The Prisoner of Guantanamo Read Online Free PDF Page A

tousled, which only added to his aura of boyishness.
    â€œWant me in or out, sir?” the MP asked, in a tone that said he couldn’t care less.
    The MPs weren’t always surly, even this late in the day, but they reserved a special scorn for those who spoke Arabic, as if it was a mild form of betrayal. If you spoke the language of the terrorists, then maybe you’d imbibed in other ways from their cups of poison.
    â€œOut. And, soldier, unlock his handcuffs, please.”
    â€œYour funeral,” he said, complying sullenly. Falk wondered if he talked like that to interrogators in uniform. Doubtful.
    â€œSo why did you get me up so early?” Adnan began, more annoyed than angry.
    â€œI thought it might do us both some good. We’ve been in sort of a rut lately, don’t you think?”
    Adnan shrugged, then yawned. Falk almost wished that he had brought along some food. A glass of milk for bedtime. Maybe this was a stupid idea.
    But he had already noticed at least one promising sign. In their many conversations Falk had noted that Adnan displayed some fairly simple tics and tendencies, habits that at times made him an open book.
    Whenever the young man looked upward and to his right, he was almost always lying, as if that was where he looked for inspiration while searching his brain for a cover story. Glancing up and to the left meant he was stalling, waiting for the subject to change. When he stared down at the table he was usually lost in thought, having drifted to some other part of his life. At those moments you could rely on his every word. It was when Adnan was at his best. During those interludes Falk could almost pretend that neither of them heard the leg irons sliding on the floor when he moved in his chair. They were just shooting the breeze in a bar, perhaps, or at least that was the preferred location for Falk’s imagination. He wondered where Adnan would have placed them. Maybe in a market stall off the souk, sipping a cool yogurt on a warm day, with the mud-wall architecture of Sana all around, casting him in shadow. A strong Arab coffee at hand with its dark sludge and its bite of cardamom. They would be seated before a backgammon board, or a folded copy of the daily paper, while the lottery sellers and tea vendors shouted their prices as they passed.
    Relaxed moments like those had led to the few times Adnan had offered genuine revelations. And as those moments progressed Adnan tended to gaze up from his reverie straight into Falk’s eyes.
    Yet, for whatever reason, Adnan had clung to the one piece of information Falk wanted most: the name of his sponsor from Sana’s local al-Qaeda cell. Not the propagandist or imam who had sold him on the idea of jihad in Afghanistan, but his sugar daddy and bankroller. Because somewhere higher up in Falk’s chain of command, either in Langley or Foggy Bottom or at the Pentagon, the high priests had concluded that Adnan’s paymaster was someone important, a face card without a face in their well-thumbed deck. So they wanted the name, of course, and the sooner the better. Which meant that Adnan, despite the scoffing among Falk’s peers, was still a regular customer, even if lately all they seemed to discuss was home, or growing up, or the special way that his mother cooked lamb for the holidays.
    This morning, Falk saw to his pleasure, Adnan was already adrift, looking neither right nor left, but totally relaxed. Now if Falk could just get the young man to take the next step and look him in the eye. For a while he tried small talk, gradually working his way around to the question that always stumped them. It was shortly before 3:10 a.m. when Falk made his play.
    â€œSo who was your sponsor, Adnan?” he asked coolly during a pause. “Who was Mister Moneybags with the air tickets and the big talk? The man with the plan?”
    Adnan, caught off guard, briefly looked up from the table, eyes expressing mild betrayal.