“I’m afraid it’s regulations, Mr. Strauss.”

Strauss reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “One phone call—that’s all it will take. One phone call and I get what I want. But let’s not waste valuable time. Let’s find some reasonable compromise.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Strauss told him.

“He hasn’t been out of his cell in weeks.”

“Then the fresh air will do him good.”

“Do you know how cold it is outside?”

“Get him a coat,” Strauss said.

It was beginning to get dark by the time Strauss was shown through a secure doorway leading to the west exercise yard. A folding table and two folding chairs had been placed in the precise center and arc lamps were burning along the top of the electrified fence. Four guards stood like statuary along the perimeter; two more were perched along the parapet of the watchtower with weapons trained downward. Strauss nodded in approval to the warden, then headed into the yard alone and took his seat.

Sheikh Abdullah Abdul-Razzaq emerged from the cellblock five minutes later in shackles, sandwiched between a pair of hulking guards. He was shorter than Strauss anticipated, five-six perhaps, and thin as a pauper. He wore an orange prison jumpsuit and a tan parka was draped over his boney shoulders. His beard was unkempt, and what little Strauss could see of his face was gray and slack with illness. It was the face of a dying man, he thought, a face that had not seen sunlight in many years. His eyes, however, still shone with a condescending intelligence. Lawrence Strauss was a man who earned his living making instantaneous judgments about people. His first opinion of Sheikh Abdullah was that he was a courageous and committed man—hardly the raving zealot that had been portrayed by the media and the prosecution at the time of his trial. He would be more than a worthy opponent.

As the sheikh lowered himself into the chair, Strauss looked at one of the guards. “Remove his shackles, please.”

The guard shook his head. “It’s against the rules.”

“I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Sorry,” the guard said, “but it’s a rule we never bend at the Max. Prisoners are never unshackled when they’re outside the cell. Right, Sheikh Abdullah?”

The guards gave the sheikh a pat on the back and started back to the cellblock. The Egyptian made no response other than to fix his dark eyes directly on those of Lawrence Strauss.

“Who are you?” he asked in heavily accented English.

“My name is Arthur Hamilton,” said Strauss.

“You work for the American government, Mr. Hamilton?”

Strauss shook his head. “I want to make clear from the outset that I am a private citizen. I have no connection to the government of the United States whatsoever.”