I turned to Bian. "Do you recognize any of these people?"

"Yes, a lot are familiar. Mostly senior Iraqi political or religious figures."

At this point, Phyllis turned to Tim, John, and Samuel. "I'm sure you three can find something better to do."

Tim, John, and Samuel did not seem to mind, and they gathered their stuff and departed, without the door hitting them in the ass. Actually, she'd done them a favor, a big one, and I think they knew it. If they were subpoenaed later, they could honestly say they left before we got into the real muck. Sean Drummond would've followed them if I had a brain in my head. But I was curious. And we all know where that gets you.

I continued to read. The messages sent by Crusader One to Crusader Two, judging by the language and vernacular, were authored by a native-speaking American-presumably Cliff Daniels.

Crusader Two's English was decent and showed a good command of vocabulary, though he occasionally confused his verb tenses-the land mine of all languages-or he switched his verbs with his nouns, and he polluted a few fairly common idiomatic expressions.

Ergo, Crusader Two wasn't a native speaker; he was someone for whom English was a second language.

I saw no dates on the messages, and no subject headings. Based on the themes and contents, however, the first thirty or so messages seemed to reference the same general time frame.

The initial messages from Crusader One kept Crusader Two abreast on events and moods inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the State Department, and occasionally within the White House. Certain figures were mentioned and discussed by name, a few of whom were famous and I recognized. The two names cited most frequently I definitely recognized: Hirschfield and Tigerman.

These particular references were usually in the form of relayed requests or orders from Tigerman and/or Hirschfield-for information, for insights, or imparting special instructions to Crusader Two. For example, one relayed an instruction from Hirschfield ordering Crusader Two to meet with two officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, and to put them into contact with various Shia authorities in the city of Karbala. Another relayed an order from Tigerman to transfer ten million dollars from Crusader Two's operating account to an account number provided later in the message. And so on.

The initial messages from Crusader Two essentially involved his take on current events inside Iraq, including his personal struggle to form his own militia-recruiting, provisioning, weapons, training, and so forth-and his progress at creating a political power base.

Bian glanced over at Phyllis. "You do recognize the true identity of Crusader Two?"

Phyllis said, with a tiny note of impatience, "Yes, Mahmoud Charabi. Keep reading."

I took the remainder of my stack, roughly a hundred and fifty pages, and divided it into two neat piles: those sent by Crusader One and those by Crusader Two.

To be honest, all these messages were becoming a blur. I have enough trouble with American names-all the Arab names and the inside baseball stuff about Washington and Baghdad were sailing over my head. Also, most of these messages contained replies to other messages, and they made better sense when I compared them side by side. Not full sense. Better sense.

A third of the way through, the tone, mood, and demeanor began to shift-faintly at first, then the anger and sense of betrayal took root and picked up steam. The time frame appeared to be mid- through late in the initial year of the occupation. Daniels, in increasingly purple prose, began accusing Charabi of providing prewar tips, promises, and intelligence that weren't panning out. There were a number of references to various Iraqi weapons depots and factories that Charabi and his pals had pinpointed before the war, now being searched by American forces with an embarrassing absence of bugs, noxious gases, or glow-in-the-dark stuff.

Charabi's initial responses were bluff and confident rejoinders to keep looking, the evidence was there-America and the world would soon witness the wicked elixirs and technological nasties he and his friends had prophesied. At one point, he offered the interesting aphorism, "Persistence is the mother of invention." After a while he changed tack, blaming Ali-this or Mustafa-so-and-so, insisting that he had only passed on, in perfectly good faith, what others had sworn to be fact.

By midway through the stack, the trust and bonhomie between the two men had visibly deteriorated; the opening salutations became shorter, pointed, frostier, with the ensuing language more formal and factual than conversational. No longer were they big pals sharing a most amazing adventure. The prevalent themes became strained negotiations, threats, and counterthreats-Charabi reminding Daniels of his own personal criticality to the American occupation, Daniels reminding him back that if American protection, money, and support dried up, Charabi was toast, his ass was grass, and so on.

Another thought struck me-the time frame of these messages seemed roughly to correspond to the letters in the computer from Daniels to Theresa, his ex. Clearly, this was a man coming apart at the seams, a man with melting wings frantically flapping to stay aloft; betrayed, angry, overwhelmed by events, bitter, and lashing out.

I checked my watch. Ten p.m. I stood and stretched.

Phyllis, despite being twice my age, looked amazingly alert, without a wrinkle in her suit or a hair out of place, like she'd just had an Ovaltine fix.

Bian, also looking perfectly fresh, somehow remained intensely concentrated on her stack, plowing through the pages like a real trencherman. Maybe it was the fish. Maybe Phyllis also was a fish eater.

Phyllis saw me standing and asked, "What do you think?"

"Daniels writes like a man who just discovered his wife's screwing his brother."

She ignored my coarse analogy and asked, "Do you understand what you're reading?"

"Do I want to understand?" I replied, half in jest, half not.

She stared at me for a long beat. "Explanations will come later. Break's over. Sit and finish."

Phyllis, incidentally, tends to have the patience and forbearance of Job. My own parents, the older they get the less self-restraint they exhibit. I don't mean they wear diapers or drool or anything. But they tend to blurt the first thing that comes to mind. It can be fairly annoying; my mother, for instance, every time she calls, opens with the same tired question, "Do I have grandchildren yet?" To which I always reply, "Not with your last name." Pop thinks this is a riot. Mom's checking into whether it's too late to arrange an adoption.

Anyway, Phyllis seemed uncharacteristically wound up, and maybe a little agitated, and for sure, her patience was wearing thin.

About five minutes later, I heard Bian murmur, "Holy shit."

Phyllis replied with some relief, "Well… at last."

Bian held a page in front of her face, staring at it with open amazement.

She slid the page across the table in my direction. It was from Charabi, and opened with one of his recurring themes, bitching about the ineptness of American soldiers as occupiers. Halfway down, I read, So you will see that my situation has become most tenuous and dangerous. My Iraqi Shiite brothers do not trust me. I am being out-maneuvered by Sadr and Sistani for leadership of the Shia people, because I am seen as a cowardly expatriate who escaped the worst of Saddam's years, and now works for the Americans, without proper loyalty to my country. In the streets, I am called an American puppet, a Pentagon lick-toadie, and other names too abominable to repeat. This is all so unfortunate and so terribly shameful. This is a big problem for me, and you must appreciate how this is also a big problem for you, my brother. America is the country of my second love, and truly, I am your best hope for a leader for my country. You once saw this, and I pray you can still see this, yes? I know I am losing of your trust, but look into your heart and still you must see me as a good friend.