London Twist: A Delilah Novella (7 page)

Finally, Fatima said, “I don’t want you to print this, all right?”

Delilah nodded, wondering what was coming, pleased at the apparent expression of trust. “All right.”

“I don’t know what’s next for me. I feel like I’m… haunted. Haunted by what was done to my brothers.”

She paused again. Delilah noted the diction: not by what
happened
to her brothers, which would have implied a lack of agency behind their deaths, or at least de-emphasized it. No, instead, by what was
done
to them, with its focus on an implicit subject, an unspoken actor. The people who had sent the drones. America. The West.

“Why would you not want me to print that?” Delilah said. “Of course I won’t, but… ”

“Because it sounds so self-pitying. So grandiose. But it’s also true. I can’t let it go. What my family went through… no one should have to go through that. If I can do something to stop these murders—and they are murders—I have to. I can’t sleep if I don’t.”

It was unsettling to hear something so similar to the very refrain she had routinely deployed in response to John’s repeated insistence that she get out of the life. How could she ever sleep again after seeing the next televised news report of carnage at a Tel Aviv pizza parlor or shopping mall? Or of a rocket fired into a West Bank school? Or of, God forbid, a mass-casualty gas attack?

“I don’t think it sounds either self-pitying or grandiose,” Delilah said, feeling a sympathy that was both genuine and genuinely disquieting. “But what will you do?”

“Whatever I can,” Fatima said, her eyes distant again, and again Delilah was discomfited by the parallels with her own justifications, even her own words. She said no more than that, and Delilah found her silence faintly ominous, as well as disappointing. She wondered again how much more talkative Fatima might have been in a different setting, maybe after several drinks. She found herself warming to the idea, and wondering how she might implement it.

They finished their coffee and Delilah took some pictures—a westernized Pakistani, enjoying an evening out among others like herself. Fatima insisted on paying because Delilah had picked up the tab at Notes. On the way out, Delilah felt the eyes of every male they passed hot on their faces, their bodies. Some of the stares reflected no more than lust and a warped sense of entitlement. But in others, she recognized a resentment that bordered on hatred. For what? Because women had something they wanted but that they didn’t know how to legitimately acquire? Because they needed to denigrate and hurt someone else to reassure themselves they weren’t pathetic and powerless? Because a man could tolerate his own lack of status as long as there was a class of people he could remind himself was of lower stature still?

They paused outside the front door. Delilah would have preferred not to. The vibe she had picked up from some of the men inside had been ugly enough to make her wary of creating unintended opportunities for anyone. Not that she thought she couldn’t handle whatever trouble might come her way, but her way of handling it would likely expose her as something more than a civilian photojournalist—the same sort of thing that had gotten her in trouble in Paris with John.

“Sorry if I got a little intense,” Fatima said.

“To not get intense over what happened to your family, you’d have to be dead inside.”

Fatima nodded and looked at Delilah as though pleased she understood. “Yes. That’s exactly it. Exactly the choice they impose on us.”

Again, Delilah noted the active voice, the focus on the doer rather than the done. This was a woman who was bottling up a lot inside. Under the right circumstances, if a small opening could be created, some of those pressurized contents would leak.

Delilah heard the door to Momtaz and glanced back. Two young men were heading out, their stride fast and purposeful. She had noted them inside—close-cropped hair and dark facial stubble, ugly faces and expensive shirts. Their stares had been particularly hostile. Now their eyes locked on Delilah and Fatima, and Delilah saw the satisfied recognition, the pleasure of confirmation and ensuing confrontation. She felt a hot rush of adrenaline and thought,
Merde
.

“We can’t figure it out,” the taller of the two said, his English Arabic-accented, as they strode over.

