In the Company of Liars (17 page)

J
ane McCoy looks at the envelope on the conference table. It was removed from a larger package that was addressed to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The envelope has been scanned for fingerprints and revealed a thumb, index, and ring print. The prints have been checked against every fingerprint database in the federal government, as if they didn't already know. The prints are a clear match for Ramadaran Ali Haroon.

On the back of the envelope Ram Haroon's signature is scribbled across the sealed fold, so that if anyone were to open it, it would be obvious. The FBI has opened the envelope, of course, and the note inside has been translated. Which means that the FBI has had to purchase the exact kind of envelope used—not a difficult chore—and they have their best man practicing Haroon's signature so that they can seal this back up and send it to its destination with an “authentic” signature. Their man will have to sign Haroon's
name adequately and also imitate his handwriting on the front, where the lone word “Mushi” is scribbled.

She looks at the message, translated to English:

My dearest Mushi:

Much progress has been made. Anticipated date is middle of May. Arriving in Paris on June 1. Will deliver in person.

I am honored to have been chosen.

“Mushi” refers to Muhsin al-Bakhari, the top lieutenant for the Liberation Front. One of only four people who speaks to their leader, whom they call the Great One.

“Haroon's speaking straight to the
shura majlis
,” says Special Agent-in-Charge Irv Shiels. Shiels knows these people, having spent more than a decade in the Middle East with Central Intelligence. That, presumably, is why the Bureau is handling this. The CIA is no fan of the Bureau—the feeling is mutual—but Shiels knows the Liberation Front as well as any of them, so the CIA is largely deferring to Shiels and the counterterrorism squad in the field office here, at least for the part of this operation that involves Ram Haroon. The story goes, Shiels fell in love with a field officer over there and wanted to settle down back in the states, back in this city, where he grew up. So he switched to the Bureau and quickly became special agent-in-charge.

McCoy understands the nerves in Shiels's voice. The
shura majlis
is the four-person consultative council that advises the Liberation Front's leader on matters of religion, finance, war operations, and the like. Muhsin al-Bakhari is the head of the council, making him the CEO, so to speak, of the Liberation Front. Haroon is communicating directly with al-Bakhari, meaning the mission is one that the Libbies are taking seriously.

The Liberation Front does not like layers of
bureaucracy. It is not a small, tightly wound group with a firm organizational structure. Rather, it is a series of loosely banded clusters throughout the world, many of them lying dormant while they await their instructions. Most disturbingly, the Liberation Front has focused recruitment on youth—rebellious, impressionable, idealistic children and young adults—both because they are the future of any rebellion and because they escape detection more easily. College kids protesting on campuses will not draw as much attention, because they have always protested. The best estimates are that the average age of suicide bombers and perpetrators of violence is twenty-one. The Libbies' strategy, as far as the U.S. government can tell, is to recruit and indoctrinate these young people and then leave them to their own devices until the time comes. Then, in quick succession, they are given their instructions and execute the plan. The less time between formulation and execution, the less chance for mistakes or second thoughts.

For something like what the Liberation Front has in mind here, the fewer people in the loop, the better. At this point, before they even have the formula, the general thinking is that only a handful of people in the Liberation Front even know what is happening. That, McCoy assumes, is why Haroon signed his name over the seal on the envelope. It is not so much that they fear the U.S. government reading the letter; they don't want whoever will receive this letter and deliver it to al-Bakhari to read it.

“Sir,” McCoy asks, “how is this going to play out?”

Shiels's lips sink into his mouth, his eyes narrow. “We don't need to know,” he says, smiling at her as if they have a mutual complaint. Beyond the scope of the local FBI office's job, he means. “My guess? If he's really delivering this to al-Bakhari, they'll follow him there. And all bets are off. It'll be Rangers, I assume. They'll ambush the lot of them and hope to get al-Bakhari alive.”

