The meal was just some kind of lamb couscous, with a light homemade bread cooked in a pan atop the stove, but it tasted like nothing I had ever eaten. I cleaned my plate twice.

"That was great, Nadya. Thanks."

"I am glad you liked it. Now you can do the cleanup, please."

"Sure. No sweat."

She looked puzzled, then said, "Oh, 'no sweat, right."

Nadya retreated to the living-room and I washed the dishes. While they were air-drying, I poked my head in. She was reading an old copy of Newsweek. I noticed the headline on the page facing me: YEMEN REUNIFICATION: "ARABIA FELIX" ONCE MORE.

"Do you drink beer, Nadya?"

"You have Guinness?"

"Yup."

"If that mean yes, I will have some, please."

I popped two and brought them in. (The Guinness brewery had reluctantly switched to twist-tops, in the face of consumer-demand, just that year.) I handed Nadya one and sat down opposite her. She continued to read the article on her homeland, taking grateful pulls from the bottle. When she was finished, she laid the magazine down carefully and again treated me to one of her unflinching stares.

"I am grateful for this refuge. You are good to take me in. Your wife was right when she said I could trust you "

"Ex-wife."

Nadya nodded vehemently. "Yes, ex-wife, exactly, just as I am Zaids ex-wife. Thank you for the correction. In any circumstance, I suppose I must tell you something about myself-"

"Thats not-" I began.

"No, I owe you something, please let me say what I have to."

"Okay."

"My father is a big businessman. Many generations in my family were businessmen. 'Tajir even means 'merchant. I grew up in a cave outside Sanaa, our capital."

I must have looked puzzled.

"Maybe 'cave is not the right word. A building carved out of the rocks, into the hillside. There are many such in the mountains outside Sanaa. It is a lovely home, much sunshine, with carpets everywhere. Anyway, I was my fathers only child. Always he promised me that I would become part of his business. I even go to college in Egypt for one year. Then happens the coup. My father thinks it would be of more advantage to him to marry me to Zaid. I think you know the rest."

I nodded agreement, Nadya said nothing else for some time. Then I noticed one lone tear escape and trickle down her cheek. She began to bang the arm of the chair softly with her fist.

"I am not a peasant woman to be sold into bondage like some whore! I can read, I am educated, I have plans! I knew one day I would escape that bastard. Now I have done so. Let him try to get me back!"

I refrained from saying that Zaid was attempting just that, and might very well succeed. I got up and went to another part of the room, wanting to leave Nadya some privacy to cry if she felt like it.

Idly, I booted the Go disk and began to play. Before I knew it, I was deep inside the game.

Sometime later, I sensed Nadya behind me, so I took my hand off the mouse and looked up.

"What is this game?"

"Go."

"And how does one play?"

I explained. "...and so to kill a man and remove him from the board, you must surround him with his enemies, separate him from his mates. Two opponents suffice to trap a man in a corner, three on the border, and four in the center."

"That seems easy enough. Lets play."

"Its not as easy as it looks. Ill take black, since it goes first and is at a disadvantage." I switched to two-player mode and ported in another mouse.

Nadya won the initial game. But it was only because I was so tired.

For the first time, she smiled.

"Hey, Leon," she said, while I was still trying to reconstruct how I had lost.

"Yeah?"

"No sweat."

For the next five days-a time which seemed much longer-Nadya and I enjoyed a strange kind of domesticity, like the ideal arrangement of some spurious, apocryphal middle-class culture of at least half a century ago, when only men held jobs.

I would wake to the smell of coffee and toast-Nadya, I surmised, didnt sleep well or long-and share breakfast with my surrogate wife. Then it was off to work for me, the ritual departure lacking only a peck at the door. Home in the evening to a unique supper, then settle down for reading and Go and an extravagant beer apiece.

Nadya never beat me again after that first game. But she was a sharp and good enough player so that I was never bored.

The only deviation from this marital charade came each night when I unfolded the convertible couch and Nadya disappeared behind the door of my bedroom. But it was only a surface deviation. Below the separation, the closeness that had grown between us was still maintained. There just never developed any sexual tension between Nadya and me. I simply couldnt see her in those terms, and I doubt she ever once thought of me as a potential partner. To tell the truth, Nadya was rather asexual. Knowing her history-which I found I could now think of without unease-I could see why.

Once I thought: If life had been this easy with Ruth- In the middle of this inexplicably idyllic period, I was paid another visit by Dick Rangley, the NSA man. For a second time, he caught me at the office.

"Hows Zaid?" he asked after the standard preliminaries.

"Fine, no trouble. Hes been invisible as far as Pm concerned."

Rangley studied his shoetips, before looking at me. "The ceremonial signing is less than a week away. But Zaids balking. He says he wont go to Washington until he gets his missing wife back."

I think I kept my voice level. "Whats that got to do with me?"

"Nothing-I hope. I just want you to keep your eyes open for her."

