Rafii had been listening carefully. He touched Murdock's shoulder and nodded at the tall man.

"I understand your worry," Rafii said. "We are trying to help Iraq, help her despite what your president wants to do. We will not hurt you in any way, do you understand that?"

"Yes. If the Secret Police had caught me back there, I would have been in prison for years. It would have been the third time at a booze house. I have had no work since I came back from my fishing trip."

Rafii smiled. "Fishing in the desert is hard work. We need to know where you were fishing."

Sharif looked away. He shook his head. "I promised that I would never tell. It is a state secret."

"You built the facility, Sharif. Do you know what they manufactured out there in that desert?"

"They told us not to even guess at it. Not our business. We built the place; they used it."

"They put together Iraq's first nuclear bomb out there in the desert," Rafii said.

Sharif jumped to his feet, disbelief swarming over his face. "No. You must be joking. We can't do that. We don't have enough scientists, enough material. Who taught us how?"

"We don't know, but Iraq now has four nuclear bombs, and if they drop one on Israel, there will be an immediate response. Two or three nuclear bombs will fall on Baghdad, killing a million people. We are trying to prevent that from happening."

"A million...dead?" Sharif shook his head and turned away. "And I helped build the place they were made."

"You can still help save Baghdad from destruction."

"How?"

"Tell us where in the desert this secret complex is and how we can get there."

Sharif shuddered. His thin hands came up and rubbed his face, then he looked at Rafii. "If I told you, they would kill me."

"The Secret Police or the Home Guard will never know. We won't tell them. You will have enough money to live for years, if you don't start spending too much. You will be saving your country."

Sharif sat on the worn couch and held his head in his hands. Rafii and Murdock sat down nearby and waited.

"No one would know?"

"We will tell no one. No one knows that we have come to see you."

"I would have some money, so I wouldn't have to beg from my relatives?"

"Absolutely. Enough to live on for years."

Sharif stared at the floor. "It is in the desert."

"Is it underground?"

"Yes, but just two feet of dirt and rocks are on the roofs of the buildings, making them invisible from the air or the ground."

"Where are they, Sharif?"

"Far into the Syrian Desert. Beyond Muhammadiyah."

"That isn't even in the desert," Rafii said.

"Far, far beyond there, on the highway leading into Jordan.

"How far from Jordan?"

"I don't know. We were blindfolded for the whole trip both ways in the trucks."

"Was it more than two hundred kilometers?"

"Oh, yes, much more. I heard some drivers talking at a rest stop. They said they figured it was more than-"

Gunfire splattered through the thin outer door and into the room. The door crashed inward and two men ran into the room firing submachine guns. Murdock and Rafii dove to the floor pulling their pistols. Murdock had a clean shot on the first submachine-gun wielder. He put two shots into his chest and the man crumpled. Rafii took a round in the left arm in the first barrage, then rolled to the floor, drew his pistol, and fired four times, cutting down the second gunman near the door.

Murdock lifted off the floor and jerked the sub gun from the man's dead fingers. Then he kicked the second gunman, who groaned once before he died. Murdock went to Rafii, who held his left arm.

"Caught one, Skip. Not too bad. How is our pigeon?"

Murdock looked at Sharif. The construction worker had taken the brunt of the attack. He had one minor head wound and three rounds in his chest. They had missed his heart. Blood bubbled from Sharif's mouth.

Rafii held him where he lay on the blood-splattered couch.

"Sharif, you're hurt bad. Now you've got to help us. How far was it to the construction site?"

Sharif shook his head. "Long ways," he said. Blood came out of his mouth.

"Over three hundred kilometers?" Rafii asked.

The Iraqi's head nodded.

"Over four hundred?"

Instead of nodding this time, the construction worker's head rolled gently to the side and one last breath gushed out of his lungs.

"Out of here," Murdock growled. They each picked up a submachine gun and took two magazines from the civilian's pockets, then peered out the back door. Nothing moved in the alley. They darted out the door into black shadows. Nothing happened. They ran back the way they had come. At the street they hesitated again. No one was on the sidewalk. No cars moved along the pavement.

They walked now, heading back where they had left the stolen car two blocks from the booze house.

"We have a start," Rafii said. "Over three hundred kilometers and on the highway to Jordan. There are few roads in the desert. This one goes through Muhammadiyah. I know the place. We have a start."

"Over three hundred kilometers. That divided by 1.6K to a mile would be about a hundred and eighty-five miles or so. How far is it from Baghdad to the Jordan border?"

"You're testing my geography. It's roughly three hundred and seventy miles by air from Baghdad to the Jordanian border. By road it's more than that but not a lot. Almost no one lives beyond Muhammadiyah, which is only about twenty miles from the Euphrates River."

"And this Muhammy town is how far from the Jordanian border?"

"Not sure. Maybe two hundred miles."

"Are there any settlements out there in the desert at all?"

"d.a.m.n few. Maybe one or two."

"Would they build a setup like this near a village?"

"Hard telling what President Kamil might do. He's a dictator just like Saddam Hussein was. He can put it wherever he wants to."

"Maybe in a valley or a large wadi where it would have some protection."

