Fade [antikvár]

PROLOGUE »1 fl The few people visible in the street seemed to have no purpose other than to kick up dust that then hung in the air like smoke. They had no bags of groceries, no hangers draped with recently cleaned clothing, no impulsively purchased toys for their kids. They weren't exchanging gossip with friends or gazing into the village's nonexistent windows for interesting diversions. The overall impression was of rats temporarily flushed into the open and anxious to return to a dark, cramped space where the illusion of safety could conjure. Salam al Fayed skirted along a broken rock wall, stopping before he reached a section that had been scattered by a mortar shell to squat down in the shade. The sun in that part of the world was strangely malignant. Unable to provide warmth in the thin, dry air, it just burned and sapped the strength of everything beneath it. Al Fayed pulled a goatskin water bladder from beneath his robes and watched the people in the street adjust their trajectory to give him as wide a berth as possible. They would see him as just another of the countless dangerous men who roamed the region promoting instability, starvation, and senseless violence. In a way, they were right.