The Prisoner of Guantanamo Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  GUANTÁNAMO GLOSSARY

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY DAN FESPERMAN

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  GUANTÁNAMO GLOSSARY

  Biscuit

  Behavioral Science Consultation Team. Doctors who offered interrogators advice on the background and psychological makeup of detainees.

  Camp Delta

  Main U.S. prison facility at Guantánamo Bay, with four separate camps. Camps 1–3 are maximum security, with Camp 3 being the most stringent. Camp 4, the newest wing, is medium security, offering greater privileges and barracks-style cellblocks, a status that has earned it the nickname “the Haj.”

  Camp Echo

  A small CIA-run prison that is part of the Camp Delta complex.

  Camp Iguana

  A former officer’s cottage on a seaside bluff that houses three juvenile detainees, located about a mile from Camp Delta.

  Camp

  X-Ray

  The abandoned cage-like facility that housed the first several hundred detainees, who arrived at Guantánamo before Camp Delta was constructed.

  DI

  The Directorate of Intelligence, Cuba’s equivalent of the CIA.

  DIA

  The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

  DOD

  The U.S. Department of Defense.

  The Fenceline

  The seventeen-mile boundary of the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  Ghost

  A detainee, usually housed at Camp Echo, who has not been officially registered and whose identity is presumably unknown to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

  Gitmo, the Rock, GTMO

  Nicknames and the military acronym for the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  GWOT

  The Pentagon’s acronym for the Global War on Terrorism.

  JAX

  The U.S. Navy Base and Naval Air Station at Jacksonville, Florida.

  J-DOG

  The Joint Detention Operations Group, which provides the management and military police who run Camp Delta.

  JIG

  The Joint Intelligence Group, which coordinates interrogation operations at Camp Delta.

  JTF-GTMO

  Joint Task Force Guantánamo, the command structure for Camp Delta and all its security and interrogation operations.

  MP

  Military Police.

  MREs

  Meals Ready to Eat, the standard military food ration.

  NCOIC

  Noncommissioned Officer in Charge, usually used to describe an MP shift commander inside Camp Delta.

  NEX

  Naval Exchange store, equivalent to an Army PX.

  OGA

  Other Government Agency, Gitmo shorthand for the Central Intelligence Agency.

  OPSEC

  Operational Security.

  OSD

  Office of the Secretary of Defense.

  RPG

  Rocket-propelled grenade, a handheld anti-armor weapon.

  SIB

  “Manipulative self-injurious behavior,” a military term for some suicide attempts by Camp Delta detainees.

  The Wire

  Slang for the razor-wire enclosure of Camp Delta; also the name of JTF-GTMO’s weekly newspaper.

  PROLOGUE

  THE AMERICAN IN CAMOUFLAGE came ashore overnight, and for hours he lay on the darkened beach as still as a spy, an infiltrator behind enemy lines.

  A three-foot iguana spotted him first, nosing into soggy pockets at the water’s edge just as the eastern horizon was turning pink. The soldier didn’t budge.

  Sunlight found him next, and as the tide receded the sand grew warm. Still he held his ground, even as a Cuban soldado named Vargas approached along the hillside above the dunes, boots crunching on a coral path.

  For Vargas, still groggy at this hour, the morning patrol had been as uneventful as always. Downhill and to his left lay the glittering turquoise of the Caribbean, close enough that he could hear waves hissing upon the sand, although his view was blocked by an underbrush of scrub oak and spidery cactus. Uphill and to the right was his daily objective: a wooden watchtower on stilts, perched in the dawn like a heron waiting to strike. It was what passed for his office. Years ago, two soldiers would have been watching his approach—the overnight shift, awaiting relief. Now, budgets being trimmer, there was no staffing after dark, and the tower was empty and silent. It meant that Vargas’s partner, Rodriguez, hadn’t yet arrived with either the radio or the coffee. The radio, a gift from an aunt in Hialeah, was a massive silver box forever blaring with congas and brass. Much too loud for the breakfast hour, but Vargas endured it as long as the supply of caffeine held steady. Rodriguez always brought a full thermos of a brew that was thick, black and sweet, served by the thimbleful in sips to last out the morning.

  Just beyond the tower was the sight that made this place remarkable, and that kept Vargas and his comrades in the Brigada de la Frontera employed. It was an American naval base, its eastern boundary marked by a long line of chain-link fencing. In some sections the fence was insanely high—three times the height of a basketball goal—and crowned by coils of razor wire. Its seventeen-mile perimeter enclosed the lower bowl of Guantánamo Bay.

  Vargas had grown up in Havana, a world removed from this rustic outpost, and when he first arrived on the job a year ago he had been affronted by the presence of the Americans, taking it personally. Every day he heaved stones across the fence in anger, albeit while maintaining a careful distance, lest he step on a mine. Whenever he spotted a foot patrol of U.S. Marines beetling through the brush on the other side he got even angrier and shouted slogans of the Revolution, thinking that might taunt them into trying something foolish.

