Mac McGuire has once again fled friends, family and other entanglements for a new life, this time in his old stomping grounds of Marrakech. One of his Moroccan buddies from an overseas construction job has a family business, a riyadh style hotel deep in Marrakech’s main souk, giving Mac a chance to lay low from his infamous past and start again, again.

Mac thinks he’s given his old life the slip, but the shady Mr. Burke knows who to call when he needs some discrete work done in Africa.

Something new from, She Might Be In Tangier

I didn’t pause after my attack but charged down the steps, hitting the landing at the same time as my victim. His head made a rewarding splat when it contacted the stone tiles, somewhere between rotten melon and carton of eggs. I would have kicked him around a bit if I had the time, but I needed to clear the area before his mates were on me. It was probably unnecessary; the guy looked dead as shit when I blew by him and into the darkening streets.

Exiting the restaurant, I quickly turned left, away from the main square, and deliberately slowed my pace, willing myself to blend in with the Friday night tide.

“Walk, don’t run,” was what they always said in SERE school where I’d learned the hard way about getting caught.

Every student gets caught at Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school, but I’d done pretty well. Rumor had it that the better you did at evasion, the harder you were leaned on in the resistance phase. I’m not ashamed to say I almost broke like everyone else after I was caught.

There’d been a burst of shouting in my wake as I fled the bar, but it dimmed with every step away. I walked my rehearsed route calmly, counting my turns. I was pleased when, as practiced, I hit the alley where the man cooked merguez sausages over a charcoal fire. I motioned for two sandwiches and paid with a worn 50-dirham note. Taking advantage of one of the stand’s cheap, plastic stools, I gnawed sandwiches and watched back down the alley to where it crossed the road. No cops went by, and better yet, no enraged ex-soldiers out for blood.

Your working boy on the roof of the fictional Terrace Anglais, Marrakech.