"Listen, Dick. Would you really hand over this woman to Zaid if you found her?"

Rangley hesitated. "Leon, to me Major Zaid is an ignorant prick who mistreats his wives. But to the country-your country and mine-hes an invaluable ally who must be kept happy. To answer your question: Yes, I would hand her over."

Rangley spoke so vehemently, that once again I wondered what made the reunification of these two poor, non-pivotal states so crucial.

I didnt have to wait long to find out.

On what was to be our last night together, Nadya seemed rather preoccupied. I was forced to play against the Atari, leaving her to work out her troubles alone.

At last she spoke.

"Leon. There is something I have not told you."

I shut off the machine. "Yes?"

"The Major does not want me back just for myself. There is also what I know."

I braced myself, not entirely sure if I wanted-or needed-to hear this secret that Ruth had intuited. But in the end I didnt stop her.

"There has been a discovery in my sister country. Oil. A lot of oil. Off the coast of South Yemen."

Suddenly, Rangleys concern made sense. "Let me guess the rest. The Russians dont know that the client state they are about to give up possesses this oil ...."

"That is correct. You see, it was all done on computers. Nobody even goes near South Yemen. Some big oil company just takes all the old hydrophone data from previous surveys and runs it through some special new software that reveals overlooked deposits. Just like that, Yemen goes from nothing to hot shit."

"You could put it that way, I suppose....Well, what do you intend to do with this information?"

"Nothing. I just thought you should know."

"Thanks."

"You are very welcome."

Everything happened so fast, the day it all blew up, that I still find it hard to order events.

The first thing that morning, after my usual meeting with Tanager, I handed him an envelope.

"Burt, if anything should happen to me, I want you to make sure this is mailed "

Tanager looked at the address of a reporter I knew at the LA Herald-Examiner. Then he looked back to me.

"Okay," he said, and left.

That was the best thing about Tanager. With that one word, I knew it was good as done.

Around one, my phone rang. It was Ruth.

"Leon, I just got home."

I didnt ask where she had been all night, although I was surprised to find that I wanted to know. But her next words drove such trivial thoughts completely out of my head.

"My apartments been ransacked. Nothings missing but your photo."

"Okay, dont worry. Ill call you later."

On the way home, all my mind would keep revolving was the fact that Ruth still kept my picture.

Al-Qasiri was already there. I found him sitting negligently with his legs crossed. The creases on his trousers were as sharp as he undoubtedly kept the blade of his dagger. He held a pistol on Nadya, who sat opposite him with a stony expression.

"Mister Deatherage, we expected you. Please be seated next to Mrs Zaid. I have already phoned the Major, and he should be down shortly. Im sure he will wish to repay you for taking such good care of his wife."

I did what he directed, saying nothing. I wanted to wait till all the players were present.

The crisis must have interrupted al-Qasiri during his daily qat chewing. He still had a plug of it in one cheek, and his eyes were distant. Now and then he would spit on my rug. But his gun never wavered.

It wasnt long until the Major arrived. He was alone. He stalked in pompously, came right up to Nadya-and slapped her across the face. She winced, but quickly recovered.

"Bitch!" said the Major. Then he yanked her to her feet, began to shake her and harangue her in Yemeni. Nadya didnt deign to reply.

When he was done, Zaid turned to his subordinate, now standing also.

"Kill him," said the Major.

Al-Qasiri leveled his pistol at my gut. Apparently I was to hurt before I died.

"Dont do it, Hamud."

Rangley stepped into the room, his own gun drawn.

Now all the players were there.

"A tap on the Majors phone?" I asked.

Rangley nodded. "And yours. But those goddamn hydrofoils only move so fast Jesus, Leon, you played this close. I dont know why you got involved in this in the first place, and I dont much care. All I want to know is, what now?"

"You take the Major to Washington, and Nadya stays here, or goes wherever she wants to."

The Major spluttered into life. "Ridiculous! This woman is my legal wife. Mister Rangley, clearly this is a domestic matter in which no one has a right to interfere-"

Rangley seemed about to agree with Major Zaid, so I voiced the real issue.

"If I dont reclaim a certain letter, gentlemen, then tomorrow the whole world will know about Yemens new wealth. Including the Soviets."

"Jesus Christ," said Rangley. "Now youve really done it, Leon. Do you know what youre threatening?"

"Yup."

Everyone was dumbfounded. By bringing the dirty unspoken secret out in the open, I had cast our standoff in a whole new light.

"Listen, Major," I finally said. "Nadyas not going to say anything unless you make her, and neither am I. Do you really want to lose your chance to rule a reunified Yemen just to keep a woman who hates you?"

Nadya stood in the center of the triangle formed by Zaid, al-Qasiri and Rangley. Zaid looked to her, then to Rangley, then to his servant. The Major opened his mouth once, twice, then a third time before any words emerged.

"Put your gun away, Hamud. We leave our trash here and go."

I put my hand out to Nadya. She grabbed it tight and came to stand by me.