poly. They had trained him to do just that.
“Kind of Kafkaesque, isn’t it?” Wells said.
“Actually I think it’s more of a Catch-22,” Shafer said.
Wells couldn’t help but laugh.
“This isn’t funny,” Duto said.
“Jenny’s right,” Wells said. “Box me.”
Duto stood to leave, then picked up Wells’s Koran. “You want it back, John?”
“Is this some kind of test?” Wells said. “Yes.”
Duto flicked it contemptuously across the table. “I understand,” he said. “It’s your special book.”
EXLEY SAT ALONE at the conference table, her head in her hands, replaying the moment when Duto had shown her just where she stood. He wasn’t simply snapping at her, or cursing at Wells. He had wanted Wells to know that he was the alpha. It was the wrong strategy — Wells couldn’t be intimidated — but Duto had decided to try. He’d proved his point by picking on the weakest link. On her. Men were intuitive assholes. And no one had bothered to defend her, not even Wells, whom she was trying to help. Because in the shark tank you saved yourself first. Probably the others had hardly even noticed what had happened, not after the way Duto had reamed out Wells, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Where had her confidence gone? But she knew. The divorce, the endless work…and the feeling that none of it made any difference. She couldn’t help but envy al Qaeda’s certainty. Always wrong but never in doubt.
WELLS’S ROOM HAD a double bed, a separate bathroom with a steel shower and toilet, even a narrow window that overlooked the agency’s lush green campus. Aside from the cameras in the corners, he could hardly tell it was a cell. “High class,” he said to Dex, the guard from the conference room.
“I just do what they tell me.”
“You and everyone else.”
“Get some sleep. I’ll be back at noon.” Dex left. The door closed with an electromagnetic thunk that let Wells know he was locked in.
Between the Greyhound and the interrogation, Wells had hardly slept since Missoula. But before he lay down he opened his Koran and recited the ninety-fourth sura, a beautiful verse:
He lay down and fell immediately asleep.
WELLS HID BEHIND a boulder as a black-robed man walked toward him, whip in hand. Crack! The whip swung toward him. The air was foul and thick. Bats screeched overhead. He was lost in a cave; a distant glimmer marked the world outside. But the man in the black robe blocked his escape route. Who was he? Khadri? Duto? Bin Laden? Wells would be safe if he could answer that question. He shrank lower behind the rock.
Crack! The cave itself was crumbling, its walls shattering. A heavy stone fell from the ceiling and crashed beside him. Smoke seared his eyes. The man vanished and Wells tried to run for the mouth of the cave. But as he did the light receded, and the ground beneath him turned to muck. He stumbled and fell into the mire, which covered him, filling his nose and mouth so he could not breathe—
He woke to find Shafer shaking him.
“Sorry,” Shafer said. “I let myself in. You seemed to be having a nightmare.”
“I don’t have nightmares,” Wells said. At least this one was easy to read. He felt trapped. What a shock.
“Most people would after what you’ve been through. Then again, most people wouldn’t have survived what you went through.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Don’t get touchy.”
Immediately Wells felt his temper rise.
“Are you saying they let me live because I turned?”
“I meant it as a compliment, John. Believe it or not.”
“Sure. Everybody has a job to do, Ellis,” Wells said. “Like Duto’s the bad guy, you’re my real friend.”
“Duto doesn’t even know I’m here. I’m not sure he’d be happy about it. We have some differences of opinion.”
“Yeah?” Wells said. “Like what?”
“Well, I think he’s a Class A prick. He thinks he’s Class B.”
Wells laughed. “As long as you spare me the speech about how it’ll go easier if I just tell you everything right now.”
“If we really thought you’d flipped we’d be treating you a lot worse than this.” Shafer stepped back and pointed to a shirt and a pair of jeans stacked on a chair. “Yours, from the hotel.”
“Ellis—” Wells stopped himself. He wanted to ask Shafer about Exley, where she stood, but he would have that conversation with her directly.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks,” Wells said.
Shafer looked at his watch. “The poly’s in an hour.”
“Am I a prisoner, Ellis?”
“That’s for the lawyers to decide. Let’s say you’re a guest.”
“Like the Hotel California?”
“You’re showing your age, John.” Shafer opened the door.
“It’s not locked?”
“Not for me,” Shafer said. And walked out, closing the door behind him.
WELLS HADN’T TAKEN a polygraph since his agency training, and he was surprised when he realized that a flat-panel computer monitor on the examiner’s desk had replaced the paper-and-needles box. Otherwise the room hadn’t changed: beige walls, a thickly padded chair, and an obvious one-way mirror on the far wall.
“Sit,” said the examiner, a tough-looking guy, early fifties, with the thick forearms and unfriendly squint of a marine gunnery sergeant. He strapped a blood-pressure cuff around Wells’s arm, tightened rubber tubes around his chest, and attached electrodes to his fingers. “Pull up your pant leg.”
Wells hesitated, then rolled up his jeans. The examiner knelt next to Wells’s left leg. He pushed down Wells’s sock and pulled a straight razor from his pocket. “Hold still.” He shaved a patch of Wells’s calf and pasted another electrode to the spot. He stepped back to consult his monitor.
“What’s your name?” His tone was harsh, as if Wells were a prisoner.
Wells controlled his temper, visualizing the top of Lost Trail Pass, the Montana mountains.
“Easy, killer,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“You can call me Walter. What’s your name?”
“Walter what?”
“What’s your name?”
