A SMALL square chamber, no more than ten feet on either side. Porcelain-white walls. Photographs. Arab men at Abu Ghraib. Arab men in cages at Guantánamo Bay. A hooded Muslim terrorist holding the severed head of an American hostage. In the center of the room a metal table bolted to the floor. In the center of the table an iron loop. Attached to the loop a pair of handcuffs. Sarah screamed and flailed against them. It was useless, of course. One pinned her arms to the table while the second secured the handcuffs to her wrists. A chair was thrust into the back of her legs. Two hands forced her into it. Muhammad tore the veil from her face and slapped her twice.

“ARE YOU ready to talk?”

“Yes.”

“No more lies?”

She shook her head.

“Say it, Sarah. No more lies.”

“No—more—lies.”

“You’re going to tell me everything you know?”

“Every—thing.”

“You’re cold?”

“Freezing.”

“Would you like something warm to drink?”

She nodded.

“Tea? You drink tea, Sarah.”

Another nod.

“How do you take your tea, Sarah?”

“You can’t—be serious.”

“How do you take your tea?”

“With cyanide.”

He smiled mirthlessly. “You should be so lucky. We’ll have tea, then we’ll talk.”

THEY ALL THREE exited the room. Muhammad closed the door and put the padlock back into place. Sarah lowered her head to the table and closed her eyes. In her mind an image formed—the image of a clock counting down the minutes to her execution. Muhammad was bringing her tea. Sarah opened the glass cover of her imaginary clock and moved the hands back five minutes.

34. Canton Uri, Switzerland

Canton Uri, Switzerland

THEY BROUGHT THE TEA Arab-style in a small glass. Sarah’s hands remained cuffed. To drink she had to lower her head toward the table and slurp noisily while Muhammad gazed at her in revulsion. His own tea remained untouched. It stood between his open notebook and a loaded pistol.

“You can’t make me vanish and expect no one to notice,” she said.

He looked up and blinked several times rapidly. Sarah, free of the abaya, examined him in the harsh light of the interrogation chamber. He was bald to the crown of his angular head, and his remaining hair and beard were cropped to precisely the same length. His dark eyes were partially concealed behind a pair of academic spectacles, which flashed with reflected light each time he looked up from his notepad. His expression was open and strangely earnest for an interrogator, and his face, when he was not screaming or threatening to strike her, was vaguely pleasant. At times he seemed to Sarah like an eager young journalist posing questions to a politician standing at a podium.