Chapter Six
Reunion at State
Instead of driving to the prefecture of police as I had expected, the flic took me to the American embassy, where a U.S. Marine in dress blues escorted me down to a bleak room in the basement. No one had bothered to put the cuffs on me. The guard asked me in deferential English to take a seat and then left me there alone.
The place looked just like the interrogation rooms I’ve seen on TV crime dramas. In front of me was a stainless steel table on which rested a telephone, a blank yellow pad, a BIC pen, and—disturbingly—a pair of pliers.
I tried not to think about the pliers. If they planned to torture me, wouldn’t I be bound hand and foot? The clock on the wall showed the local time nearing four in the morning. I would have been grateful to be groggy from n
