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Sever didn't slow. We passed a few open office doors, and then the cuffs bit into my wrists, and my shoulders strained in their sockets as I jerked to a halt. I could hear him breathing hard behind me, feel his fist tight around the handcuff chain. Finally he tugged me back, pivoting me around another corner. A few more painful steps and we were outside a double-reinforced door, peering at a guard through ballistic glass.

Sever leaned close to the embedded microphone and said, "Let him go."

The guard rolled back from the window on his chair and disappeared. The buzzing of secured doors. A metallic rumble. A moment later Homer was escorted through the door, a guard on either side, white latex gloves gripping him at the biceps. He was trembling, a mountain of shivering rags. His mouth worked on itself, his beard shifting. He saw me, blanched beneath the dirt, and tried to tell me something but couldn't. The guards moved him past us toward the elevator and shoved him in. The doors slid shut, and the guards walked by again, snapping off their gloves and chuckling to themselves.

They nodded through the window. The door clicked open, and they disappeared.

Sever hadn't moved. He said, "What's that bum to you anyway?"

"A friend."

"You got some fucked-up habits, Horrigan."

We were moving again. "Where are you taking me?"

"Interrogation."

"I want to talk to Wydell."

Sever made a noise of severe irritation, and the cuffs sank deeper into my flesh. Another hall, a doorway, past a female agent whose eyes lingered on Sever for an extra beat. I was the piece-of-shit offender, the foil for admirable men with admirable tasks and intentions. My arms pinned behind me, I approached a metal door. Sever didn't slow down. I hit it with my chest, and it banged open. He hurled me inside, and I staggered two steps and fell onto a wooden chair in the middle of the concrete box. The chair tilted up on two legs, then settled back with a clatter. Sever closed the door. Locked it. No security camera. No one-way mirror. Bare bulb overhead for that gulag effect.

Was this where people wound up who threatened the president?

Sever stepped in front of the dangling bulb, his face lost in shadow. My breath caught, but I smoothed out the inhale so it would be less noticeable.

I said, "You can't kill me. People will know."

"Kill you? What the hell are you talking about?"

I said, "Check my sock."

He tugged out the folded piece of paper from my sock and regarded my bad handwriting. My name is Nick Horrigan. I was brought to San Onofre during the "terrorist" incident last week I did not kill Mack Jackman. I am not a terrorist. I turned myself in to the Secret Service at 725 S Figueroa the night of 9/15. At the time I went in, I had no injuries and was in good health.

"The fuck's this gonna do for you?" Sever said.

"I've rented a motel room. With a fax machine that I preprogrammed. If I'm not released from here by midnight, that fax will send."

"To who?"

"The L.A. Times, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News."

"No one can know you were at San Onofre."

"That's the least of your concerns."

"Yeah? So why don't you tell me what my real concerns are?"

"What else I'm sending in that fax."

"What else are you sending?"

"I want to talk to Wydell."

"You'd rather talk to me."

"Why would I rather talk to you?"

He paused, wet his lips. "I'm a better listener."

"I'll take my chances on Wydell."

"He's not here."

"Where is he?"

"Overseeing the preadvance for the UCLA debate. Believe it or not, as the special agent in charge, he's got other things on his plate. He can't get here. Can't be arranged."

"You have till midnight to arrange it. Then it won't matter."

"I may have to recommend a psych eval for you." He studied me. My resolve must have been clear, because he grimaced and said, "I'll see what I can do." At the door he paused. "What makes you think you can trust Wydell?"

"I never said I trusted him. But I'll talk to him."

He walked out, setting the dead bolt behind him. I went over to the door, but the interior side had no knob. Not even a metal backing for the dead bolt. The seamless walls left me in a state of near panic. For the first fifteen minutes, I paced the perimeter, skimming my shoulder along the concrete, a hot pain pulsing in the wound on my cheek. At around the half-hour mark, I finally figured out how to step back over the cuffs, bringing my arms in front of me. That relieved the stress in my shoulders, but little else. The recycled air grew dense and moist.

I was on the hard wooden chair again when Wydell entered, Sever at his back.

"No," I said. "Just you."