Masra lugged her cheap cardboard suitcase across the broad avenue leading to the coast road and merged with a throng of pedestrians headed west. She’d been following a winding, random route since she left the apartment building that she hoped would confuse anyone following. Where she could find crowds, she tucked into the middle and ambled along at their pace hoping it would be harder to spot her in a clutch of moving bodies. Now she was nearing the last leg of what she hoped was a final journey through the dangerous streets of West Beirut. She glanced at the sun dipping low on the horizon and calculated it was about an hour until dark.
There were plenty of cabs dropping off and picking up people on a typical Saturday night near the seaside restaurants and night spots, but she avoided the
