"So what did he offer?"

"Well, first, a low bid, but that was basically because he was clueless and didn't know what it was worth. But the main thing was time. He promised to have almost a hundred and fifty men on the ground out here within two weeks."

"Two weeks?"

"Two weeks."

They walked on for a few more steps, before Evan couldn't help himself. "How was he going to do that? What was he going to pay them with? In fact, who was he going to hire? Did you guys have a hundred and fifty employees in San Francisco you could fly out here?"

Nolan howled out a laugh. "Are you kidding? He had three employees in San Francisco. And he'd paid them off of his credit cards in June. It was the end of the road for him if this didn't work. But it did."

"How'd that happen?"

They'd come almost to the checkpoint while the traffic hadn't budged, and Nolan stopped and faced Evan. "That's the great part. Jack didn't have any more credit. Nobody would lend him any more money back home, so he flew back here and convinced the CPA that they needed to lend him two million dollars against his first payment on the contract."

"Two million dollars?"

"In cash," Nolan said. "In new hundred dollar bills. So Jack packed 'em all up in a suitcase and flew to Jerusalem, where he deposited it all in the bank, then called me and told me to get my ass over here. He was in business."

At the gate, in spite of the crowd pressing up to get admitted, Nolan flashed his creds and the two men breezed their way through the CPA checkpoint-even the grunt guards seemed to know who he was. He and Evan crossed an enormous, open, tank-studded courtyard-at least a couple of hundred yards on a side-that fronted a grandiose white palacelike structure that, up close, bore silent witness to the bombardment that had rained upon the city in the past months-windows still blown out, the walls pocked with craters from shells, bullets, and shrapnel.