I.

Three weeks had passed. Eyal was alone in Red's tent – which was now, for all intents and purposes, his own. Time was not healing him, nor had he expected it would, but the time since "that day" seemed both short and long at the same time. At moments he could hardly remember her, as if it had been years, decades ago, wondering what color her hair was, and her eyes … then for a moment he would think she was just now over in the women's tent about to come to him and then the hard fact of her death would hit him like a flaming black rock from the sky, like the images in his dreams. He would see a woman moving near him and be certain it was her and gasp out her name only to realize it was Hejira he was seeing – and naming – as Annie. Or, once, with an inner confusion he could not understand, he'd called out "Sarah!" instead.

He only found release in battle, in those moments of focused rage when he could let the killer inside of him have free rein over him. Fortunately there had been plenty of those moments. He'd made sure of it. But these were not the people who had killed Annie, as much as he wanted to make them one and the same. To reach them, in a way big enough to make them hurt, make them realize what they had done - he needed help. Help, of this exact kind, was within easy reach.

Laylah, good Laylah, who did not seem to mind his crying out another woman's name while she was in his arms - had gathered up the scraps of printed paper that had been blowing around as they had moved camp after the disaster, believing them sacred writings from the Koran which would need proper disposal by him. The large scrap of thin paper in his hand looked like it was a remnant of the dictionary Annie had pressed onto Red to save his life; if he looked close, at the torn edge, there was still a trace of blood. That was appropriate, as was the connection with Annie, active and benevolent in her last moments on the face of the earth. As for ink, well, there again, blood was not inappropriate at all. He knew he could dare not speak, even in areas others believed would be perfectly private, perfectly safe. So he smoothed out the paper – fortunately, it was from one of the partially blank pages in the front, so there was room, decided what he would give over, cut himself using the tip of a metal skewer left on a platter, and began to write. Despite the awkward writing implement – he didn't want to go tent to tent asking for a pen, he had long ago determined that within their camp there were spies of all kinds - he kept the lettering small and precise, easily legible. There was so much to include.

II.

Annie was back in the interrogation room again.

Apparently his superiors wanted nothing to do with her, and this man was smart enough to fear that someone or something might be coming to retrieve her.

"You, you are a passenger on the ferry. The only person not from this coast, the only unusual thing. The ferry, which has served this coast for thirty-three years perfectly normally, blows up – the other unusual thing. I add it up. One unusual thing leads to another unusual thing. "

"And a poorly-maintained ferry blows up. I just barely made it to shore. "

"A survivor said that you were one of the first to leap from the boat, and one of the first to reach shore."

"I'm intelligent enough to leave a sinking ship, that makes me a terrorist? That ship smelled like it was almost on fire at the dock. I should never have gotten on it in the first place!" The officer grew irate at the insult to their ferry, serving this coast for thirty-three years. Without maintenance for twenty-nine of them, Annie thought archly.

"You should know that I hate you twice," he said to her. "First, for being from the West where you have anything and everything and don't value any of it. And second, to come to my country in the thrall of the terrorists and try to destroy what little we have here."

"I have not come to destroy anything. I'm a journalist, I'm doing a story on…"

He looked at her tiredly, went to the door, yelled to his assistant. A few minutes later there was a knock. The assistant entered, holding by the back of his robes the man who had guided her to the coast. He was expressionless and had obviously been badly beaten.

"Do you know this man?"

"He's the man who guided me to the coast." There was no avoiding that – clearly they knew their connection.

He spoke to the man, who answered softly. A punch in the stomach increased the volume. 'She told me she was a a health worker!"

"Thank you." The officer dismissed his assistant and her guide, and looked at her triumphantly.

"So, "Health Worker"?"

"That's what I told him. I say things like that all the time, to get people to open up to me about their lives, to get the story. People can have odd feelings about journalists."

"For your magazine. What was it again?"

"L'entrée. We're based in Toronto." She answered calmly. He unlocked the desk drawer and pulled out his cell phone. She was relieved she had removed the card, to protect her dialed numbers, but this worked, too. He couldn't get it to power up but he didn't connect that to her, fortunately. He thrust it back into the drawer and locked it up again.

"I do not believe you. I do not believe this magazine exists or that you are a journalist or a health worker. You are a member of a terrorist group operating in this area. One which, separate from your blowing up a ferry, just destroyed an outpost three days ago. Do you recognize anyone in this photo?" he demanded, putting a black and white print out on the table in front of her. The men in the photo were just coming out of cover, bristling with guns, and the man in front was clearly Eyal, sunglasses not withstanding. She made her eyes rove over the photo, but not before she could see he looked dangerously thin and unkempt. Anyone else in the photo she could see, she could recognize, so hopefully her recognition of him was not obvious. "No. But that's a great, dramatic photo. Do you think I would be able to use this?" He snatched it back from her. She sat there looking at him, mindful of her own breathing, as a calming technique useful in withstanding interrogation. Except her breath rhythm, in her own mind, was inhale…Eyal…is exhale… alive,, inhale…Eyal…is exhale …alive. She hadn't let herself confront her own doubt on that point before now, she realized. She really had thought it was likely the camp had been the second target.

"No. But how about this one?" He shoved another printout across at her. This one was from months ago, taken on a cell phone, at the oasis where they had spent a single night. Someone there had captured an image of her as Laylah was washing her hair. Beyond them, in the distance, were some of the men.

"I'd love to use this one, actually, since I have none of my own photos."

"Those men," he said, stabbing the photo with his finger, "Are known terrorists."

"Those people standing fifty yards away? Maybe they are, but I was just getting my hair washed by the women. Everyone takes pictures of my hair here, and I make use of that – it's a conversation starter."

"A conversation starter. "

"Yes."

"Well, today, it is a conversation ender. I will talk again of this later. You will reconsider," he said, rising. Annie got up out of the chair.

"There's nothing to reconsider!"

"Oh? Really?" He smiled at her, showing bright even teeth, but his eyes were not smiling. "In what, two months? Yes, I think so. I had a wife. I had a pregnant wife once. She was about as far along as you. " He did not share more of that story, but Annie felt pity for him. Pity which she could ill afford to spare. "In a few weeks, you will decide you will not want to have your baby inside this jail. You will decide to talk. Maybe even before then. " He reached out to tap her belly lightly with the heel of his hand, a horrible violation if she were a veiled woman, and an all too clear threat now that she was not. She said nothing as his assistant came forward and put her back into the cell with a handful of other unclaimed women left over from the disaster, waiting for male guardians to come and take them away.