Gang of One: One Man's Incredible Battle to Find His Missing (3 page)

‘Word is they’re gittin’ it,’ responded the same marshal, Marshal Dave, the would-be leader, who was now edging towards us, eyeing us ever more closely. I started to get a fix on Dave: definitely in charge, angry, a gun-stroker no doubt, and a Southerner. He’d probably claim to have invested his pension, his life savings, his house, and his kids’ school funds in Enron stock when he thought it was a sure-fire winner, just before it imploded. And now he blamed me.

‘How do they get bail? Surely they get locked up?’ the cuddly desk officer asked again, looking straight at Marshal Dave’s back as he crouched in front of us.

‘Nope, the Brits said it would be unfair.’ Dave grimaced. He definitely didn’t like us – probably invested some of his parents’ life savings as well.

‘But they ain’t legal in the US. They don’t have visas,’ the desk sergeant continued.

‘So?’ said Marshal Dave, rising back up, this comment clearly catching his attention. He started thumbing through our passports. I definitely hadn’t applied for a visa to facilitate any extradition. That was never on my to-do list.

‘So if they are released by the judge, Immigration will have to pick them up and impound them,’ said the desk sergeant. I sat up. This was getting interesting.

‘And then we would have to process them,’ added one of the immigration officers in the ICE jacket.

‘What do you mean, process them?’ asked Marshal Dave, as he threw the passport bag over to the beckoning desk sergeant.

‘Well, since they don’t have a proper visa, we’d have to deport them.’ Bingo, I liked that.

The FBI guy chipped in again; he had a real slow Southern drawl. ‘Hell, we took four years to git ’em here, we sure as hell ain’t gonna deport them. They’re fugitives, God dammit; we’d never find them again.’

Oh, how I wished one of our judges in the extradition hearings could have heard this farcical conversation. It was exactly as our expert witness had predicted, exactly what the judges had decided would never happen. David had an I-told-you-so look on his face.

By now the immigration officer had motioned to see the passports. ‘Nope, they don’t have visas,’ he said, thumbing through our passports. ‘These boys are illegals. Did you boys apply for visas?’ he shouted over at us. We all shook our heads.

‘So, if they get bail tomorrow, as soon as they step out of that courtroom, we’ll arrest them and lock ’em up for being illegals!’ he said forcefully.

‘They’ll git bail, then go straight to jail,’ the ICE officer summed up, delighted with his little rhyme, which threw the room into further turmoil. By now our passports, still in their clear plastic bag were being thrown around the room as the tussle between the various strands of US Law Enforcement continued.

‘I’ll hold those,’ said the FBI agent.

‘No, you won’t,’ responded Marshal Dave. ‘Those are coming with us. We’ll give them to the judge.’

‘Oh, no!’ interjected the immigration officer again, holding the bag over his head. ‘These men are here illegally. By rights we should be putting them straight back on the plane.’

This level of organisation didn’t bode well for our time in America. It might have been funny to see how the reality compared to the gritty, heroic and, above all, efficient picture of US justice delivered on our television screens. But these same people had taken me away from my kids. And if they got their way, they would keep me away until my kids weren’t kids any more.

The show broke up when Marshal Dave turned towards me and shouted, ‘You! Stand up and come with me.’

Expressionless, I rose from my seat and followed him and another marshal round the corner into a small side room. I immediately noticed it had no windows. The second marshal took up a position at the far end of this room with his back to the wall. Bizarrely, he was still wearing sunglasses. He was also chewing gum and wielding what seemed to be a truncheon.

‘Turn around and face the wall,’ Marshal Dave barked, clearly still angry about the discussion with Immigration. He sighed heavily as he started placing keys and other equipment on the small table in front of him. This guy oozed danger and intimidation. I sensed he needed only the barest of excuses.

‘Face me!’ he said briskly. I turned around. He stood right in front of me. He was much shorter than me.

‘Don’t you fuckin’ look at me. Did you fuckin’ look at me?’ he growled, as I quickly averted my eyes from his gaze.

‘He fuckin’ looked at you, boss,’ offered the irritant in the corner, tapping his stick gently in one hand.

‘Did you fuckin’ look at me?’ Dave asked again, moving ever close to me.

