The Towers by David Poyer

Author:David Poyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

13

Sana’a

TO Aisha, the moonless night seemed twice as dark without a countersurveillance element supporting her, without contractor escorts, with no one in the car with her except for Hiyat and the other Yemeni women.

Her friend from the mosque did not look nearly as youthful or beautiful as she had at the tafruta. Her dark eyes were shadowed; her swan neck sagged her head against the window. Gaida was driving. Jalilah sprawled in the passenger seat. Aisha wasn’t sure whose Mercedes this was. Probably Hiyat’s husband’s. He built houses overlooking the city, on steep slopes no one had thought could be built on. When Aisha had gotten in, they’d clung to each other. Hiyat had wept, but without passion. As if tears held no relief anymore.

“He was such an obedient boy,” she kept muttering. “So … good.”

Aisha sat itching beneath full Kevlar, pistol holstered under a dark burka, Doanelson’s personal number already predialed in her cell. Tim Benefiel was trailing them some blocks back, but just now she was seriously doubting if this meeting was wise. Going out against orders … tonight could be the end of her career.

The women were vying to bombard her with opinions. “Hiyat’s right,” Gaida spat. “These Salafis, they’re not Yemeni. We knew God before foreigners came along to tell us how to pray. And now they blow us up? It’s got to stop, that’s all. My husband went to their meeting. He told me. About how we had to restore the caliphate, how the Jews and the Americans had to be stopped. I told him, I don’t know any Jews, but I know an American, and she’s just like us.”

Jalilah said, “Still, I don’t know if this is smart. Taking her to them? What if they decide we are murtadd and kill us? Such things have happened in other lands.”

“If you allow it, they’ll happen here too,” Aisha told them. “You’re brave to do this. Many more must know about them. But they keep silent, I guess.”

Gaida said, “Oh, we all know them, yes. They leased those apartments. They paid with riyals, Saudi money. The whole year, one payment. They bought air conditioners. Trucks. They have women in. And a guard in the hallway, with a gun. It’s in a bag, but we all know it’s a gun.”

Which meant the PSO had to know too, Aisha thought. Did that make what she was doing tonight more or less dangerous? But if she’d gone through channels, gotten host-nation clearance, the people they were going to see would have disappeared. Warned, by the very officials who were professing their cooperation. She had no diplomatic immunity. If the PSO apprehended her, she’d be subject to arrest, a nasty spy trial, or PNG’d—declared persona non grata. None of that anything to look forward to, career-wise.

But what should she have done? Huddled behind the embassy walls, as Caraño wanted? Let Yemen go down the same drain as Sudan and Somalia?

“What kind of bag?” Aisha asked, trying to ignore a little voice insisting, Homegirl, you are way out of your depth.

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