“Sure.” If their surveillance of Ram Haroon leads them
to Muhsin al-Bakhari, the U.S. government—Army Rangers, Shiels is predicting—will proceed with full force. The United States has been searching for al-Bakhari for years. It wouldn't be a place for bystanders. “And what if he doesn't deliver to al-Bakhari?” she asks.

“Then, we may not catch the big fishes. Haroon will perform his faithful service and the Libbies will probably kill him.”

“They'll kill him?”

“He's of no use to them, Agent. Not for intel, at least. He's been to the States. He's documented. Maybe not with his real name, but nevertheless.” Shiels gets out of his chair. “However this turns out, Ram Haroon's days as an undercover operative for the Liberation Front are almost over. And I'm sure he knows that.”

He recalls when life was simpler, or at least when it seemed simpler. Certainly that was all it was, a mere illusion, the innocence of childhood. He prefers to think of his earliest memories, before the move to Peshawar. His family was happy. More accurately, he remembers being happy and either made the assumption that his parents were, too, or was too engulfed in the self-centeredness of early childhood to know one way or the other.

That is one thing that bothers Ram Haroon about his mother. He doesn't know if she was happy. Father said she was. Father said she was beautiful and intelligent and forceful and loving.

Ram believes that. But after almost twenty years, he remembers little of his mother and his sister. Memories fade and are replaced with some combination of reality and fantasy. Probably his mother has grown more beautiful, his little sister more adorable, with time.

And his memories, such as they are, are grounded far
less in the visual and more in the senses of smell and touch and hearing. He can remember the basics—clothes his mother and sister wore, the color of their hair—but he cannot recall the intricacies of their faces purely from memory; he can place them, but what he is remembering, he realizes with pain, are the few photographs that remain of them.

He remembers the sand near their home, where Mother would make the
bunda pala
—stuffed fish that she would bury for hours in the hot sand to let it bake. He remembers the succulent aroma of the
sajii
, the spiced leg of lamb impaled on a branch and cooked near, not over, an open fire, and licking his fingers with delight when the meal was over. He remembers his mother's voice, her confidence and the change in inflection when she addressed her dear son.

Zulfi
, she called him.

He remembers her English as well, the language spoken only by Pakistan's elite, from which Mother came. She taught poetry and English at the university in Quetta, in the Baluchistan province. He remembers her English as much as Urdu, the language the government was trying to push as the only official language, the language Ram's father spoke almost exclusively. Ram's father, Ghulam, tried to converse with his wife in English but could rarely keep up; Mother often referred laughingly to his attempts as “Urdlish.”

He remembers that Mother read. He remembers that she debated with Father, not in intemperate tones, about politics and society. “You have one parent who is brilliant and one who is clearly the inferior,” Ram's father would say, as Mother smiled. Neither would confirm which was which. Ram—Zulfi—would direct his finger from one to the other intermittently and guess, leaving them laughing uproariously.

He remembers when his sister, Benazir, was born, the earliest memory he has. He cannot recall specifics except for his mother's singing
sepad
when Beni was born, the neighbors coming to the house and singing poems late into
the evening. He remembers holding Beni in his arms awkwardly, her tiny, splotchy, contorted face, under the watchful eyes of his parents.

He remembers the day, four years later, when his mother and Beni did not come home. He remembers playing with other children in the streets, returning home expecting to find his mother and baby sister, instead seeing only his father sitting on a carpet, his hands over his face. He recalls the paralysis he felt, never having seen his father as vulnerable, not making a sound until his father finally became aware of him.

“Sit down here, Zulfi,” Father said, extending his arms, revealing a face wracked with pain, wet with tears.

R
am Haroon brings a hand to his face and sighs. It is painful but helpful to remember his mother and Beni. That's what his father did, he said, and so will Ram. He will do this for them.

Ram takes a final look at the letter, handwritten in Arabic.

My dearest Mushi:

Much progress has been made. Anticipated date is middle of May. Arriving in Paris on June 1. Will deliver in person.