‘No, er, yes . . . I mean, I didn’t.’

‘Don’t fuckin’ talk to me like that!’ Dave screamed. What the hell was wrong with this guy?

‘You answer me, “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir.” You got that?’

‘Yes, sir, or no, sir,’ repeated the parrot in the corner.

‘Yes . . . sir,’ I replied haltingly. I’d walked into the wrong TV show.

‘Now,’ said Marshal Dave, breathing heavily. ‘Listen up and listen up good: here are the rules. Number one: you answer, “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” – nothing else. If you answer any other way I will deem that as an attempt to escape. You understand?’

‘Attempt to escape,’ murmured the parrot, as if the words tasted of chocolate.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said firmly, my eyes fixed to the floor.

‘Number two. You . . . do . . . not . . . eyeball . . . me . . .’ He stretched the words out for emphasis. ‘If you eyeball me, that is an attempt to escape. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’ I barked, feeling like a new army recruit.

‘Number three. You do not converse with me, or with anyone else. You speak only when spoken to, by me or another marshal. Otherwise that is also an attempt to escape. You got that?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Any attempt to escape will automatically result in a new indictment, the penalty for which is another five years!’

‘Another five years,’ confirmed his number two, almost salivating at the thought of an attempted escape, whereupon, no doubt, he would have the pleasure of clubbing me to death.

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’ I shouted a little too vigorously.

I sensed Marshal Dave tensing. After a moment’s pause, he spoke more softly than before. ‘You playing with me?’ he asked quietly, coming ever closer. This guy was menacing. He was standing way too close to me, close enough to feel his breath, and I had to suppress a sudden urge to head-butt him.

‘No . . .’ then more quietly, ‘sir,’ I responded, involuntarily raising my head a fraction to look at him.

‘Don’t look at me, boy!’ he yelled.

‘Don’t look at him!’ repeated the parrot, getting ever more excited.

‘Don’t you look at me. I warned you!’ he continued.

The room fell silent. I stared ever more intently at the floor. I could feel the marshal was waiting for a flicker, a reaction, anything. I didn’t move. Bizarrely, I felt complete calm; not intimidated or afraid. Instead in my mind I had one thought – Calum. The pain on his face; the way his body shuddered and trembled as he cried just those few short days earlier when I told him I had to go. There was nothing these people could do to me, nothing that would compare to that agony and the guilt that coruscated through my entire body, my heart, my soul. Looking back, I think I would have welcomed it if they had hit me – perhaps that would have numbed the pain I felt at being separated from Calum and Cara.

Then Marshal Dave spoke again, calmly, methodically, carefully. ‘Now, I’m going to ask you what you have on your person. Think hard before you answer. If you don’t tell me about something and I find something . . . then that will be an attempt to escape.’

The sinister tone was amplified by the failure of the parrot to repeat this. This must be the key bit, I thought. The denouement. The bit where people trip up.

But what did I have in my pockets? I panicked, trying desperately to think if I had anything from the plane or elsewhere. I had a desperate urge to rummage through, but my hands were still cuffed, and anyway I was sure rummaging through your pockets would be deemed an attempt to escape and punishable by another five years’ imprisonment.

‘Now,’ Marshal Dave continued, ‘what do you have on your person?’

I hesitated before responding, ‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Nothing, he said nothing,’ repeated the parrot, edging forward as if getting ready to start on me.

‘You come all the way from England – and you have . . . nothin’?’

I didn’t put anything in my pocket on the plane, did I? I was panicking, my head spinning trying to think of anything I might have accidentally put in my pockets when I went to the toilet or toyed with the plane food.

‘I am going to ask you one more time. Think carefully before you answer. If I find anything . . . any-thing,’ Dave pronounced it slowly for emphasis, ‘then you’re in deep shit.’

‘Deep shit,’ repeated the extremely annoying parrot. I hadn’t looked at him closely before, and couldn’t look at him now, but in my imagination he had become a RoboCop from an action movie.

‘Nothing, sir,’ I firmly repeated, not entirely believing it myself now.

