The Mirage: A Novel (7 page)

The exact text of the Miranda warning varies from
jurisdiction
to jurisdiction, but the following script, used by police in the state of
Iraq
, is typical: “By the grace of God the All-Merciful and Compassionate, you have
the right to remain silent
. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law, where, God willing, justice will be done. By the grace of God the All-Merciful and Compassionate, you have
the right to an attorney.
If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you by the court. Do you understand these rights as I have described them to you?”

The warning gets its name from the 1966
Supreme Court
case
Miranda v. Morocco.
The case concerned
Arturo Miranda
, a
Catholic
of
Spain
arrested in
Marrakesh
for the kidnapping and rape of a young
Berber
woman. Miranda admitted his guilt to the police and was subsequently tried and convicted. His lawyer argued on appeal that as a
non-citizen
who did not speak
Arabic
, Miranda had been unaware of his right to silence under the
UAS Constitution
, and that therefore his confession should have been excluded. The Supreme Court agreed, in a landmark 5–4 decision.

The Court’s majority opinion was written by
Chief Justice Alim al Warith
. Among other authorities, Al Warith cited a
traditional saying
of the
Prophet Mohammed
(peace be unto him) which states, “None of you truly believes, until you desire for your brother what you desire for yourself.” Wrote Al Warith: “Surely any man, when confronted by the overwhelming power of the state, would want, at a minimum, to be made aware of his
inalienable rights
.”

Law enforcement reaction to the ruling was initially negative, with some police and prosecutors predicting a total collapse of the justice system. Al Warith had anticipated this in his opinion: “There are those who will say that by advising suspects of their right against
self-incrimination
, we eliminate any chance of obtaining a confession. In the case of
innocent
suspects, of course, this is a desirable outcome. As for the guilty, by treating them with honor and dignity, we hope to reawaken their consciences and lead them back to
the righteous path
; but those who persist in wickedness will, we believe, be undone by their own
moral weakness
. Though they be warned ten thousand times not to speak, still
Satan
will loosen their tongues and bring them to doom.”

Although the wisdom of the ruling continues to be debated, a 1976 study by the
Arab Civil Liberties Union
,
Ten Years of Miranda
, found no significant decline in the number of confessions obtained by police. The report did note a drop in the percentage of convictions overturned on appeal, which it attributed in part to the use of
signed Miranda waivers
to document suspects’ consent to be questioned.

As for Arturo Miranda, he received a new trial. Even without his confession, prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him for a second time. Miranda served 7 years in
Rabat State Prison
; upon his release, he was deported to Spain. The judge who signed the deportation order urged Miranda to consider the fate of his soul on
Judgment Day
and mend his ways.

This particular “Miranda warning” went unheeded. In 1974 Miranda was implicated in the hijacking of a bank truck carrying Spanish government funds, including a rumored 6 million pesetas from the personal account of
General Francisco Franco
. The
Madrid
police, in an effort to get Miranda to divulge the whereabouts of the truck, subjected him to a brutal interrogation. He died in custody. The stolen money was not recovered.

A
rab Homeland Security’s regional Baghdad headquarters was located in an eight-story building within shouting distance of Ground Zero. The building, formerly owned by the underwriter who’d insured the twin towers, had undergone extensive renovation since 2001. Part of the remodel had been the addition of a state-of-the-art “interview suite”: three interrogation rooms surrounding a single, central observation room.

The basic setup would have been familiar to anyone who’d ever watched a television police procedural. But unlike the interrogation rooms on
Law & Order: Halal
or
CSI: Damascus
, these came with million-riyal price tags. The bulk of the money had gone towards special sensors that turned each room into a walk-in polygraph machine. In addition to the lie-detecting equipment, there were multiple cameras and microphones; these were supposedly on a closed circuit, but Mustafa had long suspected the existence of an undocumented line out that allowed the higher-ups in Riyadh to monitor the questioning.

