The Command полностью

She’d started by just walking around the Makarqah. Like all neighborhoods, she figured, everything depended on who knew you. Families lived above their stores. Grandparents lived with the family. These people were Shi’a, the despised majority in the Gulf Arab states. The ruling families — the al-Sabahs and al-Sauds — considered them superstitious, lazy, and, like as not, disloyal. They were also suspicious of outsiders. She’d shown Dr. X’s photo to a few people he might have come in contact with: the local grocer, the barber, the shoe repair shop. Unfortunately, all she had was a visa photo, too small to show detail. It could have been any middle-aged Arab male with a tired look, a sagging eyelid, mustache, and glasses.

Tonight she hoped to make a little more progress.

By the time she got out to the Makarqah it was dark. It was also Friday evening. Bahrainis weren’t the most pious people she’d ever seen, but they kept the sabbath. Along the King Faisal the hotels were sparkling, beacons of the nightlife the foreigners went to.

She smiled to herself, realizing she’d thought just that: the foreigners. As if she, herself, was one of the islanders. But that was how she saw herself sometimes, in this strange inverting mirror of a country. Where sometimes she felt more at home than with her own countrymen.

But that didn’t mean she felt any sympathy with those who used Al-Islam as an excuse to kill. She parked between the Regency and the Heritage Center and joined the throngs drifting to and fro under the streetlights that lined the corniche. Out here it didn’t look all that different from Ocean City or St. Augustine. But as she threaded into the alleys, the light fell away. Here tea shops were filled with men. The murmur of televisions, of women singing came from open windows on upper floors. Men turned as she passed, and she realized this was the first time she’d gone into the Shi’a quarter after dark. And that no other women were out, even in their black burqas.

She shifted her purse, feeling the mass of the loaded pistol. She wasn’t afraid. But there were a lot of men out. Some looked like they’d been there all day. Like the brothers in Harlem hanging in front of the stores. She caught the smell of hashish. The gleam of a lifted bottle.

If she’d worn a burqa, she thought, they wouldn’t even see her. If she’d been white and blond, they’d follow her with their gazes, but she didn’t think they’d actually do anything. But now an older man called out, “Where are you going, whore?” and her hand tightened on her purse strap. She pretended she didn’t hear, pretended she didn’t understand the slurred Arabic.

So these were the followers of Ali. Those who flogged themselves bloody. Their strange festivals and traditions, like Mazzam and Hazara. Their superstitious veneration of their infallible imams. She debated turning back, but the next moment steadied herself. Some jerk had called her a name. That was all. And there was the street she wanted.

Then she remembered. She had been here at night: in the back of a truck, in black gear. Then these shops had been shuttered cages. Now they were thronged with men. Their eyes went past her, then jerked back. They gathered at doorways, scowling. She was glad to see the shoemaker’s shop. Above it the windows of the apartment were … lit.

She blinked. Someone was up there.

She stood clutching her purse, wondering what was going on. Could it have been rented again, in the two weeks since the raid? Space was at a premium here. Crossing the street, she pushed open the door.

In the heat of the day, businesses often closed; then stayed open into the evening. Especially during Ramadan, but to some extent through the hot season. After a moment someone coughed in back.

The woman was swathed from head to toe in the black folds of her abaya. Dark eyes examined her. Aisha had spoken to a man before, the cobbler. This might be his wife, his mother, his sister — it was hard to tell from the eyes alone. She spoke first, hastily, in Arabic. “Kaaf haa-lik, how are you?”

“Praise be to God, I am well, welcome.”

“I spoke to your… husband before, perhaps he mentioned it to you. I work with the American police, on the naval base. Can you tell me — have you ever seen this man?”

The woman took the photo unwillingly. Glanced at it, then back into the recesses of the store. Returned it, saying nothing.

“I see you have new tenants upstairs.”

“They’re from the neighborhood.” The woman glanced over her shoulder again.

The cobbler came from the back, wiping his hands on a rag. “Hello again,” he said, in English. “American policewoman. My wife has not seen this man you look for. Why you come back?”

“I see you have new tenants.”

“Family. No more I rent to strangers.”

“I just thought you might have remembered something else.”

He just looked at her, and she understood that if she hadn’t told him she was with the police he might have told her more. “Well, excuse me, then.”