Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

She drew the eyes of everyone, some briefly, others longer. Chace found it necessary to remind herself that she was a curiosity, even in her modest dress. Near Bab al-Yaman, two very excited young boys ran up to her, shouting in Arabic, "Welcome to Yemen!" and then repeating it in English before darting away again.

"Shukran," she called after them, then paused on the street, trying to reorient herself. From the hotel, the minarets and structures of the city were clearly visible. Standing in the Old City, however, the houses were crammed together, built five and six stories high, and blocking any view of the horizon. From where she stood, the Great Mosque could only be a few hundred meters to the west of her, but looking around, she saw no sign of it.

An older man, in futa, shirt, and jacket, passed on her left. "Haram," he growled. "Haram."

Chace glanced down, couldn't see what had caused the offense. Her skirt fell to her boots, the only skin she was showing at her face and her hands.

"Ismahlee," she said, trying to apologize, not certain why.

The man stopped, gestured roughly at her face with the back of his hand, then moved back into the crowd. Chace reflexively put a hand to her head, felt the scarf in place, ran her fingers along its edge. Some of her hair had crept loose at her temple, and she quickly tucked it back into place.

Crisis averted, she thought, and made the turn north out of the square, and instantly became certain that she was being followed.

The street narrowed, and the air thickened with a collision of spices: cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, pepper, mint. Chace passed a group of three women, clad in black, and she identified them as San'ani from the red and white eyes marked on their black veils. She offered them a smile, saw the lines curve at the corners of their eyes as they answered the expression with smiles of their own, and then continued moving north, threading through the stalls and shacks. Over the sounds of the market, she heard a speaker blaring the muezzin's call, glanced down, and pulled back her sleeve enough to read her watch. Noon call to worship.

Almost immediately the flow of traffic altered, and Chace moved along with it until she saw the walls surrounding the Great Mosque. Traffic was flowing through the main doors, mostly men, but she noted several women wrapped in baltas, veiled in the traditional black shar-shaf or the painted lithma, moving with them, unmolested and mostly ignored. She took it in as best she could without pausing and, alongside the main entrance, from across the street, stole a glance at the revealed interior, glimpsing the colonnaded inner hall and beyond it the fountain and ablution pool. She looked away before anyone could take offense, moving on.

Three Toyota SUVs were parked on the street, six men standing with Kalashnikovs by the vehicles, posture bored while trying to remain watchful. From their dress, Chace picked two of them as locals, wearing the futa-jacket combination most Yemeni men favored. The others stood in drab and worn fatigues, their heads covered with white and checkered kuffiyah, either leaning against the cars or watching the street.

She didn't break stride, looking past them, continuing north. In her periphery, she saw them mark her passage, one of them gesturing, a couple of them speaking. The irrational fear that they knew who she was, what she was doing, why she was there, raced through Chace's mind before she shoved it aside.

The thought moved, but reluctantly. There was always the possibility that she had been blown, that somehow, some way, Faud or someone else knew she was coming. A weakness in the local network, a wrong word, or something more politically motivated perhaps, a scuffle higher on the food chain in London, Tel Aviv, or Washington, D.C., and that could be all it would take.

She was still being followed.

She crossed Talha Street, made her way past the strangely empty front of the Center for Arabian Language and Eastern Studies, stopped at a sidewalk cafe that was nothing more than three rickety tables with cracked wooden chairs outside a storefront. There were three men settling at another table, and the owner emerged and went to them first, taking their order before giving Chace his attention. It was the hierarchy, men first, women last, and tourist women somewhere in between.

"Is-salamu 'alaykum."

"Wa 'alaykum is-salam," Chace responded. "Mumkin sha'i talqim."

The owner smiled, showing crooked and clean teeth, delighted with her attempts at the language. "You speak English?"

"A little. Ana italiya."

"No, no italiya, but English tammam. Tea?"

"Shukran."

He moved back inside, and Chace smoothed her skirt, making certain that nothing more offensive than her ankles could be seen before looking over the street. The three men were watching her, as interested as the proprietor, if not as friendly, and she avoided eye contact and did not smile. It was the appropriate response, and they turned their attentions back to one another.

Her shadow was across the street, bartering with a vendor for a bottle of water. Male, mustached and bearded, by his dress Yemeni, but Chace didn't trust that. Certainly not European, and nothing in his appearance linked him to the group she'd seen clustered at the SUVs.

The proprietor brought her tea, took her riyals in exchange. She sipped from the small glass, the tea hot enough to burn her hand if she held on for too long, and incredibly sweet.

Her shadow had moved down the street, back toward the Center, drinking his water. He wasn't clumsy and he wasn't obvious, but now she was sure he was tailing her, simply because he wasn't doing more than waiting. When he raised his bottle, sunlight reflected off the watch at his wrist and she noted that he wore it face-out rather than face-in.

She considered, the thought that she'd been blown again rearing its head, and this time she had to give it more attention. There was no London backup, and there was to be no further contact with the Station. Either the tail was local, perhaps part of the Faud-Hebshi connection, or he was another player, maybe Mossad.

Or he could be neither and is just looking to kidnap me, Chace thought, and for the first time became aware of the Walther tucked beneath her shirt. She'd left the suppressor in the room, wedged into the hollow of one of the bedposts, but the gun was so small and so light she'd felt safer bringing it with her than leaving it behind. Its shape made it harder to conceal, and there had been the chance, however remote, that the opportunity to kill Faud would drop in front of her.

The opportunity clearly hadn't, but all the same she was glad she had brought the gun.

The proprietor returned, cutting in front of her to clear the now-empty cup. "Kayf halik? You are fine?"

"Fine, yes."

"More? Another tea?"

"No, thank you."

The proprietor seemed disappointed, but the smile remained as he again left her alone.

The tail had disappeared.

Of bloody course, Chace thought, and she rose from the table, moving back onto the street, resuming her way north to the Handcraft Center, and in particular, to the Women's Branch within to do some needed shopping.

Israel-Tel Aviv, Mossad Headquarters, Commissary 8 September 1919 Local (GMT+3.00) "She went shopping?" Borovsky demanded. "The British agent went shopping? Doesn't she know Yemeni silver has been shit since Operation: Magic Carpet?"

"Yosef doesn't think she was after silver." Landau switched the gas on beneath the burner, waited to hear the flame ignite. It took three clicks of the ignition before the gas caught. He moved away from the kettle, began searching the kitchen for Nescafe. "He thinks she was making a walk-through of the suq."

"The suq is fucking huge, Noah, you don't just walk through the suq in a day. Hell, you can't cover the suq in ten days, and even if you could, the stalls change."