“There. Recep teahouse.” Connor nods at a few plastic tables outside a cinder-block house beside the medrese. The teahouse seems to have an exclusively male clientele. Two bearded men in military-looking fatigues and sunglasses are lounging at the table nearest the road. Their impassivity makes them conspicuous; they’re so self-conscious it’s almost ostentatious. They’re the only men who aren’t smoking, sipping, talking, or smiling. “That’s got to be them.”
Penny’s voice comes out as a rasp. “No Zach.”
“No surprise. They want to see what we’ve got to bargain with.”
Penny looks at the fluted dome of the medrese. Years of skill and training and labor and devotion went into making that beautiful shelter for learning and faith. And across the road are actual terrorists, just sitting in a teahouse.
Suddenly, all the normalcy feels like a flimsy plastic shell around a live grenade.
“You’re scared,” says Connor.
Penny makes a face. “Of course I am.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“This is my plan.” Penny hopes she sounds tough. “Besides, they’ve seen both of us. If I don’t come now, it’ll look suspicious.” She reaches for the door handle.
“Hang on.” Connor pulls the tie out of his pocket. “Got to look the part.”
She glances up at him. “I guess you’ve been on lots of dangerous assignments?”
“Loads.” He tries to knot the tie around his neck. Penny can see his hands are trembling.
“Here.” She reaches up to help him. “My grandpa taught me how.”
“Essential skill.” He’s clearly suppressing a smile. But his hands are steady now.
“Where I come from, not so many guys wear ties.” Penny hands the fare up to the front seat. “You should have seen the way the people in the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room stared at the Special Investigator guy when he turned up in a suit to interview me for my clearance.”
Connor makes a face. “Everything about that sentence is wrong.”
“Dikkat edin,” the driver warns as they climb out. “Be careful. You find some bad people at that teahouse.”
The light hammers at Penny’s eyes. The heat as they cross toward the teahouse is lung crushing. It must be every bit of 110 degrees.
“No sudden moves,” says Connor quietly. “There’s a sniper on the roof of the medrese.”
Penny’s neck throbs. So much for neutral ground. “What do we do?”
“Keep walking.”
Penny doesn’t trust herself to speak.
The men in sunglasses don’t get up as they approach the plastic table.
“Good morning,” says Connor, touching a hand to his chest. “Is one of you Al-Sadiq?”
One of the men in sunglasses, the florid-faced one with the reddish-blond neck beard, gestures at Penny. “You did not mention a woman.” His accent sounds German.
“You didn’t mention a sniper,” says Connor.
Both of the men in sunglasses stand up. Each has a knife and gun strapped to his belt.
The stocky, black-bearded older one says, “Explain yourself.” Penny can’t place his accent. Not Turkish or Arab, for sure. Some kind of Central Asian—Uzbek, maybe? “You said you had serious information to sell.” He takes stock of them. “You don’t look serious to me.”
“Let’s all sit down,” says Penny.
The two men act as if they didn’t hear her.
“Why is she here?” demands the German. His pale, fleshy lower lip pouts out.
“We’re only authorized to speak with Al-Sadiq,” says Connor.
“Authorized?” The German’s already sunburned cheeks go even redder.
“Jamal,” says Blackbeard in a low, warning voice. He frowns at Connor. “I am Al-Sadiq.”
“Your execution of Davut Mehmetoğlu did not go unnoticed,” says Connor.
“I told you. They are spies from Dar al-Kufr!” Jamal’s whisper is ragged with eager rage. He uses an old extremist slur for the West, “the land of the infidel.” In his German accent, it sounds like a kind of liverwurst.
“We are negotiators,” says Penny.
Al-Sadiq looks to Connor. “Is this true?”
Connor nods. “Like I wrote on ExciDox, our employers were impressed by the Embassy bombing.”
Al-Sadiq nods.
“Which is why,” Connor continues, “we’re prepared to extend you an offer. Bombs can only do so much harm. We have information far more damaging to both America and Palamut’s government in Turkey than any bomb. Enough to push America out of the peace process. Information we’re prepared to share. If we can find the right people. And the right terms.”
