Huston, James W. -2003- Secret Justice (com v4.0)(html) (39 page)

His hands and face felt grimy from the long trip. He gulped the last bit of coffee and picked up a phone hanging on the bulkhead. He punched in Commander Watson’s number. She answered.

“Commander Watson. Lieutenant Rathman. I’m aboard, ma’am. I’m in the wardroom.”

“I’ll be right there,” she said quickly and hung up.

He placed the receiver back on the cradle, picked up his cup, and refilled it. Moments later she burst into the wardroom. She crossed over to Rat and extended her hand. “Thank you for coming back all this way. I’m sorry I had to drop that subpoena on you at home. It was really the only way I had.”

He nodded his understanding.

“You want to come with me?” she asked. She led him out of the wardroom. He watched her from behind. She was tall and bony. Her hands had protruding blue veins. She looked unhealthily thin. He hooked his thumb over the lip of his coffee cup and carried it with him as he quickly followed Commander Watson down the passageway to her office. She opened the door and directed him to a chair in the small, cramped space. The office was full of books stacked on the desk, papers strewn about, and notebooks lined up on the bookshelf behind her.

“How long do you think this will take?”

“Not very long, really. I don’t expect to ask you very many questions and I don’t think they’ll have much by way of cross. But we’ll see. As soon as we’re ready I’ll call the judge and he will reconvene the court an hour later.”

“There’s a helicopter to Cape Town at 1130. I’d like to be on it if possible.”

“Are we that far south already? Well, we’ll just have to see.”

She went over the testimony that she expected of him and gave him the general nature of the information she was looking for. She didn’t want to give him the actual questions because she didn’t want him to appear to be working from a script. After a half hour she was ready. She picked up the phone and called the judge’s stateroom. He agreed that he was ready and told her to contact all the other participants to tell them. She called out to her chief, who immediately began calling everyone to the court.

“Do you want to change your uniform or get cleaned up?”

“How much time do we have?”

“One hour.”

“I brought my whites. I could change into them if you would like.”

“Why not? Go ahead and get cleaned up, change into your whites, and meet me in the admiral’s wardroom at 1000. Can you do that?”

“No problem.”

“Here’s my stateroom key. Make yourself at home.”

Rat found her stateroom, shaved and showered, transferred his ribbons and warfare pin to his tropical white uniform, and was ready to go. He walked to the wardroom and stood outside in the passageway. He could hear voices inside, but the sign on the outside said all witnesses to remain in the passageway.

Time passed, 1000 came and went, and fifteen more minutes, then thirty. He could hear voices being raised and arguments being made. He had no idea what was at issue in the court, but he saw his time slipping by.

Finally the door swung open and the first-class petty officer said loudly, “Lieutenant Rathman.”

Rat walked toward him. The sailor looked at him carefully, confirmed in his mind that this was Lieutenant Rathman, and stepped aside for him to enter the courtroom. Rat walked in and was impressed by the solemn order achieved by the liberal use of green felt on the tables and other visual cues—the scales of justice, the gavel and block, the placement of the counsel tables, and the elevated platform for the tables with the judge and members of the court.

He was ushered to the front of the courtroom to the witness stand and was sworn in. He looked out over the rest of the people in the packed room, officers and enlisted people from the ship, journalists, an artist in the front row, the attorneys, the panel of senior officers who made up the court, and of course, Duar himself. Rat stared at him. Duar avoided his gaze.

After summarizing his background and education, and his work with Dev Group—which he never mentioned by name—he told them he was currently TAD to the CIA. Commander Watson asked him about the Sudan operation. “Were you in charge of the operation?”

“I was in charge of my team. There were several teams flying that evening, only one of which was likely to be close enough to the rendezvous. We didn’t know where it was going to be, only about when.”

“Did you capture anyone?”

“Two men. A man named Mazmin, and Wahamed Duar, there,” he said, pointing.

“Do you recognize the man sitting at the defense table?”

“Yes. That is Wahamed Duar.”

“How do you know?”

