I was running. I was maintaining a steady pace. I was in the desert; there was nothing around me but sand. The ground was hard, though, and I had no difficulty running. I could feel each breath as it was pushed out of my lungs, then traveled down my body, splitting into two at my waist then coursing through both legs until it escaped from the bottom of my feet. Then I took another breath and the process started again. I had found my rhythm and knew that I would run forever.
It was the old dream.
I knew it was a dream, even when I was in the middle of it. I didn’t care. I considered it a gift from my subconscious. For those seconds or minutes, I had no idea how long it actually lasted, it was real and that was all that mattered. I was running. I could feel my legs working hard. I could feel the cooling breeze against my skin and I ran until sweat dappled my body.
When I woke up, I was sweating.
I spent five days in the hospital. Incredibly, I’d suffered no serious injuries. I was battered and bruised and scraped, but other than ten stitches, some serious painkillers, and substantial loving care from Miss Jennifer Miller, I required only basic medical care. The hardest part were the memories it dredged up. I thought I had buried them. It was a different hospital, in a different place, with different doctors and nurses, but the sounds and the smells were the same. Emotions that I had once fought hard to contain, that I had finally managed to put away a long time ago suddenly reappeared in my mind, bringing with them the familiar fears, the night sweats, the reality of what I had lost.
Mighty Chair had been banged up too, but Y went to work repairing and replacing parts. Originally Chair had been designed to enable me to overcome my new limitations; I called it Viagra for my legs. Most of the work had been done by my nephew, Noah Glenn, a former mechanical engineering student who’d dropped out of Cooper Union to invent in my sister’s garage. I dubbed him Y in deference to James Bond’s Q, as in, “Why aren’t you in school?” But with parts readily available off the shelf, he’d transformered an upscale wheelchair into a mobile environment. He was constantly experimenting and adding features, until only the two of us knew all Mighty Chair’s capabilities. Given this opportunity, he upgraded its technology, adding among other enhancements a rearview camera. Chair was ready to roll when I was ready to leave the hospital. Y did wrap an elastic bandage around one arm, though, just as a reminder.
I learned that Jenny had come to the hospital three times during the day and a half I was sedated, but when the drugs finally wore off and I opened my eyes, it was Frankie B. sitting next to my bed. He put down the newspaper he was reading. “Welcome back,” he boomed. “Have a nice trip?”
“Nice place to visit,” I managed to get out. The words coming out of my mouth didn’t sound too much like the words I was forming in my mind.
Frankie filled in the details: The man murdered in the garage had been identified as Elijah Amram. His cause of death was officially blunt trauma, unofficially the rear gate of a Chevy Tahoe. Amram had been linked to the Detroit house, but law enforcement was describing him as a “facilitator” rather than a participant in the Lincoln Tunnel attack. They were hinting that evidence existed connecting him to Terror Inc., as Homeland Security was now referring to the murky coalition of terrorist organizations, but for “security reasons” that would affect “ongoing investigations,” they could not release it.
It hurt when I smiled. How could I have injured my cheekbones? “Total bullshit,” I said.
Frankie B. threw up his hands defensively. “Hey, don’t blame me. I only know what I write in the papers.” The driver of the van was a man named José Peña Moncada, a Mexican national. After surviving the crash, Moncada had limped back up to the sixth level, leaving a trail of blood. The door to the roof had been locked, trapping him there. Rather than surrendering, he had elected to shoot it out with D.C. cops, which, as Frankie B. colorfully pointed out, proved to be a poor decision. “He ended up with more holes in him than the plot of Godfather 3.” His motive hadn’t been determined …
“Drugs,” I said. “That’s what he told me. The cartel was looking for him.”
Frankie B. shrugged. “Says you.” His motive hadn’t been determined, he repeated, then continued, nor was it known how Moncada had tracked Amram to that garage. “That’s why they want to talk to you,” he said casually. “Howie said for me to tell you not to talk to anybody without a lawyer sitting on your lap.”
That made sense. I asked him to hand me my tablet. I wanted to start making notes as soon as the symphony playing in my head quieted down.
