The heat and the crush of the people in the market square started to close in on him and Josh ducked down an alley, happy to trade the chaos and billowing smoke for shade and the smell of urine.      The thick walls of the buildings on either side deadened out the sound of the plaza and the increasing quiet seemed almost serene as he penetrated deeper. He was going to be alright. He’d just arrived in Africa. Had he ever thought this was going to be easy? That he was going to roll in here and turn an entire continent around over a long weekend?      He was too lost in thought to notice the footsteps coming up behind him until someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He managed to get an arm up and deflect the club before it connected with his head, but the force of the blow still knocked him back against the wall of the narrow alley.      There were two of them, both probably in their teens, and both shouting with the same unbridled fury that he’d seen in Gideon at the airport. Adrenaline quickly cleared his head and the instincts he’d developed in jail turned out to still be with him.      “Take it easy,” he said, trying to buy some time in a situation that he was already certain wasn’t going to end diplomatically. A quick glance in either direction confirmed that his attackers knew exactly what they were doing. There were no windows looking down on them and no doors to run for. To his left, the alley dead-ended in about thirty feet and they had blocked off any hope of an escape back to the plaza.      “You want my money? I don’t have much, but you’re welcome to it.” He began to reach for his pocket, but when he did, they charged. Josh focused on the one with the club, ducking just in time for it to pass over his head and strike the wall behind him with the sound of splintering wood. As it did, though, the other attacker’s foot slammed into his chest.      The bottom of his foot was hard from a life spent shoeless, but nowhere near as damaging as the boots favored by the people he’d occasionally tangled with in his youth. He managed to catch hold of the man’s foot and flip him onto his back in the dirt.      The path out of the alley was clear and he threw himself in that direction, stumbling when a hand slapped at his ankle.      He regained his balance quickly, but the split-second delay gave his other attacker time to catch him and his lower back took a hard shot from the club that hadn’t been as damaged as he’d hoped.      This time he wasn’t able to maintain his footing and he landed hard on his stomach, skidding across the dirt and slamming into the wall to his right. The sensation of a hand snatching the wallet from his back pocket prompted him to instinctively roll on his back and grab at the man’s wrist. The loss of a few dollars and his IDs, though, shrank to insignificance when he saw the club, almost entirely intact, arcing toward his skull.      Josh tried to release the man and use his hand to deflect the club, but he anticipated the move and clamped a sweating hand over Josh’s forearm.      The combination of being out in the sun all day, jet lag, and the disorientation of being so far from home, made it hard to comprehend exactly what was happening. It was simple, though. In less than a second, the club was going to land and he was going to die lying in an alley thousands of miles from home. For nothing. For a wallet containing barely enough money to buy a Big Mac and fries.      Josh closed his eyes and tensed, hearing the sound of an impact but not feeling anything. No pain, which he supposed was understandable, but also no disorientation or loss of consciousness. No blinding light surrounded by harp-playing angels.      The pressure around his forearm disappeared and he opened his eyes to discover that he wasn’t on his way to the afterlife and there were now four men in the alley—all fighting. The one with the club was on the ground and absorbed a kick to the head so vicious that Josh felt his own stomach roll over when it struck. The man who he’d knocked to the ground tried to run but quickly discovered that, just as he had planned, there was nowhere to go. He was now on all fours trying desperately to dislodge the man on his back before he could snake an arm fully around his throat.      There was something about the man on top that was familiar—the way he moved, the wiry power of his arms, the obsidian black of his skin. Josh’s mind was still struggling to fully realize that he was still alive and because of this it took a few seconds longer for him to realize that he actually knew one of his saviors.      The man beneath Tfmena Llengambi was much larger and younger, but so far he hadn’t been able to use that advantage to escape. One of his hands came off the ground and dipped into his waistband, reappearing a moment later with something that gleamed dully in the sunlight angling into the alley.      Adrenaline hit Josh again full force and he managed to get to his feet, sprinting the few yards to the struggling men and sliding across the dirt on his chest, to catch the man’s hand as it swung the knife toward Tfmena’s ribs.      It was the opening the older man had been looking for and he picked up a broken piece of concrete, bringing it down on the back of the man’s head with a sickening crunch. Josh released the now limp arm, pedaling his feet in front of him as he scooted away, Tfmena bringing the block down again and again until blood and brains mingled with the dirt.      And then it was silent again. Josh glanced back and saw that his other attacker wasn’t in much better condition, having become the victim of his own club, now in the hands of a twenty-something man wearing a Britney Spears concert T-shirt over a heaving chest.      Tfmena stood and held a steady hand out to help Josh to his feet. When it looked like Josh would be able to stand under his own power, Tfmena brushed the dust off him and gazed at him with a calm expression that seemed to contain just slightly less disdain than it had before.      Tfmena picked up Josh’s wallet and held it out to him, saying something in Yvimbo that was strangely easy to decipher. “Get out of here. This is none of your business anymore.”