Sachs saw inside a large wooden door that, she believed, led down to a cellar. It was closed. Could Khaled be down there now?

Stephen King…

They had nearly completed the circuit of the house. One window remained. It was to the left of the front door. The curtain was partially askew so she lifted her head quickly and glanced inside.

Well.

The room was unoccupied but there was plenty to seize her attention. Above the fireplace was a hunting rifle. She couldn’t be sure, but it might very well have been a .270-caliber.

And sitting prominently in the middle of a table were a half-dozen musical-instrument strings. One had been tied into a noose.

Chapter 49

Khaled Jabril woke to fear, pure fear.

He found himself in a dim room that was damp and fetid with mold and rotting food smells. Perhaps sewage too.

Where, where?

God, praise be to Him, where am I?

Nothing made sense. He had no memory of the past…well, how long? An hour, a week? No memory at all. A vague recollection of being in a tent. It was—yes, it was under the sun. Hot sun. A tent, his home. Why was he in a tent? Had something happened to his home in Tripoli?

No, their home.

He and others. Someone…Yes! His wife! He could now picture her. Ah: Fatima! He remembered the name, praise be to God! And their child.

And she—he believed the child was a girl—was named…He could not recall, and this made him want to cry.

So cry he did.

Yes, yes, she was a girl. A beautiful curly-haired daughter.

Although was she, the girl he pictured, in fact, their daughter? She might have been his brother’s. Then another thought came to him. Italy. He was in…in Italy.

Wasn’t that right?

But where was he now? Here? He’d been in a tent. That he was pretty sure about, though for what reason, he had no idea. A tent, then nothing, then he was in this place. That was all he could recall. His memory was so bad—the result of some drug? Or had he been suffocating, his brain cells dead? Maybe. His throat hurt. And his head too. Dizzy.

A dark room. Cold.

A basement, he believed.

Who had done this? Why?

And why was his mouth gagged, sealed with tape?

Something brushed his bare feet and he screamed, loud to him, soft to the world, because of the gag.

A rat! Yes, there were several of them. Skittering, twitchy.

Were they going to devour him alive?

Oh, my God, praise be to You!

Save me!

But the half-dozen—no, dozen, no, more!—creatures passed him by on their way toward the wall to his right. They weren’t interested in him.

Not yet.

All right. What is happening here? Hands bound, feet bound. Kidnapped. Gagged. But why on earth? Why would God—praise be to Him—allow this? Now more pieces of memory returned—though none recent. Recalling being a teacher in Tripoli until education in Libya became so fraught that his secular school was closed. Then he managed an electronics store, until the economy in Libya became so fragile that the shop was looted.