There were two expected responses. One was, “What?” The other was silence. Either would betray nervousness, and therefore embolden the enemy. The correct move was a non sequitur, something incongruous that would momentarily occupy the enemy’s cognition while his brain tried to process the unanticipated response. So had she been alone, Delilah would have answered, “The square root of pi?” or “Given sufficient salinity, freezing does become more difficult, doesn’t it?” or some other wildly off-track comment, and then dropped the lead guy by attacking the throat, or the knee, or whatever other target of opportunity presented itself. An overreaction? She didn’t think so. A man’s natural ally was his upper body strength. To counter it, she had speed, surprise, and violence of action. A man’s strategy was attrition. Hers was blitzkrieg. In a drawn-out confrontation, a man could press his advantages and negate hers. She wouldn’t allow that. If she had to err, she knew which side to err on.

But then she would have to explain herself to Fatima. And regardless of what Fatima herself might make of Delilah’s capability with violence, her people would have their own views, probably ones fatal to the op itself.

So she said nothing—in her judgment, the lesser of the two available evils. Fatima, less savvy, said, “What can’t you figure out?”, her tone dripping with derision.

It was a stupid move, though Delilah didn’t blame Fatima for not knowing better. In a confrontation, you don’t insult, you don’t challenge, you don’t deny it’s happening. And you always leave your adversary a face-saving exit. If he takes it, great; if he doesn’t, you act. But blustering en route serves only to engage the other person’s temper and his ego, while impeding your own opportunities for surprise. Fatima, whatever her involvement in her brother’s network, wasn’t trained, and she wasn’t experienced.

The two men stopped, so close Delilah could have hit one with a stomp to the instep and the other with a knee to the groin. The shorter one said, “What you’re doing out alone, the two of you. This is what we can’t figure out.”

Fatima laughed contemptuously. “Alone, the two of us? Here, let me ask you the same thing. What are the two of you doing out alone? Did your parents not notice you sneaking out of your bedrooms?”

They both reddened and the shorter one’s eyes narrowed. Delilah admired Fatima for her brass, but bluff was dangerous if you couldn’t back it up.

“You know what I think?” the shorter one said. “I think you’re two whores looking for cock.”

“Whores don’t look for cock,” Fatima said. “They look for money. Although I doubt the two of you could help with either.”

The taller one grabbed Fatima roughly by the elbow. “I’ll show you what we can help with.”

“Let go,” Fatima said, and Delilah, hearing the sudden fear in her voice, knew the woman was at the end of her bluff. Turning slightly to conceal the move, she slid the second and third fingers of her right hand into the ring at the end of the Hideaway. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t use a knife to threaten—she would use it to cut. But to the extent possible, she had to stay in character. A civilian might carry a knife for self-protection. But a civilian wouldn’t use it readily, or well.

“Let her go,” Delilah said, her tone deliberately calm and commanding.

“Or what?” the shorter one said with a sneer.

Hating to do it, Delilah held up her right fist, the razor-sharp talon clearly visible now. “Or I’ll slice you open and watch your guts spill onto the sidewalk.” She kept her left side forward and dropped her knife hand close to her ribcage. If he tried to grab for it, she could tie up his arms with her free hand and attack his balls and his belly with the blade.

The taller one looked to his friend for reassurance. But his grip on Fatima’s arm didn’t slacken.

There was a blur of movement to their right. Two more dark-skinned men, heading toward them from around the side of Momtaz. Delilah felt another adrenaline surge, but then immediately realized from the stealth and speed of the approach that she and Fatima weren’t the targets. And indeed, as she oriented on the two approaching men, she saw their focus was entirely on the two assailants, not the intended victims.

The shorter guy must have read something in Delilah’s expression, in the momentary direction of her gaze. He started to turn, but the first of the approaching men had already closed the distance. As the man moved in, he flicked his right arm out and a collapsible steel baton snapped into position. Delilah watched in adrenalized slow motion as the shorter guy kept turning, turning, and now the lead man had planted his left foot and the baton was rocketing in like a tennis forehand, and the shorter guy must have picked up the problem in his peripheral vision because he started to flinch, his shoulders reflexively rising, his arms coming up, his head turtling in, but it was too late, and before he could reverse his turn, the baton whipped into his face. His head blew back and his legs went flying out from under him, shattered teeth tumbling through the air as he fell. Delilah could tell from the instant loss of rigidity in his limbs that he was out before he even hit the pavement.

