Because, he thought, they don’t want to know what you know. They want to know what you don’t know.
So what didn’t he know?
What were the questions the starched little prick kept asking him: What was Midas? Who runs Midas?
They weren’t looking for those answers! Whoever was behind the questioning knew the answers! They wanted to make sure that he didn’t know.
So what the hell was Midas? Who the hell was Midas?
Goddammit, he was close. He could feel it coming. He was so close his brain felt like it was exploding. Information was rushing at him-the reports he’d read, the background on the lawsuits, the history that Roger Mallone had thrown out to him. It was there. It really was. It was all inside his head. .
He heard the familiar noise at the door, immediately ran his hands over the dirt, obscuring everything he’d written, and as he did he felt the bubble burst.
He felt his brain shutting down, the pieces of the puzzle dissolving into nothingness.
He sagged with disappointment.
That’s when the door swung open. Two soldiers stood in the doorway, both holding rifles. They didn’t seem to care about the obscured swirls on the floor or why Justin was on his hands and knees. Behind them was the man in starched fatigues. He didn’t seem to care either. And when the man spoke, Justin didn’t particularly care about them either.
“Clean him up,” the man in the starched fatigues said to the two guards. “He’s going home.”
30
He was thrown into an outdoor shower stall that was big enough for ten men.
The sun at first burned his skin and scorched his eyes, but the fresh air enveloped him like a lovely ocean wave. As he was propelled to the shower area, he was vaguely aware of steel mesh pens that looked like animal cages. It took him a few moments to realize that they were for humans. These were the human voices he’d heard drifting into his cell.
The cleansing water made him aware of the sores on his legs and the bruises on his arms and chest and face. But they didn’t really hurt. Or if they did, the pain seemed unimportant. He let the warm shower water stream into his mouth and drop down his chin and thick beard. He scrubbed himself with soap, scraping off feces and layers of dirt and dead skin, and used some shampoo provided for him to wash his hair three times. He’d been handed a toothbrush, too, already slathered with toothpaste, and he ran the brush across his teeth over and over again until the paste was long gone, periodically spitting water and foam and blood from his mouth in the direction of the drain. The minty taste of the toothpaste tasted like fine wine. It was as if the sun and water were breathing life back into him.
They let him stay in there maybe fifteen minutes. At some point, he was too weak to stand under the hard and steady water flow, but he didn’t want it to end, so he just sat down and let the shower pelt down on him. A guard came to help him stand, and when he dried himself off, he was presented with new clothes. A crisp and clean blue work shirt, an equally fresh pair of chinos, thick white sweat socks, and a pair of sneakers.
He ran his fingers through his long hair, relishing the fact that it was no longer matted and gnarled. He kept grasping his beard with his fingertips; what felt normal in the isolation of his cell now felt coarse and strange and unnecessary. He wanted to rip the thick, bushy growth right out of his chin, and he started to pull it, hard, until he forced himself to close his eyes and relax, told himself that it was over, that he was going home, that he could deintensify his reactions and wait until he was in his own bathroom with a can of shaving cream and a razor. It was just a beard, he told himself, not a symbol of all he’d been through. It was something that could easily be removed when the time was right.
He could see other prisoners in their mesh pens. Justin looked for the man who’d come to see him in his cell, but was unable to pick him out of the crowd.
Two guards came and escorted him-half carried him because his legs were not working all that well-to a tin building that was set up as an office. It struck him as plush and rather luxurious. Justin was told to sit on a folding chair, which he did. The guards stood watching him for several minutes, but he knew that even if they left him alone, he didn’t have the energy to snoop or pry. He sat still until Starched Fatigues strode in and dismissed the guards. In daylight, in these surroundings, the man looked slightly older than Justin had believed him to be. And a bit smaller. Justin studied his face as the man sat behind a desk. The hair was visibly graying on the sides. His eyes had developed lines around them. His face, which was doing its best to look boyish, was beginning to reveal its age, as well as the pressures and traumas that lived inside it.
“You’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing,” he said, looking past Justin rather than at him.
Justin didn’t say anything. There was nothing he thought needed saying.
“You’ll be flown home today. I’ll be your military escort.”
Justin still didn’t respond. A slight tilt of the head was all.
“There is a very strong feeling that you were not acting in the best interests of your country, Mr. Westwood. You were moving into a very dangerous and suspicious territory. But we accept the fact that you were doing what you believed to be your job and didn’t understand the direction your investigation was taking you.”
Justin’s head tilted the other way now.
“I’m sure you’ll also want to know,” Starched Fatigues said, “that the terrorists responsible for the various attacks on our country have been eliminated. The immediate threat is over. We accept the fact that you were not in any way tied to this group.”
Justin couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “They were caught?”
“They were found. They resisted and were killed in a gun battle.”
“Who are they? Who were they?”
“It was a terrorist cell. Five of them were Iraq-connected. They hooked up with three suspected members of Al Qaeda who we’d been tracking for months. That’s how we found them.”
“How many were there?”
“Eight.”
“And they were all killed?”
“That’s correct.” Starched Fatigues shifted uncomfortably for a moment. “We’ll allow you to ask some questions if they relate to your investigation. We believe you deserve that much after the ordeal you’ve been put through.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Justin asked.
“I’ll allow you.”
“May I ask where the eight men were found?”
“They’d been moving around the country. We stopped them in Delaware.”
“Was anyone from our side killed in the gun battle?”
“Is there a reason for that question? Or an implication behind it?”
“I’m a cop. I like to know all sides of an equation.”
“Well, you’re not going to be allowed to know the different sides of this equation. Stick to your investigation. Or no more questions.”
Justin tried to focus. He knew he wouldn’t get a lot of leeway. “What was Hutchinson Cooke’s involvement?”
“Before I go into this, understand that this entire conversation is confidential. We will share information with you because we feel you’re entitled to it. But it cannot be shared outside this room.”
“If it is?”
“You’ve got some political clout behind you, Mr. Westwood.”
“That’s news to me.”
“Maybe. But you do. It’s one of the reasons you’re being released. That and the fact that many of the loose ends surrounding the bombings have been tied up. But if you ever talk about anything that you learn here or that happened to you here, you would be violating the security of the United States and a return visit could very well be justified.”
“That’s a good argument for confidentiality,” Justin said quietly.