He didn’t move. “That’s probably not the best idea,” he said. “Don’t put anything down on paper. And don’t say anything to anybody, even Jenny.” He hesitated there and avoided my eyes.
“What?” It was a passive question, as in, What’s the problem?
“It’s not all good news,” he joked. “They’ve been asking us a lot of questions about you too. They want to know what you were doing meeting a terrorist.”
“What?” An active question, as in, Are you fucking kidding me? “I told you, he wasn’t…”
Frankie held up his hands as a barrier. “Hey! Hey! I’m one of the good guys, remember. I’m just telling you, that’s the way they’re selling it.” He scribbled a headline in the air: “Most Wanted Terrorist Killed Meeting Secretly with Sympathetic Journalist.”
I settled back into a clump of soft pillows, disbelieving. “No way they’re getting away with that. No fucking way.” I was a suspect? I didn’t know what I was suspected of being. An accomplice? But I definitely was a suspect. “Is there a cop outside the door? They going to arrest me?”
He shook his head. “No cops. Well, there’s a few of them out in the parking lot.”
A half hour ago I had been in a wonderful dream. Now I was awake in a nightmare. That’s not the way life is supposed to be. “What’s going on at the shop? How are we covering all this?”
Frankie B. refused to look at me. “There’re two guys been waiting to talk to you. They’ve been coming around the office too.” He picked up the juice box from my tray, punched the straw into it, and handed it to me. “Here. Look, Rol, do yourself a favor, don’t even think out loud. Remember, they’re from the government of the United States. They are not your friends.”
My room filled up pretty quickly with people who were my friends when word got out I was my usual semi-charming self. Jenny was crying. Howie and several people from the Pro showed up. Hack Wilson and Wayne Chang from Light Brigade came in, Hack complaining that I really wasn’t pulling my own weights. It got so noisy in there that when my mother called, she asked if I was having a party.
The first interview took place that night. Rather than Lindsey the Lawyer, Howie had brought in an experienced criminal attorney, Barton Reich. Reich was tall, thin, and proudly bald. He wore humorless thin-wire glasses. Before allowing the agents into my hospital room, Reich preached the defense lawyer’s mantra: You are not under arrest. You don’t have to answer any questions. If you decide to answer, respond as succinctly as possible. Do not volunteer any information. When I interrupt, be quiet.
I smiled, painfully, at this, asking, “Am I really a suspect?”
Reich did not smile. In fact, it looked like he hadn’t smiled within this decade. “At this point they are referring to you as a person of interest. What that means in reality is that they are interested in fucking you over. Mr. Stone, please listen to my suggestions. If you provide the rope for these people, I promise you, they will hang you with it.”
Three men showed up at seven o’clock: two agents from Homeland Security and a D.C. detective. I know I’ve told you that physical descriptions rarely provide an accurate impression of what people look like, but after everything that happened, I think I owe it to these characters to at least make the effort. Generally, these two agents looked like men who had missed the last cut for the FBI. They wore slightly different shades of gray suits, matching white shirts, and monochromatic ties. Both of them were thin. Agent Richard Corbin, who was substantially shorter than his partner, looked amazingly like my vision of a walking inferiority complex. Everything about him was taut, as if he were holding in a feral temper; his face was pockmarked, his receding hairline was cut into a defiant crew cut, and he had an unfortunate habit of punctuating almost every question by scratching the side of his nose with his thumbnail. Let me put it to you this way: he looked like the type of guy you wouldn’t want to have to tell first thing in the morning that you’d just run out of coffee.
This tells you everything you need to know about me: if a string had been protruding from him, I would have pulled it.
If Corbin was all sharp angles, his partner, Agent Francis Russell, was given to latent puffiness, like a half-deflated pale white balloon. I could see instantly that if he held his breath, his whole face would swell up and his chestnut-round cheeks would turn a bright red, which would then match his moussed-down, sharply parted hair. (How about that for a description?)
D.C. detective Harry Markopolos, who was glum and plump, was wearing blue slacks, brown shoes, and a black baseball jacket. “Coach” was stitched in cursive letters over his left breast. He stood several feet away from the agents, as if their attitude might be catching. As we were introduced, he thumbed a Tums from a roll and popped it in his mouth.
