In the Company of Liars (2 page)

H
e knows immediately that no one will escape, and that few will survive. He knows it the moment he is blasted out of his drowsiness in the back of the dark truck by a deafening boom, the explosion of what he assumes to be the lead truck in the convoy. He knows it as the truck in which he is traveling screeches to a halt over the uneven terrain, as the men seated on benches on each side of the darkened cargo area fall into each other, and as the truck behind them slams into their rear, sending the men sprawling to the floor.

He knows it as he and the others in the second truck scramble for their weapons. He knows it when he hears, over the sounds of his brothers' cries, the
thwip, thwip, thwip
of rockets cutting through the air—undoubtedly in the direction of the rear truck in the convoy—followed quickly by the explosion upon impact with the gasoline engines.

He knows that the Americans have found them.

And they know who is traveling in this convoy. That is why the obvious security flanks have been eliminated from the outset. In no more than ten seconds, the front and rear trucks have been obliterated, trapping the two middle trucks on a narrow, winding road.

Ram Haroon looks toward the rear of the truck, where the sheath covering the back is flapping open. He sees small flashes from the red-orange gasoline fire two trucks behind.

Haroon races for the exit as the gunfire erupts—the
pop pop, pop pop
from the M4s, the
rat-a-tat-tat
from the stationary machine guns—lead splitting the canvas exterior of the cargo cabin and hitting skulls, torsos, bone. Haroon extends himself horizontally as he dives through the sheath, trying to minimize himself as a target, trying to freeze out the sudden smells of blood, of bowels releasing, of death.

He lands on the hood of the third truck, slamming his head onto the cold surface, and everything goes dark.

First he dreams in smells: the odor of burning gasoline, the copperlike scent of burning flesh. Then he dreams of dust filling his mouth, of wounded cries and urgent prayers before death. He dreams of his mother and sister. He dreams of his leg on fire.

He dreams of a man talking to him in broken Arabic, and Haroon's eyes open. Two sets of boots, two sets of legs, two M4 rifles within inches of his cheek.

“Irka,”
one of them shouts. “On your knees, fuck-face.”

U.S. Army Rangers, working in pairs, searching for survivors and confirming the dead. One of them steps back, training the rifle on him, while the other pats Haroon down for explosives. Then he grabs Haroon's shirt and pulls until Haroon is on his knees. His shirt is violently ripped from his body, his hands zip-tied behind his back.

He knows why they attacked and who they wanted. Their high-value target. Muhsin al-Bakhari.

Haroon struggles to gain his bearings, his body limp from the assault and his mind in chaos. He is in northern Sudan. It is early June. It is close to midnight.
“Kiff! Kiff!”
the Ranger says to Haroon, yanking him to his feet. A blindfold is wrapped over his eyes, and he moves forward tentatively, his legs unreliable, assisted by a Ranger's hand cupped under his armpit.

Don't let them take you alive
, he has been told.
They will torture you. Corrupt you. Take you to Guantánamo Bay and make you turn on your brothers.

Die with dignity
, they have told him.

But resistance is obviously futile. This whole thing was timed perfectly. The Americans did not plan for a gunfight. They planned for a massacre.

Ram Haroon recalls other instructions as well, outside the presence of the leaders.
Show them your hands and they won't kill you.

He hears the
thwop, thwop
of the rotors of a Chinook helicopter as he is marched forward, forced into a jog. He feels a wash of air as he approaches the Chinook, and a hand on his head pushes it down, even though Haroon knows the rotors are well overhead.

He is turned around. A hand on his shoulder forces him to sit on a cold aluminum floor. He shivers. The rotors spin faster and louder, the copter shakes—even sitting, he lurches to one side and bumps into the barrel of a rifle pointed at him. The copter shakes again and rises.

He feels a boot pushing against his arm.
“Hal Tatakalm Alingli'zia?”
an American shouts at him in passable Arabic.
“Ma Ismok?”

“Zulfikar,”
he answers wearily.
“Sorirart Biro'aitak.”

A moment passes. The Americans are speaking to each other in excited voices. This is a moment of celebration for the Rangers. Nausea overtakes Ram Haroon, the jerky movements of the helicopter and the smell of burning flesh, still lingering in his nostrils, combining to launch the
bile to his throat. They are enjoying themselves, these Americans. A moment for which all Americans have waited for years—the capture of Muhsin al-Bakhari. A story they will share with their grandchildren someday.

Where he will go now, he does not know. They have quickly whisked away the few survivors, including the one whom the Americans prize the most. Left behind is a massacre; over thirty Islamic soldiers dead.

And then it comes to Ram Haroon. He remembers the woman at the airport in America four days ago.
McCoy,
that was her name. Yes. The woman at the airport knew this was going to happen.

Haroon shakes his head, silent. He will probably be sent to Guantánamo Bay, along with the others. He will never see his homeland again. His life will never be the same.

He wonders what has become of his partners in the States. He assumes that they will soon be in U.S. custody as well. And if they have gotten so far as to coordinate this attack, they have probably learned what really happened to Allison Pagone, the American novelist, as well.

M
cCoy knows almost everything about him. She knows his names—his real one and the one he is using. She knows one parent is listed as Pakistani, the other as Egyptian, and that the paperwork all the way back to Islamabad will show that. She knows that the CIA files will show that he is an operative with the Liberation Front, an organization responsible for the death of more than nine hundred civilians in the past five years. She knows he will deny that if asked. She knows that he is studying for a graduate degree in international economics at the state university. She knows when he flew into the United States. She already knew, before receiving the call, that he had booked a flight to Paris. She knew about ten minutes after he bought the ticket.

Jane McCoy stands with her partner, Owen Harrick, and the BICE agent in charge at the airport, a guy named Pete Storino, in a small room with monitors along a high shelf.

McCoy has spent the last ten minutes babysitting Storino, explaining why she couldn't tell him squat, giving him numbers to call to clear all this. Storino doesn't like it and he doesn't like her. The BICE guys aren't the happiest these days. With the reorg under Homeland Security, Storino's agency is now the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They don't like it because people call them “BICE” agents. FBI agents don't like it because they think of their agency as “the Bureau” and don't want another one. The agencies left out of the BICE acronym, like the Coast Guard and Border Patrol, were pissed off because, well, they were left out. Word is, they're going to change it to the Bureau of Investigations and Criminal Enforcement, keeping the acronym but giving it a more general connotation, but McCoy will believe it when she sees it.

“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.