The Messenger

joined the CIA.”
    “You’re lying, Sarah.”
    “I’m not lying.”
    “When did you join the CIA?”
    “I’m not CIA.”
    “Who do you work for, then?”
    She was silent.
    “Answer the question, Sarah. Who are you working for?”
    “You know who I’m working for.”
    “I want to hear you say it.”
    “I am working for the intelligence service of the State of Israel.”
    He removed his eyeglasses and stared at her for a moment.
    “Are you telling me the truth, Sarah?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying again.”
    “I know.”
    “Would you care for some more tea?”
    She nodded.
    “Answer me, Sarah. Would you like some more tea?”
    “Yes, I would like some more tea.”
    Muhammad leaned back in his chair and slapped his palm on the door of the chamber. It opened immediately and outside Sarah saw two men standing watch. “More tea,” Muhammad said to them in English, then turned to a fresh page in his notebook and looked up at her with his eager, open face. Sarah lifted her hand to her imaginary clock and added ten more minutes.

    T HOUGH S ARAH did not know it, the setting of her interrogation was the largely Roman Catholic canton of Uri, in the region of the country the Swiss fondly refer to as Inner Switzerland. The chalet was located in a narrow gorge cut by a tributary of the Reuss River. There was only one road in the gorge and a single slumbering village at the top. Uzi Navot inspected it quickly, then turned around and headed back down the gorge. The Swiss, he knew from experience, were some of the most vigilant people on the planet.
    The Saudis had tried to evade him in Zurich, but Navot had been prepared. He had always believed that when tailing a professional who is expecting surveillance, it is best to let him think that he is indeed being followed—and more important, that his countermeasures are working. Navot had sacrificed three of his watchers in northern Zurich in service to that cause. It was Navot himself who had watched the Mercedes with diplomatic plates turn into the warehouse in the Industrie-Quartier, and it was Navot who had followed it out of Zurich twenty minutes later.
    His team had regrouped along the shores of the Zürichsee and joined him in the pursuit southward toward Uri. The foul weather had granted them an additional layer of protection, as it did now for Navot, as he climbed out of his car and stole quietly through the dense trees toward the chalet, a gun in his outstretched hands. Thirty minutes later, after conducting a cursory survey of the property and the security, he was back behind the wheel, heading down the gorge to the Reuss River valley. There he parked in a turnout by the riverbank and waited for Gabriel to arrive from Zurich.

    “W HO IS YOUR control officer?”
    “I don’t know his name.”
    “I’m going to ask you one more time. What is the name of your control officer?”
    “I’m telling you, I don’t know his name. At least not his real name.”
    “By what name do you know him?”
    Don’t give him Gabriel, she thought. She blurted the first that came into her mind.
    “He called himself Ben.”
    “Ben?”
    “Yes, Ben.”
    “You’re sure? Ben?”
    “It’s not his real name. It’s just what he called himself.”
    “How do you know it’s not his real name?”
    She embraced the precision of his inquiry, for it allowed her to add more minutes to her imaginary clock.
    “Because he told me it wasn’t his real name.”
    “And you believed him?”
    “I suppose I had no reason not to.”
    “When did you meet this man?”
    “It was December.”
    “Where?”
    “In Washington.”
    “What time of day was it?”
    “In the evening.”
    “He came to your house. Your place of work.”
    “It was after work. I was on the way home.”
    “Tell me how it happened, Sarah. Tell me everything.”
    And she did, morsel by morsel, drop by drop.

    “W HERE WAS this house they brought you?”
    “In Georgetown.”
    “Which street in Georgetown?”
    “It was dark. I don’t remember.”
    “Which street in Georgetown, Sarah?”
    “It was N Street, I think.”
    “You think, or you know?”
    “It was N Street.”
    “The address?”
    “There was no address on it.”
    “Which block?”
    “I can’t remember.”
    “Was it east of Wisconsin Avenue or west, Sarah?”
    “You know Georgetown?”
    “East or West?”
    “West. Definitely West.”
    “Which block, Sarah?”
    “Between Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth, I