Cairo, Egypt 1938

[henry_jones_jr]

[January 20th, 1938 @ 3:03 pm EET]The Al Ghourieh quarter of Old Cairo is a spellbinding latticework of streets and alleyways. The severed head of Touman Bey, Egypt’s last Mameluke sultan, was hung over the gate to this neighborhood after the Ottoman Turks killed him in the 16th century. A year earlier his father, Sultan Al Ghouri, had been killed

Comments

[comm_npc]

The two infantrymen eventually drift off the more bustling way and start down a side street, smoking again and still ignorant of any followers. It is not as if they have any reason to be suspicious at this routine posting, in a country as yet unblemished by the shadow of war in Europe.

The archway at the far end of the alley is bottle-necked by huddles of ubiquitous rattan baskets, and beyond is a moderately-sized square of residential buildings, all sporting the same basic design and dirty, sand scored whitewash. The passage dead ends in this little plaza, and the soldiers head into a nondescript doorway on the eastern side.

[slayer_fray]

Mel wanders down the alley at a casual, directed pace, looking for all the world that she knows where she's going, and that she goes down here all the time. She pauses at the alleyway and starts to consider the baskets with idle curiosity.

"In there, then?"

[slayer_fray]

"We can't just break in?" Mel leans over to look into the same basket, except with her eyes fixed ahead.

[slayer_fray]

"Well, I'm not wearing this any further than I have to..." Mel says. "Unless you think we can sneak in wearing them?"

[slayer_fray]

Mel watches him, and nods, grabbing a basket herself.

It takes a second for her to remove the glove on that hand, before tossing up another heavy basket, catching it and resting it lightly on her head.

[comm_npc]

Inside the plaza, a soldier had been leaning idly against the wall, enjoying a quick surrepitious smoke. He had just finished as Mike steps through the arch, and nods genially at the two women, even holding the door open for them.

[slayer_fray]

The slightly younger woman doesn't facepalm. At all. In the slightest.

She's been doing quite a bit of not facepalming so far this mission.

Instead she sweeps past her companion into the door, and heads down a corridor, lookign like she knows exactly where she's going.

[slayer_fray]

As soon as the soldier is out of sight and earshot, Mel slows her pace a little.

"Which way are we going?"

[slayer_fray]

"Right," Mel says, striding on downwards.

"Just keep going down, then."