Crawford still didn't speak.
She said defiantly, "He was an idealist, Homer."
"I know that," Crawford said. "And along with it, he's saved my life, on at least three different occasions in the past few years. He was a good man."
It was her turn to hold silence.
Homer hit the palm of his left hand with the fist of his right. "That's what so many don't realize. They think this is all a kind of cowboys and Indians affair. The good guys and the bad guys fighting it out. And, of course, all the good guys are on our side and their side is composed of bad guys. They don't realize that many, even most, of the enemy are fighting for an ideal, too—and are willing to die for it, or do things sometimes even harder than dying."
He paced the floor for an agonized moment, before adding. "The fact that the ideal is a false one—or so, at least, is my opinion—is beside the point."
He suddenly dropped it and switched subjects. "This isn't as much a surprise to me as you possibly think, Isobel. There was only one way that episode in Timbuktu could have taken place. Abe was waiting for me to pass that mosque. But I had to pass. I had to be fingered as the old gangster expression had it. And you led me into the ambush."
He looked down at her. "But what changed his mind? Why did he offer, tonight, to let me take over the El Hassan leadership?"
Isobel said, her voice low. "In Timbuktu, when Abe saw the way things were going, he realized you'd have to be liquidated, otherwise El Hassan would be a leader the Party couldn't control. He tried to eliminate you, and then tried again with the cognac. Last night, however, he checked with local party leaders and they decided that he'd acted too precipitately. They suggested you be given the opportunity to line up with the Party."
"And if I didn't?" Homer said.