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The wind lifted her hair off of the back of her neck as she climbed, another reminder that she was far from home that night. Her hijab was not the comfort here it would have been elsewhere. It was more peaceful than usual today, but that meant little in a land that lived on high alert by default.
She brought with her the best camouflage she had found so far - a water bottle with the logo of an American sports team, an expensively thin laptop, and a large notebook for back up. She borrowed a rejected manuscript from an American friend and added scenes on whim. The content was so racy that the guards never made it past the the first few pages open on her screen. Similarly, her notebook was filled with outlines, characters, sexual positions, and editor's notes. If the various abbreviations and word/line placement had another meaning for the more informed reader, who would know? It was highly unlikely that anyone would send the nice Jewish-American girl's romance novel drafts to any sufficiently alert cryptologist.
It would be different if Hamila Ravenwood's passport and dual citizenship were less well established, if she had less of a paper trail or a more pronounced accent, but Baba Geddi had known what he was doing when he sent Hamila to Chicago to Gedda Marion when she was 9. If he was right, her talents and legitimate background would make her an invaluable asset. If he was wrong, she would get an excellent education, native English fluency with a midwestern accent, and freedom from the expectations of her more traditional mother and grandmother.
With her coloring (not to mention the papers and kerchief in the lining of her purse) she could pass through most of the neighboring countries without attracting much notice. Inviting the blatant attention that Hamila Ravenwood always received was a treat in and of itself. It was just added fun to write nonsense that might shock even Grandpa Jones while out in the sunlight with one eye on the Western Wall.
She would watch from her post until she saw something worth her time or until she heard otherwise. Baba Geddi was not usually wrong about these things, and he would not have sent her if it were something her cousins could handle. They were, for lack of a better term, his A-Team. They were efficient, they were highly skilled, and they could be ruthless if necessity demanded. What they were not, unfortunately, was patient.
Hamila had received her name when, eight days behind schedule, she arrived into the world with very little fuss. Auntie jala declared she must have been waiting for the perfect moment. She still waited for the perfect moment rather than jumping into action. It had saved her life a few times, and saved her cover identities on numerous others.
She set herself up as usual, on one of the rooftops over-looking the Wall. The guards knew her by now and left her alone. There had been a few problems her first week, but she had pitched her standard Jewish American Princess fit and by the tenth day they got tired of looking up her information to see if there was an irregularity this time. No one particularly liked the idea of the erotic romance novelist over-looking a sacred place but, as long as her behavior was decent, they couldn't do much about it.
Speaking of indecent behavior, another one of the Birthright kids had ignored his tour guide's rules and shown up in a t-shirt that said "fuck this shit" or something similar. All Hamila could read from her perch was “FUCK.” The guards were understandably upset.
While the guards and the tour guide tried to come up with another shirt for the spoiled tourist, Hamila scanned the crowd of visibly annoyed onlookers. The Orthodox shrugged to one another except for one older man who insisted on adding his own opinions to the proceedings. They were mostly used to this kind of behavior from the Americans. The devout tried gamely to ignore the fracas and continue their prayers. The rest of the student group just looked embarrassed.
Except for one girl.
She wore a pale blue skirt and a cream-toned blouse that blended in well with the surrounding stone. The brown scarf over her head deflected attention from the casual eye as well. She would have been the odd one out in any single group around the monument, but she was an almost perfect example of the style average of the entire female side.
Hamila knew at once that she had spotted her target. Even if she hadn’t been overly interested in some rocks that had dropped out of one of the pigeon holes, the wardrobe choice was far too specific to be accidental.
As she checked her ringing phone and packed up her gear, Hamila wondered again what idiot had decided to file the Ark with the other government artifacts. Of course some officious bureaucrat would come along and insist on indexing it. And once that happened, the question was only when the theft would occur, not if. Grandpa Jones and his friends were smart, but she would have told them that computer databases were eventually going to ferret out all their secrets if they’d only bothered to ask. Didn’t anyone pay attention to the news?
Hamila wandered down to the plaza, posting comments about Twilight Sparkle’s adventures with Nyan Cat on the pre-arranged subreddit. Baba Geddi kept giving her burner phones and setting up drops. He just didn’t understand how much faster her methods were. This way she could alert her cousins before she followed the girl down the inevitable back alleys and tunnels.
They knew the Ark was in Jerusalem, but they had lost its aura at least a month earlier. The thieves were zealots, trying to replace their sacred relic in the closest approximation of its traditional location, but they were the least capable of the interested parties. Her first day in the city, before she’d been given a direct assignment, Hamila had spent some time surveying the neighborhood. Under a block of condos, a museum with ruins and reenactments had detailed the previous Zealot’s failures. The new group wasn’t much better.
Still, she had a lead now. She would follow the girl into the tunnels or back to her base of operations. She would identify the most likely megalomaniac and unleash the fury of the A-Team on them while she quietly arranged for the zealot’s Ark to be swapped with a copy. Then, she would have to figure out a better hiding location than Grandpa Jones could manage. Baba Geddi and the rest of the old crew mourned the days when they chased their quarry across the deserts and shot at each other through catacombs, but Hamila thought the present offered far more scope for the imagination.
Sealed cargo container in the Mariana Trench, maybe? As she commented on a Finding Nemo fanfic, Hamila wondered how hard would it be to get her hands on a used submersible.