"Hey! Quiet!" Blancanales interrupted the discussion of culture and economics. "She's giving him directions..."

Speeding past the address, Powell scanned the rooflines and windows. He continued to the next street and wheeled a quick right, then a left. He went around the block and approached the tenement from the opposite direction. One block short, he slowed to a stop. Again he scanned the rooftops and windows and doorways for an ambush.

"Why would I lead you into a trap?" Desmarais demanded.

"To get me wasted."

In the distance, the mortar exchange continued against a background of hammering heavy automatic weapons. Sirens screamed through the center of the city. But on this street, only a few blocks from the squalor of the Sabra refugee camp, workers went to their jobs. Shopkeepers stood in their doorways listening to the outbreak of fighting a few kilometers away. Then they resumed placing their furniture and cloth and dishes in sidewalk displays. Other vendors continued putting out baskets of fruit and vegetables. Powell saw nothing indicating a trap.

"An ambush is not my purpose. I want your story, not your death."

"But wouldn't that be a story?"

"Why would your death be a story? You are nothing."

Powell looked at the young woman and laughed. "Out. You're coming with me. What happens to me, happens to you."

Taking his short Galil autorifle from the floor, he set it on the roof. He pulled off his coat, then buckled on a bandolier of ammunition and grenades. Now he looked no different than the Shia soldiers who had checked his pass at the roadblock. Desmarais raised her camera to photograph him.

"No!" He blocked the lens with his hands. He grabbed her sleeve and dragged her toward the tenement.

"But why not?" she protested.

"Don't you know American law? If an American citizen carries a rifle in a foreign army, he could lose his citizenship."

"But you are already breaking the law. You are a deserter from the Marines."

"Correction. I am AWOL. But that's only the brig. That's only a dishonorable discharge. If I get popped under the Neutrality Law, I can't go home."

"But still you serve with the militia. Why? What is the true reason?"

"Because..." Powell began as he watched every doorway. He stumbled over broken asphalt as his eyes looked everywhere — the windows, the balconies, the rooflines. Despite the cold, he felt the pistol grip of his Galil become slimy with his sweat. "Because I like the guys I'm with. They talk different, they act different, they eat different food, their Sunday is on Saturday, but you know, they're just like my people back home. Don't matter what the facts are, what's important is what it says in the Bible. 'Cept for them, it's the Koran."

"Interesting. I have never heard an American say anything like that. If you will give back my recorder, perhaps I'll interview you. There, that is the man's door."

"You don't want an interview with me, I'm nothing."

Powell glanced into a delivery van parked at the curb. He saw no one inside. He let the woman step into the stairwell first. Then he snapped a glance inside. Pausing on the stairs, she looked back at him.

"This is not a trap."

"We'll find out. Go on up to his door. Take a look."

She ran up the stairs. Powell stood in the doorway watching the street, watching her, listening. A musty smell, combined with the aroma of cooking food came to him. He heard her knock on a door and then call out in French.

"Je suis ici, Oshakkar. Avec I'autre Ame'ricain!" No answer. She called out again. "Oshakkar!"

A door squeaked. Boots rushed across concrete. Even as the woman screamed, Powell took two strides across the sidewalk and went low behind the bumper of the parked delivery van. He scanned the street, saw no one.

He heard men rushing down the stairs. In a squat, Powell pivoted and pointed his Galil at the doorway and the delivery van's back door flew open. He tried to block the door, felt the sheet-steel corner of the door gouge his left hand, then the door smashed into the side of his head and he went down.

Powell saw a blur of motion above him and boots jumped on his chest. He tried to point the short Galil, but a boot kicked it as he pulled the trigger, spraying a wild burst of high-velocity 5.56mm slugs whining off stones as the boot kicked again and other hands grabbed the rifle. Powell pulled the trigger again, emptying the 30-round magazine, then lashed out with the rifle, felt it hit. He released it and rolled away, coming up with his Colt Government Model.

Flat on his back in the street, he snap fired .45 ACP hardball into rushing forms, saw men go down. An AK muzzle flashed. ComBloc slugs tearing past his head, he fired, and a full-auto burst went wild, the muzzle sweeping in a circle as the gunner spun, slugs hammering steel, punching through other men. Powell scrambled for his own rifle.

Steel slammed the back of his head.

As the taxi coasted around the corner, bursts of autofire tore the street's quiet. Lyons saw passersby and vendors rushing for cover. Then he saw Powell, bearded, long-haired, roll backward on the asphalt. One militiaman kicked at the rifle in the ex-Marine's hands while another militiaman tried to twist the rifle away.

Lyons snatched his Konzak assault shotgun from the floor. Jerking back the cocking handle, he slid out the telescoping stock.

The taxi screeched to a stop, Pierre standing on the brakes, then he jammed the shift into reverse. The tires screamed and smoked as the cab hurtled backward.

"What are you doing?"

"Your work is done!" Pierre answered as he whipped the taxi through a circle and shifted again. "Those are Iranian Revolutionary Guards! They will kill him."

"Stop!" Lyons shouted, putting the 14-inch 'Urban Environment' barrel to the taxi driver's head. "Go back! He's an American. No one's..."

Staring into the 12-gauge muzzle of the Konzak, not watching the street, Pierre accelerated into a light pole. Steel screamed as the pole folded. The taxi went up the inclined pole, then fell as the pole broke. Spitting blood, Pierre pushed aside the muzzle of the Konzak autoshotgun and tried to aim a pistol at Lyons.

Blancanales threw an arm around the Phalangist's neck and jerked him back. Lyons grabbed the pistol. As Pierre clawed at the arm choking him, Lyons took two plastic loops from the pocket of his sports coat — disposable riot cuffs intended for Powell — and tried to cinch the taxi driver's hands together. Pierre clawed at Lyons's eyes. Lyons drove a fist into his gut. Pierre convulsed and in seconds, Lyons had the driver's hands linked together. Then he secured the man's hands to the steering wheel with the second riot cuff. Lyons jerked the keys from the ignition and ran from the taxi.

Sprinting past the corner and across the street, Lyons took cover in a fruit seller's doorway. He looked diagonally across the street to see Powell, on his hands and knees crabbing for his rifle. A militiaman in the uniform of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard brought down the steel butt of a folding-stock Kalashnikov on the back of the American's head.

Selective-fire Konzak gripped in his hands, Lyons charged the scene. Two Iranian militiamen lifted Powell. The ex-Marine slashed at their hands with a knife and they dropped him again. As the third Iranian swung his Kalashnikov like a club, trying to beat the struggling American into submission, a scream of rage turned them to face their doom.

"Die!" Lyons shouted, and he fired a wild scythe of full-auto 12-gauge, a storm of double O and Number Two steel rippilig through the three standing

Iranian militiamen, arms flailing backward, bones shattering, steel balls punching through ribs and lungs and hearts, skulls disintegrating in a splash of blood and brains and tissue; the Iranians were corpses before impact threw them back.