Lion of Babylon

There’s no debt. There never has been. We are friends.

God answered prayers first by teaching the need to ask, second by using friends as holy messengers.

He knew how much pride his people took him being forever misunderstood.

Alex had cooked, and coaxed, and helped Mark form borders around the shapeless days. Alex had given meaning to the word "servant".

It was typical of the American to identify the one unfinished strand.

Normal Iraqi etiquette was forgotten the moment drivers sat behind the wheel.

He had been privy to much, and blind to even more.

Mark felt eyes on him as tight as a sniper's aim.

The distance had been evaporated by humor

For the Arab, the past does not merely live. The past defines the present.

He used a minimum of words and no inflection whatsoever. It was a policeman's manner of speaking, direct and unadorned.

His eyes touched lightly, and passed on.