American Warlord by Johnny Dwyer Page A

vacationers and business travelers streamed past, adrenaline coursed through the agent. All the work of the last two years had coalesced in the prior thirty-six hours. The moment came to seem all but inevitable.
    Yet aspects of it didn’t make sense. For one, why would Chucky risk coming home when he knew federal agents were investigating him? The United States had successfully pressured Liberia and Nigeria to remove their protections of his father, but it was unlikely to make the same efforts with Trinidad. As long as he remained there, he was relatively safe from prosecution; but once he set foot on U.S. soil, everything would change. For the first time in nearly fifteen years, he would face the full force of American law. Baechtle could only wonder “Why?”
    He had spent the prior day on the phone with the regional security officer at the Port of Spain embassy trying to determine whether Chucky had applied for an American passport. That information was privileged; in order for the embassy to pass the lead on to ICE, the Diplomatic Security Service had to open a case on Chucky, which it did almost immediately.
    At the gate, Baechtle watched American Airlines flight 1668 taxi to the jetway. 7 Jacques Smith, an antiterrorism officer with Customs and Border Protection, stood a few steps ahead of him. He would be the one to initially detain Chucky. Baechtle made it clear that he did not want Chucky to be handcuffed.
    A banal quote had been on Baechtle’s mind—“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” 8 It wasn’t something he’d picked up in college or in ICE training, for that matter. This shred of wisdom had hung on the kitchen wall of the Elberon Bathing Club, where he’d worked summers on the Jersey shore flipping burgers and waiting tables. It had stuck with him over the years. Going into Miami, he’d worked through a mental checklist of what he wanted to accomplish, what needed to happen. He’d thought through contingencies and how he’d react to them, preparing for what could be his only shot at speaking to his target one on one.
    Aboard the plane, an announcement alerted the cabin that customs would be checking passports at the gate. Passengers around Chucky readied their documents. The passport he held was virtually untouched. As he filed out of the aircraft with the other passengers into a carpeted hallway, enclosed by panes of glass on each side, Smith, down the hallway, scanned the crowd. 9
    Smith let a stream of passengers pass, then stopped a man clutching a single carry-on bag. Baechtle, watching from a remove, caught a glimpse of the man’s face—he looked like a younger version of Charles Taylor.
    There are some people here who’d like to speak with you, Inspector Smith told Chucky, pointing to Baechtle, standing farther down the jetway. The customs officer led him over, holding on to the passport. Another agent took Chucky’s carry-on bag. As they approached, Baechtle presented his badge.
    Would you mind speaking with me? Baechtle asked him, indicating that they could sit privately in an office.
    Chucky agreed. He wasn’t compelled to talk with anyone; at any moment, he could have requested his lawyer and waited out his arrival in silence. For some reason, he did not. As the men walked, they made small talk—chatting about Carnival, which had just passed, and the weather. 10 The men stopped at a window marked “Special Services.” Smith handed over Chucky’s passport to be stamped. After nearly twelve years, he had entered the United States.
    The agents led Chucky into a windowless office in the lower level of the terminal. In one corner sat a humming photocopier, at the opposite end a doorway. Special Agent Christopher Malone unlocked a door and led him into a smaller room with two desks and four chairs. Baechtle introduced himself again and explained that he was the agent who had planned on meeting him in Trinidad in 2005.
    Normally customs would cuff you, Baechtle said. But I asked