The Messenger

counting down the minutes to her execution. Muhammad was bringing her tea. Sarah opened the glass cover of her imaginary clock and moved the hands back five minutes.

34.

Canton Uri, Switzerland

    T HEY BROUGHT THE TEA Arab-style in a small glass. Sarah’s hands remained cuffed. To drink she had to lower her head toward the table and slurp noisily while Muhammad gazed at her in revulsion. His own tea remained untouched. It stood between his open notebook and a loaded pistol.
    “You can’t make me vanish and expect no one to notice,” she said.
    He looked up and blinked several times rapidly. Sarah, free of the abaya, examined him in the harsh light of the interrogation chamber. He was bald to the crown of his angular head, and his remaining hair and beard were cropped to precisely the same length. His dark eyes were partially concealed behind a pair of academic spectacles, which flashed with reflected light each time he looked up from his notepad. His expression was open and strangely earnest for an interrogator, and his face, when he was not screaming or threatening to strike her, was vaguely pleasant. At times he seemed to Sarah like an eager young journalist posing questions to a politician standing at a podium.
    “Everyone in London knows I went to the Caribbean with Zizi,” she said. “I spent almost two weeks on Alexandra . I was seen with him at restaurants on Saint Bart’s. I went to the beach with Nadia. There’s a record of my departure from Saint Maarten and a record of my arrival in Zurich. You can’t just make me disappear in Switzerland. You’ll never get away with it.”
    “But that’s not the way it happened,” Muhammad said. “You see, shortly after your arrival tonight, you checked into your room at the Dolder Grand Hotel. The clerk examined your passport, as is customary here in Switzerland, and forwarded the information to the Swiss police, as is also customary. In a few hours you will awaken and, after taking coffee in your room, you will go to the hotel gym for your morning workout. Then you will shower and dress for your appointment. A car will collect you at 9:45 and take you to Herr Klarsfeld’s residence on the Zurichberg. There you will be seen by several members of Herr Klarsfeld’s household staff. After viewing the Manet painting, you will place a call to Mr. al-Bakari in the Caribbean, at which point you will inform him that you cannot reach accord on a sale price. You will return to the Dolder Grand Hotel and check out of your room, then proceed to Kloten Airport, where you will board a commercial flight back to London. You will spend two days relaxing at your apartment in Chelsea, during which time you will make several telephone calls on your phone and make several charges on your credit cards. And then, unfortunately, you will vanish inexplicably.”
    “Who is she?”
    “Suffice it to say she bears a vague resemblance to you, enough so she can travel on your passport and slip in and out of your apartment without attracting suspicion from the neighbors. We have helpers here in Europe, Sarah, helpers with white faces.”
    “The police will still come after Zizi.”
    “No one comes after Zizi al-Bakari. The police will have questions, of course, and they will be answered in due time by Mr. al-Bakari’s lawyers. The matter will be handled quietly and with tremendous discretion. It is one of the great advantages of being a Saudi. We truly are above the law. But back to the matter at hand.”
    He looked down and tapped the tip of his pen impatiently against the blank page of his notebook.
    “You will answer my questions now, Sarah?”
    She nodded.
    “Say yes, Sarah. I want you to get in the habit of speaking.”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Yes, what?”
    “Yes, I’ll answer your questions.”
    “Is your name Sarah Bancroft?”
    “Yes.”
    “Very good. Are the place of birth and date of birth correct on your passport?”
    “Yes.”
    “Was your father really an executive for Citibank?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are your parents now truly divorced?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you attend Dartmouth University and later pursue graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute in London?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you the Sarah Bancroft who wrote a well-received dissertation on German Expressionism while earning a Ph.D. from Harvard?”
    “I am.”
    “Were you also working for the Central Intelligence Agency at this time?”
    “No.”
    “When did you join the CIA?”
    “I never