“We were given a photograph of him before the operation. He matches the photograph.”

Elizabeth walked forward and handed him an eight by ten print. “Is this the photograph that you had on the night of the operation?”

He looked and added quickly, “Yes.”

“Did you personally bring him back to the ship?”

“Yes I did.”

“One last thing,” Watson said. “Have you seen this document before?” she asked, handing him a copy of the confession.

“Yes. I saw it in Egypt.”

“Did you take this man, Wahamed Duar, to Egypt?”

“Yes. The Egyptian military wanted to ask him some questions about the American Embassy bombing. We complied with their request and I took him to Egypt.”

“Did you personally see him sign this document?”

Rat looked at Duar. “No.”

“How do you know he signed it?”

“I asked him.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me that he had signed it when I showed it to him.”

“Does he speak English?”

“You know, I’m not really sure.”

“How did you talk to him?”

“In Arabic.”

“You speak Arabic?”

“I do.”

Watson looked satisfied. “No further questions.”

Stern rose to his feet. The journalists were expectant. “Lieutenant Rathman, you had to come here over the weekend in something of a hurry. Correct?”

“I received this subpoena yesterday, and left yesterday afternoon. I flew all night, and arrived here this morning.”

“And what were you doing yesterday during the day?”

Watson jumped up immediately. “Objection, irrelevant. Also goes to character evidence that is irrelevant as to this witness. Your Honor, this is what we were talking about. I thought your instruction to Mr. Stern was very clear.”

“So did I. What is the relevance of this, Mr. Stern?”

“Goes to bias, Your Honor. Shows how he feels about the defendant and those who allegedly worked with him.”

“Why didn’t you make this argument when we were in camera?”

“Frankly, Your Honor, I didn’t think about it.”

“Objection is overruled. You may answer the question, Lieutenant Rathman.”

Rat had known he would be asked, but he didn’t expect it to be the first question. Everybody who was conscious knew about his trial. It was on the front page of every newspaper in the country. CNN was devoting hours of special broadcasting to it—“Is It Ever Okay to Torture a Terrorist?”—and impaneling law professors to discuss it endlessly. “I was in court in Washington, D.C. I am on trial for manslaughter.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Who is it you are being charged with the death of?”

“Mazmin. The other terrorist that we captured with Duar.”

“You did in fact torture Mazmin to death, didn’t you?”

Watson jumped to her feet. “As the witness testified, Your Honor, he is on trial. It is inappropriate for counsel to ask a question which calls for the witness to plead the Fifth Amendment. His question should be stricken.”

The judge nodded. “Sustained. Mr. Stern, you know better.”

“The allegation against you, the charge for which you’re being tried, is that you tortured Mr. Mazmin to death. Right?”

“Basically.”

Stern changed course. “You took this man,” he said, pointing, “to Egypt. Right?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you were there the whole time he was in the hands of the Egyptians. Right?”

“Sort of. I delivered him to the Egyptians, then went to eat with the rest of my men. Then I brought him back to the ship.”

“You observed them torturing him. True?”

Watson tried to stop him. “Your Honor, this exceeds the scope of direct examination.”

“Overruled. Answer the question.”

Rat was beginning to feel uncomfortable. “No, I didn’t.”

Josephine studied his face as he answered. She scratched quickly in her notebook.

Stern was surprised. “Why you?”

“Why me?”

“Right. Why you? Of all the people that could have taken this man to Egypt, why did they choose you?”

“Maybe because he knows me,” he said, looking at Duar. “And I was familiar with him.”

“Or maybe because the government
knew
he was going to be tortured in Egypt, and they knew you didn’t have any problem with torture. Think maybe that was it?”

“Objection, Your Honor!” Watson erupted.

“Sustained.”

Stern asked as if he couldn’t remember, “What is it you’re being tried for in Washington?”

Watson interjected, “Asked and answered, Your Honor.”

“Sustained.”

“What did the Egyptians do to this man?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“You saw that they had used electrical current on him, right?”

“When I got back to the room they still had him hooked up. I made them take him off the machine.”

