“No, never.”
“Where?”
“A special room is reserved for them when they meet.”
“Is anyone else present when they meet?”
“No. It would violate the attorney-client privilege if someone else could hear what they were saying to each other. So the guard stands on the other side of the closed door. There is a large window in that door through which the guard can observe.”
“Why?”
“Several reasons. The prisoner cannot give anything to Mr. Johnson. Not a piece of paper, not an article of clothing. They can’t even shake hands.”
“What else?”
“Mr. Johnson can’t give anything to the prisoner.”
“Can Mr. Johnson have paper?”
“Sure. And pens. He always makes notes.”
“And he can take those away with him, correct?”
“Sure.”
“What does Johnson do with those notes?”
“We don’t know everything, but we do know that after his meetings with Hussein he contacts another person, sometimes in person and sometimes by cell phone.”
“Who is that person?”
“A man named Khalid Hussein. A Syrian immigrant who owns a big trucking company in New Jersey.”
“Do you know anything else about Khalid Hussein?”
“He claims to be Ali Hussein’s brother.”
“Is he?”
“No.”
“Does Johnson know that?”
“He has reason to suspect that they’re not brothers.”
“Why?”
“Khalid Hussein looks as much like Ali Hussein as Cinderella looks like Mike Tyson.”
Laughter swept the room. When it subsided, Hal Rana-focusing again on how surprising and erratic Hurd could be-asked, “What do they say to each other?”
“Johnson reads the Koran’s book, chapter, and verse numbers to him, saying that they are the sections of the Koran that Ali Hussein has been studying.”
“What does Khalid Hussein say to Johnson?”
“He reads out book, chapter, and verse numbers to Johnson. He says they are from the Imam, part of the religious education of Ali Hussein.”
“How often do Johnson and Khalid Hussein speak?”
“As often as Johnson visits the prisoner.”
“How do you know these conversations between Johnson and Khalid Hussein happen?”
“A federal judge authorized us to wiretap and intercept Mr. Johnson’s conversations with Khalid Hussein. We’re also authorized to intercept his emails and other electronic communications.”
“Does Johnson know that?”
“No. The interceptions are secret.”
“Why are Mr. Johnson’s conversations being monitored?”
“Because we believe he’s involved in a conspiracy to pass messages from Ali Hussein to the Imam.”
“What’s the purpose?”
“We think to assist terrorist organizations to locate millions of dollars of cash in secret accounts around the world.”
There was a broad plaza outside the grim, fortress-like building that housed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in lower Manhattan. At one side of the plaza was St. Andrew’s Church. Across from the attractive brick church was the Municipal Building, and next to the church was the old federal courthouse. Scattered over the plaza were food trucks with open sides through which an astonishing variety of foods was served: Italian sandwiches, falafel, Chinese food, pastries. There were metal chairs and tables all over the plaza, and in the summer umbrellas made the outdoor space colorful. For more than fifteen years, through hundreds of different cases and investigations and trials, Hal Rana had often treated the plaza as his outdoor office. He had met there with other lawyers, government witnesses, Secret Service agents, and even journalists.
Hal Rana didn’t enjoy seeing or speaking with Andrew Hurd. In the months they had been dealing with each other, Hurd had never asked him whether he was married or had children or whether he played or was interested in sports. For his part, Hal was profoundly wary of Hurd. Although he had trained himself to make few assumptions about other people, he was certain that Hurd harbored contempt for him because of his background and his manners-once he had overheard Hurd refer to him as a “towelhead.”
The session in front of the grand jury had made Hal Rana even more uneasy than the earlier sessions Hurd had attended. On those days when Hurd was himself a witness, Rana didn’t like the instructions Hurd gave him as to what to ask and what answers to elicit.
And it troubled Hal Rana that he had participated with Hurd in lying to the grand jury that morning.
“What next, Mr. Hurd?” There was an edgy, impatient contempt in his tone. He knew his voice had adopted that haughty inflection of a British aristocrat.
“You cut a grand jury subpoena for Christina Rosario.”
“Who is Christina Rosario?”
“She’s Byron Johnson’s girlfriend.”
“What do you think she knows?”
A slim Latino man with a gold stud through his left nostril put a slice of pizza on the table at which Hal Rana and Andrew Hurd sat. The plaza was crowded, and there were only a few open seats.
“Hey, fella,” Andrew Hurd said.
The man, his hand on the metal chair as he prepared to sit, looked surprised. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t sit here.”
Hal wondered what the source of Andrew Hurd’s personal power was. He had an unnerving way of looking right into people’s eyes. He wore gray suits even in hot weather; he had a mustache. He was, simply, different, in an old-fashioned, authoritative way. The slender man picked up the paper plate that the slice of pizza had already drenched and walked away.
Hal Rana repeated: “And what does she know?”
“She knows what I tell her she knows.”
Hal paused, looking out at the colorful lunchtime crowd in the sunny plaza. A hot breeze blew, stirring fragments of paper and plastic cups. “You know, Mr. Hurd, it’s one thing to ask me to have a government agent-you-mislead a Grand Jury. It’s another thing for me to put a civilian witness in the room if I’ve got a reason to believe she’s lying.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Rana. That won’t be a problem.”
“Why?”
“She works for me.”
22
MID-AUTUMN SUNSHINE GLITTERED all over Washington Square Park. Byron walked toward the beautiful northern border of the park, where the landmark nineteenth-century arch stood. To his left were the gated small homes, so rare in New York, that looked like Victorian homes in London. Byron had always wondered, ever since his parents first took him to this cozy part of the city for an afternoon party in the early 1960s, who lived in the Mews, as the small, elegantly crafted houses were called. Professors at NYU? Writers? The city version of the landed gentry? So many years later, on this brilliant, chilly afternoon, Byron wondered the same thing: he had never seen anyone inside the gates, except once, in 1975, a beautiful woman in a mini-skirt and high, supple boots.
Byron was early for his meeting with Khalid Hussein. During their quick telephone call to arrange this meeting, Khalid sounded surprised when Byron abruptly said, “We’ll meet at one tomorrow afternoon in Washington Square Park, in the Village.”
Byron envisioned the expression that must have settled quickly on Khalid’s heavy, belligerent face, the expression that conveyed, Nobody tells me where to go and when. But by this time Byron knew that Khalid needed him.
The park echoed sharply with the sounds of children and playful screams. NYU was in session, and in the sunlight hundreds young men and women sat on the benches or the patches of lawn in the recently renovated park. Frisbees-which Byron had first seen spinning through the fall air in Harvard Yard in 1967-flashed nearby. The smell of marijuana, faint but unmistakable, mixed with the stronger odors of roasting meat and chestnuts from the food carts in the park. The colorful umbrellas above the carts glinted in the clean light. Byron noticed, as he often had, that the men who worked at the food carts were all from places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. They never looked happy, and they never released anything from their hands-hot dogs, salted pretzels, or bottled water-without first taking cash from their customers. That instinctive distrust.