Ahmet poured drinks for everyone, including, most of all, for himself. Ahmet needed alcohol to calm his nerves. As soon as he had the glass of vodka and ice in his fist, he took a large gulp of it. The fire roared down his throat and into his belly. He took another gulp. Instantly, it sent its fingers into his brain, unlocking the machinery that had seized up. He became dizzy for a moment, and then he became himself.

It was against his parents’ religion, and against every tenet of how he was raised, of course. But those things didn’t matter when you were sent abroad. Westerners drank alcohol. Westerners partied. So to fit in, that’s what you did.

And Ahmet liked alcohol. It made him feel relaxed. It made him feel more like Ahmet, if that was possible. It was as if he had been trying to be Ahmet his whole life, but never quite succeeding. And then voila! Just like that, some alcohol would hit his bloodstream, and suddenly:

Here’s Ahmet! The one we’ve been missing.

Witty, confident, handsome, compelling, a very good conversationalist, and an excellent dancer. Ahmet came into his own when he drank. And just a little was enough to perform the trick.

Waiting in the line outside, he had found himself gasping for air. He had almost become desperate for a drink—he should have taken one before he left the flat. This night… it was the culmination of a year of effort, a year of lies. It was the culmination of a year of training before that. It was the moment he had been born for—all of his potential was to be realized now, tonight. He could not let it slip through his fingers.

The daughter of the President of the United States was sitting three feet away from him. And almost no one knew she was here.

She was pretty, maybe even beautiful, in the big, well-fed, perfect-teeth blonde way of the United States. But her looks did not matter to him. He did not love her. He did not want to marry her or date her. He might try to kiss her, but only to put her at her ease, and lull her into a sense of security.

But he had to act fast! She and Rita had slipped away from the security protecting her. How long could that last? Another hour? Another five minutes?

When the security discovered her missing, they were going to come with the full weight of the imperialists. The entire country would be locked down. The city would be closed. The borders would be closed. There would be no way out, and then the house-to-house searches would begin.

If necessary, the bloodbath would begin.

Now. He had to move on this now. Everything depended on it.