To the left of the table was another door. Same Gothic shape, same wooden construction, same new paint. I guessed it led onward to another room, the third of three in an L-shaped chain. Or the first of three, depending on your point of view. Depending on whether you were a captive or a captor. To the right of the table was a low chest of drawers that looked like it belonged in a bedroom. On it were a pile of napkins and a tube of nested foam cups and a steel vacuum flask and a paper plate with two blueberry muffins. I shuffled over in my socks and poured a cup of coffee from the flask. The operation was easier than it might have been, because the chest was low. My chained hands didn't hamper me much. I carried the cup low and two-handed to the table. Sat down in the vacant chair. Dipped my head and sipped from the cup. The action made me look like I was yielding, like it was designed to. Or bowing, or deferring. The coffee was pretty bad too, and only lukewarm.
The fed leader cupped his hand and held it behind my stack of money, as if he was considering picking it up. Then he shook his head, as if money was too prosaic a subject for him. Too mundane. He moved his hand onward and stopped it behind my passport.
He asked, 'Why is it expired?'
I said, 'Because no one can make time stand still.'
'I meant, why haven't you renewed it?'
'No imminent need. Like you don't carry a condom in your wallet.'
The guy paused a beat and asked, 'When was the last time you left the country?'
I said, 'I would have sat down and talked to you, you know. You didn't need to shoot me with a dart like I was something escaped from the zoo.'
'You had been warned many times. And you had been markedly uncooperative.'
'You could have put my eye out.'
'But I didn't. No harm, no foul.'
'I still haven't seen ID. I don't even know your name.'
The guy said nothing.
I said, 'No ID, no names, no Miranda, no charges, no lawyer. Brave new world, right?'
'You got it.'
'Well, good luck with that,' I said. I glanced at my passport, as if I had suddenly remembered something. I raised my hands as far as they would go and leaned forward. I shuffled my coffee cup well out of my way, which left it in the space between my passport and my ATM card. I picked up my passport and squinted down at it and leafed through the pages at the back. I shrugged, like my memory had been playing tricks on me. I went to put the passport back. But I was inexact with its placement. A little hampered by the chains. The stiff edge of the little booklet caught my coffee cup and tipped it over. Coffee spilled out and splashed on the table and flowed right over the far edge and into the fed leader's lap. He did the thing that everyone does. He jumped back, half stood, and batted at the air as if he could divert the liquid one molecule at a time.
'Sorry,' I said.
His pants were soaked. So now the onus was on him. Two choices: either disrupt the rhythm of the interrogation by taking a break to change, or continue with wet pants. I saw the guy debating. He wasn't quite as inscrutable as he thought he was.
He chose to continue with wet pants. He detoured to the chest of drawers and dabbed at himself with napkins. Then he brought some back and dried the table. He made a big effort not to react, which was a reaction in itself.
He asked again, 'When was the last time you left the country?'
I said, 'I don't recall.'
'Where were you born?'
'I don't recall.'
'Everyone knows where they were born.'
'It was a long time ago.'
'We'll sit here all day, if necessary.'
'I was born in West Berlin,' I said.
'And your mother is French?'
'She was French.'
'What is she now?'
'Dead.'
'I'm sorry.'
'It wasn't your fault.'
'Are you sure you're an American citizen?
'What kind of question is that?'
'A straightforward one.'
'The State Department gave me a passport.'
'Was your application truthful?'
'Did I sign it?'
'I imagine you did.'
'Then I imagine it was truthful.'
'How? Were you naturalized? You were born overseas to a foreign parent.'
'I was born on a military base. That counts as U.S. sovereign territory. My parents were married. My father was an American citizen. He was a Marine.'
'Can you prove all of that?'
'Do I have to?'
'It's important. Whether or not you're a citizen could affect what happens to you next.'
'No, how much patience I have will affect what happens to me next.'
The guy on the left stood up. He was the one who had held the Franchi's muzzle hard against my throat. He went directly left from behind the table and walked out, through the wooden door, into the third room. I glimpsed desks, computers, cabinets, and lockers. No other people. The door closed softly behind him and the room we were in went quiet.
The main guy asked, 'Was your mother Algerian?'
I said, 'I just got through telling you she was French.'
'Some French people are Algerian.'
'No, French people are French and Algerian people are Algerian. It's not rocket science.'
'OK, some French people were originally immigrants from Algeria. Or from Morocco, or Tunisia, or elsewhere in North Africa.'
'My mother wasn't.'
'Was she a Muslim?'
'Why do you want to know?'
'I'm making inquiries.'
I nodded. 'Safer to inquire about my mother than yours, probably.'
'What do you mean?'
'Susan Mark's mother was a teenage crack whore. Maybe yours worked with her. Maybe they turned tricks together.'
'Are you trying to make me mad?'
'No, I'm succeeding. You're all red in the face and you've got wet pants. And you're getting absolutely nowhere. All in all I don't think this particular session will he written up for the training manual.'
'This isn't a joke.'
'But it's heading that way.'
The guy paused and regrouped. He used his index finger to realign the nine items in front of him. He got them straight and then he pushed the computer memory an inch towards me. He said, 'You concealed this from us when we searched you. Susan Mark gave it to you on the train.'
I said, 'Did I? Did she?'
The guy nodded. 'But it's empty, and it's too small anyway. Where is the other one?'
'What other one?'
'This one is obviously a decoy. Where is the real one?'
'Susan Mark gave me nothing. I bought that thing at Radio Shack.'
'Why?'
'I liked the look of it.'
'With the pink sleeve? Bullshit.' I said nothing.
He said, 'You like the colour pink?'
'In the right place.'
'What place would that be?'
'A place you haven't been in a long time.'
'Where did you conceal it?'
I didn't answer.
'Was it in a body cavity?'
'You better hope not. You just touched it.'
'Do you enjoy that kind of thing? Are you a fairy?'
'That kind of question might work down at Guantanamo, hut it won't work with me.'
The guy shrugged and used his fingertip and pulled the stick back into line, and then he moved the phony business card and Leonid's cell phone both forward an inch, like he was moving pawns on a chessboard. He said, 'You've been working for Lila Hoth. The card proves you were in communication with the crew she hired, and your phone proves she called you at least six times. The Four Seasons' number is in the memory.'
'It's not my phone.'
'We found it in your pocket.'
'Lila Hoth didn't stay at the Four Seasons, according to them.'
'Only because we told them to cooperate. We both know she was there. You met her there twice, and then she broke the third rendezvous.'
'Who is she, exactly?'
'That's a question you should have asked before you agreed to work for her.'
'I wasn't working for her.'
'Your phone proves that you were. It's not rocket science.'