In the Company of Liars

by David Ellis

  “I’m going to make those calls,” Storino says to McCoy, sounding like a wounded child who’s going to call his mom.

  “Great,” she says. “I’m going in soon. If that’s all right.” She winks at her partner with that last comment.

  “Do what you’re gonna do.” Storino closes the door behind him.

  McCoy leans forward and watches the monitor covering the small room where the subject is seated. He is cool, his legs crossed, his hands resting on the rectangular table, occasionally checking his watch and shaking his head. He is no dummy, this one. He knows he’s being watched. He wants to be a Pakistani student offended by the racial profiling, not a bad guy who’s nervous about what the G is going to ask him.

  McCoy and Harrick leave the room and walk down a narrow corridor to the door in question. McCoy takes a breath, nods at her partner, and opens the door.

  “Mr. Haroon,” she says, walking in and taking a seat. “I’m Special Agent Jane McCoy. This is Special Agent Owen Harrick. FBI.”

  Ram Haroon is thin but muscular. He has ink-black, kinky hair and a long, coffee-colored face. He looks the age that is on his passport: twenty-six. He studies each of them with coal-black eyes but says nothing.

  “Headed to Paris,” she says.

  He stares at her like the answer is obvious. He has a business-class ticket for a flight that is scheduled to depart in forty-five minutes.

  “What’s in Paris?” she asks. “And don’t say the Eiffel Tower.”

  He looks away from her, as if amused. Trying to show his resolve. She gets that sometimes, but not very often. Most people hear “FBI” and their knees tremble.

  “Is that your final destination, Mr. Haroon?”

  The man finally sighs, adjusts himself in his chair, and focuses on her. “I have a round-trip ticket,” he says. Of course he does. He’s schooled enough to know not to buy a one-way ticket these days. It’s like holding up a sign.

  Ram Haroon’s return trip is in late July. She knows it, and he knows she knows it. He also knows that she wasn’t referring to his return leg.

  “Is Paris your final destination?” she asks again.

  “What does that matter?” He has a heavy Middle Eastern accent but seems quite comfortable with English.

  “Do you want to make your flight?”

  “I do.”

  “Then please answer my question.”

  He stares at Jane’s partner for a long moment. “Sightseeing,” he says.

  “Sure.” She nods and looks at her partner, shrugs, as if this makes perfect sense. “How were classes at the state university this spring? Did you have a good semester?”

  He smiles for the first time. He leans forward on the small table in front of him, drops his elbows. “Trimester,” he corrects.

  She smiles back at him.

  “And it went well, thank you.”

  “Finals were good?”

  He shakes his head.

  “What was your favorite class?” she asks.

  He thinks for a moment. “Socialism in the twentieth century.”

  “What was that—a test? A paper?”

  He closes his eyes a moment. “A take-home final.”

  “Who taught it?”

  “Rosenthal.”

  “When was the final?”

  “Oh—five days ago.”

  “Where? What classroom?”

  “I just told you it was a take-home final.”

  Jane McCoy sits back in her chair. She is not at all surprised that he knows the answers. “You were flagged, Mr. Haroon. Did you know that?”

  He shrugs.

  “Do you know why you were flagged?”

  “Because I’m Middle Eastern,” he answers. “We’re all terrorists. Haven’t you heard?”

  “I like that.” She smiles at her partner, then nods at Haroon. “What was your next-favorite class? After the one about socialism?”

  “I liked them all.”

  “You liked them all equally?”

  “I did. But since you have such a—a fascination with my studies, let’s say international protection of human rights.”

  “You liked that one.”

  “I did.”

  “Protecting human rights. What’d they teach you—it’s a good thing?”

  “A good thing,” he says. “Maybe you should have taken the course.”

  This guy is playing this about right. Indignant but not controversially so. Nothing over the top. No hint of a temper, but not icy-cool, either. Right down the middle.

  “Name another class,” McCoy says.

