Her task now was to break him. This man had set Egan up. She had become convinced of that as she pursued her investigation. Now she had to prove it.
“We will begin the serious part, Mr. Akbar. I can tell you that your life depends on your giving me the right answers. Do we understand each other? This is life or death.”
The Pakistani nodded.
“Let’s go back to the night Howard Egan disappeared. In addition to your uncle, someone else knew that you were meeting with him. Is that right?”
He shook his head. He paused a moment, looked around the room, and then said quietly, “No one.”
Marx turned to Andy, who nodded. The answer had produced no sign of the anxiety associated with a lie, which meant that it had to be considered true.
“Let me ask it again, Mr. Akbar. You told someone else you were meeting with Egan, right?”
“No. No one.”
Andy nodded again.
Marx loomed over the Pakistani man. Her face showed a blush of anger.
“You are a liar! Tell the truth, or you won’t make it to the next Eid. You told someone else about your meeting with Howard Egan. True or false?”
His voice was thin and strained by fear. He was sweating. But he gave the same answer.
“I told no one.”
Andy again signaled that the machine had not registered deception. Marx stepped back from the Pakistani. She motioned for Andy to join her in the bathroom, where they talked for several minutes. Then she returned.
“Your contact in the Taliban told you to move up the meeting time for Howard Egan. Is that right?
“No. That is not true. I don’t know anyone in the Taliban.”
Andy nodded.
“Are you lying to me now?”
“No. I wanted to hide the meeting. It was dangerous for me. Why would I tell anyone?”
“I’ll ask the questions, Mr. Akbar. Who told you to move up the meeting?”
“My Uncle Azim. He said he had to go back to Waziristan the next morning for the funeral of someone in the tribe. That was why he had to do it that night.”
“Is that statement truthful?”
“Yes.”
“Have you talked with your uncle since Egan disappeared?”
“No.”
Andy’s face was suddenly animated, as he shook his head to indicate that the machine had registered deception.”
“You are a liar. I am warning you, we will not tolerate this. Now let me ask you again. Have you talked with your uncle since Egan disappeared?”
“Yes.” The man’s voice was so small, the word sounded as if it had been blown through a tube. The sweat covered his forehead.
“I talked with him the night the meeting was supposed to happen. He called me. He asked why my friend had not come to the address we had agreed. I said I did not know. He called me again and said that he was going to leave and go back to Waziristan right away. He was frightened. That is all.”
“Why did you lie before?”
“Because I was afraid that you would be angry with me. I was not supposed to talk to anyone about anything. But I talked with him.”
Marx nodded. She went over to the thermostat and turned it down, until the air conditioner was blowing full-tilt.
“It’s too damn hot in here,” she muttered.
Marx started again, probing around the edges of Akbar’s story. She asked him for details about his initial recruitment and handling, about his past meetings with Egan, about his payments from the agency. She kept looking for a route into the deception that she had been certain was there when they started. But try as she might, she couldn’t find an opening in his story.
After another hour of frustration, she decided that the only explanation was that she had been wrong: Hamid Akbar had not blown the operation. The compromise had come from somewhere else.
The Pakistani looked spent-sweated and chilled, poked and prodded until he had no reserves left. He wasn’t deceiving her, but there was still a missing piece. She nodded to Andy that she wanted to continue a little longer.
“We’re almost done, Mr. Akbar,” she said. “I have just a few more questions, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. His face was drained.
“Have you been in touch with another intelligence service?”
“When?” he asked.
“Ever. Have you ever been in touch with another intelligence service, besides ours? Or any other contact that you’ve never told us about.”
“Not that I haven’t told you about. I always told the truth.”
She looked at Andy. He nodded. The machine said he wasn’t being deceptive.
“Why do you say, ‘Not that I haven’t told you about’? There’s nothing in your file about contact with another intelligence service. Who have you talked to?”
He opened his palms wide in a protest of innocence.
“It was only the police. The Intelligence Bureau at the Ministry of Interior. I told that to my case officer.”
“To Mr. Egan?”
“No. The one before him. As soon as the police contacted me, I told him. It wasn’t important. They talk to everyone. They are police, like I said.”
“How often did you meet with them?”
“A few times. Six, or eight. I am not sure that I can count. They visit people who have studied abroad, like me. They visit everybody. It is Pakistan, madam. It is not Baltimore.”
“Did you tell the police about your contacts with us?”
“Oh, no, madam. Certainly not. I knew that would be wrong.”
“And they believed you?”
“Oh, yes, I think so. They never said they did not.”
“Did you ever talk to the Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI?”
“Oh, no. Not ever. They are quite dangerous. In Pakistan, we make an effort not to talk with them.”
“How about your uncle? Did he ever talk to the ISI?”
“That I would not know. It is not something that I would ask, or that he would answer.”
Marx looked at Andy. He shrugged, out of sight. It all registered true.
“Please, madam. If you doubt me, check your files. I explained it all. I have never told a lie.”
“How recently did you meet with the police?”
“The last time? It was six months ago, perhaps. We met at my office. They came round, to stop and talk.”
“And they never asked about Mr. Egan?”
“No. They knew about my investments, all right. The ministry has a section that monitors foreign accounts. But they did not ask about Mr. Egan.”
Marx thought a moment, trying to see how the pieces fit.
“Have you ever had your office swept, Mr. Akbar? To check for microphones or cameras?”
“Oh, no. Why would I do that?”
“Just to be safe,” she said. She closed her eyes.
She offered Hamid Akbar a cigarette and a glass of whiskey, while Andy unstrapped the wires. He accepted both. She opened the bottle and poured a drink for everyone. They’d had a couple of shots each when Marx pulled her chair up a little closer.
“We’re friends now, right? So I am going to ask you a question, friend to friend. How do you think Howard Egan was discovered, then, if you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I am sorry,” said the Pakistani. “It is not for me to say.”
“Go ahead. Tell me what you think.”
He closed his eyes, and spoke a sentence in Pashto. “Da cha, pakhpala. Gila ma hawa dab ala.”
“Sorry, but that’s not very helpful.”
“It is a saying of my Pashtun people. It means: ‘These are self-inflicted wounds, not from others.’”
She was startled. “What do you mean by that?”
“I think that you have a problem, madam. The problem is not me. Mr. Egan’s job was very secret. The people who have taken him, I am sorry for that, but they would not have known who he was unless someone told them. There is a leak. They are inside your house. It must be that. I am sorry to say it. That is why I am frightened. What this leak might be, I cannot say, but I hope that you will find out. Yes, truly I do.”