Out of Place

by Diane Lefer

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A research institute in the Mojave Desert falls under suspicion in the aftermath of 9/11. With skeptical eye and fearless ear to the ground, Diane Lefer explores the human cost of the security state. In a novel spanning cultures and continents, an international cast of richly imagined characters have in common an unease that may well be true of most of us: feeling – or being seen as – out of place.

 

Read more

Release date: September 13, 2021

Publisher: Fomite

Print pages: 388

Sample

Yes, my name is Rennie Mulcahy. I don't know why I'm here.

I'm quite sure Emine isn't a terrorist and I do not hesitate to say so, though how can anyone ever be sure? The reasons I liked her to begin with, the reasons I'm loyal to her now, could of course be interpreted differently, as evidence she was up to no good. You suspect she was after something. Passwords, files. The inside track on budget allocations. Or you might see she simply recognized that I was–as she was–lonely. Emine became my friend.

She commented, yes, on the decadence of the West, but so did I.

I liked to think it was my cleverness that appealed to her, not my access. What's my point? If you want to believe that a nice Jewish girl from Istanbul is married to a nice Muslim boy, that a well-educated doctor who loves his wife would leave her in order to schlep around India with some deprived, diseased nomads, that India has such a powerful animal rights movement that the government is confiscating the dancing bears, that the only place in the world to buy a brown bear cub to replace the one that's been confiscated is in Peshawar–if you want to believe all that, what is there to stop you? My point is, Emine's husband Oğuz has done nothing, absolutely nothing wrong if you want to believe all that. And I do.

 

At least that's how I imagine her in federal lockup.

I want to keep my intrusions to a minimum, but please indulge me as I provide a short orientation to the compilation of materials now in your hands.

In late summer 2001, inspired by the work of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, I began researching toxic waste sites in Southern California. Then came 9/11. Suddenly I no longer had access to the scientists I’d been interviewing—most of them foreign-born. Some canceled appointments, some no longer wished to be quoted. Security clearances were revoked, often along with visas. Some of these people were simply gone.

I often wondered what had become of them but did no follow-up—until the Wikileaks document dump: hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents, internal memos, transcripts, emails. Many Americans still focus on what was revealed about war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and on emails affecting the 2016 election. What got my interest instead was the possibility of learning about free, scientific inquiry in the aftermath of 9/11. Most of all, I hoped to learn how our counterintelligence programs determined the fate of specific, individual human beings like those I had tried to interview. Easier said than done, given the bewildering wealth of information.

Data isn’t knowledge and knowledge isn’t wisdom, and we have more data than ever. Every click, every purchase, every smart device you own registering everything that can be known about you, except—I think you’ll agree—who you really are. After 9/11, we heard a lot about a failure to “connect the dots”. But what if there are so many dots that anything at all will connect to everything? A pattern emerges, a story, but maybe it means nothing, except what we make it mean.

I cherrypicked—another term we had to learn—data by zeroing in on the Desert Haven Institute in the Mojave Desert, a place I chose—fortuitously, as it turned out—only because it was close enough to home that I could familiarize myself with the terrain. The FBI cherrypicked when it came to Emine Albaz, one of the scientists engaged in research there. And you, reader, as an objective observer, what would you have done differently? What would you make of the dots that came to their attention?

Dr. Albaz

• abused her security clearance regarding US nuclear technology and test sites;
• attempted to breach security at the Naval Weapons Center China Lake;
• married to Oğuz Demir, jihadi captured on the Afghan-Pakistan border;

 

• provided research and test results to Martin (AKA Mardan) Keller, an ecoterrorist conspirator with ties to Iran, identified by confidential informant Brent Fassen.

 

As you read, you’ll find more dots: money transfers to the Iranian sister-in-law, irregular use of neurotoxins, mail delivered in biohazard packaging, coded communications with Uzbekistan and Kosovo, and many other data points. Not to mention the fact that she evaded an FBI interview for more than a year, after which she ran off—whereabouts unknown.

That is the damning story They chose to tell about her.

The story I’ve constructed from the same “facts” is quite different. Rennie Mulcahy, locked up on a material witness warrant, did say, “I'm the one who puts the pieces together. Without me, nothing happens.” But if you ask me, those are just the words of an under-appreciated office manager asking for a raise.

My imaginative reconstruction is based on solid evidence. Facts remain facts but the interpretation is mine, elaborated through the creative license I claimed. My gaffes, cultural and scientific, come from ignorance, not disrespect. And yes, what you read now—the picture that emerges from dots and fragments and the way I’ve chosen to assemble the files—reflects my own values, biases, and interests.

 

At the same time, I’ve made every effort not to demonize the hardworking men and women of the FBI. I have tried to see Emine’s pursuers—Daniel Chen and Dawit Tesfaye—as full human beings with their own stories, men with families, with people they love, men who even, occasionally, feel the pang of conscience.

When I began this project, I had no idea I would learn that the accident that left me in my current condition was, though never acknowledged as such, a terrorist act. While I don't claim wisdom, in this, at least, I did gain knowledge.

My gratitude goes to the anonymous source. You can no doubt find my own identity through a simple web search, but at least for now I too prefer to remain anonymous. I would also like to acknowledge the Fairfax branch of the Los Angeles Public Library where I did my internet research in my wheelchair, at the computer reserved for my use at the end of the row, the left side of my face close by the wall so that other library patrons need not see it.