"Where am I?" he groggily asked. His mouth and throat were parched. "Can you give me water?"

"We're going to give you water. Move than you will ever believe."

"Can you show me Sarai? I need to know she is safe."

The voice laughed. "Sarai. There is no Sarai here."

"So it was a lie?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. You've been away."

"How long?"

"One day. They're looking for you by now."

"What is going to happen to me?"

"What do you know about us? Let's start with what you know."

"Nothing. I know nothing about you."

Wordlessly he felt sharp jabs of pain on the bottoms of his feet, excruciating, piercing pain on his genitals, biting pain on his nipples, stabbing pain on his ears as they fastened alligator clips. They left him like that for a long period of time, several hours, he guessed. While it was quiet and still around him, the pain receded and soon he was numb where he had been wired up. The sound of the crying baby brought him back around. The child was in obvious distress and it sounded as if it had been abandoned and was hungry, hurting, or both. His pain had receded but part of his consciousness had fled along with it. He vaguely knew where he was and then he drifted away.

The potentiometer was switched from OFF to ON. And then quickly switched OFF again.

He literally arched up from the spinal board as the electric current shot through the contact points and screamed along the length of his body. A long agonizing scream issued from his chest and throat, entering his mouth and blasting at the ceiling. He urinated on himself and muttered helplessly, ashamed and shredded and totally terrified of the current returning.

"My, aren't we the touchy one," said the voice at his head. "You are capable of sound other than your lies."

"What-what do you want?"

"The truth. Let's start with that."

"I swear I'll give the truth. What?"

"How did you find out about us?"

He turned it over in his mind. The "us" the voice was referring to could only be the cell. Ragman and his group. He would answer as if.

"I obtained a file. From the FBI."

"Where is this file now?"

"At my office. On my computer."

"What does it say about us?"

"I-I don't know what you mean."

OFF-ON-OFF. The charge shot through him and this time his scream was silent and long. Then he passed out. How long he was out he had no idea, as the light above his head slowly refocused. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. He had no idea.

"You were away," said the voice. "Welcome back."

"Please. I'll tell you everything."

"Let's take up where we left off. What did the file say about us?"

"The FBI is watching you. They have agents in your mosques."

"Agents?"

"FBI agents. They are very close to you."

"Do they know specifically about our task?"

"Don't shock me again! But I don't know, honest to God! The file doesn't say anything specific about your task."

"Well-that's good news for you."

"Thank you."

"Do they have our names?"

"Yes."

"And they are following us, of course?"

"Yes. Everywhere you go."

"And you have been following us too."

"Yes. Sometimes."

"And you have murdered three of my brothers."

"You took my daughter. I couldn't let that happen again."

He clenched his teeth and squinted, expecting a freight train of electricity at any second.

Which didn't come.

"But you got your daughter back."

"She won't talk."

"That is unfortunate. We meant her no harm. It was only about the money you took from Mr. Mascari."

"Is that her crying upstairs?"

"There is no one crying upstairs."

"But I heard crying! A baby-Sarai?"

"You need to forget about Sarai. This is about you now. Only you. Are we clear on that?"

He tried to nod his understanding. But his head wouldn't move. His hands and arms were asleep and sharp needles were creeping up along as his arms as the blood flow remained impeded. Then the shaking set in. He began involuntarily to shudder from head to toe. His teeth chattered and his eyes burned. "Water, please," he muttered.

"There is no water here. There is only electricity. As you know beyond all doubt."

"Water."

"Tell me this. How many agents are working against us? Which of us are they following? Do they know about our location in the Sears Tower? What else is there?"

"I don't know about the Sears Tower-it didn't-"

OFF-ON-OFF.

Again the fiery comets of electricity shocking him up from the table, stretching every muscle along his body, shuddering his eyes in their sockets as he fought to make it stop. He heard the howling of an animal and abruptly realized the wrenching sound was his own. Then his brain swam to the other shore and he was gone again.

A different voice spoke. "He has told us everything."

"Agree."

"Get rid of him."

"Agree. What should I do."

"Burn this place to the ground."

"And the child?"

"Mother saw your face. Leave them too."

A look passed between them. Jihad was happening and lives were easily expendable, infidel and believer alike.

"We will catch up to you."

"Excellent."

60.

