The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301

Part III - Chapter Thirty-Seven

Keeping his hand on the boy's elbow, Dumbledore steered him away from the edge of the tower and down the stairs, past the whispering students who had followed the children's wild flight upward with the usual ghoulish curiosity that intimations of tragedy will draw. The door to the Headmaster's office opened to him and he guided the shivering boy to one of the chairs and took the one behind the desk. He conjured a tray with cocoa and biscuits and said with the greatest outward serenity and courtesy possible, "Have some cocoa, Sirius, and then we shall talk."

Sirius lifted one long-fingered hand, and for an instant, Dumbledore thought he would send the delicate porcelain cups flying. However, the hand dropped down, shaking, to clutch the arms of the chair and Dumbledore saw with surprise that the wildness had left the boy's eyes, which now appeared more grey than blue and which expressed nothing more than a weary sorrow.

"Will he be all right?"

Again, Dumbledore was surprised, not only because the boy had mastered himself so rapidly, but also because it seemed he was concerned for Harry's well-being. He had not answered quickly enough, for the boy repeated the question. "Will he - Dad…" The pale face tightened and the boy continued, "not my … you know who … I don't know what to call him anymore."

"Harry will recover," Dumbledore responded. "And I see no reason why you should not go on calling him your father. He has been your father in every way that mattered."

"But he's not," Sirius answered bleakly. "And I don't know what I am or who I am anymore."

Dumbledore considered the boy thoughtfully. Harry had done a better job than he knew in making the boy his own. For the first time since Dumbledore had learnt that an heir of Voldemort's had been born, he found himself believing that the existence of a Slytherin heir might not cause the harm he had feared.

"Well," Dumbledore said smilingly, "I think you are taking the shock rather better than Harry did when he learned something equally as awful, if not worse."

"What do you mean?" Sirius demanded.

"Harry sat in that very chair one day, the one in which you sit, when he was fifteen, at the end of his fifth year, and I had the burden of explaining to him that he had been the subject of a prophecy about him and Lord Voldemort."

Sirius sat up straighter and said frowningly, "A prophecy? Dad - I mean - damn it, you know, HE doesn't like prophecy. He doesn't set much store by it at all."

"No doubt because that prophecy caused him endless suffering and misery. You see, Sirius," Dumbledore said somberly, "the prophecy stated that a certain boy would be born who would have the power to defeat the Dark Lord. Voldemort learned of the prophecy, and in order to prevent his defeat, he went after Harry, intending to murder him before he could grow up to destroy him. In doing so, Voldemort fulfilled the prophecy unknowingly, for in his failed attempt to kill Harry, Harry's mother chose to die to try to save him, and she gave him a protection he has to this very day."

"And what does that have to do with me?" Sirius asked, "Other than the fact that HE killed the man who might have been my father."

"Everything, of course," Dumbledore replied. "Had it not been for the prophecy, Voldemort would never have created his own nemesis. Had it not been for Voldemort's murder of Harry's parents and his failed attempt to kill Harry, Harry would never have grown up to be the one to defeat Voldemort. Had he not survived Voldemort's frequent attempts to murder him, and thwarted him over and over again, Voldemort would not have felt the need to create an heir - you. Had Harry not been the man he is, had he chosen to be embittered by Voldemort's war upon him, had he embraced the dark, he might still have defeated Voldemort, but he would not have saved you."

Sirius did not reply. His long fingers twisted restlessly on the chair, testimony to his extreme discomfort and Dumbledore commenced to worry that he had been wrong again, and that the boy's apparent control was a deception.

"I don't see why you're telling me this," Sirius said again. "I understand you want to defend HIM. To make me see that HE lied to me out of the best of motives. But … so what if he learned about this prophecy? It wasn't like he found out his father was a murderer, the worst dark wizard in history. He didn't find out that the man who was supposed to be his father was his real father's killer. You heard him admit it."

"Oh, no," Dumbledore said more coldly. "Harry found out, just after witnessing his godfather die, after being tricked by Voldemort into going to the place where the prophecy was kept, after being possessed by Voldemort as a test to see whether I would kill Harry in order to kill him, that it was the prophecy Voldemort was after all the time. He found out that he could have avoided going where Voldemort tricked him into going, and his godfather need not have died - his godfather, who was the first adult to treat him with love would not have died- if only I had told him the full truth of the matter when I should. He found out that his fate in life was to be killed or to kill, and that upon his success or failure that wizarding world depended. He was very angry with me and rightfully so. Far more angry than you are with Harry now. Unlike you, he did not sit quietly in that chair. He came very close to attacking me, closer than you did to attacking him, and instead, he wrecked this office."

Dumbledore waited for some softening in the boy's face and eyes. He had grown so old, he thought, that he had no patience for this boy's difficulties, not when they gave Harry needless and undeserved grief. He waited and weighed just how cruel he would have to be to mend this trouble. Having reached the place where death was not only a thing to be accepted, but waited upon with some eagerness, Dumbledore found it strange that he now desired to live. He had a purpose once more, and he would do what he must.

"Come," he said softly, "Harry would spare you this, but I will not. It is time for you to see the quality of his love for you. It is time for both of us to see why saving you was right."

"I - what do you mean?" Sirius asked.

"You must know, Sirius," Dumbledore said softly, "that every other wizard who knew of your existence after Voldemort's defeat believed the best course of action would be to kill you before you could grow up to seize your father's inheritance -- and terrorize the wizard world again. Only Harry refused to see you as a threat. only Harry saw you for what you were - an innocent child."

Hardening himself against the boy's distress, Dumbledore rose and led the way to the bookcase in which the Pensieve sat. Sirius made a funny sound, one that Dumbledore might have taken for panic, but he which he chose to disregard. "This," he said, "is a pensieve. It allows you to see -"

"I know what it does," Sirius interrupted, "and I don't think I want to see what's in there. It's a violation," he continued vehemently, "showing me HIS memories without him knowing."

Dumbledore stared at the tense face with detached interest. "The memories are mine, not Harry's," he responded calmly. "It does you credit," he added more gently, "to have respect for Harry's privacy, but you must see the truth now Sirius, or you will never reconcile yourself to a useful life."

"And what useful life can I have," Sirius responded bitterly, "given who I am?"

"The life you make for yourself," Dumbledore answered. "But first -" He placed his wand at his temple and drew the memories in silvery strand after silvery strand. These, more than any others, were as bright and clear as any from when he was young. He drew in a slow deep breath, preparing himself to experience, once more anew, those great and terrible events in whose shadow they all now lived.

If I had thought that day so far the worst ever in my life, I was mistaken in estimating how awful it would be. That small bit of calm and mastery which I had regained since entering the headmaster's office was to desert me altogether when I viewed the terrible events in the Pensieve. I had thought nothing could be more horrible than my previous excursion into that enchanted realm of memory and the sight of You Know Who torturing my Dad. We fell into the well of thoughts and landed on the lawn before Hogwarts, a lawn which had become a field of battle. I should have been prepared for the sound and clamor of the battle field, having experienced it directly at Camlann. Somehow, I was not. For this time, the warriors were mostly children, many far younger than I, and opposing them were a multitude of dark creatures and men whose dark sorcery made them more horrible than the deadly creatures whom they controlled.

I cannot tell you what emotion I felt upon seeing the red-eyed monster who most certainly was my father, battling the one I had formerly been proud to call my own. I held my breath with everyone there when HE disarmed the Dark Lord, and I was sure, just as everyone else was, that HE would simply run the monster through and finish it then. Like everyone else, I was stunned and frightened when the Dark Lord drew his wand and taunted HIM for being a coward. Like everyone else, I was astounded when HE laughed, a mellow chuckle and dared the Dark Lord to kill HIM. Nothing, however, nothing could ever prepare me for the sight of the green light striking HIM, rebounding back on the Dark Lord and leaving nothing behind in the dissolving circle of light but -- a body, one whose green eyes were open and seemingly empty of life.

"It's not possible!" I said. "It's not! HE told me HE killed You Know Who! I don't understand." I watched as the shadow Dumbledore conjured a pallet and laid HIM upon it, with the Sword of Gryffindor clasped between his hands and floated HM away, into the Castle. "How?" I asked. How could HE have lived? I could not understand it. But Dumbledore merely shook his head and answered softly, "It's a mystery."

The smoky battlefield swirled, mists insubstantial as air- but not cold like fog - swept by and in another instant, we were in another place, this one dark, and strange and familiar all the same. A shudder shook me as I realized we were back in that very place where I had discovered my true identity, surrounded by menacing megaliths, and beneath a night sky which was rapidly being swallowed up by a whirlwind so dark that no light could be seen inside it. The nightmare descending put me in mind of those things I had read of in the Muggle books, black holes which sucked up all matter and light in their path. In the center of the stone circle sat a giant stone cauldron and a wild woman held a tiny babe above the simmering depths of the fat stone belly. Icy cold wind howled, a wind that was visible dark, blacker than anything earthly. It embraced the babe even as the wild woman cried out the killing curse and murdered a blond haired youth who plunged at her. Other wizards fought, their wands spitting light and chaos reigned. From far above, a slender form leaped down and swung a familiar sword in a crimson-gold arc. The great stone cauldron shattered and its boiling contents hissed out, melting the stone ground and leaving a crazy-quilt of cracks behind. Then the darkness engulfed HIM, and the bright green eyes changed to red, and the laugh that came from him was triumphant, terrifying, resembling not at all the mellow chuckle of the previous remembrance.

