anywhere, Duto called.”
“When, exactly?”
“Maybe two days after I spoke to Brant. He told me to find something else to do, that he was invoking the NSE”—the national security exemption, which allowed the director to overrule the inspector general and stop internal investigations if they were likely to damage vital national interests.
“Duto didn’t tell you what was behind the NSE.”
“He did not.”
“And that was it?”
“I’m not like you, Ellis. I get a direct order from the director, I listen. I called Murphy, told him not to worry. A couple of days later, his lawyer called, told me that wasn’t good enough, that Murphy wanted all records of the investigation destroyed.”
“Smart.”
“Yes. Too bad for him, I was able to tell him that wouldn’t be possible, that I had to hold the letter because of the allegations of torture, et cetera. So the lawyer asked me to certify that I had cleared Murphy of any wrongdoing related to 673. As an insurance policy, he said.”
“Without specifying what the wrongdoing actually was.”
“Correct, Ellis.” She paused. “So, I wrote it. Murphy had Duto on his side, and I figured it was more important to make sure this”—she looked at the letter—“survived. Then I locked that letter up and forgot about it. Though not entirely. I knew somebody would call. Sooner or later. Stuff like this doesn’t stay down forever.”
“You heard what’s happened with 673,” Shafer said. “The murders.”
“The day after Fisher and Wyly got killed, Duto called me to his office. I knew something was up, because normally he prefers to stay as far from me as possible. Anyway, he told me. Said there was an investigation starting up.”
“So, the FBI has the letter.”
Joyner shook her big blonde head. “Not exactly. Duto asked me whether I’d talked to the bureau. I said, how could I have done that when you just told me there was an investigation going. Then he told me that he was not authorizing distribution of the letter to anyone outside the agency.”
“Including the bureau.”
“Correct. Nobody had the clearance, he said. I had the distinct impression he wanted me to destroy the letter, but he didn’t come out and say so.”
“Did he ask you to purge it from your memory? Eternal sunshine, et cetera?”
“Not yet. That’s probably next.”
“He tell you his logic for hiding evidence in a criminal investigation?”
“He did not. If I’d asked, no doubt he would have pulled out the ol’ national security exemption, but I did not ask.”
“And he didn’t explicitly tell you to destroy it.”
“You know Vinny Duto better than that, Ellis. That would have needed to be in writing, and he wasn’t interested in having this in writing. And then, to my not quite surprise, you called.” She paused. “Wish I could be more helpful, but that’s pretty much all I have.”
“Do you think there’s a connection between the torture allegations and the theft?”
She tilted her head and clucked—
“It’s a strange letter,” Shafer said.
“Very strange. It reads like the writer didn’t grow up speaking English. The bolding, the capitalized words. But I think all that’s fake. It feels like it’s from somebody inside the squad. I can’t think how else anyone would have the specifics, the prisoner numbers.”
“If you worked for a foreign intelligence agency.”
“Maybe the Brits,” Joyner said. “But probably not even. Now do me a favor, figure this out, since I’m not allowed to.”
“I’ll do that, Lucy. But I need something.”
“Anything.”
“Really.”
“No. Not even close to anything.”
“It would be very helpful to me if you could freshen up. As they say in Texas and other such genteel places.”
She put a finger on the letter. “You can’t have it, Ellis.”
“It’ll be right here when you get back.”
“You’re very fortunate to have that clearance.” She stretched her arms over her head. “Well. I do believe I need to freshen up,” she said. “Be right back.”
She disappeared. And Shafer thumbed twelve ten-digit numbers into his BlackBerry:
3185304876—3184690284—4007986133—4013337810—4042991331—4041179553—4192578423— 5567208212—6501740917—6500415280—7298472436—7297786130
The letter was just where she’d left it when she got back. Ellis wasn’t. He stood, examining the L.B.J. poster.
“What’s this about, Lucy? Texas pride or something deeper?”
“Wish I could tell you, but it’s a secret I never share,” she said.
“We seem to be heavy on those.”
10
An ocean and a continent away, Wells woke to cool water trickling down his neck. He lay on a mud floor, his hands bound behind his back, shoes and camera bag gone. His head throbbed, and the base of his skull had grown a soft sticky lump. Two identical imams sat on two identical chairs above him, pouring water onto him from two identically cracked pitchers.
Wells closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten in Arabic:
“Kuwaiti,” the imam said.
“My name is Nadeem,” Wells said. His voice was low and cracked. “And it wasn’t necessary to hit me.”
“You woke up quickly.”
“I have a hard head.
The imam smiled. “He wasn’t the only boy, Kuwaiti. All over the cemetery they watched for you.”
“Where’s Hani?”
The imam set down the pitcher, knelt beside Wells, squeezed Wells’s cheeks between his fingers. “Why do you care? You miss him?”
Wells hesitated. Should he speak badly of the imam’s right-hand man? For all Wells knew, they’d been friends from birth and insulting Hani would cost him his shot at Alaa. But he didn’t see any other move. “I don’t trust him, your friend Hani.”
The imam’s eyes flicked to Ihab, then back to Wells.
“I don’t know how long you’ve known him, but I fear he’s one of the pharaoh’s men. I almost didn’t come tonight.”
“Why would you say such things about my good friend?”
“I’ve dealt with