The agents handed Reich their business card. Reich stood protectively next to my bed and laid out his rules: I had volunteered to answer their questions. As my attorney, if he didn’t like the tone of those questions or if he believed they potentially might put me or my employer in jeopardy, he would advise me not to answer them, and if they continued that line of questioning, we would end the interview. “Gentlemen,” he finally said, forcing up the two sides of his mouth in a truly pathetic attempt at a sardonic smile.
The agents stood on either side of my bed. They didn’t precisely alternate questions, but it was close: How did I know Amram? How many times had I met him previously? Did I record my conversations with him? Reich’s warning had been accurate, these guys weren’t there to gather background information. This was an active investigation. Did I know anyone else in Amram’s organization? Did he give me anything? It went on for more than a half hour. Did I give him money or any other items of value? Did Amram discuss other people?
Detective Markopolos stood silently near the door. It suddenly dawned on me why he had been invited. Under district law, he was the only one empowered to make an arrest.
Agent Russell handed a copy of the story I’d written about Hassan’s mother to Reich, who glanced at it, then gave it to me and asked me to confirm that I had written it. Jenny would have been very proud of me for resisting the urge to say what I was thinking. I simply said, “Yeah.”
As instructed by Reich, I answered most of their questions with short declarative sentences. Amram had contacted me. I did not know where he had gotten my phone number; perhaps from the Pro site where it was listed. He told me he was involved in drugs. I had no information or reason to believe Amram was a terrorist or was involved in any way in the 7/11 attacks.
“Jeez,” Corbin mused, without looking at me, “I guess you don’t read the papers.”
“Actually, Dick,” I responded, emphasizing the Dick (sorry, Jen, I just couldn’t help myself), “I write them.”
I told them as much as I remembered about the murder. The SUV came out of nowhere. It whirled around the corner and aimed right at Amram. It definitely was intentional. I was waiting in a corner, by parked cars, making it impossible for the SUV to hit me without plowing into those cars. The SUV pursued me but I outraced it down the ramp. That’s how I ended up lying in a hospital bed.
Corbin looked at me skeptically. “You’re telling us you outran that SUV down the whole garage? In a wheelchair?”
“Yes, Dick,” I said, “that’s what I’m telling you.”
“Hoo-kay,” he said somewhat dubiously, scraping his thumbnail along the side of his nose, then writing down my answer.
This interview continued considerably longer than I had expected.
When they were done with their questions, Russell said, “Thank you for your time, Mr. Stone. I have to inform you that until we complete our investigation you need to let us know before you leave the area. Just in case we have a few more questions.”
Dick added, “One more thing. You are familiar with the new National Secrets Act, aren’t you?”
I glanced at Reich. He shrugged. “I’m not,” I said.
“Officially it’s a presidential directive rather than a congressional act.” He handed Reich another sheet. “Here, this outlines it. What it does is give the government the right to limit communications when national security is invoked. We are now officially informing you that due to the sensitive nature of these events and legitimate national security concerns, writing or communicating in any format information about this event will be considered a violation of this act and subject you to its penalties.”
“What are you talking about?” I looked at Reich. “What’s he talking about? This is total bullshit.” I turned back to Corbin. “How come I’ve never heard anything about this?”
With a smile that reeked of official power he explained, “The existence of this act is covered by the National Secrets Act.”
I was incredulous. “You’re telling me the Secrets Act is a secret?”
Russell waved a cautionary finger. “That means you can’t discuss it and you can’t write about it. With anyone.”
“Really? Wow.” I considered that, then wondered, “Then how come you’re talking about it?”
“Look, you…” Dick snarled, taking a step forward.
“Stop!” Reich warned him, shocking him back to reality.
“I know the whole thing sounds strange,” Russell said, trying to defuse the situation. “But there are times the government has to take steps to protect the public. This is one of those times.”
I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t write about the fact that I was almost murdered. “What about the fucking First Amendment? You people just going to ignore that?”
“It isn’t up to us,” Corbin said. “We’re just following orders. And that’s what you need to do.”