The taller guy hadn’t even begun to come to grips with his shock before the trailing man had reached him. He grabbed the taller guy by the back of his collar and suddenly there was a knife in his hand, pressed against the taller guy’s throat.

“Is there a problem?” the trailing man said in English. Delilah wasn’t sure of the accent—Punjabi, she thought, though maybe Urdu. Not Arabic.

Other than a pair of extremely bulging and frightened eyes, the taller guy seemed too stunned even to respond.

The trailing guy pressed the knife harder. “I said, is there a fucking problem?”

The taller guy vibrated his head no, as though he wanted to shake it violently but was too mindful of the knife. “No. No problem.”

“Good. Then get the fuck out of here. Now.” He shoved the taller guy so hard that the guy stumbled back and had to pinwheel his arms to keep from falling. The moment he had recovered his balance, he turned and sprinted away.

The lead man knelt and took a closer look at the guy he’d decked, who was, as Delilah already knew, unconscious, or, from the force of the blow, possibly even dead. He reversed his grip on the baton so he was holding it like an ice pick and smashed the tip against the sidewalk, collapsing it. Then he stood and looked at Fatima.

“Are you all right?” he said, in an accent like his partner’s.

Fatima looked at the guy on the ground, then at the lead man. For a moment, she was speechless. Then she stammered out, “Yes. Yes, we’re fine.”

The lead guy glanced at his partner, then at Delilah. “I’m… sorry,” he said. “This place, sometimes, bad men at night. I’m sorry.”

Delilah shook her head. “No need to apologize.”

The man glanced at the Hideaway protruding from her knuckles. “But maybe you are already okay.”

Delilah eased the knife back into its sheath. “Maybe. Thank you for your help.”

The other man glanced around nervously. “You should go. Police come. Police no good.”

Fatima seemed stunned. Delilah put a hand on her elbow and said, “Yes. We’re going. Thank you again.”

They headed quickly southeast, the general direction of Paddington Station. Delilah was intuiting a lot from the encounter and she wanted to process it more fully, but she needed to stay in character. There would be time later.

“Was that a knife?” Fatima asked, glancing back as they walked. Her tone was incredulous.

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

“Later. I think we should get out of here. Do you go to that shisha shop a lot? Do they know you?” This was a little more tactical acumen than she would have preferred to reveal, but she thought the risk was less than the opportunity to learn more.

“I go there sometimes. And yes, they know who I am.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“Why? We didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything.”

“No, but do you want to have to persuade the police of that? I mean, did you see that guy’s face? I think he might have been dead.”

“Oh my God, I know, I mean, he went flying!”

She was talking faster than usual, her demeanor giddy. Normal, in the aftermath of violence. “Do you know who those guys were?” Delilah said, being careful to inject some agitation into her own tone, lest Fatima wonder how she could be so cool after what had just happened.

“Just two assholes.”

“Not the two assholes. The other two.”

“No.”

Delilah would have expected something more—“Thank God they came along when they did,” something like that—and the brevity of the answer struck her as a false note. Fatima would know if she had bodyguards, and the deception Delilah sensed in her response suggested she did. And yet, while they were being accosted, she didn’t act like someone who was counting on a bodyguard. She acted like someone bluffing foolishly, reflexively, who was then genuinely frightened when the bluff got called.

They kept walking. Delilah periodically checked behind them as they moved, but this would have been normal behavior for a civilian who had just been spooked the way they had, not something likely to be read as anything else.

When they reached the streetlights and cabs and relative crowds of Paddington Station, they paused. Fatima said, “I can’t believe you pulled a knife on that guy!”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?”

“Did you really say, ‘I’ll slice you open and watch your guts spill onto the sidewalk’?”

“I’m not sure what I said. I was scared.”

“You didn’t sound scared! You sounded completely badass.”

“I didn’t feel badass, I can tell you that.”

Fatima held up a fist and made a face of exaggerated rage. “‘I’ll slice you open,’” she said, her tone faux ominous, and then she dissolved into a fit of laughter. “Oh my God, did you see the look on that asshole’s face?”