Page 124 of Enemy of My Enemy
There, off to the side and alone, was Noah Williams.
“What now?”
Adam watched Noah. His old friend was fidgeting, drinking his coffee too fast, as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He checked his watch every two minutes. Looked up and down the street.
“He’s waiting. And he’s nervous.”
“For someone? Or something?”
“We’ll find out.” Adam settled into the driver’s seat, his gaze glued to Noah.
Doc huffed, blowing air through his smacking lips. “Great. I hate stakeouts.” He thunked his head against the passenger window, but kept his eyes on the café.
An hour later, Noah finally stood. He dropped a handful of coins to the table and downed the rest of his coffee before striding across the dusty street and into the white walled courtyard of Ma’an’s mosque.
“Shit. Now what?”
“I’m following him.” Adam unbuckled his seat belt and slid out of the car. He tucked his small pistol into the back of his waistband, covering it with a sport coat of his that Faisal had kept for two years.
“What shouldIdo?” Doc crawled over the center console and plopped into the driver’s seat. His whiny emphasis on theIgrated over Adam’s ears.
“Stay here. Keep a lookout. I’ll call if I need you.”
“Whenyou need me.”
Adam took off, heading for the mosque. Above, the piercingadhan,the call to prayer, cracked the sky. Speakers in the minarets blasted themuezzin’scry out over the city, cajoling all to come and worship. That mournful wail, the curling stutter-stop and ground-out vowels had been etched into his eardrums, carved into his bones. He knew the ritual, knew the rhythms of Islam. Memories tried to pull him back, hearing theadhanin a hundred different places, a hundred different ways, but never so sweet as from Faisal’s lips.
Inside, the prayers would be starting. First the lingeringtakbir, and then theshahadasounded. Only minutes until theiqamabegan.
He buttoned his sport coat, trying to feign the hurried impatience of a businessman who had lost track of time and was late for evening prayer. His eyes scanned the crowd of men flooding into the mosque, passing through the courtyard and slipping out of their shoes.
There, just inside. Noah Williams was standing before the imam, hands folded over his heart, reciting the first of thesalahprayers.
He toed off his shoes and followed the mass of men into the mosque. Threadbare carpets stretched from wall to wall. Honeycomb lattices rose overhead, dark wood casting a dim pall over the interior. Bare bulbs hung from the ceiling, covered in sand and dust. Low voices murmured the lines of the prayers as everyone lined up, shoulder to shoulder. Adam squeezed past two Jordanians and ended up just down the line from Noah.
Theiqamabegan, a low, droning hum of recitation and repetition, followed by the louder call of “Allahu Akbar.” Adam joined in. It had been over a year since he’d prayed, longer since he’d been in a mosque, but the rhythm of the service came back to him as his eyes slipped sideways, watching Noah.
Arabic flowed over the crowd, the men’s voices like tumbling rocks down a mountainside. They bowed, kneeled, pressed their foreheads to the floor, and then sat back, softly reciting words of prayer under their breath. Adam kept his gaze fixed on Noah.
His contact isn’t here. And he’s nervous.
At the end, when the worshipers kneeled and turned their heads over their shoulders, looking to one side and then the other—
His eyes caught Noah’s.
He watched the color drain from Noah’s face, watched his eyes widen.
And then Noah shot up, running through the lines of kneeling men and vaulting over bowing worshippers as he tore out of the mosque. Adam followed, shoving his way through and leaping over men in prostration as shouts rose, angry Arabic coming from every direction.
Noah pushed his way through the courtyard, taking off down the street barefoot. Gritting his teeth, Adam followed, the sand and the road grit slicing the soles of his feet. He heard an engine roar nearby and then tires squeal. A glance over his shoulder, and he saw a gold Mercedes following them down the block.
The road dead-ended at a souk. Noah dove into the dark maze. Fruits and vegetables lay limp in the afternoon heat, sheltered above by corrugated steel laid haphazardly over the endless array of stalls. Sunlight poked through drilled holes, narrow shafts of light barely penetrating the gloom.
Shouts and snarls ahead led him toward Noah. He pushed on, chasing the man past angry old women clutching vegetables and men shouting, machetes raised over their heads and carcasses of butchered goat hanging from hooks. Wet dust and fruit squished beneath his feet.
Brakes squealed at the entrance to the souk. He heard the roar of the Mercedes engine as Doc circled around the outside.
Noah ended up trapped between a butcher and a coconut vendor and between the two shouting men wielding machetes. A panicked glance behind him, to Adam gaining, and he shoved the coconut vendor and leaped over his stall, knocking stacks of coconuts into the beam holding up that section of the rusty corrugated steel roof. The roof clattered down, falling into the butcher’s stall. Screams rose, women clinging to their hijabs as they fled.