Again, I ought to have expected it, to have comprehended it, when HE shouted that great NO and sent the light streaming into the heavens to create that very same fiery golden gate into nowhere that I had seen only once before. Even then, seeing what it was, I still could not have imagined that he would enter, climbing those golden stairs into a vast, immense blue that led out of this world altogether and perhaps into nowhere at all. I cried out along with the others when HE fell out of the rising ladder and fell some fifty feet, to be caught just in time by Dumbledore.

You would think this would be enough; I was sure then that it must be over, this descent into a nightmare unimagined; yet the mists swirled once more and we were suddenly inside a castle, but not Hogwarts. We followed as HE led the others past the lobby full of staring guests and down the lift into the bowels of the hotel. I will not say what I felt when HE opened a nearly invisible door into a cupboard under the ancient stairs and drew out a baby, a tiny, sodden sleepy baby with blue eyes just like mine. No words can describe it, the look on HIS face, the defiance, the determination, as though he nerved himself to fight a greater danger than the one he had only just passed, the timbre of his voice as HE said, "He's mine." Nothing can describe that terrible pitch of feeling that seized my heart when he responded to the shadow Dumbledore's warning, "You know that that child may be your death." Nothing, not ever, not ever can describe that sorrow I felt when Harry answered, "We all die someday," and added, "He's a baby. You can't harm a baby...He's an orphan. His Mum and Dad are dead. And I won't leave him to an orphanage or to those that don't want him."

I believe tears streaked my face when Dumbledore brought us back out of the mists of the past and when he whispered, "The power the Dark Lord knows not." I know I stared at him and believed myself both the most cursed and most fortunate of all men. Dumbledore sighed and with surprising gentleness touched my damp cheek.

"I should have known then that it would be all right," the old wizard said. "I should have known then, that Harry was right and I was wrong. I did know, have always known, that the power by which Harry defeated the Dark Lord can never fail. It was that power, that magic, that prompted him to claim you for his own, and to raise you as his own."

My wondering look was plain enough, for he said as though I had spoken the question aloud, "Love, Sirius. The most mysterious and most powerful of all magiks, and the one power by which Harry defeated the Dark Lord."

"But how," I asked, "how can it be all right? How can it be when I am here, born of the Dark Lord's evil?"

"But you are not born evil, Sirius," Dumbledore answered. "Even Voldemort was not always evil. He became the thing he was by choice, one step at a time. Once upon a time he was an orphan boy named Tom Riddle, just as Harry was an orphan. But you see, Sirius, though their circumstances were not much different, Tom Riddle chose to be evil while Harry chose the other way. They were much alike in talent and in certain aspects of their temperament; yet they became what they became by choice. Your choice is no different than theirs. Indeed, Harry has given you an easier choice than Voldemort gave him. You have only to embrace life and love and you will find happiness. Whereas Harry chose love - and death - over a life of evil."

* * *

For the next two days, I shut myself in an empty Slytherin dormitory as I could not bear to face James and Lily. My imagination provided a plentiful supply of rejections, each one more humiliating and more deserved than the last. It could not be doubted that Lily would have only loathing for me, for my rude embraces and my more foul reproaches of HIM at a moment when HE had come from risking himself to save my poor pathetic life and still stood covered in the blood of his sacrifice. I could not doubt that James would now turn from me altogether. Had he not seen my disgraceful and irrational flight, my most disloyal and ungrateful fury? Most of all, I could not find in me the nerve to face HIM, my father in all but flesh, whom I had so betrayed. I had long gone past the moment in which I accused Dad of killing my real father. I had seen all too clearly the monstrousness of my progenitor and I knew that Dad was not to blame. Yet no matter how I tried, I could not forgive myself for being descended from so evil a man and I could not help but fear that his evil must be inside me, only waiting to find an outlet.

It was Brittany and Victoria who finally coaxed me out of my self-imposed isolation. On the second evening after, they found me lying on the bare bed and staring at the ceiling. I understood when I finally listened to their anxious entreaties that the rest of the students knew nothing of what had transpired other than that Professor Snape and Narcissus Malfoy were dead at the hands of Death Eaters and that Lily, James and I had been rescued most heroically by Dad. They assumed, as did the other students, that I had retreated out of distress at witnessing the murders and, coward that I am, I did not correct them or announce my true identity.

I had had some time to think on all the events and revelations and I had come to think that Lucius Malfoy's claim that I was his son, though sincere, must be wrong. Dumbledore believed I was Voldemort's heir. I thought it very unlikely that Dumbledore would be mistaken in so important a thing. Yet even if he was wrong and the Death Eater was my true father, the thought did nothing to relieve the feeling that I was tainted, for the only difference I could see between him and Voldemort was a distinction of degrees of power and evil, not of kind.

I followed after the girls' puzzled glances and forced myself to eat some dinner, though I tasted nothing at all. When I had stayed as long as I could bear, I forced myself to make my way to the hospital wing to inquire after Dad. But he was gone. He had left Hogwarts that afternoon and Madam Pomfrey could not say when he would return. Cowardly as it was, I felt relief that I would not have to face him after all, and I found it even more difficult to nerve myself to face Lily and James. And there, I began to understand that I must be forever an outcast. When I entered the Gryffindor dormitory, James slipped away before I could speak to him, and it was left to Lionel to tell me that Lily had left school and gone home, and no one knew whether she would return for the end of the year or not.

I resolved to finish out the year as best as I could, not because being a wizard meant anything to me anymore, but because finishing school was a necessary step for me to complete in order to enter University. I had concluded that the best thing I could do with my life was to go to university and study there like any other student. I would lose myself among the Muggles, become a part of the Muggle world, and put away all things magical. I would bury that part of me, that dark inheritance of power that tainted my being, and live as quiet and ordinary a life as I could.

* * *

Harry sat in the briefing room at Security Services feeling about as depressed and miserable as he had ever been. Hayden had disappeared and the last word they had was that he was in Vienna or possibly Munich; but no one knew for sure. Malfoy had also gone. Harry had been so weak even though Fawkes had healed his wound that he had not dared to challenge the Death Eater and he would not let James fight him either. So when the desperate man had seized his grandson's dead body and disapparated, Harry had made no effort to stop him. They were, he thought gloomily, worse off than they had been only days ago. It was true they had disrupted Hayden's financial supports, at least in Britain. But he had gone free while Snape was dead.

There was no getting around that fact that Snape was dead because Harry had placed him in danger. Harry had been the one to demand that Snape should try to worm his way back in with his old allies and Harry was certain he would be at Hogwarts still teaching, as nasty ever, if he had not put Snape in the way of harm. And he only felt worse because he had never gotten past his dislike of the man and he was sure that Snape had gone to his grave cursing Harry and his inept plotting.

And then there was Sirius. From time to time, the look on Sirus' face when he had learned of his true parentage would flash across the lens of his eye, as though that horror and betrayal had been permanently imprinted there. Sirius had buried himself in the Slytherin dormitory and was talking to no one and Harry did not flatter himself that he could possibly be the one to make Sirius understand him. The very thought of it gave him a feeling of tightness about his chest, as though his heart was squeezed into a smaller space than it required and with insufficient air to keep it beating. He had only himself to blame, he knew. Everyone had told him, Dumbledore, Ginny, even Snape, that he had been mistaken in keeping the truth from Sirius, in thinking that he could always keep the truth from Sirius. He had known, too, that the revelation would harm Sirius; but he had hoped, he had dreamed, he had drawn the illusion so tightly about himself that Sirius need never know, that Sirius had been left altogether unprepared and vulnerable to learning the truth in the harshest and most damaging fashion possible. It would be a miracle if Sirius ever spoke to Harry again. He forced his attention back to the briefing, which had nothing to do with the Alliance, Hayden or the Death Eaters. And he did not protest very much when Bentley assigned him the job of tailing a suspected terrorist in Europe.

"Why don't we go after Hayden?" he asked. He knew the answer already, of course, as he had had this same conversation with Bentley several times already.

"Because," Bentley answered impatiently, "we don't know where he is and he doesn't seem to be much of a threat now that we've broken his organization. Thanks to you," he added more approvingly. "But we do have a definite lead on this Saleh Ibn Allawi. We know he's in Paris and we know he's been trading money, drugs and arms with several groups. We believe he may be involved in planning an attack that's slated to be carried out in the next two months. And I want someone who is good at surveillance - someone who can be more or less invisible, if necessary."

Harry stared at Bentley for a moment. He had not failed to catch the implication that Bentley wouldn't mind him using magic to keep track of this Saleh. And that must mean the Head viewed him as a serious threat. He nodded acquiescence. After all, tailing this fellow would give him something to do and something to think about besides all the other things he could do nothing about.

Harry did not bother with any kind of a disguise. He wore an ordinary Muggle suit and carried a briefcase and he knew that he blended in perfectly among all the other Muggles going about their business. When the customs man opened his briefcase, all he saw was a spare dress shirt, a toiletry kit and a stack of business files containing sales charts and merchandising information. And in fact, that's exactly all there was. He could fool almost anybody, he thought, except Uncle Vernon had he been alive, into believing that he was truly an ordinary entirely non-magical Muggle. There was a time this would have depressed him; but in the face of his other troubles, it felt unusually soothing to be able to disappear into somebody else for a little while.

