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?"