London Twist: A Delilah Novella by Barry Eisler Read Free Book Online Page A

here for the kind of piece I’d like to do. I need to go back to my flat and write up the relevant parts of what we talked about while it’s all still fresh in my mind. Especially because I was enjoying our conversation too much and forgetting to take notes. So… later this week, I wonder if we could meet again?”
    Fatima smiled what Delilah was beginning to think of as her trademark smile—radiant, and yet imbued with a strange hint of sadness, too. “It would be my pleasure.”
    “Wonderful. I was thinking someplace else. Someplace… that reflects who you are and what you stand for.”
    Fatima lifted her demitasse and drained a few last drops from it. She set it down and rubbed her chin. “Do you like shisha?”
    “You mean… like a hookah?”
    “Same thing. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine. Very popular in Pakistan. There’s a café I like—Momtaz, in Maida Vale. Pretty authentic, and it even has a private ladies-only room. I think if the regular clientele gets a look at you and your blond hair… ” She smiled. “Without the private room, we wouldn’t be left alone.”
    Delilah returned the smile. “I doubt they’d be hitting just on me, but yes, that does sound nice.”
    “Tomorrow night? Eight o’clock? If you haven’t eaten by then, they have great Lebanese food, too.”
    “Sounds perfect.”
    “They’re on Chippenham Road. You can find it on the Internet easily enough, but if you have any trouble, just call me.”
    Delilah stood and slung the camera over her shoulder. “Do you have just a few more minutes? Maybe we can find a good place outside, with Notes or trendy London in the background. A nice contrast with the shisha place tomorrow. It’ll be, I don’t know, ‘Fatima, Woman of Two Worlds.’”
    Delilah had meant the comment as a light crack, and it did make Fatima chuckle—but uncomfortably, Delilah thought. Well, the woman was of two worlds, after all, though not the ones Delilah was ostensibly referring to. And maybe she didn’t entirely like it. Not such a difficult thing for Delilah to understand.
    During the twenty minutes they spent taking pictures, quite a few people strolled by. Most of them were ostentatious in the way they eyed Delilah and Fatima—because of their looks, Delilah understood, but also because passers-by were always naturally curious about anything that looked like a professional photo shoot. But there were two sets of dark-stubbled men who went by and gave them not much more than a passing glance. Their evident lack of interest felt studied under the circumstances, and Delilah made them as pros, though certainly their tradecraft was only amateur level. She remembered what Kent had said, that if she started spending time with Fatima, she would have people watching her.
    If they see something they don’t like, they might do no more than advise Fatima to break contact. Or they might decide what needs to be broken is you.
    On the way back to her flat, she watched her back very carefully indeed. She was glad for the knife concealed in her right front pants pocket. The tiger-claw blade and index- and middle-finger ring grip were both made of glass bonded into epoxy resin, and reinforced with carbon nanotubes—cutting power like steel, but undetectable in airports. The Mossad tech guys had made it especially for her, working off an FS Hideaway design. It wouldn’t hold an edge, but nor was it intended to. This was no frequent-use tool; it was a last-ditch weapon.
    No one was following her. But she knew she was being watched now. Watched and assessed. Whatever tests might be in store for her, she knew she’d better pass them.
    • • •
    The next evening, Delilah took the tube to Warwick Avenue Station, then continued on foot to Momtaz. The sun was low in the sky and the streets were bathed in the lengthening shadows of trees and apartment buildings and lampposts. She passed a group of students in backpacks and several couples pushing strollers, locals