"Thanks for your permission."

"In fact," he said, smiling, "I will save you some trouble. Yes, you are right." He stopped smiling. "Well, you are partly partly right. I have been talking to . . . certain friends in Iran. And yes, since long before your invasion. And yes, now I am helping them expand their influence among my Shia people inside Iraq. And do you know why?" right. I have been talking to . . . certain friends in Iran. And yes, since long before your invasion. And yes, now I am helping them expand their influence among my Shia people inside Iraq. And do you know why?"

"Because you would pimp your own mother for a throne?"

He chose not to respond to this.

So I took another stab. "Because they want their hands around the nuts of whoever's running Iraq, and you've volunteered your b.a.l.l.s?" I looked him in the eye and asked, "Yes? No? Am I warm?"

He knew I was trying to p.i.s.s him off, and his eyes narrowed. He was shrewd, though, and to p.i.s.s me off, he did not rise to the bait. He gave me a cool gaze and answered himself. He said, "Because it helps me . . . and it helps my people. And because those who I now find myself vying with for leadership of the Iraqi Shia, and for leadership of Iraq--the clerics Sistani, Sadr, and others--they have their own long relationships with the Iranians."

He paused and looked at me.

He said, "Like your government in Washington, Tehran also has many views, many factions. Not everybody there is happy with Sistani, or with Sadr. So I give this gift of great intelligence significance to certain friends in Iran's government, they pa.s.s this along to the appropriate people, and now--wallah!"--his chubby hands flew through the air and he performed a silly pantomime of pulling a rabbit out of a hat--"Mahmoud Charabi has his own very powerful supporters in Tehran--and here, in Iraq."

Amazing. Basically, he had found Iranian doppelgangers of Cliff Daniels, and just as he had exploited Daniels, he now was using these "friends" to make deeper inroads inside Iran's government. Then again, maybe it wasn't so amazing. Every con man has his favorite swindle and the conviction that what works once, can work again and again. I should tell his new Iranian friends how well it had worked out for Cliff.

In that light, I said, "When you play so many sides against the middle, sometimes you forget where the middle is."

He interpreted this literally and replied, "Washington is seven thousand miles away. Iran is next door." He got a sort of thin smile on his lips and added, "In the long run it will make no considerable difference. Do you know why?"

"I have the feeling you're going to tell me why."

"Because it is entirely irrelevant. Frankly, the Iranians have as little control over me as you, as America. I am Iraqi, Colonel. I do not even like like the Iranians." the Iranians."

"That's not a good enough why, Charabi. Tell me more."

"Because what I have is fear of the Sunnis who, you might have noticed, receive considerable support from our Sunni neighbors. These people, they are savages. Murderers. For decades, they have slaughtered and crushed my people, the Shia, while they lived regally off the oil wealth that rightfully belonged to all of us. If saving my people means partnership with the Iranians . . . What was that priceless phrase of Churchill's? That one about Stalin? The one about sleeping with the devil . . . ?"

"I think, Mr. Charabi, it was we who slept with the devil. And you should worry deeply about what happens when America learns about your betrayal, about what an a.s.shole you are. We've lost many lives and spent a fortune trying to liberate your country."

"Betrayal? Ah, I think not, Colonel. I merely pa.s.sed along a gift. The selection of this gift was not mine, was it? You have read these messages. You know this choice was Cliff's." Shaking his head at me, he added, "Your problem, I think, is not with Mahmoud Charabi . . . it is with Cliff, who, after all, is now well beyond your reach."

This apparently jogged his mind, because after a moment he complained, "Americans are too impatient. They do not like long wars and struggles. You have this maddening obsession for instant gratification."

He thoughtfully played with his lower lip, then added, "If your army departs prematurely, my people will be slaughtered. So what was for us a big dilemma, by bringing in my Iranian friends, I have now helped turn into your big problem. Now you dare not leave for fear that the Iranians will fill the vacuum, and you will have fought this war only to turn Iraq over to them. Yet if you do leave, Iran will rush in, and my Iranian friends will save us. So, Mr. Drummond, your people face a strategic checkmate, and the Shia, my people--Allah be praised--win either way. Either the Americans or the Iranians, or both of you, will save us. It is a nice position for us, don't you think?"

What I thought, as I looked at this man, was that he was about ten steps ahead of anybody in Washington. He was right, we are a nation addicted to instant gratification--instant food, instant s.e.x, instant victories. Also, we never think deeper than tomorrow. Here, he had not only helped lure us into Iraq, he had already devised a trap play to keep us there. It was was amazing, I thought--and very troubling. amazing, I thought--and very troubling.

I changed subjects and asked, "What was Clifford Daniels to you?"

"A friend when I needed a friend."

