"That's private."

Two heads turned to face Raf. Hani's frown now a full-on scowl. "No secrets," she reminded Raf. "Remember? That's what you told me when Aunt Nafisa died. Anything I asked you would answer."

It had been a simple enough promise, made to a crying child who wanted to know why life was so unfair. One that Raf would have liked an adult, any adult, to have made to him. And it was proving impossibly difficult to keep.

"Hani, I'm really sorry . . ."

"You promised."

So he had. "It's from Kashif Pasha," Raf said.

"But that's the Emir's coat of arms," Murad insisted.

"I know," said Raf, "but it's not his message. Kashif and I need to meet."

"You're not going to go . . ." Murad sounded appalled that Raf might even consider it. "Have you listened to the latest news?"

Raf hadn't.

Apparently C3N had been told by St. Cloud that Ashraf Bey was behind the attack on Emir Moncef. Colonel Abad, that well-known war criminal, was mentioned. As was Raf's part in helping Abad avoid being brought to justice. The Marquis even managed to suggest that the bey might be behind last autumn's attacks on the Midas Refinery, jointly owned by St. Cloud and Hamzah Effendi.

"If you go, Kashif will hurt you," Murad said flatly. "I know him."

"All the same," said Raf, "I think I must." Skimming the note, he ran through words he already knew by heart. The message was short. "It seems Kashif's captured the missing waiter," Raf told them both. "He'd like me to be present at the questioning."

Hani opened her mouth and shut it again. "Something else," she said finally. "What else?"

"Because of the current danger," said Raf, failing to extract the bleakness from his voice, "my brother has extended his offer of protective custody to include Zara."

"She's here?"

"Apparently . . ."

"So what do you want Murad and me to do?" Hani asked.

"Stay here," said Raf. "And keep out of trouble. If that's remotely possible."

Hani's look was doubtful.

CHAPTER 42

Friday 11th March

Three hours after Raf left, men in black jellabas locked off the unnamed alley using Jeeps they swung across both ends, isolating the stretch in between.

Once again the Jeeps had smoked glass, fat roo bars and whip aerials. The man who seemed in charge had dyed hair combed forward like a Roman emperor, a heavy moustache and a black mubahith blouse on without insignia of any kind. Only a slight bald patch and the fact his choice of top accentuated his paunch took the edge off an effect that was, Hani had to admit, still quietly threatening.

"You take a look," she said, handing Murad an old pair of opera glasses. The boy did what she suggested, staring down at the alley entrance.

"Soldiers," he said.

Hani nodded.

"In disguise," she said. "Who's the man?"

Murad took a second look at the mubahith with the weird hair. "No one I recognize," he said, like he wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

"Are they from the Emir's guard?"

"Of course not." Murad shook his head. "All Eugenie's troops are women." He spoke as if Eugenie were still alive. "Those are not women . . ."

Only fear let Hani restrain herself. Some people shouted when they got afraid, others closed down, went silent. That was her. "Look," Hani said, "you think they support Kashif Pasha?"

"You heard the radio," said Murad. "All the soldiers support my brother Kashif."

"Now there's a surprise." Hani sounded like Zara at her most cross. The way the older girl had been those last few days at the madersa before Raf vanished, sharp and snotty but nothing like as cruel as Raf had been with his dark silences and exile inside his own head.

"Kashif," Murad said. "He won't hurt you."

"Yes, he will. And he'll hurt you. And it won't be the first time, will it?"

"He's still my brother." Murad's voice was quiet.

"And the Emir is his father," said Hani flatly. "But he still ordered that attack." She didn't know this, of course, but she knew her uncle and it was obvious he thought so.

"I don't believe it."

"You don't want to," Hani told him. They were sitting together on the flat roof of Dar Welham, peering over the parapet. Behind them, sheets dried on a line and drifting sand wrote patterns across cracked tiles and gathered into tiny dunes.

Picking herself up, Hani stepped back from the edge. And four floors below, now unseen by Hani or Murad, the man without insignia ordered one of the jellaba-clad men to knock on the door. After that, the soldier tried the door without being told and found it locked. So he hammered again, harder.

Faces appeared from the roofs of houses opposite and disappeared just as rapidly when their owners realized what was happening.

"Open in the name of the NR."

When this unnaturally loud cry went unanswered, the man tried the handle himself. Finding it still securely locked, Poul Fischer nodded to a young Berber. "Plastique," he ordered.

The flexible breaching charge the corporal pulled from under his disguise wasn't strictly plastique. At least not in any sense he understood. It was a short length of three-hundred-grain-an-inch cutting charge with a soft rubber body that could be bent into any shape needed and a sticky foam that glued it to the door and helped reduce the danger of back fragmentation. Correcting a mubahith officer, however, was not in the corporal's career plan.

Fixing one length around the lock, the corporal positioned two more around the hinges, then did top and bottom where bolts might be, just to play safe. The FBC series also came in six-hundred-grain and twelve-hundred-grain densities but for hinges of this age three-hundred-grain was probably already overkill.

"It might be best, sir, if everyone stood back." Quickly, so he didn't have to see Poul Fischer's answering expression, the corporal fixed an electronic match to each charge and began to enter his identity code into a firing box.

"Ready when you are, sir."

Raf had never explained to Hani how he'd managed to break Zara's brother out of the basement of a locked house in Kharmous and she'd been careful never to ask. But with her screen, a satellite shot of El Isk and some serious intuition she'd been able to work it out.

Intuition was part inherent and part learnt. The percentages were open to debate. As they always were with anything involving socialization versus heredity. Hani, however, was pretty sure she'd been born with heightened levels.

Hypersensitivity was one description. Hani knew this because she'd done a quiz on a medical Web site. It suggested childhood stress might have made changes to an area of her brain called the cingulated gyrus. Or rather, her time with Aunt Nafisa had ensured changes were not made: reducing Hani's ability to filter out life's raw mixture of competing noise and demands.

Persistent stress-response state was a term she got fed by the site in Santa Fe. And Hani had all the symptoms; stomach ache and sleepless nights, a tendency to focus on nonverbal clues rather than speech. A preference for animals over humans.

"Ifritah," Hani said suddenly.

"What about Ifritah?"

"I've got to find her . . ." Hani was heading towards the stairs down into the house before Murad had time to move.

"Wait," he said, louder than he intended. "Let me see what's going on." Putting his head above the parapet Murad watched a man far below glue something to the front door. "I don't think it's safe," he said.

"We can't leave her behind." Tears had started in Hani's eyes and her face was set. Her cheeks pulled back as if battling through a wind tunnel of misery. "She'll be in danger."

Murad sighed. "I'll go," he said.