Free Extraordinary Renditions by Andrew Ervin Page B

a rock star.
2.
    Brutus picked up the Fanon book and then put it back down in frustration. The unorthodox visit from the marines was little more than another thinly veiled threat, a demonstration of Sullivan’s far-reaching influence, of the width and breadth of his might. Army life consisted of continuing battles of the will and the establishment of petty superiorities over one’s fellow man. He witnessed the ill-natured competitiveness most often in the mess hall and on the shooting ranges. Sullivan was the reigning champion of the big-dick contests, none of which had been mentioned at the recruiter’s office on Broad Street, under the gaze of that Quaker-ass William Penn.
    The constant threat of terrorist attacks on American targets at home and abroad required Brutus to carry his firearm at all times, and his needed a good cleaning. The army was training the goddamn Iraqi police there on the base. That was what they called it. “Training” them in the fine art of torture, to be sure. Private jets landed every couple of days on an airstrip built specifically for the base’s restricted zone.
    Doornail’s story stayed with him longer than he would have preferred. The image of the dead rat lingered on the periphery of Brutus’s thoughts,slightly out of focus but vivid enough to unsettle everything around it. There was a lesson in it—something foreboding, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He was taking apart his weapon when someone banged on his door. He didn’t answer it, but the knock came again. “Private First Class Gibson? You’re to report to Sullivan’s office immediately.”
    Probably just a couple knuckleheads busting his balls.
    “Hold up.” He clanged the pieces of his pistol together loud enough that they wouldn’t think he was jerking off.
    A pair of Latino soldiers stood in the doorway, sending an elongated, fun-house shadow into his room. An open window backlit their helmets like two metallic haloes—a carefully cultivated effect. Brutus made a show of keeping his hands out in the open. He had grown suspicious of cops long before his arrival in Europe.
    “You Gibson?”
    “Yeah.”
    One of the soldiers shifted his weight, sending a blinding light directly into Brutus’s eyes and rendering himself invisible. “Sullivan wants to see you.”
    “Right now?” He looked back at the row of metal that had recently been a pistol. Regulations forbade him from leaving without it. He could go to jail for having an unsecured weapon in a barracks room.
    “No, when your gold-plated invitation arrives,” the other guy said.
    The authorities there were just as witty in Budapest as they were in Philly.
    “Hold up.”
    Brutus considered putting the pistol back together first but decided to forget it. He grabbed his wallet from his desk and followed the M.P.s out, pulling the door locked behind him. A dozen minor infractions of protocol committed over the past few days came to mind, none of which warranted a personal summons from Sullivan.
    Brutus refused to be the first to speak. He allowed the cops to feel that they had adequately established their authority. Unfortunately, they weren’t just fronting—he really
was
more or less at their mercy. There were all kinds of stories about out-of-uniform soldiers dragging men from their rooms, taking them behind the latrines, and treating them like Rodney King for a day. Brutus wasn’t about to make the first move.
    Sullivan’s office was over in the executive suite of newer buildings on the western edge of the camp. Brutus’s sometime-girlfriend, a civilian named Magda, occasionally worked there as an interpreter. She spent most of her time in the restricted area, and wouldn’t talk about what went on there. He couldn’t even bring up the topic. The cops directed him into the back of a Humvee, which slid on the ice around the turns. Other soldiers watched without surprise as the three of them passed. Brutus read their eyes: he had had this coming