terrain had an arid quality, perfect for iguanas and banana rats—except for all the fences. Jack noticed miles of them. One-and two-lane roads cut across the topography like tiny scars, and a slew of vehicles seemed to be moving at high speed, though they looked like matchbox cars from this vantage point. In the background, a huge, black plume of smoke was rising like a menacing funnel cloud.
“What’s going on?” he said into the phone.
“They’re at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay. It’s about your client.”
“My client? Which one?”
“The crazy one.”
“That doesn’t exactly narrow things down,” said Jack.
“You know, the Haitian saint,” said Theo.
Jack didn’t bother to tell him that he wasn’t actually a saint. “You mean Jean Saint Preux? What did he do?”
“What did he do?” said Theo, scoffing. “He set the fucking naval base on fire.”
6:35 a.m., Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Camp Delta was a huge, glowing ember on the horizon, like the second rising of the sun. The towering plume of black smoke rose ever higher, fed feverishly by the raging furnace below. A gentle breeze from the Windward Passage only seemed to worsen matters—too weak to clear the smoke, just strong enough to spread a gloomy haze across the entire southeastern corner of the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Major Frost Jorgenson was speeding due south in the passenger seat of a U.S. marine Humvee. Even with the windows shut tight, the seeping smoke was making his eyes water.
“Unbelievable,” he said as they drew closer to the camp.
“Yes, sir,” said his driver. “Biggest fire I’ve ever seen.”
Major Jorgenson was relatively new to “Gitmo,” part of the stepped-up presence of U.S. Marines that had come with the creation of a permanent detention facility at Camp Delta for “enemy combatants”—suspected terrorists who had never been charged formally with a crime. Jorgenson was a bruiser even by marine standards. Four years of college football at Grambling University had prepared him well for a life of discipline, and old habits die hard. Before sunrise, he’d already run two miles and peeled off two hundred sit-ups. He was stepping out of the shower, dripping wet, when the telephone call had come from Fire Station No. 1. An explosion at Camp Delta. Possible casualties. Fire/Rescue dispatched. No details as yet. Almost immediately, he was fielding calls from his senior officers, including the brigadier general in charge of the entire detainee program, all of whom were demanding a situation report, pronto.
A guard waved them through the Camp Delta checkpoint.
“Unbelievable.” The major was slightly embarrassed for having repeated himself, but it was involuntary, the only word that seemed to fit.
The Humvee stopped, and the soldiers rushed to strap on their gas masks as they jumped out of the vehicle. A wave of heat assaulted the major immediately, a stifling blow, as if he’d carelessly tossed a match onto a pile of oversoaked charcoal briquettes. Instinctively he brought a hand to his face, even though he was protected by the mask. After a few moments, the burning sensation subsided, but the visibility was only getting worse. Depending on the wind, it was like stepping into a foggy twilight, the low morning sun unable to penetrate the smoke. He grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment.
Major Jorgenson walked briskly, stepping over rock-hard fire hoses and fallen debris, eventually finding himself in the staging area for the firefighting team from Fire Station No. 2. Thick, noxious smoke made it impossible to see beyond the three nearest fire trucks, though he was sure there were more, somewhere in the darkness. At least he hoped there were more. Once again, the heat was on him like a blanket, but even more stifling was the noise all around him—radios crackling, sirens blaring, men shouting. Loudest of all was the inferno itself, an endless surge of flames emitting a noise that was peculiar to fires this overwhelming, a strange cross between a roaring tidal wave and a gigantic wet bedsheet flapping in the breeze.
“Watch it!”
Directly overhead, a stream of water arched from the turret of a massive, yellow truck. It was one of several three-thousand-gallon airport rescue and firefighting machines on the base, capable of dousing flames with 165 gallons of water per minute. It wasn’t even close to being enough.
“Coming through!” A team of stretcher bearers streaked past. Major Jorgenson caught a glimpse of the blackened shell of a man on the gurney, his arms and legs twisted and shriveled like melted plastic. On impulse, he ran alongside and then took up the rear position, relieving one of the stretcher bearers who seemed to be on the verge of collapse.
“Dear God,” he said. But his heart sank even further as the lead man guided the stretcher right past the ambulance to a line of human remains behind the emergency vehicles. The line was already too long to bear. They rolled the charred body onto the pavement.
“Major, in here!”
He turned and saw the fire chief waving him toward the side of the fire truck. An enlisted man stepped in to relieve his commanding officer of stretcher duty. The major commended him and then hurried over to join the chief inside the cab, pulling off his mask as the door closed behind him.
The fire chief was covered with soot, his expression incredulous. “With all due respect, sir, what are you doing out here?”
“Same as you,” said the major. “Is it as bad as it looks?”
“Maybe worse, sir.”
“How many casualties?”
“Six marines unaccounted for so far. Eleven injured.”
“What about detainees?”
“Easier to count survivors at this point.”
“How many?”
“So far, none.”
The major felt his gut tighten. None. No survivors. A horrible result—even worse when you had to explain it to the rest of the world.
The fire chief picked a flake of ash from his eye and said, “Sir, we’re doing our best to fight this monster. But any insight you can give me as to how this started could be a big help.”
“Plane crash,” the major reported. “That’s all we know now. Civilian craft. Cessna.”
Just then, a team of F-16s roared across the skies overhead. Navy fighter jets had been circling the base since the invasion of airspace.
“Civilian plane, huh? It may not be my place to ask, but how did that happen?”
“You’re right. It’s not your place to ask.”
“Yes, sir. But for the safety of my own men, I guess what I’m getting at is this: if there’s something inside this facility that we should know about…I mean something of an explosive or incendiary nature—”
“This is a detention facility. Nothing more.”
“One heck of a blaze for a small civilian aircraft
