Locked On

23

Sixty-one-year-old Judith Cochrane’s rental car came with in-dash GPS, but she did not set it for the forty-mile drive down from Colorado Springs. She knew the way to 5880 State Highway 67, as she had been here many times to visit her clients.

Her rented Chrysler pulled off South Robinson Avenue, and she stopped at the first gate of ADX Florence. The guards knew her by sight but still they looked over her documents and identification carefully before letting her pass.

It wasn’t easy for an attorney to see a client at Florence; it was harder still for an attorney to see a client housed in H Unit, and a Range 13 client was nigh on impossible to meet with face-to-face. Cochrane and the Progressive Constitution Initiative were in the later stages of drafting a lawsuit to address this issue, but for now she had to play by the rules of supermax.

As one of the most regular visitors to ADX Florence, Judith had come prepared. She would carry a purse with nothing of value in it because she would have to leave it in a locker, and she would not bother entering with her laptop or cell phone, because these would be taken from her immediately if they were on her person. She knew to wear comfortable shoes because she would be walking from the administration unit to her prisoner’s cell, a journey of hundreds of yards of hallways and covered outdoor walkways, and she made sure to dress in an especially conservative pantsuit so that the warden would not refuse her entry due to the preposterous accusation of provocative attire.

She also knew she’d be going through X-ray machines and full-body scanners, so she followed prison rules for visitors and wore a bra that was free of underwire.

She drove on past the guard shack, past a long, high wall. She looped around to the south and went through more remote gates, and as she drove slowly she encountered more guard towers, shotguns, assault rifles, German shepherds, and security cameras than she could possibly count. Finally she pulled into a large, half-empty parking lot outside the administration wing. Behind her, at the entrance to the lot, a row of bright yellow hydraulically operated spikes rose from slats in the concrete. She would not be leaving until the guard force here was ready for her to leave.

Judith Cochrane was met at her car door by a female guard, and together they walked through a series of secure doors and hallways in the administrative wing of the prison. There was no conversation between the two, and the guard did not offer to help the much older woman carry her briefcase or pull her laptop bag.

“Lovely morning,” Judith Cochrane said as they marched down a clean white passageway.

The guard ignored her comment but continued to lead the way with professionalism.

Most guards at ADX Florence didn’t think much of the attorneys who defended the prisoners incarcerated here.

Cochrane didn’t care, she could schlep her own bags, and she’d long ago decided that she much preferred the company of the inmates of supermax prisons to the guard force, who were, as far as she was concerned, just uneducated thugs.

Her worldview was as bleak and cruel as it was simple. Prison guards were like soldiers who were like police who were like any federal agent who wielded a gun. They were the bad guys.

After graduating and passing the bar in California, Judith Cochrane was hired by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group that focused on civil rights.

After that, she worked for the ACLU for a dozen years, and then Human Rights Watch for several more. When Paul Laska funded the development of the Progressive Constitution Initiative, he’d recruited her personally to join the well-bankrolled liberal judicial advocacy group. He didn’t have to work too hard at getting her; Cochrane was thrilled to take a job that let her pick and choose her cases. Almost immediately after the start-up of the organization, the attacks of September 11, 2001, occurred, and to Judith Cochrane and her coworkers, that meant something truly terrible. She knew a witch hunt by the American government was on the horizon: Christians and Jews against Muslims.

For more than half a decade Cochrane was asked to appear on hundreds of television programs to talk about the evils of the U.S. government. She did as many appearances as she could while still defending her clients.

But when Ed Kealty was elected President, Judith Cochrane suddenly found herself blacklisted. She was surprised that the networks didn’t seem to care as much about civil rights when Kealty and his men ran the FBI, the CIA, and the Pentagon as they had during the Ryan years.

These days, with Kealty in the White House, Cochrane had as much time as she needed to work on her cases. She was unmarried with no children, and her work was her life. She had developed many close personal relationships with her clients. Relationships that could never lead to anything more than emotional closeness, as virtually all of her clients were separated from her by Plexiglas windows or iron bars.

She was also married, in the figurative sense, to her convictions, a lifelong love affair with her beliefs.

And it was these convictions that brought her here to supermax to meet with Saif Yasin.

She was led into the warden’s office, where the warden shook her hand and introduced her to a large black man in a starched blue uniform. “This is the unit commander for H. He will take you to Range 13 and to the FBI detail in charge of your prisoner. We don’t have actual custody of Prisoner 09341-000. We are essentially just the holding facility.”

“I understand. Thank you,” she said as she shook the uniformed man’s hand. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

The unit commander replied professionally, “Ms. Cochrane, this is just a formality, but we have our rules. May I see your state bar card?”

She reached into her purse and handed it over. The unit commander looked it over and handed it back to her.

