Huston, James W. -2003- Secret Justice (com v4.0)(html) (32 page)

“I—I just wanted to be with him. To be there during this very difficult time.”

The department heads stared at her, annoyed at having been interrupted.

The XO replied, “It will be a difficult time around here too. We’re putting a terrorist on trial ourselves in case you hadn’t noticed, and our surgeon has been subpoenaed back to that same trial you want to go to. You’re the second-highest-ranking medical person aboard the ship. We can’t afford to let you go. Keep your leave application. It’s denied.”

Andrea couldn’t believe it. She had gotten along well with the XO the few times she had been required to deal with him. “Is there any way you could reconsider, sir?”

“No. Now please leave, because we’re in the middle of a department head meeting and you just took five minutes of our allotted time.”

Andrea nodded and backed toward the door. “I’m sorry to have interrupted you, sir.” She closed the door behind her.

The chief was standing right by the door, listening to the entire conversation. He was trying to control the smirk on his face. “Sorry about that. I tried to tell you he was in a meeting, ma’am.”

Andrea looked at him with daggers in her eyes, and walked out of the administrative offices. She went straight to her stateroom, closed the door behind her, and folded down her desk. She opened one of the drawers, the one into which she dumped her junk, things that didn’t have a home elsewhere in her stateroom: belt buckles, ribbons, officer pins, small notebooks, innumerable things, Brasso, shoe strings, and keys. She dug through the drawer, looking for Skyles’s business card. She was sure she had kept his card. She continued to dig and then found it. As she expected, it had his e-mail address on it. One word Satterly had said, that the XO had mentioned, rang in her ears. Subpoena. It was what had gotten Satterly off the ship. She took Satterly’s stateroom key from her pocket, and headed to his room to use his computer.

The
Tbilisi
was one of the few cargo ships in the world that sailed under a Georgian flag. It was a rundown small merchant ship of ten thousand tons. In spite of its looks, the steam plant was in remarkably good condition. The
Tbilisi
was able to steam at twelve knots consistently. If pressed, it could maintain eighteen knots for several hours.

The rusty hull and peeling paint on the superstructure went unnoticed among the dozens of other ships of equally poor condition as the
Tbilisi
pulled into Monrovia, Liberia. The ship had made the voyage from Georgia to western Africa very quickly. The containers, which had been loaded at the last minute, and for which twice the usual rate had been paid, sat on deck.

With the help of two tugs, the
Tbilisi
inched up to a pier controlled by the Liberian Shipping Company. The ship had been expected; its arrival was completely unremarkable and barely noticed by even those in the shipyards. The captain knew very little, only that this stop in Monrovia was to off-load three containers, and fifteen “sailors.” They didn’t look much like able-bodied seamen to him, but who was he to say.

As the ship finally moored and the tugs pulled away, the gangplank came down from the aft third of the ship and the sailors began walking off to explore Monrovia in the short time they would be there; the
Tbilisi
was scheduled to leave that night—the sailors only had twelve hours ashore.

Lisbie looked out his window and watched the crew go ashore. He didn’t know why Satti had insisted on getting his fifteen men onto his ship, but he knew it wasn’t to learn the finer points of seamanship. He could pick out the men that Satti had forced him to list. They were less sure-footed coming down the gangplank than the true sailors. They hadn’t been at sea for years if at all. Their internal balance systems didn’t adjust back and forth to walking on a ship’s deck and then on shore. They had rubber legs. Lisbie was grateful that they had at least cut their hair and dressed to look like the sailors from the
Tbilisi
.

Lisbie looked at all the people in view, those standing, sitting, leaning against buildings, those in groups working or avoiding work, and those walking away from their docks. He searched them to see if Satti was there to ensure his men had arrived. He was nowhere to be seen. He looked at the rubber-legged group that had walked off the ship that was now gathering out of sight behind a low-slung warehouse. They deferred to one man who was the only one really speaking. Lisbie studied him. He was thin and unremarkable. He looked somehow familiar, but Lisbie was sure he had never met him.

