They entered the sitting room. It was furnished with the formal but anonymous elegance usually reserved for hotel hospitality suites. Carter helped her off with her coat and invited her to sit.

“So why am I back?”

“It’s a fluid world, Sarah. Things change. So tell me something. Under what circumstances do you think it’s right to take sides?”

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

“Sure you have,” Carter said, and Sarah, for the second time, saw her grief counselor, sitting in his floral wingchair with his ceramic mug balanced on his knee, dully prodding her to visit places she’d rather not go. “Come on, Sarah,” Carter was saying. “Give me just one example of when you believe it’s all right to take sides.”

“I believe in right and wrong,” she said, lifting her chin a little. “Which probably explains why I flunked your little tests. Your world is shades of gray. I tend to be a bit too black and white.”

“Is that what your father told you?”

No, she thought, it was Ben who accused her of that failing.

“What’s this all about?” she asked. “Why am I here?”

But Carter was still turning over the implications of her last response. “And what about the terrorists?” he asked, and once again it seemed to Sarah as if the thought had just popped into his head. “That’s what I’m wondering about. How do they fit into Sarah Bancroft’s world of right and wrong? Are they evil, or is their cause legitimate? Are we the innocent victims, or have we brought this calamity upon ourselves? Must we sit back and take it, or do we have the right to resist them with all the force and anger we can muster?”

“I’m an assistant curator at the Phillips Collection,” she said. “Do you really want me to wax lyrical on the morals of counterterrorism?”

“Let’s narrow the focus of our question then. I always find that helpful. Let’s take for an example the man who drove Ben’s plane into the World Trade Center.” Carter paused. “Remind me, Sarah, which plane was Ben on?”

“You know which plane he was on,” she said. “He was on United Flight 175.”

“Which was piloted by…”

“Marwan al-Shehhi.”

“Suppose for a moment that Marwan al-Shehhi had managed somehow to survive. I know it’s crazy, Sarah, but play along with me for argument’s sake. Suppose he managed to make his way back to Afghanistan or Pakistan or some other terrorist sanctuary. Suppose we knew where he was. Should we send the FBI with a warrant for his arrest, or should we deal with him in a more efficient manner? Men in black? Special forces? A Hellfire missile fired from a plane without a pilot?”

“I think you know what I would do to him.”

“Suppose I’m interested in hearing it from your own lips before we go further.”