Up close, the man didn't exactly look like he could pass for a tourist.  His clothes were too pressed, too nondescript; the shiny boots were only the most obvious indication of the uniformity.  He studied Jonas with intent dark eyes, his face schooled in the passive, unreadable expression so common to law enforcement.

"You want to go where?" he asked gruffly, with the short, clipped tone that was so common to Middle Eastern English.

Jonas flashed him another smile.  "Jaffa Gate," he said cheerfully.  "That's how you say it, innit?"  He sounded it out.  "Jaf-fa, like the biscuit?"

The man eyed him, his gaze shifting slowly over the red-haired Auror.  A second undercover officer had stopped just alongside him, studying Jonas with equal intent.  For a few seconds, Jonas had the distinct impression that he was being judged, that the two men were weighing him for threat potential and would decide his fate from there. 

But then the moment broke, and Shiny Boots grunted again.  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, vaguely indicating the direction of the Armenian Quarter and the ensuing exit from the Old City.  Jonas flashed him a appreciative grin, ready to open his mouth to thank him, when another sharp voice cut in from behind.

"But really, you can get a taxi out of Dung Gate."

Jonas kept his expression carefully pleasant, refraining from biting his tongue or even rolling his eyes at his partner's intrusion.  There was no way the two Yamas agents would take the interruption as innocent; they'd clearly been watching when the two Aurors had interacted only moments before.  Both of their gazes had snapped automatically to Adon, and they were staring at him with hard intent as he did his best impression of an unofficial Jerusalem tour guide.

But Adon was standing more stiffly than Jonas was used to seeing him -- his posture straight, his muscles tight, as if he were preparing for an attack.  His hand was hovering near his wand, and there was no mistaking the underlying urgency to his words.  A slight frown wavered briefly across Jonas's expression before he quickly schooled it away.

"Yeah, sure, I'd appreciate that.  Sorry to bother you lot!" he informed the other two men cheerfully, giving them an easy wave as he turned to follow Adon.

He kept his bad knee straight and stiff as he followed Adon across the square to the nearest exit, keeping himself from looking back.  A Bar Mitzvah party was just making their way inside through the security checkpoint; Jonas seized the opportunity as he dodged around a horn player and an elated grandmother to glance back over his shoulder.  The two Yamas officers had evidently lost interest in them and already faded into the crowd; he couldn't pick them out from the other faces milling in front of the Western Wall.

Judging by Adon's jumpiness, chances were good that he should be bracing for an explosion.  Jonas waited until they'd made it through the exit, with Adon purposely leading the way toward what he assumed was Dung Gate, before he broke the peace.

"So," he remarked in a pleasantly even voice, glancing sidelong at his partner to take his measure.  Still tensely on edge.  It was a shame, especially considering how relaxed and happy Adon had been that morning. "You want to let me know what I missed, then?  Because I'm still not sure why we're racing away like the Western Wall is burning down behind us, Adon."

"I was wrong," he said stiffly as they passed briskly through the security point.  Once they had crossed to the other side of the street, he glanced back.  "They were not Yamas." At least not one of them--he could pick out that face, from a swirl of fire and a recollection of memories turned to ash.

Being scared, being angry--none of those were options right now, because there were too many other things to do, and emotions seemed an indulgence he couldn't quite afford.

Find Yon.  Make sure he and the group--who were clearly seen with him--are set up safely.  Contact Dreogan.  Contact the Auror's office.  Make inquiries to place a name to that face.  Get a tail on that man, if he could.  The next order of business was to put a fair distance between himself and the Old City for the evening.  If he got all of these done in a reasonable amount of time--a prospect nigh Herculean--the next one could be procuring a bottle of arak and then worrying about the simmering emotions, about to reach a boil.

The Western Wall wasn't burning, but Jonas' words were enough to bring to mind the incident already in Adon's mind--of the time he'd set the Old City burning, with that face looking on.

Spotting a tour bus parked down the hill, with a group of IDF huddled around, Adon headed directly over.  Walking beside Jonas, pushed his hands solidly into his pockets, feeling his knuckle brush against the rough edge of the shattered evil eye amulet as he did so. "I will explain more later--we should get Yon's group on their way."

Most times, Jonas was prepared to follow his partner's lead.  But now, he had stopped short.  His wand still in hand, he gave the younger man a hard look.  Adon had been jumpier than usual lately -- but then, he realized, he didn't have much other than 'lately' to compare it to.  He'd only met the other Auror last December, barely six months before, and for as long as he'd known Adon, the Israeli had had the ominous threat of his own doom hanging over his head like a giant sword waiting to fall.  For all he knew, jumpy was normal.

But the half-answers, the decisions made quickly without explanation -- he wasn't having it.

"No," he said.  The word wasn't a confrontation, even if it might turn into one.  He gave Adon a quizzical, searching look.  The younger man might have the advantage when it came to matters Israeli, but his judgement on anything that might involve his predicted death was not going to be calm and unbiased.

"Give me more than that," he urged quietly, glancing back over his shoulder toward the security barrier.  The guards there were laughing and talking, clearly not on edge.  "If that's someone that you think is dangerous," -- if it wasn't just Adon being jumpy and paranoid because they were in the city where he was fated to die -- "then we need to get eyes on them now.  We have a job beyond just keeping your mate safe, Adon."

