Extraordinary Rendition

41

IT ARRIVED IN A tidy Amazon box as if packaged and sent by Amazon itself. The look of the box, Byron thought, was a miracle of counterfeiting. It appeared to hold two hardcover books.

Byron Johnson was endlessly amazed by the Internet. When he randomly typed in the words “Army Service Pistol” three days earlier, he hadn’t anticipated that there would be entry after entry describing the history of the Colt pistol and offering them for sale as if they were books.

It was a gorgeous object. Nestled in a soft foam setting shaped to its contours, the pistol was new. Its surface was highly polished. As if it were a perfectly crafted Swiss watch, he lifted it carefully from the box, turned it, and looked at it from every angle.

He lifted the Styrofoam case in which the Colt had been lodged.

Beneath the pistol-shaped indentation was a shoulder holster. He held the holster in front of him, spreading it out, admiring it. The leather was lustrous and new, as finely made in its own way as the burnished steel of the pistol. The odor of the new leather was rich.

There was a last layer in the box, like those colorful Russian eggs within identical eggs, the sizes steadily diminishing. There were two ammunition clips. Byron locked one of the clips into the Colt.

He put on the holster, draping it around his left shoulder like a surplice. He adjusted the straps. He smelled the leather. As soon as the holster was secure, he slipped the Colt into it. When he put on a suit jacket, he saw as he looked at himself in the mirror that the bulge was obvious, but, he thought, who would know? He tried on his overcoats-the expensive clothes from Paul Stuart on Madison Avenue that were the still-formidable remnants of his former life. The bulge wasn’t visible. Nor was it visible under the suede jacket he had worn on the weekends for several winters.

He continued wearing the holster for another hour as he concentrated again on the intense writing that engaged him. It was more of a narrative than a legal brief. He didn’t go through the process of inserting citations to decisions and statutes that supported legal writing like studs riveted into the sturdy beams of his arguments. He had realized since Simeon died, and particularly since Christina’s body had been found on the icy rocks of the Maine coast, that the legal brief he had written for Justin Goldberg elaborating the reasons Ali Hussein’s prosecution should be ended-arguments based on torture, abuse of any concept of due process, the opposing lawyers’ lies and deceptions-might never see the light of day. Goldberg had required that it be sealed and not filed on the court’s new electronic docket. Unlike the hundreds of thousands of other federal cases around the country, the computerized docket for United States of America v. Ali Hussein revealed only the name and docket number of the case, the name of the judge, and the name of the prosecutor. Not even Byron’s name. And the grid on the computer screen that was ordinarily filled with consecutive numbers and dates for each filing-and in some cases in which Byron had been involved, there were more than a thousand separate entries-was blank, a modern tabula rasa. National security material.

No trace of the written record of the case might survive, as though the written words might be submerged forever. “This is my tablet, this is what happened.” He intended to write those words on the copies of the story he planned to send to his sons, to reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post, and to the immense universe of the Internet.

When he rose up from the desk, he stapled the pages he had written that night. He slipped the pages into a manila envelope. He cut his index finger on the envelope’s sharp metal clasp. A faint bloodstain was left on the envelope, which he dropped just behind the door of his apartment so that, in the morning, he could take it to the safe deposit at the bank on Lespenard Street, where the clerks appeared unfazed by his frequent visits; they were either indifferent or discreet. He looked like a courtly, important customer, always well-dressed, always courteous.

Byron knew these things could be taken from the safe deposit box, just as he had learned months ago that all of his diaries, bank statements, and tax returns had been removed from his office, just as his notes on the Koran given to him by Ali Hussein and the now-imprisoned Imam in Newark had been taken, just as the world he had created on his computer had been removed, just as the millions of dollars that fleetingly appeared in his bank account had been taken.

And just as the woman he loved had been taken.

And, finally, just as his place in the world had been taken.

As he gazed from his window at the cobblestones of the cold, wind-blown street, deserted except for a few parked cars on a frigid night in winter, he ran through a list of probable takers: Sandy Spencer, who had disappeared from his life as if Byron were a leper; Khalid Hussein, who Byron first believed was a tough but loving brother; the Imam, who looked like a caricature of a Muslim holy man; Jesse Ventura, whose scary intelligence was revealed in his eyes. Or Christina Rosario, whose presence, touch, smell, and energy had made him feel vital and loved.

And Byron Carlos Johnson thought: What have I stolen from myself?

When he stepped back from the window, he saw the elegant image of himself in the glass. He saw, too, the dark, disfiguring bulk of the holster and pistol draped like a hump over his shoulder and left chest.

What the Christ am I thinking?

He removed the holster and pistol. He put on an overcoat and hat. He went out into the frigid streets with the holster and gun in a knapsack Christina had left in the apartment. As he approached the Hudson River, the wind, bred in Canada and sweeping across the vast country, flowed in an icy torrent from the New Jersey Palisades. It took his breath away.

Byron walked to the end of one of the derelict piers. With the knapsack in his right hand, he turned like an Olympic hammer thrower and sent it into the powerful black waters of the river. He wanted to expose himself naked to the danger he sensed everywhere in his world.