The police car passed him, then moved into his lane without signaling, and accelerated up to the convertible. Khalil eased off more on the accelerator and watched. The driver of the police car seemed to be speaking to the young women in the convertible. They all waved and the police car sped off.

The convertible was a hundred meters in front of him now, and its occupants seemed to have lost interest in him. He maintained a speed of 65 miles per hour, and the distance between the two cars widened. The police car, he noticed, had disappeared over a rise in the road.

Khalil took a deep breath. He thought about the incident, but only vaguely comprehended it.

He recalled something Boris had told him. "My friend, many American women will find you handsome. American women will not be as openly and honestly sexual as European women, but they may try to strike up an acquaintance. They think they can be friendly to a man without being provocative and without calling attention to the obvious differences between the sexes. In Russia, as in Europe, we find this idiotic. Why would you want to speak to a woman if not for sex? But in America, especially with the younger women, they will talk to you, even make sexual talk, drink with you, dance with you, even invite you to their homes, but will then tell you that they will not have sex with you."

Khalil found this difficult to believe. In any case, he'd told Boris, "I will have nothing to do with women while I'm on my mission."

Boris had laughed at him and said, "My good Muslim friend, sex is part of the mission. You may as well have some fun while you're risking your life. Surely, you have seen James Bond movies."

Khalil had not, and told the Russian, "Perhaps if the KGB had paid more attention to the mission and less attention to women, there would still be a KGB."

The Russian had not liked this reply, but told Khalil, "In any event, women can be a distraction. And even if you do not look for them, they may find you. You must learn to handle such situations."

"I have no intention of getting into such situations. My time in America is limited, and so are my occasions to speak to Americans."

"Still, things happen." Khalil nodded to himself. Such a situation just occurred, and he had not handled it well.

He thought about the four young women, scantily dressed, in the convertible car. Aside from his confusion about what to do, he recognized and admitted to a strange desire, a longing to sleep naked with a woman.

In Tripoli, this was almost impossible without danger. In Germany, there were Turkish prostitutes everywhere, but he could not bring himself to buy the body of a fellow Muslim. He had contented himself in France with African prostitutes but only when they assured him that they were not Muslim. In Italy, there were the refugees from the former Yugoslavia and Albania, but many of these women were also Muslim. He recalled, once, being with an Albanian woman who he discovered was Muslim. He had beaten her so badly he wondered if she'd survived.

Malik had said to him, "When you return, it will be time for you to marry. You will have your pick of the daughters from the best families in Libya." In fact, Malik had mentioned one by name-Alima Nadir, the youngest sister of Bahira, who was now nineteen years old, and still without a husband.

He thought of Alima; even though veiled, he sensed she was not as beautiful as Bahira, but he also sensed in her the same brashness he had liked and also disliked in Bahira. Yes, he would and could marry her. Captain Nadir, who would have disapproved of his attentions to Bahira, would now welcome Asad Khalil as a hero of Islam, the pride of the fatherland, and a prized son-in-law.

A light blinked on his dashboard, and a small chime sounded. His eyes scanned the instruments, and he saw he was low on fuel.

At the next exit, he drove off the ramp onto a local road and into a Shell Oil station.

Again, he chose not to use his credit card and went to a pump marked SELF-SERVICE, CASH. He put on his eyeglasses and got out of the Mercury. He chose high-octane gasoline and filled the tank, which took 22 gallons. He tried to convert this into liters and estimated the liters at about a hundred. He marveled at the arrogance, or perhaps the stupidity, of the Americans for being the last nation on earth not to use the metric system.

Khalil replaced the pump nozzle and noticed that there was no glass booth where he could pay. He realized he had to go into the small office, and he cursed himself for not noticing this.

He walked to the office of the gasoline station and went inside.

A man sat on a stool behind a small counter, dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt, watching television and smoking a cigarette.

The man looked at him, then looked at a digital display board and said, "That'll be twenty-eight eighty-five."

Khalil put two twenty-dollar bills on the counter.

As the man made change, he said, "Need anything else?"

"No."

"Ah got cold drinks right there in the frigerator."

Khalil had difficulty understanding this man's accent. He replied, "No, thank you."

The man counted his change out and looked at Khalil. "Where you from, bud?"

"From… New York."

"Yeah? Long drive. Where you headin'?"

"To Atlanta."

"You don't want to miss 1-20 this side of Florence."

Khalil took his change. "Yes, thank you." He noticed that the television was showing a baseball game.

The man saw him glance at the television and said, "Braves are leadin' New York, two-zip, bottom of the second." He added, "Gonna kick some Yankee ass today."

Asad Khalil nodded, though he had no idea what the man was talking about. He felt sweat forming on his brow again and realized it was very humid here. He said, "Have a good day." He turned and walked out of the office to his car.

He got in and glanced back at the big window of the office to see if the man was watching him, but the man was looking again at the television.

Khalil drove quickly, but not too quickly, out of the gasoline station.

Asad Khalil got back on 1-95 and continued south.

He realized that his greatest danger was the television. If they began to broadcast his photo-and they could be doing that even now-then he was not entirely safe anywhere in America. He was certain that the police all over the country had his photograph by now, but he had no intention of having any contact with the police. He did, however, need to have contact with a small number of Americans. He flipped his sun visor down and studied his face in the visor mirror, still wearing his eyeglasses. With his hair parted and the gray added, the false mustache, and the glasses, he was fairly certain that he didn't look like any photo that existed of him. But they had shown him in Tripoli what the Americans could do with a computer, adding a mustache or beard, adding eyeglasses, making his hair shorter, lighter, or combing it differently. He did not think that the average person was so observant as to see through even the thinnest of disguises. The man in the gasoline station had obviously not recognized him because if he had, Khalil would have seen it in the man's eyes immediately, and the man would now be dead.

But what if the gas station had been filled with people?

Khalil glanced at his image one more time, and it suddenly came to him that there was no photograph of him smiling. He had to smile. They had told him that several times in Tripoli. Smile. He smiled into the mirror and was astonished at how different he looked, even to himself. He smiled again, then flipped the visor back.

He continued driving and continued to think about his photograph on television. Perhaps that would not be a problem.

They had also told him in Tripoli that, for some reason, the Americans placed the photographs of fugitive criminals in all post offices. He didn't know why the Americans chose post offices to display the photographs of fugitives, but he had no business in post offices, so it was of no concern.