“Shut up!” she said sharply.

“No, I’m not shutting up. You’re going to hear me out, lady.”

As Alicia fled the cell, his screams of outrage followed her. “Are you gonna pull the trigger on Viggie? Are you?”

Alicia broke into a run, but she couldn’t outrun the screams. The stone floor was slick and she stumbled. As she fell, her prosthetic leg hit her good leg, cutting into her skin. She slumped to the floor sobbing quietly as Sean’s shouts thundered down the bleak hall.

“I’m so sorry, Viggie,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

CHAPTER 90

FOR THREE MORE DAYS Sean was forced to stand at attention or squat. He was barely fed and a cup of water a day was his sole allotment, enough only to keep him alive. He was returned to the coffin three times.

He was poked or hit with a water jet whenever he tried to doze off. Deafening music was piped into his cell without warning and stayed on for hours. They had rigged his cell with electricity that would give him a mild shock when he touched his bed or the wall, or certain spots on the floor. It got so he simply huddled in one corner afraid to move. His belly was empty, his skin was raw; his spirit was cracking in half.

After his last trip to the coffin he awoke two hours later in his cell and looked around. He didn’t know how long he’d been in here. It could be days, weeks or years. His brain had simply shut down on him. As the cell door opened, he started sobbing, terrified of what they were going to do to him next.

“Hello, Sean, are we ready to be a good boy now?” Valerie asked.

He couldn’t even raise his head.

“Your friend’s made of tougher stuff. We never got her to cry.”

Now he looked up. “Where is Michelle?”

“That’s really none of your concern, now is it, little man?”

As Sean stared at Valerie Messaline, at the arrogant features of her face, at the confident tilt of her body, rage replaced his fear. He pushed his hand against the wall to steady himself. And then before anyone could react he pushed off the wall, lunged and was on top of her, his hands around her throat. He wanted to kill her, squeeze every molecule of arrogance, of superiority out of her ugly, filthy being.

Guards pulled him off and threw Sean back into a corner. When Sean sat up he looked at her. Valerie was standing against the far wall trying to appear composed yet he could see the fear in her eyes. And that small triumph was all he needed right now.

He stood on trembling legs, holding on to the wall for support, and said, “That’s a nasty bruise, Val. You might want to take a session in the coffin. They say oxygen deprivation is good for strangulation marks, if you don’t suffocate that is.”

“You think it’s been bad up till now,” she hissed. “Just wait.”

“Where’s Michelle?”

“Like I said you should be concerned about yourself.”

“She’s my partner and my friend. But I guess you don’t understand those concepts.” He glanced at one of the guards, a young man with short blond hair and a muscular physique. “Hey, kid, you better hope to hell you don’t do anything to piss this lady off. She might just decide to label you a spy, torture your ass, and apparently there won’t be a damn thing you can do about it.”

The guard said nothing, but Sean could see just the tiniest bit of doubt creep into his eyes as he shot a sideways glance at his boss.

He turned back to Valerie. “Where is Michelle?” he screamed, finding lung power he didn’t know he had left.

“I can see we have some more work to do with you.”

“I have friends who work at the CIA. There’s no way in hell the Agency has authorized what you’re doing. You’ll rot in jail for this.”

She stared at him coldly. “I’m doing my job. You’re the one trying to bring this country down. You’re the enemy. You broke in here. You are a spy. You are a traitor.”

“And you are full of shit.”

“We even have evidence of your participating in a drug smuggling scheme.”

“Oh, that’s a good one coming from you.”

“By the time we’re done with you, you’ll tell us everything we want to know.”

“You may torture me into saying what you want, but that won’t change the real truth.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you’re insane,” he snapped.

She turned to the guard. “Take him to the next level. And take him hard.”

Before the guard could react the cell door opened and another man wearing a suit came in followed by two other armed men.

“What are you doing here?” Valerie snapped.

The suit said, “Ian Whitfield sent me to deliver instructions to you.”

“Instructions from Whitfield? He has no authority over me.”

“Perhaps not, but this person does.” He handed a piece of paper to Valerie. As she scanned the contents Sean, who was watching her closely, knew exactly what had just happened: The woman had been left as the scapegoat in a classic Washington power move that would be instantly recognizable to everyone operating within the Beltway and totally foreign to the normal population.

Valerie folded the paper and put it in her pocket.

One of the guards stepped forward, spun Valerie around and handcuffed her. As she was being led away Valerie glanced at Sean. Their positions had just been neatly reversed and he didn’t intend to waste the opportunity. In a voice strained but clear, he said, “Better get yourself one fucking great lawyer, lady, because you’re gonna need it.”

CHAPTER 91

THE NEXT DAY SEAN AND MICHELLE were flown separately to a private hospital where it seemed they were the only patients. They had no idea where the facility was and no one there would answer any of their questions. However, they were given top-notch care. After several days of IVs, and long, uninterrupted periods of sleep, followed by two weeks of solid food and limited exercise, they both were nearly back to normal.

The doctors had kept Sean and Michelle segregated, refusing to tell them anything about the other. Finally Sean would have no more of it. Wielding a chair before a cowering nurse and attendant, he demanded to see Michelle. “Now!” he screamed.

When Sean walked into her room, she was sitting over by the window looking out at a depressing gray sky. As though sensing his presence, she turned around, cried out, “Sean,” and raced to him. They stood there in the middle of the room clinging to each other, trembling.

“They… they wouldn’t tell me anything about you,” she began as tears welled in her eyes.

“I didn’t even know if you were alive,” he stammered. “But it’s all over, Michelle,” he said. “We’re safe. And they arrested Valerie.”

“Did they put you in the coffin?” she asked.

“More than once. They said you never cried.”

“I cried, Sean. Trust me. I cried a lot.” She looked out the window. There was a bed of flowers below her window. Their blooms were done for the season; their stems drooping. “A lot,” she added.

“I’m sorry, Michelle.”

“For what? You got the same treatment in there that I did.”

“It was my idea to go over the fence.”

“I’m a big girl, Sean. I could have let you go it alone,” she added quietly.

“I know why you didn’t,” he said. “I know.” They sat in the window seat looking at the dead flowers.

After Sean and Michelle were sufficiently recovered they were flown by private jet to another location, driven by car with blacked-out windows to an underground parking garage and taken by secure elevator to an enormous office suite that had nothing in it except three chairs. While two muscular men with guns inside their suit coats waited outside they sat down across from a small, thin, impeccably dressed man with thick white hair and slender wire rim glasses. This gentleman put his fingertips together and gazed at them with a sympathetic expression.