His prerogative, I reminded myself, as I had that morning. And why wouldn’t he be watching? But still.

  Skirting the bed, I made my way to the bathroom and closed the door, then turned on the lights over the sink, greedily tore open the envelope, and pulled out the single piece of paper.

  It was a brief message, the words handwritten in dark ink, but I knew exactly what it meant. Adamastor, it said. 6:00.

  I put my free hand to my face and could feel the flush in my skin, the heat of my whole body drawn upward. There was only one person who would have left such a note, who would have wanted to meet at the statue of the old sea monster on the Miradouro de Santa Catarina.

  Rahim.

  It’s late when I get back to the apartment, moving toward the early hours of the morning, but more of Rahim’s friends have come since I was gone, and they are clustered in the dark living room. The television is on, and on the screen an otherworldly ballet is unfolding. Dark sky, luminous pearls of anti-aircraft fire, the Baghdad skyline washed with the aqueous green of night vision.

  It’s happened, I think, the Americans have finally gone in. Knowing better than to intrude, I stand in the doorway for some time, listening to the broadcast, the contained panic of the American reporters and their cameraman as the bombs begin to fall.

  For the first time that I can remember, everyone is silent. No one, not even Rahim, acknowledges my presence, and at first I think he hasn’t seen me. But when I turn to start down the hall to our bedroom, he looks up at me, angry, accusatory, and in that moment, I think, I am every failing that has ever divided him from himself, every weakness that has kept him from his god. I am one of them now, and nothing will ever be the same between us.

  Something bigger than Nairobi, I thought, Valsamis’s words ricocheting in my head. Turning off the bathroom lights, I made my way back out into the dark bedroom and fumbled in my coat pocket for the pack of Portugués Suaves I’d bought on my way up from the docks. Not for smoking, I’d told myself then and reminded myself now. Just an old habit for my hands.

  I closed my eyes and could see the pictures again. Not the ones of the Nairobi bombing but the others, the images we all see in our dreams and wish we didn’t. The blurred body of a plane hurtling forward. The giant tongues of fire. Smoke like some mad dark river churning into the blue sky. And in one of the towers’ windows, a man, a tiny figure desperately waving a makeshift white flag.

  What would it take to change a person, I wondered, to bring him to this place? Anger distilled to its purest form.

  During my six years at the Maison des Baumettes, I lived among women who had done the unthinkable, who had murdered their husbands or drowned their children. Monsters and yet not. In truth, there was very little that separated these women from the rest of us, from the forgers and junkies and thieves, even from those on the outside. We are all, in some way, overtaken by our lives, shaped and molded by the glacial forces of time and family until the person we are and the self we recognize no longer agree.

  And my own life? And Rahim’s? There was Driss, of course. And there was the war.

  “If you were to leave,” Rahim had told me once, before such things seemed possible, “if you were to leave, I would go home to the mountains, to the old Berber sheepherders. There will be nothing left for me here.” I’d laughed then, laughed at the impossibility of it. But I had left.

  And in the end he had not gone to the Berbers. He had not chosen the rocky wilderness of the High Atlas, as he’d promised, but some other, fiercer wasteland.

  I tapped the unopened pack of Suaves against my palm and felt the cigarettes shift. There was a certain satisfaction in the gesture, in the promise, however false, of pleasure.

  Six o’clock at the statue of Adamastor. Not a betrayal, I told myself, putting down the cigarettes, making my way toward the door. Not a betrayal but simply what had to be done. And yet somehow I had imagined more time, days in which to get used to the idea, in which to convince myself I was doing the right thing.

  I punched the wall switch and the overhead light glared on, illuminating the room in all its shabbiness, all the ominous and unidentifiable stains that accompany the human condition. In the window I could see my own blurred reflection, pale arms and legs framed in the room’s entryway. And my hand, raised now, the note clutched in my fingers.

  At the time it seemed like I stood there forever, but looking back, I can see how quickly it all happened. How little time it took for the phone to ring and for me to answer.

