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career of Freeman Napier Lockhart encapsulated in forty-five lines of black type. You couldn’t have found that just anywhere, and I stirred uneasily.
    “Accurate?” Black asked.
    “Must be, since I wrote it. Where did you get this?”
    “Let’s go back a few years. We’ll skip the stuff about law school, the public defender’s job, the first UN posting to Singapore. Helping with boat people, wasn’t it?”
    “Coming from Vietnam, yes. Summer of ’81.” The smell of fish oil and the green glow of the warm Pacific. Stern Singapore policemen who loved nothing better than bashing skulls with billy clubs whenever a loaded sampan came ashore under our so-called protection. Bashed mine once, too, which won me two expense-paid weeks in a hospital along with an insincere apology from the foreign minister.
    “What are we playing, ‘This Is Your Life’?”
    “More like Scrooge’s visitation by the spirits, except that I’ll be doing the talking for all three spirits. Just a friendly assessment of your past, your present, and—quite possibly—your future.”
    “Nice to know I have one. Not sure I like the Scrooge comparison, though.”
    “Oh, it fits. You’ll see. But no need to worry. We’re here to help you set things right. Rebalance the ledger. Give us the next image, Gray. Our real starting point. Recognize this fellow?”
    I did. The picture on the screen was a tanned, smiling man in his late thirties, dressed in khaki pants, a white polo, and a Day-Glo orange vest that made him look like a school crossing guard. Stones lay on the pavement all around him like spent shell casings, an appropriate image because all of them had been thrown in anger. The air was smudged by traces of oily black smoke, which I knew had come from burning tires. The man stood in front of a white Volkswagen Passat station wagon with a large blue “UN” painted on the door.
    “It’s me. On the West Bank. Nablus, by the look of it. Around nineteen…”
    “Eighty-eight. June, to be exact. Just as the intifada was hitting its stride. During your one-year posting, riding shotgun for a two-man observer team for UNRWA.” He correctly pronounced the acronym “OON-rah,” although with a slight note of disdain. It stood for a mouthful, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, an outfit that was still alive, if not exactly kicking. Its mission was to serve the needs of the millions of Arab refugees who had been uprooted during the procession of wars that began with the creation of Israel in 1948. The wars have continued at irregular intervals since—like a comet with an erratic orbit, capable of destroying entire worlds on every return.
    “Interesting place to start,” I said.
    “Why?” Black sounded genuinely curious.
    “It was my first taste of war. Or what I thought was war, until I saw the real thing in Bosnia. I’d never been that close to gunfire.”
    “Did it scar you for life?” Now he was playing with me.
    “If anything, I enjoyed it too much. Watching all the dustups and confrontations, then trying to sort them out.”
    “Boys throwing stones versus soldiers and tanks. Not exactly a great matchup from the fan’s point of view.”
    “No. It never was. It’s why we felt like we had to be there.”
    “Witnessing for the world.”
    “Make fun of it if you want, but, yes, that’s what we were doing.”
    “Funny how you fellows got out of the witnessing business once the suicide bombers found their way into the mix. Maybe all your good deeds and compassion helped give Hamas a jump start. Either way, you should have no trouble remembering this fellow.”
    Gray clicked again. The shot was almost identical, except this time the character standing by the UN car was a bronzed young Arab, mid-twenties, black hair askew. The orange vest draped him like a sack, and he seemed to be suppressing a smile. Suppressing all sorts of feelings, in fact, because that had been one of the job