“That’s why we’re here,” says Al-Sadiq.
“Then you’ll negotiate?” Penny can tell Connor is trying not to sound excited.
“It depends what you have,” says Al-Sadiq drily. “And what exactly you are asking in exchange.”
“We’re not asking much. Just Zachary Robson. Don’t bother denying it,” Connor adds, as Al-Sadiq starts to speak. “We know he’s here.”
“No deal!” Jamal evidently relishes his own growl. The beard makes it hard to tell, but Penny’s beginning to doubt that he’s even out of his teens. “We do not bargain with infidels!”
“My brother,” Al-Sadiq tells him sharply, “be humble.”
Jamal bows his head and mutters a penitent apology. “Astaghfirullah.”
Al-Sadiq turns back to Connor. His voice is flat, almost deadpan. “A deal?”
Connor nods.
“Whom do you represent?”
“I’m not able to disclose.”
Al-Sadiq points at Connor’s PB pistol and asks something in what sounds like Russian.
Connor pats the gun, smiling slightly. “Interesting theory.”
“That’s not an answer,” says Al-Sadiq.
Connor shrugs. “You’re a smart guy. If we are what you think we are, would we confirm it?”
Al-Sadiq’s eyes are alert. “Why are you speaking English?”
“You want to speak Chinese?”
“Why Zach Robson?”
“I’m not able to disclose.”
“Then I’m not able to negotiate.”
“Shame.” Connor turns to Penny and says something in Russian. She makes out the word taksi. She nods solemnly.
“If Zach Robson is so valuable,” says Al-Sadiq, “why should we give him up?”
Connor gives the sigh of the long-suffering middleman. “Robson has specific information of great value to my employer, but worthless to anyone else.”
“Convenient,” scoffs Al-Sadiq. “And you think we will take all this on faith? Your employers won’t identify themselves. They sent us a pair of children. Why should we even speak to you?”
“We wanted to give you room to maneuver,” says Penny. “If our employers came, the eyes of the world would be on you. But to us, you can speak plainly.”
Al-Sadiq still won’t look at her. He takes a step toward Connor. “How do we know Daesh did not send you? Now that the Hashashin grow strong, those nawasib pigs get jealous.”
“Do we look like the kind of people Daesh would send?” says Connor.
“No,” says Al-Sadiq. “You look like the kind of people the Americans would send.”
Penny crosses her arms. “If the Americans sent us, you’d already be dead.”
Al-Sadiq stares at Connor. “I don’t like games.”
“Neither do we,” says Connor. “Which is why we came alone. You can check the entire province. No tanks. No backup. No eyes watching us. We’re here to play clean.”
“We shall see.” Al-Sadiq gives an order in accented Arabic. Jamal pulls out his cell and steps away from the table.
“May we sit down while we wait?” asks Connor.
Al-Sadiq frowns. “The woman, she sits apart.”
With ill grace, Penny drags a plastic chair a couple of feet away from the table. It scrapes loudly across the ground.
&
nbsp; When they’re all seated, Al-Sadiq says, “I will need proof that you have something worth negotiating for.”
“I could tell you about Operation Liberty Echo.”
Al-Sadiq’s only visible reaction is to sit a little straighter.
Connor presses his advantage. “Maybe we could discuss the little assassination last month in Sharjah. Or I could tell you that as of Monday’s satellite images, you have three dozen trucks at the Tel Ismail camp. Or—”
“So you have been monitoring the Americans monitoring us,” says Al-Sadiq coldly. “If that is all you have, we are done here.”
“Let’s stop wasting time,” says Connor. “Take a good look at my colleague’s face.”
Al-Sadiq recoils. “We do not . . .”
“Just look.”
Al-Sadiq waits a full thirty seconds. At last, he pushes his sunglasses down his nose. He glances sidelong at Penny, as if the sight of a female might burn his retinas.
Irritated, she pulls her head scarf down around her neck.
He stares. “That girl. From the picture. With the flag?” Al-Sadiq turns back to Connor. “They said that she was dead.”
Penny crosses her arms. “I guess they lied.”
Jamal hurries back to them, his belly jiggling as he runs.