In Paris, he found his quarry in a tiny coffee shop in a slum populated by a polyglot mixture of men from Algiers, the Sudan, Lebanon, Indonesia and Serbia. He was grateful that he had gone invisible before entering as, in that place, his Muggle suit would have marked him as an outsider more surely than his British accent. He returned the following night wearing a scruffy pair of black jeans and an ancient fisherman's sweater, both of which he had purchased at a flea market near his hotel. He ordered coffee and sat in a corner absorbing the sounds and the scents of the place. It reminded him in a peculiar fashion of the Hogs Head, a place where no one asked questions and anyone might come.

Saleh did nothing unusual. He was a short dark man with black eyes and the only thing exceptional about him was his watch, which was a gold Rolex, and way too expensive for the average customer in that sad cafe. For two nights, he drank coffee and chatted with the other men as though he were a regular. For two nights, Harry sat in a corner and drank coffee and spoke to no one. On the third night, Saleh left early and alone, but not before passing an envelope full of money to another. Harry considered the man with the money only briefly, and then followed Saleh out of Paris altogether.

The trail wandered from Paris to Lisbon and from Lisbon to Casablanca; from Casablanca to Cairo and from Cairo to Istanbul. As the days wound by, Harry found in himself a strange sense of freedom. He had left behind everyone who knew who he was. He was entirely alone and free of all worries about Voldemort, dark wizards and danger for perhaps the first time in his life. At the back of his mind, he knew there could be danger in following the Muggle man and in recording his dealings wherever he went, but the possibility seemed remote.

He had even stopped for a short time at the pyramids as though he were a simple tourist and he laughed to himself when he remembered Ron's souvenir, the Sneakoscope, which he had had to bury in Uncle Vernon's ugly old mustard colored socks to keep it from going off at odd times. From the golden sands and golden stones of the pyramids which sat beneath an immense blue sky, to the shaded and Byzantine maze of the Istanbul bazaar, he soaked up new colors and felt as though Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was shadow, a misty character out of a story book; the real Harry Potter was an invisible man, a wanderer in search of nothing at all.

From Istanbul, Saleh took the train through Budapest, but although the train stopped there, he did not get off. Shortly after the train left Budapest, in the compartment across from Harry's, a man joined Saleh and rode in silence with him for some twenty minutes. The man was tall, with blond hair going silver and he carried a briefcase very similar to the one Harry had abandoned some ten days previously in Paris. Harry could have supposed that his having shared the compartment with Saleh was an accident except for one thing: when the man departed, a tall gray shadow spied through the slightly bubbled glass in the compartment door, and framed by glimpses of the high, snow covered mountains in the far distance, he left the briefcase behind. And when Saleh left the train in Paris and boarded the plane at Orly airport, the briefcase went with him.





When the plane landed in New York City, Harry nearly missed the following flight to Las Vegas, Nevada. The plane was full up and he only managed to snag a seat because someone cancelled out at the last moment. He was the last one on the plane and he had to force an expression of utmost disinterest and utter lack of recognition on his face as he passed by Saleh on his way to the back. He felt the back of his neck prickle as he passed the suspect and he was sure that the man had given him a closer look than he would have liked. Knowing that his target could not leave the plane, he took the opportunity to nap on the way and roused only for a brief, awed glance at the Grand Canyon.

For a moment when the arrived in Las Vegas, Harry felt as though he was back in Egypt again. The air outside was just as dry and hot, the landscape just as desert-like, and the streets were lined with green fringed palm trees. The taxi he hired to follow Saleh's rental car even passed a building that looked astonishingly like the Great Pyramid, but which, according to the driver, was an attraction at the Luxor Hotel. They passed other enormous buildings: one had a replica of the Eiffel Tower; another building looked like a fourteenth century castle, complete with a moat and jousting fields to the side.

The drab Ford they were following turned away from the assorted wonders and slid down more commonplace streets filled with small suburban houses and truly ugly housing estates. At last, Saleh parked on a quiet side street and Harry got out and followed him as inconspicuously as possible. This was not as easy as he would have liked since the streets were nearly deserted. He contemplated going invisible, but was distracted by the building in front of which Saleh stopped. This was a white marble building topped with a minaret that looked like it belonged in Cairo or Istanbul rather than in Nevada. In truth, Harry could not help looking around and wondering where all the cowboys were; they were the only image he had of America, from the few movies his Aunt Petunia had ever let him watch on the telly. Cowboys, he had always supposed, were the opposite of wizards.

He lingered in the modest shade of a palm tree and watched as Saleh joined a crowd of men swelling from the white doors of the mosque. Many of them carried large placards and they began to chant loudly in a language he could not interpret. The crowd spread away from the building and marched down the sleepy streets, its chanting growing louder and louder. Soon, other people began to collect on the sidewalks and some of them began to yell back at the marchers. Some calls were cries of encouragement and support; others, catcalls and jeers. Harry hurried to follow the crowd at the edge, trying to keep an eye on his quarry and to stay close enough so that he didn't lose him, but far enough away so that he would not be recognized.

Just as he was beginning to think he would lose his man after all those weeks of pursuit, Harry saw that another figure had joined the crowd and had stopped to meet with Saleh. He strained to get them both in the sight of the camera in his mobile phone. The other man, unlike the rest of the crowd, held a briefcase and not a placard. In an instant, Saleh had switched bags with the other man. Harry moved closer to them, pushing through the jostling crowd. The noise had grown and the formerly peaceful demonstration turned suddenly violent. There was the sound of glass breaking, and shockingly loud, explosions. Fire erupted in the windows of several businesses and sirens sounded from nearby, increasing the cacophony and instilling panic among the marchers. People began to run this way and that, fighters joined the fray from the sidelines, and Harry was buffeted about as he tried to keep his quarry in sight. A hand grabbed hold of his jacket and he jerked away hard. His jacket ripped as he tried to fend off the man holding him. He shouted something but his shouts fell on ears deafened by the noise and, as he turned to shove the man away, he saw that the man's head was covered by a helmet. A truncheon crashed down on his head, knocking him down to his knees. Instinctively, he struck out, but another blow crashed into his head and darkness took him.

* * *

Maria Farah stalked indignantly through the waiting room at the federal penitentiary where two dozen men had been sent to be held pending charges of participating in terrorist acts. She had found two men who were unrepresented and had quickly obtained their names and informed the federal agents and the prison warden that she would be representing them and that she would be seeking their immediate release on habeas corpus grounds. All two dozen men had been detained by the Las Vegas police and held in the state prison without benefit of counsel and without proper charges for the last thirty-six hours. They had then been transferred to the federal penitentiary, where, she had no doubt, they would be subjected to improper interrogations and denied their civil rights. They were all, or most of them, ordinary shopkeepers and businessmen who had participated in a peaceful march on behalf of the religious rights of American Muslims. It was hardly their fault, she thought angrily, that a few troublemakers, probably agents of the federal government, had turned the peaceful demonstration into a riot.

"You got enough terrorist clients already?" Joe Patrick asked sarcastically. "Cause I got another one over there for you to waste your time on, if you want."

Patrick was the Homeland Security officer who had ordered the prisoners' transfer and he had been seriously annoyed when she had showed up and offered to represent any of the prisoners who would take her. No doubt he suspected she was a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer herself just because she was half Lebanese and spoke fluent Arabic. She could have told him that she was also half French, that she had been born in the United States, and that she was a devout Catholic, but she saw no need to do so. Let him wallow in his prejudices, she thought, while she sued his ass for violating so many men's rights on so little cause.

"I'll represent him," she replied immediately. "What's his name?" Like all the other prisoners, this one was dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit to distinguish him from the other federal prisoners and his hands were bound by metal cuffs. His hair was jet black and matted with sweat and his face had the beginnings of a jet black beard after three days without shaving.

"We don't know," Patrick answered. "According to the Vegas police, he hasn't said a word since they took him in."

Maria tapped the man on the shoulder and said quietly in Arabic, "What's your name?"

The man jerked away from her touch and stared at her in silent confusion. She found herself staring back in surprise as his eyes were the brightest green she had ever seen. They were not quite in focus either, she noted, and she repeated her question thinking that this one seemed in need of help more than any of the others. After a moment, he struggled to sit up straighter and said, "I don't understand you. Do you speak English? I don't understand any of this," he added.

She gawped at him again and stared at Patrick accusingly. "Looks like you've got one who really doesn't belong here."

"How do I know that?" Patrick answered. "He was picked up with all the others, right in the thick of things. He resisted arrest, too; knocked one of the officers so hard he broke the man's nose." He stared coldly at the green eyes man and added, "He's probably pretending not to understand you. And he had no identification at all. He's probably here illegally on top of everything else."

She ignored him and asked again, only this time in English, "What's your name?" He did not reply immediately, only stared at her and she started to wonder whether he was lacking in intelligence somehow. After a moment, however, a look of panic swept across his face and he said hoarsely, "I dunno. I dunno. What is this place and who are you?"

The panic in those bright green eyes increased when she explained and he said indignantly, "I'm not a terrorist. I can't be." He paused a moment and asked, "I can't, can I? I can't remember anything like that."

In the end, they booked him as John Doe since he insisted he could not recall his name, and she felt as though she had failed more dismally than she usually did on prisoners' cases when they dragged him off to join the others on their way to a cell in the highest security area the penitentiary had.

