Magic hour was beginning to set in as Brent and Debbie left for the Santa Barbara Biltmore. By the time they arrived, the sun was perched above the horizon for another breathtaking Santa Barbara sunset. After the valet fetched the car, they walked across the street to the beach and stood there for a moment to enjoy it. The sky bathed the ocean with an explosion of red, orange and yellow as it descended through the clouds, kissing the horizon. When their eyes met, Brent stroked Debbie's hair and moved in for the kiss.

"Now, that's a homecoming to remember," she said.

It didn't take long, however, for the small talk to turn to business. Debbie was too curious to let it pass. She needed an update. Brent gave her a summary of the bizarre and curtailed interview in the house of horrors that was Camp 7, as well as his own strange treatment at the hands of the Border Patrol upon his arrival in Miami.

"So what's next?" she asked, batting her eyelashes over her baby blues. She may be blonde, but she was no dummy. In fact, she was quite the opposite. As a CPA in the audit department of Ernst & Young, she found talking about Brent's work more interesting than thinking about her own.

"I'll file a habeas corpus petition, and try to get him out of that shit hole. Maybe we can determine what charge he's being held on and get him a hearing."

"They haven't charged him with anything?"

"Not yet. They have a confession with him admitting he came to Iraq to help his brother launder money for al Qaeda."

"That's a serious accusation."

"Apparently, after 20 minutes of waterboarding, not only will you admit allegiance to Osama bin Laden, you'll gladly die just to have relief."

"So the confession was coerced."

"Ya think?"

Brent thought about Ahmed and how free he was in comparison to him. How he had always taken this freedom for granted: The freedom to follow the rules if he found them to be tolerable, and to break them if he found them to be too onerous. Ahmed was only free in his dreams, if that.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Brent wasn't sure if he was dreaming or his lips were being rubbed with sandpaper. He felt a heaviness on his chest and a tickling on his face. Upon opening his eyes, he discovered that it was Calico, treating him to some early morning affection as a prelude to her breakfast. As he rolled out of bed, the cat flew off and charged for the kitchen.

Even though it was Saturday, there was no time for leisure. Every minute that Ahmed spent in tortuous confinement was a minute too long. Brent got ready for a long Saturday at the office.

The writ of habeas corpus, which literally means, "produce the body," derives from 14th century English law, and is traditionally used to free a person who is wrongfully detained without just cause. It was the only guarantee of a right written into the Constitution itself: The others came in amendments. The ten first amendments were called the "Bill of Rights."

If a petition for habeas corpus is successful, a writ is issued by the court commanding that the prisoner be brought before the court for a hearing to determine whether the custodian has authority to detain the prisoner. If no legal authority is found, the prisoner must be released.

If Ahmed had been held in any prison in the States, obtaining his release would be a relatively simple task, but he was a suspected enemy combatant. Courts had already upheld detentions at Guantanamo under the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress three days after the September 11th attacks. Given that his "confession" tied him to al Qaeda, the Government would argue that they had the power to hold him indefinitely, or until such time as the military conflict no longer existed.

Because of the destruction of the Afghan and Iraqi infrastructure, the enormous problem of policing, the incredible expense of rebuilding, and the $700 billion U.S. defense budget, it was foreseeable that the "military conflict" there could go on for decades, to the delight of military contractors like Halliburton, Lockheed and General Dynamics. War is good for business.

Robert Kennedy said, "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples to build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Brent began work on his own tiny ripple of hope.

Normally a habeas corpus petition had to be filed in the Federal District Court in the district where the prisoner was confined. However, in this case, Brent decided to file in the Central District of California, since Ahmed was incarcerated outside the U.S. but was a United States citizen with a residence in that district.

Ahmed had been denied a cornucopia of basic rights of one normally accused of a crime, including his Sixth Amendment rights to counsel, to a speedy trial, to confront the witnesses against him, to a trial by jury, and the right to be informed of what he was charged with. He had been denied his Fifth Amendment right to a trial by jury, the right to due process, and his coerced confession violated his privilege against self-incrimination. Finally, his treatment at Guantanamo violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

In any other situation, Brent would have been able to use the notes that he had taken from his interview with Ahmed. But, in Ahmed's case, as was the case with every prisoner in Gitmo, Brent had to turn in all his notes and could not use them until they had been "cleared." Given this handicap, Brent worked from memory.

Brent's request for a visit and examination for Ahmed from the International Red Cross was denied by the military, on the grounds that Ahmed was being held as an "unprivileged enemy combatant," to which the Government considered the Geneva Conventions of 1949 did not apply.

As Brent worked on the habeas corpus petition, Ahmed paid the price for finally exercising his right to counsel. Armed with Brent's notes, which violated Ahmed's right to counsel and the age-old attorney-client privilege, his captors now had another reason to torture Ahmed: Revenge. It began with Sergeant Brown, of course. Ahmed knew he could count on an early morning visit from him, and that it would be anything but pleasant.

"Your Jew lawyer broke all of our rules, A-hab," Brown said as he entered Ahmed's small cell. "That means no TV, no exercise yard and no toilet privileges for you, Haji."

This was no big deal for Ahmed. He had been forced to soil himself many times during his short captivity. And being shackled to a chair in the TV room was not really his idea of entertainment, just as the 15 minutes per week of exercise he was allowed was not really exercise.