The warden said, “This prisoner will be handled differently. I assume you have a copy of his Special Administrative Measures, as well as the directives for your meetings with him?”

“I have both of those documents. As a matter of fact, I have a team of attorneys preparing our response to them.”

“Your response?”

“Yes. We will be suing you shortly, but you must have known that already.”

“Well … I—”

Cochrane smiled thinly. “Don’t worry. For today, I promise to oblige your illegal SAMs.”

The unit commander was taken aback, but the warden stepped in. He’d known Judith Cochrane long enough to remain unfazed, no matter what she said or accused him of. “We appreciate that. Originally we had planned to have you meet with him via ‘video visiting,’ like our other Special Housing Unit inmates, but the AG said you absolutely refused that arrangement.”

“I did. This man is in a cage, I understand that. But I need to have some rapport with him if I am to do my job. I can’t communicate with him on a television screen.”

The unit commander said, “We will take you to his cell. You will communicate to the prisoner via a direct phone line. It is not monitored; this has been ordered by the attorney general himself.”

“Very good.”

“We have a desk for you outside his cell. There is a partition of bulletproof glass; this will serve as an attorney/client visiting booth, just like if you were meeting with one of your other clients in the visitation center.”

She signed papers in the warden’s office, putting her name to agreements that had been worked up by the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons regarding what she could and couldn’t say to the prisoner, what he could and couldn’t say to her. As far as she was concerned it was all bullshit, but she signed it so she could get started on the man’s defense.

She’d worry about it later, and she’d violate her agreement if it was in the best interest of her client. Hell, she’d sued the Bureau of Prisons many times before. She was not going to let them tell her how she would represent her client.

Together she and the unit commander left the administration building, walked under a covered walkway to another wing of the prison. She was ushered through more locked doors, and on the other side she walked through an X-ray scanner just like those at airport security. On the other side of the scanner a set of doors opened, and here she was met by two men in black body armor and black ski masks, with rifles.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Is all this really necessary?”

The unit commander stopped at the door. He said, “I have my responsibilities, and they end right here at the threshold of Range 13. You are now in the care of the FBI, who are operating the annex that houses your prisoner.” The unit commander extended a polite hand, and she shook it without really looking at him. Then she turned away, ready to follow the federal officers.

The FBI escorted her inside, and here they put her purse in a locker on the wall of the stark white room, then walked her through a full-body scanner. On the other side of this she was handed a legal pad and a single soft-tip marking pen, and then led through two sets of security doors that were monitored by closed-circuit cameras. Once through these, she found herself in an anteroom outside the recently modified cell. In front of her were four more armed HRT men.

The lead FBI SWAT officer spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent: “You understand the rules, Ms. Cochrane. You sit in the chair at the desk and talk on the phone to your client. Your conversations will be private. We will be right outside that door, and we can watch you on CCTV, but there is no microphone in this room or in the prisoner’s cell.” He handed her a small button that looked like her garage door opener. “Panic button,” he explained. “The prisoner couldn’t get through that glass with a Gatling gun, so there’s nothing to worry about, but if he does something that makes you feel uneasy, just press that button.”

Cochrane nodded. She hated these smug men with their dehumanizing rules, their heinous weapons of hate, and their cowardly masks. Still, she was professional enough to feign kindness. “Wonderful. Thank you for your help. I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”

She turned away from the guard and looked around the room. She saw the window that looked into the cell, and she saw a wheeled desk had been put there, on this side, for her benefit. A telephone was on it. But she was not satisfied. “Officers, there should be a pass-through slot in the Plexiglas in case I need him to look at documents or sign something.”

The HRT officer in charge shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. There is a hatch for us to send his food and clothing through, but it is locked up for your visit. You’ll have to talk to the warden about that for next time.” And with that, the HRT men, all four of them, backed through the door and shut it with a loud clang.

Judith Cochrane stepped to the little table by the glass and sat down, placed her pad in her lap with her pen, and only then did she look into the cell.

Saif Rahman Yasin sat on his concrete bed, facing the portal. He’d been reading from a Koran that he gently placed on the desk at the foot of the bed. When Cochrane looked to him, he took off his prison-issued eyeglasses and rubbed his eyes, and Judith immediately thought of a younger Omar Sharif. He stood and crossed the small cell toward her, sat down on a three-legged stool that had been placed next to a telephone on the floor. Judith noticed the red phone had no buttons or dials; it would connect him only with the receiver in her hand. Yasin lifted the telephone off the cradle and held it to his ear tentatively. He kept his face impassive, looked the woman in the eye, as if waiting for her to speak.

“Good morning, Mr. Yasin. My name is Judith Cochrane. I am told you speak excellent English, is my information correct?”

