But soon he would pack his suitcase with the polyester slacks and quayaberaspopular in Nicaragua.

"Our weapons shall rain fire from the sky!" Rouhani shouted. "The unbelievers will find no shelter from their doom. On that day the earth will be changed into a new earth and the heavens into new heavens, mankind shall stand before Allah, the One, the Almighty. On that day you shall see the guilty in chains, their garments black with filth, and their heads in flames..."

"The wrath of Allah!" the crowd shouted.

"This is a warning to the unbelievers! Our weapons shall fall from the heavens, our weapons shall be the rain of doom. Let the unbelievers take heed, the hour of doom comes!"

Americans and Iranians, two nations of fools! Colonel Dastgerdi laughed out loud as he strode through the falling snow. The American fools, desperate for profits, sold high-technology to their enemies. From electronic components manufactured in California, Dastgerdi had fabricated the rocket guidance system he tested today.

And the Iranians! Crazed with fanaticism and death wish, led by degenerates like Khomeini and Rouhani, they attacked the decadent and doubt-paralyzed United States at every opportunity, seizing diplomats, bombing embassies, murdering hundreds of U.S. Marines. When the Americans did not respond with devastating counterstrikes, the Iranians declared yet another victory over the Great Satan.

But even the Americans would not allow the murder of their President to pass without revenge.

Dastgerdi knew the future. After the assassination of the President of the United States by Iranian rockets, the rush of events would condemn Iran to destruction and the Middle East to chaos.

And the Soviet empire would capture one more nation.

Sitting low in the back seat of the armored Mercedes, Powell waited for the mosque to empty. He held his Galil SAR ready in his hands, a round in the chamber, his thumb on the safety.

Rain drummed on the Mercedes. Powell watched the street, his eyes always moving, searching the doorways and shadows for sudden movement. A hundred meters away, where the street ended at a boulevard, the kerosene lanterns of a cafe threw yellow light into the darkness. American rock 'n' roll came from the cafe's jukebox. Two teenage militiamen stood in the cafe's entry, joking and laughing, their Kalashnikov rifles in their hands. On the rain-glistening asphalt, the long shadows of the militiamen twisted and jumped as the teenagers shifted on their feet, unconsciously moving to the rhythm of the American music.

Of the shops on the street, only the cafe remained open. The others had closed for the evening prayers. From time to time, Powell scanned the upper floors of the buildings. On one side of the street, firelight flickered in the apartments as women cooked. But on the other side, above the second floor, he saw nothing. Israeli air strikes and Phalangist artillery had shattered the apartments and workshops of the upper floors, leaving only broken concrete.

An old woman with an umbrella and a shopping bag came around the corner. Struggling with the weight of the bag's contents, she carried the parcel for a few steps at a time, then rested, then walked a few more steps. The militiamen stopped joking. They watched the old woman. One teenager ran through the rain to the woman. She turned and started at the sight of the armed man rushing at her.

The teenager greeted her in Arabic. With his right hand draped over his Kalashnikov to steady the rifle, he took the shopping bag with his left. She released the bag and staggered back. The boy spoke quickly to her. His friend's laughter rang out in the narrow street. The old woman pointed her umbrella at a doorway past the Mercedes. The militia teenager accompanied her to her door.

Powell watched them. A young girl opened the door, the oval of her face pale amber in the glow of a flashlight she held. The teenager gave the bag to the girl, then he started back to the cafe.

As he passed the cars parked in front of the mosque, the teenager glanced inside. He looked into the Mercedes and saw Powell slouched in the back seat. Taking a flashlight from his military web gear, the teenager shone the light inside.

Like the teenager, Powell wore the fatigues and equipment of the Shia Amal militia. His beard and shaggy hair covered his narrow Texan features. Taking his hand off the grip of his Galil, Powell tapped the window where he had taped up a photo of Imam Moussa al Sadr, the spiritual leader of the Shias.

The teenager nodded and returned to his post at the cafe.

Men came from the mosque. Some crossed the street to their shops and apartments. Others went to the cars. Akbar and Hussain — Powell's Shia operatives — returned to the Mercedes. Hussain strapped on his pistol belt before getting into the car.

"Ready to go," Akbar said in his idiomatic Californian English.

"Don't sweat it," Powell told him. He checked his watch. "We got time."

As Akbar drove through the devastation of West Beirut, he turned to his American friend. "Why don't you come in for prayers?"

Powell answered in Arabic. "The mosque? It would be disrespectful."

"To pray?" Akbar also switched to Arabic. "To seek the mercy and guidance of God is not disrespectful."

Powell paraphrased a verse from the Koran, "Leave me in my error until death overtakes me."

Laughing, Akbar returned to American slang. "But you're no pig-eating Christian dog. You're a righteous dude. I want to save your soul. I want you in the family. But if I don't convert you, I can't set you up with my sister. My old man'd have a shit-fit."

"What mercy would my prayers bring?" Powell continued in Arabic. "Would the prayers of a foreigner stop the killing and the suffering? Could I find understanding of all the horror in prayers?"

"Texan, you're cool, you understand," Akbar jived. But sadness touched his voice for a moment. "You're on our side, so you know."

"I'm not on your side," Powell told the Shia in English. "I'm on my side."

Hussain interrupted with a quotation, "He who fights for Allah's cause fights for himself..."

Powell finished the quote with the next line of Arabic verse. "Allah does not need His creatures' help."

The walkie-talkie buzzed. The voice of Powell's superior came from the tiny speaker. "Calling car three. Report."

Without speaking, Powell clicked the transmit key twice. "That Clayton is so stupid — let's quit the religious talk. We got work to do."

"Yeah, man," Akbar agreed. "Noble deeds."

"A noble deed would be to retire Clayton. That jerk gives the Agency a bad name. Calling for car three! That could get us wasted."

The walkie-talkie buzzed again. "Car three! Report!"

Akbar turned on the citizens-band radio mounted under the dash. Spinning the knob to a channel, he spoke quickly in Arabic, French and English code words. He got a quick answer. "They're parked where they said they would be. I guess the Libyans haven't shown yet."

"Drive up so I can talk to that shit."

After another block, Akbar left the boulevard for a side street. Shattered concrete littered the street. A falling building had crushed a truck. Akbar guided the Mercedes past a line of burned-out cars. He turned two corners. Flashing his high beams twice, he stopped beside a parked panel truck. Powell rolled down his window as his superior made an angry demand.

"Why didn't you answer?"

"Because I want to live! Don't you think there are other radios in the city with our frequency?"

"There's no problem, Powell. We change the frequencies every few days."

"You absolutely positive no one's got our frequency?"

"Absolutely." A balding middle-aged man, Ronald Clayton headed a Central Intelligence Agency surveillance unit assigned to watch the terrorist forces operating in Beirut. An informer had brought Clayton information on a meeting between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and a Libyan diplomat. Tonight they would follow the diplomat to the meeting place and attempt to identify the leader of the Iranian group.