“Brown! Brown!” Nir called out. The code word triggered a transition in the cover operation. Nir was no longer Matt, and Nicole was no longer Julia. She’d become exactly who she really was—a model named Nicole le Roux hired to do a photo shoot at Namakabrud Beach just west of Chalus. Nir was Giovanni Gualtieri, the Italian agent who had hired her for this layout in Grazia magazine.

“Tell me what’s happening, Nicole,” Nir said with an Italian accent that was so bad it would have been funny in any other circumstance.

After delivering several kicks to Yusif, two of the officers dragged his body toward their vehicles. He looked lifeless.

The remaining policeman stood at the front of the car, staring at her through the windshield.

“Yusif appears to be unconscious now. They’ve pulled him to their cars,” she said, relieved to be herself again. Locking eyes with the policeman, she widened hers and increased her breathing. Her hope was to garner some sympathy from the man by letting terror show in her face. But his expression remained impassive, and his dead eyes never blinked.

She startled as the door next to her opened, and the phone dropped from her hand as she whipped her head to the right. Stupid, she thought. You were so focused on the man in front of you that you ignored the others.

Two uniformed men pinned her with menacing stares of their own. Nir must have heard her involuntary cry when the door opened, because his voice was yelling from the phone on the seat.

One of the policemen leaned in and spoke rapidly in Farsi.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know your language,” Nicole said, trying to force a scared smile despite the assault of his body odor and fish breath.

The officer leaned closer and spoke again, this time louder and slower.

Nicole managed a nervous laugh. “I don’t understand. I’m so sorry. Do any of you speak English?”

Another officer walked up and tapped Nicole’s interrogator on the shoulder. He was the one who’d dropped Yusif to the ground. As he took the place of the other officer, she noticed rank insignias on his shoulders.

He growled something in Farsi.

Raising her arms in a helpless posture, she answered, “I’m sorry, sir. But as I was telling the other officer, I don’t understand your language.”

He repeated himself, by his tone increasing his threat.

Stay in control, she told herself. Fight the panic. Be productive.

“I’m sorry”—she stole a look at his chest—“Officer Kazemi, but I can’t—”

He slapped her face. The act was obviously designed to get her attention. Not strong enough to cause her mouth to bleed but hard enough to make her cheek sting.