Storm Front

but not uninteresting.
    “Have you been to Paris?” al-Lubnani asked.
    “Of course. I lived there for two years, when my parents sent me away from the fighting,” Awad said. “I hope someday to fly for Air France.”
    “This is the most wonderful city, for me,” al-Lubnani said. “The city of light. Strolling down the Champs-élysées, or standing on the Pont Neuf, watching the boats, dinner on the Left Bank. I am an artist, you know, in watercolor. And I am half French. My mother was a Frenchwoman and I still have a French passport. My father was a diplomat, he is gone now.”
    “This is sad,” Awad said. “About your father.”
    “Yes.” Very long pause. “I have been thinking. I wish to be frank with you, and I sense that I may be.”
    “Mmmm.”
    Al-Lubnani laughed. “A careful noise, this mmmm.”
    “I am most interested in hearing you talk, but I am careful in such things.”
    Al-Lubnani, who was now lightly oiled, poured himself a third Blood Mary. “You and I are much alike, despite our ages. We would like to live in peace. We are Lebanese, not Palestinian. We have grown up in one of the most sophisticated cities in the world, a place that was once the banker for the entire Mediterranean. I would have nothing to do with the Party, except, I was in the wrong place, and they asked me to speak for them, and I could not say ‘no.’”
    “Of course not,” Awad said.
    “So I spoke for them, and then . . . I was in the Party. I am Lebanese to my bones, I speak French and Arabic and English and a little Greek, and here I am, driving around with AK-47s in my car, bowing to illiterate gunmen and praying five times a day.”
    “I understand,” Awad said.
    Al-Lubnani sighed. “A man will come here and provide me with the funds to pay Jones for this stone, for this propaganda victory. This man, he is a killer—a real
mujahid
. The headquarters, they send me to make the transfer, because this man, this killer, he cannot risk exposure in the U.S. If the Americans find him here, they will put him in a box and never let him out.”
    “What is he doing here at all?” Awad asked.
    “I don’t know. You know, I am here unofficially, as a simple man from Lebanon, touring the country. I could not bring any money with me, because of American customs. This
mujahid
, his first mission was not here to deliver the money. He was here for something else, but the money comes to New York in the diplomatic pouch, is transferred to him, and he brings it here. I make the exchange, I take the stone to Lebanon, he goes back under the ground.”
    “Mmmm.”
    Al-Lubnani put his feet on the balcony railing. “But I ask myself, this only in theory: they wish to have this stone in Lebanon. I wish to live in peace in Paris, which is a very expensive city. This man, this killer, brings three million U.S. dollars in cash, in a satchel. For one million, plus my own funds, I could live, not brilliantly, but reasonably, in Paris.”
    “Mmmm.”
    “I ask myself, if Jones takes a bid of one and a half, who is to know that he has not taken all three?”
    Awad said, “I ask myself, but only politely, why should I risk my life so that you could live in Paris in comfort?”
    Al-Lubnani raised a finger: “You must do the mathematics. I believe Jones would take one and a half. I need one. That is two-point-five. For the additional five hundred thousand, one might buy a small airplane.”
    “I would like a small airplane,” Awad admitted. “Although I would like to fly for an airline, becoming a bush pilot would also be acceptable.”
    “A bush pilot, here in the Minnesota?”
    “Not in Minnesota. Too cold. I would be interested, perhaps, in some African bush. Or even Syrian bush. Well, any bush, as long as it is not shooting at me.”
    “Mmm. Syria. Syria might be difficult for the next thirty years,” al-Lubnani said. “But Turkey, Turkey could have a place for you. Or Kurdistan.”
    “There is no Kurdistan,” Awad said.
    “There will be . . . and they might need bush pilots.”
    —
    A MOMENT to sip the Bloody Marys. “This conversation is very interesting,” Awad said.
    “But it’s all theory, of course,” al-Lubnani said. “Nobody could be more loyal to the cause than Adabi al-Lubnani.”
    “I understand this,” Awad said. “Tell me, do you know the name of this man who brings the money?”
    “I do. Although, I hesitate even to utter it,” al-Lubnani said. “One reason our conversation will come