“We won’t force her in there, and neither will you.”
While they argue, I walk over to the glass box. On the front, below the screen, is an orange button. I press it. The door slides open.
Their heads snap my way. I step into the box. My mother moves for me, but the door slides shut, separating us. Her palm lands on the glass.
You don’t have to do this. I see her lips move, but I hear nothing.
CHAPTER 43
“Do you recognize this person?” The man stands on the opposite side of the glass, holding a photograph—fuzzy and gritty around the edges, taken at a distance and zoomed in close. I don’t need a high-resolution color image to recognize the Chechen who followed me, the man with the hazel eyes who attacked me in Waterford sixteen hours ago.
I see my reflection in the glass. My blond hair blurs into the khaki uniform. I glance at my parents. They are standing on either side of the man like sentries—arms folded, faces expressionless.
“Ms. Hepworth, have you seen this man before?” His voice is clear inside the cube’s speaker system.
My parents’ impassive faces offer no clue of how they want me to answer. I look away from them and nod.
“Verbal answers,” the man says sharply.
“Yes,” I say. My voice is raspy. After so much crying, it hurts to talk.
“Where?” he asks.
“In Waterford.” I swallow. “Where your drone took that picture.”
He glances to my right, at the screen attached to the front of the glass box.
“How many times have you seen him?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“Three.”
“How long were you aware you were being followed?”
“I wasn’t aware—”
“You saw him three times. With your history, I presume you thought that odd?”
“With her history?” my father interrupts. His face remains expressionless, but his voice has dropped an octave.
The man pivots to my father. “Kent, you neutralized an entire terrorist cell based on a fourteen-year-old girl’s recollection of conversations that occurred during a violent kidnapping, in a language she hadn’t heard since she was seven. Her history is better than most of our recruits.”
Turning his back on my father, the man shifts his weight to his left hip and points to the figure in the photograph. “Ms. Hepworth, why was he in Waterford?”
“Objection,” my mother says coolly. “Speculation.”
The man sighs. “Why do you think he was in Waterford, Ms. Hepworth?”
“Ask him.” I nod at the photograph.
“I’m asking you.”
I remember once, a very long time ago, we attended a horse race in Dubai. My parents stood silently, motionless, awaiting the end of the race in anticipation. This is how they stand now. Riveted.
“Why was he in Waterford?” the man asks.
“To kill me, I guess.”
“Who ordered him, Ms. Hepworth?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
The man holds up a second photograph, also poor quality; but this time it is a different man’s profile, zoomed in until his face covers two-thirds of the photograph.
My throat seizes.
“When was the last time you spoke with Ilyas Farhad?”
I swallow. “In Istanbul, twenty months ago.”
“But you’ve had contact with him since Istanbul, correct?”
“Are you serious?”
“Did you Snapchat, text, tweet, email, darknet, use a chatroom, or communicate with Farhad in any way after Istanbul?”
“Do you see that scar across his face?” I point at the photograph. “I did that.”
The man inspects the photograph, then looks back at me. “Notwithstanding, you saw Farhad in Tunis before his death, correct?”
“When he broke into our safe house with a locked and loaded Makarov? Yeah, I saw him.”
“And what did Farhad say to you?”
“Nothing. He was dead.”
His eyes switch rapidly between the screen and me. “Was he dead the entire time he was inside the flat?”
“No.”
“Then he had time to speak with you, yes?”
“He entered the flat, came into the kitchen, and my father shot him in the back of his head. So, yeah, he was alive inside the flat”—I pause—“but only for twenty-five seconds.”
The man stares down at me like Krenshaw did when I told him I took a test at the embassy in Tunis.
My father watches the man carefully—assessing his threat potential, calculating whether he is an enemy or not.
“How did Farhad get into the flat?” he asks.
“He broke in,” I say.
“How? Through a door, or a window?”
“The door. He used a key.”
My mother’s mouth twitches. I must have said the wrong thing.
“A key?” The man puts down the paper. He looks pleased. Like he’s been placing a bet on another racehorse, and his horse just crossed first. “Using a key isn’t breaking in.”