After a few days, Rehan inquired about their return travel plans, as he was beginning to run out of spending money. His new companions would repeatedly agree, but always to depart the following day. Or, they would begin a return drive to Pakistan, but somehow always end up turning back. One day, on just such a trip, the young men crossed a security check post, and this time the police were expecting them. The moment the police set eyes on him, Rehan said, they started beating him. His new friends ignored his cries for help and, as he saw them accept money from the police, they abandoned him. The Afghan police held Rehan for a week, somewhere close to the Torkham border, and then handed him to US forces who transported him to Bagram. Rehan described a number of false promises the American authorities made about his release. As they had deemed him innocent, they said he would receive compensation for his detention period, including three dollars for each day spent in Bagram. They told him that because he had been a day labourer before imprisonment, this would cover his lost income — amounting to thousands of dollars. Instead, Rehan said, all of his belongings were taken from him when he left Bagram prison — “my clothes, shoes, everything”, including letters from his family. Rehan returned to Pakistan in the same detainee uniform he was made to don following his capture eight years prior, with nothing more than the leftover cash from his trip to Ghani Khel. The American guards on the plane transporting detainees back to Pakistan were heavily armed, Rehan recalled. He boarded along with the other detainees on a black cargo aircraft at about 2 am; the limited number of seats were occupied entirely by American officers. Inside, it was extremely cold, and the returnees were made to sit on the floor, their hands and feet tied, given nothing to keep warm for the journey ahead. Despite their release, the torture did not stop. They were also tied by their waists to the floor of the plane, unable to right themselves. Prostrated, the detainees were then hooded, unable to make out their surroundings. Before take off, however, the plane malfunctioned and all the passengers were shifted to another plane. Strangely, this time the detainees were also provided seats. Upon disembarkation, three Pakistani officers conducted a probing body search, which, despite remaining clothed, Rehan found thoroughly invasive. He remembered the details: “Every groove and inch of my body was patted down.” Then he was hooded once again and put in a pickup truck. Over a drive that lasted several hours, the detainees were barred from speaking. In a way, this didn’t matter, Rehan said matter of factly, as the hoods they were made to wear were so tight it was difficult to breathe — let alone talk. He would have suffocated had it not been for the constant breeze blowing through the open-air truck. Shackled throughout the ride, they made one stop in the middle, where they were made to wait for 30 minutes. “We were very scared when we stopped because we thought that they were going to kill us.” 25