“Yeah. That one.”
She pushed up from the chair. “It didn’t work because it was just too weird and distracting, having the Colonel task me over the phone. And because I knew too much about the target. When a viewer knows too much up front, their conscious, analytical mind can kick in and block out access to-”
Jax held a finger to his lips. She fell silent.
He heard it again. The scruff of footsteps on the stairs. The light treads of two men in the tiled hall.
The footsteps stopped outside their room. He saw her eyes widen.
“Mr. Alexander?” A light knock sounded on the door.
Jax moved to open it carefully.
Two young men pushed into the room. Lithe and clean shaven, they wore fatigue pants and T-shirts with black-and-white kafiyas draped rakishly around their necks. Both carried MAC-10 machine pistols.
“Kaif halak,” said the one in a white T-shirt decorated with a portrait of Che Guevara. He looked slightly older than his companion, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five. “This is Abu Elias,” he said, nodding to his companion. “You can call me Amin.” His gaze flicked to October, one eyebrow cocking in inquiry. “You’re Ensign Guinness?”
Jax didn’t like the way the Arab used her Naval rank. She nodded, her throat working visibly as she swallowed.
The one called Abu Elias couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. He said something in a low voice to Amin that Jax didn’t catch.
Amin nodded and said, “You will both take off your watches and empty your pockets, please. Very slowly and carefully.”
Jax piled up change, wallet, phone, and keys on the scarred dresser top. The only thing October had in the pockets of her chinos was a small yellow Burt’s Bees lip balm.
“Now hold your arms out at your sides and stand very still.”
Tucking his machine pistol under one arm, Abu Elias reached into his pocket and came out with a small black box with steady red and green LED lights. He carefully passed the box over each of them in turn, like an FTA employee checking suspicious-looking airplane passengers.
“What is that?” asked October.
“It’s a radio frequency detector,” said Amin. “It detects anything that emits an electronic impulse-hidden transmitters, tape recorders, tracking devices-whatever.”
“We’re not hiding anything.”
Amin flashed her a smile that showed his teeth. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. You”-he nodded to Jax-“will sit. But I must ask you, Ensign, to take off your shoes.”
Aware of Abu Elias’s narrowed gaze upon him, Jax settled carefully onto the hard plastic chair. He now had a really, really bad feeling about all of this.
October said, “My shoes?”
“Min fadlik.” Amin turned to survey the two bags standing just inside the door. “Which is yours?”
“The green one.”
Hunkering down beside it, the Arab laid the bag on its side and unzipped it. “Excuse me,” he said as he rummaged through her things, “but it is necessary.”
“Why?” she asked, kicking off her tennis shoes.
“It’s too easy to hide things in the soles and heels of shoes.” He came up with a pair of navy-and-white-striped flip-flops. “Here. You will wear these.”
She slipped on the flip-flops without argument. “I’m not carrying a weapon.”
“Nevertheless, I’m afraid I must also check your hair.”
“My hair?”
“My apologies.” Reaching out, he systematically ran his fingers through her shoulder-length, honey-colored hair. “Women have been known to hide razor blades in their hair.”
She cast an uncertain glance to where Jax sat in the orange plastic chair, his hands resting carefully on his thighs. They were both painfully aware that no one was checking his hair or making him take off his shoes.
As if conscious of the train of Jax’s thoughts, Amin said to him, “You are to stay here, with Abu Elias. Only the girl can come.”
“But-” Jax started to push out of his chair, then froze when the younger man made a tssking sound and jerked his head back, his finger twitching on the machine pistol’s trigger.
“Laa. Khalleek hawn!”
Jax sank back very slowly.
“Don’t worry,” said Amin. “She will come to no harm.” He glanced at October. “Are you ready?”
52
They walked together down the narrow set of concrete stairs to the hotel’s small, spartan lobby. Tobie noticed that the older woman in the long dress and headscarf who had been behind the desk when they arrived was no longer there.
Outside, the evening was hot and dry, with a warm wind blowing out of the east that sifted dust over the stark, stone-faced facades of the neighborhood’s buildings. The sidewalk here was made of swirled tiles of alternating red and yellow clay, some cracked, some missing entirely. They dodged piles of builders’ sand, a battered wheelbarrow encrusted with dried concrete, a spindly olive tree struggling to survive. Tobie was aware of two women chatting beside a doorway who fell silent as she drew abreast, the women’s heads turning to watch her pass.
Amin touched her arm. “This way.”
They ducked down a narrow passage kept shaded and dank by tall apartment blocks hung with laundry drying limply in the fetid air. The passage emptied onto a street similar to the one they’d just left, although with more small shops, their front windows displaying their wares. They passed a bakery with stacks of fresh flatbread and a tray of croissants, and a tiny shoe store with boxes of children’s plaid slippers in a range of sizes. A man in a dark sweater stood at the corner, near a grocery selling Digestive biscuits and bananas, bottled water and yoghurt. As they passed, Tobie noticed he had a Bluetooth in his ear, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the street.
“Why just me?” said Tobie.
Amin shook his head and kept walking.
They made three or four such turns, winding back on themselves, passing more men-and one young woman-wearing Bluetooth earpieces and quietly watching the street behind them. As they drew abreast of the woman, she nodded to Amin and said quietly, “You’re clean. No one is following you.”
Halfway down the next block, Amin drew up in front of an ancient stone building with a bullet-scarred facade. Staring through the dusty windows, Tobie could see a small restaurant crowded with aluminum tables and chairs with seats covered in dark green plastic. More tables and chairs spilled outside onto the narrow sidewalk.
This was the time of day when such places were typically filled with old men smoking hubble-bubbles, drinking coffee, and playing backgammon. But Tobie could see only one man, sipping tea by himself at a table near the kitchen door.
Amin nodded toward the restaurant’s entrance. “You go in. He’s waiting for you.”
She hesitated a moment, then pushed open the door. Her escort stayed outside.
Inside, the air was heavy with the scents of cinnamon and allspice and coffee. From his table at the rear of the restaurant, the man watched her approach. His features were sharply formed, his nose aquiline, his eyes large and deeply set, his brows heavy and straight. At first she supposed he must be somewhere in his forties, with a heavy dark mustache and dark hair he wore clipped short. But as she drew closer, she realized he was older than she first took him to be, his hair touched by gray at the temples, the skin beside his eyes creased by years of staring into a hot Mediterranean sun. He wore gray chinos and a well-cut black polo shirt, and he might have been mistaken for a French businessman if it weren’t for the MP5 that rested casually across his lap.
“Please,” he said in heavily accented English. “Sit.”
Tobie pulled out the chair opposite him and sat.
A thickset middle-aged woman appeared with fresh tea and another cup from the kitchen. After she had left, the man said, “Do you know who I am?”
Tobie took a quick swallow of the tea and burned her tongue. “No.”