that had nothing at all to do with Dujja's reason for kidnapping him.
"How are you feeling today?"
Abbud ibn Aziz stood in front of him. He had brought two identical plates of food. He put one in Lindros's hands. When it came to food, Lindros knew his way around the Quran. All food fell into one of two categories: haram or halal, forbidden or allowed. All the food here was, of course, strictly halal.
"No coffee today, I'm afraid," Abbud said. "But the dates and buttermilk curds are fine."
The dates were a bit on the dry side, and the curds had a strange taste. These things were small but, in Lindros's world, significant. The dates were drying up, the curds turning, and the coffee was gone. No more supplies were being delivered. Why?
They both ate with their right hands, their teeth bared as they bit into the dark flesh of the dates. Lindros's mind was racing.
"How is the weather?" he asked at length.
"Cold, and the constant wind makes it colder still." Abbud shivered. "Another front is coming in."
Lindros knew that he was used to hundred-plus-degree temperatures, sand in his food, the molten-white glare of the sun, the blessed cool relief of a star-strewn night. This endless deep freeze was intolerable, to say nothing of the altitude. His bones and his lungs must be protesting like old men on a forced march. Lindros watched as he switched his Ruger semiautomatic in the crook of his left arm.
"Being here must be painful for you." Lindros's question was not mere banter.
Abbud's shrug ended as another shiver.
"It's more than the desert you miss." Lindros put his plate aside. Taking an almost constant beating day after day did terrible things to the appetite. "It's the world of your fathers that you miss, isn't it?"
"Western civilization is an abomination," Abbud said. "Its influence on our society is like an infectious disease that needs to be wiped out."
"You're afraid of Western civilization, because you don't understand it."
Abbud spat out a date pit, white as a baby's bottom. "I would say the same of you Americans."
Lindros nodded. "You wouldn't be wrong. But where does that leave us?"
"At each other's throats."
Bourne surveyed the interior of the bar. It was much like the outside: the walls bare stone and wood, mortared together by wattle. The floor was hard-pressed dung. It smelled of fermentation, of both the alcoholic and human variety. A dung fire roared in the stone hearth, adding heat and a particular odor. There were a handful of Amhara inside, all in varying degrees of drunkenness. Otherwise Bourne's appearance in the doorway would have kicked up more of a stir. As it was, it caused barely a ripple.
He tromped up to the bar, trailing snow. He ordered a beer, which, promisingly, came in a bottle. While he drank the thin, oddly brackish brew, he took the measure of the place. In truth, there wasn't much to see: just a rectangular room with a scattering of rude tables and backless chairs more like stools. Nevertheless, he marked them all in his memory, making of the area a sort of map in his head, should danger raise its head or he need a quick escape. Not long after that, he spied the man with the maimed leg. Zaim was sitting by himself in a corner, a bottle of rotgut in one hand and a filthy glass in the other. He was beetle-browed, with the burned, crusty skin of the mountain native. He looked at Bourne vaguely as the other approached his table.
Bourne hooked a boot around one of the stool legs, pulled it out, sat down across from Alem's father.
"Get away from me, you fucking tourist," Zaim muttered.
"I'm no tourist," Bourne responded in the same dialect.
Alem's father opened his eyes wide, turned his head, spat on the floor. "Still, you must want something. No one dares summit Ras Dejen in winter."
Bourne took a long swig of his beer. "You're right, of course." Noticing that Zaim's bottle was nearly empty, he said, "What are you drinking?"
"Dust," Alem's father replied. "That's all there is to drink up here. Dust and ash."
Bourne went and got him another bottle, set it down on the table. As he was about to fill the glass, Zaim stayed his hand.
"There won't be time," he muttered under his breath. "Not when you have brought your enemy with you."
"I didn't know I had an enemy." There was no point in telling this man the truth.
"You came from the Site of Death, did