Merry Christmas, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 19)

“In other words, no,” Mahoney said. “Sorry, Alex, but I need to take over the questioning here.”

“All yours,” I said, and made as if to leave.

Mahoney put his hand on my arm, and I settled back into the chair. Hala shifted uncomfortably in hers.

“I understand you are in pain?” Mahoney said.

She nodded. “I am.”

He fished in his jacket pocket, came up with two small white pills, each stamped OC on one side and 10 on the other. He put them on the table where she could see them but not reach them.

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HALA LOOKED AT THE PILLS, AND I COULD FEEL HER LEG JIGGLING ON THE other side of the table. “So, what? You withhold medical treatment so I talk? I think your ACLU will be interested to hear this.”

Mahoney smiled. “Who said anything about withholding treatment?” He slid the tablets over in front of her. “We’re not tribal savages a generation out of the desert here.”

Hala scowled at him but took up one of the tablets. I pushed a plastic water bottle across the table. She swallowed the painkiller but then said, “If you think I will talk because of these pills, you do not know me.”

“Hey,” Mahoney said, arms wide: Mr. Nice Guy. “We want to know you, Doctor. We want to hear what you have to say in your defense.”

“I’m saying nothing in my defense. I’ll wait for the lawyer.”

“Let us check a few things that are verifiable,” the FBI agent said, as if he were a clerk taking insurance information. “Where do you live in Saudi Arabia?”

Hala did not reply, but she watched him closely.

Mahoney typed on his keypad, rolled his lower lip between fingers, said, “Al Hariq? No, that’s where you were born, right out there on the edge of the erg, the sea of sand, right?”

He looked up at her. She said, “A place of terrible beauty.”

I said, “That where you became afraid of dogs?”

She smiled sourly at me. “I have no idea where that came from. It’s always just been there.”

“You’re smart though,” Mahoney observed, returning his attention to the screen. “King Saud University for one year and then four years at Penn, courtesy of the Saudi royal family. Impressive. Medical degree from Dubai. Children. A career. And then a sudden radicalization. But that’s what happens when God talks to you, right?”

She said nothing, rolled her eyes at me.

“Now,” Mahoney said. “Where do you live in Saudi Arabia?”

“I do not live in Saudi Arabia.”

“And probably never will again,” the FBI agent said brightly, still looking at his screen. “I guess what I was asking was…oh, here it is. Fahiq. It’s right there outside Riyadh, on the road to Mecca.”

For the first time since we’d been talking to Hala, I saw something resembling anxiety in her expression, just a glimpse of it, and then she turned stony once more.

I glanced at Mahoney, who seemed so confident now that I thought, What has Ned got on her? What about Fahiq could break her?

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“WE NO LONGER LIVE IN FAHIQ,” HALA SAID. “WE SOLD THAT HOUSE YEARS ago, long before we came to this—”

“There was a transfer of property,” Mahoney agreed. “But it was a gift, not a sale, to Gabir Salmann, who I believe is your uncle, the older brother of your mother, Shada?”