The Room of White Fire Read online

  I hadn’t thought about the Military Code of Conduct since I studied it as a boot camp wannabe grunt in 2001. Some parts of that document never leave my mind. I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. I will never surrender of my own free will . . . If I am captured . . . I will make every effort to escape . . . I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability . . . I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions . . . I will trust in my God . . .

  I was twenty-two years old when I studied that code. We memorized and were tested on it. I had nothing but eighteen years of innocence and four years of college to bring to the altar. A history major! But still I committed myself to the code with all of my heart, truly and without reservation. The reservations started coming soon thereafter, when I saw that a code required action. Kind of like stepping up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking down. It was that way for a lot of us. We didn’t talk about it until later, when we were on our way out of the war. Maybe twenty-two is the oldest you can be and still believe absolutely what a government tells you to believe. I have regrets in my life, and some of them are substantial, but none of them came from my allegiance to that code of conduct.

  Clay Hickman was even younger—eighteen—when he joined the Air Force and memorized the Code of Conduct. In Dr. Paige Hulet’s file, Clay’s military ID picture had him looking more like sixteen, with different colored eyes, an oily complexion, and a buzz cut that had a small white tuft up front. He stood five foot nine and weighed one hundred and sixty pounds. In spite of his prosperous and influential family, Clay had enlisted.

  I wondered what Chuck Graff had found so ominous about the more modern-day SERE. It seemed to me a good idea to prepare airmen for survival and captivity, especially American airmen flying over murderers, torturers, beheaders. Reading further into the articles, I found two interesting entries under “Controversies.” The first was a 1993 incident at the Air Force Academy, where USAF cadets in the program claimed that they were sexually assaulted during their SERE “Resistance to Sexual Assault” classes. According to the cadets, the “playacting” instructors had gotten out of hand. Air Force spokesmen denied the allegations but modified the program. A three-million-dollar settlement to one cadet was reported but not corroborated.

  The second controversy was murkier and darker. In 2006 the ACLU obtained a sworn statement in which the former chief of Interrogation Control Element at Guantánamo Bay said that SERE instructors taught “interrogation techniques” to Guantánamo military personnel, and that these physical and mental techniques were “mirror images of SERE resistance training.”

  The upshot, in the words of more than one journalist, was that SERE instructors had “reverse engineered” their resistance methods into interrogation methods—training military interrogators to use the same dark arts of persuasion that they had been teaching Americans to resist if captured. They had turned from defenders to attackers. Their methods were said to include waterboarding, beatings, mock executions, and sleep deprivation, among other “enhanced techniques” recommended on a SERE-approved twenty-item “menu.”

  SERE came up again in the big ugly blast that hit the news late in 2014. In December the Senate Intelligence Committee published its report after nearly five years of investigating the CIA-run detention and interrogation programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reading those “torture report” headlines again was its own kind of torture:

  SENATE FAULTS CIA FOR LIES AND TORTURE—“A scathing Senate report says the brutal methods yielded no useful intelligence and were badly managed.”

  FACE-OFFS WITH CIA INTERROGATORS—“Key Sept. 11 figure seemed to take pride in his ability to endure waterboarding, Senate panel’s report says.”

  INTELLIGENCE GAINED FROM TORTURE FOCUS OF DEBATE . . .

  AIR FORCE SERE PROGRAM DIRECTORS QUESTIONED . . .

  PANEL FAULTS CIA OVER BRUTALITY AND DECEIT . . .

  THE HORRORS IN AMERICA’S “DUNGEON” . . .

  AL-QAEDA MASTERMIND WATERBOARDED 183 TIMES . . .

  DETAINEE LEFT TO FREEZE TO DEATH . . .

  DETAINEE KEPT AWAKE FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT DAYS . . .

  STRESS POSITIONS . . .

  MEDICALLY UNNECESSARY RECTAL FEEDING . . .

  RECTAL HYDRATION . . .

  TOTAL CONTROL OVER DETAINEE . . .

  THE SALT PIT . . .

