He stood up and reached out a hand to pull her to her feet. "Then let's get out of here."

She moved quickly ahead of him down the street, turned left and then right. She heard the jangle of his chains as he shuffled behind her. After the third block he muttered testily, "Are we supposed to walk all the way to die border?"

"If I say so." She turned left again, moved swiftly down the alley, threw open a door, and gestured for him to enter. "In here."

Fatima waited in the hall just inside the door. "You're late," she said sourly. "If you'd arrived two minutes later, you would have found the door locked. I told Evan I would take no unnecessary chances." She locked the door, then turned on her heel and walked quickly down the dimly lit corridor. "Come with me."

"What is this place?" Falkner asked.

"It's a bordello," Ronnie said. "We thought it would be safer for you to hide in plain sight. Here's the scenario. You're a customer and I'm one of Fatima's women."

Fatima threw open a door. "You'd better do it right," she told Ronnie grimly. "Or we'll all end up corpses."

"And that charming lady is the madam?" Falkner asked as the door closed behind Fatima.

Ronnie nodded. "Fatima al-Radir." She gestured toward the bed. "Sit down, I have to get those chains off."

"Gladly." He sat down, studying his rescuer. Not that there was much to study. Except for glittering wide-set hazel eyes and a slightly turned-up nose, he could discern little of her blackened face. Her thin body was dressed inblack trousers and shirt and a sock cap that completely covered her hair. "And how do you intend to get rid of these chains? Do you have a file tucked in your bag?"

"Better." She knelt at his feet, fumbled in her camera bag, and pulled out a tiny key. "You'll be out of these in a minute."

"How well prepared you are." His gaze narrowed on her blackened face. "How do you happen to have-"