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  “Do you expect me to accept that?”

  “It’s the truth. And if it helps, I thought the whole exercise was unnecessary, since neither of you posed any threat to us anymore.”

  Sasha was shouting at him now. “Help? How is that supposed to help? Besides, if you didn’t agree with it you could’ve warned me.”

  “You expect me to choose sides against my own people?” Saif shouted back. “You’re the one who’s on the wrong side!”

  “If I’m on the wrong side, then what was this nonsensical message that you wanted your Western Orchid back at your side?” Sasha was leaning forward, straining against the bonds on her arms, feeling the veins in her neck throbbing.

  Saif leaned toward her, still shouting, “It was an invitation to choose the right path, to rule with me and do some good for the people of Saudi Arabia, finally do some good with your life!”

  “Finally?”

  “Yes! After wasting it by either indulging your own desires or letting others use you to indulge theirs. Becoming a whore to one of the royals, then a tool used by the CIA and Yassar for whatever they choose.”

  “How dare you!” She hurled herself forward at him with her fists raised as far as she could with her arms bound to the chair. Saif sidestepped her, sent her tumbling sideways onto the floor with a shove. As she struggled to get up, Saif put his foot on the chair to hold her down.

  He called out to his men and two of them ran into the room. Saif said to them, “Lash her feet to the chair until it’s time to take her to the toilet.” Then he turned and said to Sasha, “I expected no less. I’ll give you some time to think about this rationally, and we’ll talk again.” He walked from the room.

  Sasha’s earlier question to herself was now answered. She wasn’t feeling anger toward Saif. It was hatred.

  Every six hours or so, three men came into the room where Sasha was imprisoned to give her water and take her to the toilet. One man put a prong dog collar around her neck with a leash attached to it. Then the two others cut the straps binding her arms and legs to the chair. The leash man led her while the two others guarded her, armed, keeping their distance as if she were a grizzly bear. They took her to a room down the hall with a hole in the floor that reeked of sewage, where she was instructed to squat. They never took their guns, or their eyes, off her.

  The lights went off in her room at an appropriate interval for night and came back on during the day—at least that’s what it seemed to Sasha. She wondered if they were trying to make her think she was there longer than she was, but then based on the growl in her stomach, she decided that she had in fact been there for a few days. A few more days without food and she’d become too weak to fight for very long, but they were giving her plenty of water, so she knew she could carry on that way for weeks without dying, if it came to that. But it wouldn’t come to that if she could help it.

  In the middle of the first day, she’d tried to work herself to the wall where her abaya was hanging, in order to send a distress signal. She tipped her chair sideways, then rolled onto her front and supported herself on her forearms and toes. She was then able to inch forward, caterpillar-style, toward the wall. She made it to the wall in what seemed like about an hour, then collapsed, too exhausted to make a try to get herself upright and reach for the abaya. She rested, anxious every minute about the guards coming in again. She fell asleep, and when she awoke, she wasn’t sure how long she’d lain there, but it was dark in the room by that time. She forced her chair upright and then tried to reach for her abaya, but couldn’t feel it because she couldn’t reach high enough given how tightly her arms were bound to the chair. Dejected, she worked her way back to the middle of the room, forced the chair upright and, as she fell asleep, resolved to try again the next day.

  The next day after they brought her back from the toilet, she flexed her arms and legs as they cinched the plastic handcuffs up against them to bind her back to the chair, hoping for enough slack when she relaxed that she would have more flexibility to move. She was right. The next day’s trek to the wall was easier, faster. And when she reached the wall this time the lights were still on. She still couldn’t reach her abaya with her hands, but she was able to get up high enough on her tiptoes that she could grab the fabric in her teeth. She worked her way up the fabric in her mouth, found a seam and then felt between her teeth for one of the transmitters. She felt something hard. Got one. She knew just beyond it in the seam would be the plastic pouch containing the battery acid. She couldn’t quite reach it. She settled back down off her toes and the back legs of the chair hit the floor.

