Read Online Extraordinary Rendition by Paul Batista - Free Book Online Page B

young, athletic, and supple. He was lithe and strong. If he took Viagra, he didn’t tell her that. But she imagined that his long endurance, his steady erection, and his intensity probably came from that magical blue pill. Even teenagers were using it: the age of the universal stud had arrived.
    It was just after sunset when they both woke up. A breeze from the Hudson and Riverside Park lifted and then dropped the gauzy curtains. In all the time she had spent with him over the last few weeks—in diners, libraries, courts, airports, even in taxis—she’d been puzzled about whether Byron Johnson was a happy or unhappy person. There was that demeanor she could only describe to others as “equable”—unflustered, patient, tenacious, and at times self-deprecating. There was also what she thought of as old-world kindness. Byron let other people leave an elevator before he took a step to enter it, he held doors open for people who followed them into a restaurant, and he said thank you to taxi drivers as he paid them. She had once imagined that, if she ever met a man who behaved like that, he’d drive her crazy. But nothing about Carlos annoyed or distracted her.
    She admired his focused mind. As soon as he came out of the shower, toweling his thick, subtly graying hair, he said,“Listen, my little lovely, I need to look at these documents before I head downtown tomorrow morning. Let’s order up some Chinese food.”
    “Or,” she said, “do we want falafel from the Moroccan place on 104th Street?”
    “I think it’s enough that I’m learning how to read the Koran in Arabic. I don’t need genuine Arabic food.”
    In Christina’s experience, other men in the wake of an afternoon like this would have suggested the quiet recuperation of a movie or supper in a small restaurant. And maybe, she thought, she and Byron might later do that, but as soon as Byron put on his pants he sat down at the dining room table on which he had earlier placed two manila envelopes given to him that morning by Hal Rana. The envelopes contained two documents he had not yet read.
    One of the documents was the indictment of Ali Hussein. As soon as Byron arrived at his office that morning, his telephone rang and he picked it up himself because his secretary was not yet there. It was Rana. He said that Ali Hussein had been moved the day before from the detention center in Miami to the bleak federal prison in lower Manhattan. Hussein would be indicted, Rana said, “tomorrow, for money laundering, racketeering, terrorism, and conspiracy to murder.”
    When he heard those words, Byron felt his body flush, that system-wide pulse of blood that was the result of sudden anxiety. This had last happened to him seven years earlier, when his wife simply looked at him during supper at their apartment and said, “I don’t want to be married to you any longer. Not for one more day.”
    Hal Rana dispassionately said, “I’ll contact you tomorrow morning, early, and let you know what courtroom to meet us in. We’re going to allow your client to be in court for the arraignment. Judge Goldberg has already been designated. The indictment was filed under seal today. Only we know about it and now you know about it. Your client hasn’t been told why he’s been brought here. Once the arraignment is over, the indictment will be released to the media and posted on the Internet, probably before you even leave the courthouse.”
    “Why are you telling me all this, Mr. Rana?”
    “We’re not monsters, Mr. Johnson. We did start a dialogue with you a little while back, when you were down here meeting with us. You didn’t continue the dialogue, but now we’re showing you the courtesy of giving you a heads up.”
    “Don’t misunderstand me, I appreciate that.”
    “Good. It’s always good to be appreciated, Mr. Johnson. You’re about to appreciate us even more because we’ve decided to give you a copy of the indictment today, rather than wait to hand it to you