I am honored to have been chosen.

Ram folds the letter carefully and places it in an envelope. He licks the flap, seals the envelope, signs his name over the seal with the ornate pen his mother once used to write her poetry. He takes a bus to the post office about a mile from the university campus.

The wait in line is excruciating. Not the time that it takes; a Pakistani is accustomed to longer lines than this for such things. He simply wants this out of his hands. He
removes his notepad and checks the address against the one he has written on the envelope, checking and rechecking. He realizes he is being ridiculous—he has been educated at the finest universities and now he is worried that he has not accurately copied a single address in Tashkent, Uzbekistan onto an envelope.

He makes it to the front of the line and walks up to a postal agent.

“I'd like to speak to Raoul,” he says.

She sees Sam's eyes, notices him because he was talking to some clients before his attention was suddenly diverted. His client's perceptions of him are paramount, it is the whole reason for the cocktail party, but he is overtaken by her, by pure lust, his gaze running up and down her body, his imagination running wild. It is, she is sure, the most memorable expression she has ever seen on a man's face.

“Mother, you're blushing.” Jessica Pagone drops her backpack on the opposite side of the table in the restaurant where they have agreed to meet, on the northwest side, within the distance permitted by the terms of her bond.

And then Allison thinks of Sam's fateful words.
This isn't going to work out. Mat—Mat's a friend. You know this is crazy. It always was.

Jessica remains standing and watches her mother, almost accusingly.

“Jess, c'mon.” Allison lifts a bang off her forehead. “Sit.”

“You cut your hair,” Jessica says, taking the seat across from her mother and not elaborating on the observation.

And Allison will not ask for elaboration. She will not seek a compliment from her daughter. If pressed, Jess would probably comment favorably. But the whole thing would be so forced, so unlike them now, so awkward. As if things aren't awkward enough.

There is a truce. They are not fighting. They have not so much as bickered since Sam's murder. It is not as if things are openly hostile. Things are simply tense.

Allison divorced Jessica's father and, not long afterward, began an affair with her father's colleague in the lobbying business—a man for whom Jessica worked. That is all, apparently, that Jessica needs to know to choose sides. The murder of Sam Dillon has complicated things, makes it harder for Jessica to hold her grudge; she no doubt realizes that her mother has more urgent things on her mind right now. And so she has reacted with all the right words. She has shown concern. Given words of encouragement. But it is all still there, simmering beneath the surface, Jessica's intense resentment, even if she tries to mask it with a comforting expression.

“You're losing weight,” Jess says. “You have to eat.”

True enough. With the nerves keeping her stomach in knots and all of her exercise to still those nerves, Allison has lost close to fifteen pounds in a little over two months.

“The trial starts soon,” Allison says.

“I know.”

A waiter takes their order for drinks—just water for Allison, iced tea for Jessica. The server is cute, Allison thinks, probably a college boy, and she sizes him up as she has sized up every man of his approximate age—Jessica's age—wondering, however improbably, whether this will be the man Jessica finds. She has envisioned the perfect man for her daughter. Caring, passionate, strong. She wants a
man who makes Jessica feel loved, who challenges Jess to be a better person, supports her unequivocally. This, she supposes, is what every mother wants for her child.

“It's okay to tell them,” Allison says.

“I don't have a choice.”

No, Jessica doesn't have a choice. She did once. She had a number of options the first time the police paid her a visit. She probably could have gotten away with it, too. The police probably wouldn't have charged a young woman who failed to give incriminating information about her own mother. But Jessica didn't know that, and it probably wouldn't have mattered, anyway. By then, the police were pretty sure who they liked for the murder. And that is all history. The prosecution has subpoenaed Jessica Pagone and she will have to testify against her mother. However hard she may try to equivocate, they will make her answer the questions the same way she answered them in the police station.

“Mother?” Jessica asked, when Allison came home at close to two in the morning, her hands and face dirty. “What have you done?”