  Now what?

  She could either take one more try at getting up on her toes, or sink her teeth into the abaya and try to yank it off the hook to the floor. That was risky, but maybe the guard coming back into the room might think it had simply fallen off the hook.

  Sri Ganesha, she prayed to her Remover of Obstacles.

  She got back on her toes, bit into the fabric of the abaya and pulled, then let her weight carry her backward. She heard a tear and then the abaya slid off.

  She felt a surge of adrenaline.

  She got her hands into the fabric, found one of the transmitters, then the pouch containing the battery acid and squeezed it. She dropped the abaya to the floor, then tilted her chair sideways, rolled on her front and caterpillar-walked her way back to the center of the room. She tilted herself back upright again and breathed deeply. One small triumph for the last few days. At least now Tom and his team would know where she was, or at least that she was still alive.

  CHAPTER 14

  Day Two. Grand Mosque, Mecca.

  SOMEONE CAME INTO THE BEDROOM and shook Tom awake. He glanced at the clock as he rolled over. 4:00 a.m.

  Zac said, “We’ve got a signal. Its weak, but it’s her.”

  Tom got up and threw on a robe. When he got to the living room of the suite, Ryan, Seth and Zac were sitting around the table looking at the plans of the Grand Mosque.

  “Right here,” Zac said, pointing. “Off to the side of the main prayer hall.”

  “Does it mean anything to you?”

  “No. Only that she’s alive.”

  Tom went back to bed. He didn’t know how long it took him to fall asleep, but he reawakened, perspiring, his mind turning in on itself. He was assaulted by images of Sasha: on the Promenade des Anglaise in Nice when she was 18; a year older, as he sent her back to Yassar in the Royal Palace after she’d killed Ibrahim; two years ago, after Tom realized she was still alive as he’d worked with Daniel on the response to the al-Mujari’s oil and gas terrorism; a month ago in the hotel room in Langley when she’d approached him about Saif; and three days ago as he’d watched her enter the gates of the Grand Mosque.

  Finally he gave up on sleep and sat up in bed.

  Denial.

  Men were so great at it, especially him. Burying their feelings beneath multiple layers of work, sports, hobbies, anything it took. But now, here in the dark of night, drenched in sweat, he understood he had to face it. He was in love with Sasha, had been for all those years. Even after it had forced itself upon him in the last weeks and after he’d still pushed it away, he knew there was no more hiding from it. And now he was terrified for the danger she was in, and trembling with emotion that he might never see her again.

  In that moment he envied women, with their inability to deny their feelings. Life must be so much easier if you just had to face them instead of forcing them underground and having them compound upon themselves, festering, then rise to the surface and kick you in the ass with a hundred times the force.

  CHAPTER 15

  Day Three. Grand Mosque, Mecca.

  BY NOON ON THE THIRD day after the rebels had occupied the mosque, Tom’s nerves were jangled. While he was accustomed to the stress of an ongoing operation, sitting and waiting with nothing happening was like having someone slowly sand his fingertips raw. He’d been unable to reach Yassar for 48 hours and hadn’t heard a word from Assad, th
e head of the Saudi Secret Police, who Yassar said was on the way two days ago. He hadn’t talked to Ross in 48 hours, either, and had nothing to report to him. And Sasha’s micro-transmitter had died 12 hours earlier, with no new signal since then.

  He felt a start as he heard weapons fire. He ran to the window and saw smoke on the far side of the mosque. Zac, Seth and Ryan joined him a moment later.

  “It’s one of the gates on the far eastern side,” Seth said.

  “Here, too,” Zac said, pointing down to the street at the near side. Tom heard a rumbling noise and saw four armored vehicles with rear-mounted machine guns inching toward two gates with clusters of green-uniformed men behind them.

  Royal Army troops. That meant Yassar must’ve gotten his fatwa. And it might explain why Assad wasn’t here. But why no word?