* * *

Patrick waited impatiently for the ACLU lawyer, Farah, to conclude her conversation with the second of her clients. The third one would be the last to go through the I.D. parade and she had been particularly adamant about being present for that one. Having no wish to find himself in court, he had been careful with her three clients, no matter that he was sure that all of them were likely terrorists. The I.D. parades had been particularly useful for separating the genuine terrorists from the poor boobs who had been caught up in the net after the riots. He had definite I.D. on one of the terrorists, one Saleh Ibn Allawi, a known drug dealer with suspected terrorist ties. In order to prevent the other men from knowing who was snitching on whom, he had conceived the idea of having the I.D. parades with several men for each. He had gotten solid identifications on six men as confirmed participants in the local cell. It had been made even easier when he had told each of the men who were being shown the others that he already knew which ones they were. The guilty ones had pointed out their fellows simply because they feared harsher punishment if they lied.

Farah stepped away from her client and re-entered the room where the identification parade would occur. She was not particularly tall, Patrick noted, and was a good bit plumper than fashion dictated these days. Unlike the women he worked with, she wore bright red lipstick and smelled of some expensive French perfume. He found the ornate cross she wore rather annoying as she seemed to be calling attention to her identity as a Christian in order to prove that her only interest in her terrorist clients was a purely charitable and principled legal one. It irritated him that she would think him so shallow that he would automatically assume she was Muslim just because she spoke Arabic and had a Middle Eastern name.

He nodded at her without speaking and signaled for the last group of men to be put on parade. They stood in front of the two way mirror so that Patrick, Farah and the two prisoners who were to make the I.D.'s could see them, but the three on parade could not see their observers. The first snitch was able to I.D. two of the men. "The ones on the end, I know. That is George who owns the drycleaners shop on the corner by the mosque and the other is Ali, who works at the pizza shop. But neither of them are terrorists," he added. "We are all decent working men. We were just marching for our rights like any other citizens."







Patrick did not bother contradicting him. He looked at Saleh and waited for confirmation. Saleh shrugged and said, "I don't know them." He looked at the third one, Farah's John Doe client and his eyes widened slightly. The nameless man had been given the chance to bathe and shave, and without the growth of beard he looked surprisingly young. Not that some of the ones they caught weren't young - some were teenagers even: kids who were bored with school and vulnerable to older men preaching fanatical beliefs. The bright green eyes behind the round glasses were startling in their intensity. Despite the fact that he could not have seen his audience through the mirror, he seemed to be looking directly at them. Saleh seemed to think the same. "I've seen him before," he said. "I know who he is, a high-up …" He cut off what he was about to say and looked uneasy, almost afraid.

"What's his name?" Patrick shot out quickly.

Saleh shook his head, however, and refused to say anything more. Patrick gave the lawyer a triumphant look. "Looks like your John Doe is a big catch after all."

"You don't know that," she said sharply. "Your witness didn't even give a name. And he's not exactly reliable, is he? Maybe he just wants to get out of here. Maybe he's giving you false information to curry favor."

"Maybe," Patrick answered. "And maybe," he added cynically, "your client is a very, very bad man and a lousy actor. But let's see what happens if we confront him face to face with Saleh. And you can sit in while we question him to make sure we aren't obtaining a confession illegally. Not that we care about that so much," he continued, "when what we really want is to know when their next attack will be and how to stop it."

He ignored her mutterings about fascistic police states and arranged for the drycleaner and the pizza boy to be taken out of the interrogation room and returned to their cells. He had the guard hold Saleh in the anteroom while he commenced questioning their nameless man. Irritably, he noted that Farah had taken out a pad and was instructing the man that he had the right to remain silent. He was not about to let that pass, though.

"Actually," Patrick said, "I don't believe he has any rights at all here, Ms. Farah. Citizens have rights. He appears to be a foreigner who is in this country illegally and engaged in a terrorist plot. And frankly, if I don't get some cooperation from him, I might have to recommend that he be transferred to a more secure facility."

"Even non-citizens have rights," Farah objected. "And you should be treating him as if he were a citizen until you know that he is not. You've already held him more than forty-eight hours without a charge."

Patrick ignored her and looked at the suspect. He was following their conversation closely and the green eyes were full of anxiety. All the better, he thought, to break the fellow. He might be high up in whatever group was planning the attack, but he was still young enough to be intimidated. It helped, too, that the guards had been careful to cuff him again and that he didn't seem to like that at all. He had clearly been yanking at the cuffs as his wrists were red and raw looking, and even at that moment, he gave them another pull. His complexion was unusually pale beneath the shock of black hair, but his features tensed and set themselves into silent resistance as he laid his cuffed hands on his lap and stared at Patrick with a cool green gaze.

Patrick moved closer to the prisoner and standing closer to him than most men would be comfortable with. "Now," he said, "let's start with the simple things first. What is your name?"

"I don't know," came the answer. The green eyes held his, but Patrick was sure he detected a shadow of fear.

"I think you do," he replied. "You'll save yourself a great deal of trouble by just telling us that much. And you can at least tell us what country you come from? It will make Ms. Farah so much happier if she knows just what rights you have to assert, if any."

"I don't know," the prisoner repeated. "I can't remember. I can't remember who I am or where I come from."

Patrick shook his head and said, "It's a good act, you know. You could almost convince me. Except we have someone here who does know you."

"Someone who says he does," Farah interjected. "He could be lying." She bent toward the prisoner and said, "I can cut this short now. I'll demand a physical and let the doctors determine if you really are suffering from amnesia."

"I don't want a doctor," he answered. Patrick thought, bingo! Why would he reject a doctor unless he was acting? Still, he was surprised when the man added, "Go on, then, and bring this person in. If he does know me, at least I'll find out my name."

Patrick watched the man's face carefully, paying special attention to those green eyes. They were unusually expressive, much more so than the man probably realized. No recognition showed when the guard brought Saleh in. Interestingly, Saleh looked seriously unhappy as the guard pushed him forward to face the seated prisoner. "You know who he is," Patrick prompted.

"Yes," Saleh answered. "I think this is some trick of yours. Why do you bring me in to tell you who he is?"

"You said he was an important man, a high-up man," Patrick prompted again. "Is he involved in your next attack?"

Saleh stared from Patrick to the prisoner and said nervously, "I can't say. I'm not involved in any attacks. I don't know anything. I've just seen him before, that's all I know."

"That's a lie," the prisoner growled. His green eyes blazed with sudden fire and he moved swiftly, in a blur of motion, seizing Saleh and slamming him back against the cement wall, pinning him with his body and knee and catching Saleh's jaw in his cuffed hands.

"Who am I?" he demanded. "You know my name. Tell me!"

Saleh shook his head and tried to get away, but the man had him pinned as neatly as any professional, Patrick noted. He ought, of course, to have stopped it, but he found himself fascinated as the man asked, "Who are you then? And why did you lie about being involved in an attack? What do you know? When is it? Where?"

"I know nothing!" Saleh bellowed. "Get him off me!

"Liar!" the prisoner growled back. "You know who I am. You know about an attack."

The guard had finally reacted. He drew his gun and pointed it an inch from the prisoner's face. For an instant, Patrick thought he would still resist despite the gun. Then he allowed the guard to pull him away from Saleh and sat in the chair once more without further resistance. Having gotten more information than he had expected, Patrick sent Saleh out with another guard and considered his John Doe closely.

"You've got some 'splaining to do," Patrick said dryly. "Like why that low level terrorist is so scared of you he won't even say your name. Like what you're up to that has Saleh Allawi in such a sweat he won't say a word in your presence."

"You know as much as I do," the prisoner replied. Purple shadows darkened the skin below the green eyes and he seemed, once more, terribly young and quite frightened. Patrick stared at him silently, hoping he could intimidate the man into speaking. After a pause, he said thoughtfully, "You do realize that this is as nice as it gets for you just now. So long as you're here and you cooperate, you get Ms. Farah here to cry about your rights. Although," he added, with a glance at her still shocked face, "I wonder whether she still believes you are as innocent as you claim."

"I can't help you," the young man replied forcefully. "I don't know anything. Not a damn thing about anything."

Patrick shrugged and said, "I don't believe that. But let's just say it's true. You won't mind looking at a few things to see if they jog your memory, will you?"

"Why not?" the prisoner answered, at almost the same moment that Farah said, "Yes, he does." When he turned to look at her, she hissed at him, "You are going to give them all the rope they need to hang you, even though you are innocent. Don't say anything more and don't consent to their little game. I'm telling you this as your lawyer. If you refuse to talk now on my advice, they're not allowed to question you any further."

"How do you know I'm innocent?" the prisoner asked. Patrick opened his mouth to ask if wanted to confess, but he stopped when the man added most painfully, "I don't know that I'm innocent because I know nothing. So how can you know?"

"Everyone is innocent until they are proven guilty in a court of law," Farah said patiently. "I believe you are innocent and I believe you have lost your memory. You don't act like a terrorist, and if I had to make a guess, I'd say you were a tourist who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I'd like to think that," he replied softly. "But I need to know who I am." He turned his gaze decisively and said to Patrick, "Go on then, show me whatever you like."









It had to be an act, Patrick thought. He poked his head out of the door and had one of his assistants bring in the briefcase they had recovered from Allawi. He glanced at the prisoner, who was watching him with a steady green gaze, and decided on the one object which was likely to have the most impact. He drew out a leather book with gilded edges and handed it to Doe. Doe took the book awkwardly in his cuffed hands and Patrick ignored Farah's furious look. Doe opened the book and riffled through its pages expectantly. He looked disappointed and sounded almost irritated as he said, "I don't understand. I can't read this. I don't recognize anything in it."

Farah gently took the book and turned it the other way round so that the book opened to show the script running from right to left as it should be. "It's the Koran," she said. "You don't read Arabic?"

"Obviously not," he answered. "Whose is it, then?"

"Your friend's," Patrick replied. "The one who knows you."