Allison wants to hold her daughter. She wants to caress her, kiss her, talk to her intimately again. She wants to ask her about boys, about school, about her hopes and ambitions.

But they don't talk about such things anymore. They haven't for some time. Because the marriage didn't break up overnight. The descent began—oh, it's so difficult to pick a starting point, but what Allison means by this is the first time that the problems were on the surface—about three solid years ago, their anniversary dinner, after a bit too much champagne, when Allison openly wondered what, exactly, they were celebrating. Or that same year, when Allison paid an unannounced visit to Mat's firm and found Mat in his office with a young associate, a female associate, a very attractive young female associate with shiny
brown hair and a cute figure. It was nothing inherently incriminating; they were not locked in an embrace or straddling each other on the desk. Mat was sitting in his chair, turned away from the desk, in a way that Allison could only describe as unusually informal, the young associate—Carla was her name—half-sitting, half-leaning on the desk on the same side as Mat. Only separated by about three feet, speaking in quiet but comfortable tones. No, nothing on its face incriminating per se, with the exception of their reactions, Mat leaping to his feet and stuttering out a greeting to Allison, the young associate Carla jumping off the desk so quickly that she almost hit the wall behind her. Mat's suddenly reddened face, his struggle to collect himself, finally getting to the point where he could ask Allison what she was doing here. Allison had wanted to ask Mat the same question. But she didn't. She even shook Carla's hand, took it lightly but then solidified her grip, and she imagines—probably exaggerates this, she admits—that Carla squeezed back, as if for that single moment they were locked in a territorial battle that Carla, apparently, was winning. Yes, that is probably the point where Allison first let the feelings that had been boiling below for so long finally surface, when she finally questioned what the hell she was doing with this man. And Mat knew it, on some level.

And so Jessica did, too. What the two of them, Mat and Jess, said to each other, Allison will never know. She did not ever—would not ever—share this incident with her daughter. She will not be that kind of person. But after that, Jessica and Mat grew closer, spent more time together away from home, away from Allison, had lunches together, probably got together in places that Allison never knew.
I don't know what's wrong with her,
Mat probably told Jessica
. I'm trying to keep this marriage together but your mother seems to want something else. I'm doing all I can, Jess. She's shutting me out.
And the vacation they took
together, Mat and Jessica, after the divorce was finalizing, spending this past Christmas in Florida together while Allison spent the holiday alone. Just one quick phone call was all the notice Allison had. She had been preparing to make dinner and spend Christmas Eve with her daughter, even considered having Mat join them. Then the phone call, two days before:
Mother, I'm going with Daddy to Sanibel for the holiday. Talk to you when I get back.
Just one voice mail on her phone and she would spend Christmas alone.

Allison tried. Since the breakup, she tried to engage her daughter about school—
Same old, same old
, Jessica would say. About her friends—
My friends are my friends. Some are fair-weather, some you can count on.
About her love life, a topic from which Allison was now shut out.
There's a guy
, she told Allison last December,
but you probably wouldn't approve.
She remained mum, initially, wouldn't elaborate, despite Allison's claim of an open mind.

There's a guy, but you probably wouldn't approve.
She thinks of her daughter's words now with a rush to her heart. She thinks of her daughter's elaboration, finally, after Allison's prompting moved from delicate insistence to pleading.

And so here they are, not talking like mothers and daughters are supposed to talk. Instead, they stare at each other and hunt for topics of small talk. Jessica is in a turtleneck and jeans, little makeup as usual, her hair in a ponytail. She is prettier every time Allison sees her, which is far less often these days. The distance, however, has allowed Allison to witness the developments in her daughter more clearly than when she saw her every day. She sees it in the curve to her chin, the cheekbones high on her face, the way she carries herself. Jessica is becoming a woman. But there is something else there, too, and Allison feels it in her fear. Allison is afraid, not that she is losing contact with her daughter, but that she no longer knows who Jessica is, or
what has happened to her since the divorce and their estrangement.