“No . . . I . . .”

“You persuaded the others to break out of the cell. You attacked the guards. You murdered them, Faik. Didn’t you?”

“No . . .”

“You are a terrorist. You are part of the Promised Day Brigade.”

“No . . .”

“You know that dog Muqtada al-Sadr, do you not? You know that son of a cur.”

“I do not . . .”

Donkey walked across to the other side of the room. Faik followed him with his eyes, watched as he bent down to a table that held a jumble of tools and other objects that he did not immediately recognise. He picked up an oblong object that looked as if it was heavy. Cables dangled from the object. The cables ended in tarnished crocodile clips. It was a battery.

“No,” Faik begged as Donkey brought it over to him. “No, please, I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“They always say that,” the man said. “But I get them to sing a different song.”

Donkey nodded, and the guard to Faik’s left reached across and tore open the jumpsuit, yanking it all the way down to his waist.

“Please,” Faik begged. He pulled at the cuffs, but all that achieved was to swing him gently forward and back. His toes scraped along the concrete and then his momentum swung him forward and he dangled there. His muscles screamed from the strain.

“Do you think I am sadistic?”

Donkey rested the battery on the floor and held up the crocodile clips.

Faik tried to swing away from him. He could not.

“You would be right. I am sadistic. It is my only pleasure in this hellhole.”

Faik struggled again. It was futile. Donkey reached over with his right hand and held him by the hip, deadening the impetus, holding him still.

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “I will share some information with you. I am going to get you to confess to everything, but only because it pleases me that I can. There was a trial this morning. You were convicted of murdering three guards. There is no right of appeal to this conviction. It is binding. It cannot be changed. Do you know what that means?”

“I did not . . .”

Sneering, Donkey reached up with his left hand and gripped Faik’s face. He squeezed his fingers, pushing his cheeks together so that he could only murmur and mumble.

“You can say what you want. You can deny everything, but it does not matter. Confess to everything, and it won’t matter. You have been convicted of murder and treason. You, and all the others. You have been sentenced to death.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Beatrix had been in her room when she had heard the men outside. She had showered, changed, and prepared her weapons, and then she heard the lift and the men getting out of it. There was an interconnecting door between her room and Faulkner’s, and she had very quietly opened it and slipped through. Beatrix and Faulkner had waited quietly, her FN F2000 assault rifle aimed at the door in anticipation of it opening. It hadn’t.