The Way of the World Page 4

  He hated doing it. He hates speaking in front of hostile crowds. Always has. It’s the residue of being doubted since he was a boy—“the problem with Junior”—and on through the first twenty years of his adult life, as he limped through college and moved from one middling business to the next, until companies started wanting him because of his famous father. Becoming president himself, and then being reelected, was a kind of cathartic revenge, a shattering of all that. Then the doubts started to reassemble, surprisingly, shard by shard—particularly in the past two years with Iraq and Katrina. Doubters, now, everywhere he turned. The White House political team has worked harder than ever to keep him in front of friendly crowds—military, conservative, and, especially, religious.

  Today is the exception, but they’ve conjured up a twist: cover those black faces with church fans, old-style, handheld Southern Baptist church fans, with VOTING RIGHTS ACT printed on the back. Considering it’s eighty-one degrees by nine-thirty in the morning, everyone starts fanning, giving the South Lawn the feel of a big-tent revival, where someone might want to preach.

  The religious trappings offer comfort, but no one is expecting much. Just adequacy, just get through it, and Bush continues his short speech on the terra firma of the Declaration of Independence, saying, “it marked a tremendous advance in the story of freedom, yet it also contained a contradiction: Some of the same men who signed their names to this self-evident truth owned other men as property. By reauthorizing this act, Congress has reaffirmed its belief that all men are created equal; its belief that the new founding started by the signing of the bill by President Johnson is worthy of our great nation to continue.”

  He botches that last line, but people applaud anyway—how could they not?—and it’s enough to get him to the reading of the names, a page-long list of the dignitaries present that includes virtually the entire black leadership of the United States since the ’60s—John Lewis; Jesse Jackson; old standbys such as Benjamin Hooks; the children of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Ralph Abernathy’s wife, Juanita; NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Also in attendance are Nancy Pelosi and every liberal Democrat who could get through the gates, along with a few stalwart Republicans, such as obstreperous Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter.

  Bush, seeing the end in sight, seems to ease up, winging it, thanking the Washington mayor for coming, and quipping, “Everything is fine in the neighborhood. I appreciate it.”

  He gets a laugh, a victory, and four minutes later he signs the reauthorization. Bush said he’d do anything possible for his Republican brethren. What’s more, facing a Democratic Congress, at this point, would all but end his presidency and, he believes, make America less safe. He hopes this signing helps matters, but he’s skeptical. He knows this crowd will never forgive him for the way black voters were disenfranchised in Florida in 2000, or for the way he’s snubbed them since, or for Katrina. But what did it really matter? The civil rights community is old—just look at them—from a time when it was all about winning rights. Now it’s about equal opportunity, a slippery standard. And since 9/11, race—like so many other issues—has been eclipsed by more urgent matters.

  But the really urgent matter is how fast he can get away from all these doubters—angry black doubters, at that—and back into his safe house. Bush often tells his senior staff that his schedule matters, that he’s prompt and decides, in advance, how much of his time a particular task or meeting should command. “My schedule,” Bush once said to Colin Powell, “is my way of sending a message about what I think is important or not.” Powell, of course, met with the president privately only a handful of times during his five-year tenure. In this case, Bush walks briskly from the ceremony at 9:52. His speech, the signing of the reauthorization, and brief cordialities take exactly sixteen minutes.

  A PARALLEL CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE is occurring, meanwhile, near the Alexander Hamilton statue.

  “Reggie? It’s me, Usman.”

  “Yo, Khosa. Where are you, man? The staff meeting is starting, like, right now.”

  “Listen, Reggie. I’ve been detained down on the street, right in front of the White House, I mean in front of Treasury. They think…you know…well, me being from Pakistan and all.”

  The receptionist at Barnes Richardson, Reggie McFadgen is a large jocular African American, thirty-three, who grew up in Washington, went to the tough D.C. schools, and once sang with the hip-hop group Salt ’n’ Pepa. He and Usman have become close friends over the past two years; they go out often. Reggie, tough and streetwise, is protective of “Khosa.” They call each other “my brother from another mother.”

  Like many educated foreigners, Usman happens to know quite a bit about American history; after all, the history of the United States, the world’s most powerful country, is taught in most accredited schools overseas. Special attention is generally accorded to slavery and to the current state of the black American. The long saga is viewed as America’s original hearts-and-minds struggle, and, from afar, the nation’s character is often assessed, surprisingly, through this lens. What’s clear, and oddly moving, is that Usman is crazy proud that he and his black friend call each other “brother.” It makes him feel like an American-in-the-making, free, by virtue of his Pakistani heritage, to improvise some solutions to the country’s long-standing dilemmas of race.

  At this moment, though, Reggie is feeling that he possesses the pertinent expertise about what Usman is facing. His friend is being profiled.

  “Khosa!” he shouts into the phone. “Don’t you move or say a word to any officer of any fucking kind. I AM COMING DOWN TO KICK SOME ASS!”

