"Don't believe everything you read in our newspapers," I replied, or maybe anything you read. "We can send cooks and lawyers against you with a hand tied behind their backs. Look who's the prisoner."

"I think not. I think your hired mercenaries caused this."

"Who? Oh… them… the Bowery Boys' Choir. They were here on a USO tour, got a little bored, so we gave them a night off for a little fun." I winked.

"You are a filthy liar."

"No, I'm a lawyer."

He missed the inside humor. He said, "We study everything about you. The longer you remain in our lands, the more we learn about you, and the more dead you will count. We are willing to die for our cause, you are not."

We locked eyes, and I said, "That's why we're here. To help you die."

"Yes, but you are dying. Your President loses popularity with each coffin. I think you have a lovely American expression for this-you have bitten off more than you can swallow… in the corpses of your soldiers."

This was going nowhere. We had all taken our best shots, and now we were merely stoking our mutual resentments. So I changed the tone, and the subject, and told him, "We're here to ask for your cooperation. We want Zarqawi. You're going to help us find him."

He laughed.

As we had discussed beforehand, Bian chipped in to remind him, "There's a twenty-five-million-dollar reward on Zarqawi's head. You've given an eye and a leg to the cause. There's no shame in cashing out now. Surely he considers you expendable and will not mourn your loss. You should return the sentiment."

"I told you to shut up, whore."

I warned him, "There's the nice way, or the hard way."

"Yes?" He looked amused. "Explain for me this hard way. Maybe Abu Ghraib, where your whores will ply their sex perversions and your soldiers will march me around in a hood? Or maybe you will send me to your Guantanamo prison and flush my Koran down the toilet?"

"Do you have a preference?"

"I think not. I think the world knows about the disgusting things your soldiers have done to mujahideen in these places. I think you no longer have a hard way left."

"You can't imagine how much a morality lecture means from somebody who blows up innocent people and slits the throats of helpless prisoners."

"You know of what I am referring, I think."

In fact, I did. I quietly reached down and turned a knob; instantly, a small vial of colorless fluid began squirting into his IV tube.

Ali bin Pacha was every bit the overbaked fanatic Abdul had warned us he would be. Like many extremists, he was emotionally limited, those emotions ranging between fury, hate, and chronic self-righteousness. But he wasn't stupid, and surely he was cognizant that under enough torture, everybody breaks. I recalled a former client who had been beaten to a pulp by a dumb, sadistic southern deputy sheriff until he confessed to being a bank robber, a child molester, and a serial killer, ending with the astonishing revelation that he was the second man on the knoll at JFK's assassination.

Even the sheriff, who was a few quarts low of IQ juice, had trouble with that after learning the confessor wasn't born until 1973. In fact, my client was guilty of nothing except diddling the deputy sheriff's wife. It was criminally stupid, but it was not criminal behavior. The point: Coerced statements introduce reliability issues. That is, unless you begin the process with a man you know is guilty; usually then you'll get something more credible and useful.

As an attorney, I am of course philosophically opposed to torture under any circumstances, though men like Abdul Almiri and Ali bin Pacha are tempting. On more practical grounds, however, an interrogation ultimately is a form of negotiation-to succeed, there has to be a carrot, and there has to be a stick. Ali bin Pacha was telling me where I could put the stick.

He informed me, "My comrades will know I am a prisoner of your army. You cannot hide or disguise this. They will post my capture on a Web site, and they will notify Aljazeera, and so the world will hear of this. I think your press will be very interested about me."

"Is there a point to this?"

"I think you know my point. Mistreat me, and your press will create for you another big public problem-another embarrassment your idiot President cannot explain."

The Army advises that one should never underestimate the enemy, and here, I thought, was a case in point. Bin Pacha's people had planned for this eventuality, the capture of their moneyman, they were sensitive to the need to shield him from coercive tactics, and they were sure they knew how to do it.

In truth, on any other day it might even have been a workable plan. I turned to Bian. "These people are smart, aren't they?"

"I guess so."

"I mean… this is… you know…?"

"I know. This guy so much as gets an infected pimple, and the whole world will scream that we're Nazis."

"That seems to be the general idea."

"Very clever."

"Would you ever have-?"

"Nope. Not in a million years."

Bin Pacha's smile now looked a little less certain; it looked wobbly, actually.

Bian grabbed my arm. "Well, he has been unconscious for three days."

Bin Pacha had not a clue what we were talking about, but he was reading our body language and picking up the sarcasm in our voices. I looked at him and said, "Which do you want first, pal? The merely bad news or the crap-in-your-drawers news?"

The smile disappeared. But maybe he didn't understand the question.

"Well… why don't we ease into it?" I continued, "Bad news first. The morning you were captured, the Army and Marines kicked off a big-time assault on Falluja. Last report I heard-this was two hours ago-about three hundred of your fellow terrorists are dead, many dozens more are buried in the rubble, and who knows how many have been turned into mist or paste by tank and artillery shells."

In case he didn't get the message, Bian added, "Your compatriots will never know whether you've been captured, blown to pieces, or just buried in the rubble."

He had asked for it and it was time for the kicker. I said, "Last chance-will you cooperate or not?"

"Rot in hell."

I turned to Bian. "Can't say we didn't try."

"Sure did." She glanced at bin Pacha. "Poor soul."

Bin Pacha now looked very interested in this exchange, dealing as it did with his fate. He insisted, "I am more than willing to live the rest of my life in your prisons. You are fools to think I am fearful of this."

"I'm sure you are not." And I was sure it was true.

Bian had endured this guy's abuse with commendable stoicism-well, but for that one minor incident-and it seemed only fair for her to be the bearer of the worst tidings. I glanced at her, and she nodded.

She faced Ali bin Pacha. "You're being turned over to Saudi intelligence. I've never seen them so anxious to get their hands on a prisoner."

I added, "Your countrymen play by different rules. You're aware of this." I added, "If you're interested, they already have your family in custody."

His eyes went a little wide, but he didn't look as upset as I expected. In fact, I thought I saw a faint smile. This guy had more bullshit bravado than an Army Ranger, which is saying something.

Bian advised him, "Some parting advice." She may have been an infidel slut, but she now had his undivided attention. "Don't hold on to it too long. I've seen prisoners who tried. They were missing body parts, and in some cases, missing family members. And you know what? They all talked."

I assured him, "You'll talk as well."

Bian added, "How much agony and how many parents and brothers are a few hours or days of silence worth?"

Ali bin Pacha's eyelids were fluttering. You could see he was fighting to maintain consciousness, and you could also see that Doc Enzenauer's magical mickey had already coursed through the IV tube, through his veins, and straight to his evil brain.