I wondered, is calling Dick a dickhead redundant?
“Look, Rollie,” Russell said, taking a friendly step closer. Obviously he was playing good cop. “I can tell you that you’re not the first person to ask that question. And the proper courts have already affirmed its legality. Let me explain. During both World Wars and in Vietnam, the government imposed strict censorship regulations. The American people understood and accepted the need for them and went along. Whether you want to believe it or not, we’re in a similar situation right now. There are some very bad people out there, people who would just as easily slit your throat as whistle Dixie. Our job is to prevent that from happening. So right now the government has decided that if the information you possess should become public, it might cause serious harm. This is a national security issue now, and that gives us a lot of leeway. Do your country a big favor and don’t write about this, don’t discuss it with anybody, don’t…”
I just couldn’t resist. I’m sorry, Jen. “Can I whistle Dixie?” I interrupted. “Would that be legal?”
Detective Markopolos pushed himself off the wall and spoke for the first time. “Listen up, pally. For all I care you can shove that whistle up your ass and fart ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ But like these guys said, you go ahead and write about this, talk about it, or even hint to anyone that you’re not allowed to hint about it to, you’ll see me again.” He closed his eyes and shook at the prospect. “Trust me, you don’t want to see me again.”
In an earlier life I must have been in vaudeville. On a second-rate circuit. But be honest, if someone served you a straight line like that one, you wouldn’t be able to resist, either. “Have you made that offer to your wife?” I asked.
Reich winced, then put a restraining hand on my shoulder.
Markopolos started to respond, then caught himself. With a dramatic tilt of his head he told the agents, “Let’s get outta here.” He shot one final look at me, which I assumed was meant to be a warning, and left.
When they were gone, I asked Reich if he knew what the penalty was for violating that Secrets Act. He inhaled and shook his head, and we said simultaneously, “It’s a secret.”
He plopped himself down in the chair next to my bed. It seemed obvious that this threat had stunned him too. His demeanor had been stripped away and he was trying to process what he had just been told through the filter of a life spent inside the legal system. In a shaken voice he admitted, “I don’t have the slightest idea. This whole thing, it would require secret courts, enforcement mechanisms, confining people in places that we don’t even know exist.” He was thinking out loud. “Maybe that’s what they’re using Guantánamo for. But look, those guys were serious. As your lawyer I’ve got to advise to be really careful about what you do.” He picked up the now half-empty juice box and sipped from it. “You don’t mind, right?”
“Go ahead, live it up.”
“Here’s the other thing,” he continued. “Whatever happened in that garage, the government obviously is trying to build a case against you for who knows what. Aiding and abetting, maybe? Collaborating with the enemy? It’s bullshit, I know that, but those are serious charges, so you need to pay attention to it. Far as the American public knows, this guy was a terrorist, and rather than turning him in, you were meeting secretly with him.”
When you put it that way … Shit! I turned to Reich and took one long and very deep breath. Then I asked, “You finish all the juice?”
I called Howie first thing the following morning. I’d spent a long restless night trying to decide how to proceed. I’d made a difficult decision: I’d fought for my country on distant battlefields and I wasn’t about to stop fighting for those same values at home. The existence of a secret law passed in secret flouting the First Amendment was something every American had to know about. I didn’t care what they said, it couldn’t possibly withstand a legal challenge. When I got Howie on the phone I began, “You aren’t going to believe this…”
I told him about the visit, the warning, and my decision. “Soon as I get out of here, I’m writing it. Fuck the consequences. Let ’em bring charges against me. Imagine what that’s going to look like, Wrightman throws a handicapped veteran in prison for telling the truth.”
Howie listened as I rambled on. When I finally asked him what he thought, he told me in a voice so soft I had to strain to hear him. “There’s no easy way for me to tell you this, Rol. But we can’t run it.”
That certainly was not what I expected to hear. “What are you talking about? Of course we can.”