  “Another—? Law of the European Union,” he answers.

  “Who taught it?”

  “Professor Vogler.”

  “Where was the class held?”

  Haroon sighs. His fingers touch his eyes. “In the Smithe Auditorium.”

  “Are you meeting any friends in Paris?”

  “No.”

  “Flying solo, huh?”

  “I will be alone, if that’s what you mean. I’m not so familiar with your expressions.”

  “Oh, you speak better English than I do, Mr. Haroon.” McCoy leans back in her chair, as if she is getting comfortable for a long talk. “Let’s try some words you might know better. How about the Liberation Front?”

  Ram Haroon swallows hard. His face goes cold. You always look at the eyes. A person can keep his mouth straight, his hands still. The eyes always jump.

  He should act angry, McCoy thinks to herself. A Pakistani citizen detained at an American airport who is not a Libbie should be terribly offended at the suggestion.

  “I am not a member of the Liberation Front,” he says evenly.

  “Your dad is, though, right?”

  “My father was a carpet merchant. He is deceased. And he was not a member of the Liberation Front.”

  “You Libbies aren’t real fond of us Americans, are you?” she asks. “The industrialized nations? You attend our schools and use our computers and cell phones, but you hate us.”

  He looks at her hard for a moment, but he declines the bait.

  “I am not a member of the Liberation Front,” he repeats.

  Jane McCoy looks at her partner, whose eyebrows arch. “Wait here, please,” McCoy says, as if Ram Haroon had any choice.

  The federal agents leave the room without saying anything more to the detainee. Agent Harrick whispers to McCoy before they make it back to the monitor room.

  “Convincing?” he asks.

  “Convincing enough. His grades are top of the class.” She looks back at the closed door behind which Ram Haroon is probably wondering what to make of the conversation. “There’s absolutely no basis to hold him. There is no proof that he’s done anything. And he’s leaving, not coming.”

  “Right,” Harrick agrees. “Right.”

  Pete Storino steps out of the monitor room as they approach. He was watching, no doubt.

  “So he’s walking,” he says to McCoy.

  She shrugs. “No basis to hold him.”

  “Doesn’t mean we can’t.”

  No, that’s probably true, and she senses that Storino enjoys that fact. There is something intoxicating about power. Serving a warrant, scooping a suspect, holding a Middle Eastern man without cause—all different versions of the same thing, the flexing of muscle, belonging to something important enough that it lets you do things others can’t.

  “He’s not on the no-fly,” Agent Harrick says.

  McCoy shoots her partner a look. He’s debating. Not the time, not the place.

  “Well, screw the Bureau, I guess,” Storino says, apparently referring to his, not McCoy’s. “This guy’s walking.”

  “Sorry about the hush-hush.” McCoy shrugs.

  “And screw interagency cooperation, too, I guess.”

  “Not my call, Pete.”

  “I expect this crap from NSA, even CIA. Not you guys.”

  “We gotta run, Pete. I appreciate it.”

  Storino nods once,
deliberately, squinting his eyes. “I saw you on the tube. Couple weeks back. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “My ten minutes,” McCoy admits.

  “Allison Pagone. The writer. Killed that guy.”

  “She wasn’t convicted, but—”

  “She ate a bullet before it could happen,” Storino interrupts. “I made you for Public Corruption. That whole thing was about bribes, right? State lawmakers on the take.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Something like that,” Storino mimics. “So today I’m making you for CT.”

  The counterterrorism squad, he means.

  “What’s the murder of a political guy got to do with this Haroon guy?”

  “Hey, I go where they tell me. My day to catch flags.”

  Storino isn’t convinced. “Look, Agent McCoy—”

  “Call me Jane.”

  “—you want to give me the Heisman, give me the Heisman. Do me a favor, though, don’t blow smoke up my ass.”

  McCoy sighs. “Again, Pete, thank you, and I’m sorry about this. I’m just a working gal here.”

