Extraordinary Rendition

35

KHALID HUSSEIN SAW THE six black Chevy SUVs, all unmarked but somehow unmistakably police vehicles, as they parked at the rear gate of the mosque. Two of the cars blocked the exit to Raymond Boulevard. At least fifteen men stepped out of the vehicles, several of them in blue blazers, others in jackets with the words “Homeland Security” or the letters “FBI” on the back. Other men in Army-style uniforms, wearing vests and carrying rifles, suddenly appeared from the rear door of an unmarked van.

Khalid Hussein turned from the window, started to run down the gleaming hallway toward the Imam’s office, and stopped. He simply waited. There was no time to do anything. Within seconds, the men carrying M-16s were in the hallway.

“On the ground. Face down. On the ground. Now. Fast, fast.”

Slowly, Khalid Hussein fell to his knees, instinctively raising his hands in front of him to show he had nothing in them.

“Fast, fast, down, down,” a single commanding voice shouted.

As soon as he was on the floor, his arms spread out in front of him, he felt the painful push and pressure of boots on his back. Powerful hands reached down to pull his hands backward and lock plastic handcuffs tightly on his wrists.

Tom Nashatka knew from surveillance that, by this time of the morning, the Imam had finished his prayers and was in the windowless inner office. The thickly padded door to that office was locked. Nashatka pounded on the door with the palm of his hand, but the padding absorbed the strikes as though he were punching a mattress.

He signaled to one of the armed agents, a black man with the size and presence of one of Tom’s drill sergeants when he was a Navy Seal. Intense and perspiring even on this cold day, the man hit the doorknob with the stock of his M-16 rifle. Struck only once, the doorknob fell off.

As planned, two of the armed men entered the Imam’s sanctuary before Tom did. The Imam, smaller and more slender than Nashatka had expected, stood up calmly. In English, he said, “Who are you?”

Nashatka shouted, “Down, get down, get down. Now.” He and Hurd had decided before this raid that they would treat the Imam just as they would treat anyone else who was in a building during the execution of a search warrant. They would apply shock and awe.

For a moment, the Imam remained on his knees, plainly defiant. Tom pushed him face down. The Imam’s glasses fell to his side, and a booted foot crushed them as one of Tom’s crew members fastened plastic handcuffs to the man’s wrists.

As soon as he learned that only two people were in the mosque, Tom sent a signal to the outside that the building was secure. Armed officers pulled Khalid and the Imam, still handcuffed, to separate rooms; they were forced to sit on the floor. Each was guarded by three armed men.

By that point, more than twenty men and women in wind-breakers stamped with “Police” in big lettering fanned out through the entire building. At the apex of the central dome was a curved skylight, and from it stark light filled all the circular hallways. Because of that light, and even though it was early morning, every object in the building was vividly illuminated.

They worked like archaeologists at a new site. Wearing latex gloves, they sifted everything-religious artifacts, teapots, desks, papers. The search warrant Justin Goldberg had signed gave them permission “to seize and take all records, including bank statements, ledgers, and account books, that related in any way to financial transactions.” The warrant broadened the scope of records to include all computers and all “devices for the electronic collection and transmission of information.” The warrant also gave them authority to seize all weapons of any kind. And the warrant directed them to seize and take all religious texts, defining “texts” to include the Koran, the Upanishads, the Bible, and handwritten sermons, “among other things,” that expansive catch-all that essentially let Nashatka and his agents take anything they wanted.

For Tom Nashatka, the highest, most exciting moments in a search were at the start, the instant of entry, the adrenaline high of not knowing who was just on the other side of the door and what their reaction might be. He loved the sense of danger, as well as the intense solidarity among him and the armed men, and sometimes women, in his crew.

After the entry and lockdown, the rest of the search was, for Tom, a long ritual of watching the agents collect things, write down a shorthand description of each item, place hospital-style plastic identification tags on them, and store them in big cardboard boxes. There were hundreds of boxes, all neatly stacked. From time to time, someone approached Tom with something-a document or an ornament or a piece of clothing-to ask whether it should be taken. Tom’s crews liked him. He had a standard joke line whenever they asked the question, “Should we take this?” He always answered, “Falls within the scope of the subpoena. Toilet paper falls within the scope of the subpoena. Put it on the inventory sheet and crate it.”

At noon, jackhammers began to destroy the colorful inlaid tile on the floor beneath the towering skylight in the mosque’s central hall. Translucent columns of dusty debris rose to the skylight like smoke. Within three minutes, the excavation uncovered the tops of coffin-sized metal containers. They were located exactly where Tom Nashatka had been told to expect them. They were brought to the surface by winches and cataloged by Nashatka himself on the inventory sheet. Three tin boxes.