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members at the ends of each line stomped once and pivoted toward the opposite street corners to face the soon-to-be-arriving patrol cars.
    Donnally caught motion in the window of Rojo Senior’s apartment. He looked up and spotted the frightened eyes of an elderly Hispanic woman. A large crucifix hung high on the wall next to her, the figure of Jesus gazing down at her in anguish. He was tempted to ask the leader whether the apartment these people lived in was part of his pseudo-Islamic state, but didn’t. He’d beleaving the neighborhood—one way or the other—while the residents were condemned to live there, and there was no reason to make them part of this battle.
    Two units approached from the east, one from the west. Their sirens died as they came to a stop. More rose up in the distance.
    Donnally heard car doors open but kept his eyes on the leader, who locked his on Donnally’s for a moment, then glared past him.
    â€œGet back, old man.”
    Donnally glanced over his shoulder. The minister from the storefront church was crossing the pavement toward them. He was wearing a clerical collar and a burgundy suit and fedora. Donnally spotted his name, Reverend Julius Jones, written in hand-painted letters on the front of his building, just below the words Burning Bush Church of God in Christ .
    â€œTake your slave religion back across the street,” the leader said to him.
    Reverend Jones kept coming. He slipped inside the semicircle behind the back of one of the members facing the police, then passed by Navarro and Donnally and stopped three feet from the leader. He pointed up into the man’s face. “You don’t live here anymore, George—”
    â€œGeorge is a slave name. My name is Aasim.”
    â€œYour name is George. Learn some history. It was the slaves who had names like Aasim. Go build your so-called nation in your own neighborhood. No one invited you to invade ours.” The reverend pointed south. “Or is that frowned upon in San Bruno.”
    Donnally smiled at the leader over the reverend’s shoulder. San Bruno was a white and Asian bedroom community on the peninsula. There were so few African Americans in the city that they were outnumbered by Native Americans.
    â€œFuck you.”
    Donnally stepped up next to Reverend Jones, then cut in front of him. He didn’t like the feel of being rescued by someone old enough to be his father.
    â€œWatch your mouth, George,” Donnally said, making himself the target again. “What’s Aasim mean in Arabic? Insulter of the Aged?”
    â€œIt means ‘Protector.’”
    Donnally heard movement behind him and looked back. The corner drug dealers were lined up behind the Nation members, hoping a fight would erupt and figuring this was their chance to draw blood and exact revenge. One of the few crimes the Nation disapproved of was drug dealing, and robbing drug dealers was therefore sanctioned. It permitted the Nation members to view themselves as Robin Hoods, though they never gave to the poor, except as bribes to convert them to their cult. Instead, they used the stolen money to support themselves and their women and children and, Donnally suspected, to pay the mortgage on their mosque in the next block.
    Behind the dealers were patrol cars and uniformed officers, some holding batons, others cradling shotguns.
    â€œProtector?” Donnally said. “You’ve got both the cops and the cons ganged up around you, so I’m not sure you’ll be doing much protecting today.” He looked hard in Aasim’s eyes. “Do you?”
    â€œMaybe not now.” A compensating smirk. “But soon.”
    Aasim glanced left and right, then barked out a one-word command in Arabic and the members pivoted toward the west and marched away.
    Donnally turned back toward Reverend Jones. “How long have you known this guy?”
    â€œHis whole distorted life. His father was a