The driver shakes his head.

“There is no need, sister. They will have something for you there,” he says.

I swallow hard. Mom tries to read my face.

“I just asked if we could stop somewhere to get drinks,” I say softly in English. I repeat the driver’s response to Mom, who stiffens a bit. Clay, sitting in the passenger seat next to the driver, swivels his head to look back at Mom and me.

“How’s everything going?” he asks.

“Good,” I say, even as I run escape scenarios in my head. We could jump out at an intersection, press the driver for the truth, or send a distress message from my phone. I will not let us become three more ticks on the register of stolen lives.

We pass billboards advertising cell-phone companies and travel agencies. The road becomes wider, the buildings shorter and farther apart from their neighbors. The smoke gives way to dust. We are on the outskirts of Kabul, heading east. The city falls away and the driver’s cell phone rings. He answers, telling the caller we will arrive shortly. Then he listens, nodding and looking at me in the rearview once more.

I search the backseat for anything that can be used as a weapon. I take a pen out of my purse and make a mental list of the places into which I can plunge its tip. When Mom sees my white-knuckled grip on the pen, her forehead wrinkles with worry.

“Ary . . .” she says. She means to reassure me, but I see a flicker of doubt cross her face. She looks at the back of the driver’s head.

“My friend,” Clay says, with his usual charm, “are we going where I think we’re going?”

The driver looks at him briefly, then turns his eyes back to the road.

“He’s asking if you’re taking us to Pol-e-charkhi,” I say in Dari.

The driver nods.

My father had advised President Daoud against the creation of a prison so large. When you build a prison large enough to swallow all our schools, do not be surprised to see it do just that.

The prison appears like a citadel in a desert. High stone walls topped with barbed wire. Corner towers with watch guards in position. It is ten blocks long and just as wide, with the central buildings laid out in the shape of a wheel. Clay looks over at me, his cell phone in his hand.

“No signal out here,” he says. “How about you?”

I check my phone. Reception is faint for me as well. Still, I tap out a quick email to Carla at the U.S. embassy.

We’re at Pol-e-charkhi. Brought here by people from Ministry of Interior after I met with them and inquired about recovered bodies. They are not saying much yet.

I click Send. The message goes into a queue, to be sent when a network becomes available.