Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

And he knew he was too weak, then, and he prayed to Allah, the Compassionate, for mercy.

She folded the abaya carefully, then shyly turned back around to face him, her eyes on the dirt floor of the tent.

Sinan looked, and even though he was supposed to look, even though it was his job to look, he felt guilt and shame surge through him, seeing her like this. She'd been given one of the Western tops to wear, powder blue to match the dark blue shorts, and there were three thin white stripes on the top, running around the center, and they made her breasts seem bigger, more defined. Her arms, like her legs, were slender and graceful, and her black hair fell thickly below her shoulders.

When he looked at her face, he was certain she was beautiful, and he thought, for the first time, that he must be very ugly to her eyes.

It was Matteen who spoke first. "Good, I believe the clothes. But your hair will have to be cut, you understand?"

Nia's left hand started toward her head, then stopped, fell back, and she nodded, still looking at the floor.

How old is she? Sinan wondered, still drinking her in, unable to stop himself. Eighteen? Nineteen?

"Come sit here," Matteen said, and he got to his feet, making room for Nia at the table.

She did as he instructed, and when she moved, she glanced to Sinan, and he knew she saw how he was looking at her, and still he couldn't stop it. She knew it, it was in her eyes, and he expected displeasure or contempt.

But he saw none.

"Sinan?" Matteen asked. "You want to do this?"

Sinan looked at him quickly, but Matteen appeared just as bored by their activities as before.

"We have scissors?"

"I thought I brought them, they're in our tent," Matteen said. "I'll be right back."

He opened the flap just enough to slip out, leaving them alone, before Sinan could offer to do it himself.

Nia shifted on the stool slightly, hands in her lap. Sinan tried to find something else in the tent to look at, settled ultimately on the main support for the roof.

"Is it heavy?" she asked softly. "The bomb?"

"Ten pounds," Sinan said. "Maybe more. When we're finished with your hair and your clothes, you will try on the knapsack. Matteen's weighted it down, so you know what it will be like."

"I thought there would be a belt. In Gaza, they showed us pictures of the belts."

"The knapsack is easier to make than the belt," Sinan explained.

"Ten pounds." After a moment, Nia added, "That's not too heavy. My books were heavier."

It took him a second. "You were a student?"

She nodded.

"Why aren't you a student now?"

"They killed my friend."

Sinan moved to the tent opening, peered out between the flaps. There was no sign of Matteen, no sign of anyone about, really. From one of the larger tents, he could hear the sounds of a recording playing a sermon, Dr. Faud's voice.

"Your friend," Sinan began. "Your friend… you were close to him?"

He heard Nia shift again on the stool. "I am a Muslim woman."

He turned back to her then, feeling utterly like an ass. "I did not mean to insult you. I know you are a good woman and that you are proper. I didn't mean to say otherwise."

"He was my friend," she repeated, and she looked up at him, and Sinan thought her eyes were colder now. "In Nablus, and he was shot, and he died, and he didn't do anything to them."

"I understand."

She turned her head away, the gesture angry, and Sinan felt even more an ass. He looked to the tent flaps again, wondering what was taking Matteen so long.

"You aren't an Arab," she said. "You're English."

"I am a Muslim."

"But you are English."

"No, I am a Muslim. What I was before I found the Truth is nothing. It is what I am now that matters."

Nia seemed to think about this, then shook her head. "Why are you here?"

"I want to help my brothers."

"Did they kill someone close to you? Did you lose a friend to them?"

Sinan thought about Aamil.

"No," he said. "Not like you mean. But I have seen my brothers dying, my sisters dying, and that was enough for me. The imam in my mosque, before I came here, he taught me about what it meant to be a Muslim, he taught me that there were six pillars, not five, and it was he who helped me find a madrassa that would take me."

"So you came here?"

"I was in Cairo first. For many months, and then I was sponsored on the Hajj by the Prince, Allah have mercy on him. And on the Hajj, I saw…"

Sinan faltered, afraid to share what he had seen. Aamil had been there, and Aamil had understood, but only barely. There had been times, since then, when Sinan had wondered if his vision of the Satans, of the suffering they brought, hadn't been the result of hunger, or dehydration, or exhaustion, or all of those things combined. It did not matter; he had seen what he had seen, and he had known what he had to do, as a man, as a Muslim, but mostly, as a Wahhabi.

"What did you see?" Nia asked softly.

She was looking at him again, curious and beautiful. He opened his mouth to answer and then felt the sunlight splash him as Matteen slipped through the tent flap.

"Yassir was using them," Matteen explained, handing the scissors to Sinan. "Sorry it took so long."

"It's all right," Sinan told him.

Nia straightened in her seat, pushed her tumbled hair back off her shoulders, and none of them said anything as Sinan began to cut it.

When he was finished, Nia wiped at her eyes, and he realized she had been weeping.

London-South Lambeth, the Royal Albert 16 September 1503 GMT The pub was only half a mile from Vauxhall Cross, an easy enough walk, though in the fifteen minutes it took Chace to cover the distance the mist turned to more sincere rain, surprisingly cold, considering the time of year. She cut through Vauxhall Park, then south on Meadow Road, and when she made the dogleg off Dorset onto Bolney, she stopped abruptly to light a cigarette, hunching her head against the rain, cupping the flame with her hand, then looking back the way she had come, counting to fifteen.

No one came around the corner in a hurry to catch up.

She blew out smoke, frowning as she moved to the entrance of the pub. Bad sign, she thought. It wasn't an elaborate flush, to be sure, but still, it would normally have been enough to force Box to tip their hand. That it hadn't worked meant that Kinney was playing cautious and, worse, that he knew she was on to him.

Once inside and out of the rain, she ran a hand through her hair, looking over the room. It was almost entirely empty, which, for the time being, wasn't a bad thing. The maid at the bar recognized her and had a lager pulled before Chace even reached her.

"Jacket potato?" she asked.

"Just the lager," Chace said, paying.

"You're on your liquid diet again?"

"What was it the man said? 'Beer is food, Lewis'?"

The maid grinned and banged the register, handed Chace her change. Chace took her glass to the table in the corner, put out her cigarette in the ashtray, and promptly lit another. The door opened, and Lankford came in with Poole, and they each hit the bar. Lankford's manner was easy with the maid, and before they had their drinks, he'd gotten her laughing, twice, and each time honest, and it occurred to Chace that maybe he was better than she'd given him credit for being.

Poole led to the table, parked opposite her, and stole a cigarette from her pack while Lankford was getting settled. They each took a moment to lower the levels in their glasses.

"Well, I'm fucked, boys," Chace told them.

Lankford nodded, and Poole said, "That was the rumor at the School."

"What'd you see?"

"Counted six," Lankford said. "Two in cars, radios, maybe controllers. Four on foot, even split men and women, and they were so blasted focused on keeping you from spotting them, they forgot about us."