Rotten Gods by Greg Barron

lightly soiled one from his bag, losing some travel sweat in the process. Finally he combs his hair, pins his BA identification card to his top pocket and walks towards the security gate where other visitors have queued up to display their documentation.
    Simon feels the first trepidation at what he is about to do, opening his passport with its flight crew stamp. A pair of dark eyes fix on his, and he wonders if he is about to be questioned, but then he is through and there is no shout behind him. Hepasses on, pleased that bluff is still possible in a world of suspicion, body scans and iris readers.
    At first he is content to wander the concourse, aware of the obvious differences between this airport and the showpiece at Dubai  — this is older, more workmanlike than ostentatious. Aden, he decides, is a perfect place to abduct the children of a high-ranking official — one not so important as to attract her own security detail, but senior enough to serve their purposes.
    Workers and travellers pass by in twos and threes, talking loudly as is common in the local culture. The bulk of the speech is in Gulf Arabic or, occasionally, Farsi. Simon has a working knowledge of both, gleaned over years of travel, and dealing often with staff from Middle Eastern airports. He deciphers what he can. Snippets, statements, questions, the clutter of everyday life.
    â€˜No, that is not the way to lift a box, let me show you …’
    A man in a long, white thoub says to the man beside him, ‘When I am finished this evening I will go to al-Rayyan restaurant in Crater, with my brothers, if it pleases God …’
    â€˜I and my sons will go to the cinema …’
    Simon remembers his and Isabella’s visit to the open air cinema here, years earlier on their long honeymoon, travelling virtually free by nature of his profession. Back then he was the established wage earner and she fresh out of university, starting with the FCO as an administrative assistant.
    The women he sees, almost without exception, wear the niqab face covering, along with an abaya robe to the ankles, sometimes studded with beads or tiny faux diamonds, or worn with sunglasses and discreet jewellery.
    These women live in one of the most gender divided societies on earth — where even in a court of law the testimony of twowomen is required to equal that of one man  — yet Simon has discovered, over the years, that these women are not as timid or powerless as Westerners might believe. Now and then one will turn her eyes brazenly on him as he passes, while he is simultaneously trying to avoid looking at them. Just for an instant, dark eyes swing towards him, promise unimaginable delights, then turn away demurely as if it had never happened, and by then they are gone down the concourse.
    As he passes through the main corridor, Simon continues to scan. Workers on breaks chew qat — the narcotic leaf popular in the region  — noticeable via one bulging cheek. Though Simon should be tired, he feels distraught but energised  — every sense wide and receptive, soaking up each nuance, not ceasing to explore until he reaches the main doors, walking outside to look at the taxis: dusty Toyotas, Fiats, Renaults and Nissans competing for space with elongated white buses with Arabic lettering on the sides. He inhales the night air, stares out towards the lights of a city as foreign as any on earth, with jagged hills as a backdrop.
    Simon has to fight a sense of despair. Once the children and their abductors left this airport they could have gone anywhere in the Middle East or Africa without trace. The Western mania for record keeping, Simon knows, is not de rigueur here. There will be few, if any, clues to their whereabouts. He has just one lead and this is it. With that thought he turns and walks back inside the building.
    Day 1, 21:30
    Marika’s eyelids are rimmed with red, and if she allows herself the luxury