"I find it interesting that you would describe him that way. And I'll bet he would find it interesting. Because now you're here, and he's in the morgue."

And it was was interesting. I could call this man a liar, a schemer, a thief, a murderer, and a traitor--but accusing him of bad friendship really got under his bonnet. He flew into a long and indignant harangue regarding his "most dearest friend," admitting that Cliff was, yes, an ordinary human being with warts and blemishes--with an excessive professional appet.i.te, perhaps, and yes, that off-putting self-importance some people found obnoxious--but also he was n.o.ble and dedicated, a flawed saint, and so forth. Arabs have a real flair for flowery bulls.h.i.t, and by the time he anointed Daniels the Lafayette of Iraq, I was ready to blow lunch. interesting. I could call this man a liar, a schemer, a thief, a murderer, and a traitor--but accusing him of bad friendship really got under his bonnet. He flew into a long and indignant harangue regarding his "most dearest friend," admitting that Cliff was, yes, an ordinary human being with warts and blemishes--with an excessive professional appet.i.te, perhaps, and yes, that off-putting self-importance some people found obnoxious--but also he was n.o.ble and dedicated, a flawed saint, and so forth. Arabs have a real flair for flowery bulls.h.i.t, and by the time he anointed Daniels the Lafayette of Iraq, I was ready to blow lunch.

When my host has a gun, however, I tend to listen patiently and behave. For some reason, Charabi felt a need to expiate about Daniels, so I nodded agreeably as he spoke. I actually let him finish before I said, "Cliff Daniels was an idiot. When that became clear--even to himself--he went to pieces. A blowhard, a drunk, a womanizer, a man who went psychotic over his career."

"No, he was--"

"He was a small, weak man with unhealthy appet.i.tes. A man with elephantine ambitions and pygmy talents on a pathetic quest for power and fame. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong meal ticket--you."

"I did not say Cliff was perfect."

"No, you didn't. From the moment you met, you recognized exactly how stupid, how vain, and how vulnerable he was. You exploited those ambitions and vanities. By persuading him to support you and your lies about Iraq, you made a fool out of him, and later, as his world began imploding, you exploited his despondency and made a traitor out of him. With a friend like you, a man has more enemies than he can handle."

"Well . . ." he replied, suddenly uncomfortable. Then he found the bright side, and confessed, "It is a big relief for me to learn this was not suicide, but murder. I was feeling . . . a little guilt."

"You're not off the hook. His murder was the direct consequence of your relationship."

"But I did not kill him." This topic obviously bothered him, and he had the gun, so he changed it and asked, "Tell me about this major. Why do you believe I kidnapped her?"

He had rested his Glock about two feet away on the desktop, I noticed. About twelve feet from me, and I began inching my chair in short, noiseless scoots across the carpet.

Actually, I was somewhat surprised that Mr. Charabi was revealing so much of his thinking to me. Of course, this did not mean he trusted me or enjoyed my company--this meant I was dead.

Instead of answering his question, I asked him, "Did Cliff ever tell you how he he learned we broke Iran's code?" learned we broke Iran's code?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It was a tightly controlled CIA program. He wasn't supposed to know about it. It's . . . well . . . something of an embarra.s.sment."

He laughed.

"To be truthful, a friend of mine has his a.s.s in a sling over it," I told him with a wink. "I owe him a favor."

"You're saying your agency still does not understand how this occurred?"

Another short scoot. "Why are you surprised? These are the same people who never noticed Aldrich Ames's shiny new green Jaguar sedan in the Langley parking lot."

He seemed to relish this a.n.a.logy, as well as the irony that Cliff-- and by extension, he as well--had picked the Agency's pocket. If I had to guess, he still harbored a grudge that the CIA had rejected his early overtures for a partnership, and later, that Agency people trashed his reputation around Washington and in the press. He obviously had a big ego; now he was being petty. He said, "Why don't I give you a hint? The CIA courier for this cell was a woman."

"Oh . . . and--"

He nodded. "And . . . yes. She was not especially attractive, but as Cliff liked to say, all ladies look the same in the dark." He shrugged. "Theirs was a most brief affair." He smiled and added, "I was given the impression from Cliff that her pillow talk was more intriguing to him than the lady herself."

I took a moment and considered this. The prewar intelligence circle of Iraqi experts in Washington was small, so it was not surprising that Cliff and this courier, whoever she was, were acquainted. And I recalled again what his ex-wife said about Cliff: If it couldn't outrun him, he laid wood on it. So in the end, this lady was both literally and figuratively screwed by Cliff. But that left a big open question: Why did she tell Cliff about the program?

But maybe it wasn't all that hard to figure out. It could have been as innocuous as her justifying her frequent absences to Baghdad, or as mundane as her bragging to her lover about her important work, or she mumbled in her sleep, or she sloppily dropped enough clues that Cliff put it together on his own.

