Read Online The Prisoner of Guantanamo by Dan Fesperman - Free Book Online

you.”
    â€œOr every other man at this table.”
    Which made her look up, self-conscious for a moment. Women could never go for long here without being reminded of the way they stood out, and when Falk saw the look in her eye he regretted the remark and changed the subject.
    â€œIt sure screws up my schedule, though. I was making some real progress last night with Adnan. Until Tyndall walked in on us.”
    â€œTyndall interrupted your session?”
    â€œDidn’t even knock. Said he’d forgotten something.”
    â€œAnd with Adnan, no less. Like throwing a rattlesnake at a nervous colt.”
    Pam was one of the few who had always encouraged him to keep trying with Adnan. She, too, dealt with her share of lost souls.
    â€œHe was right on the verge of a breakthrough, too. Even gave me a name. Not a whole one, of course, or he wouldn’t be Adnan. But he sure seemed to think it was worth something. He was pretty pissed off once he figured Mitch had been listening behind the glass.”
    â€œI had kind of a strange session, too, that way.” She looked at him funny, as if he might have already heard.
    â€œYeah?”
    She seemed reluctant to continue, so he waited, staring. It was her eyes that you wanted to win over the most, he decided. Deep blue and searching, almost yearning. You wanted to be what they yearned for. Maybe that was her secret with the Arabs.
    â€œYeah,” she finally answered, glancing down at a bruised wedge of cantaloupe, then looking back up. Those eyes again. “Your name came up. It was weird.”
    â€œMy
name
?” Just what you wanted to hear, that someone inside the wire had pierced your veil of anonymity. Maybe a pissed-off MP had cursed his name within earshot of a cell.
    â€œNot your actual name. But a description that sounded an awful lot like you. Ex-Marine, formerly posted to Gitmo, now a government interrogator.”
    â€œThat is weird. Who was the subject?”
    â€œNiswar al-Halaby. Syrian nutcase. Says he heard it from the Yemenis. Camp Three grapevine. Have you told Adnan all that?”
    â€œAdnan thinks I’m a cop from California. And I’ve never said word one about the Corps.” They routinely lied about themselves to even the most cooperative subjects. No sense offering any tools for leverage. “But you know how it goes. Talk to them long enough and hints of the real you come out anyway. Adnan’s a smart kid. Maybe he pieced some of it together, or he might have just made it all up and gotten lucky.”
    â€œDid you have any connection with him or any of the other Yemenis from before? From the
Cole
investigation, maybe?”
    â€œI’d never laid eyes on him until two months ago. Same with the other Yemenis.”
    â€œI didn’t ask if you’d met them. I asked if you were connected. Maybe through a file, or a witness. Through any of your previous work.”
    â€œWhat is this, Pam? Should we go to a booth?”
    â€œYou tell me.”
    They had lowered their heads and their voices. To the rest of the table it probably looked like an intimate argument, or the arranging of a tryst. Falk glanced toward the end of the table and saw Tyndall watching with the air of a connoisseur. Then Pam leaned forward, her hands nearly touching Falk’s between their trays as she dropped her voice to a whisper.
    â€œI just want to know what I should do with this, that’s all. If the Bureau made any previous inquiries about any of the Yemenis, or put them on some kind of watch list even before they got here, whether through your work or not, then it would help to know. But you seem to be saying that didn’t happen.”
    â€œNot to my knowledge.” She gave him a sharp look. “That’s not a dodge. I really don’t know. But I’m told there’s no file on him or any of the others I deal with. Not from the
Cole,
anyway. If anybody else has designated him as some kind