our monitoring of the detainee Hussein we noticed that he had developed a special attachment to the Koran, which is organized with a fairly elaborate set of numbers-both Arabic and Roman numeral-for its books, chapters, and verses. We had some information on the detainee that in the late 1990s and early 2000s he’d become a wizard at collecting cash, money orders, and cashier checks from various sources-such as cash collections at mosques, check-cashing stores, independent benefactors, and others-and then channeling enormous quantities of cash through domestic and foreign banks and money transfer companies. He was not at that time particularly devoted to the Koran, in the religious sense, although our informants told us he was skilled at quoting certain passages. And he has a prodigious memory for numbers and an uncanny aptitude for mathematics. He’s also, we believe, a zealot, a jihadist in a suit.”

Hal Rana asked, because Hurd gave him a cue to do so, “What was it about those passages?”

“The Koran has coherent, cohesive messages that to the initiated and to the students of the text form patterns of meaning and storytelling. They appear in scattered sections of the text. This is because the Koran was written by many people and minds over a period of years, much as the New Testament was.”

“And?”

“And Ali Hussein’s study of the Koran could never lead to an integrated understanding of these themes. He was a dabbler, not a scholar. It takes years of study to draw the religious themes together. But he does know numbers.”

“How do you know that?”

“Through an informant.”

One of the grand jurors, a thin, sarcastic, spunky woman with orange hair, raised her hand to get attention and asked, “And who was that informant?”

Hurd, through a glance from his blue eyes, conveyed the message no to Rana, who said: “That’s not information you need to know.”

Rana was hard-working, devoted to his cases and the Justice Department, intelligent, and experienced, but he was not the kind of lawyer who could make people on juries like him. It may have been his height, his turban, or the overly formal manner he had developed at the English language schools he attended in Sri Lanka. That was a problem when he was involved in an actual jury trial, and he knew that he’d never succeeded in developing the appealing style of the best trial lawyers. But there was a difference between an actual jury trial and a grand jury. In a grand jury room, it didn’t matter whether there were people who were put off, offended, or antagonized by his style, words, glances, or gestures, or people who were instinctively biased against his race and origin. In his years as a prosecutor, he had never known a grand jury not to indict someone when he asked for an indictment. Unhappy with the rebuff of Rana’s refusal to answer her question, the sardonic woman who had raised her hand gave him a look as if to say, Come off it, Hal.

“What else,” Hal Rana asked, “has this informant told you?”

“That the detainee Hussein is communicating with outside people to alert them as to what accounts and in what countries money is located.”

“Isn’t it true, Agent Hurd, that Hussein is held in solitary confinement?”

“He is.”

“For how long?”

“Years. He’s a dangerous, very high-value prisoner.”

“Why is he dangerous? Is he violent?”

“Not personally. He is a small man. He’s had no training with weapons or martial arts. He’s dangerous, and important, because of what he knows.”

“What does it mean to be in solitary confinement?”

“In Hussein’s case, he is never allowed among other prisoners. Food is brought to him. He has a cot, a wash basin, a toilet. He has one book, the Koran. Three times a week he is allowed to walk fifteen feet to a shower room. He’s accompanied by three guards when he does that. He’s observed while showering.”

“Is he allowed to exercise?”

“Not in the prison gym. He can exercise if he wishes in his cell. There is room for sit-ups, push-ups, isometric exercises, things like that. He is not a very athletic man.”

“Can he have conversations?”

“He can speak to the guards. He doesn’t avail himself of that privilege.”

“Does he have visitors?”

“Only his lawyer.”

“Does he have more than one lawyer?”

“Only one.”

“And is that Byron Carlos Johnson?”

“It is.”

“Do they meet in his cell?”

“No, never.”

“Where?”

“A special room is reserved for them when they meet.”

“Is anyone else present when they meet?”

“No. It would violate the attorney-client privilege if someone else could hear what they were saying to each other. So the guard stands on the other side of the closed door. There is a large window in that door through which the guard can observe.”

“Why?”

“Several reasons. The prisoner cannot give anything to Mr. Johnson. Not a piece of paper, not an article of clothing. They can’t even shake hands.”

“What else?”

“Mr. Johnson can’t give anything to the prisoner.”

“Can Mr. Johnson have paper?”

“Sure. And pens. He always makes notes.”

“And he can take those away with him, correct?”

“Sure.”

“What does Johnson do with those notes?”

“We don’t know everything, but we do know that after his meetings with Hussein he contacts another person, sometimes in person and sometimes by cell phone.”