  “We just need to talk to him,” Valsamis told Nicole. “Find out what he knows.”

  Nicole didn’t say anything. From his window, Valsamis watched her sit down on the edge of the bed and put her free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the phone, over her face. A gesture of despair.

  Valsamis turned and glanced at the Ruger on his bedside table. Four more hours to keep her on track, he thought. Or he could do it now, quick and quiet. Though if anything went wrong in the morning, if Rahim got spooked or didn’t show, he’d have nothing to fall back on.

  “Nicole?” he said again, and this time her voice came back to him.

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve done the right thing, Nicole.”

  IN THE EARLY-MORNING DARKNESS, Santa Catarina rose like some madwoman’s wedding cake, each dark tier sugared and frilled with the city’s wild sprawl, palm fronds and rooflines and intricate Manueline facades, stone twisted and curled like icing from a piping bag. And on the hill’s southern flank, the long narrow gorge of the funicular tracks, like a greedy finger dipped in and drawn upward.

  On the Largo do Calhariz, at the top of the Bica funicular, the windows of a coffee kiosk blazed out onto the silent square, onto the handful of tables and upturned chairs, the umbrellas folded in on themselves like the wings of sleeping bats. Inside, a barista and two customers, three curls of smoke wreathing up toward the fluorescent lights.

  Down on the Tagus, the Ponte 25 de Abril shimmered like a bracelet on the river’s black wrist. And on the far bank, the great Cristo Rei statue, lit as if from within, arms outstretched toward the city.

  I paused in the kiosk’s glare, facing into the darkness, and slid the Suaves from my pocket. We just need to talk to him, I could hear Valsamis say, his assurance when I’d called to tell him about Rahim’s message.

  Though of course this was a lie. I knew what the Americans did to people like Rahim. We all knew.

  Greedily ripping the cellophane wrapper, I shook a cigarette from the pack and lit it, then cupped my shaking hand around the match’s delicate flame, succumbing to the warm rush of smoke, the taste of tobacco.

  Twelve years between them, Rahim thought, stepping back into the doorway as he watched Nicole turn onto the rua Santa Catarina and make her way toward him. Twelve years, and why she had come back to Lisbon, Rahim couldn’t say. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t safe for her to be asking about him, wasn’t safe for either of them. Even now he was aware of the danger, aware that someone could be watching. This was why he’d chosen to wait here instead of on the belvedere.

  A gust of wind whistled up from the river, and Nicole pulled the collar of her coat tight, hunching her shoulders against the cold. She was close now, just a couple of meters away, passing into the bright arc of the nearest streetlamp. Her hands were bare, the knuckles red and chapped, and as she drew closer, Rahim could see the smeared salt stain on her cheek from where the wind had made her eyes tear. Not beautiful, he thought, for no one could have argued that Nicole was beautiful. But there was a primitiveness to her, her whole body as raw as those pale hands. And for all that had passed between them, he wanted her still.

  Such a fitting meeting place, Valsamis observed, sliding his Ruger from his coat, checking the nightscope. Adamastor, this god turned by lover’s rage to wind and stone, an embodiment of the dark and vengeful soul of the southward passage and the great African continent, what it had meant to those early sailors. Sea and storms determined to swallow them whole.

  It wasn’t quite dawn and the sky was coldly luminous, brittle and bare as ice on water. Out on the miradouro, the statue towered like an angry fist, body clenched in eternal wrath. Down on the Tagus, the first ferry to Cacilhas drifted out onto the river’s empty oblivion, a night watchman’s lamp slowly trolling from shore to shore.

  Just get him to the belvedere. Valsamis repeated his instructions as he watched Nicole start up the rua Santa Catarina, her face a ghostly green in the scope’s eye. That was all she had to do; he would take care of the rest. Nothing to go wrong, and yet so much. Nicole took a long drag on her cigarette, and her face caught for an instant in the ember’s glare, her skin a light source in itself, like a figure in a Dutch painting.

