Extraordinary Rendition

45

THE METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER was attached by sealed walkways, floor-by-floor, like conjoined twins, to the United States Attorney’s Office at One St. Andrew’s Plaza. Both buildings were surrounded by the narrow streets that bristled with concrete barricades, walls, and the steel mechanisms like shark jaws that would shred tires to pieces when they were open.

The entrance to the MDC was grim. Visitors had to pass through four separate stations, each of them with increasing severity. At the first, Byron Johnson had to display two forms of picture identification and surrender them in exchange for a brass chit. Like all other visitors, he had to turn in his cell phone, his watch, and his belt. At the next station, he had to put his briefcase, shoes, keys, coins, and wallet in plastic trays before they moved on a belt through a scanner. Barefoot, he had to walk through an electronic arch. At the last station, a guard passed a wand around his body, including the space under his testicles.

After months of regularly visiting Ali Hussein, Byron was patient through the whole process. The guards knew him. They were courteous. They knew his name. He knew some of their names. For some reason, Byron had always carried a card identifying him as a former captain in the US Army, and word of that had spread to some of the guards. That eased, to some extent, the way they treated him.

Before he could enter the hallways and elevators of the prison, he had to write in an old-fashioned log his own name and the purpose of the visit. Byron Johnson. Attorney-client visit. In theory, a lawyer could gain entry to the prison and visit a client any time of the day or night on any day of the year. In practice, if a lawyer made a visit after ordinary daytime hours, he or she could wait in this sign-in area for an hour before a guard appeared to escort him.

After Byron wrote his name and the purpose of his visit, a guard whom Byron had never seen said, “Mr. Johnson, could you step over here with me?”

Byron followed him to a group of unoccupied plastic chairs. In his mid-fifties, well-dressed and overly polite, the man, whose name tag was etched with the name “Medina,” said, “Mr. Johnson, I’m afraid you won’t be able to see your client.”

“What’s wrong?” Byron tried to control his voice, but fear had reduced it, like a dried reed, to a rasping sound. For a terrifying moment, Byron was convinced that he was being arrested and that the time had come when he, too, would be taken out of the world and consigned to the fear, isolation, and stress of long-term imprisonment.

“He’s no longer in the facility.”

“Say that again?”

“He’s been removed.

“Who did that?”

“Assigned personnel.”

“When?”

“Not long ago, Mr. Johnson.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have that information, sir.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t have that information either, Mr. Johnson.”

“Who do you report to?”

“I can’t tell you that, Mr. Johnson. My job was to tell you that this guy is no longer here.”

As soon as he reached his apartment, Byron Johnson called Rodney Smith at CNN. Smith was a handsome, hard-working man who, three months earlier, had become the anchor of the CNN news show that ran from three to five in the afternoon. Over the last few weeks, Smith personally-and not one his assistants-had contacted Byron several times. Many of Rod’s questions were about Simeon Black. Byron sometimes felt that Rod, who had started his career as a serious print journalist at the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, was interested in learning details about a journalist he admired and with whom Byron was connected, like a young baseball player asking questions of older managers about Johnny Bench to learn more about the master. Simeon had spent little time with other journalists and writers. He was a worker in the vineyards of information for his articles and never believed he was going to get the facts he needed from other writers. He got facts from people who were witnesses. Byron Johnson was a witness.

But Rodney Smith was also interested in what Byron knew, saw, and heard. He was one of the journalists at Byron’s press conference at the Harvard Club. He had CNN run excerpts of the video of Ali Hussein being forced under water in a bathroom in some country somewhere in the world. Other networks, less willing to display brutal conduct by people who were obviously American, broadcast tamer portions of the video.

The full video, which clearly showed Andrew Hurd and Tom Nashatka in the room and managing the men who held and pushed Ali Hussein, had quickly made its way onto YouTube. It had achieved viral status. So had Byron Johnson. He appeared on the most of the Internet postings with his image and words as filmed when he introduced the video.

Rod had several times invited Byron to appear on his show for an interview. He was impressed by Byron’s steadiness, his handsome presence, that attractive combination of a classic WASP face and the black eyes of his Mexican mother. Byron had declined to do the on-camera interviews, but he had given Rod details about Simeon Black’s work and his own dealings with Ali Hussein, the man invisible to the outside world, and the hidden process of the criminal case.

Rod Smith, who had given his private cell phone number to Byron, immediately took the call. “Byron, how are you?”

“I have some news for you.”

“Yes?”

“Ali Hussein is gone.”

“As in?”

“The government has removed him from the country. It’s called extraordinary rendition.”

“How do you know that?”

“I went to see him. I was told he was no longer there. I called the prosecutor. In fact, I bypassed the people I’ve been dealing with and contacted the U.S. Attorney himself. And he told me that Ali had been returned to administrative detention.”

Rod Smith was an experienced journalist-there was a restrained edge of excitement in his tone. “Does anyone else know this?”

“No.”

“Can I get you to come up here?”

“This time, for sure. I am the lawyer for a man who has been made to disappear.”

“We can send a car down for you.”

“No, I’ll take that great limousine in the ground. I need to concentrate my thinking.”

“Get here, if you can, Byron, in an hour. You know where we are?”

“I know-Columbus Circle.”

“Check in with security. We’ll let them know.”

“Fair enough.”

“Byron, thanks for this.”