Introduction

The Contractor is the first novel to address the issue of American secret prisons in the war on terror. George Young is a devoted family man and Gulf War veteran who, when a hometown business venture flops, accepts work as a contracted civilian interrogator for the U.S. government. Soon he's overseas at a secret holding facility for suspected terrorists, a place called Omega. When a detainee dies in George's hands during a "routine" interrogation, George embarks on a painful journey of self-interrogation and discovery. In order to defend his country and his family, must George betray his humanity?

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Excerpt

Who are you?

Those were his last words. He had nothing to say about Zizoo. Then it seemed he gave up. Caught us all by surprise—Bertie, Jamal and me. You wonder. His wet hair plastered slick on his head, his eyelids fluttered. Gripping one of his arms below the bicep, I felt a tremor. Bertie felt it, too. Then he was gone.

“Hey!”

“No!” I shouted.

Bertie shook him.

“We’re losing him!”

“No!”

“Call Dr. Ajay!”

We tried our best to save him. Bertie and I cut his hands free and laid him out on the table while Jamal made the call. Bertie did the mouth-to-mouth, I kept his legs straight. We went through all the emergency steps. But we knew. We knew. The purple of his lips, the roll of his eyes. He’d said,

Who are you?

Hey, I could’ve asked the same question. As far as I knew, this guy was #4141. Nobody had told us anything more.

Bertie pulled back, panting. In the commotion he’d bent his glasses, and now looked at me crookedly.

“You think he did it on purpose?”

“Huh?”

My hand was throbbing, my forefinger swollen. Somewhere along the line I’d been bitten, though I couldn’t remember when exactly. When I tried to make a fist it throbbed harder, and there were tooth marks on my latex glove.

“No. I mean, that’s not possible.”

“Well, he wasn’t pushed hard. You’re my witness. He was barely pushed!”

Although I take orders from Bertie, he was asking my opinion. We trust each other. We have to.

“I don’t think you can stop your heart by an act of will. Can you?”

Only a few of us have been allowed to bring our families. It’s the exception, not the rule, an experiment in the system. The idea is, it’s good for morale, reminds you of what you’re fighting for. On Sundays, Bethany and I take the kids to the picnic area near the top of the mountain and barbecue and it hardly feels different from being back home in Garden City, except there aren’t my brother Vernon’s kids for Ginny and Christopher to play with, and instead of the lake and pine trees we’ve got geothermic springs and shiny laurel growing out of black volanic rock. We’re actually inside the rim of a very old, extinct volcano, worn down by time and collapsed inward like a cake that fell after you took it out of the oven. There are no mosquitoes, not a snake on the entire island. (No complaints there!) The ocean is warm, and the beaches are of a black volcanic sand like finely ground pepper. This black sand is sharp and will embed in your palms if a big wave throws you down hard and you have to catch yourself. Around four or five p.m. is the best time to go swimming: after the mid-day sun, the beach retains the heat of the rays and you can lie down and feel waves of energy ebbing into your body.

Some of the nearby islands still have active volcanoes. When my son Christopher learned this, it pleased him.

“Dad, I want to see one go off!”

“OK. I’ll arrange that.”

We’re bumping along in the jeep, on the way to his school. My wrist jerks right or left as I try to avoid potholes: it feels like riding a bronco. Christopher applies sunblock to his face from a tube. Obeying his mother. He’s a literal-minded kid who doesn’t always play along when I invite him to fantasize. “No, really,” he says. “When is one going to explode?”

“I don’t know. That’s not the sort of kind of thing a person can plan. Not even me. It just happens.”

This answer didn’t satisfy him.

“So how do they know it’s still active?”

He screwed the cap back on the tube. His tone suggested that I might still be fooling with him, and he wouldn’t accept it.

“Well, specialists keep up with that stuff. For the rest of us—we wait for them to tell us.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. How does George’s relationship with his son Christopher compare to his attitude toward his work?
2. How does Bethany deal with her situation? What seems to be the general attitude toward women on this island?
3. According to George, why is Jamal’s job so difficult?
4. Why is the story of Cain and Abel mentioned? How might it reflect on George’s personal situation?
5. George’s encounter with Denise is a mistake and full of mishaps, but why does he behave this way?
6. What has changed in his relationship with Vernon?
7. What does George learn from Miss Breese?
8. What does George confess to Bertie? Why?
9. If George never finds out the truth about “Zizoo”, what might be the larger point of the story?
10. What is George’s promise to Christopher? What obstacles will exist for them?

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