Night Fall

But that’s not what it was; it was something far more sinister and very well pla

My opinion, however, was not popular and not shared by many of the people working on floors twenty-two through twenty-eight, or if it was, no one was putting this viewpoint in a memo or bringing it up at meetings.

I stopped at a water cooler and said to Kate between slurps, “If you’re questioned by a boss, or the OPR, the best thing to do is tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”

She didn’t reply.

“If you lie, your lie will not match my lie. Only the unrehearsed truth will keep us from having to get a lawyer.”

“I know that. I’m a lawyer. But-”

“Water?” I offered. “I’ll hold the handle.”

“No, thanks. Look-”

“I won’t push your face in the water. Promise.”

“John, fuck off and grow up. Listen, we haven’t really done anything wrong.”

“That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. What we did last night was because we’re dedicated and enthusiastic agents. If you’re questioned, do not look, act, or feel guilty. Act proud of your devotion to duty. That confuses them.”

“Spoken like a true sociopath.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“This is not fu

“You should have listened.”

We continued our walk down the corridor, and I said to her, “My guess is that if they’re on to us, they won’t let on right now. They’ll keep an eye on us to see what we do and who we talk to.”

“You’re making me feel like a criminal.”

“I’m just telling you how to deal with what you started.”

“I didn’tstart anything.” She looked at me and said, “John, I’m sorry if I got you-”

“Don’t worry about it. A day without trouble for John Corey is like a day without oxygen.”

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek, then walked to her workstation in the big cube farm, greeting her colleagues along the way.

My workstation was on the other side of the room-away from the FBI-types-among my fellow NYPD detectives, both active-duty and retired contract agents like me.

While I enjoyed the company of my own people, this physical separation between FBI and NYPD bespoke a separation of cultures wider than ten feet of carpeting.

It was bad enough working here when I didn’t have a wife on the high-rent side of the room, and I needed an exit strategy from this place, but I didn’t want to just resign. Poking around the TWA 800 case might get me kicked out, which was fine with me and wouldn’t look to Kate like I was bailing out of our nice working arrangement, which she liked for some odd reason. I mean, I embarrass everyone I know, even other cops sometimes, but Kate, in some perverse way, seemed proud to be married to one of the problem cops on the twenty-sixth floor.

Maybe it was an act of rebellion on her part, a way of saying to Jack Koenig, the FBI SAC-special agent in charge (sometimes called affectionately by the police detectives the MFIC-the motherfucker in charge)-as well as to the other bosses, that Special Agent Mayfield was not totally housebroken yet.

Well, that was my deep thought for the day, and it wasn’t even 10A.M. yet.

I adjusted my tie and thought about a facial expression. Let’s see… I was quite possibly up to my ears in deep shit, so I decided to look upbeat and happy to be here.

I got the face right and strode toward my desk.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I greeted my colleagues by name, hung my suit jacket on a cube hook, and took my seat at my workstation.

I turned on my computer, entered my password, and read my e-mail, which was mostly interoffice memos. Sometimes there was an Orwellian message on the screen warning you about a new government Thought Crime.

I played my phone messages, and there was one from a Palestinian-American informant, code-named Gerbil, who said he had important information for me that he couldn’t talk about over the phone.

Mr. Emad Salameh was, in fact, a nearly useless source of information, and I never could figure out if he just wanted to feel important, or if he was a double agent, or if he only needed an extra twenty bucks now and then. Maybe he just liked me. I know he liked Italian food because he always picked an Italian restaurant for me to buy him lunch or di

The last two messages were hang-ups, which didn’t come up on my Caller ID, and which always intrigue me.

I shuffled through some papers on my desk.

My biggest challenge on this job was trying to figure out what to do. As a wise man (me) once said, “The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished.”

With homicide work, there’s always an active caseload of past and present murders, whereas with terrorist acts, you try to anticipate the crime.

After the Asad Khalil case a year ago, I was assigned to a special team, which included Kate, and whose sole mission was to pursue that case.

But after a year, the clues and leads had run out, and the trail was cold. Not wanting to waste government money, our boss, Jack Koenig, had begun assigning Kate and me and the other agents on the team to different duties.

I had been specifically hired by the Anti-Terrorist Task Force as a homicide specialist, just in case a terrorist-related homicide occurred, but that hadn’t happened since the Asad Khalil case, so now my duties consisted mostly of surveillance, which was what most of the NYPD-types did for the FBI. Kate was into threat analysis, whatever that meant.

The special team once had its own little space near the Command and Control Center on this floor, and we worked in close proximity, with Kate at the desk directly across from mine, so I could look into her beautiful blue eyes every day. But now we were separated, and I had to look at Harry Muller, a former NYPD Intelligence Unit guy. I said to him, “Harry, what’s the definition of a moderate Arab?”

He looked up at me. “What?”

“A guy who ran out of ammunition.”

He chuckled and said, “You told me that one.” He advised me, “You got to watch what you say. What’s the difference between an Arab terrorist and a woman with PMS?”

“What?”

“You can reason with an Arab terrorist.”

I chuckled and said, “I told you that one, too. Two demerits. Racialand gender slur.”

The Arab and Muslim community in New York, I should point out, is probably ninety-eight percent upstanding and loyal citizens, and one percent are useful idiots for the other one percent who are bad guys.

I mostly watch and interrogate the useful idiots, and when I get a lead on the real bad guys, I have to turn it over to the FBI, who sometimes notifies the CIA, who similarly is supposed to notify the FBI of interesting leads. But in reality, they don’t keep each other informed, and they certainly don’t keep me informed. This is very frustrating, and was one of the reasons why I didn’t like this job since Koenig had basically dissolved the special team. Maybe it was also one of the reasons that Kate had dangled the TWA 800 crash in front of me and why I bit.

Regarding the CIA, they have agents assigned to the ATTF, such as the late Ted Nash, but you don’t see many of them; they have offices on another floor and also across the street at 290 Broadway, and they drift in and out of the task force on a situational basis. I’m happiest when they drift out, and at the moment they seemed to be scarce.

Harry asked me, “What did you do yesterday?”

“I went to the TWA 800 memorial service out on Long Island.”

“Why?”

“Kate worked the case. She goes every year. Did you work that case?”