I told you, I need her sedation lifted and I need it now."

"I'm doing it but it still takes a moment, ma'am."

Annie's eyes flew open just as she heard Joan spit out, "Thanks!" The nurse left the room. The guard was also absent.

"Annie."
"Joan?"

"I have some questions for you which I need you to answer quickly, completely, and I should not have to say this but I will, with absolute honesty. If you hesitate, I'll take whatever comes after as a lie. It's my own little patented Joan Campbell polygraph and you won't like it at all if you fail. Understood?"

Annie took a deep breath.

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Good. We're beginning. I need everything, Annie, and what you may think is positive or negative may be utterly the opposite, so give it all. While you were in the desert, did Eyal Lavin ever say that he was not exactly what he was presenting himself as, a terrorist, a new jihadi, a recently-converted true believer?"

"No." Actually Joan didn't need a polygraph; Annie saw her eyes dart up to the heart monitor. That answer seemed to relax her slightly - maybe that's where she expected the lies to begin?

"Nothing? No doubts, no hesitations, no regrets?"

"No."

"No sorrow about leaving his family, betraying his sister's memory, nothing?"

"No. Well , he..."

"He what?"

"At one point he said his sister had been in the wrong place at the wrong time but that ... that he now understood her killer more, and that he was a brave man to do that with no thought of his own survival, with total submission to the will of Allah, etc.."

Joan flinched at that. Oh Eyal, Annie thought. I love who you are and despise what you are – or have become… if. If, if, if. "But I don't think…." Joan wasn't interested in her extra commentary.

"Next up. Did he believe that you were turnable? About to be turned? A potential convert out of love for him, anything like that?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. If that was his goal, he would have gone about it differently I think, less stridently. I've seen him seduce. He wasn't using that power on me, not on the subject of converting to the true faith. And I think he knew I wasn't up for it. The one time he beat me..." For a moment the wall came crashing down from Joan's face and demeanor, replaced with a look of horror.

"Go on, Annie," she said, more softly.

"Anyway, it was over something I had said back to him. We were having a private night on the dunes in the moonlight, it was just the two of us, we'd ridden miles away from the camp. There was no one to overhear us, no escort, no guard, no one. I tried to get through to him, I told him what I thought of all of this, and we got into a bit of, shall we say, a vigorous geopolitical or theological discussion, and he packed up and we rode back in silence. The next morning he denounced me and they tied me to a stake and …." Annie frowned. It was strange that ..." He did tell me that it would keep going until I'd screamed enough that he believed I had learned my lesson to respect him. I took that as a helpful hint to kick it up a notch and not be stoic, but it was brutal and bloody and I didn't need to pretend. I didn't think he'd really go that far."

Joan, without hesitation, pulled open the back of Annie's gown.
"They've healed well, at least. Barest of shadows."

"So, Annie, there is nothing you can or would say in his defense?" Joan sounded tired, even disappointed.

"Is that what you are looking for?"

"I'm looking for the truth, Annie. And, frankly, after living with Eyal in the desert for the better part of a year and carrying his child – I am sorry you had to endure all of that, you have my greatest sympathy - I didn't necessarily expect to get it from you, but I think I am. There was something you were about to say a moment ago, when I looked at your back. You looked as if a thought had struck you."

"It's probably nothing."

"Anything might have an impact on Eyal Lavin's future." Annie looked at Joan's cool eyes. Her voice might have betrayed something of her feelings, but her expression was again maddeningly blank.

"A couple of things, actually. We had really gotten into it on some religious points that night in the desert. But he didn't mention that to the camp, the punishment was for being disrespectful to him, not his faith."

"He probably didn't want you to be killed outright for blasphemy. That's a situation that might have gotten out of hand. But I understand you - why punish you publicly at all if not for the right reason. It's inconsistent. What else?"

"He did that a number of times..."

"What, punish you?"

"No, occasionally tell me what day a holiday was in the States. While I was with him. Like "Today is your Memorial Day, remembering all the butchering soldiers... We had a party for 9/11, killed several sheep, which he told me that I had better participate in eating or I might regret it. Veteran's Day. Even Columbus Day. He treated me very well the rest of the time, lovingly, completely as his wife, so it didn't seem logical he was trying to torment me emotionally by reminding me of things back home for no reason. And honestly, Columbus Day isn't exactly the most emotionally-charged American holiday." Joan was jotting down notes.

"What other things did he tell you? What did you talk about?"

"He was much quieter than the Eyal I was used to. We'd talk about daily things, camp things, checking supplies, running low on tea, or did I want some more embroidery threads, that sort of thing."