  “You think this guy killed Allison Pagone,” he says. “You think she didn’t take her own life.”

  “Pete—”

  “I’ve got a Pakistani national with a flag walking through my airport, I’ve got someone from Homeland in D.C. telling me to do whatever you say, and I don’t know shit about it.”

  “I owe you one,” McCoy says. “Okay? No joke. Any time.” She looks at her watch. “He’s going to miss his flight.”

  “Yeah, I’d hate to see that happen.”

  McCoy pivots and stands in front of Storino. She jams a finger into his chest. “You definitely would hate to see that happen, Agent Storino. Are we clear?”

  Storino looks hard at McCoy, then at her partner. Slowly, a smile creeps along his face. “Always nice to see you all from the Bureau,” he says.

  “Pleasure’s been all mine.” McCoy turns and walks down the hallway. “Prick,” she mumbles out of earshot. “I don’t have enough shit to deal with?”

  “Janey, the mouth.” Harrick chuckles.

  The agents leave the airport and begin their trip back to the federal building downtown, where the Special Agent in Charge is eagerly awaiting a report. Jane closes her eyes a moment as the escort drives them back to their car. She has seen death and tried hard to deny responsibility. It does no good to grieve excessively. You mourn the dead but keep fighting to prevent more death. That is what she has been doing, what has propelled her forward. And her job—this op—is not yet done, but it is close. Very close. She’ll sleep well tonight for the first time in months. She’ll make up for all those nights in May when she paced her small bedroom, thinking everything through, worrying about the number of hurdles that could have clipped her foot.

  Does Mr. Ramadaran Ali Haroon have any idea what is about to happen?

  Today is the first day of June, the unofficial beginning of summer. It was a hectic February, a chaotic March, an incredibly tense April. And May, the month that just ended, was possibly the hardest thirty-one days of her life.

  But it’s almost over. They will make their arrests soon, and her part in this operation will be completed. She can’t worry about things she can’t control. She can only do her part.

  Sam Dillon’s death started it. Allison Pagone’s death ended it.

  She shakes her head in resignation, still unable to believe how this began.

  MAY

  SIXTEEN DAYS EARLIER

  SUNDAY, MAY 16

  The crowd is small, which is surprising in a way. The family wanted a small service; it is a tribute to their planning that only two reporters managed to figure out the time and place. The family’s success in eluding the media is probably due to their decision to forgo a church service. The media probably had its eye on the church Allison Pagone had attended her entire life. They would have no way of knowing which cemetery had been chosen for her burial.

  It’s a nice place. Three acres of beautiful land, manicured lawn, well-kept plots. A new two-story granite mausoleum is secluded in a shady area to the northwest. A nicer place than Jane McCoy expects to end up in when her ticket is punched, on her government salary.

  From her position in the driver’s seat of the limousine, McCoy looks through the one-way tinted windows at her surroundings. First, for the exits. Technically, there is only one. A road that leads from the main gate, snakes through the cemetery, and leads back out.

  It’s a beautiful day for a service, if there is such a thing, owing primarily to the sun. One of those days when it’s hard to keep your eyes open. You won’t hear complaints anywhere across the city, though, after the permanent gray sky that prevailed from January through April. With the blinding rays and the temperature close to sixty, people are dressed optimistically, praying that today is a harbinger and not a tease.

  It reminds McCoy of the first time she approached her mother’s grave after her memorial service. She was thirteen then, hardly able to comprehend the loss, offended at the strong sunlight cast over the headstone, as if someone, somewhere, were trying to make the world beautiful on a day that was anything but.

  The limousine is parked on the narrow road only about ten yards from the service. Jane McCoy cracks her window and listens to the pastor.

  “Allison Pagone.” The minister stops on the words. Jane assumes that the reverend has known Allison over the years.

