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door, the unlocking of hasps. The door swung open, revealing sunlight.
    And a rifle.
    Maeve stepped back into a corner of the cell and waited.
    â€œFood for you,” a voice said. “Tonight we get to work.” It was a Russian accent, she thought. Perhaps Ukrainian, but more likely Russian. The man tossed two combat rations, called meals ready to eat, or MREs, onto the floor, then added, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
    As he went to close the door, Maeve shouted, “Wait! Work on what?”
    The door had stopped about a foot from the doorjamb when the man said, “Later. We tell you everything later. Now eat and rest. You working until we are done.”
    The man closed the door. She heard him lock at least two hasps. The momentary brightness from the sun made it difficult to adjust to the darkness again. When her night vision returned after a few minutes, she found the MREs, opened one, and began to eat.
    What could they possibly need me to do ? she wondered. I am a teacher and a geologist. A mother and a wife. A friend and a neighbor. And she had just returned from war, for God’s sake. This was certainly no hero’s welcome, she thought as she munched on the dry crackers.
    Sitting in the darkness, her mind volleyed back and forth like two sides in a tennis match: How do I break out of this cell? What kind of work do they want me to do? Can I bust the hasps? Is the work dangerous? She cycled through the possibilities, attempting to find comfort in conclusions.
    Two hasps, maybe three, with an inward-opening door. Should she wait for him to come again and kick the door into his face? He seemed to be alone. That was an option, but not a good one given her wounded arm. Ask him for a blanket and hope he made a mistake with the rifle? Get him talking? Get him to see her as sympathetic? Possible, but still not likely. The man seemed professional. He wasn’t prone to answering any questions, yet at the same time he gave her food and limited information.
    What kind of work was he talking about? She was a geologist and a combat veteran. She had participated in the Army’s secret program to test a classified series of depleted-uranium drill bits and controversial drilling techniques in Afghanistan. The earth beneath much of Afghanistan and Pakistan was filled with minerals, natural gas, and oil, which were valuable to jewelers, weapons makers, and energy companies. Her specialty had been to study the geology and then maneuver the drill bits thousands of feet into the earth, ultimately searching for gas or oil.
    Maeve ran the past twenty-four hours through her mind. She’d arrived back at Fort Bragg after an arduous trip from Bagram to Kandahar, to Kuwait, to Germany, to Pope Field and Fort Bragg. People representing themselves as from the Joint Special Operations Command had debriefed her, and she had told them everything they wanted to know about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Afghanistan, mostly. In Afghanistan she had developed and honed the art and science of using depleted-uranium and titanium drill bits to bore a mile or two into the earth and then to go another mile or two laterally. Next, they pumped massive volumes of top-secret pressurized chemicals to fracture the shale layers and capture the released natural gas. Then the men, whom she didn’t know, had asked her questions about the fracking process, money, sex, and the six liquefied natural gas container ships leaving Karachi, Pakistan. That was when she’d run.
    Of course, she’d known all along she would never be able to escape the long tentacles of the CIA and her clandestine handler.
    And now she prayed that someone would find the clue she’d left revealing the location of vulnerable American targets.

CHAPTER 4
    T HE MAN WITH THE SCAR HAD OFFERED HIM A MOTORIZED AUGER to drill the holes, but Mahegan had opted for the posthole digger. Scarface had scowled and shrugged, saying, “Have it your