“But she got away. She went home.”

“You know what happens if you run away and make it back home? They’ll find you there. They find your family, too. And when they do, you’re all better off dead.” Olena stubbed out her cigarette. “Here it may be hell. But at least they don’t skin you alive, the way they did to her.”

I am shaking, and not from the cold. I’m thinking of Anja again. Always, I think of poor Anja, who tried to run. I wonder if her body still lies in the desert. If her flesh has rotted away.

“Then there’s no choice,” I whisper. “There’s no choice at all.”

“Sure there is. You play along with them. Fuck a few men every day, give them what they want. In a few months, a year, the Mother gets her next shipment of girls, and you’re just used merchandise. That’s when they let you go. That’s when you’re free. But if you try to run first, then they have to make an example of you.” She looks at me. I am startled when she suddenly reaches out and touches my face, her hand lingering on my cheek. Her fingers trail heat across my skin. “Stay alive, Mila,” she says. “This won’t last forever.”

Even by the lofty standards of Beacon Hill, the house was impressive, the largest on a street of distinguished residences which had housed generations of Boston Brahmins. It was Gabriel’s first visit to this home, and under different circumstances, he might have paused on the cobblestoned walkway to admire, in the fading daylight, the carved lintels and the decorative ironwork and the fanciful brass knocker on the front door. Today, though, his mind was not on architecture, and he did not linger on the sidewalk, but hurried up the steps and rang the doorbell.

It was answered by a young woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a look of cool assessment. The latest keeper of the gate, he thought. He hadn’t met this particular assistant before, but she fit the mold for a typical Conway hire: brainy, efficient-probably Harvard. Conway’s eggheads they were called on the Hill, the cadre of young men and women known for their brilliance as well as their absolute loyalty to the senator.

“I’m Gabriel Dean,” he said. “Senator Conway’s expecting me.”

“They’re waiting for you in his office, Agent Dean.”

They?

“Follow me.” She turned and led him briskly up the hallway, her low and unfashionably practical heels clicking across dark oak as they passed a series of portraits on the wall: a stern patriarch posed at his writing desk. A man garbed in the powdered wig and black robes of a judge. A third, standing before a draped curtain of green velvet. In this hallway, Conway ’s distinguished lineage was comfortably on display, a lineage that he purposefully avoided flaunting in his townhouse in Georgetown, where blue blood was a political liability.

The woman discreetly knocked at a door, then poked her head into the room. “Agent Dean is here.”

“Thank you, Jillian.”

Gabriel stepped into the room, and the door closed quietly behind him. At once the senator stepped out from behind a massive cherrywood desk to greet him. Though already in his sixties, the silver-haired Conway still moved with the power and agility of a marine, and when they shook hands, it was the robust greeting between men who have both known combat, and respect each other for it.

“How are you holding up?” Conway asked quietly.

It was the gentlest of queries, and it brought an unexpected flash of tears to Gabriel’s eyes. He cleared his throat. “The truth is,” he admitted, “I’m trying hard not to lose it.”

“I understand she went into the hospital this morning.”

“The baby was actually due last week. Her water broke this morning, and…” He paused, flushing. The conversation of old soldiers seldom strayed into the intimate details of their wives’ anatomy.

“So we’ve got to get her out of there. As soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.” Not just soon. Alive. “I’m hoping you can tell me what’s really going on here. Because Boston PD has no idea.”

“You’ve done me enough favors over the years, Agent Dean. I’ll do whatever it takes, I promise.” He turned, gesturing toward the intimate grouping of furniture that faced a massive brick fireplace. “Maybe Mr. Silver here can help.”

For the first time, Gabriel focused on the man who’d sat so silently in the leather armchair that he might easily have been overlooked. The man stood, and Gabriel saw that he was uncommonly tall, with receding dark hair and mild eyes that peered through professorial spectacles.

“I don’t believe you two have met,” said Conway. “This is David Silver, Deputy Director of National Intelligence. He just flew up from Washington.”

This is a surprise, thought Gabriel as he shook David Silver’s hand. The Director of National Intelligence was a lofty Cabinet-level post with authority over every intelligence agency in the country, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Defense Intelligence to the Central Intelligence Agency. And David Silver was the DNI’s second in command.

“As soon as we got word of the situation,” said Silver, “Director Wynne asked me to fly up here. The White House doesn’t think this is your usual sort of hostage crisis.”

“Whatever usual means these days,” added Conway.

“We already have a direct line to the police commissioner’s office,” said Silver. “We’re keeping close tabs on Boston PD’s investigation. But Senator Conway tells me you have additional information that could affect how we approach this.”

Conway pointed toward the couch. “Let’s all sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”

“You said you don’t believe this is your standard hostage crisis,” said Gabriel as he settled onto the couch. “I don’t either. And not just because my wife is involved.”

“What strikes you as different?”

“Aside from the fact the first hostage taker was female? That she had an armed compatriot who walked in to join her? Aside from the fact she broadcast what seemed to be an activation code?”

“All the things that got Director Wynne concerned,” said Silver. “Plus, there’s an additional detail that worries us. I have to admit, I didn’t pick up on the significance myself when I first heard the recording.”

“Which recording?”

“The call she made to that radio station. We asked a Defense linguist to analyze her speech. Her grammar was perfect-almost too perfect. No contractions, no slang. The woman is clearly not American, but foreign born.”

“The Boston PD negotiator made the same conclusion.”

“Now this is the part that worries us. If you listen carefully to what she said-in particular, to that phrase she used, ‘the die is cast’-you can hear the accent. It’s definitely there. Russian maybe, or Ukrainian, or some other Eastern European language. It’s impossible to distinguish her precise origins, but the accent is Slavic.”

“That’s what’s got the White House worried,” said Conway.

Gabriel frowned. “They’re thinking terrorism?”

“Specifically, Chechen,” said Silver. “We don’t know who this woman is, or how she got into the country. We know that Chechens often use female compatriots in their attacks. In the Moscow theater siege, several women were wired with explosives. Then there were those two jetliners that went down in southern Russia a few years ago, after taking off from Moscow. We believe both were brought down by female passengers wearing bombs. The point is, these particular terrorists routinely use women in their attacks. That’s what our director of National Intelligence is most afraid of. That we’re dealing with people who have no real interest in negotiation. They may be fully prepared to die, and spectacularly.”

“ Chechnya ’s quarrel is with Moscow. Not us.”

“The war on terror is global. This is precisely why the DNI’s office was created-to make sure 9/11 never happens again. Our job is to make all our intelligence agencies work together, and not at cross purposes, the way they sometimes did. No more rivalries, no more spy versus spy. We’re all in this together. And we all agree that Boston Harbor ’s a tempting target for terrorists. They could go after fuel depots or a tanker. One motorboat loaded with explosives could cause a catastrophe.” He paused. “That female hostage taker was found in the water, wasn’t she?”