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“Who?”

“Dharwani.”

“Sifwan Dharwani? In the flesh?”

The charwoman nodded. “Dat girl you save. His sister’s daughter. He wanna t’ank you right.” Her sightless eye sockets turned unerringly toward Piper. “Bof’of ya.”

Ian didn’t bother to look over at his companion. He could do without ‘I told you so’s out of her. He asked Mala, “Where is Dharwani?”

“I take-a youze ta him.”

He glanced over at Piper and muttered, “You packing?” And her answer hadbetterbe yes or he was going to take her over his knee and blister her butt for jumping Sudanese law enforcement types without a fucking firearm in her possession.

She nodded once, tersely, in the affirmative.

He commented under his breath, “It could be dangerous for us to go back into the hot zone to make this contact. It could be a trap.”

“He’d be a hell of a contact to make, though,” Piper replied low. “Particularly if he’s feeling grateful.”

That sent Ian’s eyebrows skyward. An astute observation. “What the hell. Lead on, Mala.”

The blind woman shuffled further into the alley, back toward the way they’d come. Ian glanced over at Piper. “Are you going to be able to keep your mouth shut and act like a properly respectful woman?”

She blinked owlishly, with exaggerated slowness, at him. Sarcastically, if he wasn’t mistaken.

He rolled his eyes and muttered, “Only way you’re going to come off as respectable is if you pretend to be my wife.”

“Why not your sister?” Piper retorted quickly. Nervous about posing as his woman, was she? Even after all the gnarly things they’d done to each other?

At least she didn’t argue about being under his protection. “I have no reason to bring my sister into a hellhole like this. But I might bring my wife to take care of my…needs. And a dutiful wife would follow her husband to Hades and back.”

“Jeebus,” she muttered in disgust.

Privately he shared her opinion, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of saying so.

They followed Mala’s shambling progress in silence for several blocks. The waiting stillness over the whole city was palpable and worrisome. Fun with pulverizing religious cops must be over. He flinched to consider the reprisals that would land on this neighborhood because of it. No help for it, though. He’d done his duty and saved the American citizen.

He didn’t see any movement whatsoever as they approached the street where the incident had occurred.

Mala murmured, “Dharwani’s boys, dey tied dose El Noori boy’s bodies to Jeeps and drag-ee dem past El Noor’s compound.”

Piper swore under her breath. “They’reaskingto be shot.”

Ian retorted, “And the alternative—continuing to live in this hellhole—is any better?”

Piper was silent, but Mala snorted. “Monsieur Ian, he understan’ Khartoum.”

Yeah. Well enough to know that this meeting with Dharwani was an enormous risk. It could be a huge coup for him to make the contact, or it could be a death trap. He would feel better if he went in by himself. Piper was too big an unknown at this point. Unpredictable. And so damned naive! But he doubted he’d get in to see Dharwani without her.

Mala took Piper’s arm and let herself be led along for another block until Mala told them where to turn. The woman’s sense of direction was uncanny.

Mala stopped. “Chile’, no respec’ible woman wear dese boy clothes. Ya gotta not mak-ee Dharwani mad. Here be mymelaya. It be no properabeya, but it be better ‘dan nothin’.” The woman peeled off her outer wrap, leaving her dessicated body swimming in a voluminous caftan that hardly revealed more than her previous covering.

“I’ll return it to you as soon as I can,” Piper murmured.

Ian was startled when she deftly tucked one end of the voluminous piece of cloth under her left arm, wrapped it around her body like a bath towel, draped the long end over her head, and then anchored the loose end around her left forearm. Voila. Instant transformation from commando chick into female biblical figure. Freaky.

Mala’s bony hand pointed across the street. “Ovuh’ dere.”