Jadallah Zuwayy stomped off to his private residence, kicking furniture and individuals out of his way with equal fury. “How dare she?” he shouted as he slammed the door to his apartment closed. “How dare that bitch spit in my face like that? Who does she think she is?”

“Who, my lord?” a woman’s thickly accented voice asked behind him.

“An Egyptian whore that has the unmitigated balls to tell me what to do!”

The woman approached him, naked, holding a crystal glass of thick, potent arkasus, or licorice brandy, in one hand, and a silver tray with a linen napkin covering it. He tossed down the brandy in one gulp. She set the tray down on a nightstand beside a lounge sofa, then kissed the back of his neck and started to massage his shoulders. “Why don’t you just eliminate this Egyptian whore, my lord?” the woman asked.

“Because she was just elected president of the Muslim Brotherhood, and she is a guest in my country,” Zuwayy said. “Do you know nothing of Arab culture, Russian?”

Ivana Vasilyeva felt for the knot of bone at the base of Zuwayy’s long, scrawny neck, then counted the right number of vertebrae up—right there. Snap that bone and Zuwayy would become a helpless lump of flesh on the floor, unable to do anything—except feel pain. But she simply continued her massage. “Forgive me, my lord,” Vasilyeva said. “You must instruct me about your country and all its customs.”

Zuwayy turned, ran a hand roughly over a nipple, then pinched it, hard. Vasilyeva opened her mouth in a half-yelp of pain and half-moan of pleasure. “The first lesson is: Women must learn to be subservient,” Zuwayy said. “You are nothing but bleeding, whining creatures who respond better to the lash than to reason or reality. The quicker you understand this, the happier your life will be.”

“Yes, master,” Vasilyeva said.

Zuwayy kissed her lips roughly, released her nipple, then lay down on the lounger. He rolled up the sleeve of his right arm. “You were recommended to me because you had a unique talent. Show me. And if you disappoint me, you shall pay dearly for it.”

“I understand, master.” Vasilyeva removed the linen napkin from the tray, revealing a hypodermic syringe and a rubber hose. She wrapped the hose around Zuwayy’s biceps, kissed his right hand, then curled his fingers for him, silently telling him to make a fist. Zuwayy never felt the needle slip into his vein; never felt a thing as Vasilyeva injected the drug.