“No,” he insisted in a voice mellowed with frustration, embarrassment, and probably some pain. “We can’t.” I could almost hear him swallowing his pride. “We had some visitors here too,” he continued. “Long story short, if we run anything about it, they’re going to shut us down.” I tried to interrupt, but he spoke right over me. “The reality is, they can do it. You know damned well what I’d do if it was just you and me, but it isn’t. There’s a bunch of other people here that I’m responsible for. So I’m asking you, as a friend, give it a little time till the pressure eases up. This is just one story. I promise you, we’ll find other ways of making the point…”
“One story?” I exploded. “Are you fucking me? The government of the United States is fucking with the First Amendment and you, you’re going to let them do it? What happened to that journalistic integrity you’re always telling—”
“Don’t do this, Rollie. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
“What happened to you, Howie? When did you become a fucking coward?” By the time I caught myself, I had already blurted it out. I shut up. He didn’t deserve that. But even as I was venting, on some visceral level I understood Howie’s decision. And truthfully, I wasn’t sure he was wrong. For the Pro. But not for me. I knew the next words out of my mouth might determine the fate of our friendship.
“You done?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not gonna fight with you, Rollie. I can’t defend myself, and believe me, it’s killing me. But here’s what I know—fights aren’t won or lost in the first round. Sometimes it makes sense to take a few punches before hitting back. Then when you hit back, you hit him with everything you’ve got, because you’re not getting a second chance. You’re right, this is fucked up big-time. You want to make your stand here, go ahead. I can’t stop you. Write your story and put it up on the net.”
His anger was building as he continued. I could picture his face wrinkling up.
“But what do you think’s going to happen if you do, Rollie? C’mon, tell me. You think you’re going to spark some massive uprising to overthrow the government? You think Wrightman’s worried about that? You saw the response we got to the mother’s story. It lasted what, two days? Three days? Let me tell you what’s actually going to happen. Your new pals are going to find some evidence linking you to Amram. They’re going to arrest you and destroy your reputation. Even if you win the case, three or four years from now, it’s going to cost you every penny you’ve got.
“So if you are so damn certain you want to go ahead, good luck. Be my guest, I’ll be rooting for you. I’ll admit you’ve got a lot more guts than I do. But I can’t let you take the rest of us down with you.”
Well, that was a sobering response. The real problem was how much sense he made; I felt like someone had pulled the plug and all my bravado had drained out of me. In a conciliatory tone, I asked, “What do you expect me to do, Howie? Just be a good boy?”
After a long, contemplative silence, almost as if he was deciding how much to reveal, he said plaintively, “There are ways to fight back, Rollie. Trust me. We will.”
As difficult as that conversation was, it was little more than a warm-up for what was to come. Jenny arrived at the hospital midmorning, bringing chocolate and Jelly Bellys. As I was telling her about the visit, I sensed a stiffness come over her, and suddenly it dawned on me. “You knew all about this crap, this Secrets Act?”
She couldn’t even look at me. “Martha did everything she could to fight it. There was nothing…” Her voice drifted off. Then she explained, “You know what we agreed. I couldn’t tell you.”
She was right. We were both constrained by legal boundaries, and at the beginning of our relationship, we had agreed to respect them. We had shaken hands in agreement. Then we did other things to make it a binding agreement. Respect legal boundaries. No questions asked. I understood she wasn’t allowed to tell me, so why was I feeling betrayed? It wasn’t rational—but I had to strike out at someone. And she was the person I trusted most not to tell me to go fuck myself. (Which, admittedly, I probably deserved.) “I’ll get over it,” I said coldly.
She stayed a half hour. As she left, she gave me a perfunctory peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” she promised.
“Take the chocolates,” I told her, making a desperate attempt to alleviate the tension. “Leave the Jelly Bellys.”
She snapped a smile at me and was gone.
It took me several weeks to ease back into work. As before, I turned down numerous requests for interviews or appearances, explaining this remained an open case and prosecutors had advised me against making any public comments. I wrote a long and loose story about what happened in the garage, offering few details beyond what was already publicly known: I had met a potential informant and somehow been caught up in a murder. It was not an easy piece to write, as I had to weave a duplicitous path through a maze of half-truths. I flirted with hinting at the existence of the Secrets Act, but Howie reminded me the Pro couldn’t print it and Reich warned me of the consequences.