“Who is that person?”

“A man named Khalid Hussein. A Syrian immigrant who owns a big trucking company in New Jersey.”

“Do you know anything else about Khalid Hussein?”

“He claims to be Ali Hussein’s brother.”

“Is he?”

“No.”

“Does Johnson know that?”

“He has reason to suspect that they’re not brothers.”

“Why?”

“Khalid Hussein looks as much like Ali Hussein as Cinderella looks like Mike Tyson.”

Laughter swept the room. When it subsided, Hal Rana-focusing again on how surprising and erratic Hurd could be-asked, “What do they say to each other?”

“Johnson reads the Koran’s book, chapter, and verse numbers to him, saying that they are the sections of the Koran that Ali Hussein has been studying.”

“What does Khalid Hussein say to Johnson?”

“He reads out book, chapter, and verse numbers to Johnson. He says they are from the Imam, part of the religious education of Ali Hussein.”

“How often do Johnson and Khalid Hussein speak?”

“As often as Johnson visits the prisoner.”

“How do you know these conversations between Johnson and Khalid Hussein happen?”

“A federal judge authorized us to wiretap and intercept Mr. Johnson’s conversations with Khalid Hussein. We’re also authorized to intercept his emails and other electronic communications.”

“Does Johnson know that?”

“No. The interceptions are secret.”

“Why are Mr. Johnson’s conversations being monitored?”

“Because we believe he’s involved in a conspiracy to pass messages from Ali Hussein to the Imam.”

“What’s the purpose?”

“We think to assist terrorist organizations to locate millions of dollars of cash in secret accounts around the world.”

There was a broad plaza outside the grim, fortress-like building that housed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in lower Manhattan. At one side of the plaza was St. Andrew’s Church. Across from the attractive brick church was the Municipal Building, and next to the church was the old federal courthouse. Scattered over the plaza were food trucks with open sides through which an astonishing variety of foods was served: Italian sandwiches, falafel, Chinese food, pastries. There were metal chairs and tables all over the plaza, and in the summer umbrellas made the outdoor space colorful. For more than fifteen years, through hundreds of different cases and investigations and trials, Hal Rana had often treated the plaza as his outdoor office. He had met there with other lawyers, government witnesses, Secret Service agents, and even journalists.

Hal Rana didn’t enjoy seeing or speaking with Andrew Hurd. In the months they had been dealing with each other, Hurd had never asked him whether he was married or had children or whether he played or was interested in sports. For his part, Hal was profoundly wary of Hurd. Although he had trained himself to make few assumptions about other people, he was certain that Hurd harbored contempt for him because of his background and his manners-once he had overheard Hurd refer to him as a “towelhead.”

The session in front of the grand jury had made Hal Rana even more uneasy than the earlier sessions Hurd had attended. On those days when Hurd was himself a witness, Rana didn’t like the instructions Hurd gave him as to what to ask and what answers to elicit.

And it troubled Hal Rana that he had participated with Hurd in lying to the grand jury that morning.

“What next, Mr. Hurd?” There was an edgy, impatient contempt in his tone. He knew his voice had adopted that haughty inflection of a British aristocrat.

“You cut a grand jury subpoena for Christina Rosario.”

“Who is Christina Rosario?”

“She’s Byron Johnson’s girlfriend.”

“What do you think she knows?”

A slim Latino man with a gold stud through his left nostril put a slice of pizza on the table at which Hal Rana and Andrew Hurd sat. The plaza was crowded, and there were only a few open seats.

“Hey, fella,” Andrew Hurd said.

The man, his hand on the metal chair as he prepared to sit, looked surprised. “Excuse me?”

“You can’t sit here.”

Hal wondered what the source of Andrew Hurd’s personal power was. He had an unnerving way of looking right into people’s eyes. He wore gray suits even in hot weather; he had a mustache. He was, simply, different, in an old-fashioned, authoritative way. The slender man picked up the paper plate that the slice of pizza had already drenched and walked away.

Hal Rana repeated: “And what does she know?”

“She knows what I tell her she knows.”

Hal paused, looking out at the colorful lunchtime crowd in the sunny plaza. A hot breeze blew, stirring fragments of paper and plastic cups. “You know, Mr. Hurd, it’s one thing to ask me to have a government agent-you-mislead a Grand Jury. It’s another thing for me to put a civilian witness in the room if I’ve got a reason to believe she’s lying.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Rana. That won’t be a problem.”

“Why?”

“She works for me.”