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descended on my shoulder.
    “Hey, take a deep breath, man. Game face,” he said quietly. I tried to comply, and almost gagged. There were a lot of smells floating around the market, and not all of them particularly savory. Larry tried to hide his smile as I coughed, and clapped me on the back.
    Our destination was not, in fact, the market itself, but a small café on Avenue 13. It was cooler, though not cool, shadowy, and smelled of hookah smoke. It catered to Arabs, locals, and Westerners with a taste for Arab food and atmosphere. I had a taste for neither, but we hoped to pick up or overhear some intel here.
    Larry and I picked a small table where we could sit with our backs to the wall, in a dark corner where we could see most of the street. I wasn’t very hungry, due to the heat, and when the server came and asked for our order, I asked for water.
    “Fifty-two dollars, sir,” he said.
    “What?” Even with inflation being what it is, that’s straight robbery. I think more than a little of that assessment came out in my tone. He got a little stiff.
    “Fifty-two dollars for bottle of water,” he repeated. I had to shuffle through my wallet. We didn’t get paid in dollars much, these days, ever since the bottom dropped out of it, but we still kept some on hand, mostly high-denomination bills, since those were the only ones that were any good, except for getting exact change. I peeled the money off and shoved it at him with little grace. He bobbed his head and left.
    As we were waiting, we watched and listened, saying little. The traffic on the street was steady. Nobody seemed to be in much of a hurry, and in this heat, why would they be? It took almost twenty minutes for my bottle of water to get to the table, unsurprisingly. I twisted off the cap and took a gulp. It was warm, but I was bathed in my own sweat, and thirsty.
    I had noticed another Caucasian on the far end of the café, sipping on a bottle of something and just lounging. I kept watching him, and saw that he was doing much the same thing we were; he was carefully observing the people going past, as well as in and out of the café. He was watching us, too. I was starting to suspect he’d made us when he made eye contact, and lifted his bottle in salute. Fuck.
    I nudged Larry, as the other man finished his drink, got up, and started to weave his way across the café toward us. Larry nodded fractionally. He had already spotted the guy.
    My attention was suddenly drawn to a rising human noise outside. The man approaching us turned his head to look toward the unmistakable sound of an increasingly restive crowd, but didn’t seem overly concerned. I tried to continue to watch both, as he came closer.
    He stopped at our table, and in faintly accented English, asked, “May I join you?”
    “Sure,” Larry said easily. He was relaxed in that particular way that said his hand was within inches of the grip of his STI Tactical under the table, if not on it. The man inclined his head, pulled up a chair, and sat down.
    He was around six feet tall, brown-haired, and gray-eyed. He was dressed in a green short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts, with good hiking boots. And, unless I missed my guess, he was armed.
    “Fine day, isn’t it?” he said, casually, looking out on the street. He noticed my attention to the crowd noises coming from up the street, and smiled. “Don’t worry about that, my friend. Just the daily protests. It’s nothing to worry about, yet. When you start hearing screams or gunshots, then it’s time to worry.”
    “Have to say, I haven’t seen many other Westerners out and about today,” I observed.
    “Indeed not,” he replied. “A lot of that--” he gestured toward the noise “--is aimed at foreigners, particularly Westerners. The opposition has long believed that it’s foreign money propping up the President, and with his landslide election to a fourth consecutive six-year term, they are getting a little upset with the West these