What Happened to the Bennetts(80)

I racked my brain, but I couldn’t see what my time at Gitmo had to do with anything. I met no lawyers or any military personnel except our handlers, and we court reporters bunked, ate, and socialized on our own. I made friends with two other court reporters, Sam Newman from Seattle and Rowena Boulton-Ramirez, out of Washington, D.C., but we didn’t communicate otherwise, and I had heard they had both passed.

I felt stumped. “Hey guys, can you get me out of the hood and handcuffs? And lend me a phone? George said it was okay.”

“Didn’t say anything to us.”

“Call him and ask him. He knows why.”

“Shut up.”

“He’s going to be pissed. He wants answers.”

I heard the faint tick-tick-tick of texting from the front seat, and not long after, an alert sounded.

One of the thugs said, “Okay, fine. When we pull over.”

“Good, thanks.”

“The boss must like you.”

“How could he not?” I asked, amusing myself.



* * *



—

I scrolled to my Dropbox, entered my username and password, and read the phone in the moving van. All my files popped onto the screen, and I clicked to archived files, where I had saved unclassified documents from Gitmo, by year. I scrolled to the beginning of the Gitmo 2002 files and clicked.

The file was completely empty. The screen was pure white. The folder contained no files. I didn’t understand. It should all be here.

I got out of 2002, went to Gitmo 2003, and clicked open. It was completely empty. I went to Gitmo 2004, and all of the files were gone. The same with 2005, 2006, and 2007. All of my documents from Gitmo had vanished.

My mouth went dry. I couldn’t explain it. I hadn’t checked these files in ages. I certainly hadn’t deleted them. I had forgotten all about them until now.

I left the Gitmo folders and scrolled to archived Word documents from 2002 to double-check. I clicked, and a list of case names piled onto the screen. I opened one for a test, a massive pharmaceutical litigation. All of the correspondence and transcripts were there. The only archived files that had been deleted concerned Gitmo.

I went to my current files, opening them up, to triple-check. The list unrolled onto the screen, and I scrolled down to my Word documents. I opened one, and onto the screen came a transcript of a lawsuit for breach of a commercial contract.

I felt stricken. Somebody had deleted my Gitmo files. How? Why? I tried to think who had the power to do that. The FBI did, but I didn’t see any connection, on the information I had. Then I remembered something George had said.

Junior heard him on the phone, talking about the CIA.

I felt my gut tighten. The CIA had the power, but I didn’t know why they would want to, either. If somebody at the CIA was in my files, or going rogue, it had to be for a reason.

My mind raced. If the CIA had something to do with this, Ricks would be a logical place to start. I left Dropbox, navigated to the Internet, and plugged in Senator Ricks and Gitmo. Instantly a list of articles came onto the screen.

I clicked the first one, which was from six months ago, in The New York Times:

    RICKS SAYS GITMO ISSUE WAS PARTISAN EFFORT TO DISCREDIT HIM

The issue of Senator Mike Ricks’s participation in the case of Rohan Doha has finally been put to rest. Mr. Ricks has repeatedly denied participation in the death of the detainee Doha on Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, which occurred in November 2003, after three days of enhanced interrogation methods. Mr. Ricks was serving as a military interrogator at the time, but records show that he was not involved in the interrogation of Doha. Exhibits from the infirmary on the base show that Mr. Ricks was admitted there for three days during that time period, for dehydration and severe intestinal flu.

Two other military interrogators, William Diebold, 24, of Phoenix, Arizona, and Martin Tornott, 25, of Paris, Texas, were convicted of dereliction of duty and assault in connection with the Doha interrogation and served time in military prison. Both Diebold and Tornott filed affidavits stating that Ricks was not involved in the interrogation and was in the infirmary.



I blinked, wondering if I had been at Gitmo then. My birthday was November 3, and I remembered that one of my birthdays I had been at Gitmo. Lucinda had been unhappy about it, but I had to go when they sent us.

I navigated out of the article and clicked the next link:

    RICKS RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS ABOUT DOHA INTERROGATION

Senator Mike Ricks has come under fire for his alleged participation in the 2003 interrogation at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, which resulted in the death of detainee Rohan Doha, 28, of Kabul, Afghanistan. Initially thought to be a high-value detainee, Doha was revealed to be a goatherd, having no connections to terrorism. His arrest was part of a mass roundup by Afghan authorities and tribal warlords, triggered by the U.S. government’s offer of bounties for terrorists.

Mr. Ricks has stated that though he was a military interrogator at Gitmo, he was in the infirmary at Gitmo during that time. He will be releasing documents to that effect in the near future. He denied speculation that his status as the son of the late Senator Morrison Ricks afforded him special consideration.



I mulled it over, jostling in the back of the van. I didn’t remember Senator Ricks at Gitmo, but it would’ve been unusual for me to meet him.

I scrolled down to the next article: