I had heard there were people living down there. They were called mole people. There had been a book, a couple of documentaries. It was one of those things people would talk about at parties. Frankly, I didn’t care at all. It didn’t mean anything to me. If people wanted to live underground, let them. It relieved the taxpayer of the burden of them, and it kept them out of institutions. As long as they didn’t cross my path in some way, I didn’t give a shit.
The main function of my job was the tracking of weapons that came into New York City, and the apprehension and incarceration of those individuals who chose to illegally possess them. It is forbidden by law to own or possess a gun within city limits unless you have a permit, and permits are very difficult to get. Whenever we recovered a weapon, our first priority was discovering how it had entered the city. A gun dealer in upstate New York led us to the individuals in the tunnel. We came across the dealer when a gang member in southeast Queens arrested for murder was found in possession of an illegal handgun. The suspect had not, as is standard procedure with gang members and murderers, removed the serial numbers from the weapon, which allowed us to trace it. When we arrested the gun dealer for selling weapons to individuals who did not have the required license, he made a deal with us to keep himself out of prison and started providing us with the identities of other individuals to whom he had sold weapons. At that point, he told us about the group in the tunnel, who had bought approximately sixty weapons from him, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
It wasn’t easy finding them. There are a large number of abandoned tunnels under the city, some of which haven’t been entered in decades. We initially undertook a search of the tunnels, which was fruitless. The gun dealer had told us that the members of the group, who he described as apocalyptic wackos, made their money begging on the street, and that they all had long scars on their arms. We started looking for individuals who matched that description, and after eight months found two of them, one a male and one a female. We put them under surveillance and found the tunnel where they, along with approximately thirty other individuals, were living.
We knew very little about them when we executed search warrants on them. There was some worry we might be entering a situation similar to that of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, where a group of heavily armed religious fanatics, followers of a messianic leader named David Koresh, engaged a federal task force, which held them under siege for fifty-one days, until the Davidians’ compound caught on fire and eighty people, including seventeen children, died. Fortunately, that was not the case. Approximately fifty law enforcement personnel entered the tunnel through four different access points. Almost all of the individuals residing in the tunnel were asleep, and the three that weren’t were taken into custody without incident.
I met Ben when we were interrogating the suspects, who were being held at the MCC, the federal correctional center in lower Manhattan. We had found more than three hundred firearms and ten thousand rounds of ammunition in their compound, along with small amounts of cocaine and marijuana. They were also in possession of a large number of knives, swords, and spears. When we ran their prints, we were able to ascertain the identities of all of them except for two, and all of them had records, most for things like drug possession and theft, though a few also had assault convictions. Of the two we could not identify, one went by the name of Yahya and was recognized by all of them as their leader. The other identified himself as Ben Jones.
Yahya refused to speak. He literally did not answer a single question we posed to him, nor did he request a lawyer. He stared directly into the eyes of both myself and the other agent interrogating him, and never said a thing. We assumed it was a ploy to intimidate us, but having been in rooms with drug lords, serial killers, and terrorists, I didn’t find him particularly frightening or off-putting. I did Ben on my own. As with Yahya, his prints and DNA came back clean, and there was no record of him in any law enforcement database. And though there had been extensive media coverage of the raid, we had yet to release pictures of any of the arrestees to any media outlets, and had yet to receive any public help in making a positive identification.
Before I entered the room where Ben was being held, shackled to the floor at his ankles and to the table at his wrists, I looked in on him through a one-way window. One of my colleagues was standing near the window, observing him. He sat absolutely still, his eyes closed. He was wearing a jumpsuit, so I could not see his arms or body, but his head and face were badly scarred. His hair was on the short side, black, dirty, and disheveled. He was incredibly thin, the veins in his neck and forehead and cheeks plainly visible. Usually people who are being interrogated for the first time are incredibly nervous and anxious; the only ones who are calm, as calm as he was, are usually extremely hardened criminals. I asked my colleague if he had observed anything unusual. He said the man looks like a fucking freak, and he hasn’t moved at all in the last hour, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he wasn’t breathing. I laughed and entered the room.
Ben did not move or acknowledge me in any way. I waited for a few moments, assuming he would, but he did not. He was absolutely still, eerily still, still the way large bodies of water can be still, the way they don’t appear to be moving, don’t appear to be alive, but you know they are. I spoke.
My name is Agent John Guilfoy. I’d like to ask you a few questions.
He slowly opened his eyes. I hadn’t had any contact with him during the arrests and hadn’t seen his eyes when observing him, and I had never seen anything like them. At least, not naturally. They were black, obsidian black, the black of silence, the black of death, the black of what I imagine it must be like before birth. They startled me, scared me. I waited for him to say something, and I waited until I was over the shock of his eyes, and I spoke again.
Do you understand why you’re here?
Yes.
Have you been treated well?
Doesn’t matter.
I’m going to tell you upfront that the more cooperative you are with us, the easier things will be for you.
He smiled, laughed to himself.
Is there something funny about that?
Go on with your questions.
We’ve been trying to identify you, and you haven’t turned up in any of our computer databases. I’m wondering if you can help us in any way.
I gave you my name.
Is it your real name?
I consider it so.
Is there another one we should be checking?
There have been a few.
Such as?
None of them will be of any use to you.
Try me.
He smiled again, didn’t say a word, waited for me.
I stared at him, tried to intimidate him. I might as well have been staring at a rock. He was silent and still and unmoving. I spoke again.
Do you understand the charges against you?
Yes.
You understand they are extremely serious?
If you say so.
You’re looking at years, maybe decades in prison.
Yes.
That doesn’t bother you?
No.
Why?
I can be free anywhere, just as someone can be imprisoned anywhere.
Is that something your leader taught you?
I don’t have a leader.
No?
No.
Yahya was not your leader?
My friend.
A dangerous friend.
If you say so.
He and his followers, amongst whom we count you, were in possession of hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
I possess nothing.
Did you know of the weapons’ existence?
Yes.
Then according to the laws of the government of the United States, you were in possession of them. He smiled again.
If you say so.
Do you find this amusing?
Yes.
Why?
I think your laws are silly.
Why is that?
People should be allowed to live and act as they choose.
Not if they endanger or impose on other people.
No one in that tunnel was imposing on or endangering anyone.
I would disagree.
As is your right.
You were living illegally on public land and hoarding weapons designed to kill people.
If the land is public, why can’t we use it?
Because it was designated for other purposes.
And how can the most heavily armed, most militarized government in the history of civilization tell its own citizens they can’t arm themselves in preparation for the coming annihilation?
The coming annihilation?
Yes.
The apocalypse?
If you want to call it that.
You believe it’s coming?
Yes.
The seals have been broken and the signs are appearing?
No.
The Bible says so?
It does, but those words mean nothing to me.
Christ is coming back to do battle with the Devil?
Is that what you believe?
What I believe is irrelevant. I want to know what you believe.
I’ve told you.
This have something to do with Allah?
It has nothing to do with religion.
Then how do you know?
Look around you.
And what will I see?
That it’s coming to an end.
And you can see it?
In a way.
And it’s coming soon?
Yes.
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if he was a fanatic or mentally ill. In either case, interrogation is virtually useless. Fanatics don’t break unless extreme techniques are used, and those sorts of techniques were forbidden in my branch of the government, and whatever the mentally ill say is considered unreliable, and is usually unusable in court. He closed his eyes and started taking deep breaths through his nose. I asked him if he was okay, and he slowly nodded. I asked him if he needed something to eat or drink, and he slowly shook his head. He just breathed, and I waited. After a minute or so, I thought I’d leave him alone, grab a cup of coffee, and come back and try again. When I stood up, he opened his eyes, and he spoke.
I can take it away.
Excuse me?
I can take it away from you.
What are you talking about?
I’m sorry. Terribly sorry.
What are you sorry for?
For your loss.
What the fuck are you talking about?
You lost a child.
I was stunned. I was shot in the line of duty during my first year as an agent, shot in the shoulder with a.38 caliber revolver. The bullet entered my shoulder and exited my back. Ben’s statement shocked, hurt, confused, and scared me more than that shot, more than anything in my life, except the event to which he was referring. There was no way he should have known. He had never seen or heard of me before I entered the room. I had asked all of my colleagues not to talk to me about it. We had not released an obituary, so it had not appeared in any sort of media. At the time, I believed there was no way he could have known, though that belief certainly changed.
I sat back down. I looked at him. He hadn’t moved. He just stared at me and waited for me to say something. I couldn’t speak, and if I had tried, I would have broken down. I stared at the table and clenched my jaw and thought about my little boy, about the first time I saw him, immediately after he was born, about the first time I held him, two minutes later, about a picture, which I could not look at until after I met Ben, of me and him and his mother, who I am no longer with, taken just after we brought him home. I think about his room in our house, about his first step, about his first word, which was Dadda. I replay his life in my head, and I think about how happy we were for the two years we were together. And then he started twitching, and having trouble walking, and he went into the hospital and he never came out and my life fell apart, except for my life at work, which was the only thing I could cling to in order to stay sane. I lost everything else when I lost my little boy.
I lost everything that mattered to me.
Ben waited until I looked up. I can only imagine what my face must have looked like, certainly not the cool calm federal agent trying to be an intelligent, convincing, and intimidating interrogator. He spoke.
Release one of my hands.
I can’t do that.
Yes, you can.
I won’t do it.
You’ll be able to walk through your front door without crying. You’ll be able to sleep at night.
You’ll be able to call her, and tell her you miss her, and you’ll be able to love again, and live again.
Fuck you.
I know how much it hurts.
You don’t know fucking shit.
Release my hand.
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, you crazy fuck.
I wish I didn’t, but I do.
You motherfucker.
I can take it away.
You’re a fucking freak.
Call me whatever you need to call me.
I want to know how you knew.
By looking at you.
Tell me how the fuck you knew.
I did.
This is not some fucking joke here.
I’m just trying to help you.
You’re gonna help me? You in shackles and a jumpsuit and twenty years hanging over your fucking head?
If you let me.
I stared at him. I didn’t know what to say. I was confused and angry and in pain. He scared me. He scared me more than anyone I had ever been in a room with, anyone I’d ever met, anyone I’d ever seen. Most people, as dangerous or violent as they may be, are easy to figure out. They come from somewhere, and they have experiences that have shaped them, and they have soft spots, weaknesses, places inside where you can open them up. Ben wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met, watched, or interviewed, he wasn’t like anyone I’d ever heard about. He was absolutely impregnable. At the same time, he wasn’t putting up defenses, and didn’t appear to have any. He made me think of something I read when I was in college about Buddha, something that described his physical presence and his state of being. It said he was soft as iron, hard as rain, quiet as thunder, and still as a hurricane. Our professor explained the paradox of the description, that iron is one of the hardest substances on earth but also malleable enough to be shaped into anything we want it to be, that water is fluid and yielding, but strong enough to carve canyons.
That while thunder shakes the ground we walk on, a thunderstorm is also a peaceful and serene event, and that while hurricanes are among the most destructive forces we know of, the eye of the hurricane is an incredibly calm place, an eerily and almost otherworldly calm place. Ben stared back at me. He didn’t move, and if he blinked, I didn’t see it. He just took me in with his eyes, those bottomless black eyes. And our session as agent and suspect ended, and our conversation as two men, two men trying to live and be alive and find their way, which is all any human being can really do in this life, began. He spoke.
Despite your earlier statements, you believe in God?
Yes, I do.
And you have sought God out in order to deal with your grief?
I have.
You have gotten down on your knees and cried, and pleaded, and begged for relief, and for answers?
Yes.
Has your God answered you?
No.
What version of God do you believe in?
I’m Christian. Episcopal.
Your priest has counseled you?
Yes.
And he is well-intentioned, but he has left you empty?
Yes.
Has he spoken to your God about you?
What do you mean?
Has he spoken to him, the way I speak to you, the way you speak to other people?
No one speaks to God that way.
And yet you keep trying, because you believe at some point your God will answer your prayers?
I hope.
Hope is an illusion, a carrot dangling.
Hope keeps me going.
Going towards what?
I don’t know.
Your God offers you hope. Hope offers you nothing. You should seek another way.
What would that be?
I’ve told you.
Let you go.
I don’t care if you let me go. I don’t care if I’m in a cell for the rest of my life. I’m telling you, if you release one of my arms, and believe in what I tell you, and trust me for a brief moment, I can do what your imaginary God, your fairytale God, a God no one has ever seen or spoken to and who has not relieved your pain or provided you with the answers you seek, cannot do.
I could lose my job.
If that’s more important to you.
He sat there and waited. I looked away, towards the glass, and wondered if my colleague was watching us or listening to us. We also record all interrogations, so video was a concern. Agents are given a certain leeway with suspects. If we think giving a suspect space or room to move might help them open up, we are allowed to do it. If we think giving something to eat or drink will motivate them, we are allowed to do it. This, though, wasn’t anything like that. This was entirely personal. And it involved physical contact, which was expressly forbidden. It was against regulations. But I had been in so much pain for so long. I had been haunted and terrorized and destroyed by images of my dying child, of the pain he felt as he went, of the fear he must have experienced as his body failed, of the horror of the moment when he stopped breathing, with my wife and me holding his hands. I knew I would never recover from my boy’s death, and I doubted the pain would ever subside, but I decided that if Ben could relieve me of it for a minute or an hour or a day, it would be worth whatever penalty I would have to pay.
I reached into my pocket and took out a key. I leaned across the table and unlocked the shackle that kept his right arm bound to the table. He did not move as I did it, but once his arm was free, and I was still leaning over the table, his arm shot up and he grabbed me and pulled me towards him with a strength that no one who looked like him should have possessed. I felt my feet leave the ground. He held me with my head on his shoulder, and he started whispering in my ear. I don’t know what language it was, though I believe it was either ancient Hebrew or Aramaic. I was terrified, and I didn’t know if he had tricked me and was going to hurt me, or if he was actually doing what he said he could do. And in a way it didn’t matter, because he was so strong that I couldn’t have gotten away if I had wanted to.
He kept whispering, and my body went limp. It felt like someone had just emptied it of everything, like what I imagine people who die and come back say they feel while they’re dead and drifting towards the light. My emotions, my soul, and my physical strength, my pain and sorrow and struggle, it was all gone. I felt completely empty. I felt like I had always wished I could feel: peaceful, and simple, and uncomplicated. I wanted to be that way forever, to stay with him forever, my head on his shoulder, his voice in my ear. I heard the door open behind me and I heard people come rushing into the room. Someone had been watching us and assumed he was hurting me and I knew it was going to end. Ben stopped speaking whatever language he had been using and just before I was pulled away he said I love you.
I was carried out of the room. The last image I have of him before the door slammed shut is of one of my colleagues spraying mace into his face. I was later told he was also shot with tasers and beaten with billy clubs, and when the beating was over, he was carried out of the room, bleeding and unconscious. I was taken to a hospital, where I checked out normal and went home a few hours later and slept easily for the first time since the day my son went into the hospital. I was transferred off the case and Ben was bailed out two days later. I never saw him again, though I did try to find him. I wanted to thank him for doing whatever he had done, and for giving me a new chance at life, for teaching me to love as he had loved me. I wasn’t surprised when I heard what happened to him. We live in a cruel and unfortunate world. The longer I am in it, the more I believe he was right. Hope is an illusion, a dangling carrot, something to keep us going, but going towards what? It all is ending. His end, cruel, unnecessary, and cloaked in a veil of religion and righteousness, like so much of what’s wrong with what we’ve built, will be but the beginning.