  Saif was pacing in the command center, talking on the phone with Anwar.

  “They’re evacuating the city, and the Hajj is now over,” Anwar said. “We’re losing our opportunity.”

  Saif saw this as a pivotal moment, one in which he needed to assert his authority. Anwar and the other dissident leaders might not yet see him as the overall commander, but they would learn.

  “No. We wait, as planned.”

  “But that means millions of sympathetic pilgrims will be leaving the city. Many of them men, capable of arming and fighting at our sides.”

  “They’ll fight even harder when they return to their own cities, in defense of their homes and their families.”

  Anwar said, “This is a mistake.”

  Saif tensed with anger. “The Mahdi has not yet revealed himself.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “It isn’t time. Remember our strategy. We orchestrate our moves carefully, like all intelligent field generals.”

  “I’m beginning to think you’re a fool.”

  Saif tensed with anger, then exhaled to compose himself. “After this is over I will give you the opportunity to apologize for that. For now I expect you to follow our battle plan, execute your orders as we’ve agreed.” He heard shooting, pulled the phone away from his ear. He saw Rashid run into the room, motioning to him. “We’re under attack. I must go,” Saif said and hung up the phone. “What is it?” he said to Rashid.

  “Attacks by the Royal Army on three gates.”

  They ran up the stairs to the roof. Saif could see all three gates under attack, two on the near side being assaulted by armored vehicles with 50 to 100 men behind each. A gate in the distance on the eastern side was being assaulted by a group of Royal Army troops behind armored barriers. He could hear the crack of his snipers’ rifles, see his men on the tops of the walls firing bursts from their AK-47s. He felt his blood rise. These were the royals’ elite troops. And his men were holding them, even with many of his troops maintaining their positions at the other gates in case these were only initial assaults. Now he saw the armored vehicles moving toward the gates.

  “Where are our shoulder-fired missiles?” Saif asked, just as a whoosh rose up from the top of the wall at one of the gates, then another, the two trails of the missiles shrieking toward their targets. One scored a direct hit on one of the armored vehicles, followed by a ball of flame and smoke that erupted with an explosion that echoed off the buildings across from the mosque. The second missile missed, but took out a swath of the approaching troops.

  Automatic weapons fire continued from Saif’s men on the top of the walls. Now the firing increased as more of his men swarmed to the gates under siege. The three remaining armored vehicles had stopped within 100 feet of the gates, their machine guns raking the top of the wall with large-caliber fire. He could see smoke from his men’s return fire pinging off the armor in front of each of the machine guns, then a gunner going down. Another man climbed behind the machine gun and began firing again as another missile found its mark and destroyed the vehicle.

  “We are holding,” Saif shouted above the gunfire.

  The firing continued for another 20 minutes. By that time the men surrounding the two destroyed armored vehicles were either dead or wounded. The firing from the other two armored vehicles attacking the other gate had now stopped. He could see the men behind them either huddling close to it or dropping to the street from the fire from Saif’s men. He glanced toward the far eastern gate. At least 50 Royal Army troops lay in the street, their barricades abandoned. The other men appeared to have retreated.

  Now, back on this side of the mosque, the remaining two armored vehicles started moving in. Another shoulder-fired missile was launched, this one from the ground level at the gate. It slammed into one of the armored vehicles, destroying it. Moments later, another missile whooshed from the gate, spinning the last armored vehicle around with a hit in the rear, disabling it. At that point the men behind it who were still alive retreated, running away and disappearing down a side street.

  Saif’s men ceased firing. He saw a few raise their rifles over their heads and begin cheering, joined by a dozen, then a few dozen more, then heard the voices of hundreds of his soldiers join in.

  “We beat them back!” Saif shouted, slapping Rashid on the back. Saif was beaming. He stood up and raised his arms, cheering his men. They saw him and roared back.

  “There is no God but Allah!” Saif yelled.

  “La ilaha ilallah!” the men shouted back.

