Numbered Account

"Miserable beggars," Mevlevi said, his rage waning as he watched the men scramble about in the late-afternoon sun. Under what unfortunate star had they been born? Their time on earth was marked by degradation, penury, and the systematic crushing of their once indomitable Arabic spirit. For these men, he would risk his fortune. For these men, Khamsin must succeed.

Mevlevi returned his attention to the stripe of asphalt before him, but it was not long before his mind wandered back to the dilemma that pressed on his heart like a sharpened dagger. A spy, he thought to himself. A spy is lying nearby.

Hours earlier, he had discovered that the United Swiss Bank had failed to transfer forty-seven million dollars of his money according to his precise instructions. Calls to inquire about the delay had revealed the circumstances of his escape. However, no explanation had been given as to which failure in the bank's systems had resulted in his account number's appearing on a surveillance list established by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. For now, though, that was of minor concern. For not only had the authorities expected the transfer, they had known its exact amount.

"A spy," Mevlevi said, through clenched teeth. "A spy has been peeking over my shoulder."

Normally, he was thankful for the unerring efficiency of the Swiss. No other country oversaw the execution of a client's instructions with such exactitude. The French were arrogant. The Chinese imprecise. The Cayman Islanders- who could trust that colony of self-serving financial leeches? The Swiss were polite, deferential, and exact. They followed orders to the letter. And so his escape, when analyzed, grew more storied. For it was the disobeying of a clearly defined order that had permitted him to flee the grasp of the international authorities. He was indebted to an American: a United States Marine, no less. One whose brethren's blood defiled the holy land over which he now drove.

Mevlevi could not stifle the laugh rising up from deep within his belly. The self-righteous Americans- policing the world, making it safe for democracy; a planet, dictator and drug free. And he was a dreamer?

Mevlevi checked his speed and kept the car pointed south on National Route 1, toward Mieh-Mieh, toward Israel. To his right, barren hillocks of pale alkali grit rose up from the Mediterranean Sea. Occasionally, a settlement dotted the top of a small rise. The low-slung structures were built of cinder block whitewashed to deflect the Levant's bleaching sun. More and more sported antennas, some even a modest satellite dish. The Shouf Mountains rose steeply to his left, colored a bluish-gray and shaped like the dorsal fins of a school of sharks. Soon, their slopes would darken into a verdant green as the deciduous trees that flourished on the mountains' slopes sprouted new buds.

General Amos Ben-Ami had led his forces down this very road sixteen years before. Operation Big Pine: the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. American-made tanks, armored personnel carriers, and mobile artillery streamed across the Israeli border in a vomitous wave of Western imperialism. The ill-organized Lebanese militias offered scant resistance. The Syrian regulars scarcely more. Truth be known, Haffez-al-Assad had issued orders to all senior commanders that should the vanguard of Israel's troops reach Beirut, his soldiers were to withdraw to the relative safety of the Bekaa valley. And so when General Ben-Ami led his troops to Beirut and encircled the city, the Syrians were absent. The PLO laid down its arms and was allowed to disembark by sea for camps in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Eleven months later, Israel withdrew her troops from Beirut, preferring to establish a twenty-five-kilometer security zone on her northern border. A cushion to distance herself from the country of Islamic fanatics who lived to the north.

The Israelis had bought themselves fifteen years, mused Ali Mevlevi. Fifteen years of blemished peace. Their vacation would soon end. In weeks, another army would travel a path parallel to National Route 1, this time traveling south. A secret army under his guidance. A guerrilla force fighting beneath the green-and-white standard of Islam. Like the fabled khamsin, the violent wind that sprang from the desert without warning and for fifty days devoured all in its path, he would rise unseen and rain fury upon the enemy.

Mevlevi opened a sterling case at his side and withdrew a slim black cigarette, a Turkish Sobranie. One last tie to his homeland: Anatolia- where the sun rises. And where it sets, he thought bitterly, leaving its inhabitants poorer, dirtier, and hungrier than the day before.