Scorpion Betrayal

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He looks up from his coffee, careful not to make a move that would cause them to kill him. He has sensed a change, a faint electrical hum in the background sounds in the street, and at that moment the streetlights come on.

Normally, it is his favorite time of day. The evening hour after the Maghrib prayer, when the crowds spill out of the mosques and traffic on the al Kornish Road is a river of lights and all Cairo seems to catch its breath after the heat of the day. He is not alone. Sitting next to him at the outdoor table of the cafe is the Placeholder, a mustached Egyptian Secret Serviceman watching him, hand on his unbuttoned gun holster, though they had already frisked him twice for weapons. Three hard-faced Secret Servicemen watch from other tables. By their locations close to the street, he knows that within minutes they will be dead.

He sips the cardamom coffee, the Placeholder watching his every move. This is what he has lived for all these months. Everything magnified, almost too real: the electric blues and reds of scarves in the open-air shops of the Khan al Khalili, the smell of apple-tobacco smoke from the shisha hubble-bubbles of the older cafe patrons, the breathing of the Placeholder next to him. He looks away as a club-footed street vendor with a wicker tray hobbles around the corner and makes his way toward the cafe. The vendor squats on the cobblestones near the cafe, club foot twisted beneath him, and spreads his farsha: batteries, toothpaste, rubber shower shoes, the odds and ends of everyday life sold on every street corner in Cairo. He calculates the distance from the street vendor to the outer cafe tables with his eyes. It will be close, he thinks. Very close.

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