  It took a few more days for the SERE connection to the CIA interrogation program to bubble back up into the headlines. But there it was again, right in front of me, glowing from my computer monitor in the evening gloom of my crumbling home.

  THE ARCHITECTS OF TORTURE . . .

  EX–AIR FORCE DOCTORS RAN PROGRAM FOR CIA . . .

  EXPERIMENTS IN TORTURE HAVE ROOTS IN U.S. MILITARY . . .

  DOCTOR’S ROLE IN TORTURE DETAILED . . .

  I scanned through these articles, too, feeling those dark pages of history flapping around inside of me. As a combat Marine, I’d had a pretty good idea what was going on in the so-called black sites. Wasn’t proud of it, just aware. War is hell—no excuse, but a fact. Later, I had actually tried to forget it. Yes, Roland Ford, private investigator—with a history degree and a concealed-carry permit—was more interested in forgetting than remembering his own country’s recent past.

  And then I found exactly what I thought I’d find, something half forgotten, which is also something half remembered.

  FORMER AIR FORCE PSYCHOLOGISTS WROTE TORTURE BOOK FOR CIA . . . AND TOOK HOME A FORTUNE . . .

  Fourteen years ago psychologists Briggs Spencer and Timothy Tritt were buddies at Fairchild AFB in Washington State, “master trainers” in a program to help captured U.S. servicemen survive captivity and torture. Now the just-released Senate report on CIA Detention and Interrogation programs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is naming them as co-authors of one of the darkest chapters in American history—the torture of hundreds of detainees in “secret” CIA “black sites” scattered throughout the mid-East, Europe and Asia . . .

  I remembered Paige Hulet’s description of Arcadia’s founder: a bit of a renegade. Which made Paige Hulet as understated as she was neat and pretty. My search engines fired on all eight cylinders with “Briggs Spencer” and “SERE” as fuel. He was a doctor of psychology but not a medical doctor, born and raised in ritzy Newport Beach, California. He was fifty-eight years old, twenty years my senior, had attended Cal State Fullerton on a baseball scholarship, helping the team to its first College World Series championship in 1979. He played first, threw and hit left, had a .314 lifetime Titan batting average. He was dark-haired and big-jawed, with merry eyes and a cheerful, harmless smile. He looked like he would be popular.

  Spencer was described as “athletically gifted and outgoing,” “a fair student,” “a team player.” He was Air Force ROTC. After college baseball he married high school sweetheart and cheerleader Dawn Foxx, got a masters in psychology, then a PhD. A Military Times article noted that psychology was not an approved ROTC major, but for Briggs Spencer—and others—exceptions had been made. At age twenty-six he graduated from Officer Training School and was quickly assigned to the SERE program at Fairchild AFB.

  I scanned through Spencer’s time at Fairchild. He left the USAF in 1995 but was rehired as a civilian consultant to continue teaching SERE. His salary was classified, but an anonymous source put it at triple his Air Force pay. In 2002, not long after 9/11, he and another SERE senior trainer, Timothy Tritt, incorporated under the name Spencer-Tritt Consulting and, in 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, moved their offices to Washington, D.C. A badly focused picture showed an older version of the hard-hitting first baseman.

  Besides his fleeting notoriety from the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture, there w
as little hard biography on Spencer to be found. But I found plenty of up-to-the-minute buzz: Spencer’s “tell-all” war memoir, Hard Truth, was due out later this month. Can life lessons learned in a secret prison change your life for the better? Schedules of his media appearances and book tour were posted. He had dates on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, and had a 60 Minutes feature in the can. His book tour was twelve cities, coast-to-coast, starting in his hometown of La Jolla. Much was made of Briggs and Mrs. Spencer flying from city to city in one of his “several” helicopters. There were lots of pictures of him—Spencer in a ruggedly handsome headshot, Spencer loping from one helo or another, Spencer on the tarmac in front of Air Force One with Bush and Rumsfeld, all three of them red-eared in overcoats against some biting winter wind. A major studio had purchased movie rights to Hard Truth, Russell Crowe attached.

