Amaryllis Fox - 15 Oct

In the glass, I can see the man whos trailing me. I first noticed him a few turns back, his path correlated with mine in the mess of Karachi back alleys. Our reflections mingle in the tailors window. He is horse-faced and tall. His palms open and close as he walks. The security of the veil, a poster reads, above burqas and hijabs.

Ahead of me, the bus Id planned to board comes and goes, covered in an ecstasy of pigment and pattern. Every square inch is painted with bright shapes and swirls, intricate and infinite, like a Mardi Gras parade float, a diesel temple to the pleasure of the eye. It has the look of a free thing burdened, a slow-lumbering dragon, weighed down by its own beauty and the commuters that hang from its belly and back. They are my favorite thing about Pakistan, these buses. Against the dust and the smog and the honking of horns, they are startling, like the discovery of a kindred soul behind the otherwise dull face of a stranger.

It wont delay me long, letting this one lumber by. Another will come through in a few minutes on its way to M. A. Jinnah Road. Better not to give Mr. Ed the impression that Im trying to lose him. Nothing raises suspicions more than shaking surveillance. Its what always makes me laugh about the CIA operatives in the movies. All the roof gymnastics and juggling of Glocks. In real life, one chase sequence through a city center and my cover would be blown for life. Better to lull them into a false sense of security. Walk slowly enough for them to keep up. Stop at yellow lights when driving. Give them a good look each time I come and go. In other words, bore them to tears. Then slip out and save the Bond business for when theyve been left to tranquil sleep.

I can see Mr. Ed fiddling with cooking utensils at a market stall while we wait. Its not clear which flavor of surveillant he is. First guess is usually the local servicea counterintelligence officer from the government of whatever country Im in. But in this case, Im not so sure. Pakistani intelligence operatives are good at what they do. Their surveillance teams are usually six or seven strong, so that they can swap out the guy whos trailing me every few turns to minimize the chance that Ill notice. This man seems to be alone. Not only that, but theres a foreign angle to his face. Despite his traditional dress, the kameez worn long and loose over his trousers, he has the air of central Asia about him. A Kazakh, maybe, or an Uzbek. Most likely, hes checking me out in preparation for tomorrows meeting. Al Qaida has had an influx of central Asian recruits of late. Putting newcomers to work as spotters is pretty typical. Gives them a chance to learn the city while the groups recruiters size them up.

I watch him weave his way through the stalls that line the side of Jodia Bazar. He picks up part of a carburetor and turns it around in his hands. Something about the way he examines it makes me wonder whether maybe hes of the third varietyan aspiring arms broker who knows I work with Jakab, the Hungarian purveyor of all things Soviet surplus. Of course, theres always the underwhelming fourth possibility: hes a plain old would-be predator, eyeing a twenty-eight-year-old American girl traipsing through foreign streets alone. After all, theres Occams razor to consider. The simplest explanation is usually the right one.

Government or goon, any tail is cause to abort an operation. No sense meeting a source or picking up dropped documents with an audience in tow. Even harmless creeps can turn less harmless when they think theyve witnessed something worth telling. Luckily, Im not on my way to an operational act. Not until tomorrow. Today is pure reconnaissance.

Jakab told me the intersection of Abdullah Haroon and Sarwar Shaheed. That was all he knew, he said. He wasnt even supposed to know that. Hed probed his buyers for the info, under the guise of selling them the right bomb for the job. Hed need to understand the target, he told them, to be sure the material would be enough to register on a Geiger counter. Enough to win them the attention they sought.

When the next bus arrives, I board slowly and easily, as if Im not headed to check out the target of a potential nuclear terror attack. Mr. Ed climbs up top, to sit on the roof. I take a seat in the womens compartment. Outside, the afternoon is fading into gloaming and the motorbikes begin to turn on their lights. Theres time, amid the crush of evening traffic, to take in the buildings, most of them older than the country itself, monuments to a time when Pakistan and India were one, the plaything of colonists and kings. I feel the kinship of it, being a Yankee. The shrugging off of Englands yoke. I can picture the men and women around me tossing crates of tea into the ocean in their kameezes and shawls. We are rebel lands, they and us. If only all that rebellion didnt spill quite so much blood.

I can see the intersection emerge from the traffic and the donkey carts, up beyond the faded tarps, strung taut between buildings to lend shelter from the now-set sun. On one side is the National Bank of Pakistan, a reasonable guess at their objective, I suppose. After all, the mullahs cleared the twin towers as legitimate military targets, claiming that America kills Muslims as much by impoverishing the innocent as it does by tank treads on the ground. But the building doesnt feel right to me. Its concrete and uninspiring, postwar brutalism at its most scathingly bare. It doesnt exactly scream Western excess.

I wait until the driver slows and jump back into the dust of the city. Mr. Ed lands softly on the far side of the bus. I cross Abdullah Haroon Road slowly enough for him to follow, and then it dawns on me as I reach the other side. In front of me, set back slightly behind chained gates, is what looks to be a miniature castle, a tiny stone fortress amid the rickshaws and pigeons. Its the Karachi Press Club, the bastion of free speech and independent journalism, famed home to protest, debate, and the only bar serving alcohol in the country. Dollars to doughnuts, this is their target. Nothing like getting bombed to get you bombed in this town.