The green eyes narrowed and Patrick thought the man had understood exactly what he had been trying to do. However, he looked through the book more thoroughly, inspecting it as though he could find some revelation there that the others could not see. Instead of reading it, he opened the book wide and tugged at the binding, trying to insert one long slim finger between the back of the book and the bound pages.

"What are you doing?" Farah asked in an anxious whisper.

"Looking to see if it's got a false binding," came the calm answer. "Maybe he has some kind of instructions pasted between the cover and the facing."

"Does it?" Patrick asked. He tried to suppress his glee. It seemed that the prisoner knew more than he ought to if he were truly innocent.

The untidy black head shook negatively and he held the book back out with an eloquent shrug.

Patrick smiled just a little as he took back the book. An almost friendly smile meant to tell the lad that Patrick was a man who could be trusted, who would be his friend if only he would cooperate. No change came over the face. Doe merely continued to watch him with an expectant gaze. It made him think of a cat waiting patiently for his owner to give him the next tidbit. He pulled out his next gambit, a cell phone. Then another and another and another. There were actually five in all. He did not make the mistake of letting the prisoner actually hold one.

Raising a single winged eyebrow, a gesture Patrick found annoying as he could not do it himself, Doe asked, "Why on earth does anyone need that many mobile phones?" He leaned forward and continued, "Have you checked to see what numbers they called most recently?"

"Naturally," Patrick answered. He paused a moment for the best effect and enjoyed the rising pink in Farah's face. "There aren't any on any of them. They're the emergency kind. Disposable. You get a certain number of pre-paid minutes on them and you don't have to make any monthly payments. No accounts to trace either," he added ruefully.

"I see," Doe said thoughtfully. Patrick was certain he did see and that he was proving nicely how much he knew about the game. Farah was not stupid either and he could see that she wanted to stop things before her client incriminated himself completely. Quickly, he brought out the next thing and handed it directly to the prisoner. This, he thought, was a make or break chance. The reaction though was even better than he had expected.

Doe took the sheaf of papers and turned them the right way up almost immediately. Both inky brows rose this time as he shuffled the pages one after the other and inspected each carefully and comprehensively. "that's one big building you've got the plans for," he observed. "Do you know what it is and where?"

Silently, Patrick handed him the last thing, a colorful brochure with an excellent picture of the building on the front.

"The Camelot Hotel and Casino," Doe read. His tone was little short of incredulous as he said, "That's about the most awful pile in the world. I expect King Arthur would barf if he could see it."

"It's an exact replica of an actual castle," Patrick informed him bemusedly. "What's wrong with it?"





"King Arthur lived in the sixth century," Doe replied dryly. "That thing is a twentieth century imitation of a fourteenth century fortress, that's what's wrong with it." He flipped open the brochure and read, "With three thousand, four hundred guestrooms, a top of the line spa, twelve tennis courts, The Excalibur Nightclub, the Round Table dinner theater, sixteen designer shops, and a three story casino, the Camelot is one of the largest hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. It even has a real jousting field where a permanent Renaissance Faire operates all year round. The Camelot is perfect for individual tourists, the family, or for conventions of any kind." He shook his head and said, "Only in America." Then he stared at Patrick and asked slowly, "How many people are in that building on any given day?"

"On average," Patrick answered, "upwards of ten thousand or more."

"And what kind of security does it have?" Doe asked.

"You don't really think I'm going to answer that, do you?" Patrick asked disbelievingly.

Doe shook his head and said, "Probably none. It's a bloody perfect target, isn't it?" He looked at the plans again thoughtfully, tapping various places on the plans. "It wouldn't take very much," he said softly, "to blow that whole thing up. It's not built nearly as well as a real castle would be. The mobile phones will be for their operatives, to contact each other." He failed to see Farah's look of horror as she realized her client had probably said enough to put him away for a very long time indeed. But Patrick was astonished at Doe's next words.

"What we really need to do is find out when they're going to do it. If you let me mix with the others instead of keeping me in solitary, I can try to find out when it's going to be."

Patrick stared at the man. The green eyes were clear and focused. Very different from the first time Patrick had seen him. He could not tell whether this was the cleverest terrorist he had ever met or something else entirely.

"And what do you expect to get out of it, if we do?" Patrick asked. "Do you think that will get you off scot free?"

"That's her job," Doe answered gesturing at Farah. "What I expect to do is to stop them before they kill ten thousand people at once."

Patrick gawped at him a moment, thinking he must be joking; yet the man seemed absolutely serious. It did not take much thought to decide that the whole thing must be a clever ploy and he concluded that he ought to let Doe stew in solitary a bit longer before taking him up on his offer. He had a feeling the man had never been in a real prison before, probably because he was too young, and, despite his youth, likely too high up in the chain of command to be as close to the action. That normally would be left to men like Saleh.

* * *

The cement box was only six feet by nine. There was a tiny slit of a window through which even a cat could barely fit and which let in little light that so that the only real illumination came from the fluorescent bulbs affixed to the ceiling well out of reach of the prisoner. One of the bulbs was not working at all and the other sizzled from time to time, giving warning that it was about to give up the ghost. He felt as though he were in a tomb, doomed to dwell in a perpetual twilight, nameless, purposeless, and invisible. His only company was the uniformed guard, a huge man with razor cut hair and a heavy gut, who brought his tasteless meals in malevolent silence. Even the door provided no other landscape on which to gaze, as its solid steel canvass was broken only by a grilled, frosted glass through which others could view him, but out of which he could not see. The most frightening thing about the cell was that its confines felt familiar. Somewhere, sometime before, he had been confined to a small dark space, also for some guilt he could not comprehend.

At those times that he found himself most accepting of his condition, he would force himself up off the low, hard pallet that made a mockery of the word bed, and he would stride back and forth from one end of the box to the other, over and over, three steps one way and three steps back the other. He would have to be careful to avoid the small toilet and cracked sink which occupied a corner and which inevitably smelled sufficiently to remind him that he was not dead after all, but soon might wish he were.

The first day after he had met with the lady attorney and the officer with the cold blue eyes who was so sure of his guilt, he had diverted himself from his situation by wondering endlessly how that repulsive terrorist could possibly know who he was, considering what he could say if they let him out that would persuade the other men to confide their knowledge of the plot to destroy the Camelot, and persuading himself over and over that he must be there by mistake. He could not be what they said he was. Inevitably, though, he would come up on the stone wall of his memory. Not one shred of an image could be conjured to inform him, to fill in with some kind of color the empty hole of his life. Everything had narrowed down to this one grey-white box, in which the only variation was the shocking orange of his jumpsuit, the badge of his terror.

The second day was much worse and he spent more time lying on the hard bed staring up at the tiny slit high up on the wall wishing he were a bird or even a bug that could fly up high and escape. He knew, without coming near or touching the window, that it was glassed in with some substance unbreakable. It became harder to care about anything except knowing who he was and even that frightened him when he considered that the one person who claimed to know him said he was a terrorist. He could barely stand to contemplate it, the possible fact of his guilt, that he might be a murderer, a taker of lives. At those moments, he would leap up and start pacing again, seeking to exhaust himself through the mindlessness of the activity. He could count his steps and try to figure out how many miles he had trod for the day by multiplying the number of times he crossed the few feet of the cell, but he would lose track after several hundred and the very purposeless of the activity would seep through his spirit, filling him with a leaden despair, and making his limbs feel heavy and weak at the same time. Then he would sink back on the bed and close his eyes and try to summon an image of blue skies, of trees, of mountains, of lakes, of people laughing. The people never had faces, though, and he would tell himself that the image of a huge, ancient castle out of which golden light spilled from leaded windows was nothing more than a fantasy brought on by the glimpse of the pamphlet he had seen. Thinking of the castle would bring him back to the endless circle of anxiety: who am I; what will they do; when will they do it; how many people in the Castle; impossible to stop it; stuck in the box; stuck in limbo; stuck in a place as dim and dusty and soul-eating as a cupboard.

He slept poorly despite the ache in his head, which had muted from a constant pounding to a dull throb. On the morning of the third day, he could barely restrain himself from leaping at the guard when he brought in that morning's sorry serving of lukewarm porridge on the orange plastic tray that matched his jumpsuit in hideousness. He wanted to fling the gluey stuff at the wall and scream, but some inner sense of self-preservation told him that the next meal just might not come. He sat and spooned up the food and scraped the very bottom of the bowl just in case it was his last. Which though sent him pacing once more. A new fear took hold of him, that he would go mad, that he might be mad already. But that was a fear he must not give in to. He must find some other form of distraction, but without books, television, people, with nothing but his own thoughts for distraction, he had to delve down deep to find something to pass the time and to declare that he would not be defeated.

From some foggy corner of the brain, he recalled that other men rose above their imprisonment by music, but he had no instrument to play and no songs came readily to mind. There was poetry, but what poetry did he know? His memory, it seemed, had been scoured clean of nearly everything. He had words. Words, words, words. That had a familiar ring. Hesitantly at first, he recited aloud words he memorized in some other life. "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter." The meaning did not matter. Only the recollection of the words and speaking them aloud. The act affirmed that he was alive, that he had the power of speech, that had only someone been there to listen, they might have understood him. "The world's an unweeded garden, gone to seed," he muttered, "things rank and gross in nature possess it merely." There was more, he knew, though he could not recall the order of it. "Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat, As deep as to the lungs? who does me this? Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I!"

