...the strange old lady who approached me.

As I was waiting in line for the "security personnel"--half-witted thugs who obviously didn't know the first thing about security--to let us past, I felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned around, expecting to see Mischief back there, as she had been behind me a moment before, but I found myself looking into the face of an old woman.

She had weathered dark skin, appearing to me to be a native of El Zanzibar, with their distinctive full lips and green eyes. I would have put her age at maybe eighty if we had been in the States, but poor country people tend to age more quickly than rich country people, I've found, so it was hard to say. But she suddenly grinned at me, and showed a perfect set of white teeth, which made me doubt my initial assessment, since good dentistry is also pretty rare in the Third World.

"I'm both older and younger than you may think, Miss Doe," said the old woman.

"What?" I said. "You must have me mistaken for somebody else." When attempting to enter a foreign country for purposes of stealing something from the leader of that country, I tend to try and keep my true name to myself. The whole team, in fact, was traveling under aliases. I knew from experience that our passports and other identity papers were flawless, and I was sure no one had used her real name on the flight.

"As you wish," said the old woman. "Names are meaningless, after all. But hear this. Turn back, before it is too late. The treasures of Sappho demand a price of their own, which you may not desire to pay."

I turned my head at a loud snap from up front, as one of the brutish "policemen" urged more speed from the line. When I turned back, I was looking at Mischief. The old woman was gone!

Mischief saw me looking around, and raised an eyebrow. "Lose something?" she said.

"Where did she go?"

"The others are in back. See?"

"Not them. The old woman."

"Old woman?"

I realized that there was nowhere that the old woman could have gone. Even if she had run, I'd only turned for a second, and there was no exit in reach. Something strange had just happened. It was just then I realized that I had been speculating about the old woman's age when she commented that she was "older and younger" than I thought. Had she known what I was thinking? I could almost feel the hair on my neck rise. Just like a cat...