Other aspects of the interrogation rooms would have given a civil libertarian pause. The climate controls could be set for temperatures outside the normal human comfort range. Shutters in the air vents allowed the rooms to be hermetically sealed; this was billed as a safety feature for preventing the release of smuggled-in biological or chemical weapons, but a cynical mind could not help asking whether there might not be some other reason for restricting a detainee’s air supply.

And then there was the matter of the wall outlets. The ceiling lights provided more than adequate illumination, and there were, as noted, plenty of built-in recording devices. So why had the designers opted to include so many electrical sockets?

“Well, you know how it is,” Samir had said, when Mustafa pointed this out to him. “Some power drills have really short cords.”

Now, as he looked through the one-way glass into interrogation room A, Mustafa tried to map out an interrogation strategy that did not involve the use of power tools.

“Abdullah,” he said. “Did you remember to offer Dr. Costello a Bible?”

“I did, Mustafa,” Abdullah said. “But you see how he’s sulking in there. He wouldn’t even look at the cart.”

Whatever other rights might be stripped from them in the name of state security, every prisoner was entitled to a holy book. This could be a thorny proposition where Christians were concerned, for while there is only one Quran, there are many Bibles. Woe unto the Muslim who gave an angry crusader the wrong translation or selection of apocrypha.

Sensing an opportunity, Mustafa had filled a library cart with as many different Bibles as he could lay his hands on: the Latin Vulgate; various incarnations of the King James; the Luther Bible; the Revised Standard; the Ignatius Bible; the Scofield Reference; the Reina-Valera; the Louis Segond. Mustafa’s goal was not so much to have something for everyone, but rather, by demonstrating an awareness of Christian sensibilities, to show respect, and thereby establish trust and good will. It was a surprisingly effective tactic, even with prisoners who refused all hospitality.

The observation room door opened and Amal and Samir came in. “Well?” Mustafa said.

“Gaza City PD came through,” Amal told him. “It was a convenience-store robbery. They faxed over the report and a photo of the crime scene.”

Mustafa studied the photograph Amal handed to him. It showed a woman sitting with her back against the door of a cold-beverage case, her head lolling to one side. Her close-eyed expression was peaceful, as if she’d just nodded off to sleep, but below the neck she was a bloody mess.

“So what’s the plan?” Samir asked. “You going to play the sympathy angle with this guy?”

“Something like that,” Mustafa said.

“Hello, Dr. Costello,” he began. “My name is Mustafa al Baghdadi. I’m here to speak with you about your recent activities.”

Costello sat with his elbows propped on the interrogation room table, his gaze fixed on the short length of chain that ran between the cuffs on his wrists. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Perhaps you’ll just listen, then,” Mustafa said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to speak Arabic. I understand you’re fluent in the language, and while I do have English, those who are observing us”—he gestured at the cameras, the mirrored glass—“are not so fortunate.”

Costello made no direct answer to this, but sat back in his chair with a sigh. Mustafa held up the folder containing Costello’s ICE file; he’d padded it with a couple hundred pages of unrelated office correspondence, so it made a weighty thump as he set it on the tabletop. “This is everything we know about you.” He sat opposite the doctor, and rather than open the folder, looked straight across the table and began to recite from memory.

“Your full name is Gabriel Brennan Costello. You were born in Boston in 1973. In 1988, following the death of your parents, you went to live in London with your maternal grandmother. In 1991 you received a visa to pursue undergraduate studies at Baghdad University. From 1995 to 1998 you attended the Ain Shams School of Medicine in Cairo. You completed your surgical residency at Jaffa Medical Center in Palestine. Four years ago you returned to Baghdad to work in the trauma unit at Karkh General Hospital. Since then, you’ve taken several leaves of absence to go on foreign missions with the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières.