The prisoner said nothing, but Cochrane could tell he understood her. She’d worked almost exclusively with those whose native language was other than her own, and she had no trouble discerning either recognition or befuddlement. She continued, “I am an attorney for the Progressive Constitution Initiative. U.S. Attorney General Michael Brannigan has decided that your case will be handled in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. The AG’s office will be preparing the prosecution against you, and my organization has been retained to provide you with your defense. Do you understand me so far?”

She waited a moment for a response, but the man known as Prisoner 09341-000 just stared back at her.

“We can expect this to be a lengthy process, certainly over a year in duration, likely closer to two years. Before that can even begin, there are several preliminary steps we need to—”

“I would like to speak with someone from Amnesty International about my illegal imprisonment.”

Cochrane nodded sympathetically but said, “I am afraid I am not in a position to make that happen. I assure you that I am working in your interests, and the first order of business will be to assess the conditions of your confinement so that you are afforded proper care and treatment.”

The Emir just repeated himself. “I would like to speak with someone from Amnesty International about my illegal imprisonment.”

“Sir, you are lucky that you are speaking to anyone at all.”

“I would like to speak to someone from Amnesty International about my care”

Cochrane sighed. “Mr. Yasin. I know your playbook. One of your manuals was picked up by American Special Forces soldiers in Kandahar a few years ago. It laid out, in minute detail, instructions for dealing with capture and captivity.

“I knew you would ask for a representative of Amnesty International. I am not with Amnesty International, true, but I am with an organization that will be much more beneficial to you in the long run.”

Yasin stared at her for a long moment, holding the receiver to his ear. Then he spoke again, altering the script. “You have given that speech before.”

“Indeed. I have represented many men and one or two women that the United States has labeled enemy combatants. Every last one of you has read that manual. You may be the first person I’ve spoken to who likely wrote some of the manual.” She smiled when she said this.

Yasin did not respond.

Cochrane continued, “I understand how you must feel. Don’t talk for now. Just listen to what I have to say. The President of the United States and the attorney general have personally spoken with the director of the Bureau of Prisons to stress how important it is that you have confidential conversations with your legal team.”

“My … my what?”

“Your legal team. Myself, and other attorneys from PCI, that is the Progressive Constitution Initiative, who you will meet in the coming months.”

The Emir did not speak.

“I’m sorry. Are you having trouble understanding me? Should I arrange for a translator?”

The Emir understood the woman perfectly. It wasn’t the English language that was slowing down his portion of the conversation, it was, rather, his astonishment that the Americans were, after all this time, going to put him on trial. He stared at the fat woman with the short gray hair. She looked to him like a man, a very ugly man who dressed in women’s clothing.

He smiled at her slowly. Saif Rahman Yasin had long known that it was only the fool’s luck of geography that the United States of America had survived two-hundred-plus years on this earth. If these imbeciles had their nation lifted out of their hemisphere and dropped into the center of the Middle East, with their childlike acquiescence to those who would do them harm, they would not survive a single year.

“Miss, are you saying that there is no one listening to what we say?”

“No one, Mr. Yasin.”

The Emir shook his head and grunted. “Preposterous.”

“I assure you, you can speak freely with me.”

“That would be insane.”

“We have a Constitution that allows you some rights, Mr. Yasin. It’s what makes my country great. Unfortunately, the climate in my country is against people of color, people of other races and religious beliefs. For this reason, you are not afforded all the benefits of our Constitution. But still … you get some. You have the right to confidential meetings with your legal counsel.”

He saw now that she was telling the truth. And he fought back a smile.

Yes … that is what makes your country great.

It is populated with fools like you.

“Very well,” he said. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Today, only the conditions of your confinement. The warden and the FBI team in charge of your custody have shown me the Special Administrative Measures that you are under. They tell me that when you arrived here all your rules were explained to you.”

The Emir said, “It was worse in the other places.”

Cochrane raised a small wrinkled hand. “Okay, now is probably a good time to go through some of our ground rules. I can go into more detail when we actually begin working on your case, but for now I will just say that I am not allowed to record any detail of your capture or detainment before you arrived here at ADX Florence three months ago. In fact, I am required to inform you that you are not allowed to tell me about anything that happened before you were transferred into federal custody from” — she chose her next words carefully — “from where you came from before.”

“I am not allowed?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Yasin shook his head slowly, incredulously. “And what will my punishment be if I violate that arrangement?” He winked at the woman in front of him. “Will they put me in jail?”

Judith Cochrane laughed. Quickly she caught herself. “I can understand that this is a unique situation. The government is making this up as they go along. They are having some … growing pains in deciding how to handle your situation. They have a track record of trying so-called enemy combatants in federal court, though, and I can assure you my organization will hold the attorney general’s office to high standards during your trial.”

“ADX Florence? Is that what this place is called?”

“Yes. I’m sorry; I should have known that was not clear to you. You are in a federal prison in Colorado. Anyway … tell me about your treatment here.”

