The Exchange: After The Firm

Chapter 38

Day 40. Or was it 41? She wasn’t sure anymore because there was no sunlight, only darkness. Nothing to measure time. Even when they moved her she was shrouded and blindfolded and saw nothing but darkness. And they moved her constantly, from a lean-to that smelled of farm animals, to a cavern with sand for a floor, to a darkened room in a house with city noises not far away, to a dank underground cellar where rusty water dripped on her cot and made sleep difficult. She never stayed more than three nights in one place, but then she wasn’t sure what was day or night. She ate when they brought her fruit and bread and warm water, but it was never enough. They gave her toilet paper and sanitary napkins but she had not bathed once. Her long thick hair was now matted and stringy from grease and dirt. After she ate, when she knew she would not be bothered for hours, she stripped and tried to clean her undergarments with a few ounces of water. She slept for long periods of time, the dripping water notwithstanding.

Her minder was a young girl, probably no more than a teenager, who never spoke or smiled and tried to avoid any eye contact. She was veiled and always wore the same faded black dress that hung like a bedsheet and dragged the ground. For humor, Giovanna nicknamed her “Gypsy Rose” after the famous stripper. She doubted the girl had ever taken her clothes off in the presence of a man. Wherever Giovanna went, Gypsy Rose went too. She had tried to engage her with simple words, but the girl had obviously been instructed not to talk to the captive. When it was time to move, Gypsy Rose would appear with a pair of oversized handcuffs, a blindfold, and a heavy black shroud. Not since the first days had Giovanna seen the face of a man. Occasionally she heard low voices outside her doors, but they disappeared.

She recalled from law school the Gibbons case. For over twenty years, Gibbons had been an inmate on death row in Arkansas, and as such was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot cell from which he was released one hour each day for exercise in the yard. He sued the state, claiming solitary confinement violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, it attracted an enormous amount of attention, primarily because of the thousands of prisoners living in solitary. Everybody piled on: death row lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, law professors, prisoners’ rights groups, civil libertarians, and penal experts. Virtually everyone agreed that solitary was cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court felt otherwise and Gibbons eventually got the needle. The case became famous and made it all the way to the constitutional law casebook Giovanna purchased and studied at UVA Law.

After forty or forty-one days in solitary, she now understood. She could now qualify as an expert witness and explain in vivid testimony exactly how and why such confinement was unconstitutional. The physical deprivations were bad enough; a lack of food, water, soap, toothbrushes, razors, tampons, exercise, books, clean clothes, a hot bath. But she had made those adjustments and could survive. The maddening aspect of solitary was the lack of human contact.

And, as she recalled, Gibbons had a television, radio, buddies next door, guards who brought dreadful food three times a day, 2200 calories of it, two showers a week, unlimited visits with his lawyer, weekend visits with his family, and plenty of books and magazines. He still went insane but Arkansas killed him anyway.

If she was ever free again, she might consider shucking Big Law and working for a death penalty lawyer or a prisoners’ rights group. She would welcome the opportunity to testify in court or perhaps before lawmakers and detail the horrors of solitary confinement.

Gypsy Rose was back with the handcuffs and they had the routine perfected. Giovanna frowned but said nothing, then touched her wrists together. Gypsy Rose slapped them on like a veteran beat cop. Giovanna leaned forward to take the blindfold, a thick velvet cloth that smelled like old mothballs. Her world was black again. Gypsy put the hood over her head and led her from the cell. After a few steps, Giovanna almost stopped when she realized the girl’s eyes had been moist. Gypsy Rose was showing emotion. But why? The horrible truth was that after caring for her prisoner for so long, she had feelings for her. Now, the captivity was over. After forty days the big moment had arrived. The prisoner was about to be sacrificed.

They stepped outside into cooler air. A few steps, then two men with strong hands lifted her into the back of a vehicle and sat close to her. The engine started, the truck began to roll, and soon they were bouncing along another sandy roadbed somewhere in the Sahara.

Gypsy Rose had forgotten the morning bowl of fruit. After an hour, Giovanna was starving again. There was no ventilation in the back of the truck or whatever the vehicle happened to be, and Giovanna’s face and hair were dripping with sweat under the thick shroud. At times, breathing was difficult. Her entire body was sweating. Her captors reeked of a pungent body odor she had been forced to endure many times now. The stink of desert soldiers who rarely bathed. She didn’t smell too refreshing either.

As a hostage, she had logged thousands of miles over brutal roads without a glimpse of the outside. This ride, though, was different.

The truck stopped. Its engine was turned off. Chains rattled, and the men lifted her to the ground. It was hot but at least she was outside. There were voices all around her as something was being organized. One guard firmly held her right elbow; another one had the left. They led her this way and that way and then they were climbing steps, steep ones made of wood, though she could not see her feet. Her guards helped her climb by lifting her arms. She had the sensation of being with others who were also struggling to climb the steps. Somewhere above a man was mumbling in Arabic and it sounded like a prayer.

When the climb was over they shuffled along a wooden platform until they stopped. Dead still. Waiting.

Giovanna’s heart was pounding and she could barely breathe. When they put a noose around her neck and yanked it tight, she almost fainted. Close by a man was praying. Another one was crying.

Once again, the killers chose to do it all on camera. The video began with the four victims already in place on the gallows with ropes around their necks and their hands cuffed behind them. From left to right, the first three were wearing uniforms of the Libyan Special Forces. They had been captured by Barakat’s men in the second commando raid five days earlier near Ghat. The fourth person was to the far right and wore a skirt or a dress and not a uniform. Close behind each stood a masked warrior with an assault rifle.

The surname Faras appeared at the bottom of the screen, and seconds later Faras was pushed by the gunman behind him. He fell forward, dropped fifteen feet, stopped abruptly as the rope jolted tight and shrieked just as his neck snapped. He jerked violently for a few seconds as his body slowly gave up. His boots were five feet above the sand. For good measure, a commandant of some variety stepped forward with an automatic pistol and pumped three slugs into his chest.

With each shot the next two soldiers shuddered and would have collapsed but for the nooses. They would fall soon enough. The woman on the end stood rigid and unmoving, as if too stunned to react.

Hamal followed, and at the age of twenty-eight the veteran solider with a wife and three children back home in Benghazi was murdered by a gang of insurgents. Moments later, Saleel took his last breath.

The camera refocused and zoomed in on the woman, Sandroni. Seconds passed, then a minute with no movement anywhere, or at least none on camera. Suddenly, the unmistakable whine of a chain saw began, off camera.

The guard behind her stepped closer, loosened the noose, and removed it. He took her arm, and as she was being led away the video ended.