"Embroidery threads?"

"He encouraged me to take up embroidery. Said it was a noble women's craft and a good way of passing the time. He gave me a lecture on how the history of nomad women was woven in to their carpets. Maybe he thought he was being kind by giving me a hobby, but actually, it was more like mind-numbing domestic torture to me."

"Break your spirit with Daisy stitch?"

"You know more than I did. I used it to record some notes thought. But his other wives had to teach me. Danielle does that sort of thing. I never got the domestic handcraft gene." Why had he wanted her to embroider?

"Other" wives?"

"He made a point of our prior "marriage", when we were working undercover together in Santa Margarita. Of course we weren't married legally then! But that seemed to be the justification for him to have me with him there. There were two other women who seemed to have been provided to him; I think they both died in the strike."

"That may have been a way of protecting you or explaining why he felt obliged to intervene for you to be brought to him. They would not necessarily know you had not been properly married, and that would make you "chief wife" with prior claim over the others. The Koran would also put certain obligations on him to protect you; if his true motives were hidden, he may have wanted that extra line of reasoning to try to keep you safe."

"Yes, I got to be "chief wife". About half the day I felt like I was in a spa most of the time. They'd do my hair and give me a massage and help me dress, and decorate me with henna like this for special occasions. There…"

"What, Annie?"

"You really want everything?"

"I think I've made myself sufficiently clear on that point."

"I don't want you to think I'm protecting him if he is a jihadi, Joan. If he is a – terrorist."

"Do you think he is?"

"No." Annie sighed and swallowed. Surely she was about to say nothing new, nothing that Joan wasn't fully aware of already. "And I know that I am in love with him and that my opinions about him cannot be trusted. They certainly cannot be objective."

Joan gave her a look that saved her from actually saying "Don't waste my time stating the obvious." She did say "Get to the point, Annie. What's this bit of information?"

"I told you that the other women would put henna on me, the decorative dye on the hands and so on. It's normally used for marriages and celebrations. One day we were decorating each other in his tent – the big one had better light from the opening at the top – and we had finished but he sent them away and sat down beside me. He told me that for wedding henna, which I had missed out on, there was a tradition that the husband's name or initials would be hidden in the design, and it was good luck for the bride to find it. There was some left and he added his initials to the design."

"And?"

"They weren't for his Arabic name, Joan. But an E and an L."

"Interesting…"

"In Hebrew. Then things proceeded between us and the letters were smudged, unrecognizable."

"It's not possible he would use Hebrew lettering "accidentally" in a situation like this. Unless he was deliberately trying to mislead you, to make you think he was still Eyal…"

"Joan, do you have the clothes I was brought in with? There should be a little bag from my belt?"

"I think so. Why?"

"You asked me if Eyal ever said anything that would indicate he was not as he seemed. And he didn't ... but he really encouraged the embroidery. Joan, this is subjective. I know this. But after I reluctantly started taking up the needlecrafts, there were a few occasions where he seemed intent on telling me where we were. Or a few times he apparently accidentally left a GPS unit out where I would or at least could see it and use it, and I did – if he ever noticed it was never mentioned. One time he did come in unexpectedly and I thought he'd seen me, but there were no repercussions. I memorized the numbers I saw and put them into French knots."

"How many times did this happen?"

"Over the entire time, probably fifteen." Joan was silent for a moment.

"Annie, are you telling me that Eyal may have gone out of his way to continually orient you in terms of time and space, in a way that no one would likely notice, even if overheard, or seen, and encouraged you to make a record of it, even giving you the means to do so?"

"I hadn't put that together. But yes, it could be seen that way - and none of it was ever "necessary" for me to know or hear. But sometimes, he would say something like, see, over there, the such and such mountains. They're 73 miles away to the northeast but look much closer. If you ever tried to escape, the desert would eat you alive before you ever reached safety." But why say so precisely? Why not "They're over 70 miles away." Or just "They're not as close as they seem"?

"You didn't record the dates he mentioned relative to these locations, did you?"

"No, Joan, I'm sorry, I didn't think of it - I can recreate some of them approximately and it's possible – I'm not sure – that those little date reminders may have usually been near the time I got a peek at the GPS. In any case, thinking of it now, it seems to me that when I did get one of these place markers from him, it usually was when we were somewhere important - the underground town, or a place where a number of special visitors came to camp, or a training area, a hidden oasis in a canyon that he said no one in the West knew about, seemingly important spots, things like that."

