“Okay,” said Hossein, ripping his hand out of Kaplan’s grip and shoving the phone into his pocket. “If she makes any more ‘self-harm’ attempts or, god forbid, suicide attempts, I want everyone in your agency to know that it was you who overrode my decision, which you shouldn’t have the authority to do.”

Kaplan cocked his head to the side, unable to resist the tiniest of smirks. “Well, I shouldn’t have the authority to do a lot of things I get to do. If you want the ability to exact punitive extrajudicial measures, you should quit the air force and join the agency.”

Hossein stilled, and Kaveh could swear he saw the faintest of trembles in the man’s lower lip. Then Hossein turned and stormed into the hallway, slamming the door behind him as he brushed right past Cora and Luciana.

Once again, he was alone with Kaplan, and whatever fragile alliance they had wafted away in the breeze. Kaplan turned to him, now ready to turn his bully energy on Kaveh. “You’re taking her home, huh?”

Kaveh tried to center himself, take a breath, do everything he could not to escalate this situation further. “Would you rather take her?”

“Honestly, yeah.” Kaplan studied him for a while, eventually shaking his head with resignation. “I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to milk her for all she’s worth, wring her out until she’s a dried-out husk, then dump her on the side of the road. But I know she’d rather go with you. It didn’t take much for you to indoctrinate her against me.”

“Dude, you treat her like shit! This doesn’t have anything to do with you waterboarding terror suspects. You treat her like garbage and then act all surprised that she’d rather be with the person who’s nice to her!”

Kaplan looked at him like he was making these accusations up out of whole cloth. “I’m not the person who has everything to gain by exploiting her situation.”

He resisted the urge to get violent. It was a terrible, terrible idea. Kaveh, the egghead New York journalist who had lifted a weight maybe five times in his entire life, taking a swing at a trained CIA operative who had pulled god knows how many fingernails out of how many terror suspects. “I’m taking her home.”

He moved toward the door, but Kaplan stepped into his path. “You think I’m a monster, don’t you?”

Kaveh stopped, took a moment to choose his words. “What do you care what I think?”