“But you got out.”

“On Wednesday, Abu Khalid — that’s the man who runs the camp, at least what he calls himself — said I could leave. Hamdulillah.” Thanks be to God.

“Abu Khalid.” Holm didn’t recognize the name, but al-Qaeda commanders regularly changed their pseudonyms. “If I showed you pictures, could you recognize him?”

“Yes.”

“And where the camp is?”

“No. They made me leave my phone, all my things, before they picked me up in Peshawar. Then they blindfolded me and drove for a long time.”

“Today’s Sunday. That means you left the camp four days ago.”

“Yes.”

“When was the bombing?”

“The bombing happened, I want to say, five days before that. Yes. Nine days ago. Friday night.”

“You have such a good memory, Rashid. So specific and detailed.”

“I do my best.”

Specificity and detail were good, in theory. She could check the time line he’d provided against records of drone attacks. But if he was a double agent, he’d expect her to check. He wouldn’t make up an attack, slip on something so obvious. So all his specificity and detail proved nothing, in the end.

“ ’Round and ’round we go,” she said. “Where we stop, nobody knows.”

“I don’t understand.” He opened another Coke, drank deep. His thirst, at least, was genuine.

“You’ve grown a beard, too.”

“All the men up there have them. I expect the next time you see me, it will be even bigger.”

“Unless they want you to shave it so you can travel more easily.”

“I think they want me to stay up there. That’s why I asked for this meeting, Miss Simmons.”

“Call me Marci. Please.”

“Yes. Marci. They’ve told me a top man is sick. Some kind of heart trouble. They say they want me to see him.”

“Do you know who?”