"Violins always make me sleep. It isn't a normal sleep. It is more like I am awake and then I am not and I begin to dream." Zaynab said in her ever calm voice.

Mich and the two agents from MI6, Roger and Ian, stood behind the darkened window watching her in the interview room of the police station. "Just follow my lead."

"You're the one sweating, Mr. Seders." Roger spoke with a slight smile and no trace of his accent.

"This isn't our first rodeo, cowboy." Ian added. He then put on a pair of very carefully chosen glasses that did a lot to alter his appearance.

"Look, Clark Kent, she isn't going anywhere until the FBI get here. I can tell them you guys are lawyers and that will get you in there with her. That's it." Mich was speaking a little too loudly for the agents. 

They looked at each other and Roger gave a slight nod. Ian tilted his glasses as he said:

"Mich you have helped us a lot with finding her. Let us take it from here. She is one of ours, not for the FBI. You understand, right?" 

"Right." Mich muttered with reluctance. Ian reasoned with him and he just stared silently. Ian had come clean, that made Mich very nervous. He said nothing and just waited, watching the two men. For a moment they just stared at each other and then at Zaynab through the one-way-mirror. Mich regretted his involvement.

They left him there like that and then they appeared in the interview room without his help as he watched. Zaynab looked up at them with an assumed recognition. She was afraid of them, whoever she thought they were.

"Don't worry. First thing we are going to do is get you out of here." Roger told her with a slight smile.

Ian dropped a small remote controlled spider that quickly went up to the camera and burrowed into the cable. Then when they were feeding the surveillance a loop he placed a tiny suction cup on the glass that vibrated and turned the glass to dust instantly.

"Ladies first." Roger had produced a keyring of handcuff keys and opened her cuffs on the third guess. Then he wanted her to go with them and escape. Realizing they were rescuing her and not who she thought they were: Zaynab was thrilled and followed their instructions with zeal.

Soon Mich was in a corner, mostly undressed, and they had Zaynab in his suit. Ian added his glasses to her face and they seemed to be done disguising her.

"That's your plan? Walk her out wearing my clothes? Anyone can see it doesn't fit and she will be spotted easily." Mich was trying not to laugh at them; his own humiliation priming him to do so.

"I am going to make alterations." Roger lifted an eyebrow at Mich's disbelief. He proved to be a quick and competent suit tailor as he worked out some of the problems with the suit. He had another kit for this: a handful of safety pins and a folded piece-of-paper with a diagram for where to place them. Meanwhile, while Roger worked, Zaynab just stared at Mich. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Within minutes the suit looked like it fit her. But that wasn't what he couldn't believe. As she stared at him through the glasses her face began to change, a hologram mask developing.

The glasses she was wearing were projecting his facial features over her own. She looked like him with long hair. The glasses even hid themselves. He asked: 

"What about the hair?" 

"Stuffing it into a wig I brought." Ian showed the wig he had of Mich's hair. It wasn't flattering.

Minutes later they walked outside past two FBI agents entering the police station. Within an hour they had her on a flight back home to headquarters. Zaynab stared out at the sunset, hardly able to believe she was not in the hands of enemies, or worse.

She could hear some violin music in her headphones and she nodded off. Her dreams began with the spiral of the inside of a gun barrel, but were soon drenched in blood and strange music. And at the center of all the strange images, the standard of A Golden Tomorrow.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

In the briefing room at MI6 she sat with a light on her. She couldn't see the military officers that had so many questions for her. After letting her rest for six hours and dressing her in the blue hijab she had asked for they brought her to another room like the one she was in yesterday. They finally seated her where they had found her. Except now she was no longer a criminal being promoted to a terrorist. Now she was a spy being promoted to a double agent.

"We are very glad to have you here, Zaynab. Your work...what you did. Amazing." The gruff-voiced shadow spoke first. Zaynab only recognized them by their voices, since they sat in the dark, opposite the table.

"Tell us about A Golden Tomorrow." The one that sounded like her uncle spoke next.

