to have to deal with it.You’ll understand, one day. For now, you have to listen to me. Okay?”
She can hardly expect a warm response from her daughter, andshe does not receive one. Jessica, it seems, can’t decide whether she resentsor appreciates her mother’s strength.
“Fine,” she says.
“Okay, good. The police will be investigating me, andthey’ll come to you, no doubt. They will interview you. You need to be readywith some answers. So we have to make sure that you and I are clear on this.”
“You want me to tell them things that will make you lookguilty.”
“Let’s get started, Jessica,” she says. “Do what I ask andthis will turn out okay for everyone.”
Ram Haroon sits in the passenger seat of the car, staringinto a wall in the underground parking garage downtown. It’s cold inside thecar, in a parking area that is not well insulated. They couldn’t very wellleave the vehicle running for the last half-hour, while Ram Haroon received hisinstructions.
“Let me be sure I understand this correctly,” he says. “Thiswoman, Allison Pagone, must be dead, but it must appear that she took her ownlife. That she committed suicide out of guilt, remorse over her crime, and thatshe preferred death by her own hand to execution.”
“Yes,” the driver says.
“And you feel quite strongly that I should be the one whomakes this happen.”
“Yes,” the driver says. “It must be you. Larry Evans,obviously, can’t be used.”
“Larry Evans is an idiot,” Haroon says.
“But effective. He has the scientist in his pocket.”
They sit in silence, the windows fogging while thetemperatures plummet. Ram Haroon rubs his hands together.
“You miss Pakistan?” the driver asks.
Haroon looks at him. “Don’t you? Why you’d want to return tothis city is beyond me.”
Special Agent-in-Charge Irving Shiels purses his lips.Ma’am,” he says. “Ohebbo taghayor al mawassem.”
“Yes?” Haroon laughs. “You like snow and ice and freezingtemperatures?”
“Damn right I do. This is home for me.” Shiels looks Ramover. It’s been years for the two of them. Shiels, if memory serves, was nevermuch for sentimentality, doesn’t seem comfortable with it. “Tabdo bi sohhajayyida,” Shiels adds.
Haroon takes the compliment in stride. “I eat well andexercise when I can,” he says, a line he’s heard in the States.
Shiels smiles at that. “Lakad mada waket tawil,”he says.
“Ten years, at least,” Haroon calculates. “Too long.Ladayka awlad?”
Shiels nods. “An eight-year-old boy, and my daughter’s six.”
Haroon smiles. It’s hard to imagine Irving Shiels with awife and children, but he is a long way from Pakistan, and maybe Haroon neverknew the real man.
“This has to look like a suicide, Zulfi,” says Shiels.“Everyone has to think Allison Pagone killed herself.”
“Everyone will think she killed herself,” Haroon says.
“When this is ending, you’ll be stopped at the airport.”Shiels looks at him. “There’s nothing we can do about that. We’ve had to keepyou on the ‘watch’ list to keep your cover.”
“Understood.”
“It will be one of my agents. Just be ready with the answersto the questions. She’ll do a song and dance for the benefit of Customs, butshe’s been instructed to let you go.”
“I am sure it will be a memorable experience,” Haroon says.
Irv Shiels laughs, a forced effort, a brief smile thatreturns to stoicism almost immediately. Shiels was never particularly animated.
“Tawakka al hazar, sayyedee,”Haroon says. Stay safe.
“You do the same.” Shiels presses his hand in Haroon’s.
“Al selem, lakan abadan lil istislam.”
Haroon leaves the vehicle and heads for the exit. Peace,Shiels said to him, but never surrender.
ONE DAY EARLIER…
Strange as it may seem, it’s plausible.” Paul Riley speaks ina hushed voice to Allison, though they are in a conference room with the doorclosed. “The likelihood of an acquittal is remote. So sooner or later, you’dfall into government hands. At that point, they would expect you to playwhatever hand you could. Believe it or not, you’re safer this way, Allison.”
Allison starts, something like a nervous laugh.
“The timing is a bit concerning, I suppose,” Paul adds.
“Very.” Allison leaves her chair and paces around the longtable. The contrast between this FBI office and the ones at Paul Riley’s lawfirm is staggering. “I want to do it now. They’re saying, ballpark, mid-May.”
“They must have some reason.” Paul sighs. “Not that they’lltell us.”
Paul looks awful, out of sorts. He must be utterlyexhausted. Since last night, when Allison reached him, and through a long daytoday-it’s close to eight in the evening-Paul has probably only slept a handfulof hours. About twenty-four hours ago, he was probably dozing in front of atelevision on a lazy Sunday, waiting for a busy week of court appearances andmeetings with clients. Instead, he has spent nearly twenty hours straightdigesting a very complicated situation and attempting to frame a solution.
“Let’s go back in,” Allison says.
Jane McCoy sits in one of the chairs in SpecialAgent-in-Charge Irving Shiels’s office. Harrick paces about the room. Shiels ison his cell phone. United States Attorney Mason Tremont is reading the newscoverage of Sam Dillon’s murder.
“What a mess,” Tremont says. This is the first time McCoy hasmet Tremont. He’s been U.S. attorney since the new governor came in, about fouryears ago. He is the first African American to hold the position. Word is, hewas a big fund-raiser for the governor, but the word also is that he has donethe office proud. He’s not a bad- looking guy, distinguished and fit in hismid-fifties, if a little too sober.
“She has to take this deal,” Harrick says, lapping the room.He’s wearing a sport coat and tie today, a step up for him.
A knock on the door, and Allison Pagone enters with herlawyer, Paul Riley. Riley used to be an AUSA, part of the federal family, buthe made his name prosecuting that mass murderer, Terry Burgos, back when JaneMcCoy was in grad school.
Mason Tremont puts down his paper. Irv Shiels kills his cellphone.
“We have a deal in principle,” Riley announces. “We have tosee it all in writing, formally, of course.”
“We’ll have it done very soon,” says Mason Tremont.“Immunity letter for Mateo Pagone, affidavits, the works.”
“Not just immunity,” Allison says. “He doesn’t even have totalk to you.”
“I understand,” says Tremont. “It’s a clean deal, Mrs.Pagone. He walks and doesn’t talk.”
“Good.” Allison claps her hands together. “So who’s going tokill me?”
McCoy laughs at the bluntness of her comment. She removes aphoto from a file and shows it to Allison. It is a photograph of Ramadaran AliHaroon.
Allison recoils-not, McCoy assumes, because he’s unsightly,because in truth Haroon is pretty handsome, but because he’s from the MiddleEast. You can talk about political correctness all you want, but Allison andher lawyer are already probably thinking along these lines, and now they’resurely suspecting that this operation involves international terrorism.
“The man in this photograph,” McCoy says, “is working withus.”
That will be the extent to which McCoy elaborates. This isall Allison Pagone needs to know. Ramadaran Ali Haroon is an undercoveroperative for the CIA, a non-official cover agent, but this is not somethingshe would ever
