"I can't tell you," she said, agonized. "I don't know anything about it.

"I almost believe you. But I have to be sure." He rose to his feet. "I'm going into Levy's hut now. Borg is waiting for me. Don't try to leave. There's a guard outside, and my bandit friends are camped a short distance from here in the hills." He drew a machete out of the holster at his hip. "I think I'll start on his fingers first. You'll be able to hear him screaming."

"Don't do it. There's no sense to it. He doesn't know anything. I don't know anything. Please."

"You're begging?"

"Yes," she said unevenly. "Don't hurt him."

He was staring at her. "You feel things with such intensity. What a delight you'd be to break. Begging is always satisfying, but it's not enough." He headed for the door. "If you're stubborn, we'll have to move on to the bigger stuff soon. Then I'll bring you in to watch."

"But we don't know anything."

He was gone.

Dear God in heaven. Panic was flooding through her. It was a nightmare. How could she stop it? How could she convince him? Why wouldn't the bastard believe her? Maybe he was bluffing. Maybe he only wanted to scare her.

And then she heard the first scream.

TWO

Two weeks later Kabul, Afghanistan

"THE DIRECTOR CALLED AGAIN," Ralph Moore said when Ted Ferguson came into the hotel room. "He wanted to know why he couldn't reach your cell phone. I told him there must be satellite inter¬ference."

"Good man," Ferguson said. "Not that he'll believe it." "You should have taken the call."

"And what was I to tell him? That we still can't find Emily Hud¬son and Joel Levy? I told him that yesterday and the day before. How the hell could he expect the CIA to find them when the military and U.N. are coming up zero? Even if we knew where they were, these damn blizzards would keep us from moving on them." He scowled. "I'll be lucky to have a job when this is over."