He held her gaze as he said, “My treatment here is better than my treatment at the other places.”

Cochrane gave another sympathetic nod, a gesture she’d made a million times in her long career of defending the indefensible. “I’m sorry, Mr. Yasin. That part of your ordeal will never be a part of our discussions.”

“And why is that?”

“We had to agree to this condition in order to be allowed access to you. Your time in U.S. custody is divided, and the dividing line is the moment you came here, the moment you entered the federal system. Everything before that, I assume, involved the U.S. military and intelligence community, and that will not be part of your defense. If we force this issue at all, the Department of Justice will just remand you back to military custody and you will be sent to Guantánamo Bay, and God knows what will happen to you there.”

The Emir thought this over for a few moments and then said, “Very well.”

“Now, then. How often are you allowed to bathe?”

“To … bathe?” What madness is this? thought the Emir. If a woman asked him this in the Pakistani tribal regions where he’d spent much of the past few years, she would be flogged to death surrounded by a crowd of gleeful onlookers.

“Yes. I need to know about your hygiene. Whether or not your physical needs are being met. The bathroom facilities, are they acceptable to you?”

“In my culture, Judith Cochrane, it is not proper for a man to discuss this with a woman.”

She nodded. “I understand. This is not comfortable for you. It is awkward for me. But I assure you, Mr. Yasin, I am working in your interests.”

“There is no reason for you to be interested in my toilet habits. I want to know what you will do about my trial.”

Cochrane smiled. “As I said, it is a slow process. Immediately we will petition for a writ of habeas corpus. This is a demand that you be taken before the judge, who will then determine if the prison system has the authority to hold you. The writ will be denied, it won’t go anywhere, it never does, but it puts the system on notice that we will vigorously attend to your case.”

“Miss Cochrane, if you were vigorous about defending me, you would listen to my explanation of how I was captured. It was wholly illegal.”

“I told you. That is off-limits by agreement with the Justice Department.”

“Why would they do that? Because they have something to hide?”

“Of course they have something to hide. There is no legal justification for the United States’ kidnapping of you. I know that and you know that. But that is what happened.” She sighed. “If I am going to represent you, you are going to have to trust me. Can you please do that for me?”

The Emir looked at her face. It was imploring, sincere, earnest. Ridiculous. He would play along for now. “I would like a paper and pencil. I would like to make some sketches.”

“Sketches? Why?”

“Just to pass the time.”

She nodded, looked around the room. “I think I can persuade DOJ that that is a reasonable request. I will get to work on that as soon as I get back to my hotel.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome. Now … recreation. I would like to hear about what your recreation consists of. Would you care to talk about that?”

“I would prefer we talk about the torture I endured at the hands of American spies.”

Cochrane folded her notebook with another long sigh. “I will be back in three days. Hopefully by then you will have something to sketch with and some paper; I should be able to manage that with a letter to the attorney general. In the meantime, think about what I’ve told you today. Think about our ground rules, but also please think about ways you can benefit from a trial. You need to consider this as an opportunity for you and your… your cause. You can, with my help, stick a finger in the eye of the American government. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“And you have helped others stick their fingers in the eye of America?”

Cochrane smiled proudly. “Many times, Mr. Yasin. I told you I have a lot of experience in this.”

“You told me you have a lot of clients in prison. That is not experience that I find particularly impressive in an attorney.”

Now she spoke defensively. “Those clients are in prison, but they are not on death row. And they are not in a military stockade, unlike a lot of others. The supermax prison is not the worst fate.”

“Martyrdom is preferred.”

“Well, I won’t help you with that. If you want to be dragged into a dark corner of this place and given a lethal injection, you manage that on your own. But I know men like you, Mr. Yasin. That’s not what you want.”

The Emir kept a faint smile on his lips, but it was just for show. In his head he was thinking, No, Judith Cochrane. You do not know any man like me.

But when he spoke he said, “I am sorry I have not been more pleasant. I have forgotten my manners in the many months since my last conversation with a kind soul.”

The sixty-one-year-old American woman melted in front of him. She even leaned forward toward the glass partition, closing the distance between the two of them. “I will make things better for you, Saif Rahman Yasin. Just trust me. Let me get to work on the paper and pencil; perhaps I can arrange a little privacy for you, or a little more space. As I tell my clients, this will always be a prison, not paradise, but I will make it better.”

“I understand that. Paradise awaits me; this is merely the waiting room. I would choose it to be more luxurious, but the suffering I endure now will only serve me in paradise.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Judith Cochrane smiled.

“I’ll see you in three days.”

“Thank you, Ms. Cochrane.” The Emir cocked his head and smiled. “I am sorry. How rude. Is it Mrs. or Miss?”

“I am unmarried,” replied Judith, warmth filling her fleshy cheeks and jowls.

Yasin smiled. “I see.”