The tiny restaurant was infinitely more crowded than it had looked from the outside. Arch Carroll cursed. Every available dining table was filled to overflowing. Every one.

Six or seven more people, a group of boisterous friends, were waiting in the front to be seated. Carroll pushed past them. Waiters wearing black half-jackets hurried in and out of the swinging kitchen doors in the rear.

Carroll's eyes slowly drifted along the back of the crowded dining room.

Hussein Moussa had already seen him. Even in the packed, bustling restaurant, the terrorist had noticed his entrance. The Lebanese Butcher had been watching every person who came in from Atlantic Avenue.

So had the restaurant's owner, an enormous two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man. He charged forward now, an enraged bull guarding his herd at mealtime.

“Get out of here! You get out, bum! Go now!” the owner screamed. The diners were suddenly silent.

Carroll tried to look lost, dizzily confused, as surprised as everyone else that he was inside the small neighborhood restaurant.

He stumbled over his own flopping black sneakers.

He weaved sideways before moving suddenly toward the right rear corner of the dining room.

He hoped to God he looked cock-eyed drunk and absolutely helpless. Maybe even a little funny. Everybody should start laughing. If he did this exactly right, he'd have Hussein Moussa and the Rashids without firing a shot.

Carroll groped down his body with both hands, graphically scratching between his legs. A middle-aged woman turned away with obvious disgust.

“Bayt-room?” Carroll slobbered convincingly, rolling his eyes. “Gotta go to the bayt-room!”

A young bearded man and his girlfriend started laughing. Bathroom humor got the youth crowd every time. This was the success lesson of modern Broadway and Hollywood.

Hussein Moussa had stopped eating and was smiling. His teeth were a serrated blade of shining yellow. He looked like an animal, a brutal scavenger. He apparently thought this scene was pretty funny, too.