An ass three times over, he thought, spouting old drama to stave off madness. It was a good question whether he would be crazier in another day or two than the character he quoted, who had played madness, teetered on the edge of it, perhaps fallen over it altogether. No, he must take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. That wasn't quite right either.

He paced some more and then jumped up the short distance from the floor to stand on the hard bed. This was his platform, his stage, the empty wall his audience. Continuing would be an act of defiance. "About, my brain!" That was right. He had, perforce, to make himself turn back from the brink. He could continue, because being able to recite the words meant that his brain still worked and if some part of his memory worked, the rest must come eventually. It had to. "I have heard," he recited, "That guilty creatures sitting at a play have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaim'd their malefactions; for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ." He paused there, for the word murder chilled the soul. He shrank from the thought of it, the accusation, that he might have partaken in the very planning of it, on a scale much greater than the single evil dramatized in the play.

He would not believe it. His accuser had lied, he knew that much. His accuser was the evil one, but behind him, imagined, was a shadowy figure that pulled his accuser's strings. He recited more loudly, to prove that his voice worked, his memory worked, and that the human power of speech was his.

"The spirit that I have seen may be the devil: and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds more relative than this: the play 's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." The king's to blame, he thought. He knew it, the king was to blame, for all of it.

Outside the cell's door, Patrick stood listening to John Doe's voice rising and falling, fury incarnate, despair, and calculation, and resolution, all given substance by a poetry that few people read any more and less understood. The guard looked at him and shrugged. "He's been doing that half the morning. I wouldn't let him out if I was you. He oughtta be in the nuthouse, I guess." Patrick considered his decision one more time. Perhaps Doe was half-crazy. Or perhaps he was truly one of the leaders he sought, an educated man, who would use the advantages of his education to destroy the culture that had birthed the very poetry he recited. He gestured to the guard and entered the cell quickly. He had clearly surprised the prisoner, for the man, who stood on the low bed in the solitary box seemed on the brink of springing at him as a cornered animal might.

"I'm not sure," Patrick said, "whether you're nuts or I am for taking you up on your offer, Mr. Doe."

"My name's not Doe," the prisoner snarled.

"What is it?" Patrick asked swiftly.

"Dunno," the prisoner answered. His green eyes, which had blazed briefly, looked suddenly weary again. He dropped down from the bed, landing as softly and easily as a cat, and much too close for Patrick's comfort. "Do you mean I can get out of here for a bit?" Doe asked. His face was controlled, but not without some effort.

"You get out of here and join the other prisoners for morning exercise and maybe for lunch, if you're a good boy."

"I'm a good boy, I am," Doe replied dryly. "I shall be meek and circumspect and give no trouble to anyone."

"Somehow," Patrick said, "I'm having trouble picturing you as meek. But then, madmen make great actors, they say."

"Or great actors are all madmen," Doe answered with sudden amusement. "I am but mad when the wind's north by northwest. When the wind's in the east, I know a crook from a copper."

Through the glass window overlooking the enclosed courtyard, Patrick watched the prisoners' morning exercise break. Beside him, the warden stirred and said, "I don't know if this is a good idea, Patrick. You're just setting them up for a fight or worse letting that man out of solitary."

"Maybe," Patrick answered absently. "But that doesn't matter if we get something out of it." He kept his eyes on the courtyard and tried to suppress his own doubts about letting his John Doe go out there to mix among the rest of them. He was easily picked out from the rest as he stood alone in the middle of the exercise yard, with his face lifted to the sun and ignoring everyone else. He had approached a couple of the other orange suited men almost immediately upon being released into the yard, but they had walked away from him and joined the rest of the orange suited group gathered at the far side. Doe made no attempt to follow them, and Patrick wondered whether he had instructed them to leave him alone or whether they were all too scared of him to dare any conversation with him. His attack on Saleh at the I.D. parade would also have spread, Patrick mused.

On the other end of the yard, another group of men were gathered, only they were dressed in blue jumpsuits not orange and they were all there on federal criminal charges, mostly drug related, and not for terrorist activities. A group of the men in blue were clustered around a basketball hoop at the end of the court, playing with a rough abandon that could easily break into violence of its own. He tracked the flight of the ball instinctively and thought it was a pity that some of the men had taken to crime instead of pursuing the sport in school and beyond. The ball passed from one to another, dribbled, handed, lofted, another orange point flying among the blue. It flew threw the hoop once, twice, and a third time, but on the fourth, it bounced off the hoop, flying outward toward the middle of the yard and out of reach of the player, and Doe fielded the ball as neatly as any of the men there. A babble of raucous voices called out, demanding possession the ball, and with a shrug, as though he could not quite understand how he came to be holding it, Doe threw the ball back, only instead of landing in the middle of the men, it soared above their heads and sank through the hoop, a spectacular shot that would have stopped any professional game.

The sun was warm on his face and he breathed in the hot air with a sudden lift of elation. Above, the sky was a vast and cloudless blue, reminding him of some other place and time unknown where he had found peace and happiness. He had kept his word to the security officer, attempting to start a conversation with a couple of the other men who wore orange jump suits just like his. They had replied in another language, Arabic he supposed, and when he asked whether they spoke English, they turned their backs on him and walked away to join the rest of the group, which was gathered round Saleh at the far end of the yard. He shrugged and concluded that it would take more than one morning to gain the confidence of any of the men and contented himself with enjoying the sensation of being outside the tomb-like box that would be his home for who knew how long.

When the round orange ball flew towards him, he caught it without thinking. The feel of it in his hands was familiar, though a tiny voice in his mind said the ball wasn't quite right. Again, without thinking, he threw the ball at the hoop; the hoop was also somehow wrong, though his memory failed to yield the reason why. He followed the ball's flight with pleasure and felt that he must not be mad at all when the ball sailed smoothly through the hoop and into the waiting hands of a very tall, very skinny man in a blue jump suit. The tall man waved at him and said, "Hey!" and he jogged over to the group thinking wistfully that it would be fun to play if they would teach him the game.

"Who do you play for?" the tall man asked.

"Me?" he replied. "I dunno. Nobody."

"You got to," the other man argued. "Nobody throws a basket like that without playing on a really good team."

"Just luck," another man objected. "He's not even American. He's one of them nuts. We don't want no A-rab boys in our game." He added, directing this last to Doe.

"I'm not one of them," the prisoner replied.

"Yeah, well how come you in one of those suits they put on the bad boys?"

Doe stared at his questioner, who practically vibrated with hostility, and said as mildly as he could, "I dunno."

The tall skinny man interrupted. "Stupid pigs probably picked up the wrong guy. He don't even talk like them. He talks like one of them British guys, you know, like in the movies, like James Bond."

"If he's British, what's he doing with them?" the second man asked. This one was also tall, but much wider. His dark eyes were curiously flat in their expression, except for the projection of violence, and the back of hands were tattooed with a skull and crossbones on one side and with a bunch of letters on the other.

"I am British," he responded, though where the knowledge came from, he could not say. This too felt right, and he was sure of something about himself for the first time in days. Feeling almost grateful to the man, he found he was able to drag another detail out of the air. "There were these riots," he said, "and somebody coshed me over the head. I woke up in jail, but I'd swear I'd never met any of those other men before."

The skinny man said immediately, "I believe you. They don't play ball. They don't got time for anything but chanting and blowing up things."

"I don't play your kind of ball either," Doe responded. "But I wouldn't mind learning," he added hopefully.

"No basketball?"

"Not in England," he answered. "I don't think so. Football," he said, "and ..." But the game he couldn't recall teased at the edge of memory and then escaped in a blank blur tinged with gold.

The tall skinny man was Antwan and he was serving his fourth year of ten for participating in a drug ring. It was a family enterprise, the way they made their living, and he had been caught when a cousin had turned State's evidence to lighten his sentence. The big man was called Riddick and he was serving his third year of a life sentence - for felony murder and bank robbery. He hadn't pulled the trigger, he insisted; but they convicted him for his partner's act anyway. What really turned their sympathy was the fact that he couldn't remember his own name. Riddick stared and cursed when he told them to call him John Doe. "You joking, right?"

He shook his head and wished that he hadn't. The dull ache had a way of returning when he made a sudden movement, or perhaps it was the heat of the sun that was getting to him. He did not tell them that the dry heat and cloudless sky reminded him of Egypt, a fact which scared him, and which he immediately buried along with the fact that when he had watched Saleh mingling with his crowd from a distance, that felt familiar too.

Antwan laughed at his attempts at dribbling the ball, but he didn't care. Running, jumping, passing the ball, and sinking it in the hoop were fun. He felt free once more and was sorry when the whistle blew and they were made to line up and go into a large, bare hall filled with long tables for lunch. But that, too, was better than eating in the solitary cement box, although the familiarity of eating in such a place was another item to be suppressed.

For several more days, he joined the other men for morning exercise and for lunch in the prison cafeteria afterwards. Each day, he would strive to make conversation with at least one person of the group of suspected terrorists, and each day, the men would walk away from him muttering words he could not understand. The fresh air and sunshine kept him from sinking into despair altogether and he had continued to join the blue suited men for a round of basketball when they let him. He still was not very good at dribbling the ball, not like Antwan, who controlled the ball as though it were an extension of himself. But he had no trouble sinking the ball through the hoop from the outside and the others continued to be impressed by this.

He also discovered some interesting information when Antwan caught him watching Saleh haranguing the other men on the far side of the yard.

"You know what he's saying?" Antwan asked.

He shook his head and continued to watch, trying to figure out what Saleh was up to from his gestures alone.

"You know him?" Antwan asked again.