  Oh God. “No, Reggie, please. Trust me. That’ll just make things worse. I’m in enough trouble. Just go to my top desk drawer and get my passport and put it somewhere safe. I may need you to bring it somewhere. I’ll try to call you as things progress. Okay?”

  A second later Reggie is racing through Barnes Richardson like a town crier. Usman has been detained! Right in front of Treasury! Work stops. People pour from their offices toward the suite of the boss, Matt McGrath. They crowd around the wide window in his office, trying to catch a glimpse of what’s happening on the street below.

  Ten stories down, things are progressing quickly. A black SUV screeches up to Alexander Hamilton. Two men in dark suits get out.

  “Usman Khosa?” one of them says, a tall, neat man, midthirties, with dirty-blond hair. “Get in the car.”

  “No way. I’m not getting in that car,” Usman says, surprising himself. He feels like he’s going to vomit. These are the bosses of the uniformed guys. He’s read about Guantánamo. If he gets in that car, he may never be seen again.

  “Mr. Khosa, it’s not a question,” Dirty Blond says, emphatically. “Get in the car.”

  Usman backs away. Assesses his options. “Okay, okay, I’ll get in…just as long as I can make a few quick phone calls first. Then, I promise, I’ll go with you.”

  Dirty Blond nods, and then huddles with his partner, a short, wide, ethnic Italian-looking guy.

  Usman calls the Pakistani embassy, tells them he’s being taken into custody. They take down his information and his present location. There’s nothing they can do. He calls his friend Zarar, a guy who runs a large network of Pakistani young professionals and who knows people. “If I don’t call you in two hours, Zarar, call someone. I don’t know who. Anyone!” Then, he pauses for a moment, a moment to wince, before he calls Pakistan. Tariq Khosa is currently the second-ranking law enforcement official in Punjab Province, home to nearly half of the country’s population, along with Lahore, the nation’s cultural hub, and Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Usman is sure his father currently knows people in law enforcement in America. He must. All he gets is voice mail. He tries to compose himself: “Dad, I’m in trouble. I’m being arrested by the Secret Service. I have to get into a car, a black SUV, in front of the White House. I don’t want you to worry, but if you don’t hear from me in a few hours, um, see, maybe, if you could call someone.” He pa
uses. “And please, don’t tell Mom.”

  While the old guard from the glory days of Montgomery bus boycotts and King’s speech about American dreams slowly disperses—the ink drying on a renewal of their greatest legal victory—an unscripted ceremony of fear and hope and race is unfolding on a nearby sidewalk.

  In it, a young Pakistani man, whom terrorists have succeeded in turning into a racial suspect, steps into a black SUV. Ten stories up, a consulting firm that looks and feels like the great promise of America’s future—every major race represented, competing fiercely, hoping for bonuses and playing softball on Saturdays—watches, in horror, faces of every color pressed against a wide plate-glass window. One of their own is down there. But is he one of them? Of course he is. About the best analyst they’ve got, a gentle kid, smart as a whip, works like a stevedore and hopes for things worth hoping for. But then again he’s being taken away by grim authorities of the U.S. government and maybe there’s a chance—a slim chance—that there’s some good reason for it; that, maybe, they don’t really know him.

  The black SUV’s doors slam shut. “This is so wrong,” Reggie says, almost to himself. Matt McGrath, next to him, snaps to attention: “We should call anyone that anyone knows in the government.” A dozen people run to the phones.

  The SUV, meanwhile, makes a U-turn and drives back toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, stopping at the far entrance. Usman is trundled from the SUV, escorted through the West Gate, and onto the manicured grounds. No one speaks as the agents walk him behind the gate’s security station, down a stairwell, along an underground passage, and into a room—a cement-walled box with a table, two chairs, a hanging light with a bare bulb, and a mounted video camera.

  Even after all the astonishing turns of the past hour, Usman can’t quite believe there’s actually an interrogation room beneath the White House, dark and dank and horrific. He mops the perspiration from his brow.

  Real sweat. It’s no dream.

  ABOVEGROUND, THE BOUNCE HAS RETURNED to George Bush’s step.

  Romanians. He likes the Romanians, and he likes their president, Traian Basescu. And what’s not to like? His aim is to please the United States, to be a member of the club. That means both the European Union—which Romania is hoping to become a full member of soon—and the coalition of countries aligned, without a doubt, behind the United States.

  They sit in the wing chairs near the fireplace and chat, the two of them. Basescu has a visa issue he wants resolved. Bush says he’ll get on it, open things up for sure. An early member of the coalition of the willing, the Romanians have stuck it out. They’re the only country in their region with soldiers in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

  After a half hour of chat, Bush rises. “Let’s bring in the jackals.”

  Reporters file into the Oval Office.

  Bush reads a brief statement, written before the meeting, of course, about what they’ve just discussed, and then Basecsu reads his version of “we are good friends as are our nations.”

  Bush first goes to Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press, who dives right into the morning’s fare, that Israel’s Justice minister has said that the lack of a cease-fire call from the international community at the Rome conference—a result of U.S. opposition—gives Israel the “green light” to push further, and that a top Israeli general is saying that fighting will continue for a few weeks. “Is your administration okay with these things?”