  Rodriguez, six years his senior, never joined in. He only laughed, or told stories of the old days, when the Cubans used to train a spotlight on the nearest Marine barracks, morning, noon, and night, to disrupt the enemy’s sleep.

  But as months passed the routine grew boring, and Vargas’s zeal cooled. He came to regard the intruders as part of the scenery, and now watched their doings as a naturalist might observe the mating habits of an exotic but invasive species. With binoculars you could peer into their small bayside village, with its stores and schools, its ball fields and drive-in movie theater, its golf course and fast-food joints.

  The newest attraction was a sprawling prison they’d built during the past year—fencelines within the fenceline, concentric circles of captivity. The inmates wore orange jumpsuits, and through the bi
noculars they stood out like radioactive particles moving across the slide of a microscope. Now it was the Americans who kept the lights on at all hours, and in the winter months when Vargas’s patrol began before sunrise the prison’s forest of tall vapor lamps smudged the sky like a false dawn.

  In recent months there had been more construction, as they built barracks for the troops guarding the prisoners. If Vargas hadn’t known what they were up to, it might have made him nervous seeing so many new arrivals. They now outnumbered his own garrison in Boquerón—a town that had been renamed Mártires de la Frontera, even though everyone still used the old name—by more than two to one. In the old days, Rodriguez told him, it would have been a provocation.

  When Vargas thought about it long enough, his earlier resentment rekindled. Sure, the Yankee base had been there for more than a hundred years. But it was sheer effrontery the way the Americans still wore out their welcome more than four decades after the Revolution. For the Cubans, it was sort of like divorcing a flamboyant wife only to have her stern and forbidding mother refuse to leave the house, immovable from her perch at the end of the couch. Doing as she pleased even though you never chatted, and never exchanged pleasantries, even if sometimes you couldn’t help but recall how much you had once loved her daughter, especially when the two of you had gambled and danced in Havana like there was no tomorrow.

  But these little flare-ups of Vargas’s temper always faded quickly. In fact, there was only one aspect of Guantánamo that he had yet to grow accustomed to, and that was the alarming presence of the iguanas. Big, green, and deceptively fast, they gave him the creeps, especially the way they brazenly approached to practically beg for handouts. Rodriguez only made it worse by feeding them, stooping low to offer bites of bread or banana. They ran toward him like pets, tongues flicking and tails swishing in an awkward gait. Vargas had watched Americans feed them, too—candy bars, potato chips, and other prepackaged junk. The lizards got so accustomed to freeloading that he couldn’t hold out a hand without worrying that one of them would take a quick nip, mistaking his finger for something from a vending machine. Rodriguez always said not to worry, that they were herbivores. Vargas had his doubts.

  The sun was creeping higher now, and Vargas was nearing the end of his patrol. Soon he would turn uphill, angling toward the fenceline that led to his tower. But first he had to make a brief reconnaissance of the shoreline, from the point where the trail skirted the back side of the dunes. When the weather was pleasant he sometimes detoured onto the beach. If it was hot enough he might even take off his boots to wade briefly in the shallows, watching for flashing schools of baitfish that rode in on the breakers. Today felt like just such a day, especially since no music was yet issuing from the tower.

  His boots sank in the sand as he climbed the dune. Then the strand came into view, and Vargas froze. There was a man down there, a soldier in camouflage. Vargas knew right away from the uniform that it was an American, and he instinctively dropped into a crouch with his gun at the ready, fingering the trigger as tall grass brushed his cheek. He chambered a round of ammunition and was alarmed by the loud noise. His grogginess was gone. He was as alert as if he had gulped three cups of Rodriguez’s coffee, and his palms sweated onto the gun’s stock.

  Was the enemy coming ashore? Was this only the first of many? Or had others already arrived and gone into hiding? He glanced behind him, heart beating rapidly. Perhaps someone was about to rise up and slit his throat. But all was quiet, and as he looked back toward the beach he realized that the soldier wasn’t moving a muscle. He saw as well that the man’s uniform was soaked, darkened by the sea from head to toe.

  Vargas rose slowly to his feet. Then a sudden movement nearly made him cry out in astonishment. It was an iguana, a huge one, raising its head next to the soldier’s waist. It had been poking around down there, probing the man’s pockets, and its reptilian eyes swiveled like turrets toward Vargas. He wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, the body or the way that the lizard had laid claim to it, but he was now certain he was viewing either a corpse or a drunk. Nothing else could explain letting that beast put its snout down your pockets.

  He stepped toward the beach, and for a moment the iguana lingered, staring back. A ridge of toothlike scales stiffened along its arching spine, and it slowly opened its mouth to unfurl a long tongue in a yawning pink tunnel that, for all Vargas knew, led all the way back to the Age of Reptiles. In this pose it was the very portrait of B-grade menace from some horror matinee, and Vargas fought down a shudder.

  Deciding that enough was enough, he shouted—an animal cry of rage and disgust. Then he raced down the dunes, a soldier on the attack, gun outstretched as his boots tossed sand in his wake.

  The iguana fled in an instant, covering twenty yards before pausing to check its flanks. By then Vargas had reached the soldier and was no longer in pursuit. Now it was his turn to poke around the body.