‘Nothing,’ Marshal Dave said softly. ‘OK, I am going to uncuff you,’ he went on, ‘and you are going to remove each item of clothing as I instruct you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘When you have removed said item of clothing, I want you to turn around, face the wall, and place your hands up against the wall, while I search your clothing. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK, I am removing the cuffs,’ he said, and did it quickly. ‘Firstly, I want your shoes, laces and belt. The latter two items will not be returned to you.’ He’d done this before.

I made a mental note to wear slip-ons and elasticated trousers the next time I got extradited as I quickly removed each item.

‘Remove your T-shirt, then face the wall.’

I duly obliged, the move to semi-nakedness making me feel suddenly exposed. Almost involuntarily, I puffed out my chest. I didn’t want to look like some poncey, flabby wanker-banker. I didn’t want to feel like Marshal Dave was dominating me.

‘Git your arms up.’ I lifted them up. ‘Higher!’ he barked.

What a twat! He was really annoying me. Better not think that way, I told myself. Don’t show a chink in the armour; don’t give these pricks the chance to do what they would clearly love to. I stared straight ahead at the wall. It all seemed so unnecessary, although I learned later this was just the standard fare – everyone extradited got to enjoy this experience. Although we had perhaps been the highest profile case, there was a conveyor belt of extradition cases from the UK to the US waiting behind us, and even then I wondered how Gary McKinnon, for example, a hacker with Asperger’s, would ever cope with such a welcome.

‘Remove your jeans.’

I removed them quickly, pressing the pockets as I did to see if I could feel anything in them. They felt empty. I turned again to face the wall as I listened intently to Marshal Dave working his way thoroughly through my jeans. All I could hear was his breathing and I grimaced as I imagined him finding a sugar sachet from the plane and suddenly shouting that I was trying to escape and beating me to the floor. But my pockets must have been empty as nothing happened, although the temptation to turn around and look was building and building.

I was starting to feel more self-conscious standing there with just my boxer shorts and socks on, facing the wall with my hands up in the air.

How far was this going to go? Hopefully not the whole way, I thought.

‘Remove your socks one by one,’ was the next instruction.

He seemed to take an age searching my socks as I stood naked apart from my boxers, facing the wall with my arms held high up on the ceiling.

‘Right,’ he began. ‘I am now going to begin a physical examination.’ The words plunged into me. I considered asking him whether he thought he’d find any documents up there, four years after my indictment. But my own jokes didn’t amuse me at that point.

‘Turn around, keeping your arms raised and look straight ahead.’ I obliged; my arms were getting increasingly heavy, but I decided it was too risky to ask for a rest.

‘Relax your arms and open your mouth.’ He had a swab or something and had a surprisingly good rummage around. I tried not to look directly at him. He tussled through my hair and checked behind my ears and under my armpits. ‘Turn around, remove your underwear and then raise your arms again above your head.’

‘Oh God,’ I thought, ‘he’s going for the bum.’

‘Spread your legs apart!’

I heard the unmistakable snap of surgical gloves. Each finger, snap, snap, snap. One by one those snaps resonated through the room as each finger became silicone wrapped.

‘Face the wall,’ he barked angrily as I glanced back at him. It wasn’t easy not to take a quick look in such circumstances.

The snapping had stopped, but despite listening intently, I couldn’t hear the swish of the lubricant being applied. I surmised he was going in lube-free. In what was turning out to be a really bad day for me, this was yet another setback. I braced myself.

‘Now, bend forward and slowly moving your hands back, clasp each buttock and spread your cheeks.’

I thought of England. Of Tony Blair. I remembered I had heard him saying how we would be well treated. How the magistrate and judges knew we would be well treated. I thought of my family, sitting at home wondering what was happening to me. Probably tuned into
News at Ten
by now, with some Labour puppet assuring everyone we were in the best possible hands. I wished they could switch over live from the studio to see exactly what good hands I was in.

I clenched my buttocks. Nothing happened. I was desperate to look round. I thought about what Billy Connolly had once said about how the prostate was like a doughnut and the doctor has to check it hasn’t become like a bagel. Marshal Dave was taking his time checking out my bakery status.

‘Lift your sac,’ he ordered. I duly complied, thinking maybe it was impeding his attack. Then he said the magical words, ‘Turn around and pull your foreskin back.’ I never thought I would be so happy to hear those words in all my life. Not from a man anyway. I turned around gleefully – too gleefully.