Any or all of these explained how how the leak occurred. They did not, however, answer how this courier got past her polygraph sessions. Because, if I believed Phyllis, anybody and everybody involved in this fiasco had been lie-tested so many times that the Agency would know the names of everybody this lady played doctor with in kindergarten, and everybody who hid the pickle in her thereafter. Money, s.e.x, and drugs/booze--these sins are the source of most betrayals, and also these are the things Agency inquisitors show great interest in and never fail to ask about. the leak occurred. They did not, however, answer how this courier got past her polygraph sessions. Because, if I believed Phyllis, anybody and everybody involved in this fiasco had been lie-tested so many times that the Agency would know the names of everybody this lady played doctor with in kindergarten, and everybody who hid the pickle in her thereafter. Money, s.e.x, and drugs/booze--these sins are the source of most betrayals, and also these are the things Agency inquisitors show great interest in and never fail to ask about.

Well, also, there are ego, ambition, and power--consider Cliff Daniels and Don, aka Lebrowski--but if those were disqualifying evils, the only people left in D.C. would be janitors. Maybe.

Charabi broke into my thoughts and insisted, "I have answered your question. You will now answer mine."

"Okay. The major and I were investigating everything about Cliff Daniels, including his bosses, and including you. Plus we have Cliff's computer, and that's known inside the Pentagon. So Tigerman or Hirschfield contacted you and told you to find out what Major Tran and I know, and maybe to stop us. Damage control. Right?"

He laughed; I scooted another few inches forward. He seemed amused by my logic, and he leaned back in his chair and said, "No, this is not right. This is very stupid. Tigerman and Hirschfield stopped talking to me months ago. I am a pariah in Washington." He laughed again.

"All right. If you didn't kidnap the major, who did?"

"I believe that is your problem, Colonel."

"Is it? Then why did she write your name in her blood?" Another short scoot.

"I really have no idea," he replied, and we stared at each other a moment.

I knew this man was a liar and a cheat, and I shouldn't believe a word that came from his fat lips. Not his denial about murdering Cliff Daniels, or about kidnapping Bian, but I did. That left open the issues of who did kill Cliff and who took Bian, but as he said, that was not his problem; it was mine.

I mean, he had already confessed he was a liar, that he had betrayed his pals in Washington, and that he was willfully consorting with Iran, our presumptive enemy. On second thought, confession was the wrong word; he was bragging. He was enjoying himself, looking an American officer in the eye and boasting openly and freely about how smart he was, and how deeply and easily he screwed the big, powerful USA, and his enemies in the CIA.

And why not? He thought he was talking to a dead man. Which reminded me, and I took another short scoot closer to his desk, and to his gun. But he quickly picked up the pistol and asked in a coldly reasonable tone, "Do you really think I am so stupid I haven't noticed you doing that? Back away."

Whoops. I backed away.

But it seemed our conversation was drawing to a close, because he sort of summarized our situation, saying, "So, you and I, we seem to be at a crossroad. I do not have this major you want, and you have this computer that is very troubling to me."

"And you have the gun."

"Yes, that also." He leaned toward me and asked, "If I asked you where this computer is, can I trust you to tell me the truth?"

"Can I trust you not to shoot me afterward?"

I saw that his finger was back inside the trigger guard. He was too preoccupied with his own thinking to answer my question--actually, I knew the answer--and he leaned farther forward and began sharing his own thoughts. He said, "Of course, only you and this missing major know where Cliff's computer is located. Now she has been kidnapped, and of course, this is Iraq--forgive me if this sounds cruel-- she is as good as dead." He paused very briefly and then said, "So . . . if you are dead, too, n.o.body will find this computer."

I was afraid he would put that together. Looking like a man who was happy with his own reasoning, he aimed the pistol at my chest, and his finger began to squeeze.

I quickly said, "Well . . . maybe I wasn't completely forthcoming about the computer."

The pistol didn't go down, but neither did it go off.

I told him, "When I said I have the computer, I meant the Agency Agency has the computer." has the computer."

"So you lied. It is not . . . hidden?"

"That depends on your definition of hidden." Actually, it was hidden from me; that's a pretty good definition.

He asked, "And what is your definition?"

"It's in the possession of my boss, who works directly for the Director. Only three or four people have read the messages, or know about them, including the Director."

I was telling the truth, of course, but he looked a little surprised, and also a lot dubious. He asked, "If you lied to me once, why should I believe you now?" Then he answered his own question and said, "I think I will just kill you and take my chances."

"I thought you were smarter than that. You know, for instance, that your e-mails were professionally encoded. Do you really believe a couple of Army officers broke that code? It was a real ballbuster." I tried to remember some of John's technogibberish, and sort of mumbled, "VPN, and ISP protocols . . . firewalls layered upon firewalls . . ."