“Yes?” asks Al-Sadiq.
“What the kuffār say is true, my brother. There is no one following them.”
Jamal’s got to be new, thinks Penny. He keeps shoehorning in unnecessary Arabic, trying too hard.
“Well?” says Connor.
“What exactly are you offering?” says Al-Sadiq.
“You guys like making movies, don’t you?” Connor turns to Penny. “I hear she photographs great.”
“And I talk, too,” says Penny. “Anything that you want me to say.”
“Is that all?” says Al-Sadiq.
“We will discuss terms with your commander,” says Penny. “When you bring us Zach Robson.”
Al-Sadiq scowls at Connor. “You should remind the woman that you are not in a position to make demands.”
“We must verify that Zach Robson is still alive and in appropriate condition,” says Penny. “Otherwise, we have nothing to discuss.”
Connor shrugs. “She’s right, Mr. Al-Sadiq.”
“We will discuss this somewhere more private.” Al-Sadiq rises to his feet and begins to walk away. Connor and Penny jump up as well.
“What about the bill?” says Penny. “For your Fanta?”
“Affedersiniz!” The owner of the teahouse, hastening toward them, clearly has similar ideas. “That’s four lira.”
Al-Sadiq’s face registers pure contempt. He just keeps walking toward the white Toyota Land Cruiser parked a hundred feet down the road.
An old man nursing a purple sumac şerbet says, in Turkish, “Come on, Anas. What’s the point?”
“No,” says the teahouse owner. “These assholes only do what they can get away with. You’ve got to draw a line.” He raises his voice. “Come on. This isn’t Syria. The bill’s four lira.”
Al-Sadiq doesn’t break stride. “Jamal.”
The young man beams and pulls out his gun.
The owner ducks just in time. The window behind him shatters.
“No!” cries Penny. “Stop!”
“Leave him,” Connor urges Jamal. “We have more important things to do.”
Jamal’s arm slackens.
Penny exhales. Thank God.
Bang.
The old man’s head hits the table in a spreading pool of blood and sugary purple sumac şerbet. The man called Anas runs shouting to his side.
On the roof of the medrese, the sniper lowers his gun.
“Come,” orders Al-Sadiq.
Connor tugs Penny’s arm.
She whispers, “But he . . .”
“Say a prayer for the old man,” says Connor. “There’s nothing else we can do.”
“Anyone calls the police, and you will die!” shouts Jamal in Turkish.
“Leave them alone!” Penny’s hands clench into fists.
“Think,” whispers Connor. “You can’t help Zach if you get shot!”
Numbly, Penny falls in beside him. They follow Al-Sadiq down the yellow-dust road.
A couple of bearded men sporting machine guns step out of the white Land Cruiser.
“Oh, no,” whispers Connor.
Penny gives him a sharp look. “What?”
His voice is urgent. “Just don’t resist, okay?”
“What?”
Someone pulls an empty onion sack over her head.
* * *
MOR SAMUEL MONASTERY, AL-HASAKAH GOVERNORATE, SYRIA
09:07 LOCAL TIME
The long, narrow refectory of Mor Samuel monastery is as quiet as it is dark. The Hashashin aren’t much for breakfast chitchat—and most of the garrison ate four hours ago, at five, after morning prayers. Flies buzz in the sticky shadow of a jar of pekmez, sweet grape molasses.
Now, only two men are seated at a corner of the monks’ old marble refectory table.
Outside the door, out of earshot, stand four high school dropouts with AK-47s.
“Explain,” says the bearded man.
“I’ve told you everything.”
“What are they doing here?”
“How should I know?” Zachary Robson pushes a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture. They drill those easy tells out of you pretty fast at the Farm. He’s slipping.
“The brothers wanted to send you to hell with Mehmetoğlu. Perhaps I made a mistake in stopping them.”
“I told you I’m worth more alive. Do you think those two would be here if I weren’t?”
“We shall see what the girl can tell us,” says Faisal.
“No.” Zach’s deep voice is urgent, almost desperate. “Let me question her.”
