"Bahjat! What is it?"
"I am on fire!" Bahjat howled, his rifle clattering to the cratered pavement. "Help me. My arms are burning!"
The others looked. They saw no fire. But then vague blue flames, like a faintly luminous gas, ran down their comrade's arms. His arms browned delicately, then blackened. Bahjat screeched and twisted onto the ground, trying to put the flames out. They would not go out. The others fell to his assistance, but when the first man touched him, he jumped back, staring stupidly at his hands.
Spiders spilled out of his palms as if from a hole in a dead tree. They were large and hairy, with eight reddish eyes each. They scrambled up his arms and swarmed over his face.
"Help me, help me!"
But no help came. The others were busy, each with their own nightmare. One man felt his tongue swell in his mouth, forcing his jaws apart until the hinge muscle strained beyond endurance. He could not breathe. The pain was excruciating. In despair he fell on a dropped grenade launcher and, bringing the warhead to his face, triggered it with the toe of his boot. The explosion obliterated him from the chest up and killed others who were nearby.
Another man thought his legs had become pythons. He slashed off their heads and laughed triumphantly even as he fell to the street, blood pumping from the stumps of his ankles until there was no fluid left in his entire body.
Jalid saw it all. He saw, too, as if in a dream, an old enemy facing him. It was a man he had killed over a gambling dispute years ago. The man was dead. But here he was again, coming at him with his knife held low for a quick disemboweling thrust.
Jalid shot the man to pieces with his rifle. Standing over the man's quivering body, he laughed triumphantly. But the figure shimmered, revealing a face obscured by a twisted kaffiyeh. Jalid undid the kaffiyeh and beheld the face of his younger brother, Fawaz. He sank to his knees beside the boy, tears starting from both eyes.
"I'm sorry, Fawaz, my brother. I'm sorry," he repeated dully.
"Stand up, Jalid," said the white man with the electric-blue eyes. "You and I are alone now."
Jalid came to his feet. He saw the blond man standing there, his hands loose and empty at his sides, unarmed. He exuded an insolent confidence that humbled Jalid, whose belt bristled with knives and pistols and whose cruelty had ruled this part of Ras Beirut ever since the Israelis had retreated across the Awali River.
Jalid raised his hands in defeat. "You did this," he said resignedly.
The blond man nodded quietly. Then he asked a quiet question.
"You have other men than these?"
"Almost as many as I have bullets," Jalid said.
"An empty boast. But however many men you have, let us gather together three of the best. They, and you, will accompany me. I have work for you. And I will pay you with more than your chicken-boned life."
"What kind of work?"
"Killing work. The only kind you are fit for. You will like the work, for it will enable you to kill Americans. You will return to Beirut a hero to your Hezbollahi brothers, Jalid. "
"Where will we kill these Americans?" asked Jalid. "There are none left in Lebanon."
"In America, of course."
Jalid was frightened. He and three of his best men, dressed in Western business suits and without weapons, sat together on the flight to New York City. They whispered fearful words in their native tongue to one another, hanging over the seat headrest to talk to those in the other seats and warily eyeing the stewardess, who was just as warily eyeing them back.
"Sit still," said the blond man who called himself Tulip. "You are attracting attention to yourselves."
The blond man sat alone in the seat behind them. Jalid called back to him in Lebanese.
"My Moslem brothers and I are fearful."
"Did I not get you through the Beirut airport safely? And did you not walk unchallenged through the airport in Madrid when we changed planes?"
"Yes. But American customs will be different."
"No, they will just be American."
"All my life, I am a brave man," said Jalid.
"I do not choose women to do my work for me. Be not a woman, Jalid."
"I have grown up in a city torn by war. I first fired a machine gun when I was nine. Before I was ten I had killed three men. That was many years ago now. There is little I fear."
"Good. You will need your courage."
"One thing I do fear is America," Jalid went on. "I have had nightmares of being taken captive and brought to America for trial. These nightmares have never gone away. And now I am letting you take me to America. How do I know that this is not an American trick to put me and my brothers on trial before the world?"
"Because if I was an American agent," the man called Tulip replied, "I would also bring back with me the American hostages your people are holding prisoner. Tell that to your brothers."
Jalid nodded his understanding and he and his friends huddled again. The stewardess decided, because they were in the back of the plane and away from the other passengers, to neglect to ask them if they wanted something to drink.
At Kennedy Airport they were escorted to a holding area, where they were given preprinted pamphlets describing customs procedures. When the time came for them to pass through the turnstiles, the customs agents asked them for their passports. This was the moment Jalid had feared. They had none.
But the man called Tulip handed the customs official a collection of green customs passes. The customs official glanced at them briefly and then handed them back, careful to give each man his correct passport.
Jalid opened his passport, intensely curious to see the picture the customs guard had used to verify his identity. He had no idea a photo of himself even existed.
Jalid saw instantly that one did not. The photo in the picture was of a woman.
"Look," whispered Sayid in his ear, showing his passport photo. It was of an old man at least forty years older than Sayid, who was nineteen. The other passports were also clearly the property of other people. The man called Tulip had made no attempt to doctor them at all.
When the customs officials went through their luggage, the others relaxed. Not Jalid. Although Tulip had specifically forbidden them to carry in weapons, Jalid could not resist placing a dagger in the lining of his suitcase. The customs guards saw the evidence of tampering and stripped the lining. The knife gleamed under the cold airport lights. "What is this?" the airport guard asked harshly.
The man called Tulip stepped in, smiling. "Allow me," he said. And with a movement so quick that the human eye could not register it, he was holding the long dagger, bending the blade double.
"It's only a toy," Tulip said. "Rubber painted silver. These men are touring magicians. They could not resist a little practical joke. Please forgive them. "
The customs guard did not see the humor, but he replaced the dagger and returned their luggage without further comment.
Jalid took his suitcase and carried it with a blank, uncomprehending expression on his face.
"That dagger was of fine steel," he said thinly.
"It still is, fool. The guard saw what I wished. All of you did."
"How did you do that?" Jalid wanted to know.
"With my mind."