He shook his head and said, "He told Patrick, that's the security man, that he knew who I was. Only he wouldn't say how he knew and what my name is." He paused and added thoughtfully, "I think he might have done that to get some kind of favors, but he won't say who I am because he doesn't really know."

"You got to be careful of him," Antwan warned. "He deals, you know. He runs stuff in from Afghanistan and Turkey, and he got some very nasty friends."

Patrick was annoyed at his lack of progress and seemed to think he wasn't trying very hard. Either that, or he supposed, the officer believed he was just acting and was merely buying time to let his associates carry out the attack. This, and the fear that he might be in this soul-eating prison for a long time to come, made him desperate enough to mention the gossip about Saleh's drug connections to Patrick.

"We already know about that," Patrick said dismissively. "What we want to know is when and how the attack will be carried out. You volunteered to find out, so get going." The agent eyed him with a most frigid gazed and added, "You do realize that if they succeed in the attack, I'll have to assume you knew all along and planned it."

"That's not fair," he objected heatedly. "It's a bit difficult getting information out of someone who speaks another language than I do."

He made it a point to sit next to some of the other orange suited men at lunch that day, the ones who had been in the line-up with him. Happily, they did speak English, but all they could tell him was that they were completely innocent themselves and that they were hoping to be released any day. The one called George said softly, "I could almost sympathize with their aims now. I begin to think we will never be accepted here and never will we be treated fairly."

This so echoed his own feelings that he said, "Yeah, I know what you mean." He hesitated and went on, "But I don't agree with blowing up total strangers. That's not right. That's murder. Surely your holy book doesn't allow murder."

The man just gave him a strange look, however, and shook his head. Perhaps he had recalled that the prisoner was supposed to be some high up terrorist. Although he could not quite see how any of them would believe that, seeing as how he couldn't even communicate with them in their own language.

He pushed the food around on his plate - oily chicken coated in some greasy breading with mashed potatoes that had the texture and taste of glue - and wished he could be anywhere else in the world but there, in that stone prison which seemed as impenetrable and full of misery as a waystation on the road to hell.

At the far end of the table, a commotion erupted and he dropped the fork back on the plate when he saw that his nemesis, Saleh, was the cause. The man had moved unexpectedly as he prepared to sit at the table, smashing his loaded plate into a nearby guard's side and seizing his gun from the holster in an instant. He held the gun to the guard's head and shouted, "You will release me immediately, or I will shoot. Now!"

The other guards had leveled their guns at Saleh, but they could do nothing. Any move would surely result in the guard's instant death.

Through the bulletproof glass that separated the officer from the cafeteria, Patrick watched as Saleh seized the nearest guard and held the gun to his head. Furiously, he thought that his John Doe must be behind this. He had been tricked, delayed by a clever act; amnesia, the easiest con there was. He tried to think of one response that would allow him to get the gun away from Saleh without killing the guard and without killing Saleh, who was his only serious suspect besides Doe. None came to mind.

He was surprised more than anyone, though, when Doe leapt from his chair to stand on the long table, and walked at a measured pace directly down the table towards Saleh.

"Stay away from me," Saleh yelled, "or I will kill him."

Patrick could not understand what the ploy might be. Perhaps it was a little play, a means for Doe to get out of solitary or even out of prison, while his pawn sacrificed himself in the name of the "holy" mission.

Doe continued to walk steadily toward Saleh and he said in a quiet, but carrying voice, "You want to give the gun up, Saleh, and release the guard. The others will shoot you if you don't."

"No!" Saleh answered. "Why should I listen to you? I know who you are! You are a spy, planted here to find out everything."

Doe stopped dead for a moment and then continued steadily forward again, and Patrick could not help being fascinated by the smooth and graceful progress, which resembled nothing so much as a lion making its sure and lazy way toward a prey that had no place to which it might retreat. He held out his hands and said calmly, "Look, I'm not armed. And I don't know anything about being a spy. I'd just hate to see anyone here die for no good reason, and that's all that you can accomplish, is to get yourself killed."

"You lie!" Saleh shouted. "We are not stupid. We know who you are."

Doe stopped again, just yards from the man at the end and said with a good deal less calm, "Who am I then?"

Saleh laughed and said, "You are a djinn, a sorcerer. Everyone knows you are the one the English use when they get scared. The Boy Who Lived, that's what they call you, Harry Potter. You don't fool me."

Doe stood utterly still and Patrick was fascinated by the shock and then knowing and then fury which crossed the man's face. He took another step forward and another, at which point Saleh took the gun from the guard's head and pointed it at Doe - Potter, instead. Potter simply stood there, his hands held negligently at his sides, and said quietly, "You want to hand the gun over Saleh, if you want to live."

"I'll kill you," Saleh answered. "You can curse me, but I think you will still die if I shoot you."

Potter took another step forward, and Patrick though he must be out of his mind after all, to take the risk that the desperate man would take the shot he could not miss. Potter shrugged and said carelessly, "Yeah, well, Lord Voldemort thought he couldn't miss either. That's the Lord of Death, as you knew him."

The entire hall was deathly silent for Saleh's hand trembled visibly. Potter smiled, an angelic, rather kind smile, and added, "Here I am, and Voldemort is ... dead." Then he sprang, unexpectedly after all that slow, steady progress, a spring so fast the eye could barely follow, and almost simultaneously, a shot rang out. Then the two men crashed to the floor, and Patrick was astonished to see that Potter had ended up on top with the gun held to Saleh's head. The other guards sprinted quickly to surround him and keep the other prisoners at bay and Patrick sighed with relief as he realized he would not be demoted for having made such a horrible mess of things. Then he felt nothing but a cold fury that Potter, a British agent of some kind apparently, had fooled him and interfered in his operation without jurisdiction and without bothering to give him the courtesy of informing him that he was running a game on American soil.

Patrick stared at Potter and found himself growing angrier than ever. There had been one moment where he had thought the man would refuse to surrender the gun he had taken off of Saleh; however, he had given it up to the shaken guard and said crisply, "Never get that close to a prisoner with an object of any kind in his hands. Anything, however ordinary, can be used as a weapon."

Then he had asked apologetically whether the guard was hurt and told him not to feel too bad because Saleh was a pro and much worse than the average inmate there.

The guard had hung his head as though Potter was his supervisor and then looked grim and determined when Potter clapped on the shoulder as he left. Patrick decided he wasn't standing for any more of the man's act and gestured to him to follow him back to the interrogation room. He was pleased to see that it had shaken Potter, if that really was his name, although the green eyes took on the inscrutability of a meditating cat almost immediately and he sat in the witness's chair with his hands folded loosely in his lap.

"I'd like to make a phone call," Potter said briefly.

"You've already got an attorney," Patrick replied, "and I want some answers from you."

"I don't think you understand," Potter said coolly. "I don't want an attorney. I need to report in to my boss and then we need to figure out how to stop this attack that Saleh Allawi has helped to plan."

"You're a pretty cool customer, Mr. Doe, or Potter, whatever your name is. It's not the usual thing for prisoners to tell us what to do." Patrick stared at Potter, hoping to rattle his new-found confidence, but the man met his gaze straight on with a hint to of impatience, but no fear at all.

"Let's start from the beginning," Patrick said. "You can even have Ms. Farah sit in on this discussion, if you like."

Potter shrugged this time and Patrick was satisfied at the open irritation he displayed: the faint tensing of the mouth, the flare of fire in the green eyes, the quick balling of the fists.

"What's your name?" Patrick asked sharply, capitalizing on the man's anger.

"Harry James Potter. Nationality, British. Age, 34. Profession - " There, he paused. He continued more smoothly, "And if I am allowed a single phone call, I believe you can confirm my identity quite easily, and the fact that I am not, as you think, an associate of Saleh Allawi."

"But Allawi knew your name," Patrick said quietly. "For all I know, you planned that whole little drama just to gain my confidence. For all I know, the number you'll call will be a false number, with someone just waiting there to play the role you've previously assigned them."

Potter frowned then, and said slowly, almost muttering to himself, "I dunno how he knew my name. I could have sworn he had no idea I was following him."

Patrick raised his brows and tried to think whether he had ever met anyone that clever before. "And why exactly were you following him? You do know what he is?"

Potter gave him a look that said he thought Patrick must be quite stupid and said very dryly, "I was following him because that's my job. I was following him for close to ten days before he got on the plane in Paris and flew here. Now, I would really like to make that phone call, Mr. Patrick, and I think, if you don't want to be fired because your boss gets chewed out by my boss, well... I think you get my drift. We don't want a diplomatic incident, I think."

Patrick studied Potter and considered, for the first time, that he might actually have made a mistake. "How do I know that the number you're phoning is real?" he asked again slowly.

"I think you lot are just as capable of tracing a call as we are," Potter replied. "You can even listen in on the call if you like. Put it on your speaker phone; I don't care, so long as I can call in. Now."

After another long moment in which Patrick had the satisfaction of confirming again that Potter was not impervious to nerves altogether, he nodded and gestured at Potter to follow him to the office he had taken over until he completed the investigation into the rioters. The office was not as large as his own office and was presently crammed full of files on each of the suspects. He sat down behind the desk, seizing the territorial advantage, and asked, "What's the number?"

For the first time since he had taken down Saleh, sudden panic flared in the bright green eyes. Potter closed them and then opened them again and said tensely, "I bloody well can't remember the ruddy number." Just as Patrick was about to throw him back in his cell, he added with resignation, "You'll just have to go through the international operator. Ask for the main number for Security Services, it's located on Thames Street in London." When Patrick continued to stare at him doubtfully, he flushed and added, "Sorry. I've still got these odd holes where I can't recall things."

