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media were also all too frequently stupid enough to disclose details about a hostage—that he was Jewish or gay or American—that put his or her life in further danger. Finn was all for freedom of the press, but not at the expense of a life.
    Struggling with the seat belt, he extracts his mobile from his pocket and rings her. It goes straight to voice mail. She’s probably just out of range. He rings Tucker. “They’re nowhere near up north, Finn,” he says. “It’s a totally safe area. Never been an incident. It’s Sharaq, where the president comes from. Just a forty-five-minute drive.”
    Somewhat more at ease, Finn flips his phone shut. He has got to stop being so paranoid. She’ll be fine. She always is.
    â€”
    I T ’ S NEARLY 5:00 p.m. by the time Finn gets back to his office, having left two disintegrating families in his wake. The father of one of the British women wouldn’t even look at him, just sat on the beige leather sofa with his face in his hands, tears running through his fingers and soaking the cuffs of his shirt. His wife had sat rocking beside him. “No,” she’d said over and over. “No no no no no.” The other couple had raged at him for not throwing their daughter out of the country. “How could you have let her stay in a country like this? Why didn’t you warn her?” Finn had explained that the website of the Foreign Office did, in fact, warn against nonessential travel to the region, but that people ultimately had responsibility for their own safety. Muslim Mercy isn’t ordinarily targeted, he’d added, so she may have felt she was safe with them. “She was doing good work, important work.” He’d paused, searching his memory for something to ameliorate their devastation. “She saved a lot of little children from starving. Where she was, the babies under one were all dying of malnutrition before Muslim Mercy arrived.”
    The room had been silent save for the creak of the sofa under the rocking woman. The crying man had finally looked up from his sodden fingers. “She should have let them die.”
    His words had hung in the air for several minutes. The angry couple had wilted, sinking together into a sofa across from the others, their hands falling limply into their laps. The rocking woman had stopped and looked up at her husband. Finn had pulled himself clumsily to his feet. “I am so, so very sorry about your daughters.”
    The four parents had sat silently staring at the floor. Apologizing several more times for the tragedy he had been powerless to prevent, Finn had left.
    He’s going to have to hurry to get home in time for dinner. Miranda is remarkably talented at entertaining diplomats over cocktails when he’s running late, but it’s very poor form to show up after one’s guests. He has no time to switch gears. The tentacles of the families’ grief still cling to his rib cage. The whole afternoon has hollowed him out, left him enervated and despairing. And now he must get home to discuss how the EU countries can collaborate more effectively on various development projects. Over the years he has had tolearn how to seal off parts of his psyche, but it’s never easy. Compartmentalization does not come naturally to him. When he cries during a movie he doesn’t just cry about the movie, he cries about everything.
    As he stuffs a stack of papers into his briefcase, he notices the light flashing on his phone and picks up the receiver. Seven messages. The first three are from various government officials wanting him to personally fast-track UK visas for their children. A downside of working in this tinderbox of a country is the incessant demands for visas. The Mazrooqis simply refuse to understand that there is truly nothing Finn can do to ease their way into his country. Several have offered him money. “Look,” Finn often repeats, patience