"Since that idiot Jew chickened out, you've been appointed a new lawyer by the Government," added Brown with a smile, "He'll be seeing you soon, so try not to shit yourself."

The new lawyer for Ahmed was a young, clean-cut man with a generic American accent. Whereas Ahmed had felt a natural trust for Brent, he did not feel the same about this new lawyer, Steven Jackson.

"Will you be filing a writ of habeas corpus for me?" Ahmed asked Jackson.

"Well, let's talk about that. We have a hearing coming up before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal. You'll be given an opportunity to show why you shouldn't be designated an enemy combatant. Why do you think a writ of habeas corpus would apply in your case?"

This lawyer must be kidding. "What firm are you with?" asked Ahmed.

"I've been appointed by the Government. Mr. Khury, and I'm asking the questions here. We don't have much time to prepare."

"I'd like to see Mr. Marks."

"Didn't Sergeant Brown tell you he declined representation?"

"Yes, but I prefer to hear that from him. Until I do, I won't be saying anything."

"Suit yourself," said Jackson, with a disappointed frown on his face.

After his visit with his new "lawyer," Ahmed was shackled to a chair in a small room and bombarded with strobe lights and loud rock music for hours. It was the equivalent of standing in the first row of the mosh pit at a Black Sabbath concert without earplugs. During this free concert, since he was deprived of his bathroom privileges, Ahmed was forced to pee himself. As the incessant noise droned on, he tried to escape to a peaceful place within his own mind.

Suddenly, after about nine hours, the music and lights stopped. Ahmed's ears were ringing and he continued to see the flashing lights long after they had been turned off. Brown entered the room, grinning with anticipation.

"Listen up A-hab," he declared. "You're going to tell me everything that happened with your Jew lawyer. Tell me everything you talked about, and don't leave anything out."

"I have an attorney-client privilege," Ahmed responded.

"You ain't got no privileges here, Haji."

"Why don't you just listen to the tape?" Ahmed asked.

"Tape?"

"The tape you made from the microphones in the interrogation room."

"You've got an active imagination. I take that you are refusing to cooperate?"

"No, I will tell you anything you want me to."

Ahmed's mind was filled with doubt. Had Brent Marks really quit? Would he ever see his wife again? Like a recovering addict, Ahmed vowed to live through the rest of this day without giving up. That would be a battle he would win over his oppressors.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Although there was no time, Brent had made a grievance to the U.S. Border Patrol and a civil rights complaint to the Department of Homeland Security on his own detention before his second trip to Cuba. He didn't want to play any more games upon his return to the States. The purpose of this trip was simply to obtain Ahmed's signature on the habeas corpus petition.

John Adams said, "It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished." The State gets so carried away with the punishment of evildoers that everyone suffers. As a lawyer, Brent had the unwelcome task of representing criminals throughout his career. When asked why he worked for such "scumbags" his answer was simple. I'm protecting us all from ourselves. Out of the 2 million people convicted of crimes every year in the United States, 10,000 of them are innocent, and those are just the statistics that are verifiable.

People are outraged at judges who are seen as "lenient," and they are willing to give up their own rights in exchange for security from the Government. But the only real way to give security to the people is to protect the rights of the innocent.

When Brent arrived to Camp 7, the X-ray screener confiscated his habeas corpus petition.

"I need that, it's why I came," he told the young soldier.

"It has to go through secondary screening."

"Corporal Reeding, can you please call Sergeant Brown for me. These documents are attorney-client privileged."

"I'll be right back."

The argument with Brown was not one that Brent could possibly win. It ended up with Brown passing the buck to his commanding officer, Colonel Masters.

Colonel Robert Masters was a career soldier, who had earned his birds from the bottom up. His goal was to do the rest of his 20 years, then retire and start working on building a second retirement in another federal job. He had no intention of letting a bleeding heart liberal civilian attorney ruin any of his plans.

"I understand you object to our screening process," said Masters.

"I don't object to your screening process," said Brent. "I object to you looking at communications between myself and my client. And I'm sure your superiors won't take it too kindly if I named you in a lawsuit accusing you of denying my client his right to counsel."

Masters rang his clerk to send in Sergeant Brown, who came in immediately, saluting.

"At ease. Sergeant, give this man his papers."

"Yes, sir."

Brown handed Brent the papers, and Masters dismissed the Sergeant.

"Colonel, there's one more thing."

"What is it?"

"My client's wife would like to visit him."

"No visits are allowed at Camp 7."

"Should I include that in my petition?"

"I'm sorry, sir, that is an item we cannot be flexible on."

Not that they were flexible on anything, thought Brent. Catherine would simply have to wait for the habeas corpus. This news would not sit well with Ahmed.

Before Brent left, Masters asked, "Will you be representing the detainee at his CRST hearing tomorrow?"

"Nobody told me anything about a hearing."

"So you won't be representing him?"

"Of course I will."

"I thought you quit," was the first thing that Ahmed said to Brent.

"Is that what they told you?"

"Yes, another attorney came to talk to me. He said he was appointed by the Government."

"He was probably sent to interrogate you. That's one of their interrogation tricks."

"And I thought I knew them all by now."

Ahmed brought Brent up to date on his latest treatment, including a hunger strike among prisoners to protest prison conditions.

"That's a dangerous move," said Brent.

"Every day in here is dangerous."

"Ahmed, please just let me take care of this and get you out of here."

"And when can Catherine come to visit me?"

"Unfortunately, that's not going to happen as long as you're here."