Still, my column, “A Murder in the Garage,” was widely republished. I let other media outlets link it to the “raid on the Detroit safe house” articles; the implication was obvious. Somehow this brutal killing was involved with Detroit. My involvement in this second violent episode raised my public profile to the edge of celebrity. The media embraced the Rolling Stone image, highlighting my military record and my “futuristically enhanced wheelchair.” Within the disabled community I was hailed as a role model, or as TMZ described me, “a roll model,” although I was careful not to let anyone know the full extent of Mighty Chair’s capabilities. In fact, the only scheduled public appearance I did make was tossing up the first ball at the National Wheelchair Basketball Association championship tournament, which was being held in Washington. For several weeks I was stopped regularly on my way to work by people asking for an autograph, a selfie, or—and this was a new one on me—Mighty Chair’s treadmark: people would place a sheet of white paper under a wheel and I would roll over it, then sign it. Other people wanted to shake my hand and thank me for my service. Several pleasant strangers trying to find common ground with me told me they loved watching old episodes of Ironside on TV Land. The interruptions got so time consuming, most often I drove the van to work, although I no longer parked in that garage.
There was one significant disappointment. The homeless veteran who had saved my life was a man named Jerry Stern. I intended to find a way of repaying the debt I owed to him. I vowed to find him a safe place to live, get him the medical assistance he needed, make sure he had money in his pocket. He wasn’t interested; he refused all offers for assistance, from me as well as others, explaining he was already scheduled to fly on the first flight to Mars and thus had to remain within the boarding area until his flight was called.
I also received inquiries from book publishers and movie producers about optioning the rights to my story. I didn’t respond to any of them. Nor did I accept offers from manufacturers of wheelchairs and other medical devices to act as a spokesperson or simply endorse their products. Y, however, was practically deluged by people wanting him to customize their chairs, which I encouraged him to accept.
Gradually Jenny and I got back on track, although sometimes it seemed like that track was running straight up the side of a mountain and we couldn’t pick up any speed. One night, as we ate pizza by candlelight, I watched with appreciation as she moved around the room, setting the table, pouring the wine, picking the music, unexpectedly kissing the top of my head. She was barefoot, wearing bell-bottomed jeans and a man-tailored white shirt that hugged her contours. Her hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense bun. As with everything else she did, she seemed completely confident and utterly at ease. I marveled at her ability to so easily make the transformation from powerful political insider to loving partner, but even at that moment, even as I felt overwhelmed with comfort, I couldn’t help wondering, what else isn’t she telling me?
No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get rid of that feeling. Rather than slowly disappearing, it had taken root in my mind and was growing. And it caused damage.
As I feared, the National Secrets Act proved its value. The Wrightman people were able to contain and shape the story. Investigators told friendly media outlets they were tracing the complex relationship between Amram and his killer, Moncada. Moncada turned out to be an honorably discharged Marine who had several minor convictions, the worst being a road-rage incident during which he’d threatened another driver with a crowbar, but no clear ties to terrorism. “Informed sources leaked” to administration-friendly outlets that during Moncada’s military service he’d done tours in Afghanistan and Yemen and suggested he may have been radicalized at that time. There were casual mentions of time spent off the “civilized grid.” On Meet the Press, Homeland Security secretary Rocky Penceal stated that the government was successfully “rolling up Terror Inc. one body at a time,” predicting it would cease to exist within the next year. Asked about rumors that Amram may have been targeted by terrorists because he had extensive knowledge of future plans, Penceal said that “sadly, I’m not able to comment on that at this moment.”
Moderator Chuck Todd pressed him, asking, “So are we talking here about the man who knew too much?”
I would have fallen off the couch if I had been able to sit on the couch.
Penceal smiled noncommittally, repeating his answer that he was unable to comment on that. Although this time he added a knowing smile to that lie.
After six weeks, the only reminder that a brutal murder and an incredible chase had taken place in downtown D.C. were the hop-on, hop-off tour buses that stopped regularly outside the garage so tourists could take selfies in front of the early bird special sign.