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immediately.
    “It's Colin. I'm so sorry, Katy.”
    She knew without asking that she had been right. “What happened?”
    Stuart paused, struggling audibly to keep his voice together. “Overdose,” he said. “Morphine sulfate. The stuff he'd been taking for his arm. They found him two days ago in a pub bathroom in King's Cross.”
    “So it was an accident, then?” Kat heard herself say.“No, Katy. I don't know all the details, but evidently his prescription was time-release. He'd sped up the dosage somehow. Mixed it in with his drink.” Another pause, and that struggle again.
    Kat said nothing. She'd known Colin was unhappy. Losing his arm had been hard for him—beyond hard—but it had been three years now, and she had sensed from their last few conversations that he was finally moving on.
    There was Stuart's trial coming up, of course. He'd been charged in the death of one of the Bagram detainees. Colin had been the only other member of their team to witness the man's death, and his testimony at the court-martial would weigh heavily in the case against his friend. But they all knew that the proceedings were merely a formality. The man had been asthmatic, something Stuart could not possibly have known, and had died under interrogation as a result of his illness. If anything, Colin's testimony would mitigate Stuart's responsibility.
    “Are they sure?” Kat asked.
    She felt numb, removed from herself. An accident she had been prepared for. A fall while climbing in the Cuillins or a wreck on his old Triumph. Trying to prove to himself that he was still the same person he'd been before al-Amir. But this, this she could not have imagined. It was a choice she would have thought utterly foreign to the person she had known and loved.
    Stuart cleared his throat. “He knew what he was doing, Kat.”
    Neither of them spoke then, and for a moment Kat thought Stuart was crying. She wouldn't have been surprised, had seen more than her share of tough-as-nails Special Forces guys break down at makeshift funerals at Kandahar and Bagram.
    “There will be a service of some sort,” he offered at last. “I expect his parents will be arranging it. I can let you know.…”
    “Yes,” Kat told him, grateful for something concrete to focus on. The requisite motions of mourning. “Of course.”
    “I'm sorry,” he said again. “I'm so sorry.”
    Then there was nothing more to say.
    I T WAS THE SPRING OF 2002 , and the Guantánamo facility had finally opened, bringing a merciful end to the operation at Kandahar. After four inhuman months at the southern base, defecating into barrels and subsisting on MREs and dust, Kat and the other interrogators had happily welcomed news of an impending transfer north to Bagram.
    Kat was one of the last of her team to go, and one of the few not leaving Afghanistan. “That's what we get for being part-timers,” one of her fellow reservists had complained when the orders came down. “Stuck here full-time.” But Kat had thought, At least it'll keep us out of Iraq.
    Kat had four days of R&R coming to her, and she'd chosen to head to Oman before settling in at Bagram. Kandahar was a virtual ghost town by then, and Kat found herself the sole passenger as she hustled her gear onto the C-130 that would take her north to K-2.
    “Bet you've never flown on a private jet before.” The air-force crewman winked as he secured Kat's gear for the flight. He was younger in looks than in years, with a wily Texas smile and oversized ears. “It's the milk run today. We've got to stop at Bagram and drop off some supplies.” Another wink. “Give you a chance to check out your new digs.”
    Reports of a virtual Club Med in the desert had been trickling south for weeks. Hot showers and real meals. Uzbek beer and sunbathing on the roof of the interrogation facility. But as the C-130 finally dipped low for landing, skimming the jagged terrain, Kat's first view of Bagram through the plane's right portal was of a