“Look at my hands.” Faisal can’t be more than thirty-five, but he has the hands of an old man: pale, twisted, scarred. “Phosphoric acid. I learned a lot from you people at Abu Ghraib. I don’t need your help with an interrogation.”
“Let me question her.” Zach’s low voice is coaxing. “She trusts me.”
The bearded man’s face is stony.
Flies buzz in the silence.
“Look.” Zach leans forward across the stone table. “She’s an intern. She doesn’t know what she knows. You wouldn’t even know what to ask her.”
“What is that saying?” Faisal’s mouth twists. “You kill more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
“Catch. It’s ‘catch more flies.’ ”
“I’m out of patience, Mr. Robson.” Faisal stands up. “She talks, or you die.”
Zach’s hand slams down.
The flattened fly is splayed against the stone.
* * *
MARDIN, TURKEY
09:20 LOCAL TIME
Invisible hands pull Penny’s wrists behind her back and shove her into the backseat of the Toyota. She can feel the heat of bodies on either side of her—smell the clovey cologne, too. The motion of the car throws her back in the seat.
Where are they going?
“Mr. Al-Sadiq!” Connor’s muffled voice, on her left, is surprisingly controlled, but she can hear his anger. “Is this really necessary?”
Al-Sadiq’s voice from the front of the vehicle: “You come with us, you come on our terms.”
“We’re here to negotiate,” splutters Penny, as self-righteously as she can manage through a faceful of cloth.
There’s the dull thwack of a fist into a stomach, and a groan from Connor. Penny hunches forward, head throbbing again. The rough fiber grates against the cuts on her face. The money Connor entrusted to her is prickly under the left shoulder strap of her bra. Car sickness is boiling up. She thinks of the old man facedown in blood and purple sumac şerbet. Is there someone who loves him waiting for him to come home from that teahouse?
Concentrate on Zach, she tells herself. Al-Sadiq speaks in terse Arabic, apparently into his phone
. No one else makes a sound.
Terror strips Penny of her sense of time. She can feel the Toyota rattling downhill, driving level, and then climbing upward again. Has it been five minutes? Half an hour? More?
A sudden splatter of gunshots. The crunch of punctured glass.
“Türkischen Soldaten!” cries Jamal.
This must be the Turkish border blockade.
Frantic hands shove Penny’s shoulders down.
Someone next to her in the Toyota starts firing back, the breathless chink-and-sputter of a machine gun, intolerably loud.
Penny’s unprotected eardrums feel like they’re going to pop. She struggles, every muscle braced. “What’s happening?”
The Toyota accelerates over bumpy ground, racing away from the sound of bullets. Another round of blasts beside her. She can hear the men breathing heavily.
The Toyota slopes down and over what feels like a bumpy dirt road. No light visible through the cloth. Cooler. A tunnel?
“Okay,” says Al-Sadiq’s voice. “Fast!”
Back up into daylight. A hand grabs Penny by the scruff of the neck and hauls her back up onto the seat.
Without warning, the Toyota rockets uphill. Penny hears shouts, and the squeak of hinges. Then, just as suddenly, the Toyota comes to an abrupt stop. With no seat belt to hold her back, Penny slams blindly into the back of the driver’s seat. Hands pull her back, then outside into the unfiltered heat. They release her wrists, and she yanks off the sack. At first she still can’t see; it’s like staring into a white spotlight. Her cuts burn; that antibiotic ointment wore off a long time ago. The blue head scarf slips down around her neck like a heavy winter shawl; hot wind ruffles her jagged bangs. She squints around at the wide and ancient-looking courtyard, packed with a barracks’ worth of men in various stages of battle dress. Around her rise sun-soaked walls of saffron-colored stone. The bullet-freckled Toyota is parked beside that unmistakable hexagonal tower.
They are inside Mor Samuel monastery.
Syria.
“Penny!” Connor is right next to her, thank goodness. Sweat streaks his face; his skin is blotchy with the first signs of heatstroke. His hands are knotted behind his back, with what looks like Liza’s guitar-string garrote.
She grabs his arm. “They hit you?”
“Not that hard. But they took my gun, my wallet—everything. They frisk you, too?”
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