“Any chance that the president is going to bend?”

“Not after this. In fact, he’s more determined than ever that this affair end without a negotiated settlement. That means we have no option but to find Elizabeth Halton before the deadline.” Carter’s gaze moved from the screen to Gabriel. “And as of this moment, your Joe appears to be our best and only hope.”

“He’s not my Joe, Adrian.”

“He is now, at least as far as official Washington is concerned.” Carter lowered the volume a decibel or two. “You caused quite a storm in Washington last night, Gabriel. Your interrogation with Ibrahim Fawaz is now required listening from Langley to the J. Edgar Hoover Building to the National Security Council.”

“How were the reviews?”

“Mixed,” said Carter. “Expert opinion is divided over whether Ibrahim was being truthful or whether he was having you on for a second time. Expert opinion thinks you may have hitched your star to him too quickly. Expert opinion also fears you may have treated him far too gingerly.”

“What does expert opinion have in mind?”

“A second interrogation,” said Carter.

“Conducted by whom?”

“By Agency men with proper Christian names instead of an Israeli assassin.”

“So you’re telling me that I’m being fired?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“You didn’t have to come all the way to Copenhagen to fire me, Adrian. A secure phone call would have sufficed.”

“I felt I owed it to you. After all, I was the one who roped you into this.”

“How decent of you. But tell me something, Adrian. Tell me exactly what your Agency interrogators think they’re going to get from Ibrahim that I didn’t get from him.”

“Full and forthright answers, for starters. Expert opinion believes he was being highly deceptive and evasive in his answers.”

“Oh, really? Did they come up with this on their own, or did the computers do it for them?”

“It was a combination of the two, actually.”

“How much more forthright would you like Ibrahim to be? He’s agreed to help us find Elizabeth Halton, and he’s given us the number of a telephone in Copenhagen that his son is calling every evening.”

“No, he’s given us a number he says his son is calling.”

“And tonight we’ll find out whether he’s telling the truth.”

“Higher authority isn’t willing to wait that long. They want Ibrahim chained to a wall now.”

“Where do they think they’re going to conduct this interrogation?”

“They were wondering whether they could borrow your facility in Germany.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that. In that case, we have two other options. We could take him to one of our facilities in eastern Europe, or we could put him on a plane to Egypt.”