The man Lisbie was looking at, Tayseer Hotary, felt exposed. He wasn’t to take his men aboard the Liberian ship until dark, which wasn’t for another hour. He didn’t want to let his men disperse in the city for fear of trouble that he couldn’t foresee. And he didn’t want to walk around as a group—too conspicuous. Nor could he stay where he was. Equally conspicuous. Hotary looked around anxiously. He glanced up and caught Lisbie’s eye.

Lisbie pulled back from the window with his heart pounding. The man’s look had chilled him.

Hotary had seen enough. He had to get his men aboard the ship now. He told the rest of his men to stay put and headed for the decrepit three-story hotel that stood three blocks from where his men were gathered. The paint was peeling off the outside walls in large chunks. He walked into the lobby alone and headed straight for the rickety stairs. He walked up to the third floor without looking right or left, like someone who had walked up those stairs hundreds of times. He went to the room number that he had memorized and rapped gently on the door. Satti opened the door and Hotary quickly stepped through.

“Is everything ready?” he asked quickly.

Satti replied, “Here are the papers.”

“Did you have any trouble?”

Satti didn’t want him to know the full details. But he might already know more than he would let on. “Some.”

Hotary looked at Satti quickly. “What have you done.”

Satti smiled cautiously. “A little C4 in the car of a relative.”

Hotary’s look hardened. “You have caused unwanted attention.”

“I had no choice.”

Hotary was furious. “Was there an investigation?” he asked, controlling his voice.

“Yes, a comedy of Liberian police with a few foreigners.”

“What foreigners?” Hotary asked.

“Some Americans, I think. They did not wear identification, but my sources inside the police tell me they were FBI.”

“Did you not anticipate that?”

Satti’s smile faded. “I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in one small event in Monrovia, Liberia. And the director of shipping refused. He absolutely refused. We were not going to get on the ship. I had to take drastic action.”

Hotary walked closer to him until their faces were inches apart. “You should have thought of something more creative. Something that would not have drawn attention. I sent you here because I thought you could do it quietly. And you set off a bomb drawing attention from the United States?”

Satti raised his voice, trying not to yell. “What would you have had me do? Beg? Pull out a gun and hold it to his head? What would you have done?”

“I would have been
smarter
.”

Satti knew better than to respond anymore. He had already stepped across the line. He knew who “Tayseer Hotary” was. He knew very well. And he knew that no one else had any idea. He changed the subject. He pointed to the packet he had given Hotary. “Your papers will get you aboard the ship. The containers should already have been transferred by now.” He checked his watch.

“What time do we sail?”

“High tide. Just before midnight.”

“I need to get the men aboard now. They are too conspicuous.”

“I’m sure I can arrange that.”

The attendees at the meeting were gathering up their papers and placing items in briefcases, ready to depart. President Kendrick asked casually, “Anything else for the good of the cause?”

St. James hesitated. She had to stop Rathman’s trial. She had to stick her neck out for him as he had done so many times for her. In the political world of Washington it was stupid for her to even bring it up. She knew that. But she owed it to Rat to make one last try. “The trial of that Navy lieutenant is set to begin tomorrow, Mr. President.”

President Kendrick gave her a tired look. “I know. It’s been in the newspapers every day for two weeks. The press is foaming at the mouth. In fact,” he chuckled, “did you see that political cartoon in the Washington
Times
yesterday? It showed a new drink at Starbucks; it’s called the Journalist. It’s nothing
but
foam.”

St. James waited for the President to stop chuckling. She asked, “Do we really want to go forward with this trial? Do we really want to air our dirty laundry before the entire world?”

His face grew serious. The others in the room stood silently, wanting no part of the discussion. “Seems to me we already have. Everyone knows he’s on trial for torturing a terrorist. What would you suggest we do now? Shut it down
right
before he’s given a fair trial? Just dismiss it? What would that say to the world? Sure, he may have tortured somebody, but we don’t care?”

St. James sat forward. “No, sir. I think what it would say is that there isn’t sufficient evidence to convict him—there was a fight, people were killed and injured—including Americans—but putting someone from Special Operations on trial is inappropriate based on the evidence.”

“How could I say that? I don’t know what the evidence is. Sounds to me like they may have the evidence. He tortured that man, and he died. We can’t be out there torturing people regardless of the reason. We have to maintain the moral high ground. If we’re torturing people, what does that say about us?”

