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collection of small houses huddled together in the sand with a few stores and a petrol station. All the houses looked the same: prefab, cheap company housing. The veiled faces of women watched them from behind shuttered windows as they approached.

There were children - a dozen or more, their ages seeming to range from maybe seven to perhaps fourteen - playing soccer between the houses. Usually, no matter where he went, the strangeness of Michael's spidery figure would bring them running and chattering toward him, but these only stopped their game and stared as they approached before melting away into the bright shadows between the buildings. ". . . Djinn . . ." He heard the word in the midst of the stream of whispered Arabic, and it gave him a chill. He began to watch the windows of the houses carefully, half expecting the muzzle of a rifle to appear. The children vanished, the soccer ball abandoned on the sand. The village seemed preternaturally quiet; it made the small hairs stand up on Michael's arms. His lowest set of hands clutched the single M-16 he was holding tighter, his finger sliding close to the trigger.

It's all kids, women, and old men here, he reminded himself, but that gave him little comfort. Any of them could just as easily press a trigger.

Lieutenant Bedeau, in addition to English, also spoke Arabic. He called out a greeting, his voice sounding terribly small. For several seconds there was no response at all, and Bedeau shrugged at Michael. "We'll go building to building looking for weapons," Michael began, but then a door creaked on rusty hinges and an elderly man stepped out from one of the houses. His thobe - the standard white robelike garment of the region - swayed as he moved, revealing a stick-thin body underneath. They tensed, all of them: had the man made a wrong gesture, he would not have lived to take another breath. But the grizzled elder kept his hands carefully in sight as he spoke to Bedeau in a burst of rapid-fire, gap-toothed Arabic. Bedeau nodded; they exchanged a few brief sentences.

"This one's name is Dabir," the lieutenant said. "He says that all the men - the workers - are gone. His son was one of them. Big trucks from Baghdad came here three days ago and took them away. The wives, a few old men like him, the children; they were told more trucks would come for them, but none have. There's no one here right now but the elderly, the women, and the children." Dabir said something else, pointing at Michael. Bedeau grimaced and hesitated before translating. "He said that you and the other one are abominations in the face of Allah, that you must leave so the men can come back."

"Well, that's nice," Michael said. "Rusty will be happy to hear that. Tell our friend Dabir that we don't think the men will be coming back at all, that tomorrow or the next day more of our people will be coming to work here. Tell him that we'll talk to Prince Siraj and try to make sure that the trucks show up to pick them up to take them to wherever their men went."

As Michael spoke, he saw movement behind the old man; a boy, probably no more than ten or eleven. The child crept out to stand next to the old man, who put an arm protectively around him as he listened to Bedeau's translation, scowling. The boy said something in response - again, Michael thought he heard the word "Djinn" in the torrent - and Bedeau's face colored.

"This is Dabir's grandson Raaqim. He's . . . not exactly happy with the news," Bedeau told Michael. "The rest, it's not worth translating."

"Yeah, I kinda gathered that." Raaqim was staring at Michael, scowling like Dabir with his arms crossed defiantly in front of him. "Tell the old man we're sorry, but that is the way of things. It is the will of the Caliph and Prince Siraj."

Bedeau shrugged. He translated, and Dabir's scowl deepened. With a middle hand, Michael dug in his pocket for the old coin Rusty had given him. He crouched down in front of Raaqim, the muzzle of his weapon pointed down at the sand, and held out the coin. "Here," he said. "You can have this."

The boy stared; the old man watched without saying anything. "Go on," Michael said when the kid didn't move or respond. "It's yours."

Raaqim unfolded his