The gears clanked. The truck took a sharp turn. Sabine was thrown to the ridged metal floor. She crawled along it, the chains on her legs rattling. The truck stopped suddenly, rolling her over onto a hip. She twisted herself back into a sitting position, knees drawn to her forehead. She heard the engine ticking. Voices outside, maybe three different men. Then something like an loud crackling electronic hum and the screech of metal. The truck started again, Sabine's chin bouncing off her collarbone, and it sped up fast with an angry banging of gears. She glanced up. Through the gap in the canvas she glimpsed a metal gate, already sliding shut. A white pillbox with a black uniformed sentry -- she couldn't see his face. Then they were driving smoothly on asphalt. More big pine trees blurring. The driver downshifted again and the truck braked hard. Sabine bit her lip. She heard more voices. It was hot in the truck. Sweat pouring from her forehead neck and armpits. Cicadas were screeching. Footsteps on gravel. The canvas parted. Two men in black uniforms and black boots jumped in. They looked lean and hard and they carried themselves like the paratroopers Sabine had seen on French TV. One unlocked the chain set on its big metal ring into the floor from the chain holding Sabine's ankles. The other kicked Sabine's foot. Get up, he said. She stood, dizzy. Off, the man said. Pointing to the glaring sunlight and the brilliant white gravel. Sabine shuffle-walked slowly to the opening in the canvas. She stepped down clumsily onto the gravel. Nobody helped her, though there were three other black uniformed men standing around and one older woman with dyed red hair in a pink silk blouse and white trousers and heels, holding a clipboard. This way, the woman said, and Sabine followed her, a uniformed man walking close behind her. As if she could run with her ankles chained together. They went up the gravel path to a big brick building with a metal door. It looked like an insane asylum from horror movies. Sabine kept glancing around. Nothing else was here. This was the deep country. Just the shrieks and long buzzing stillness of cicadas, and the truck standing in hot sunlight, the driver's expressionless face watching her go with these black-garbed men. The older woman unlocked the metal door with a key on a ring jangling with other keys and one of the men opened it, silent on its oiled hinges. Inside it was dim. Sabine saw a long hospital type hallway and a metal staircase. The woman nodded her head, smiling a little now, and Sabine stepped into the Facility.

**

Sabine was sleepy, and her body ached, and she was hungry, and her mouth was dry from thirst as she shuffled, the chains clanking, down the aniseptic-smelling hallway between the two silent black-clothed guards.

Just behind her walked the red haired older lady with the clipboard. Once, Sabine staggered and nobody reached out to steady her. She laughed at this, a harsh sarcastic laugh. Silence.

If she'd fallen, they would have just waited until she picked herself up. Nobody was going to make life any easier for her. Not here. Okay. She got that.

At the end of the hall was a green metal door with a pebbled glass pane. The red haired lady walked forward and tapped on the glass with her clipboard. A stern baritone voice said, "Enter."

The red haired lady turned the knob and stepped in and held the door wide and Sabine squeezed through with the two guards.

At a metal desk piled with blue folders sat a dark haired man with a sort of gaunt, worn in, battered face and sharp blue eyes, in civilian clothes. Just blue jeans and a black sweater with leather patches on the shoulders. No tie or anything. He was smoking a cigarette. There was a whole ash tray of cigarette butts on his desk. The place was so thick with smoke that Sabine's eyes watered.

"Be seated," the man said, and Sabine looked to the side and saw a single wooden chair. It was the kind of chair they had in police stations -- the kind that was lightweight and therefore easy to kick out from under you if you didn't answer their questions promptly and courteously. You might also get hit over the head with a chair like this and suffer from a few bruises and a little hasty bleeding but no permanent damage.

Sabine settled herself on the creaking chair and looked at the man unblinkingly. A wide-eyed, blank, fake-innocent look she'd cultivated in police stations in Paris.

He gazed at her for a moment and bent forward and crushed out his cigarette. Then he stood up behind the desk and picked up a blue folder and flipped it open. "Sabine Alicia Delonge," he read. His pronunciation was terrible.

Sabine said, "Oui."

"Speak English," he said. "You are not in Frogland anymore. You are in the United States of America, and by god we will make an American of you."

His voice sounded savage, almost ranting, but looking closely Sabine saw a trace of a smile.

She cleared her throat and said in a small voice from her chest, "Yes."

"Speak up," he said.

"Yes!"

"Yes what?"

She thought for a moment. "Yes, Sir!"

The man looked at the red haired lady. Then, both the man and the red haired lady did something unexpected. They both laughed. Sabine blushed, thinking they must be laughing at her thick French accent, which sounded even to her pathetic and ridiculous.

The man then said to the two guards, "All right. You may go. We can handle this trainee ourselves."

The men turned and left without saluting, their boots squeaking. The door shut behind them. The man again fixed his blue eyes on Sabine.

"Do you know why you are here?" he asked.

"No, Sir!" she said.

"Do you know where 'here' is?"

"Upstate from New York City, I think, Sir!"

"Do you know what 'here' is?"

"No, Sir!"

"If you had to guess, what would you guess?"

"A prison, Sir!"

He shook his head. "Not a prison. It's a school. You are here to learn. Are you prepared to do that -- to learn from us?"

Sabine stared at the man for a moment. Then she snapped, "Yes, Sir!"

To her suprise, the man and the woman both laughed.