Bolan did not holster Big Thunder. He cautiously checked the bathroom and bedroom while the woman prepared food for the child.

Then Bolan holstered the AutoMag. He crossed to a window, noting the apartment was sensibly lighted by a floor lamp that was across the living room from the window.

He parted the draperies a fraction of an inch and glanced up and down the street below Zoraya's window. A camouflage-painted truck with a rocket launcher mounted behind turned the corner past the flames of a trashed car, redeploying to some new position. The fighting would resume. The city trembled with expectation of the violence everyone knew had to come.

While the boy sat on a divan and ate, the woman stepped up to Bolan, extending Lebanese, photo ID for his inspection. The ID backed up her claim that this was her place.

Bolan accepted that.

For now.

"Captain Herzi gave me your address. What do you know about Major General Strakhov?" He sensed a sharp mind weighing it all behind deep eyes that dominated a high-cheekboned face.

"How... do I know I can trust you?" she asked. "Chaim was to come here tonight."

"Chaim is dead." Bolan expected her reaction. He had not missed her reference to the Israeli agent by his first name.

She took it like a bayonet in the gut, a gasp of shock. Bolan could tell by the fleeting look of pain on her face that part of the mind wanted to reject what it heard even as the hurt exploded through her. Then she pulled herself together in a visible effort, holding in everything that wanted to burst out.

"We were lovers," she told Bolan. Her voice quavered.

"I understand. I'm sorry." Bolan told her how Chaim died trying to cover Bolan as he rescued the boy.

"It... was an honorable way to die," Zoraya said softly when she heard it all. "I am no stranger to death."