After leaving Faisalabad and climbing northwest over Pakistan, the G5 crossed into Afghanistan roughly at the Khyber Pass. For an hour it flew over the Hindu Kush, jagged snowcapped peaks glittering in the cloudless sky. Eventually the Kush gave way to the steppes of Turkmenistan, a vast expanse hardly touched by roads or cities. Even the most intrepid travelers rarely visited Turkmenistan. The country existed mainly as a bridge between more appealing destinations, nations with amenities such as oceans, reliable electricity, and the rule of law. The ultimate flyover country.
Had the jet kept on the same route, it would have entered Russia next. But the other men in the G5 preferred to avoid Russia. Instead, the jet veered left, over the Caspian Sea, a vast blue-black expanse broken only by an occasional oil platform. Then over Azerbaijan. The less said about Azerbaijan, the better. And into Georgia, not the former heart of the Confederacy but the former (and perhaps future) Russian republic.
After Georgia came the Black Sea, the jet chasing the setting sun at five hundred miles an hour, invisible to the trawlers and freighters dotting the water below. The Gulfstream had a range of more than six thousand miles, so fuel was no problem. Halfway across the Black Sea, the G5 doglegged northwest, a forty-five-degree right turn that took it to Ukraine.
Aside from a few bumps over Afghanistan, the trip was smooth for five of the seven men in the cabin. Wearing black sweatshirts, jeans, and steel-toed boots, they sat in the jet’s leather chairs, keeping watch on the reason for the trip: the two prisoners who lay prone on the floor, legs and arms shackled, wearing orange T-shirts and diapers. Detainees were not allowed to take bathroom breaks during these flights.
In Faisal, the prisoners had received sedatives: two milligrams of Ativan, five of Haldol, and fifty of Benadryl, injected intramuscularly. Emergency-room psychiatrists called the combination a B-52 and used it to restrain psychotic patients. The Haldol caused extreme sedation and reduced muscle control. Essentially, the drug produced temporary paralysis. The Benadryl acted as another sedative, as well as a counter to the nastier side effects of the Haldol. The Ativan was more pleasant, a tranquilizer that reduced anxiety.
But the smaller prisoner didn’t seem to be getting much relief from the Ativan. As the jet crossed into the Ukraine, he began to moan through his hood and toss his head side to side like a dog with a mouse in its jaws.
The men guarding him watched him silently and without sympathy. They didn’t know exactly what he’d done, or even his name, but they knew he was a terrorist, else he wouldn’t be on this plane.
The guards were ex-soldiers, now employed by a private security company called Ekins Charlotte. Little Eight Enterprises, a Maryland shell company, owned the jet. Little Eight’s nominal president was Tim Race, a former CIA deputy section chief. Retired now, Race lived near Tampa and spent his days fishing in the Gulf. As a favor to his old bosses, Race had signed certain necessary documents — aircraft leases, insurance forms, and corporate records. He did not know exactly how the agency planned to use the jet, though he guessed it wouldn’t be for golf outings.
Little Eight put a legal veil between the CIA and the Gulfstream, though a veil sheer enough to allow the agency to track the jet minute by minute. Everyone involved with these renditions agreed that official U.S. government aircraft shouldn’t be used for the transfers, though no one could fully explain why. The answer seemed to be a combination of secrecy and plausible deniability. Not to mention the faint but definite odor of brimstone attached to the process of stealing men from their homelands without the approval of even a kangaroo court.
AS THE JET PROGRESSED over Ukraine, the smaller prisoner began to hammer his forehead against the cabin floor. A kick to the ribs stilled him, but after a few rattling breaths he started again, regular as a metronome, the flat, dull sound echoing through the jet.
Joe Zawadzki, the former Ranger captain in charge of the transfer, grabbed the man’s hood and held his head. Despite the Haldol, the prisoner’s shoulders and neck revealed tremendous agitation. But he neither cried nor spoke. Zawadzki was holding a vibrating bowling ball. After a few seconds, Zawadzki let go. Immediately, the prisoner banged his head, harder this time. And again.
Zawadzki had been in charge on dozens of these flights, and he’d never had a prisoner seriously injured. “All right,” he said. “Take off the hood, sit him up.”
They pulled on latex gloves, flipped the prisoner on his back, stuck a pillow under his head so he couldn’t do any more damage. Then Zawadzki pulled off his hood and tugged him up.
The prisoner’s lip was split and his nose was bleeding, not a gusher but a steady flow from the left nostril. Zawadzki was glad for the gloves. He grabbed the first-aid kit and a water bottle. The prisoner shook his head side to side, sending a trickle of blood on the floor. If he kept up this nonsense, they were going to have to hit him with another dose of Ativan, or more Haldol. Zawadzki kept syringes in his pack.
He poured water onto the Paki’s face, rubbed away the remaining blood with a gauze pad, taped a cotton ball into the prisoner’s nostril. Zawadzki poured a few drops of water into the guy’s mouth and waited to see if he would spit or swallow. He swallowed. The water seemed to have calmed him a little.
“Relax,” Zawadzki said. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”
The prisoner seemed unconvinced. He opened his mouth wide. A shiny spit bubble stretched between his lips, popped, re-formed. He mumbled something, and then repeated it more loudly. It wasn’t Arabic. Probably Pashto. Whatever it was, Zawadzki couldn’t understand.
“Quiet or the hood goes back on,” he said to the guy. “Come on, don’t you speak any Arabic?”
“He only knows Pashto. I know what he’s saying,” the second prisoner, the fat one, said in Arabic through his hood. “Take this off and I will tell you.”
Zawadzki pulled the fat guy’s hood half off so his mouth was visible.
“He says his ribs are broken, that the Pakistani police broke them when they took us to the airport. They beat us in their van. Like the animals they are. And these drugs you gave us are very bad. Poison.”
“Tell him he’ll get medical care when we land.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.” In fact, the guys running the detention center would make that decision. But Zawadzki wasn’t going to explain that right now. “Tell him to relax. He’s got to calm down.”
“All right,” the fat prisoner said. He craned his head toward the first prisoner, and the two men had a short conversation before Zawadzki pulled the hood back over the fat prisoner’s head. But the talk seemed to have done the trick. The first guy was breathing more normally. Zawadzki lowered him to the floor of the cabin and laid him down. Probably better for his ribs that way, if they really were broken. Zawadzki didn’t believe in hurting prisoners. His job was transport, not interrogation.
TOUCHDOWN WAS BUMPY. The runway needed to be repaved, but Szczynto-Symanty wasn’t a working airport. It opened only for these ghost flights. The Gulfstream taxied for a minute before its engines spooled down and the jet halted. The copilot opened the cabin door. “Looks like you guys had fun,” he said.
Zawadzki lifted the prisoner, shackled him again, and pulled the hood over him. The prisoner grunted and bobbed his head a couple of times, but the fight had gone out of him. For now. Zawadzki and another guard wrapped him in a black blanket and walked him to the cabin door and down to the runway. The other guards handled the second prisoner.