“But even if he did what they say he did, which I don’t know, all he did was use water to encourage this man to talk—”

“Why are we even discussing this?” Kendrick asked. He glanced at Stuntz, then back at Sarah. “Why do you care? I don’t understand why this is so important to you.”

Stuntz was enjoying the exchange. “Because he’s one of her secret little informants. I think she told you about her little network of people who give her straight—raw as I think she called it—information outside of the usual chains of command or informational routes for intelligence. It was rather successful in allowing her to have some information the rest of us didn’t have, or at least more quickly, or at least untainted by experienced minds and senior intelligence operatives. Of course the fact that some of it was inaccurate or biased certainly didn’t—”

“I never had any biased or inaccurate information, Mr. President. And I never misused any chain of command or anything else. I resent Secretary Stuntz’s implication—”

President Kendrick put up his hand. “I don’t want to hear anything more about that. But do you know him?”

“He is an acquaintance. He has risked his life, he has been very successful in numerous missions, and I’m not sure he’s getting a fair shake. Perhaps Secretary Stuntz can tell us how he came to be charged in the first place. How it is he had the general counsel of the DOD visit the Attorney General and force him to put Mr. Rathman on trial because the secretary didn’t want to court-martial him. Because it might have looked too vindictive of the DOD.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Stuntz said, forcing a chuckle, furious that someone, probably the Attorney General himself, had told St. James about the meeting.

The President considered for a moment. He turned to the Attorney General. “You do have the evidence, I take it.”

Carl Dirks, the Attorney General, avoided Stuntz’s glare and answered the President. “Yes, sir, I believe so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I believe we can prove the case, Mr. President.” He wasn’t sure which way the political currents were running. “But it will depend on witness cooperation, which is very iffy. This Rathman fellow is very popular. He is popular with the public—as you can see from the public opinion polls, which are behind him only about eighty-three percent. The Europeans of course want to string him up, and the ICC is waiting in the wings.

“But as to the witnesses, I am told that the cooperation of some of the critical witnesses is not assured. We may have to—” the Attorney General looked around the room—“we may have to use a witness who is from a foreign country and subject to code-word control.”

“You believe you can get a conviction?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

The President continued, “What if you dismissed the case? What would be the implications?”

“Perhaps if we had discussed this when we debated whether to prosecute it might have made some sense. But now, now that it has made it into the newspapers and everyone in the world knows about it, I think to dismiss it now would be disastrous.” He saw St. James go red. “It would make us look like we were endorsing the conduct. Plus, if we dismiss it, the ICC will prosecute him.”

Kendrick hated the idea of the ICC. “I love that.” He smiled. “It might be worth dropping the charges just so we can watch them melt down when we refuse to cooperate.” He looked at Sarah St. James. “Well, Sarah, I think your boy is on his own. I hope he has a good lawyer. And if he didn’t do anything wrong, then he won’t be convicted. Right?”

“That’s the theory,” she said with deep disappointment. She had tried.

“Anything else?”

No one said a word.

The night in Monrovia had turned black and hostile. A mist had begun to fall over the town, dampening the unceasing sounds of the waterfront. It suited Hotary’s purposes. Lisbie had balked at Hotary getting aboard early. Satti had yielded rather then force another confrontation. They had waited under the eaves at the warehouse until it was completely dark. Hotary stepped out into the mist and walked away by himself. Two others waited a minute and followed, with one more following them. They walked to their new ship in groups of twos and threes until they were all heading toward the pier.

Hotary wanted to be first aboard to make sure there was no problem with their coming aboard. As he walked down the pier, he noticed how large the ship was that they would be boarding—the M/V
Monrovian Prince
. It was an enormous container ship, a fairly new ship of a new class. Most container ships were large and slab-sided, and needed to load and unload at specific ports that had special cranes that could lift the containers off the ships easily and move them to nearby truck or train facilities. This ship though had its own cranes, two towering steel cranes, one forward and one aft. They could be used to load and unload the containers. This new style of container ship could go to any port in the world and unload its containers—large steel boxes uniform in size and shape.