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Al-Masri motioned to Zayan to remove the hood.

Immediately he saw the terror in the boy’s eyes. “Do you know who I am?” he asked in English.

“No,” the boy replied in English, shaking his head.

“Do you know what I want?”

Again the boy shook his head.

“It’s simple,” said al-Masri. “I want your name. I want to know who you work for. And I want your ID number. Tell me, and you live. Don’t tell me, and you die.”

It was likely he was going to spill his guts right there and then. But why not have some fun first? al-Masri thought. Grabbing the kid by the hair, he dragged him across the cafeteria and into the adjacent industrial kitchen. When he reached the double sink, he found a rubber stopper and put it into the drain of one of the sinks, then turned on the faucet full blast. It took a while to fill the sink to the top, and during that time, neither al-Masri nor the boy said a word. When the sink was full, the Egyptian turned off the faucet and forced the boy’s head all the way down into the water. He held him there for almost a minute, then yanked him back out.

“I’ll talk; I’ll talk,” the boy screamed.

But al-Masri didn’t care. He forced the boy’s head back down, counting to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Then forty. At fifty seconds, he yanked the boy out of the water and let him choke and sputter, but only for a moment. Then he pushed his head back into the water all over again.

Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. There were fewer bubbles this time. He might not make it to thirty. So al-Masri yanked him out when he hit twenty-five.

The Egyptian had already decided that this was the one he was going to decapitate. They had three prisoners. They only needed one. He had intended on saving the girl and keeping her for himself. But no more. She would suffer for her crimes. But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of killing her. The man, he’d concluded, was clearly the team leader. That meant he was important. Al-Masri would take great pleasure in torturing him. But he would also try to keep the man’s face intact for as long as he could—at least until he got instructions from above.

The kid, however, he would personally behead. On video, so they could upload it to YouTube at the appropriate time. But first he would show the head to the boy’s colleagues. That would force more information out of them, especially the woman. Then he’d pack the head on ice and ship it to the White House.

Al-Masri pictured the emotional impact this would have on the American people. This wasn’t, after all, a veteran, battle-tested soldier being hacked to death in some camel-ridden Middle Eastern wasteland. This was a fresh-faced State Department employee on what was likely only his first or second trip to Israel, beheaded on the Internet for everyone to see. Beheading the older hostage wouldn’t have the same effect. It had been done too many times before.

Truth be told, he now wanted to behead the woman. But he feared that might be too much for the American people and government to bear. Yes, he wanted to trigger widespread horror and revulsion. These were useful. Outrage was quite another matter. Butchering an American woman could create a martyr, a cause for which the American people might actually be willing to go to war. He had his orders, and they did not include triggering an American invasion of Lebanon. The chances of that really happening were slim, he believed. But it wasn’t worth the risk.

The boy was perfect. But not yet. First, al-Masri needed to make him talk.

Again al-Masri forced the kid’s head under the water, even as he was still coughing up water and gasping for air. Again al-Masri began counting. Yet on this round he did not even make it to twenty. The boy’s body was writhing, convulsing, and then it shut down.

At this, al-Masri yanked his head up and threw his limp body to the floor.

“Bring him back,” he ordered.

Zayan dropped to the kitchen floor. Al-Masri watched as he checked the kid’s pulse but found none. The American wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, so the deputy began administering CPR.

Al-Masri couldn’t be bothered to watch, much less help. He’d been through this so many times, the whole thing simply bored him. But a beheading? That he had never done. Not himself. Not personally. Not yet. And the very thought of doing it for the first time, and on this particular operation, gave him something to look forward to.

Stepping out of the kitchen, he found an empty office. There, alone, he pulled from his pocket a pack of Hamra cigarettes and a lighter. Smoking was not exactly forbidden in Islam, but it was within Hezbollah. But al-Masri didn’t care. He didn’t have many vices. This was one. And he wasn’t giving it up for the Sheikh. The hard part wasn’t hiding it from his men. The hard part was finding boxes of the Syrian brand that he’d come to love. Lebanon had its own brand, of course, Cedars, and supposedly they weren’t too bad. But the packaging infuriated him, trumpeting its “American blend.” There was no way he was going to smoke an American cigarette.

It had been hours since he’d filled his lungs with the warm, sweet smoke. He considered this a small but just reward for all their hard work and good fortune thus far. And knowing it would be hours until he got another, he savored every drag.

When he finished and reentered the kitchen, he found that the kid had vomited all over the floor. One of his men was still mopping up the mess. His deputy was taking the boy’s pulse. When he nodded, al-Masri motioned for Zayan and the guards to drag the boy back into the cafeteria and back over to the stool. They did as they were told. The boy was still gasping, still sucking in as much oxygen as he could, but he was alive.

“So are you ready to give me your name, or should we try that again?” the Egyptian asked with a smile, his teeth still covered in blood.