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Rashids without extremely strong physical evidence. But they'd issued no such orders for the Lebanese Butcher.
    What was Hussein Moussa doing in New York, anyway? Carroll's mind was reeling. Why was he here with the Rashids?
    The firebombing of Pier 54-56 went quickly through his mind. He had picked up strands of information from gossip he'd heard all day long on the street-somebody had taken it into his head to blow a dock and the surrounding West Side area, it seemed, and for a moment Carroll pondered a possible connection between Hussein Moussa and the events on the Hudson River.
    He'd heard nothing definitive, though. Gossip, whispers, street rumors, nothing more substantial. Somebody had finally said it was some kind of natural gas explosion. Another street rumor had offered the opinion that the city of New York was now being held for ransom. Mainly the speculations he'd heard were vague. Until he knew more, he couldn't begin to link the Lebanese Butcher to the West Side firebombing.
    Arch Carroll had been ramrodding the Antiterrorist Division of the DIA for almost four years now. During that time only a few of the mass murderers he'd learned about had gotten to him emotionally and caused him to lose his usual policeman's objectivity. Hussein Moussa was one.
    The Lebanese Butcher liked to torture. The Butcher liked to kill. The Butcher enjoyed maiming innocent civilians…
    As he studied the Sinbad Star restaurant, Carroll reflected that he didn't particularly want Moussa dead. He wanted the Butcher locked away in a maximum-security cage for the rest of his life. Give the animal lots of time to think about what he'd done, if he did think.
    From underneath newspapers and rags inside one of his shopping bags, Carroll began to slide out a heavy black metal object. Very carefully, peering down close, he checked the firing chamber of a Browning automatic. He quickly fed in eight shells with an autoloader.
    A stooped, ancient Hasid was passing by. He stared incredulously at the street bum loading up a handgun. His watery gray eyes bulged out of his sagging face. The old man kept walking away, looking back constantly. Then he walked faster. New York street bums with guns now! The city was beyond all prayers, all possible hope.
    Arch Carroll stood up. He felt stiff, ice cold all over. One globe of his rear end was completely numb.
    He was getting too old for extended street duty. He had to remember that in the future: it might be very important for staying alive and intact one of these days.
    Weaving through the thick, fuzzy night traffic, Carroll only half heard the bleating car horns and angry curses directed at him.
    He was drifting in and out of reality now; there was a little nausea involved here, too. The same thing, the same absolutely identical feeling, came to him every time-just the possibility of killing another person was so foreign and absurd to him that it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
    A middle-aged couple was leaving the Sinbad, the fat wife pulling her red overcoat tight around bursting hips. She stared at Crusader Rabbit, and the look said “You don't belong inside there, mister. You know you don't belong in there.”
    Carroll pulled open the ornate red door the departing couple had slammed in his face. Hot, garlicky air surrounded him. A muffled
snick
of the Browning under his coat. A deep silent breath. Okay, hotshot.
    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