sped tightly in her lap. She said, "I ... I've known Abe
since my early teens."

He said nothing.

"In college, he was the cell leader. He enlisted me into the Party."

Crawford still didn't speak.

She said defiantly, "He was an idealist, Homer."

"I know that," Crawford said. "And along with it, he's saved my life, on
at least three different occasions in the past few years. He was a good
man."

It was her turn to hold silence.

Homer hit the palm of his left hand with the fist of his right. "That's
what so many don't realize. They think this is all a kind of cowboys and
Indians affair. The good guys and the bad guys fighting it out. And, of
course, all the good guys are on our side and their side is composed of
bad guys. They don't realize that many, even most, of the enemy are
fighting for an ideal, too--and are willing to die for it, or do things
sometimes even harder than dying."

He paced the floor for an agonized moment, before adding. "The fact that
the ideal is a false one--or so, at least, is my opinion--is beside the
point."

He suddenly dropped it and switched subjects. "This isn't as much a
surprise to me as you possibly think, Isobel. There was only one way
that episode in Timbuktu could have taken place. Abe was waiting for me
to pass that mosque. But I had to pass. I had to be _fingered_ as the
old gangster expression had it. And you led me into the ambush."

He looked down at her. "But what changed his mind? Why did he offer,
tonight, to let me take over the El Hassan leadership?"

Isobel said, her voice low. "In Timbuktu, when Abe saw the way things
were going, he realized you'd have to be liquidated, otherwise El Hassan
would be a leader the Party couldn't control. He tried to eliminate you,
and then tried again with the cognac. Last night, however, he checked
with local party leaders and they decided that he'd acted too
precipitately. They suggested you be given the opportunity to line up
with the Party."

"And if I didn't?" Homer said.

"Then you were to be liquidated."

"So the finger is still on me, eh?"

"Yes, you'll have to be careful."

He looked full into her face. "How do you stand now?"

She returned his frank look. "I'm the first follower to dedicate her
services to El Hassan."

"So you want to come along?"

"Yes," she said simply.

"And you remember what Abe said? That in the end the Hero invariably
gets clobbered? Sooner or later, North Africa will outgrow the