The Messenger

factories, smoking rail yards. There were no pedestrians on the pavements and no passengers in the streetcars. It seemed she was alone in the world with only the Unimportant One for company. She asked him once more where they were going. He responded with an elbow to Sarah’s abdomen that made her cry out for her mother.

He took a long look over his shoulder, then he forced Sarah to the floor and murmured something in Arabic to the driver. She was lost now in darkness. She pushed the pain to one corner of her mind and tried to concentrate on the movement of the car. A right turn. A left. The thump-thump of rail tracks. An abrupt stop that made the tires scream. The Unimportant One pulled her back onto the seat and opened the door. When she seized hold of the armrest and refused to let go, he engaged in a brief tug of war before losing patience and giving her a knifelike blow to the kidney that sent charges of pain to every corner of her body.

She screamed in agony and released the armrest. The Unimportant One dragged her from the car and let her fall to the ground. It was cold cement. It seemed they were in a parking garage or the loading dock of a warehouse. She lay there writhing in agony, gazing up at her tormentor through the black gauze of the veil. The Saudi woman’s view of the world. A voice told her to rise. She tried but could not.

The driver got out of the car and, together with the Unimportant One, lifted her to her feet. She stood there suspended for a moment, her arms spread wide, her body draped in the abaya, and waited for another hammer blow to her abdomen. Instead she was deposited into the backseat of a second car. The man seated there was familiar to her. She had seen him first in a manor house in Surrey that did not exist, and a second time at a villa in Saint Bart’s that did. “Good evening, Sarah,” said Ahmed bin Shafiq. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

32.

Zurich

IS YOUR NAME REALLY Sarah, or should I call you something else?”

She tried to answer him but was gasping for breath.

“My-name-is-Sarah.”

“Then Sarah it will be.”

“Why-are-you-doing-this-to-me?”

“Come, come, Sarah.”

“Please-let-me-go!”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

She was doubled forward now, with her head between her knees. He grabbed her by the neck and pulled her upright, then lifted the veil and examined the damage to her face. From his expression it was unclear whether he thought they had been too hard on her or too lenient. She gazed back at him. Leather trench coat, cashmere scarf, small round spectacles with tortoiseshell rims: the very picture of a successful Zurich moneyman. His dark eyes radiated a calculating intelligence. His expression was identical to the one he had worn the moment of their first meeting.

“Who are you working for?” he asked benevolently.

“I work”-she coughed violently-“for Zizi.”

“Breathe, Sarah. Take long slow breaths.”

“Don’t-hit-me-anymore.”

“I won’t,” he said. “But you have to tell me what I want to know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“I want to know who you’re working for.”

“I told you-I work for Zizi.”

His face betrayed mild disappointment. “Please, Sarah. Don’t make this difficult. Just answer my questions. Tell me the truth, and this entire disagreeable episode will be over.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Unfortunately, this is true,” he said, as though agreeing with her assessment of the weather. “But if you tell us what we want to know, you’ll be spared the knife, and your death will be as painless as possible. If you persist in these lies, your last hours on earth will be a living hell.”

His cruelty is limitless, she thought. He speaks of my beheading but doesn’t have the decency to look away.

“I’m not lying,” she said.

“You’ll talk, Sarah. Everyone talks. There’s no use trying to resist. Please, don’t do this to yourself.”

“I’m not doing anything. You’re the one who’s-”

“I want to know who you’re working for, Sarah.”

“I work for Zizi.”

“I want to know who sent you.”

“Zizi came for me. He sent me jewels and flowers. He sent me airline tickets and bought me clothing.”

“I want to know the name of the man who contacted you on the beach at Saline.”

“I don’t-”

“I want to know the name of the man who spilled wine on my colleague in Saint-Jean.”

“What man?”

“I want to know the name of the girl with the limp who walked by Le Tetou during Zizi’s dinner party.”

“How would I know her name?”

“I want to know why you were watching me at my party. And why you suddenly decided to pin your hair up. And why you were wearing your hair up when you went jogging with Jean-Michel.”

She was weeping uncontrollably now. “This is madness!”

“I want to know the names of the three men who followed me on motorcycles later that day. I want to know the names of the two men who came to my villa to kill me. And the name of the man who watched my plane take off.”

“I’m telling you the truth! My name is Sarah Bancroft. I worked at an art gallery in London. I sold Zizi a painting, and he asked me to come to work for him.”

“The van Gogh?”

“Yes!”

“Marguerite Gachet at Her Dressing Table?”

“Yes, you bastard.”

“And where did you obtain this painting? Was it acquired on your behalf by your intelligence service?”

“I don’t work for an intelligence service. I work for Zizi.”

“You’re working for the Americans?”

“No.”

“For the Jews?”

“No!”

He exhaled heavily, then removed his spectacles and spent a long moment contemplatively polishing them on his cashmere scarf. “You should know that shortly after your departure from Saint Maarten, four men arrived at the airport and boarded a private plane. We recognized them. We assume they are headed here to Zurich. They’re Jews, aren’t they, Sarah?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Trust me, Sarah. They’re Jews. One can always tell.”

He examined his spectacles and polished some more. “You should also know that colleagues of these Jews clumsily attempted to follow you tonight after you landed at the airport. Our driver easily dispensed with them. You see, we’re professionals, too. They’re gone now, Sarah. And you’re all alone.”

He put on his spectacles again.

“Do you think the so-called professionals for whom you’re working would be willing to sacrifice their lives for