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Bingo. One of the PHP leaders was a redhead.

Sadly, the women didn’t know who the white men were in Khartoum to meet. Not Dharwani, according to Fatima. Disappointed, Piper crossed her dinner host off the list of possible people the PHP guys were here to meet with. Rats.

Fatima took a long drag on the water pipe. Her eyes fogged over even more thickly. Piper could only hope the woman forgot the entire conversation they’d just had. When the hookah’s mouthpiece was passed to her, Piper took a cautious suck. Her mouth filled with sweet, herbal tasting smoke. She held it in her mouth an appropriate interval, then released it without ever inhaling it into her lungs. Now she had to hopeshedidn’t get too stoned to remember the conversation.

A boy came to fetch Piper not long after that. The women escorted her to a courtyard where a cluster of antsy young men milled about, their jeans and T-shirts draped in weapons and ammunition. Apparently, she and McCloud were ever so politely being kicked out. It must be El-Noor-hunting-o’clock.

Piper noticed Fatima fading back toward the kitchen, lifting a veil over her face and casting her eyes down toward the ground, and all but disappearing—literally—into the woodwork. But Piper caught the sideways look Fatima threw at her. She could swear the woman was laughing under that veil.

She wrapped Mala’smelayaaround herself, pulling its voluminous folds over her head. She caught an edge of the fabric and lifted it across her face modestly as she and McCloud were escorted through the crowd of armed youths. Local women weren’t the only ones who could play that game.

She and McCloud were shown to a Jeep, and she managed to climb inside without breaking her neck in spite of being wrapped up like a mummy. Ian gave the driver curt instructions on where to go and when to pull over and drop them off. They were still a few blocks from his hooch. In this town, on this night, they might as well be ten miles from his place.

The Jeepload of soon to be dead young men, if she didn’t miss her guess, drove away into the night. Heavy silence settled, eerie in the middle of a large city like this. It was as if all of Khartoum held its breath, waiting for the violence to come.

“C’mon. We’ve got to get off the street,” McCloud muttered.

“Thanks for that update, Einstein,” she muttered back.

He scowled and unzipped his gym bag, pulling out a snub-nosed MP-7 semi-automatic rifle. He slung its nylon strap over his shoulder and glanced at her. “You did remember to get your gun, didn’t you?”

She scowled and lifted her left elbow. Without her left arm to anchor themelayaagainst her ribs, the fabric sheath fell away, revealing the latest version of an Israeli Tavor urban assault rifle lying close to her side.

Ian stared. “You had that on you the whole time we were at Dharwani’s?”

“His men wouldn’t dare frisk me. They’d go straight to hell if they laid hands on a woman in such a fashion.”

“Where’d you get a hold of a Tavor, anyway?”

The state of the art Israeli weapon was all but impossible to obtain on the open market. But Doctors Unlimited had inside sources for such things. It was good working for a CIA front.

She shrugged. “You military types have to go through channels. We civilians aren’t so encumbered.”

He scowled. “I hear Tavors are as good as an M-16.”

“Better. As effective as a sniper rifle out to around 350 meters. Low profile and maneuverable for urban assault ops. Lighter and shorter than an M-16, and the weight’s concentrated back by my shoulder. Great weapon for a woman.”

McCloud looked shocked that she could converse intelligently about a rifle.

“Chauvinist,” she muttered.

“What’d I do?” he protested.

She didn’t deign to answer. “Are we gonna stand here all night making small talk, or are we gonna move out?”

“Stay behind me,” he ordered. “If I hold up a closed fist, freeze. Open hand, palm down means to get down. If I grab my wrist and then flash you a number, that’s how many bad guys are located where I point next. If I twirl my finger by my head like this,” he demonstrated, “that means get ready to go.”

“And if I stick up my middle finger like this, it means stop treating me like a fucking amateur because I know standard military hand signals.”

A snort of laughter escaped him before he managed to glare at her. He drew his thumb and index finger across his lips and then used both hands to air draw a pair of giant breasts in front of his chest. “This one means shut up. You talk as much as a woman.”

She held up her pinkie finger, bent at the middle knuckle, and didn’t bother to translate that one.

They’d gone about two blocks, gliding from shadow to shadow, when shooting broke out somewhere ahead of them. It was distant, more of a rattle than distinct gunfire sounds. Ian ducked into an alley, and she sprinted to its other end behind him, pleased that she was able to match her steps exactly to his, masking the sound of her passing. He paused at the other end, listening and watching.

Their shoulders rubbed together and his body heat was tangible. Weird how reassuring his presence was beside her. The moon wasn’t up yet, and the night deepened around them. More gunfire erupted, this time from behind them. And close. He signaled for her to get ready to move out. She nodded, and they stepped out into the street.

All hell broke loose when they were about halfway down the block. Gunfire erupted on both sides of the street, muzzle flashes exploding like firecrackers. As for her, she would’ve ducked back into the alley they’d come from. But Ian sprinted forward and she had no choice but to follow.