Her heightened senses had allowed her to gather one other piece of information: there was a distinct rhythm to her movements. This rhythm was not measured by hours and minutes—time, for all her attempts to capture it, remained a mystery to her—but in the number of meals she was given in each location. It was always the same: four meals of identical content, then a shot of the ketamine, then she would awaken in a new room with new smells. Thus far she had been given three meals in her current location. Her fourth would be coming soon. Elizabeth knew that, in all likelihood, it would be followed several hours later by an injection of ketamine. She would struggle, but her struggle would quickly turn to submission in the face of greater strength and numbers.

Submission…

That was their goal. Submission was the overall goal of the global jihadists and it was the goal of Elizabeth’s captors as well. The global jihadists wanted the West to submit to the will of violent Salafist Islam. Elizabeth’s captors wanted her to submit to the needle and the mind-numbing rhythm of their movements and their notes. They wanted her weak and compliant, a sheep that offers its throat willingly to the ritual knife. Elizabeth had decided that her days of submission were over. She had decided to stage a rebellion, a rebellion she hoped would provide her with information as to her whereabouts, a rebellion fought with the only two weapons available to her—her own life and her knowledge of medicine. She closed her eyes and inhaled the pleasant aroma of coffee and cinnamon. And she waited for Cain to open the door and present her with her fourth meal.

Chapter 38

38

COPENHAGEN: 2:52 P.M., THURSDAY

So it comes down to the two of us once again,” Ibrahim said. “I suppose that’s fitting.”

Gabriel cleared the windshield of his Audi A8 sedan with a flick of the wiper blades. The King’s New Square appeared before him, shrouded in a bridal veil of snowfall. Ibrahim was sitting silently in the passenger seat, freshly scrubbed and dressed for his own funeral in a borrowed gray suit and overcoat. His hands were folded primly in his lap, good hand atop ruined hand, and his eyes were on his shoes. Gabriel’s telephone lay in the console. Its signal was being monitored inside the CIA station at the American embassy and at NSA headquarters.

“You’re not going to give me another one of your lectures, are you, Ibrahim?”

“I’m still a professor at heart,” he said. “I can’t help it.”

Gabriel decided to indulge him. A lecture was better than silence.

“Why do you suppose it’s fitting?”