He needed it for speed from here into the center of Algiers. Then he’d head for the marina. There was always someone going to Arzew. But walking would be too slow. They would see he was gone soon. They’d be driving and they would have him before he had a chance. Then he remembered the dark man’s house. Could there be something left outside he could use to hoist the bike? He pedaled back.

He was blessed, because there was a ladder. It leaned casually against a plane tree. He took clothesline and tied the first rung to the bike. He walked it slowly near the house; once clear of it, he rode, the ladder bumping along behind him.

At the wall, he fidgeted out of the sling. He would have to use his broken arm; there was no other way. Then he stood the bike vertically against the stone, took the clothesline in his teeth, and climbed the ladder. To get over, he had to use both arms to hoist himself. He lost his footing for a moment and then pulled. He heard a snapping. He had to go fast or the pain would make him lose heart. The concertina wire ripped through his pants and into his ankles. When he jumped to the ground, some of it came with him, tangled around his foot. He pulled the bicycle with the line, and it came for a bit. But he had forgotten to slip the rope under the wire. He could feel it fraying in his hand. He heard the bicycle’s wheels and handlebars clatter on the other side of the wall.

He did not recover from the loss of the bicycle until he smelled the sea. High from the painkiller, his arm like a rubber bat, his sliced ankle nimble, he had been running or walking for close to an hour. The brackish scent edged away; then he caught it again. The air softened. At the top of a hill of steep streets, he saw ships anchored in the Mediterranean and, closer in, wooden boats in the dust-blue harbor. A few lights broke the dark; the city was asleep. The newest yellow of dawn was opening on the horizon.

He stopped, out of breath. He knew it then. They would not find him. They would, just about now, be at Nazzar’s mother’s house, somewhere in Belcourt, far from here. Even if she had a photograph of her son on the wall, they would not realize Aziz was not Nazzar. Only Benane and Sellami would remember Aziz’s face, and there was little chance they would be at the mother’s house. Underlings would go. He had left one in sobs, the other, drunk and lost. He started smiling and wanted to laugh as he started running again below the arched colonnades.