had already moved to Nasr. 'It's an honor to have you here, Dr. Nasr,' Haveles said.
'It's an honor to be here,' Nasr replied, 'though I wish the circumstances were not so grim.'
Haveles shook Bicking's hand, but his eyes returned quickly to Nasr. 'They are grimmer than you know,' Haveles said. 'Come. We'll talk in my office. Would any of you care for something to drink?'
The men shook their heads, after which Haveles turned and extended a hand down the corridor. The men began walking slowly, Haveles between Hood and Nasr and Bicking beside Hood. Their footsteps echoed down the corridor as the ambassador talked about the ancient vases on display. They were top-lit, and looked quite dramatic in front of nineteenth-century murals showing events from the reign of the Umayyad Caliphs, during the first century A.D.
Haveles's round office was at the far end of the embassy. It was small but ornate, with marble columns on all sides and a central drum ceiling reminiscent of the cathedral at Bosra. Light came through a large skylight in the top of the dome. There were no other windows. The guests sat in thickly padded brown armchairs. Haveles shut the door, then sat behind his massive desk. He seemed dwarfed by it.
'We have our sources in the Presidential Palace,' he said with a smile, 'and we suspect they have sources here. It's best to speak in private.'
'Of course,' said Hood.
Haveles folded his hands in front of him. 'The palace believes that there is a death squad in Damascus. The best information they have is that the team will strike late this afternoon.'
'Do we have corroboration?' Hood asked.
'I was hoping you could help us there,' Haveles said. 'At least, that your people could. You see, I've been invited to visit the palace this afternoon.' He looked at the antique ivory clock on his desk. 'In ninety minutes, in fact. I've been invited to remain there for the rest of the day, talking things over with the President. Our chat is to be followed by dinner—'
'This is the same President who once kept our Secretary of State waiting for two days before granting him an audience,' Dr. Nasr interrupted.
'And kept the French President sitting in an ante-chamber for four hours,' Bicking added. 'The President still doesn't get it.'
'Get what?' Hood asked.
'The lessons of his ancestors,' said Bicking. 'Through most of the nineteenth century, they used to invite enemies to their tents and seduce them with kindness. Pillows and perfume won more wars out here than swords and bloodshed.'
'Yet those victories still left the Arabs in disunity,' Dr. Nasr said. 'The President does not seek to seduce
'Actually,' said Haveles, 'I think you're both missing the point. If I may finish, the President has also invited the Russian and Japanese ambassadors to this meeting. I suspect that we will be with him until the crisis has passed.'
'Of course,' Hood nodded. 'If anything happens to him, it'll happen to you and the others.'
'Assuming the President even shows up,' Bicking pointed out. 'He may not even be in Damascus.'
'That's possible,' Haveles admitted.
'If an attack occurs,' said Dr. Nasr, 'even with the President away from the palace, Washington, Moscow, and Tokyo will find it impossible to support whoever staged the attack, whether it's the Kurds or Turks.'
'Exactly,' said Haveles.
'They could even be Syrian soldiers masquerading as Kurds,' said Bicking. 'They conveniently kill everyone except the President. He survives and becomes a hero to millions of Arabs who dislike the Kurds.'
'That's also possible,' Haveles said. He looked at Hood. 'Which is why, Paul, any intelligence you can come up with will be helpful.'
'I'll get in touch with Op-Center right away,' Hood said. 'In the meantime, what about
Haveles looked at Hood. 'It's all been arranged, Paul.'
Hood didn't like the smooth way the ambassador had said that. 'When?' he asked.
Haveles grinned for the first time. 'You've been invited to join me at the palace.'
THIRTY-SEVEN
Phil Katzen crouched on the mesh floor of the dark pit. He had quickly grown accustomed to the stale smell in his little prison. To the stench of the sweat and waste of those who had been incarcerated before him. Any lingering discomfort he felt passed when Rodgers's torture began. Then it was the smell of burning flesh which filled his nostrils and lungs.
Katzen had wept when Rodgers finally screamed, and he was weeping still. Beside him, Lowell Coffey sat with his chin against his knees and his arms around his legs. Coffey was staring through Katzen.
'Where are you, Lowell?' Katzen asked.
Coffey looked up. 'Back in law school,' he said. 'Arguing in moot court on behalf of a laid-off factory worker who had taken his boss hostage. I do believe I'd try that one differently now.'
Katzen nodded. School didn't prepare a person for much. In graduate school, he had taken specialized courses as part of his training for extended visits to other countries. One of these was a semester-long series of lectures by visiting professor Dr. Bryan Lindsay Murray of the Rehabilitation and Research Center for Victims of War in Copenhagen. At that time, just over a decade before, nearly half a million victims of torture alone were living in the United States. They were refugees from Laos and South Africa, from the Philippines and Chile. Many of those victims spoke to the students. These people had had the soles of their feet beaten mercilessly and had lost their sense of balance. They had had eardrums punctured and teeth pulled, tacks thrust under fingernails and toenails and cattle prods pushed down their throats. One woman had been enclosed in the bell, a glass dome which remained over her until her sweat had reached her knees. The course was supposed to help students understand torture and help them to deal with it if they were ever captured. What a big, fat intellectual sham that'd been.
Yet Katzen knew that one thing he'd learned in the lectures was true. If they survived this, the deepest scars would not be physical. They would be emotional. And the longer the captivity went on, the less treatable their post-traumatic stress disorder would be. Fits of panic or chronic despondency could be brought on by re- experiencing anything they had suffered today. The smell of dirt or the sound of a scream. Darkness or a shove. Perspiration trickling down their armpits. Anything.
Katzen looked at Coffey. In his fetal position and distant expression he saw himself and the others. The time they'd spent tied up in the ROC had enabled them to pass through the first phase of the long emotional road hostages faced — denial. Now they were moving through the numbing weight of acceptance. That phase would last for days. It would be followed by flashbacks to happier times — which was where Coffey was already headed — and finally by self-motivation.
Katzen shut his eyes, but the tears kept coming. Rodgers was snarling now, like a caged dog. His chains rattled as he tugged against them. Private DeVonne was talking to him calmly, trying to help him focus.
'I'm with you,' she was saying to him in a soft but very tremulous voice. 'We're all with you'
'All of us!' Private Pupshaw shouted from the pit to the left of Katzen's. 'We're all with you.'
Rodgers's snarls soon became screams. They were short, angry, and agonized. Katzen could no longer hear Sondra's voice over his cries. Pupshaw was swearing now, and Katzen heard Mary Rose vomiting in the pit to the right. It had to be her. Seden was still unconscious.
There wasn't a civil, dignified human sound to be heard. In a few short minutes, the terrorists had transformed a band of educated, intelligent people into desperate or frightened animals. If he weren't one of them, he might have admired the simple skill with which it was done.
He couldn't just sit there. Turning, Katzen dug his fingers into the mesh and pulled himself to his feet.