  “Allison Pagone was a woman of substance. A woman of faith.” The reverend, an older, pudgy man with a thin beard, looks up at the sky a moment, then collects himself. “Do we judge a woman based on the last year of her life, or on the first thirty-seven? Do we remember only the mistakes she made in a difficult moment, or do we recall all the giving and sacrifice and love she provided for her family and friends? Can we forgive?”

  That’s a good question. Forgiveness is not something in which an agent of the FBI specializes. Her job is apprehension, sometimes prevention; she is never asked for, and never offers, absolution. She finds the concept overwhelming. She never liked her classes in philosophy—the study of questions that can’t be answered—or religion—the study of answers that can’t be questioned. She preferred her undergrad classes on criminal justice. This is right. This is wrong. And she never understood how one moment of repentance can absolve years of sin. One expression of regret erasing countless misdeeds? It’s just not how she’s wired.

  “I hate these places.” A voice through her earpiece; it’s Owen Harrick, who is driving the hearse parked in front of the limousine.

  Jane McCoy looks over at the service. Allison Pagone’s ex-husband, Mateo Pagone, and their twenty-year-old daughter, Jessica Pagone, are the only ones seated. Allison’s parents are deceased and she was an only child, so the family is small. The rest of the tiny crowd is mostly neighbors, some friends from the church, someone from the publishing house in New York. That woman from the publishing house is probably mourning the most. Allison Pagone was a best-selling novelist.

  McCoy looks at the ex-husband, Mat Pagone, again. He is in a well-tailored black suit with a silver tie. He is staring straight ahead in concentration. His right hand is locked in the hands of his daughter, Jessica, who is also staring forward with red, numb eyes.

  McCoy speaks into the mike on her collar. “See the hubby?”

  Owen Harrick answers back. “Yeah.”

  “He doesn’t do a very good job of looking broken up about the whole thing. His wife just kicked it?”

  “Ex-wife,” Owen clarifies.

  “That’s cold, Harrick,” she says, but she chuckles.

  “He looks more bored than sad,” her partner agrees. “So what do we do?”

  The service is breaking up. The whole thing didn’t last more than fifteen minutes. A closed-casket affair, the coffin already in the ground when the attendees arrived. Mat Pagone rises with his daughter, holding her hand. Together, they scoop a piece of dirt and drop it onto the coffin.


  “We do what we do best,” Jane McCoy says into her collar. “We wait.”

  FOUR DAYS EARLIER

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 12

  McCoy is out of the vehicle before her partner has even stopped the sedan in Allison Pagone’s driveway. McCoy jogs up the steps to the home, glancing at windows as she passes. She rings the doorbell and knocks urgently on the door.

  “Mrs. Pagone,” she says. “It’s Special Agent McCoy.”

  She looks at Harrick. He has stepped around to the passenger side of their Mercury, around to the side of Allison’s garage.

  McCoy knocks again. “Allison,” she calls out. She looks at her watch. It is close to seven o’clock in the morning. People are walking their dogs and going for their pre-work jogs. McCoy likes to run in the morning, too, but today she did not have that luxury.

  “Her car’s here,” says Harrick.

  They look at each other for a long moment. For this kind of decision, there is no strict protocol.

  “Back door,” says McCoy.

  The back door is an easy decision. There are neighbors outside now—people who have undoubtedly grown curious at the sight of the two serious-looking people in blue coats with the FBI insignia in yellow on their backs who have run up to the front doorstep of the Pagone residence. Better to decelerate the attention by going in the back way. Plus, McCoy knows the back door will be easier to get through.

  McCoy pops the trunk of her Mercury Sable and removes her Mag-Lite, a wide, black flashlight. She could call a federal magistrate and get a warrant. That would make some sense. But technically, McCoy has only speculation to support her fears that something bad has happened inside the house. And you have to be careful what you tell a judge in an application for a warrant. To say nothing of the fact that the news could leak and the media could jump on it. It’s a small miracle, frankly, that there are no reporters parked along the street right now.