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sprawling city of war.
    Dirt revetments branched off the airfield like suburban cul-de-sacs; jet-size bunkers burrowed into the rocky, upchurned earth. A bleak neighborhood of tents blanketed the land along the main runway, the makeshift military structures mingling with the larger, Soviet-era buildings. All of it hunkered in the footprint of some two thousand years of bloodshed and defeat.
    As the plane braked to a stop on the runway, a handful of scraggly soldiers appeared, as if from nowhere, and scrambled up the massive cargo ramp. Like most of the Special Forces soldiers Kat had encountered in Afghanistan, the men were not in uniform, at least not in the traditional sense. Their clothes were an improvised mix of standard Afghan attire and Western military wear. Mushroomy pakols and knee-length chapans paired with army-issue camouflage. The men's faces were shoe-leather tan, their beards long and unkempt.
    At first, seeing their Colt M-16s, Kat mistook them for Americans, but when the Alfred E. Neuman staff sergeant hustled back to greet them Kat saw one of the men raise a small Velcro flap on the arm of his jacket and flash a Union Jack.
    Not asking permission, Kat had thought at the time, for the fact that these men didn't need permission was something she had come to understand early on during her tenure in this strange place. That in a world where a pair of new socks required the signature of a senior officer, these men could hop a plane without answering a single question.
    Kat didn't pay much attention to the soldiers on the flight up. The deafening roar of the C-130's engines made conversation impossible, and most of the men had taken the opportunity to sleep. But as the plane banked toward the landing strip at K-2, Kat looked up and saw one of the men watching her.
    It was Colin.

 
    David Kurtz turned off Whitechapel Road and headed north along Brick Lane, letting his ears bathe in the cacophony of languages. Friday prayers at the Jamme Masjid had let out not long before and there was a preponderance of Arabic on the street, along with the usual mix of Bengali and Urdu and Hindi, and the odd remaining snippet of cockney English or Hebrew.
    Women in full hijab ducked past him on the sidewalk, some in groups of three or four, some walking just behind their husbands with small children in tow. Little boys in suits and preadolescent girls in ruffled dresses. The newest arrivals, Kurtz thought, watching the shrouded figures navigate the sea of Westernized flesh, skirting second-generation Bengali girls in hip-huggers and high heels, Hindu women in midriff-baring saris.
    From the front window of one shop, racy Bollywood film posters looked out on the passing crowd, offering glimpses of dark-skinned women in suggestive poses. In the neighboring storefront, dour abayas and chadors hung crookedly behind the glass. And farther along the street the old Jewish bakery perfumed the air with the smell of freshly baked bagels, sustenance for the cabbies and clubgoers who would make their way to the East End much later in the evening.
    Even in the mismatched crowd, Kurtz was glaringly conspicuous, his physical stature and blond hair marking him indelibly as the other. And yet there was nowhere else in London, and very few places in the Western world, where he felt so comfortably at home. Moving with the gait of someone who knew exactly where he was going, Kurtz crossed Han-bury Street and ducked into a doorway marked Kensington Court.
    Not to be confused with the Kensington on Cromwell Road, I assume, Peter Janson had joked when Kurtz first gave him the name of the hotel. And Kurtz had thought, No, not in a million years, thank God.
    “Message, sir.” The Bengali proprietor flagged Kurtz down as he entered the postage-stamp reception area. “Your brother, sir. He would like you to call him as soon as possible.”
    Not a hint that the man thought otherwise, and yet Kurtz couldn't help wondering. Four years he'd kept a room