Page 106 of The Atlas Maneuver

Cassiopeia was intrigued. “You two know each other?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jeanne said.

“You were briefed?” Koger asked her.

She nodded. “Oh, yes. We have had our eye on this place, and Sir Citrone there, for a long time. Trinity said you may have hit the jackpot.”

Citrone stayed silent.

“You’re about to get a look at what’s behind the curtain,” Koger said, stepping aside and gesturing for her to do the honors. “But we need your… gentle touch.”

She stepped to the glass and said, “I am Kristin Jeanne, here on behalf of the Eidgenössische Finanzmarktaufsicht, the Financial Market Supervisory Authority. I have an order for an immediate inspection of the premises. Open the door.”

Townley shook his head no.

Jeanne shrugged and stepped back.

“Blow it open,” she ordered.

CHAPTER 59

COTTON FOLLOWED AIKO AS THEY NAVIGATED THE CROWDED STREETSof Marrakesh. The time was approaching 7:00P.M.and the sun had begun its fall in the west. Operation Neverlight had made it to Morocco, apparently now focused on the PSIA. To take out assets from a friendly ally was a serious matter, tantamount to an act of war, one that usually came with long-term repercussions. Most likely the official assumption was that none of this was any of Japan’s business. That issue had been settled long ago when the country lost the war along with the spoils, which the CIA had ultimately claimed and enjoyed for a long time.

Finders keepers and all that.

They passed a clutch of art galleries and stayed to the fringes of Djemaa El Fna, the nightly circus of commerce in full swing. A sea ofsouqs, the stalls laid out according to a labyrinthine medieval plan, spread out into an ancient shopping mall, all of them doing a brisk business in olives, spices, clothes, rugs, and pottery.

The heart and soul of the city.

He caught sight of the minaret for the Koutoubia Mosque that stabbed the ever-dimming sky. He knew the name meant “of the books,” because of the many book stalls that once surrounded it. Which he liked, given he was a bookseller too. Aiko seemed toknow where she was going as she never hesitated in her steady pace, taking each turn with confidence within the scrawls of the close-knit alleyways.

“Did you see it too?” she quietly asked.

Oh, yeah.

A man, sitting on a bench, feeding the birds from a bag of something. Everything was right except for the way he fed them, tossing a few morsels at a time away from the bench. But when the birds pranced close, he moved his foot, scattering them. Odd. Feeding something you didn’t like.

“A lookout,” she said.

He agreed. And not a good one.

She cut down a side street lined by more shops with residences above.

“I assume we’re moving away from where you want to be,” he said as they walked.

“Not at all. We’re going straight in.”

“And the reason?”

“Koketsu ni irazunba koji o ezu.”

He waited for her to translate.

“If you do not enter the tiger’s cave, you will not catch its cub.”

He smiled. “We say it another way. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

She made a few more turns and they found a café that seemed shabby, but he wondered if that was part of its ambience. Aiko stopped a moment outside and looked around before entering, but it would be tough to know if they had company as the narrow street was crowded. At a table to the back sat an eagle-beaked man, brown and lean with vigilant eyes dressed in dirty clothes. Aiko went straight for him. Cotton knew what was expected of him.

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