"But he never tried to establish protocol with you?"

'What do you mean?"

"Annie, even prisoners of war in isolation cells eventually figure out a way to communicate with each other. In the time you were together, did he ever try to set something up? Letters, number codes, finger joint alphabets? Music, humming, whistling, drumming. Anything odd that maybe you missed at the time?"

"Nothing, Joan, just what I told you."

"It just seems like he should have made a move to do so. Or you should have."

The accusation made her wince. But it was correct. She should have tried – if he'd ignored it or rejected her efforts, that would have given her more information. Maybe it was her initial head injury, but her spycraft seemed to have gone to sleep during the time she was with him.

He should have made a move…

This brave pawn, this alpha pawn

"Joan, he did. I was too stupid to see it. One day he brought a chessboard and made a fuss over me not knowing how to play, declaring that, for the good of the microphone I'm sure. I was confused because he said chess had been invented in Greece, that Alexander was a "fluent" player. And he laid out the pieces one by one, even counted off the squares. Three rows of 8, 24 spaces. That's the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. If I'd caught on, he could have done just what you're talking about – pointed at different squares while moving his pieces. We could have really communicated." The thought threw tears into her eyes.

Joan scraped back her chair and stood up.

"I'm making a call. Be right back."

Joan returned a half hour later. She seemed satisfied.

"Thought of anything else?"

"No, not really."

"It's all right. What you gave me may have just saved Eyal Lavin's life or at least ... some discomfort. And he really needs something on the other side of the ledger sheet right now."

"He is alive? We have him?" The heart monitor tracked the acceleration of her heartbeat.

"Yes, but he is not cooperating and he is being treated as a hostile enemy combatant with potentially current information. You know what that means in a case like this, Annie." Annie closed her eyes against that information.

"Where is he? Is he here? Near .." She almost said "Near me?" but changed it to "Nearby" instead.

"I can't tell you that, but you know most of the likely options."

"But if he isn't a terrorist, why wouldn't he be cooperating?"

"That's a good question that's being asked a lot around here, and at Mossad, who appear to accept his "conversion" as genuine and are doing less than nothing to assist him."

"But maybe he's not working for Mossad."

"That's what they say."

"Look at how it is with us - there are how many intelligence agencies in the States? Everyone knows the CIA. Everyone in the world knows Mossad - but we're not the only players out there. Military intelligence, NSA, DHS, you name it. Who checks up on Mossad if it needs to be done?"

"Eyal might keep quiet as long as he could, even under torture, to protect a black Israeli agency," Joan said, thoughtfully. "Well, we've bought him a respite at least and if your theory is true, maybe his real masters will have time – or the desire- to wake up and intervene. Thank you."

The only thing she had to drive out the image of Eyal being tormented was to go quickly to another pain instead. "Joan?"

"Yes?"

"There's no word - either way - on the – our- my child?" Joan visibly sighed.

"No, Annie, nothing. I believe that you've been truthful with me and I will be truthful with you. I would tell you if I could. And I will tell you this which may sound harsh, and it is. You know the options there, too - a premature infant in primitive conditions, in the care of jihadis? If the upper level got wind of it, they might see a tactical purpose for the baby, and that may be exactly why the child was snatched. In which case there could be an attempt for it to be kept safe to be used later, and if they couldn't evacuate it to a real hospital, probably giving it to an already-nursing mother with orders to keep the child alive at all costs – not a bad thing for a premature baby's survival. And that may well be the scenario. But more seriously, this baby gives potential influence over both of you, and I don't have to tell you, that will last for the rest of your career and beyond. And all they need is the right sort of child of the right age to instantly exert power over you, right up to the moment you can get DNA independently tested. You're better off assuming the child is dead until well proven otherwise. It does no good to wonder; keeping up hope in this case gives a huge advantage to enemy forces, and it might well weaken you at a key moment when you need to be strong."

"You sound like you know what this is like?"

"When I was very young, Annie, I gave a child up for adoption. That's as much as I will say on the subject." She glanced at her phone. "I'm told we do have your clothes, including an embroidered black velvet vest and sewing bag. You can help expand on the mapping information you encoded into it. In any case, I think you're up for transport back home and formal debriefing with some allowances for your condition. We'll schedule that. Welcome back, Annie." She gave Annie's hand a squeeze. Annie choked back a dozen questions, protests, needs. Back to Langley? Thousands of miles away from an imprisoned Eyal - and their child? But she forced a weak smile onto her lips.

"Thank you, Joan." Joan smiled in reply. And was gone.