She lost sight of him and panicked for a moment, pushing ineffectually through the unbroken mass of people ahead. She was stronger and faster than most men, but her 125 pounds just didn’t provide sufficient inertia to penetrate.

A man whose coffee she jostled looked down at the stain on his shirt and grabbed her arm. A moment later he found himself falling backward over an enormous bag of pistachios with that hot coffee now in his face. She slipped away in the commotion, knowing that no one would ever think a woman could have done such a thing to a big strong Muslim man.

“Damn it! Where is he, Bill? Talk to me!”

“Don’t get your panties bunched up, Randi. He went under the awnings to your left while you were screwing around with that guy at the nut stand. We’re temporarily blind, so get your ass in there. If we lose him after getting this close, we’re going to be the ones getting water boarded.”

Again she felt the panic rising in her. Hashem was not only brilliant at staying out of America’s crosshairs, he had a master’s in biology from Stanford, where he’d graduated with a 3.95 average. Losing him was not an option.

A familiar profile flashed into view behind a pile of colorful scarves and she had her target again. “I see him. Moving in.”

“To do what?” The wariness was audible in Bill’s voice amid the static. “Like you said, we have no shot at an extraction here. You’re just going to have to stay with him until we get to a workable location.”

Despite the fact that there were numerous women on the street who were utterly indistinguishable from her, Hashem was eventually going to figure out that he was being followed. And when he did, his six-foot, two-hundred-pound frame was going to cut through the crowd at a speed she simply couldn’t match.

“Come on, Bill. You know as well—”

Randi fell silent when a powerful hand clamped onto her arm and spun her violently around. She went reflexively for a knife hidden beneath her hijab, but then recognized the coffee-stained shirt and burned cheeks. Pistachio man.

Normally she’d have used her considerable language skills and a little groveling to quietly extricate herself from the situation, but today she just didn’t have time to screw around.

In a smooth motion not quite fast enough to look unnatural, she grabbed one of the fingers wrapped around her upper arm and broke it. The man howled in pain and dropped to one knee, cradling his mangled digit.

“Someone help!” Randi shouted in Arabic. “I think he’s having a heart attack!”

People surged in, once again ignoring her and allowing her to back away.

“Where is he?” Randi said when she broke free. Ahead of her the souq split. “Which way?”