As they approached the car they had come in, they blended into the shadows and watched it. No one stood guard over the car. They could see no one watching it. Two blocks ahead they saw many lights and car engines racing and a lot of shouting. The arrests must still be going on. After five minutes, Murdock stirred.

"I'll do a walk-by," Murdock whispered and eased onto the sidewalk and moved up past the stolen car. He saw nothing to worry him. He went back, stepped inside, and started the engine. Murdock drove down to where Rafii waited.

"How did they find us there with Sharif?" Rafii asked.

"They must have had scouts out watching for any runners," Murdock said. "When they saw the three of us, they tailed us, then brought in the guns."

"At least Sharif's worries are over," Rafii said.

Murdock pulled over and stopped the car. "You better drive, Rafii. I'm lost already."

Gypsy drove her own car, an ancient British sedan, the ten miles to the general's luxurious house. It was provided by the regime, as were the two maids, a driver, a handyman, two cooks, and his own dresser and butler. Colonel Kahled Ibrahim had just finished watching a s.e.xy Western film when the call came from Gypsy. The film motivated him. It was late, and he had the meeting tomorrow with the president, but he invited her over. She would come in the side entrance and no one would know she had been there. It was safest that way. He could do as he pleased, but he was well aware of the president's narrow view on women. He was often too fundamentalistic for Ibrahim's tastes. Every man to his own.

As a door closed softly Ibrahim looked up and smiled. She would come in with her top garment loose and showing her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. b.r.e.a.s.t.s were not her best feature, but he humored her. A moment later she came through the door into his den. It contained a large couch, a giant TV screen, radios, and a desk in one corner with a telephone. He spent most of his time there. To his surprise, Gypsy danced into the room without anything on above her waist.

"Yes, yes, I like the new entrance, little one. What pleasures and surprises do you have for me tonight?"

"Many surprises, but first a drink. I crave some of the vodka that you like so much."

Ibrahim beamed. "A woman who knows good drink," he said and produced a bottle and two gla.s.ses from his desk. They both drank and he fondled her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I'm told a woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s enlarge with milk when she has a baby. Have yours done that?"

"Once, so long ago I don't want to think about it."

"A boy?"

"Yes."

"Where is he now?"

"With Allah."

"The war? Was he killed in the war with Iran?"

"No, with the Americans. His captain killed him."

"His captain? How?"

"Sent him on a suicide mission to determine how quickly the American motorized infantry was advancing. Put him on a motorcycle and told him to ride until he saw them, then turn and race back and report."

"Did he get back?"

"No. He saw them, then they were all around him and he was cut down by machine guns."

"In every war..."

"But not for officers. How many wars have you been in, Kahled?"

"Only two. Wounded but not killed." He finished his drink and poured another. He smiled at her, pushed his hand up her leg, and rubbed her crotch. "You remember what you promised me the last time you were here?"

"Yes. Do you still have the box?"

"I have guarded it better than the state secrets I know." He went to a closet and returned with a cardboard box a foot square. "So?"

Gypsy laughed and opened the box. She took out a folded plastic sheet and spread it on the carpet on the floor. It was thin and covered a s.p.a.ce ten feet square. In the middle of that she put down a folded piece of canvas that was four feet square. She pushed out the folds until it lay flat. Gypsy took tubes of paint and jars of color from the box and smeared them on her arms, hands, shoulders, stomach, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then she lay down on the canvas and began writhing and sliding and rubbing the paint from her body onto the flat surface. She stood twice and nodded at her work. Then she slipped out of the skirt and put paint on her legs and waist and dropped on the canvas for more splashes with her paintsmeared legs. For the final touch, she pushed her crotch flat and hard against a paint buildup in the center of the canvas, then eased up and stepped away.

"Bravo, yes, amazing," the colonel said. He lifted his third gla.s.s of straight vodka and drank. "I want you to sign it for me. When it dries, I'll be able to sell it for three hundred dinars."

"At least," she said and dropped on the couch. He moved to her, already opening his pants and sliding down on her paint-etched body.

An hour later she held his head in her naked lap and stroked his face, now streaked with paint from her body. He had kept drinking and now was so near pa.s.sing out she had to stop the drinks.

"So how did you stay busy today, Kahled?"

"Busy, always busy. Had to send men to the desert. Defending what doesn't need defending."

She lifted her brows. "I thought all of Iraq needed defending. The enemy is always waiting for us to leave an opening."

"Not defending against an enemy, protecting what we have."

"What could we have in the desert that would be worth a hundred armed men?"

"Not a hundred, two hundred and heavy weapons."

"You're joking. Our men are needed on the borders in case Israel sends in planeloads of paratroopers, and tanks and infantry."

"The borders are well protected." He belched. His eyes flickered shut, then she kissed them and they opened. "We had to drive within a hundred and fifty kilometers of the Jordan border. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds made me go with them. Then the long drive back home. At least my sedan was air-conditioned."

"Nothing in the desert is that important to take you away from Baghdad, and your good food and drink."

"True-no, not true. This is important. The future of our country. So important that the president himself told me to take the troops out there and be sure they had the best positions around the complex."

"Was two hundred enough?"

He blinked. His eyes closed and opened slowly. "Need one more drink."

She poured vodka in his gla.s.s, just a sip. "There, that's the last of the bottle."