The cell was cold. The bench was hard. The fluorescent light in the corridor flickered at irregular intervals, throwing a thin, restless shadow across the floor. Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment, not to sleep, but to rest them, and when she opened them again the clock in her head told her that time was passing in the slow, thick way it passes in holding cells. She counted breaths. She counted the sounds from other cells, a cough, a muttered prayer, a man asking for water and not receiving an answer. She waited, because waiting was part of the plan, and because the plan required her to see how deep the rot went before she cut it out.
At 1:15 in the morning, O'Grady returned to the cell door. He did not come quietly. He smacked the bars with his nightstick, a sharp, metallic crack that echoed down the corridor and made the man in the next cell flinch. The sound was meant to startle, to remind her who was in control of the door, of the light, of the next hour.
"Wake up, Holloway," he said, his voice carrying the coarse satisfaction of a man who enjoyed waking people up. "You get your one phone call, then we're going to have a little chat."
He unlocked the cell and escorted her to a wall-mounted phone at the end of the corridor. The phone was old, its cord twisted and yellowed, its metal casing dented from years of use. O'Grady leaned against the wall ten feet away, arms crossed, smirking, close enough to hear the shape of a conversation but not, he thought, close enough to matter. He wanted her to know he was watching. He wanted her to feel that even her one call belonged to him.
"Make it quick," he said, "and make it a lawyer. You're going to need one."
Cynthia picked up the receiver. It was heavier than she expected, solid in her hand, and for a moment she felt the weight of everything that was about to happen settle into that simple gesture. She dialed a Washington, D.C. area code, a number that bypassed standard switchboards and connected directly to a secure line in the home of James Carter, the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She dialed slowly, deliberately, each digit a decision.
"Carter." A gravelly voice answered, thick with sleep but already sharpening, already alert in the way that men who have spent their lives waiting for bad news learn to be alert.