  Wet work, Valsamis thought. This, what separated him from Morrow and the others. What they would not have been willing to do. But, then, it was better to take care of these things yourself. Better to know there would be no mistakes.

  Valsamis crouched down, as he had learned to do as a child in Montana. His father beside him in the darkness, beneath the snow sodden boughs of the old ponderosas. His big burly arm around Valsamis’s shoulder, steadying the Remington, the rifle still too big for the boy’s hands.

  “You’ve got to be quick about it,” his father had told him in the truck driving up into the Pintlers, his only advice, and this from a man of great deliberation. Valsamis hadn’t understood it at the time, and when the first elk dipped into the draw and moved down toward them through the waist-high drifts, Valsamis hadn’t moved fast enough. He’d let himself be dazzled by the creature. And when he finally recovered, he’d missed his shot.

  All these years later, he could still remember the exact feeling of defeat, the elk lumbering away into the underbrush, spooked by some force both unseen and unheard, the scent of Valsamis and his father drifting toward him across the snow, eggs and bacon fat, whiskey and Lucky Strikes, the stink of humanity.

  It was the last time Valsamis had hesitated in the face of death.

  I inhaled deeply, pulling the smoke into my lungs, and scanned the dark miradouro ahead, the stand of palms, elegant as a fadista’s fingers on the neck of her guitar, and in front of them the massive silhouette of the sea god. Watching, I thought. Valsamis and others, perhaps. And then, in the doorway beside me, something moved.

  I stopped walking and dropped my cigarette to the ground, my eyes straining against the darkness, my heart pounding. “Rahim?” I called quietly.

  All was silent. Mistaken, I told myself. Another ghost like the one outside the Rosa. Then a face appeared in the doorway, features slowly revealing themselves.

  Twelve years, and yet Rahim’s body was as familiar to me as my own, his hair that smelled of saffron and black pepper. As if the richness of Africa had been born into him. And for an instant I understood what had brought us both to that place, the wound we’d each carried all those years. Not a betrayal, I reminded myself, but still, in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to run.

  Rahim stepped toward me and opened his mouth as if to speak, but he never got the chance. There was a whisper in the air, like schoolgirl gossip.

  Neither of us moved, then Rahim’s left hand flew to his neck and I could see the splash of blood beneath his fingers where the bullet had hit.

  “Attention!” he hissed, grasping my wrist and yanking me past him and into the shelter of the doorway.

  My back slammed against the wall and my breath was knocked from my chest. When it came back to me, I could smell blood in the air.

  “Tu es blessé?” I gasped, turning to Rahim.

  He shook his head, pressing his hand to his neck. But I could see that he was wounded. His shirt was sticky with blood. His eyes were panicked, his breath shallow.

  I sloughed my jacket and helped him to the ground. “Tiens!” I said, kneeling beside him, pressing the canvas jacket against his neck. Hold this. I could smell the fear on him, the sourness of his sweat and breath. In a matter of seconds the jacket was soaked through with his blood.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, wanting to believe myself, but even as I said the words, I knew they were a lie. “You’re going to be okay.”

  I rose and started toward the doorway, but Rahim put his free hand on my arm and held me back. His grip was uncomfortably strong, his fingernails sharp against my skin. He reached into his pocket and took out a pistol, shoved it into my hand.

  I looked down at the gun, then moved toward the doorway again, stepped out, and waved in the direction of the belvedere.

  “He’s hurt!” I called into the darkness, my voice echoing up the empty street, my own fear coming back to me.

  Down on the river, a ship’s horn sounded as if in reply, but from the belvedere, there was just silence. The wind picked up slightly and the palms shivered.

  “We need help!” I called again, desperate now, trying to keep my voice under control.

  This time the answer came almost immediately. A second shot hissed out of the darkness, clipping the stone doorway just above my shoulder. This bullet intended not for Rahim but for me.

  Ducking back into the doorway, I lifted the pistol and ran my thumb across its body, feeling for the safety.

