“I have no employers! Jesus, please believe me. Please!”
My voice told him he was so close to breaking me. So close.
He draped the cloth over my face. “You’re not going to make it out of here to see your kid, Capra.”
“No!” I yelled. “No!”
He gushed the water over my face. I felt the water closing in on my lungs. I writhed against the straps, trying to move away from the awful, steady flow. The gush surged into what felt like a river.
I was drowning.
I started to babble. Nonsense. Random words. Lucy. The Bundle. God, no. The scarred man. Innocent. Innocent. I knocked myself nearly unconscious, slamming my head against the waterboard. He hadn’t secured me correctly. He slowly dragged the wet fabric off my face. I begged for air. Then he put the soaked shroud back over my nose and mouth.
And then he started again. I resumed screaming and babbling.
I was glad, when they kicked me to the cold embrace of the cell floor, that I could not hear or remember what I said. Some things are best lost to memory.
7
December came. One of the guards mentioned to me that it was Christmas Day. He did not use the word merry. Then January marched by me. The baby’s due date, January 10, came and passed. Maybe my son was born now, drawing his sharp breaths, needing me. And I was stuck in a rocky hellhole.
That day, Howell came into my cell. “Your child was due today.”
I looked up from the black bread and the potato soup I was having for lunch.
“Cooperate and maybe we can find her. We have every hospital in Europe on alert for her. You could see your son, Sam. Don’t you want to see your boy?”
My face set into steel, no matter how torn my heart felt. “Yes. But I’ve told you everything. Let me go, Howell. Let me go. Let me help you find her.”
“What would you have named him?”
I didn’t want to talk to Howell about my lost son. I didn’t want to talk to Howell period. “Screw you,” I said. “What the hell would you care what we wanted to name our kid?”
“You’re really angry today, Sam.”
“I’m sick of you. Of all of you. Of your utter stupidity.”
Howell studied me, and then he stood. “Here’s the thing. I’ve fought for you. I believed you when you said you knew nothing. I think you are an innocent man. For what that’s worth.” He dropped a piece of paper on the stone floor. A photo of one of the ultrasounds, The Bundle in all his glory. Howell walked out.
I studied the picture. My child.
Am I a father? Has he been born? I have to get out of here. My kid needs me.
But I stayed sitting on the cold stone floor, thinking.
8
A winter spent with cheek against stone. I kept insisting on my innocence into February. Every day, every aspect of my life was questioned, dissected, dissolved. Every day, I was doubted.
Do you know what that is like? To not be believed? To not be believed by the people who are your peers, your friends, your sole support, when your family has gone missing? To have your colleagues sure that you are capable of treason and murder?
You cannot build a crueler jail.
March came. Howell was gone; there was no more waterboarding. Four different interrogators asked the same questions and listened to my litany of innocence. One morning two thick-necked ex-Marines came in and held me down and slid a needle into my skin and part of me hoped: this is it, the forever dark, the end. Now they’re done with me.
I woke up back in America.
The television mounted in the corner played Comedy Central. I jerked around to look at the walls. No window. Just white walls, the hospital bed, a chair, the television with a standup comic roaming the stage, screaming into a microphone, making fun of newlywed guys for being lame and uncool. Restraints bound my arms to the bed. The room smelled of disinfectant and lavender air freshener. I was washed and clean, for the first time in weeks. Cold against my butt I felt a bedpan, and poking into my flesh I felt a catheter; in my arm was an IV drip.
I stayed very still but all I heard was the soft, dreamy hum of hospital equipment and air-conditioning. I didn’t call out for the nurse. I was clean and in a bed and not in a dank, forgotten cell and no one was kicking me.
The comedian on the TV bitched about his wife. He poked fun at the insane demands of his kids. I wanted to strangle him for his blind ingratitude. He didn’t know how lucky he was. Then I just closed my eyes and I slept again, clean and comfortable, on sheets instead of stone.
When I woke, my mouth tasted sour with sleep. Still bound. Bedpan and catheter. A nurse entered the room and inspected me. She didn’t let her eyes meet my gaze.
“Hello,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“Where am I?” I croaked.
She still didn’t answer. She checked my vitals and made her notes and then she left. I tested the strength of the restraints. I wouldn’t be breaking loose… On the table now, pushed to the side, stood a green bottle of Boylan Bottleworks Ginger Ale, my all-time favorite soda. It’s made in New Jersey and you can’t get it everywhere. And a bottle of Heineken, although since I’d taken up parkour I didn’t drink very often. Both bottles glistened with beads of cold. Stacked next to it were books by my favorite authors. Pecan pralines, my favorite candy. A Hubig’s fried pie from New Orleans, a childhood treat from one of the few times when my folks lived in the States when I was a kid. A prickle of sweat formed on my back. This was some new torture.
Then a man stepped into my room. Broad-shouldered, dressed in a neat, bland gray suit, gray tie, blue shirt, his hair cut down to a burr, slices of gray in the goatee. Howell.
“Hello, Sam. How are you today? You’ve slept quite a bit, which is just what you need to get back on your feet.” His voice sounded kind, like he really cared how I was. Soft, quiet, and immediately I hated him again. The past months had taught me that I had no friends and no patience with those who pretended to be my friend.
He saw the fire in my eyes and for a moment he glanced away.
“Where am I?” I said.
“You’re in New York City. I will be your liaison.”
“What do you mean, liaison?”
“You’re being released.” He flinched a smile at me.
I didn’t believe it. It must be a trick. I made myself breathe. “You found my wife?”
“No.”
“Then why…”
“Your innocence has been established.” Now Howell’s voice stiffened, and the words felt a shade rehearsed. “We regret the inconvenience.”
I could neither laugh nor howl at the four small words, their pitiful sentiment, their complete inadequacy to the hell I had endured. When I found my voice, it sounded cracked. “Established how?”
“It doesn’t matter, Sam. We know you’re innocent.”
I closed my eyes. “Then you’re lying to me. You must have found Lucy.”
“No,” he said. “I swear to you, we do not know where she is.”
The silence between us, broken by the comic’s rantings in the background. I reached for the remote and my fingers fumbled for a grip. Howell picked it up and turned off the television.
“I don’t believe you now.”
“This is no trick, Sam,” Howell said. “We know you’re innocent. Just be grateful for your freedom.”
Grateful. Freedom. The words sanded against each other in my brain. “You people tortured me. You held me prisoner, without a lawyer, without cause.”
“It didn’t happen, Sam.” Slowly, Howell unbuckled the straps binding my legs to the bed. He moved with caution, like he was removing the top of a basket holding a cobra. He looked up to catch my stare and swallowed, as though realizing he should not show fear. “You will be integrated back into civilian life, Sam. Think of me as a parole officer.”
“Innocent people aren’t on parole.”
“The Company asked me to serve in this role. I’m the only one who believed you, do you remember? I said I thought you were innocent. I was your only advocate, Sam.”