The Execution by Dick Wolf Page A

now. With ease. But where is the sport in that? What you see as weakness—my forbearance—is in fact a sign of strength. But you can’t know that, because you can only function in terms of revenge, of lashing out, of punishment. I could kill you where you sit right now. Instead I bring you a cupcake.”
    Jenssen laughed at Fisk.
    Fisk nodded to it. “This cupcake is a symbol of your fear, Jenssen. You can trust no one and nothing any longer. You are completely at the mercy of others. Think about what it took for me to get in here right now. No one else will ever know of this visit. It is one hundred percent deniable. I want you to talk about it. Talk all you want. No one will believe you. And yet . . . here I sit. Within a second’s reach of your throat. If I can make this happen, I can make just about anything work. You can expect the rest of your days to be a living hell. Knowing that, anytime I want, I can reach into that hole and get you. Perhaps you’ll come to desire it. To hope for me to come and end it all for you, to release you from this curse. Paranoid fear is going to eat away at you like a cancer. For the very reason you do not dare to taste even a crumb of this cupcake.”
    Jenssen sat forward, eyes blazing. “You are wrong, Fisk. I have a strength. Allah gives me strength beyond all this.” He waved his manacled hands in a circle, as wide as his chains allowed. “Beyond your laws, these chains, your reach. Do you know what the ummah is?”
    In his excitement, Jenssen had apparently forgotten that Fisk had spent the past five years in antiterrorism, or that his mother was from Lebanon.
    “The body of the faithful,” said Fisk.
    The surprise of him answering threw Jenssen for a moment. “The people of the Word. Those who follow Allah. Inside the body of the faithful, the people who truly believe in Allah and follow him, there can be no strife. Inside the ummah is the Dar al Islam—the House of Peace. Outside—where you live, among the godless and faithless—is the Dar al Harb. The House of War. I welcome prison as a retreat from this world. My actions are a reflection, not of the nature of Allah, but of this world of filth in which you live. It is the ooze in which you crawl, the slime you eat. I am not these things. I am just a messenger. A holy messenger. Holding a mirror up to you. Showing you your own true face.” His eyes shone with self-righteousness. “When the roll is taken at the end of time, it will be clear that you and your girlfriend Gersten were infidels fighting on the side of evil, destruction, perversion, and corruption. And I was fighting on the side of good.”
    Jenssen realized he had become carried away, and reacted as though Fisk had gotten him to reveal something of himself that he did not wish to be seen. For a moment, the ugliness that was inside Jenssen almost clawed its way out, wearing its usual vestments of religious fervor.
    He made his body relax now, and he smiled again.
    “So you eat the cupcake, Detective,” he said. “You put that shit in you. I am pure.”
    Fisk’s body felt almost as though it was vibrating, like he was running a low-voltage charge through his entire nervous system.
    “You see,” said Fisk, “in spite of everything you did and tried to do, I have not lost the capacity to enjoy life. Not that that was your goal, only your hope. Yes, to be certain—your life in prison is inestimably preferable to mine. Please keep telling yourself that until you choke on the words. And now I will eat this cupcake in front of you, but I will imagine that it is your heart, condemned to an eternity of fear.”
    Fisk reached for the small cupcake—and suddenly Jenssen’s hands shot out to the length of their chains, seizing the cupcake and mashing it into his mouth.
    It was a supremely violent act. Jenssen stared at him, fire eyed, making quick work of the dessert.
    Fisk sat back in his chair, watching him.
    Jenssen swallowed the cupcake with less bravado