  Next I searched to see if the paths of Clay Hickman, SERE program graduate, and Briggs Spencer, “master instructor,” had crossed early on. If so, I couldn’t find that crossing. Not at Fairchild, from which Briggs Spencer departed long before the arrival of Clay Hickman, at the ripe old age of nineteen. Not in Iraq, where, according to Chuck Graff’s DoD source, Clay had not set foot. While Doctor of Psychology Briggs Spencer was commuting from black site to Langley and back again, Clay Hickman was officially nowhere from late 2007 until his discharge at the end of 2009. Then came Clay’s troubled years, as documented in Paige Hulet’s file. Until 2014, that is, when he was committed to Arcadia, a for-profit hospital recently founded by Briggs Spencer. In a low-percentage play, I replaced “Clay Hickman” with “Rick Sims,” then “Richard Sims,” but nothing popped.

  I stood up from the rustic old table that was my work desk, went to one of the tall windows and looked out at the dark hills to the west. Rain was falling. I remembered flying through a rainstorm with Justine one night, coming home from Palm Springs. We’d ignored the forecast in our usual manner, and sure enough, by the time we began our descent into Fallbrook Airpark the rain was heavy and the thunder booming and the lightning splintered yellow in the west. She landed Hall Pass beautifully and the rain poured off the plane’s wings as we taxied toward the hangars. We got the Cessna into her place and secure, then ran through the rain to the car. It was late and dark and we were alone in the parking lot so we made love in the back while the storm bore down. We had music on. I can remember the songs but not the order in which they played. I used to know. Every small loss takes you further away from what you loved. But how else do you go forward without forgetting some? You can’t carry all of it.

  Now in my darkened study I watched the rain. A scientist on the radio said there’s always the same amount of water on and in the earth, it just changes places. I wonder what good this knowledge does. Tell that to someone in a flood. Or in a drought. Soon water was tapping on the old oak floor. I got a red plastic bucket from under the bathroom sink and toed it into place. The drops kept a beat, slower and louder than the raindrops hitting the roof. Quietly, from under those wonderful syncopated rhythms of water, came Justine’s voice, just its sound, no words.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. The text said:

  12:38 AM

  All good. Sleeping. Must leave soon. He will talk to u. Use this number, Walmart cheapie no GPS. He’s afraid of ping

  12:39 AM

  Where are u now?

  12:40 AM

  No. Trust us.

  12:41 AM

  Where are u going?

  12:41 AM

  TRUST US!

  12:42 AM

  Must see him. Any time or place.

  12:43 AM

  You sleep tight 2

  Fat chance. I kept picturing Clay Hickman’s paintings. And Sequoia’s neat little Airstream. And wondering about all the things that might happen when you put Clay and Sequoia together in a tight space and shook them up a little.

  —

  I sat up late with my grandparents Dick and Liz, under the big palapa out by the pond, watching the rain. The raindrops sparkled on the surface of the pond and raised a faint mist. Even light rain like this seemed like a major weather event after so many years of California drought.

  Grandpa Dick sat to my left, drinking scotch and grousing about the democrats ruining his country, berating Grandma Liz for her drinking, and complaining about the slippery shower floor in his casita.

  Elizabeth sat to my right, drinking wine and griping about the republicans ruining her country, belittling Dick for his drinking, and me for not fixing the electricity in her casita.

  “This whole place is a disgrace,” she concluded. “You should sell.”

  “I can’t leave it, Grandma.”

  “But you won’t fix it.”

  “You can’t leave it and you can’t fix it, but you can’t stand it, either, can you?” asked Grandpa.

  “Sell, Rollie,” said Liz.

  “It is California real estate!” said Grandpa. “Hang on to it.”

  “And run it into the ground?” countered Grandma.

  Grandpa said nothing, just shook his head, as if his wife of fifty years were daft. “So what in hell have you been up to, Rollie? Haven’t seen much of you around here the last couple of days. Staying busy?”

  “The usual.”

  “Exactly what usual?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

  “That’s everyone, if they’re truthful,” said Grandma.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “I knew he was going to say that. I knew it.”

