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“I like you.”
    “Well, I like you, too, Liam.”
    “Take this conversation as friendly advice from a colleague. There’ll be no report.”
    “You guys don’t take a crap without making out a ten-page report.”
    I don’t think he liked me anymore. He said, “You have a reputation of being difficult and not a team player. You know that. You’re the golden boy for the moment as a result of the Asad Khalil case. But that was over a year ago, and you haven’t done anything spectacular since then. Khalil’s still free, and by the way, so are the guys who put three bullets in you up in Morningside Heights. If you need a mission in life, Mr. Corey, look for these people who tried to kill you. That should be enough to keep you busy and out of trouble.”
    It’s never a good idea to coldcock a Federal agent, but when they use this condescending tone, I should go ahead and do it. Just once. But not here. I suggested to Mr. Griffith, “Go fuck yourself.”
    “Okay,” he said, as though he thought that was a good idea. “Okay, consider yourself on notice.”
    I replied, “Consider yourself gone.”
    He turned and went away.
    Before I could process the conversation with Mr. Griffith, Kate came up beside me and said, “That couple lost their only daughter. She was on her way to Paris for a summer study program.” She added, “Five years hasn’t made a bit of difference, nor should it.”
    I nodded.
    She asked me, “What was Liam Griffith talking to you about?”
    “I’m not at liberty to say.”
    “Did he want to know what we were doing here?”
    “How do you know him?” I asked.
    “He works with us, John.”
    “What section?”
    “Same as ours. Mideast terrorism. What did he say?”
    “Why don’t I know him?”
    “I don’t know. He travels a lot.”
    “Did he work the TWA case?”
    “I’m not at liberty to say. Why didn’t you ask him?”
    “I meant to. Right before I told him to go fuck himself. Then the moment was gone.”
    “You shouldn’t have said that to him.”
    “Why’s he here?”
    She hesitated, then replied, “To see who else is here.”
    “Is he sort of like an Internal Affairs guy?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. Did my name come up?”
    “He said you weren’t satisfied with the government’s final determination of this case.”
    “I never said that to anyone.”
    “I’m sure he deduced it.”
    She nodded, and like a good lawyer not wanting to hear any more than she’d be willing to repeat under oath, she dropped it.
    Kate looked out over the ocean, then up at the sky. She asked me, “What do
you
think happened here?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I
know
you don’t know. I worked the case, and I don’t know. What do you
think
?”
    I took her hand, and we began the walk back to the Jeep. I said to her, “I think we need to explain the streak of light. Without the streak of light, the evidence is overwhelming for a mechanical failure. With the streak of light, we have another very credible theory-a surface-to-air missile.”
    “And which way do you lean?”
    “I always lean toward the facts.”
    “Well, you have two sets of facts to pick from-the eyewitnesses and their testimony regarding the streak of light, and the forensic facts, which show no evidence of a missile strike and do show some evidence of an accidental center fuel tank explosion. Which facts do you like?”
    I replied, “I don’t always trust eyewitnesses.”
    “What if there are over two hundred of them who all saw the same thing?”
    “Then I’d need to speak to a lot of them.”
    “You saw eight of them on TV the other night.”
    “That’s not the same as me questioning them.”
    “I did that. I interviewed twelve of them, and I heard their voices and I looked into their eyes.” She said to me, “Look into my eyes.”
    I stopped walking and looked at her.
    She said, “I can’t get their words or their faces out of my mind.”
    I replied, “It might be a good idea if you did.”
    We got to