“You saw him with electrodes attached to his earlobes and scrotum. Right?”

“Yes.”

“What else did they do?”

“I’m not sure. They told me—”

“Hearsay, Your Honor,” Watson said.

Stern shook his head. “She wanted hearsay earlier, she can’t now object.”

“Overruled,” Graham said.

“What did they tell you?”

“They had wrapped a towel around his head and poured water onto it so he couldn’t breathe. He responded well to that, but then they upped the ante.”

“They went to electricity.”

“Yes.”

“And this confession, it was elicited by them electrocuting him.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re aware, aren’t you, how unreliable information is when it is elicited by torture?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t really have any experience—”

“You’ve heard, haven’t you?”

“Some.”

“Men will say anything to make the pain stop. Won’t they?”

“I’m not sure. Probably.”

He picked up the confession and held it up. “He signed this confession after being tortured, right?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. When I looked at it, it was already written and signed. I don’t know when he did it.”

“You never saw him sign it, did you?”

“No.”

“And it is your belief that this is Wahamed Duar. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Please pick up the photograph that Commander Watson showed you.”

Rat picked up the picture and looked at it again. He looked up, waiting for the next question.

“It’s your belief that the man sitting at this table is Wahamed Duar based entirely on this photograph. Right?”

“Yes.”

Stern nodded. “Even though the photograph is black and white, tell me what you notice about the eyes of Wahamed Duar.”

Rat looked at it carefully. “They are fairly light, especially for someone from Sudan.”

Stern looked at the judge. “Your Honor, I would like for Mr. Rathman to come down from the witness stand and look into the eyes of the defendant.”

“And what is the point of that, Mr. Stern?” the judge asked.

“The government is apparently trying to use Lieutenant Rathman to confirm the identity of the defendant. I want to show him he’s wrong, and have him so testify.”

“Proceed,” the judge said.

Stern continued, “Lieutenant Rathman, please come over here with the photograph and look into the eyes of the defendant.”

The translator sat next to Duar and spoke in low tones telling him everything that was being said. Duar watched Rat.

Rat stood reluctantly, took the photograph, and crossed over to the defense table. He looked at Duar, then at the photograph, back at Duar, and then at Stern.

“Have you had an opportunity to examine the defendant?”

“Yes.”

“You would agree that his eyes are much darker than the eyes of man in the photograph. Correct?”

“That appears to be the case.”

“You would also agree that it is impossible to change one’s eye color.”

“You can do wonders with contact lenses.”

Stern nodded. “Assuming there is no funny business with contact lenses here, you would agree that one cannot make one’s eyes lighter or darker.”

“Generally, yeah.”

“You would have to agree with me then, wouldn’t you, that the defendant’s eyes do not match the eyes of the man in the photograph.”

Rat felt cornered. The haunted feeling he had had since standing in the C-17 on the night of the raid had returned with a vengeance. “I would have to agree with that.”

Elizabeth was taking notes, trying to hide the panic she was starting to feel.

“It’s very possible, isn’t it, Lieutenant Rathman, that you captured the wrong man in Sudan?”

“Hard to say. He was there. He fled from the room. He fired at me when we tried to pull him out of a well. So if he isn’t Wahamed Duar, he sure acted like him.”

Stern nodded, completely unconcerned. “All you can really say is that those things were done by someone. Not necessarily my client.”

“No, he’s definitely the one who fired at us.”

“Did it not occur to you, Lieutenant Rathman, that perhaps there was someone else who was there who looked an awful lot like Wahamed Duar? That maybe that’s the entire reason he was there? So in case of attack or capture,
he
would be the one captured, not Duar?”

Rat was stunned. “No, it really didn’t.”

“Have you not heard stories about how Saddam Hussein had doubles, men who looked just like him who rode around in limos, slept in his palaces, appeared in public, even. Have you heard about that?”

“Yes.”

“Yet it didn’t occur to you that maybe Duar was doing the same thing, and you were the one who had been tricked?”

Rat didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.