  I watched the rain fall on the water and saw for one brief second the little rowboat we had, Justine at the oars, swimsuit, looking back at me from beneath one of her floppy sun hats. Bright water. That was in September, our perfect year. I heard her voice on the water, then no voice, only the raindrops boiling the pond.

  Trying to shake that, I trotted out into the rain and pulled my truck into the barn, which had been fitted with a hydraulic vehicle lift years ago by a car-tinkering great-great-uncle of Justine’s. Once I got it up I took a powerful shop light and examined the underside of the truck.

  I found the transmitter tucked up on the foreside of the gas tank, screw-clamped to a metal strap. I wondered when they had put it on. More important, who they were. Lots of theys out there, if you let your imagination run, which I am not in the habit of doing. Good for an artist, maybe, but not a PI.

  My first thought was Alec DeMaris’s security team at Arcadia. Why would they follow their own expensive, cash-only private investigator? Good question. Arcadia security had had access to my truck twice—most recently for several hours today. A guy who knew what he was doing could have clamped that little tracker on in less than two minutes. Lunchtime would have been good, because the partners were all bellied up in the mess hall instead of roaming the grounds. Maybe less than one minute.

  I unlocked and opened the tool chest in the bed of the truck. It’s one of those big metal wall-to-wall chests that contractors bolt to their trucks and features not one but two lockable latches. I set the transmitter down inside of it with the jumper cables and road flares and watched its steady blue light. For now I’d let them enjoy following me, whoever they were. Drawing them along might come in handy, or it might not. If not, I could be rid of the thing in the time it would take to pull over and open a lid.

  10

  It descended through the sunrise, shiny as a new penny, engines humming and the quad rotors whapping the sound that makes people love helicopters. A svelte little Sikorsky 434 turbine with a bright copper paint job, darkened canopy windows, and the words HARD TRUTH painted on the pilot-side door. The letters were black and forward-rushing, and had tails to make them look like speeding bullets. Landing near the pond, the helo kicked up little dust, courtesy of last night’s rain. It settled on its skid tubes.

  I set my coffee cup on the long communal picnic bench. The
chopper’s rotor blades were still slowing when a man pushed open the door, looked at me through yellow-lensed aviators, then dropped to the ground and ducked beneath the blades, headed my way.

  He looked to be near sixty, solidly built, and when he cleared the rotors I saw that he was tall. He came to the picnic bench where I sat, spread his hands on the tabletop, and leaned toward me. “Dr. Briggs Spencer,” he said. His smile said, You’re going to like me.

  He still had the heroic jaw. Since the war he’d grown his gray hair long enough for the helo blades to throw it around. I could see blue eyes behind the yellow lenses, nearly blanched of color, roaming my face as if looking for a way in.

  A long beat.

  “Come on, I’ll take you up. You can explain to me how Clay has managed to secure a girlfriend and a truck in less than the forty-eight hours since I hired you to find him. Don’t mind heights, do you?”

  “I like heights. But I’m not a fan of torture.”

  The good doctor lay a hand on my shoulder and took another while to study me. The hand was heavy. He tilted his head down to look over his glasses at me. “Mr. Ford, people change. Come on. Get in.”

  I didn’t move. I had told Paige Hulet about Clay’s “girlfriend” but nothing about her role in his escape or her subsequently stolen truck. Which meant the doctor had sources other than Paige Hulet and me. Sometimes people hire PIs to watch their PIs. I wondered if Briggs Spencer’s other sources of information drove a white Range Rover and a black Dodge Charger.

  I finished my coffee, and followed the man to his helicopter.

  —

  We rose swiftly into the early-morning sky. I had that funny gut-drop you get in a helicopter, like some part of yourself is still on the ground and you want to go back down and pick it up. My property got smaller as the world got bigger. I saw Lindsey Rakes standing in front of her casita, looking up, shading her eyes. I thought of buzzing the rancho with Justine in Hall Pass, how she’d bring it in just over the pond, touch and go on the little strip we’d dozed, then go screaming into a climb. Being in the air makes me feel close to her, makes my problems on earth seem smaller. Less bound by the laws below.