It was Benane for whom Aziz had been searching on his last day in camp, serving tea for the officers. And that night, one of Antar’s men had turned to him and said, Vite, mon frère, Benane attende.

He shifted an ache in his arm. No one had mentioned Benane since. At the time Aziz saw nothing strange in irhabiya telling him, a seeming army deserter, that Colonel Benane was the next terrorist target. But Sellami was driving him to Benane’s. Benane, quite alive. If the voice in his ear that first night near the desert had meant they were going to kill Benane, it had not happened. It occurred to him now that the words also could have meant, Benane has been waiting for you. Waiting for you to join this undercover mishmash with these Islamist, Salafist, jihadist freaks. But how did months of killing government sympathizers help the government cause?

Wait. Hadn’t Sellami on the phone just now said Ben Aknoun?

If only his brain would work. It stopped just as it got started. Ben Aknoun was military intelligence. It was where the DRS shock troops came from. It was where Islamist jihadists were tortured. Aziz had interpreted Sellami’s telephone talk just now in the SUV about Ben Aknoun to mean that other terrorists, allies of Antar’s, could not help Sellami with the wounded Aziz. They were being held in Ben Aknoun. Comrades were out of commission. No help could come from them. But what if Sellami meant it another way? What if Sellami’s comrades were not the ones being tortured but the torturers?

You tell Tahar he has fucked us. Sellami said that on the phone too, more than once. Aziz felt near to understanding something, but when he got close it fumed into gas.

He was back in the sand when they were holding his feet. How many know of Ben Aknoun? That was what Aziz had asked them. Perhaps these ones were they, he remembered thinking.

These ones, Antar’s ones: Tahar’s men? No. No. It could not be. Antar’s men were the men Tahar wanted to kill. Aziz strained to remember his own words. What if I belong to Tahar? Maybe he had said it a little differently. What if I came from Tahar? He had assumed they took him to mean he had come from being tortured at the hands of Tahar. Some of the men holding his ankles that night were confused. Some wanted to let him go. Some said no.

“There is an underground entrance,” Sellami was saying. Aziz shook himself. “And it will be dark by the time we get there. A doctor will be waiting for us.”

It had to have been Sellami who said those words that night. Vite, mon frère, Benane attende.

“Will Benane be there?” Aziz asked.

“I do not know yet.”