Adon pressed his lips together in a tight line as he exhaled.  It was hard in times like this to feel like he wasn't being managed. Because he was being managed.  And while Adon would admit rather hesitantly that it usually turned out for the best that way, and no matter how much he liked Jonas, it was no easier to willingly go along with.  He gave a unhappy, soft growl, breaking eye contact from Jonas in frustration, eyes back on Yon's tour bus.

He frowned.  "If they're mages, Jon, they can Apparate right out of here.  It's too late for us to tail them, if they don't want to be followed."

In fact, in the time that it took for Adon to explain this, reach a consensus, and they mobilized--it would be too late.  That's why one didn't ask questions in the midst of a manouvre.  He gave another frustrated sigh, shifting slightly as he followed Jonas' glance back to the laughing IDF.  No, not them.  He wasn't some... damn paranoid.... there were good reasons for the conclusions he'd made--

Adon felt they were right back where they'd been a half a year ago.  With Jonas just not seeing, and with him, left stuck explaining when there was no goddamned time  for these things:

" We make decisions together," he'd snarled at Adon.  "That's what partners do.  Now you can bloody well start talking and tell me whatever the hell I need to know so that none of us end up dead, or you can get the hell out and start goddamned walking."

He took a clipped, preparatory breath.

"I don't know about the one who you talked to. But the one who came up--the one who had been watching us--I've seen him before."  No room for equivocation--Jonas might not take him seriously, otherwise, and he'd either have to abandon this effort or try to drag or explain Jonas through the motions, skeptical heels dragging.

"From the group that attacked Dree in 2004."

He shook his head bitterly.  He couldn't think of many jobs more important than keeping Yon--than keeping his friends, especially his most vulnerable ones--safe. Yon was Muggle. Clueless and defenceless, and if they felt in a mood to harry Adon--it would not be very difficult.  The association between them had been clear. "Now please," he growled, "let's just get Yon on his way, and we can go back and look, can even go to the Damn Ministry if we need to. But I don't want him here."

Jonas regarded the younger man seriously, his forehead creasing.  Adon was clearly upset, which meant he wasn't going to be able to think this through properly -- he'd gone straight into bear mode, with the same ominous growls as his patronus.  By now, Jonas knew his partner well enough to realize when he was worrying.  When something scared Adon -- really scared him, like this or the incident with the Runespoor serpent in Aileen Reid's house -- his priority quickly became protecting the people he cared about at all costs.

It wasn't the call that Jonas wanted to make.  If that was really a member of Topuluk or Cemeyeti or whatever unpronounceable Turkish word they wanted to call themselves this week back there, it was the first solid sign that anyone had seen of the group in years.  The thought of a potential magical terrorist lurking close to the Western Wall made a chill run down his back.  They didn't need some bloody idiot to suddenly start firing off spells in the middle of the biggest political hotspot on the planet.

As Aurors, their priority was protecting the public at large.  But Adon's priorities...were slightly skewed at the moment, and he was not going to listen to reason until he'd dealt with them.  And skewed as it might be, Jonas's main priority -- the reason he'd come along on this escapade, after all -- was protecting Adon.

The red-haired Auror sighed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.  They could discuss this later.  Straightening up, he gave a brief nod and clapped a hand to his partner's back, matching his step as he started toward the bus once more.

"Let's be quick, yeah?  I'm going to duck out of sight behind the bus to send off a patronus to the Ministry."  One of the advantages to having a bird as his protector -- once a Cornish chough, now a falcon -- was that it could stay relatively out of sight in the skies, not like Adon's lumbering silver bear.  "You get 'em moving, and then we'll both go back to check it out.  Alright, A?"

Adon knocked on the side of the bus, causing Yon to swivel around and hang his head out the door.  "Going back to order another felafel," he informed, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Dung Gate.

Yon frowned, eyes shifting to Jonas, just behind him. "I'm sure there is felafel at Makeneh Yehu--"

"I'll give you a call when we're done, yeh? Mobiles," he said, finger-pantomiming a cellphone in his left hand.  He gave a wink to silence Yon's second attempt at reason and, knocking on the side of the bus again, motioned for the bus driver to roll forward.

"May want to tuck your head in, Yon.  The girls'd cry if you lost it.."

Hand still on the stair rail of the bus, Yon narrowed his eyes but said nothing.  After a moment, he turned to nod to the driver and mounted the steps. The engine started with a low rumble, the door swung shut, and Yon disappeared somewhere towards the back, from the slight movement that could be discerned through the tinted windows.

"He didn't like that," Adon remarked drily, as he watched the bus roll away. "I'm sure I'll hear about that later."  Turning to Jonas, he gave an exhausted sigh--realizing that he'd likely hear about "that" from his partner later, too.  But they could fuss all they wanted.  As the bus descended the hill without incident, Adon felt some of the tension between his shoulderblades release.  The situation was already going to get him a disapproving sermon--or a series of disapproving looks, if Jonas was not verbally-inclined, so he might as well have a little bit of fun with it.

"Come on," he said with a tight smile, beginning the walk back to the Wall.  "I will teach you the Hebrew for 'I'm going to kick your ass.'"