The Mark of the Assassin

member, including one Astrid Vogel."
    "My name is Eva Tebbe," she repeated like a mantra. "I am a tourist from
    Berlin."
    "I had an old associate fax me this photograph. You're older now, your
    hair's different, but it's you."
    He reached inside his leather jacket and thrust the photograph before
    her. Astrid was looking out the window. They had crossed the river into
    Western Cairo and were moving south toward Giza. "Look at it," he
    screamed, "it's you--look at it."
    "It's not me. Please, I don't know what you're talking about."
    Her voice was beginning to lose conviction; she could hear it. So could
    Stoltenberg, apparently, for he slapped her hard across the mouth with
    the back of his hand. Her eyes teared, and she tasted blood on her lips.
    She looked at the photograph, an old West German identification picture.
    She was revolutionary gaunt, a how-dare-you-take-my-fucking-picture
    expression on her face. Kurt Vogel's spiky haircut, Kurt Vogel's
    pebble-lensed spectacles. She always thought it was a bloody awful
    picture, but when the police put it on a wanted poster she became the
    sex symbol of the radical Left. The pyramids lay ahead of them,
    silhouetted against the deep blue of the desert night. A bone-white
    three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, shining like a torch. She
    thought, Where the hell are you, Jean-Paul? She resisted the impulse to
    turn around and look for him. What was it he had said? I won't let
    anyone hurt you. You'd better do something quickly, darling, she
    thought, or this man is going to make a liar of you. For some reason he
    had not searched her body or her handbag. Her gun was there, a small
    Browning automatic, but she knew she could never get it out in time in
    the confined space of the back seat. She had no choice but to wait and
    stall and hope to God that Jean-Paul was there somewhere in the
    darkness. The pyramids disappeared. They turned onto a narrow unpaved
    track, stretching into the desert. Astrid said, "Where are you taking
    me? If you want to fuck, we can fuck right here. You don't have to take
    me to the desert and play these stupid games."
    He slapped her again and said, "Shut up."
    The Mercedes bucked and pitched wildly. "Who hired you?"
    "No one hired me. I'm not who you say I am. I want to go back to my
    hotel. Please, don't do this."
    He slapped her again, harder. "Answer me! Who hired you?"
    "No one, please."
    "Who's the man? Your partner, the Frenchman?"
    "He's just a silly man from my tour group. He's no one."
    "Did you kill Colin Yardley in London?"
    "I didn't kill anyone."
    "Did you murder Colin Yardley in London? Did the Frenchman?"
    "I don't kill people. I work for a magazine in Berlin. I do graphic
    design. My name is not Astrid Vogel. It's Eva Tebbe. Please, this is
    insane. Where are you taking me?"
    "A place where no one will hear you scream, and no one will find you
    after I've killed you." He reached inside his coat again and this time
    brought out a gun. He pushed the barrel against her neck and pulled her
    hair. "Now, one more time," he said. "Who's the Frenchman? Who hired
    you?"
    "My name is Eva Tebbe. I am a graphic designer from Berlin."
    She thought of her old RAF indoctrination lectures. If you are arrested
    give them nothing. Defy them, berate them, but give them nothing. They
    will play games with you, fuck with your head. That's what policemen do.
    Give them nothing. In this case the advice had a very practical
    application, because the moment she told Stoltenberg the truth he would
    certainly kill her. He pulled her hair violently, then released her. Her
    handbag lay on the seat between them. He opened the flap and dug through
    the contents until he found the Browning. He displayed it for her, as
    proof of her treachery, and placed it inside his coat. "He's very
    sloppy, this Frenchman of yours, Astrid. He sent you into a very
    dangerous situation. He knew I worked for the Stasi. He should have
    realized I might recognize a former Red Army Faction killer. It takes a
    cold bastard to send a woman into a situation like that."
    The car came to a sliding stop on a desert escarpment overlooking the
    city. Below them Cairo spread like a giant fan, narrow in the south,
    broad in the north at the base of the Nile delta. A thousand minarets
    stretched toward the sky. She wondered which was hers. She wanted to be
    back in her horrid hotel room, with her toilet that didn't work, next to
    her building that was about to crash down. "You love this