A Revolution of Rubies by Margaret Ball

Author:Margaret Ball [Ball, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781947648180
Published: 2019-01-14T22:00:00+00:00

14. Excuses for the devil

On a crisp blue and gold fall morning a couple of days after that little unpleasantness, Ben and I were about to head out for our regular midmorning pastry-and-tea stop when Gary Shields, lugging a bag full of equipment, stopped us on the landing. Sheng, similarly burdened, trudged up the steps behind him.

“I’m interviewing a Mr. Walker here today,” Gary said, “and I’d like one of you to sit in on the interview.”

“How come?” Ben wanted to know.

“Walker? Is he an American?” I asked.

Gary informed me that “Mr. Walker” was CIA code for a “walk-in” – somebody who, rather than having been recruited, turned up out of the blue asking to act as a CIA informant – and told Ben that checking the bona fides of such a would-be agent was always tricky and he felt he could use all the help he could get. They were meeting him at this apartment because the potential agent was afraid to come to the office, but as long as we were here, we might as well make ourselves useful.

“We aren’t telepaths, you know,” Ben warned him.

Gary shrugged. “All the same. Just watch and listen. Perhaps you’ll think of some ways of checking his story that wouldn’t be open to me.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request; at least Gary showed a refreshing open-mindedness about the potential of applied topology. After I assured Ben that Merzadeh had been so quiet that I felt no nervousness at all about traversing the few blocks to the Moskva Chaikhana on my own, we agreed that he would stay to assist with the interview and I would bring back pastry for everybody.

That morning, Kalot Rushan Street was quieter than usual. The cheerful hubbub of the Sherozi Market seemed muted, there weren’t quite as many boom boxes as usual making the air of nearby Akbaital Street hideous, and the few drivers on the street were demonstrating an attitude of peaceable accommodation that was downright un-Central Asian. I won’t say I exactly missed the blare of horns, the screech of brakes, and the mid-street explosions of Taklan and Russian cursing. But I did note their absence.

For such a pretty day, the Moskva Chaikhana didn’t seem to be doing the kind of business I would have expected. The pastries stacked on big brass plates behind the counter looked as if they’d been out since dawn. By ten o’clock the plates had usually been emptied and refilled at least twice. I dug in my pocket and fished out the tiny plastic-bound English-Taklan phrasebook that had been all the bookstore downtown could offer. It had its shortcomings, not least the fact that the Taklan phrases were printed in the Cyrillic alphabet, but at least I could look up “fresh” and point to the Cyrillic characters opposite that word while placing my order.

For once, though, I was in luck. The matriarch of the family, an old lady whose wrinkled cheeks and gray hair disguised a spirit of adventure that had seen

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