  CHAPTER 16

  Day Four. Grand Mosque, Mecca.

  SASHA AWAKENED, BOUND TO HER chair in her prison room.

  Seven days.

  She’d never been held like this before, so she didn’t have any experience with it. She was surprised she wasn’t more physically weak, but she realized the silence, the lack of knowledge about time, and the isolation were getting to her. She’d actually started to find the visits of the guards to bring her to the toilet a welcome stimulation.

  She occupied much of her time thinking of Daniel. Today, she didn’t want to focus on their life in Switzerland, even though that had been the happiest time of her life, because it ended in the horror of his murder. Yesterday she had been tormented by the replay of his murder in her mind, as if on infinite loop. She went back to when she’d met him in Milford, Pennsylvania, where he owned a weekend house. But that only reminded her of how she’d come to be there: sent by Yassar to spy on Daniel, learn if the al-Mujari had penetrated Daniel’s oil and gas clients’ computer systems yet. The duplicity of it brought tears to her eyes. It wasn’t much better that she lived with him for months under those false pretenses. She remembered how that had torn at her heart as she was falling in love with him.

  “Oh, Daniel.”

  She hung her head and started to cry. For the first time she wondered if her captors were monitoring the room with microphones. She cried in silence, her tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping onto her forearms. Finally, she didn’t care, and gave in to sobs.

  She didn’t know how long she cried, but after a while she took a few deep breaths and held her head up.

  Oh, God.

  She wondered why people always said you felt better with the release of a good cry. She always felt physically relieved, but emotionally drained.

  Here she was, captive, Daniel gone forever, and she’d been unable to set right his murder.

  Saif.

  She’d beaten herself up over that failure already. But was it a failure? A failure to kill another man. Even though Saif deserved it, would taking Saif’s life have solved anything? Then she reminded herself of the stakes involved. Kill Saif and save hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, by stopping the revolution, or at least stalling it. She remembered what she’d said to Tom in the hotel room in Langley: Good versus evil. Guru Kripananda told Sasha she had a pure heart and good intentions, and therefore was already saved, despite the lives she had taken. Maybe the guru was right.

  But what about the two men she’d killed in the corridor as they brought her to this room? What about that stain on her soul? Had that accomplished anything?

 
The issues she’d wrestled with as she’d gone back to India came back to her. Daniel had been the anchor in her life, a rock. Now he was gone. Who was she before Daniel, and who was she now?

  She sat, taking in the silence, light-headed for lack of food, but wanting her mind to clear to give her answers. They didn’t come.

  She didn’t know how much longer it was before she decided she needed to move. She shook her head, then tilted the chair on its side. She rolled it on its back, stretching her limbs as much as she could. The lights went out. She realized this was what they wanted, what Saif wanted. He’s starving and sensory-depriving me so my mind will twist in on itself.

  She decided a crawl to the other side of the room would do her good. She rolled onto her front and started out, working toward the wall on her forearms and toes. She realized she needed something to hold on to, to keep her from these moments of self-torment.

  Hang on to your defiance, if nothing else. Don’t let him get to you.

  She reached the wall and had turned around to work her way back to the other side of the room when the lights came back on.

  The lights were off and Sasha was asleep when she was awakened by the sound of someone entering the room. The lights came on and she heard Saif’s voice. “I’ve given you some time to think about your position. Hopefully now you’ll be more receptive to a dialogue.”

  So he thinks starving me for a week will change my mind?

  “A dialogue about what?”

  “My vision for the people of Saudi Arabia. And for you to be at my side as I lead them.”

  “Vision? What vision? You’re a murderer who leads an organization that commits acts of terror on innocent people.”

  Saif sighed. “We kill infidels who are trying to destroy our Saudi way of life. The way of life of righteous Muslims.”

  “Righteous Muslims, listen to you. Look who’s now a model of Muslim sanctity. I never once in my life saw you answer the call to prayers.”