  Rahim reached for my arm again, and I crouched down next to him. He was shivering, his skin cold and damp, his teeth chattering. He would die here. He would die here and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “The invoice,” he whispered, taking a slow breath, gathering himself for the effort of speaking.

  “Ssshhhh.” I put my hand on his forehead, then leaned toward the doorway and peered out into the dark street. Not blind, I thought. No, Valsamis could see us perfectly, must have been shooting through a scope.

  “The invoice,” Rahim repeated, louder this time, struggling to be heard. “At the dairy.”

  “I’m going to get us out of here,” I told him.

  “No,” he rasped, pushing my hand away. “Go, Nic.”

  I shook my head, but he didn’t see. His eyes were focused on the doorway, on something in the distance beyond my shoulder.

  “The car,” he said. “The lights.”

  I didn’t understand at first, thought he was imagining something. And then from the hillside below came the groan of a car engine toiling upward.

  “The lights,” he repeated.

  I nodded, suddenly understanding. If Valsamis was shooting through a nightscope, the car would be my only chance, the headlights the cover I needed.

  I peered out again into the gloom and watched the two lights heading up the hill toward us. Yes, I thought, if I went behind them, I might just make it.

  I looked back at Rahim one last time, and he nodded at me, as if giving me permission to go.

  “Thank you,” I told him, still not quite sure what had happened. Then I took a deep breath and rose up on the balls of my feet, legs tensed.

  This way, I whispered, willing the car toward me. The lights washed forward, blazing a perfect path up the street, toward the belvedere and across Adamastor’s flanks. The car passed the doorway and I leaped out behind it, rising toward the brilliance. In an instant I was safely through, back into the darkness again, my legs propelling me down into the wild maze of Santa Catarina.

  THEY WILL MAKE YOU FORGET the taste of your mother’s milk. What Khalid had said all those years earlier, the two of them huddled around a fire in one of the wrecked buildings on the green line they’d claimed as their temporary home. Burning books that night to keep warm. The previous inhabitant’s collection of French mysteries, Simenon and Lenotre.

  It was Kanj who’d discovered the apartment. A mortar had smashed into the roof above the living room, leaving a gaping, rain-logged hole around which a few sun-starved weeds had grown, but the rest of the space was miraculously intact. China in the dining room cabinets and expensive linens on the beds. And in the kitchen sink, unwashed breakfast dishes, a crust of toast, a brown smear of egg yolk, testament to the speed with which the war had overtaken the city.

  Normally, Khalid didn’t talk about his time in prison, but that night something had set him off. Kanj hadn’t admitted it then, not even to himself, but he’d been afraid, terrified not so much by the pain of torture but by his own weakness, what he might say or do. Khalid must have sensed it, for after a good hour of talk, he’d grown quiet.

  “It will surprise you,” he’d said, stirring the ashes, “just how much the body can take.”

  This had not comforted Kanj at the time; he had not been able to understand what Khalid meant. But now he had come to see that his friend was right, that the fear of pain was worse than the pain itself, that once you surrendered to it, there wasn’t much you couldn’t bear.

  Shift change, Kanj thought, listening to the sound of footsteps outside his cell, the scrape of a key in the lock. He took a deep breath and let his body relax completely, let the physical go. Then the door opened and he could see the man again, the familiar bald head and blunt hands. My best friend, Kanj thought, and my worst enemy. Soon, Kanj told himself, soon they would bring the Americans to him.

  Taken, I told myself, shivering as I made my way down toward the river. My fingers were numb, my hands covered in Rahim’s blood. I’d been taken, and good. I could hear my father laughing as he walked away from a shortchange he’d pulled at a bar in Nice, counting his money as he went, handing me a crumpled fifty-franc note. People see what they want to see, he’d said, his cardinal rule of the con.

  I was sixteen at the time, a runaway from my aunt’s house in Bordeaux, falling hard for the same man who’d seduced my mother all those years earlier.

  “You don’t know him,” Emilie had said when I’d finally called to tell her I was staying. “He’s just using you.”

  She’d been right, but at the time I’d wanted more than anything to believe she was wrong.