“I must say, it doesn’t sound like the résumé of a terrorist. Of course you’re an American, and a Christian, and those Doctors Without Borders missions have all been to help other Christians wounded in the German
Volksaufstand.
In the eyes of some of my colleagues, any one of these facts would be enough to brand you a threat, with no further explanation necessary. But I try to be more open-minded than that, and as a resident of this city, I’m naturally curious. You know, right after 11/9, all of Arabia asked itself Why? Why do they hate us? The rest of the country has tried to move on since then, but here in Baghdad, still living with the aftereffects of that day, we find it much harder to put the past behind us. We still want to know: Why do you hate us, Dr. Costello?

“Is it because you’re American? The War on Terror hasn’t been kind to your native country, it’s true, but you were young when you left home, and there’s nothing in your record to suggest a nationalist streak.

“Is it because you’re Christian? It’s tempting to believe that, but even if I didn’t know better, I can still count. There are nearly two billion Christians in the world, and if you were all wicked by nature, things would be very bad indeed.

“So what is it, Dr. Costello? What turned your heart against us? Arabia welcomed you in, gave you an education and a profession, a stake in a civilized society. Was there something else, some basic courtesy we failed to extend? Did we offend you somehow? Why do you hate us?”

Mustafa paused to give Costello an opportunity to respond—perhaps to take issue with Mustafa’s description of Arabia’s generosity. But Costello wasn’t interested in complaining about his immigrant experience. He slouched in his chair and stared at the table in silence, projecting weary resignation.

“Maybe instead of asking
why
I should ask
when
,” Mustafa continued. “On your residency application, you listed your own and your parents’ religion as Episcopalian. I confess, I had to look that up on the Library of Alexandria. LoA describes it as an American offshoot of the Anglican Church. Is that the answer to the riddle, Dr. Costello? Did the Church of England get its hooks in you during your time in London? Did the Archbishop of Canterbury brainwash you in one of his parish schools? You know the British prime minister has threatened to unleash a wave of destruction against the Muslim world if we or our allies interfere with England’s nuclear-bomb program. He claims to have sleeper agents in place all across Arabia and Persia. Is that you, Dr. Costello?”

A thin smile of derision appeared on Costello’s lips and he snorted softly. “What, you think it’s a funny idea?” Mustafa said. “I assure you, my superiors would have no problem believing such a thing . . . I’d be inclined to believe it myself, if this were 1981 and the Israelis had just blown up the nuclear reactor in Suffolk. But there’s been no new provocation, and for all his bluster, I don’t think either the prime minister or the men who pull his strings are really that eager to go to war with us.

“So no, I don’t suppose England is the answer. I have a different theory. I think the poisoning of your soul took place much more recently. I think it had less to do with faith, or politics, than with a woman.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Dr. Costello. Tell me this isn’t about your fiancée.”

Costello’s smile went away. But he was looking at Mustafa now.

“Jessica Lamar, of Texas,” Mustafa said, acknowledging the eye contact. “She was working as a physical rehabilitation specialist in Jaffa when you did your residency. Is that how you met, through work? Did you share a patient? Or did you meet at a chapel service? She was a member of the United Methodist sect, which I understand is another branch of Anglicanism, so that would mean you could worship together, yes?” Costello didn’t answer and after a moment Mustafa went on: “You applied for a marriage license in spring of 2005. By then you’d already been accepted onto the staff at Karkh General, so I guess the plan was you’d get married over the summer and move to Baghdad to start work in the fall. But in early June, you got a call from the police.

“She was visiting outpatients in Gaza City. Gaza . . . not the nicest part of Palestine. But because it’s so poor, plenty of residents join the military in hopes of escaping to a better life—and now, thanks to the war, there are plenty of injured veterans needing care. So your fiancée was on a mission of mercy to help soldiers wounded in the invasion of
your
native country . . . and her reward for this was to be shot down senselessly by a couple of petty thieves.”

A muscle started jumping in Costello’s cheek.

“According to the Gaza PD,” Mustafa continued, “the gunmen were members of a street gang that calls itself the Islamic Resistance Movement. You know the joke the Gaza City cops tell about the IRM, Dr. Costello? They say the Movement is very successful—it’s been resisting Islam’s message of peace for over thirty years now.”