“If tomorrow isn’t good enough, then your girl dies tonight.”

Another glance at Carter. Another nod of the head.

“All right, Ishaq. What time are you going to call me tomorrow?”

“I’ll call at noon Copenhagen time.”

“Too long, Ishaq. I want to hear from you much sooner than that.”

“It’s noon or nothing. It’s your choice.”

“All right, noon it is. Don’t disappoint me.”

The line went dead. Gabriel hung up the phone and buried his face in his hands. “I gave him room to maneuver, Adrian, just like Washington wanted, and he maneuvered me right into a corner.”

“We’ll wait until tomorrow and listen to what he has to say.”

“And what if we don’t like what he has to say?”

“Then we won’t accept the deal.”

“No, Adrian, we’ll do exactly what he tells us to do. Because if we don’t, he’s going to kill her.”

Chapter 37

37

Their security had been exceptionally good. They never entered her cell without their faces covered, and not once since the initial seconds of her capture had they spoken a single word to her. They had permitted her no newspapers or reading material of any kind, and a request for a radio to help pass the empty hours had been met by a slow shake of Cain’s head. She had lost track of how long she had been in captivity. She had no idea whether the rest of the world thought she was alive or dead. Nor did she have any clue as to her whereabouts. She might still be in the east of England, she thought, or she might be in a cave complex in Tora Bora. Of one thing, however, she was certain: her captors were moving her on a regular basis.

The proof of movement was plain for her to see. The rooms where she was being held were all variations of the first—white walls, a camp bed, a single lamp, a door with a spy hole—but each was clearly different. She would have been able to discern this even if they had forced her to wear a blindfold, because her senses of smell and hearing were now heightened to an animal acuteness. She could hear them coming long before they slid the notes beneath her door and now could distinguish Cain from Abel by scent alone. Her last cell had stunk of liquid bleach. The one where she was being held now was filled with the pleasant aroma of coffee and Middle Eastern spices. She was in a market, she thought, or perhaps the warehouse of a distributor that supplied grocers in Arab neighborhoods.