  Bush sighs. Here we go. “I believe that, as Condi said yesterday, the Middle East is littered with agreements that just didn’t work. And now is the time to address the root cause of the problem. And the root cause of the problem is terrorist groups trying to stop the advance of democracies.” It’s a stretch, and he knows it. Hezbollah provides social services and protection to a significant segment of Lebanon. They’re settled. They have offices, weapons depots, bank accounts. They’re more like an unauthorized government. And he goes with that, moving from terrorism to issues of electoral legitimacy.

  “I view this as a clash of forms of government,” he says to the reporters. “I see people who can’t stand the thought of democracy taking hold in parts of—in the Middle East. And as democracy begins to advance, they use terrorist tactics to stop it…. But our objective is to make sure those who use terrorist tactics are not rewarded.” Don’t reward bad behavior—that’s what Cheney often says—but Bush, at this point, knows this kind of global experiment in behavior modification is like running a calculus equation with fast-changing variables. Surprises every minute.

  He pauses, exasperated. “Want to ask somebody from the Romanian press.” He gets a Romanian question and talks about visas and the Black Sea, all the stuff in his briefing book. Then the next question—from Steve Holland of Reuters—mentions a tape released yesterday by Zawahiri, urging Muslims to fight and become martyrs.

  Bush seems to lift. He wets his lips, and his head does that funny forward cock. He can connect it all—the political, the theoretical—through this one. He can make it personal. Him versus Zawahiri…

  “My answer is, I’m not surprised people who use terrorist tactics would start speaking out. It doesn’t surprise me. I am—Zawahiri’s attitude about life is that there shouldn’t be free societies. And he believes that people ought to use terrorist tactics, the killing of innocent people to achieve his objective. And so I’m not surprised he feels like he needs to lend his voice to terrorist activities that are trying to prevent democracies from moving forward…. You know, here’s a fellow who is in a remote region of the world putting out statements basically encouraging people to use terrorist tactics to kill innocent people to achieve political objectives. And the United States of America stands strong against Mr. Zawahiri and his types.”

  A FLOOR BELOW, USMAN IS being grilled about whether he’s in league with “Mr. Zawahiri and his types.” What that means, as one hour moves into the next, is he’s forced to walk along the knife’s edge of determining whether anything about his life—anything—is suspicious.

  The question is if anything doesn’t “quite add up,” as Dirty Blond tells him. He’s the bad cop, taking notes, one legal pad after another.

  “This might sound crazy,” says the Italian, the good cop, “but we need to know the name of everyone you know in America pretty much. Every friend from college, girlfriend, professor you hung out with. People at work. Everyone.”

  Usman, all but suffocating under his status as terror suspect, now must spread the virus to everyone he knows.

  He freezes. Says nothing for a moment. Italian smiles and leans in. “You live with anyone here in Washington. Roommates or something? Start with them, and phone numbers.”

  So Usman gives up his ecumenical cell, Linas and David. And their numbers. Dirty Blond silently marks it all down.

  The names build, one after another. Usman pauses, name by name. His whole life in America, everyone he’s met. “Is it really that important that everyone is included in all this?”

  “Say you leave someone out,” Dirty Blond interjects, “and they turn out to be someone who is of interest to us. Well, that’s a bad thing—bad for you.”

  On he goes, an hour passes. He thinks about his father, who has interrogated al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan. What would Dad tell him to do? Just be completely honest. But the truth can be complicated, and an area of confusion can so easily create suspicion. Then, God forbid.

  Another agent arrives with an atlas.

  “I don’t know much about Pakistan,” Italian says. “Show me where you’re from in Pakistan.”

  Usman opens the atlas to Pakistan. He points to Lahore. Dirty Blond’s up, looking over his shoulder. “That’s close to the areas where there’ve been some problems, isn’t it?”

  Usman looks up, then down. Yes, on the map the wide span of Pakistan seems to shrink. Lahore looks as if it’s right beside Peshawar and the edge of the tribal areas.

  “It’s farther than it looks—on the map, I mean. Like five hours’ drive.”

 
Then the questions come in waves.

  “What do you think of Islamic fundamentalism?”

  “What’s your opinion about Osama bin Laden?”

  “Define for me the word jihad.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.”

  It’s like there’s a trap in every question, and each one of his responses seems to ensnare him. How much knowledge of these things is good to have? How much adds to suspicion?

  “I know some things, I guess, because my father is, um, a police chief in Pakistan.”

  That should help. But then Dirty Blond seems to infer that Pakistani authorities have been infiltrated by radicals. “Is he a radical?”

  “No…” Usman sputters. “He loves America. We even came here for a year when I was a kid. We lived in Seattle. He was funded for a year in America as a Hubert Humphrey Fellow.”

  Dirty Blond looks at him, affectless. “And then you went back. So you learned a lot about America, how things work here, and then went back to Pakistan.”

  “Yes, I guess so. I mean, I was in first grade.”