While he mulled this over, I said, "Kill me, and the deal will be off."

"You have never mentioned a deal."

"Well . . . the idea was that you and I would have a confidential discussion. This whole thing would be kept under wraps, and n.o.body would be the wiser."

He stared at me very intently with his finger caressing the trigger.

I said, "Why do you think you and I are in here alone? Why did I lock your door? Talk with the agents searching your office--they've been told they're investigating a kidnapping, period. So I go out, tell them you're free and clear, we go away, and you resume your rise to power."

"And why would the CIA consider this a good outcome?"

"We regard it as a terrible outcome."

"Then--"

"You outsmarted us, Mr. Charabi. We recognize reality."

I could see that it made him happy to hear this, and he asked, "And what is this . . . reality?"

"Discretion is best for you, best for us, and best for Iraq." I told him the truth, saying, "The Agency and this administration have taken more than enough black eyes over Iraq. The last thing Washington wants is another public scandal. This scandal in particular." I added, after a beat, "Unless you kill me."

"And then?"

"Good question. Because then . . . well . . ." Because then, well, what? Well, then Sean Drummond would be dead, and who cares what happened afterward? I didn't say that, of course. As persuasively as I could, I said, "Because the CIA does not like it when you kill one of its own. Right now, it's professional. You don't want to make it personal."

He needed a moment to reconsider the situation in light of this new variable. Mahmoud Charabi was indeed sly, and also, I thought, a more complex individual than I had been led to believe. As Don-- aka Martin Lebrowski--had described, the man was an inveterate schemer, and a brutal and habitual manipulator of truth and people, as well as nations. But what Don missed--what you would expect an egocentric, careerist p.r.i.c.k like Don to miss--was that Charabi could self-justify these behaviors as necessary means to a good end, a moral end, a righteous purpose.

I thought, too, that Charabi truly believed he was the anointed savior of his people, just as he now genuinely believed that he, and he alone, could lead them to the Promised Land. He wasn't the first man to mix selfless impulses with his own greed for fame and power, and he wouldn't be the last. And depending on how things worked out, Mahmoud Charabi would have a place in his country's history books, either as a cherished hero or as a miserable flop who overreached and delivered only more death and misery to a land that already had suffered more than enough of both.

He asked for a war, and he had gotten his wish; I was sure, though, that this wasn't the war he antic.i.p.ated--or wanted. I looked at his face as he contemplated what to do with me, and it struck me that, like America, he had a.s.sumed that the war would be swift, the victory complete, and with the Pentagon's backing, he would already be on the throne. As they say, man plans, and G.o.d laughs. Now he was jukin' and jivin', caught up in a civil war partly of his making, playing one side off the other, dividing powerful governments against each other, dancing on powerful cracks, and praying the tectonic plates did not shift and squash him in the middle.

This squat, unimpressive-looking man had grabbed a hungry wolf by the ears. And I was sure I did not need to explain to him what would happen if the wolf got loose.

No, I could not really condemn Mahmoud Charabi for his deceptions, his lies, and his plots; but I could and I did blame those in Washington who wrapped his lies into a nation's justification for war, and in so doing, allowed his machinations to become ours.

I looked up and saw that the pistol still was pointed at me. I could almost hear his thoughts--kill me, or not? I was sure Charabi could, and without remorse, if he believed that was best for his people--and best for himself. Just as I would snap his neck if I could only get close enough. He eventually asked, "How do I know I can trust you you?"

If he was smart, he wouldn't. But I decided to appeal to his kind of logic. "Because we all have dirt we want kept under the rug. Because this administration trusted you, it used your lies to justify this war, and it flew you over here to become the next prime minister. And because now it turns out you played them like gullible idiots, you were and you are working with Iran, and you betrayed us. In the midst of an election, this administration would be destroyed if the public became fully aware of what utter fools they've been. Our coalition partners might take a walk, and American public support for this war might evaporate." I told him, "We would lose, and you you would lose." would lose."

"Ah, but I have already prepared for this."

It was my turn to smile, and I said, "Were I you, I wouldn't be so smug."

"What does this mean?"

"Perhaps your Iranian friends might step up and save the day, or maybe a raging conflict in Iraq is more than they want to bite off, and they'll take a pa.s.s. Then there will be a b.l.o.o.d.y civil war, and possibly a Sunni victory and another Saddam, in which case I wouldn't want to be you." It was time to force the issue and I stood up and said, "Make your choice."

This made sense to him; it should, because it was was true. true.

The pistol came down and he said, "Tell your CIA bosses I have embarra.s.sing secrets about them also. We can burn each other's houses down."