Every major city had an area like the Zone, a safety valve for a population whose previous cultural tradition had been based on extreme notions of freedom, and individuality. The police rotated their uniformed officers out of the Zone after two years, hoping to minimize corruption, but two years was usually enough for beat cops to buy vacation homes in Canada or Hawaii, safe from the prying eyes of Internal Affairs.

Mardi stood at the open window, and the cool breeze blew the curtains against her. The sound of rain filled the room. Still slick with sweat, her body glistened in the red neon glow from outside. She swayed to the music and the rainstorm, and he could see her nipples harden in the soft red light. It made him think of Sarah.

He had stopped seeing Mardi when Sarah had first contacted him a year and a half ago. Now that Sarah and he were over, he had gone running back. Cowardice and resentment, a lethal combination. He was glad he couldn’t see his own face. He would have cut his throat. Taking Mardi to bed…letting her take him…either way, it had been a mistake. He watched her dance, hair lank around her shoulders, and he wondered where Sarah was, and what she was doing, why she hadn’t shown up today.

“I miss him,” Mardi said softly.

Rakkim didn’t need to ask whom she was talking about. “So do I.”

“You remind me of him. Not in looks…it’s the confidence. Self-assurance…it was like a scent he gave off.” The wind whipped the curtains, rain splattering the floor, but she didn’t move. “Most men spend their whole life afraid, but not him. Not you either.”

Mardi always talked about Tariq afterward. Sometimes she talked about the first time they had met, or the last time they had been together, but Tariq was always part of their intimate moments. As though she was trying to explain to herself why she had just made love to his best friend. It didn’t bother Rakkim. They were both standing in for someone else, someone better than whom they were with, someone out of reach.

“I cost him a promotion.” The curtains billowed around her. “I wouldn’t convert. He was told to divorce me, marry a Muslim girl…but he wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “I should have converted.” Her laugh was hollow. “It’s not as if I’m a good Catholic.”

“A promotion wouldn’t have saved him.”

“He would have been a staff officer, safe behind the lines. He would have-”

“He was a warrior. He died the way he wanted to. He just died too soon.”

“You’re a warrior-”

“Not anymore.”

“No, that’s right. You were always smarter than he was. He was braver, but you were smarter.” Her face was stretched tight as she turned to him. “I wish it had been you,” she whispered. The breeze blew the candles, sent shadows scurrying across the walls. “I wish it had been you who had gotten killed.”

“I know.”

“You should get married,” she said.

“You should get married.”

She fumbled for her pack of cigarettes, hastily lit another one. The ancient Zippo snapped shut. Tariq’s lighter. “I am married.”

Rakkim didn’t mind the smoke; it seemed to calm her, the routine as much as the nicotine, the slow, steady inhalations and exhalations, the glowing ember at the tip, a beacon in the darkness. He didn’t even mind the smell. The raw Turkish tobacco was more acrid than that from the old days, but Virginia and the Carolinas were part of the breakaway Bible Belt, and the embargo was still in effect.

“My grocer was beaten by the Black Robes yesterday,” Mardi said, dragging on the cigarette. She must have been waiting for the right moment. “They were waiting for him outside his shop when he arrived before dawn. They broke him up, broke up his store too. He had converted, of course, converted right after the transition. He was just a child but he knew what was good for him. Conversion was good enough before, but not anymore. Now he’s just a Jew.” Another drag. “I’ve been buying fruits and vegetables from him for as long as I can remember. He taught me how to tell when a pineapple is ripe. Funny the things you remember.” She stubbed the cigarette out.

Rakkim didn’t respond. He knew what was coming.

Redbeard had done many terrible things as chief of State Security, but in the early years of the republic, he had insisted that any Jews who converted to Islam must be spared. Though Zionists had been blamed for the assassination of his brother, he refused to initiate a pogrom, had instead cited verses in the Holy Qur’an that said converts were to be welcomed, and none of the Black Robes or politicians had the will to overrule him. Redbeard had been able to insure the lives of the converts, but no one had been able to insure their treatment. Now, things were getting worse.

“Can you help them, Rakkim? The grocer and his family…they have to get out.”

One of the surveillance screens showed four women seated in one of the side booths of the dining area. College students probably, keeping their purses close, nursing their brightly colored frothies. Each wore a tiny hajib on her head, the latest style among freethinking Muslim women. A head covering in name only.

“The passes are snowed in,” said Rakkim. “The southern routes have roadblocks.”

“They’ll take the chance.”

“I won’t.”

Mardi crossed her arms across her breasts.

“Tell the grocer when the spring thaw hits, we’ll go,” said Rakkim. “The border patrols will be in their bivouacs, too worried about avalanches to venture out.”

“Thank you.”

The college girls kept glancing over at the nearby clusters of young men, but didn’t accept their offered drinks. They were just dipping a toe into the alluring nastiness of the Zone, the four of them beautiful in their innocence. Enjoy yourselves, ladies, enjoy the visit to the monkey house and take back some tales to the dorm. Let the memory bring a flush to your necks for years to come. There were plenty of other clubs in the Zone, meat racks and psychedelic joints without bodyguards or bouncers, but Rakkim imposed his own rules on the clientele. No narcotics, no fights, no rape rooms. He knew what the human animal was capable of. Pleasure worked best on a leash.

“Mardi…what happened tonight was wrong.”

She laughed. “That’s why it felt so good.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“I’ll survive.” Mardi’s mouth tightened. “You’re a romantic, Rakkim, that’s your problem.”

“I’ll add that to the list.” Rakkim started to get dressed, then stopped, staring at the surveillance screen. Nothing specific gave the two of them away; they were well trained. Both were medium height, with modified blockhead haircuts and earrings. Total moderns. One wore a Warlords jersey like half the other men in the place; the other had on one of those flex-metal jackets popular with the high-tech types. Just a couple of guys out on the town, looking for action at the Blue Moon club. Like the neon sign over the bar asked: R U Having Fun Yet?

They were State Security though. There was an aspect to their posture, a certain arrogance. Small giveaways, but enough. Redbeard, the head of State Security, had trained Rakkim himself. Raised him from the age of nine, schooled him and tested him constantly. They never walked through a crowd that Redbeard hadn’t kept up a quiet commentary, teaching Rakkim to read a face and a gesture, to learn from a hastily knotted necktie or the wrong shoes. Redbeard had been furious when Rakkim had joined the Fedayeen instead of State Security, but in time he’d accepted the rejection. What he could not forgive was Rakkim and his niece, Sarah, falling in love.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mardi.

Rakkim pointed at the screen. “Those two…they’re State Security.”

“Here?” She squinted at the screen. “You’re sure?”

“Redbeard sent them.” Rakkim watched the agents at the bar. “See how their bodies move?”

“No.”

“They’re mimicking the flow of the room. They don’t even know it. It’s called active observation.” Rakkim was used to official attention; everyone from local cops to liberal clerics to small-time politicos ended up at the Blue Moon sooner or later. Not State Security. State Security didn’t ask, didn’t bargain, and didn’t give warnings. These two were here for a pickup. He scanned the screens, looking for other agents. There had to be more. “Don’t worry, they’re here for me.”