Chapter 9
Desert stretched out under Daniel’s feet: dusty, harsh, tawny gold. The undulating voice of a muezzin sounded from a minaret. Buildings with thick walls, thin ceilings, and fluttering washlines stood off in the distance. Men with loose clothing watched him curiously from under thick brows.
Already parched, Daniel’s mouth grew dryer when a man in military uniform came out from the shadows. Daniel couldn’t make out his face. Behind the man, on a leash and with a bright red leather collar about its neck, padded an enormous tiger with mismatched eyes: the right as pale blue as the desert sky, the left as brown as his Roma mother’s hair.
The man came up to him, and Daniel realized that the well-armed soldier had no face, just a smile. A solid fist held the leash’s handle out to him