"What you already know is part of more, akhw al'umi." Zaynab spoke her English very slowly. "All zaeim ealami are part of A Golden Tomorrow. They distribute rice, relief and vaccines to the Adelaide Virus. They offer opportunity and education to women from certain places." Zaynab paused for a moment and then continued: "They also recruit their muqatil from those they help. They have many loyal ones. Many and in many places."

"And this loyalty. This is tested, no?" The one with the strange accent asked.

"Each loyalty is tested. I tested all the loyalty and I was number one. I recruited, I was the contact with sponsored terrorists and other wages." Zaynab now spoke up. She wanted to say this part, what she had done. She looked at her hands and she could see blood on them, always. "And for that, may God forgive me. I once believed in A Golden Tomorrow."

"You were embedded with this group, Abna Alnahr. That is when you made contact with the CIA, correct? You reported that this group had vaccines for the Adelaide Virus." Uncle wanted her to tell the story from that chapter. So she did, in Arabic:

"They had both the virus and the vaccine. I ordered the release of the American journalist knowing that this person was CIA. Instead of a tabloid saying that a novel corona virus vaccine was developed in less than one year, which everyone knows is impossible, the CIA came and cleared out Al Abna and captured the vaccine. Strangely enough they still told the world that a vaccine was developed in record time." Zaynab added, hesitating. She wasn't sure if they understood or believed her.

"The Americans have done that before. Their people had already believed that vaccines can be developed quickly or that a vaccine for a cold virus can actually be made at all, for that matter. They do not like hard facts like the origin of the Adelaide Virus or the ones that devastated the world in the early twenties. They ignore that these are Chinese bioweapons and terrorism." Uncle spoke slowly in Arabic to her. She appreciated this very much and smiled. Then Zaynab continued:

"I had decided that I wanted to help stop all that I had started. I wanted to make right the wrongs. I went to America and I remained in-contact with the buyers of Jeffried Cron and also with the CIA. That very thing you described, that was always on my mind because the Jeffried Cron was behind the May Bombings and the Wall Street Incident. They wanted to prove Chinese culpability and government complacency. I did not stop those two events, but I did finish their attack on Camp Seltzer before they could do that one. My contact disappeared and without the CIA I was on my own. I tried to get out and I was arrested for my effort to hand over the blue van. That is when the police contacted the FBI and I was extracted. Already I see you are much more prepared than they were."

"We have watched A Golden Tomorrow for many years now. As you pointed out, they are extremely well-connected and funded at the top. But the top isn't the top is it?" The gruff-voice asked. Zaynab just shook her head. There was silence for an entire minute as though they had nothing more to ask. Then:

"You know so much and have done so much for them. Surely you could go back, get into the more intelligent and sensitive parts of the organization?" The strange accent asked.

"At this time, yes. They are moving up their schedule. This I know. Giving bioweapons to a variety of terrorist cells is a late phase. So I see now why I must be yours. You don't have time to embed one of your own." Zaynab said all of this in English and with great and careful slowness.

"Brilliant, isn't she?" A female voice, from further back in the darkness, assessed her.

"You trust me?" Zaynab asked in a peculiar way. The word 'trust' wasn't in their vocabulary. She knew that already.

"What do you mean?" The strange accent asked her with obvious suspicion.

"This darkness I am from, you send me back into it. You send me alone and you expect me to come to you with an answer that can save you. Save the world from them." Zaynab sounded amused, almost mad. She waited while they refused to answer and processed what she wanted them to say.

"We have no other option. We have lost four Double O agents and dozens of others and we are further than when we started. This is our most desperate hour and we ask you, of all people. Yes it is what you want, we need you. Please help us." The gruff-voiced officer stood up and walked around the table so she could almost see him and make out his features.

Loudly in Arabic she proclaimed:

"This is what you do not understand about Zaynab! She isn't here to help you, but rather to accept help from you!"

To this there was a quiet and sincere applause from the men and they each agreed before they dismissed her back to her room.

Alone in a quiet corner of the world she felt free.

There she sat at the desk and after a long time staring into one corner of the room she retrieved the headphones and selected Samples of Stradivarius. She went and laid on the bed, kicking off her slippers unceremoniously. It was not long before she enjoyed the most restful and dreamless sleep she had ever had.