When he didn't come home from work and the sun had set, Katy called paralegal Christine Susmann. Did he say anything about stopping off anyplace after court? No, Christine said, and she immediately went on alert. She knew it wasn't like Thaddeus to just disappear and not tell anyone. The way it had been since Sarai's kidnapping was a matter of constant communication so Christine, Katy, and Thaddeus knew each other's whereabouts night and day. Their lives ran on calendars and expectations of comings and goings that were preplanned and communicated three ways. Always three ways. For him to just disappear after work could only mean one thing. They had him.

She couldn't tell Katy about her fear. She would push it back an hour while she made inquiries on her own. Then they would talk. She communicated this to Katy, who reluctantly agreed to wait to hear from Christine.

Paralegal Christine Susmann had received her professional training in the U.S. Army. Following basic training, she had begun her career working as an M.P. and had served two years at a Black Ops detention center in Baghdad. She was under lifetime orders to never discuss what she had seen or done on that post, which was fine; she never wanted to discuss it anyway. Following two successful years working hand-in-glove with CIA field officers, she had her choice of army schools and selected paralegal school. She had seen all she ever wanted to see of detention centers, prisons, jails, or any other institution where people were held against their will. Paralegal training had dragged on for almost a year, but when she finished, she was assigned to a JAG unit of busy lawyers in Germany.

Christine was five five and average weight, but that's where "average" ended for her. For one thing, she was beautiful and had won Miss Hickam County in the summer of her senior year, right before enlisting. For another thing she was built like an NFL safety: broad, heavily muscled shoulders and upper arms; muscular thighs and calves; and she could still press 275 while weighing only 135. She worked out religiously at the Central Chicago Athletic Club with her boss, Thaddeus, on lunch hours where he wasn't already spoken for.

Christine returned to the office after the frantic call from Katy. She had locked up two hours earlier at five o'clock. She had assumed-wrongly, she now knew-that he had gone from court straight home. That had been the plan. She kicked herself for not checking to make sure he had arrived. She always checked to make sure where everyone was. But tonight she had expected his bodyguards to drive him safely home. What she didn't know was that the guards had been lax. Amos Stamplett, who had accompanied Thaddeus to court, had walked to the end of the hallway outside the courtroom to take a call on his cell. He had moved beside the nearest window, hoping to improve the microwave signal. When he had reentered the courtroom, he had found it empty. His package had disappeared. Why hadn't he immediately called Christine? BAG headquarters had tried, but she hadn't answered. She had taken the EL train home and amid the clatter and clack of the train and its noisy occupants she had missed the call. It was coming together as she called around and pieced it together.

One thing was certain. He was missing.

The hair along the back of her neck prickled. She was certain they had him.

There was only one place she knew to go and that was the white duplex on Milwaukee Avenue where Ragman lived. She would begin there.

She headed downstairs, pressing 6 on her cell phone as she went.

Bat answered. "Hello, Christine? What can I do you for now?"

"We've got trouble. The package is missing."

"What!"

Bat-Billy A. Tattinger-was the firm's head investigator. He had relocated from Las Vegas to Chicago when Thaddeus returned to Murfee and Hightower Law Firm, Chicago. Bat had been rescued off the streets by Thaddeus, trained by Thaddeus, and schooled at Thaddeus' expense. Bat loved the man, figured he owed him everything, including his licensed investigator status with the state, his return to the human race from the sidewalks and alleyways of Las Vegas, and even his own wife and son, newly acquired since Thaddeus had worked his magic of rehabilitation on Bat.

"Come by for me," said Bat. "I'll be waiting out front."

"Bring a gun."

"Christine."

"Okay."

"You come packing, too."

"Always," she said, and punched off. She was ready to roll.

She picked Bat up in front of his house in Glen Ellyn. The man was earning in excess of $150,000 per year, plus his wife's salary as a radiographer, so in theory they could have lived in any suburb of Chicago they chose. They chose Glen Ellyn for its easy proximity to Chicago by train. Bat kept a car for investigators in the underground parking at work, so his comings and goings couldn't be monitored by watching his parking spot. He was funny that way; another skill he had picked up on the streets.

"Milwaukee Avenue?" he asked after climbing in beside her.

"Uh-huh."

"How long has it been?"

"He left court around three, according to the order signed by the judge."

"And it's what, seven now?"

"Just about."