Moving through the photos in my mind, I saw a shot of the dead guy—whose real name was Qadduri—curled up around his wound, lying on the sidewalk with his back against a building. Nazari started off her photo series with the whole scene, wide shot of the dead guy in context. Then, she had moved in. The angles changed and she went for close-up shots of the wound. But after that, she had backed up again.

She’d backed out because new characters had arrived. Those new characters started coming into the photos. The investigators had arrived on the scene. Inspector Martaud and Caro. Which added new possibilities for the Bogie. The Bogie could be for the dead guy, or it could be for Inspector Martaud or Caro. Those options then forked logically away from Qadduri.

Waiting’s a funny thing. I’m capable of waiting indefinitely, for hours or days. But to do that you shut down parts of your brain. You go into a kind of hibernation. All the muscles relax. Half the mind wanders around groping and probing the stuff of life. The other half remains aware, focused, but it’s an animal awareness like a fox or a cat. I heard something, a scraping sound. Half of my mind stopped wandering, the other half was already there.

Nothing happened. The rain trickled down from the hood I was wearing, to my face and neck. I concentrated on hearing. But, the only sound was rain tapping on things, leaves, road, dirt, stone. The smell of wet dirt and vegetation was overwhelming. I was looking straight ahead. The window where Nazari sat was dark. I wasn’t worried. My muscles were relaxed and I was breathing evenly through my nose.

Walls are a common issue for operators. You can hide behind one and you can huddle in front of one. I was huddled in front of one. Being on top of a wall isn’t a great option because everyone and anyone can see you. So when you go over a wall, you do it fast.

I heard the guy this time.

I didn’t hear him walking up from the road. He had probably stayed close to the wall, moving slow and quiet. Then stopped on the opposite side from me. Maybe brushing against the stone, that’s what I had heard. Now I heard him again, from the moment his boots pushed into the wet ground, squelched into mud, launching his body to vault over the obstacle. I heard his hands placing on the flat stones above my head. His operator’s gloves contacting the stone and following up on the power generated by his legs. Then I heard the various sounds as his clothing brushed once more against the stone. All of that happened over the course of a single second, one sixtieth of a minute. Then he had already dropped down beside me, crouched against the wall.