With a shrug, Patrick got a hold of the international operator and placed the request as Potter had suggested. He managed to close his mouth when the operator said, "Oh, dear. I don't know why you want to call MI-5 duckie. They don't ever pick up the phone on their main switchboard."

Potter leaned forward and said, "Just put the call through, please."

In a moment, a recorded voice answered, "You have reached the information line of the Security Services. If you have a tip to report regarding a possible terrorist attack, please access our website and click on the tips link. If you wish to apply for a job please access our website and click on the careers link."

Instead of looking entirely crestfallen at the lack of a direct answer, Potter gave a wry smile and reached out to punch the star and the 5 keys. A smooth and polished voice answered, "Commander Bentley's office."

"Hullo, Polly," Potter said. "It's Harry Potter. Can you put me through to the Head, please?"

"Well, I can't," the voice replied less smoothly, "as he's with the PM right now. Where are you and why haven't you called in? It's been days and he's been having fits over you."

"I couldn't," Potter replied. "Look, is there anyone else there I can speak to right now? Halsey? Bones? I need someone with authority right now."

"I can put you through to Edgar, but I think he's over at the Yard meeting with the A.C. Hang on while I patch you through."

Patrick watched Potter drum on the desk with his long fingers and tried to decide how much trouble he was going to be in for having had a British intelligence agent in solitary confinement for close to ten days. Another voice came on the line, this one crisp and decisive and like Potter's, just a bit impatient. "Bones, here. What's up, Polly?"

"It's Harry," Potter said. "She patched me through from Bentley's line."

"Harry!" Bones exclaimed. "Where are you? And why haven't you reported in? What've you been up to?"

"I'm in America," Potter answered. "In a federal prison in - erm, what state are we in?"

"Nevada," Patrick said.

"You're joking," Bones said. "Bentley's going to have a fit," he added quietly. "You can't just go off mission like that."

Potter sighed. "Nope. Not joking. And I didn't go off mission. I followed Saleh here from Paris. He's here too, as a matter of fact."

Patrick could almost see the man on the other side of the phone sit up. "You followed Saleh there?"

"Yeah," Potter said. "Orly to New York to Las Vegas. I almost missed the connecting flight and I didn't have time to call in. He got off the plane and he didn't check into a hotel or anything. He went straight from the airport to a local mosque and came out five minutes later with a crowd of men. They all start this march, they're marching for their rights or something, and Saleh uses the crowd as a cover to meet with a man and they exchange briefcases. Only the march turns into a riot and the police show up."

Potter paused and then went on. "Anyway, there was the usual confusion, a few explosions, fires started, and the police started arresting everyone in sight, including Saleh. One of them grabbed me as I was trying to keep him in view and when I tried to tell him I wasn't one of the rioters, he cracked me on the head. I woke up in prison and I've been there ever since."

Bones started to exclaim something, but Potter interrupted him. "Listen, Edgar, I need you to come over here right away. I've got no passport or I.D. and I can't get out of here without them. And besides, there's going to be a serious event here that Saleh is involved in."

"That's the Americans' problem, isn't it?" Bones asked reasonably. "They can't possibly want us coming over there and interfering in their affairs."

Potter frowned and said urgently, "It's not interference. It's cooperation. Remember all that stuff about British-American joint anti-terrorist efforts? But forgetting all that, guess what the target is?" He paused and said with every assurance that the information would change his superior's mind, "The Camelot Hotel and Casino. It's got thirty-five hundred rooms, three floors of casinos, a jousting field, five theaters, and you can figure how many people go through there on any given day. And, who do you think has a piece of its ownership?"

Patrick jumped in and said, "The Camelot Project, LLC. Its main partners are a fellow named Jones from York, England and that movie star, Eric Hayden."

"Hayden!" Bones exclaimed. "I thought Bentley told you to stay away from him and stay on mission."

"I did!" Potter objected. "I'm telling you it's by following Saleh that I happened on this."

"What's a movie star got to do with this, anyway?" Patrick asked, "Aside from the fact that he owns the target."

Potter stared at him and said, "Hayden spent six years in the lock-up for his terrorist activities in Britain. Haven't you ever heard of the Anglo Aryan Alliance?"



Patrick frowned and tried to recall what he knew about Hayden. "I thought he got in trouble for tax problems or something. That's what they said on the news when he arrived here in Las Vegas."

"He's the head of a terrorist organization and a murderer," Potter replied coldly.

"Slow down, Harry," Bones cut back in. "Just because Hayden is in the same place doesn't mean he's involved with Saleh. Hayden could be there because it's one of the few places he's got that hasn't been forfeited yet. And it's out of Britain, obviously, and in an entertainment community where his star power still counts."

"You'd think that," Potter replied, "except that the briefcase taken off of Saleh contained complete building plans for the Camelot and he got it from one of Hayden's men." He stopped and stared out the window as though straining to recall something and then added, "Saleh doesn't only import drugs as we know. He carries out assassinations for hire and he'll do any odd job that pays well, including obtaining illegal weapons and hiring and running mercenaries for any kind of illegal activity. I think he's hooked up with Hayden and Hayden is using him to acquire more funds and the men and arms he needs."

"It doesn't make sense that he'd blow up his own place," Patrick interrupted. "He's got some international competition going there that's got to be pulling in tons of money in ticket fees, plus there's all the money he brings in from the casino."

"I dunno about that," Potter replied. "Hayden is mental. He won't mind blowing it up if it makes the right impact. He can blame it on the poor stupid blokes from the mosque and further his racist agenda. And he probably has some other scheme as well. Look, Edgar" he continued urgently, "we know that place is a target. Just come over as soon as you can and bring some back up, too."

"Back up!" Patrick sputtered. "Who do you think you are? You can't just bring in a bunch more foreign agents and carry out an operation here without permission."

"We're carrying it out in cooperation with you," Potter said silkily.

"But still…" Bones began, being clearly of the same mind as Patrick. However, Potter spoke over him, silencing his boss, "We need back up in case Hayden's got the other Death Eaters with him."

Bones did not reply immediately to this strange reference, and the line hummed until he replied, "Malfoy is still here. We know where he's holed up."

"You don't know where the rest of them are," Potter retorted. "Hayden is their only chance to return to power now that Malfoy's lost the desire to go on. You can't count on things being easy where Hayden's concerned. We have to be sure."

In the end, Bones promised to be in Las Vegas within twenty-four hours, if not sooner. Patrick could not help wondering just how much influence Potter had that he could persuade a superior like that to move so quickly. He found himself the subject of scrutiny as Potter considered him with an intense, green gaze.

"We should question Saleh again," Potter commented, "but I'd rather wait until Bones gets here. It'll be more intimidating if he has to face someone besides you and me."

Patrick thought privately that Saleh was already well scared of Potter, but did not dispute it. He was not happy, however, when Potter said decisively, "I think we should take a look at that hotel and see what the layout is in person. Only I think I'd like my own clothes back," he added, "or what's left of them."

He was not sure why he went along with the suggestion. Perhaps there was the subconscious thought that he might not get into trouble for imprisoning a British agent for so many days if he went along with things. Perhaps it was sheer curiosity on his part. He had to admit, though, that when Potter returned from changing into his own clothes, he could not figure out how he had ever thought the man might be a Muslim protester. He had contrived to shave, and despite his having been through a riot, his white dress shirt was crisp and starched, his charcoal slacks and silk tie looked like designer made and the black leather boots looked as though they were made of some incredibly rare and expensive hide - snake or crocodile maybe. With his round glasses, he looked, in fact, like the sort of businessman who made deals in very expensive board rooms with very expensive advisors at his side. Only Patrick knew, that despite his appearance, any crook and any policeman would know better, for he had, also, the indubitable aura of the man of authority that all policemen and soldiers owned.

They were just about to leave when Farah stormed in. "I heard you were questioning my client again, without letting me know and without giving me a chance to be there!"



She had not realized that Potter was her client, and Patrick had the perverse pleasure of seeing the woman rendered utterly speechless when Potter said calmly, "Don't worry. They're letting me out and I'll be completely free as soon as my boss from home arrives with my new passport."

"But, how did you..." she started to ask, and Potter said simply, "I remembered who I am." He stuck out his hand and added, "Harry Potter." Then he frowned and added, "I don't know how to thank you for your help. I can pay you whatever you like for it."

Again, she was taken aback, and Patrick thought she was quite angry.

"I don't take payments from my clients. I get paid by the ACLU," she said huffily.

"Well, at least you can come to lunch with us then," Potter answered. "I'm perishing for a cup of decent coffee and some real food."

"Now wait a minute," Patrick objected. "I thought you wanted to go to see this hotel - not that I mind skipping that." He glared at Potter, feeling the man was going to cause him even more trouble somehow.

"Of course, not," Potter replied instantly. "We can eat there. It's bound to have at least one restaurant with decent food. That brochure said it had something like ten of them."

"Which hotel? Not the one you think is going to be blown up?" Farah asked suspiciously. Patrick almost smiled. There was no doubt that the woman had brains.

Potter nodded and smiled. It was a most infectious smile, full of an almost innocent delight and mischief and it dispelled, at least temporarily, the shadows and weariness about the bright green eyes. "This is going to be fun," he said as he led gestured for Patrick to lead the way out.

"You," Patrick grumbled, "have a very peculiar sense of fun. No wonder your boss yelled at you."

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