"Hey, Pol, wake up," Lyons said to his partner.

"I'm awake. I'll stay down until we're moving. You see him?"

In the back seat, Blancanales turned on a VHF receiver-recorder unit. The radio received the transmissions from the miniature microphones placed by Gadgets and recorded the monitored conversations.

"No problem," Lyons told him. "We'll watch him for a while. Watch and listen. Got anything yet?"

Blancanales turned up the volume of the monitor. The tiny speaker issued static and the sounds of distant voices and a clanging metal gate. Footsteps echoed in a garage.

"But we cannot take him," Pierre protested. "One way, other way, the girl is a problem. A witness. It would be better if no one knew."

"We have time," Blancanales answered. "The Agency wants information. We'll get some."

"Then we'll get the man," Lyons added.

They heard distinct voices and footsteps. As they listened, car doors opened and closed. Then they heard the voice of the agent.

"...understand, it's not that I don't trust you, mademoiselle, it's just that I don't know what to expect. So pardon me if I take a little look-see around his place before we go waltzing in."

"That's your prerogative."

As the car's engine started, as the voices continued, Lyons turned to Blancanales. "I've heard that voice before! This Powell guy, you think — remember that Marine out at Twenty-Nine Palms that time? The captain who spoke all those languages? Reminds me of him."

"There was nothing in the background dossier about that," Blancanales said.

Lyons listened to the agent making conversation with the woman. "Wow, maybe it is. And I thought that Marine was a stand-up fellow."

A battered black Mercedes left the apartment building's underground garage. Pierre waited a few seconds, then started the engine and put the taxi in gear. As he followed the Mercedes, he glanced to the two Americans and said, "Yes, this Powell was a Marine. Before he worked for the CIA. Before he betrayed us and joined the Communists. Very strange, isn't it?"

Lyons and Blancanales exchanged glances. After a moment Lyons finally agreed. "Yeah, strange."

"Who is it we're going to meet?" Powell asked her as they drove through the cold gray streets. "How 'bout breaking down and telling me his name?"

"I will introduce you when you meet."

On the boulevards, they had finally encountered traffic. An hour of quiet had persuaded the citizens of Beirut to brave the streets. Now, bumper-to-bumper lines of Mercedes sedans, Fiats and rusting Cadillacs wove through the rubble of collapsed buildings. Hulks of burned cars and trucks lined streets devastated by shellfire. At an intersection Powell wove his Mercedes through a jam of ambulances, medics and work crews digging through a pile of broken concrete that had been an apartment house.

Powell glanced out his window and laughed. He pointed. "There's someone who's taking their share of the spoils."

"What?" Desmarais asked. She couldn't see what he meant.

"That dog... there!" Powell pointed in front of the car. "Think I could get rich, marketing that brand of dog food? Export Beirut's number-one product."

The young woman leaned forward. Finally she saw, and gasped.

A dog ran through the traffic with an arm in its teeth. Severed below the elbow, the hand and forearm trailed a ragged strip of skin and tendons. The hand still had rings and nail polish.

"Take a picture!" Powell told her. She turned away. Powell leaned across the seat and grabbed her Nikon. "Come on, take one! That'll look great on a front page. 'Beirut Goes to the Dogs, Piece by Piece.' "

A Kalashnikov popped. As Powell idled past, a militiaman kicked the dead dog. He picked up the arm and stripped off the rings, then dropped the arm beside the dog.

"So what do you think of Beirut, Mademoiselle Desmarais?" Powell joked.

"Are you proud, American? Do you not feel even the slightest shame for what your country has done to the Lebanese? The rape of their country, their traditions? You and your Israeli friends?"

"Bitch! Shut up! I read history books. All this started a long time before there was even a U.S. of A. Before Columbus. Before..."

"Oh, you can read?"

Turning onto a side street, Powell slowed for a moment as he buttoned his overcoat to conceal his uniform, then he accelerated. After two more turns, he snaked through an unmanned roadblock of oil drums and sandbags. He stopped at a second roadblock and rolled down his window.

Militiamen in mismatched uniforms and weapons approached the Mercedes. As one watched the interior of the car, another took the plastic-sealed pass Powell offered. Other militiamen — teenagers in jeans and leather coats and stained Lebanese army coats — stood back several steps, casually gripping their Kalashnikov and M-16 rifles.

A Shia officer who knew Powell waved and called out in Arabic. Powell ignored his friend's greeting. Confused, the officer leaned down to look at the face of the bearded, shaggy-haired American.

Powell spoke loudly. "Don't want no problems, Commander. Just taking my girlfriend on a tour of the Casbah."

A militiaman translated for the officer. Understanding, the Shia grinned and nodded. He said in broken English, "Very good, sir. Very good. Have good day. Hello."

Powell accelerated away.

As the taxi slowed to a stop at the roadblock, Lyons watched the Mercedes disappear around a corner. The voices of Powell and the woman faded as Blancanales turned down the monitor volume and covered the receiver-recorder with a camera-equipment case. Militiamen surrounded the car and looked inside.

"Journalists," the Phalangist driver called out.

The officer pointed at the taxi driver and gave him an order in Arabic. The driver waved his pass. Militiamen jerked open the door and dragged out the driver.

An AK muzzle tapped Lyons's window. A militiaman shouted, "Out! Get out!"

Explosions blasted away the shouts. Militiamen ran for cover, but the officer and two men still held the driver. American dollars appeared in the taxi driver's hand. Waving the money, he stood up. The officer returned the pass and took the handful of twenties. The three men waved the driver on, then coolly walked to the shelter of their sandbag emplacement.

As bits of concrete rained down, Pierre threw the taxi into gear and sped away, skidding around a corner, then weaving wildly through pedestrians running for cover. Lyons could not see the Mercedes, but Powell's voice returned as Blancanales turned up the receiver.

"Sounds like one-twenty mortars. Maybe two gangs banging at each other — hear that? That's the tube pop, but if they're the ones targeting the Green Line, they're firing way, way short. If they're trying to kill Christians. But then again, maybe it's Muslims fighting Muslims. Who knows?"

The woman's voice answered. "A profound analysis, Mr. Powell."

Blancanales switched on another receiver. An electronic tone wavered.

"What is that?" the taxi driver asked.

"It's the signal from a directional transmitter. Follow it and you'll find our man."

"You Americans!" the Lebanese marveled. "You have everything. Very modern. That is why your country is so rich. We want to be just like you."

Lyons looked around to the devastated streets, at the civilians cowering in doorways, at the militiamen waving rifles and RPG launchers. A Japanese pickup truck fitted with a Soviet 12.7mm heavy machine gun sped past. Weathered posters of Khomeini fluttered on the doors.

Lyons turned to the Lebanese taxi driver. "I think there's more to it than gizmos."

"Very modern and Christian. The world's most powerful nation. United by faith in Our Lord and Savior. When we liquidate all these filthy Mohammedans, we will also have modern nation, then we can prosper as the Lord intended for his Faithful..."