Inside the room, one of the guards said something to the other. Each room was sound-proofed. Austyn didn't hear what they said, but he could see that they both were watching the prisoner. It was obvious from their wariness and overt bravado that they were a little afraid of her.
Not a muscle moved on the prisoner's face. Her hands rested calmly on her knees. She looked to be totally at peace. He was a window-shopper when it came to things like meditation. He admired those who could do it. But to him meditation was almost the same as relaxing, and that was something that he lacked in the gene pool. His parents were the same way, and his siblings. No one in his family took vacations. They took on projects.
He wished he knew more about her. Matt and Austyn had left Washington with hundreds of pages of files on Rahaf, but there was nothing worthwhile in any of them about Fahimah. Matt had logged into the CIA and FBI files, archived files from the NSA, MI5, Interpol, Scotland Yard, everywhere. He'd even queried the FSB in the Kremlin. Nothing of any use. She was a nonthreat, and that made her nonexistent. She didn't even warrant a picture or a fingerprint anywhere they'd looked. If it wasn't for the bio at the end of an article published in London back in the late nineties, Austyn would have pushed aside the suspicion he had of the two sisters switching places. The article was about some Sufi poet, "In the Light of Rabi'a of Basrah," and it had a short biography of Fahimah Banaz. Educated at Oxford. This was the only piece of information that existed on her on the Internet. As far as Austyn was concerned, though, it was enough.
Her eyes opened. Through the glass divider, their gazes locked for a couple of seconds before she closed them again. She was no criminal. Austyn could feel it in his gut. She was lying, possibly sacrificing herself. A martyr, maybe. It was a stereotype, but if she was Fahimah, then she had given up everything for a sister. But if she was Rahaf, was she capable of the type of destruction that was happening in the U.S.? No, he didn't think so.
All he really knew for sure was that this woman was all they had, and Austyn had to win her cooperation somehow.
"I just received some pictures of the Sedona incident," Matt told him.
Austyn walked back to the computer. They'd heard the news only an hour ago. This was their worst nightmare. It meant that the bacteria could pop up anywhere at any time. The ten days in between had given them a false sense of security. Austyn had known what they'd seen in Maine couldn't have been a onetime thing.
His gut twisted as Matt started the slide show of the digital photos. The bodies outside of the truck were in very early stages of decomposition. The excruciating pain on one of the faces forced him to look away momentarily. Austyn glanced in the direction of the window again.
"It's getting worse," Matt said under his breath. "Looking at the pictures of the victims on that island in Maine… nothing was identifiable. But these… they're still human. You see it right there… what's happening to them."
"I'd like her to see these," Austyn told his partner.
"Are you sure?" Matt hesitated. "Especially if she's not Rahaf…"
"No amount of arguing will get the message across like these pictures. She needs to see them. I want her to know what's happening." He took his laptop out of his briefcase. "Load it onto this. I'll take it in to her."
Matt started booting up the computer.
Captain Adams walked in. She took a look at the window separating them from the prisoner before turning to them.
"Is it true?" she asked. "I just got word of another attack in the U.S."
"We don't know if it was an attack."
"Right," she said, skepticism lacing the word.
"We're only classifying it as an outbreak at this point. Both occurred in areas that are not exactly population centers. If they're part of an attack, the perpetrators are not trying to do any major damage."
The captain nodded. Austyn motioned with his head to the pictures on his partner's screen.
"We've just received these shots of the victims in Arizona. It's pretty ugly."
Adams moved behind the desk and went through the pictures, her face grim. "What's the number of fatalities for this one?"
"Five, as far as we know," Austyn answered. "It could have been a lot worse. But thankfully, those two police officers described the bodies with enough clarity that no other local emergency personnel were exposed."
He wondered if those poor souls really knew how painful and horrifying their deaths would be.
"Here you go." Matt handed the laptop to Austyn. "You've got it all, including the info we turned up on… uh, on the prisoner earlier."
"I hear Rahaf has shown more life in this past hour than she's displayed for five years," Adams commented.
They hadn't told Adams about Austyn's suspicions. There was no reason to muddy the waters until they were a hundred percent positive. The same went with their director back in the U.S. Austyn wanted to have proof first. His partner agreed. They had a suspect in custody. That was a start.
"The last pictures disturbed her. I'm hoping that these will upset her even more."
"I'm surprised. I didn't think she had any human feeling left. You might break her yet."
Break her. Nice term, Austyn thought ironically. He was not exactly made for this side of the business. He certainly hoped she would open up to him, though he was only cautiously optimistic.
Austyn carried the laptop into the adjoining room and directed the guards to wait outside. Dr. Banaz gave no indication that she'd heard him coming in. He didn't bother with a chair and sat on the floor beside her, leaning his back against the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him.
Without saying anything, he studied the room from this angle. Whitewashed walls. The furnishings were the same as those she'd torn up in the other cell. He stared at the separating window. The overhead light cast a shadow on the glass and very little was visible from this angle. He barely made out someone backing away from the window. He guessed it was Captain Adams.
"Now I know what a fish in an aquarium feels like," he said under his breath. "Have you ever been to an aquarium?"
She didn't answer.
He turned to her. "Do you feel rested after meditating? Is it like getting a good night's sleep?"
He was surprised to have her open her eyes and look at him. Her gaze spoke volumes about how pointless she thought his questions were.
"I don't want to sign up for your Meditation 101 class, Professor Banaz," Austyn told her. "But I need your attention for a few minutes. We've just received some news that my partner and I believe you should be made aware of."
He didn't expect small talk and she didn't disappoint. Austyn opened his laptop and sat it on the floor between them. He brought up the pictures they'd just received.
She only looked at the screen for a second before turning her head away.
"You're making it way too easy for me," he said quietly. "Dr. Rahaf Banaz would look at these pictures."
"What do you know?" she murmured. "What do you know about anything?"
"I'm trying to know."
He waited, but she said nothing more.
"Rahaf Banaz would force herself to look at these photographs, gruesome and painful and unpleasant as they are, because she is a scientist, and her professional curiosity would take an upper hand. Her mind would ask a hundred questions. She'd want to know the specifics of where and how… the circumstances, the time of death. She's ask what lab work has already been done on the remains of the victims. She'd demand to know the results. Am I wrong?"
The woman still kept her eyes averted. She seemed to be focused on a crack in the wall opposite them.
"No amount of time in prison would shut down that side of her. As a biochemist, this is her field, the topic she spent a decade of her life researching. Someone else has done this, created the potential for an epidemic. She knows she is innocent. She knows that if her captors had any intelligence, they would recognize that, as well. She had a genetically compatible strain of this bacteria in her labs five years ago, but she didn't allow it to be unleashed. Not against the enemies of Saddam Hussein, even when they were knocking on her nation's door. She understands the danger of what is out there better than anyone else in the world, perhaps. That's why she'd care."