“You see, you could be a scout for some kind of guerrilla attack. Someone wants to bomb the mosque, but they want to know where to place the bomb. This is information you now have, and it appears to be information you’ve gone to some trouble to obtain.”

A cold breeze of fear swept through Janet. She had been in these situations before and each time the results had been disastrous: forceful hostility, beatings, rapes, hatred at its most naked.

“Sir, please, I beg you. I am no bomber, no fanatic, I am just an American woman who has seen the way to the faith and is still in grief over her husband’s death. The worst you can say of me is, I sometimes act irrationally. I know that. It gets me in trouble all the time. Perhaps my need to go to mosques for the therapeutic value makes no sense, but I can’t really seem to help it.”

The imam considered for a bit.

“I am in an unfortunate position, Mrs. Abdullah. Alas, I owe more to the mosque and its followers than I do to you. You understand, no? Now, let’s start over at the beginning. Please give me facts—facts than can be checked. This may take some time, but I would like you to stay until I am satisfied that you are of no danger to us. Or, perhaps admit that you are an FBI agent seeking to penetrate our security based on some intelligence you may have. Then we could easily disprove that intelligence—many false things are said of Moslems in the United States, many false conclusions are drawn—and you could go on your way. Would that not be the simplest?”

“But it would not be true. There is no FBI, there is no intelligence, I am merely—”

“Enough,” said the imam. “I want this to be pleasant, but you’re provoking me to behavior that I find abhorrent. I ask again, please do not make such a provocation.”

Janet thought of something to put between herself and them, something that would baffle, slow, confuse them. Nothing occurred. She felt her fear rise, and the urge to beg for mercy came over her hard. She couldn’t go through another beating. The last one had almost killed her. But when she opened her mouth, she said something that surprised even her.

“Please,” said Mrs. McDowell. “Torture me.”

•   •   •

Swagger stared at the blip. It had not moved in an hour.

“Okay,” he said, “maybe we have a complication.”

“Maybe she’s helping put up decorations for a dance,” said Nick.

They stared at the screen of the monitor that was receiving the signal from McDowell’s GPS.

“Where’s the team?” said Swagger.

“They’re in orbit around the building,” said Chandler. “They can pop the raid in a minute if I send them the go.”

“Hold on,” said Nick. “Folks, we have nothing here to go on.”