  Things didn’t look promising. Seaweed was plastered darkly to the soldier’s pale, bristly cheek, and his skin looked waterlogged, puffy, like sodden bread. Worst of all, the man’s eye sockets were empty, hollowed out by creatures far hungrier than the iguana.

  Vargas turned away, doubling over, then retching violently. His empty stomach creased, and he coughed up a glistening string of mucus. Wiping a sleeve across his mouth, he collected himself for another glance, then gazed uphill toward the tower. Somehow it seemed wrong to leave the soldier behind, untended. The scavenging iguana would doubtless return, and soon enough seagulls and turkey vultures would join in.

  But for now his duty was to reach the tower and call in his discovery. Rodriguez would scarcely believe it, much less their officers in Boquerón. This was news, a real sensation. It would create a stir with repercussions all the way to Havana.

  Dead or alive, the enemy had come ashore at Guantánamo, and that was cause for alarm.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ON THE FIRST DAY of his transition from captor to captive, Revere Falk stood barefoot on a starlit lawn at 4 a.m., still naively confident of his place among those who asked the questions and hoarded the secrets.

  Falk was an old hand at concealment, trained from birth. The skill came in handy when you were an FBI interrogator. Who better to pry loose the artifacts of other lives than someone who knew all the hiding places? Better still, he spoke Arabic.

  Not that he was putting his talents to much use at Guantánamo. And at the moment he was furious, having just returned from a botched session that summed up everything he hated about this place: too few detainees of real value, too many agencies tussling over the scraps, and too much heat—in every sense of the word.

  Even at this hour, beads of sweat crawled across his scalp. By the time the sun was up it would be another day for the black flag, which the Army hoisted whenever the temperature rose beyond reason. An apt symbol, Falk thought, like some rectangular hole in the sky that you might fall into, never to reappear. A national banner for Camp Delta’s Republic of Nobody, populated by 640 prisoners from forty countries, none of whom had the slightest idea how long they would be here. Then there were the 2,400 other new arrivals in the prison security force, mostly Reservists and Guardsmen who would rather be elsewhere. Throw in Falk’s little subculture—120 or so interrogators, translators, and analysts from the military and half the branches of the federal government—and you had the makings of a massive psychological experiment on performing under stress at close quarters.

  Falk was from Maine, a lobsterman’s son, and what he craved most right now was dew and coolness, moss and fern, the balm of fogbound spruce. Failing that, he would have preferred to be nuzzled against the perfumed neck of Pam Cobb, an Army captain who was anything but stern once she agreed to terms of mutual surrender.

  He sighed and gazed skyward, a mariner counting stars, then pressed a beer bottle to his forehead. Already warm, even though he had grabbed it from the fridge only moments earlier, as soon as he reached the house. The air conditioner was broken,
so he had stripped off socks and shoes and sought refuge on the lawn. But when he wiggled his toes the grass felt toasted, crunchy. Like walking on burned coconut.

  If he thought it would do any good, he would pray for rain. Almost every afternoon big thunderheads boiled up along the green line of Castro’s mountains to the west, only to melt into the sunset without a drop. From up on this scorched hillside you couldn’t even hear the soothing whisper of the Caribbean. Yet the sea was out there, he knew, just beyond the blackness of the southern horizon. Falk sensed it as a submerged phosphorescence pooling beneath coral bluffs, aglow like a candle in a locked closet. Or maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, a garden-variety case of Guantánamo loco.

  It wasn’t his first outbreak. Twelve years ago he had been posted here as a Marine, serving a three-year hitch. But he had almost forgotten how the perimeter of the base could seem to shrink by the hour, its noose of fencelines and humidity tightening by degrees. A Pentagon fact sheet for newcomers said that Gitmo—the military’s favorite slang for this outpost—covered forty-five square miles. Like a lot of what the brass said, it was misleading. Much of the acreage was water or swamp. Habitable territory was mostly confined to a flinty wedge of six square miles. The plot marked out for Camp Delta and the barracks of the security forces was smaller still, pushed against the sea on fewer than a hundred acres.

  Falk stood a few miles north of the camp. By daylight from his vantage point, with a good pair of binoculars, you could pick out Cuban watchtowers in almost every direction. They crouched along a no-man’s-land of fences, minefields, wet tangles of mangrove, and scrubby hills of gnarled cactus. The fauna was straight out of a Charles Addams cartoon—vultures, boas, banana rats, scorpions, and giant iguanas. Magazines and newspapers for sale at the Naval Exchange were weeks old. Your cell phone was no good here, every landline was suspect, and e-mail traffic was monitored. Anyone who stayed for long learned to operate under the assumption that whatever you did could be seen or heard by their side or yours. Even on the free soil of a civilian’s billet such as Falk’s you never knew who might be eavesdropping, especially now that OPSEC—Operational Security—had become the mantra for Camp Delta’s cult of secrecy. It was all enough to make Falk wish that Gitmo still went by its old Marine nickname—the Rock. Like Alcatraz.