Fahimah knew all of these were part of the ploy, of course. Another chapter in her long record of captivity. They could snatch it away at any time. Still, she was willing to go along with it all, even if it made the future more unbearable than the past had been. It bought time. It would give her a chance to find her sister. It was the only chance they had, and a small key opens big doors.
"You have good weather to fly in," Captain Adams said to her, moving around her desk to the window, where a small air-conditioning unit was working overtime, blasting only slightly cooler air into the room. Fahimah looked past the captain's shoulder. Two days in a row, she was getting a glimpse of blue sky. The captain's office was on the second level of the old brick-making facility. Two small windows overlooked a partially paved road with a view of mountainous terrain in the distance. Until yesterday, Fahimah didn't know what kind of building they were keeping her in. She'd heard someone say something about being in Afghanistan weeks ago, but she still didn't know what part of the country she was in or how many other people were imprisoned here.
She glanced at the table next to her, toward the magazines they'd given her that morning. Long ago, she'd locked up her mind, sealed her thoughts in an impenetrable bubble, but last night she'd made the decision to unseal that part of her. As a result, for the first time in perhaps years, she'd found herself starved for news. There was so much that had been happening in the world, so much that she had missed.
The news of Saddam's hanging had been a surprise, but not a shock. She'd figured that was only matter of time, anyway. There had to be a great deal more important news. She'd asked about a few things, but the Americans were clearly a little hesitant about how much they should tell her. When she'd been captured, half the world had been searching for a devil named Osama bin Laden, and a few were still looking for him. Arabs were a difficult lot, she thought, and the Saudis were the worst. Always stirring the pot of misery, and simply to drive up the price of their oil a few bloody pennies.
The few magazines they'd given her had offered very little of what she was after. Celebrity marriages between people she'd never heard of were breaking up, and a movie star was adopting what appeared to be a fifth or sixth child, but overall the magazines offered no perspective of what was happening in the world. Still, she had read the magazines cover to cover in the matter of a couple of hours.
"Do you have a home, a place where you can go back to, once this… this business is all finished?"
Fahimah was surprised by the question. She looked up. Captain Adams had moved to the front of her desk, her hip resting on the corner of it. The woman was looking directly at her. Fahimah had to remind herself that she should carry no grudge against this person. Governments and policies she could blame, but individuals like this one were only pawns in a larger and more complicated game. The same thing applied to Rahaf and Fahimah herself. They'd lived in a country that was run by a butcher. That did not make them butchers. In fact, they were just the opposite.
Still, despite this logic and the conscious desire to put animosity aside, it was terribly difficult to warm to a former jailer. Abuses occurred here; individuals were being denied the so-called inalienable human right to a trial, and Captain Adams occupied the top position of authority in this prison. Fahimah could not pretend to be friendly with the person holding the key to the shackles. She would play along with this pretense of freedom, but she would not forget that there were many others still locked in the cells below. If they were here, she guessed, they were in the same situation as she. No trial, no jury, no idea of what was going to happen to them tomorrow or next week or next year.
"I don't know," Fahimah shrugged. "I don't know what is left of my country."
Adams nodded with understanding, crossing her arms over her chest. Her expression became pensive. 'This war has taken much longer than any of us thought it would. There are times I think the same thing about my own home and family."
Fahimah appreciated the candidness. From the horrible photographs she'd been shown by the agents, it appeared that people in the U.S. were under attack, too. Her thoughts immediately focused on what she'd promised Agent Newman. She hadn't lied. A remedy to the microbe existed. She'd seen Rahaf taking it. But if they were to find the remedy, then she would have to keep alive the hope that her sister was still living… and that Fahimah could find her. She rubbed the back of her neck. Thoughts of the plots she would need to hatch once they got to Erbil airport crowded her mind. There was so much that she still needed to figure out.
There was a knock on the door before the two American agents entered. She hadn't seen or spoken to either of them since last night. Each man gave her a long, hard look, as if he were seeing her for the first time.
Rather than a new pair of coveralls, Fahimah had borrowed some clothes from Captain Adams — camouflage fatigue pants, a white cotton shirt and plastic sandals. In spite of her very short hair, she didn't want to look like one of the soldiers. Of course, she thought, there weren't many American soldiers who looked half-starved. She'd been somewhat shocked this morning in the bathroom at how frail she looked.
"Captain Adams mentioned that you've been asking for some means of catching up on the news," the younger of the two agents told her.
Fahimah remembered that this man's name was Matt Sutton. From their interaction yesterday, she surmised that he had a lower rank than Agent Newman. Sutton was shorter by two or three inches, but with the exception of their height, the two men had the same athletic build. Both had short, dark hair, but that was where the similarities ended. Matt Sutton had boyish good looks. Newman's face, however, was too complicated to be summed up in a couple of words. Handsome and ugly did not really seem to apply. He had a nose that looked like it had been broken, piercing blue eyes and a moon-shaped scar on a strong chin. Already, Fahimah had been able to see that his moods had a great effect on his facial expression. That, she supposed, determined how he would come across to a new acquaintance. Yesterday, he'd sounded kind and understanding. That kindliness had been reflected in his face. Today, there was a dark cloud surrounding him that wiped out her first impressions of him. She turned her attention to the other agent as Sutton opened an oversize shoulder bag and took out a smaller leather case. Inside, there was a laptop.
"You're welcome to use this. I loaded a number of past issues of newspapers and magazines onto my laptop for the flight."
She stared at the proffered computer. It was a precious gem.
"The only thing is that everything loaded is in English. If you'd prefer some of the issues in Arabic…"
"No, English is fine," she said, reaching for the computer before he changed his mind. He handed her the leather storage case, too. She touched the piece of equipment, ran her fingers along the thin edge, already realizing that technology had changed a great deal since her capture. This machine weighed a tenth of the last laptop she'd handled.
"I guess you're ready to leave," Captain Adams commented, breaking a moment of silence.
"Do you have any personal belongings at all, Dr. Banaz?" Agent Newman asked, turning to her.
He was wearing sunglasses today, and that made his expression much more guarded. He looked older… and more threatening. She wondered if he still harbored the doubts he had expressed yesterday, or whether he had decided that she really was Rahaf. She also wanted to know if he'd shared that doubt with the people to whom he reported. If that were the case, then they were using her as a means of finding her sister.