“I don’t know if I can.”

“Let’s try. The knight asked me to give him what Rasouli gave me.”

“What did Rasouli give you?”

“Indigestion and a feeling like my right hand will never be clean again.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“Maybe later. My question is, why was the knight looking for that. Or, better yet, who sent the knight?”

“I’m not sure, because it doesn’t make much sense for the knight to be working against Rasouli.”

“Do they work for him?”

“No. They work for his allies. That’s why it doesn’t make sense.”

But as she said that her words slowed as if she was suddenly thinking that it did make sense. When I tried to get her to explain, she stonewalled me again. So I came at her from a different angle. “I think he told me your name. Maybe it’s a last name or a call sign, or maybe it’s your organization.”

“He didn’t know my real name.”

“Well, I’m just telling you what the knight told me.”

“What name did he say?” she asked cautiously.

I said, “Arklight.”

She gasped, very high and sharp, and then she took a long time before she spoke. “That’s not my name.”

“Then who—?”

She hung up.

“Damn it.”

It was so frustrating because I wanted more information. I wanted to know about that freak that shook my cookie bag back at the hotel. What the hell was he? How could anyone be that strong? Nothing I know could explain what just happened.

That really and truly scared me. It kept the adrenaline pumping through my system, and my hands still shook.

Ghost whined and rubbed against my leg. His eyes were glassy.

I stripped off my bloody shirt, opened a dryer that had about half-finished its cycle, and stole a white long-sleeved shirt that was damp and a bit too small. The buttons gapped but I could get it closed. My jeans were bloodstained, but there’s just enough of an artsy-cum-punk crowd in the capital to suggest that the red splotches were some kind of statement. Yeah, that statement was “Holy shit, I’m still alive.”

My hair was still dyed black from the police station raid, and I finger-combed it straight back and pulled on a painter’s cap I found that looked like it was a thousand years old. I rolled up my bloody shirt and wrapped it in a bath towel that I also stole from the dryer.

My phone rang again. Her.

“They’re gone,” she said. “It’s safe.”

And she hung up again.

I looked at Ghost. “Women, y’know?”

He whuffed.

Then I opened the back door, saw that the street was clear, and we went out.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Thirty-Nine

On the Streets

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 10:34 a.m.