The afternoon was still blisteringly hot even as the sun was promising to drop toward the horizon. Ashera heard a commotion just outside her tent – but it was too early for her girls to be bringing back the herd. "It's mine and you can't have it!" Her middle daughter, Yasmina, stood in front of the tent flap, defiant, confronting her older sister. She was too young to be veiled like her older sister so Ashera could see her stubborn little face and the tears flying off her eyelashes.

"I told her! I told her she couldn't keep it!" Her eldest, still young, now covered her face. But Ashera could read her exasperation in her eyes.

"I just want to see..." Ashera coaxed, gently, shifting her own nursing baby – daughter number 3 - to let her bend forward. She reached forward a hand, her daughter jumped back, the tiny human made noises and began to cry. It was alive, born too early, that was obvious. She turned to her older daughter. "There was no mother?"

"No. It was in a car. There were dead men. Two of them. In a jeep! One of the goats went over there and we followed it."

Two dead men and a living baby. The crying made her young daughter less excited to be holding the infant. "Here, you take Amira," she told her, "and I'll take the noisy one," she offered, and Yasmina relented and let her mother take "the noisy one". The infant Amira wasn't happy either, but at least she stayed quiet long enough for Ashera to swap babies. It was a little boy, perfect, too small, badly dehydrated, but alive. And nothing but potential trouble – found with two dead men. It was easy to die in this part of the land, she knew, between the military and the jihadis and tribal conflicts. And she had no desire that any of her family would follow them into death through some misplaced compassion of her own or of her daughters'.

"There had been an accident with the car?"

"No, they were shot."

Ashera's heart sank. This was going from bad to worse. Still, whoever killed the men had either ignored the infant or – it was so small – had not known it existed to be killed. The latter was likely, if there truly was no mother nearby. But she needed to find out more if she could. "Take me where you found it, " she told her elder daughter. "You wait here, care for Amira, and say nothing of this to anyone. Did anyone see you with this?" She didn't want to name it as even an anonymous baby. Who knows what she would have to do with it?

"No! I knew they'd try to take him from me! Now you, you're taking him from me!"

"Yasmina, it is not a doll, it is a baby," she relented. "It's not yours, it's not ours. We must find where it should go." Or find a place it would not be refound again, at least not by any of them.

But it is a boy…

If there was a woman, a new mother, lying injured, she needed to know, whatever the risk. Without thinking, Ashera let the whimpering infant latch onto her where Amira had been nursing. Amira must have sensed the injustice as she now began wailing. Ashera concealed the infant and set off at a quick pace, following her child over the rough ground.

Annie tensed herself, ready to spring as her door opened, then had to drop back onto the bed as if still bound the instant she recognized Joan. If Joan noted her sudden rearrangement, she gave no sign. Her door opened. "I"ve got something to show you, Annie," Joan told her, gesturing with an oversize manila envelope. Joan flipped on a wall-mounted lightbox and pulled out the contents of the envelope. Bones and skull appeared on the light box.

"Is that Eyal?"

"You know him by X-rays of his bones? I am impressed. Your involvement is more intimate than I dreamed."

Joan's tone was light, which reassured Annie about whatever was to come, but the X-ray, of the shoulder girdle, showed a dislocation. She knew what caused that in custody.

"I'm guessing from the injury."

"Oh, the dislocation? Yes. That's easy to fix. Don't worry about that. Look closer." Joan tapped the image. Annie found it hard to pull her eyes away from the image of the skull. "I think it is clearer on this one, actually," Joan said, switching the image for another one, closer on the shoulder. It was less unnerving without the skull staring at her. Joan tapped at an area, apparently within the bone itself. An oddly symmetrical small cylinder shape was just visible.

"Is that some sort of surgical screw?"

"No. It's not."

"What is it?"

"We believe it is a relatively new technology. Essentially, Annie, if this is implanted, the host body is turned into a self-powering broadcasting device. Anything that person says – and much or most of what he or she hears – can be monitored remotely. It's wearing a wire that can't be removed, except surgically, and since it is imbedded directly into the bone, not easily even then."

"So, everything Eyal ever said to me in the desert was heard by someone. But who?"

"That's the question. It's advanced for the jihadis to have. There is also the question of whether or not Eyal was even aware of it."

"He was aware. Don't you see? That's why I had to be punished, publicly, for something I said to him in supposed privacy."

"You're right. So jihadi or Organization X, he knew it was there."

"Or suspected. He might not have known exactly how he was being monitored, but any number of things could have clued him in that he was being continually monitored. He may not have known it was in his body – he could have been "accidentally" injured in that area and treated. But he had to think the jihadis were listening too. If it was Organization X – a black ops Israeli group, or them only, why hurt me? Presumably that wouldn't impress them for any useful purpose. And this also explains why he never broke character."

"Unless he suspected even Organization X had been compromised. Or that they would not tolerate him rescuing you and offering another avenue by which his mission could be compromised. They're not too sentimental at that level."

"That could explain why there was an attack that seemed to be aimed at me specifically." .

"Yes, And it could explain why, if Jihadi Eyal was a character and not reality, that he had to punish you so harshly. But his real allegiance is still unclear, Annie, as plenty of smart people keep reminding me."

"Joan, everything I told you I tried to be as neutral as I possibly could. And everything I said to you is true. But this is true, too – I just don't believe he could turn his back on Israel, on the West, on his original faith. I just don't. I know that's subjective."

"Annie, I agree. But I have to be very careful that my opinion does not appear too soft and that I'm not over-rating your evidence or anything I try to do for him will be disregarded."

"So the … questioning continues."

"As I told you, your information possibly in his favor got him a respite or a change in technique at least for a time."

"Information I didn't even realize I had, that you put together."

Joan shrugged one elegant shoulder. "Part of the job, Annie."

"There's nothing I can do for him directly, is there?"

"At some point they might actually want you to visit. But it wouldn't be a social call, it would be to take a different direction on questioning him. My decision to bring you back in is already under a great deal of discussion, as you can imagine."

"Nothing I can do as his wife? And mother of his kidnapped child?" Joan paused for an instant.

"That's an interesting thought. But I'm not sure you want to hit that very hard, Annie. Not without threatening your ability to continue with the agency. It's one thing to have been forced into that role – as you were, whatever you made of it later, that's Stockholm syndrome stuff or simple deep cover technique and easy to get out from under. You start to make it more personal - and asserting "rights" that you think you may have - and that's a whole 'nother ballgame, Annie, and not one I'm sure you want to play."

Annie swallowed. She forced herself to go over her true priorities before blurting out an answer to Joan. First, get back to the desert as fast as possible and find their baby - dead or alive, she had to know. Second, rescue Eyal. She'd decide what to actually do with him based on what phase she found him in - jihadi or Israeli. Third, she'd figure out third once the first two were well in place. She nodded, trying to project peaceful reasonableness with a bit of tiredness. That would only work if Joan had somehow genuinely not noticed that she had been ready to spring to an attack as she had entered the room. "You're right, Joan," she said, hearing the words come out a little too passively, a bit too unbelievably.

"Yes, I think I am," Joan said, and with a quick move, jammed Annie's wrists back into the Velcro straps, givng them a little extra pat as she picked up the X-ray envelope and swung away. Before the door could click shut behind her Annie heard Joan calling for the nurse, and at the same moment, the new shift guard came in, fully on the alert. No chance of escape now, Annie thought. Not for her, and probably not for Eyal, either.