RON NOLAN WAITED for Evan to fall in next to him, then said, "And by the way, my name's Ron, okay? Mr. Nolan's my dad. You okay with Evan?"

"That's my name."

"Yeah, well, Evan, I didn't mean to put you on the spot back there with your men, and I apologize. But you can't afford to be tentative here. You've got to make decisions and run on 'em. That's the main thing about this place."

"I just made my decision. But I'm not sure that leaving my convoy was the right one. We've had it drilled into us that procedures are crucial to maintain order."

They were walking shoulder to shoulder at the curb. Nolan shook his head, disagreeing. "My experience says it's more important to trust your gut. And I'm not talking just about deciding in a split second who's a Muj and who's a Hajj"-these were the Mujahideen and the Hajji, the bad guys and the good guys, respectively-"which is life and death and I mean right now. But the business environment here…Christ, what a gold mine! But you've got to see the opportunity and jump, and I'm talking like yesterday, or it all goes away. Did you get a chance to talk to Jack Allstrong at all back at BIAP?"

"A little bit."

"He tell you how he got the airport gig? The one that got us on the boards?"

"No. He never mentioned it."

"Well, it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You know what our half of that contract's worth? If you guess sixteen million dollars, you're on it."

"To do what? I saw the trailers, but it wasn't clear what you guys were doing there."

"We're guarding the airport, that's what."

"What about us?"

"What do you mean, us?"

"I mean the military, the Army, the Marines. What about us? We're not guarding the airport?"

"No. You're fighting the insurgents-most of the regular units, anyway. Jerry Bremer, God love him, in his wisdom fired all the Iraqi police and disbanded the military, so nobody's left over here except us contractors to provide security for the people who are coming in droves to do oversight and infrastructure, which is, like, everybody else."