The Secret Servant

possible, as though he feared catching whatever was ailing her, and with a terse movement of his hand invited her to explain her affliction.
    “Idiopathic paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia.” She paused for a moment and drew a series of rapid heavy breaths. “It is a fancy way of saying that I suffer from sporadic arrhythmia in the lower chambers of my heart: the ventricles. This sporadic arrhythmia has been exacerbated by too many injections of ketamine. My heartbeat is now dangerously rapid and arrhythmic and my blood pressure is extremely low, which is causing the nausea and the chills. If you give me another shot of ketamine, you could very well kill me.”
    He stood silently for a moment, gazing at her though the eye slits of his hood, then withdrew. Several minutes later—about twenty, she guessed, but she couldn’t be sure—he returned and handed her a typewritten note:
     
FOR REASONS WE CANNOT EXPLAIN TO YOU , IT IS NECESSARY FOR YOU TO BE MOVED THIS EVENING . IF YOU ARE CONSCIOUS DURING THIS MOVEMENT , YOU WILL BE EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE . DO YOU WANT THE KETAMINE OR DO YOU WANT TO BE MOVED WHILE YOU ARE AWAKE ?
     
    “No more ketamine,” she said. “I’ll do it conscious.”
    Cain looked at her as though she had made the wrong choice, then handed her a second note.
     
IF YOU SCREAM OR MAKE ANY NOISE WHATSOEVER , WE WILL KILL YOU AND LEAVE YOU BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.
     
    “I understand,” she said.
    Cain collected the two notes and slipped out of her cell. Elizabeth stretched out on her cot and stared into the blinding white light. Her rebellion was only a few minutes old, but already she had managed to gather two small pieces of information. She was to be moved by road and at night.
     
     
     
    When next they entered her cell, they did so without first alerting her with a note. They bound her quickly in her own woolen blanket and secured it to her body cocoonlike with heavy packing tape. Foam rubber plugs were inserted into her ears, a gag placed over her mouth, and a blindfold tied tightly over her eyes. Now robbed of all senses but touch and smell, she felt them take hold of her body, one at each end, and carry her a short distance. The container into which she was placed was so narrow that the sides pressed hard against her hips and shoulders. It smelled of plywood and glue and vaguely of old fish. A lid was placed over the top, so close that it nearly touched the end of her nose, and several nails were hurriedly hammered into place. She wanted to scream. She did not. She wanted to cry out for her mother. She prayed silently instead and thought of the slender man with gray temples who had tried to save her life in Hyde Park. I will not submit , she thought. I will not submit .

40
     
    F UNEN I SLAND, D ENMARK : 8:35 P.M. , T HURSDAY
     
    T he lights of the Great Belt Bridge, second-longest suspension bridge in the world, lay like a double strand of pearls over the straits between the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. Gabriel glanced at the dashboard clock as he headed up the long sweep of the eastern ramp. The trip from Copenhagen to this point should have taken no more than two hours, but the worsening storm had stretched it to nearly four. He returned his eyes to the road and put both hands firmly on the wheel. The bridge was swaying in the high winds. Ibrahim asked again if the weather was truly a good omen. Gabriel replied that he hoped Ibrahim knew how to swim.
    It took them twenty minutes to make the eight-mile crossing. On the Funen side of the bridge, a small seaside rail station lay huddled against the storm. A mile beyond the station was a roadside gas station and café. Gabriel topped off the Audi’s tank, then parked outside the café and led Ibrahim inside. It was brightly lit, smartly decorated, and spotlessly clean. In the first room was a well-stocked market and cafeteria-style eatery; in the next was a seating area filled with stranded travelers. There was much animated conversation and, judging from the large number of empty Carlsberg bottles scattered about the pale wooden tables, considerable drinking had taken place.
    They bought egg sandwiches and hot tea in the cafeteria and sat at an empty table near the window. Ibrahim ate silently, while Gabriel sipped his tea and stared out at the car. Thirty minutes elapsed before the cell phone finally rang. Gabriel brought it to his ear, listened without speaking, then severed the connection. “Wait here,” he