"No… seriously."

She laughed. And I, too, laughed.

Indeed, this was an intriguing lady. Of course, it never pays to underestimate the competition. Clearly Bian Tran was a fascinating and surprisingly complex woman-self-confident, forceful, spirited, and, I thought on a more contradictory note, sly, brazen, bawdy, and slightly cynical. Beneath that cool intelligence and soldierly veneer, I sensed, was a woman of considerable passion, of suppressed spontaneity, of independent motives-qualities any smart female in the military keeps in check, if not repressed, if she wants a successful career.

It's a little strange. Here was this physically exotic Asian woman, and you expect her to exhibit the manners of the old country, to be inscrutable, demure, subservient to males, and all the rest of that misogynistic crap the occidental male typically associates with oriental ladies. This is why in the great and immutable melting pot of America, stereotypes are such dangerous stuff; they narrow your frame of mind, and shape your reference and behavior. The object of that stereotype can stuff it up your butt.

At any rate, this seemed like the right moment to put everything on the table. I informed her, "Cliff Daniels was under watch by the FBI and CIA."

She stared at me blankly.

I wasn't buying that and said, "I think you already know this."

"How would I know that?"

"You tell me."

She looked annoyed. "Maybe this conversation would move faster if you enlighten me."

"Maybe it would, but I wasn't informed."

"You weren't… You must have an idea?"

"I have better than an idea. Think of the one thing that brings these two brotherly agencies together."

"Oh…" She did appear genuinely startled by this news, then said, "Seriously, I had no idea."

"Now you do. And as a cop, you're aware that espionage takes it out of the hands of the Defense Department and into the pockets of the FBI and CIA. That briefcase is leaving with me."

She took a short moment and mentally explored her options. She had no options, but took a stab anyway and said, "On one condition."

"Did I give you the idea I'm asking for permission?"

"Just hear me out. Okay? Let's work out an arrangement."

"I neither need, nor do I want… an arrangement."

"Oh… yes, you do. We leave together with the briefcase, and we'll search it together." She put a hand on my arm. "This is a good deal for you. I'm both a military police officer and I'm assigned to the Office of Special Investigations. Suppose we do find something inside that case. I can get to the bottom of it faster than you can."

After a long moment, during which I made no response, she added, "My office reports directly to the Secretary of Defense, and we play for keeps. When we ask, people answer."

"Sounds like the Gestapo."

She looked me in the eye. "We're not that nice." After a moment she handed me her cell phone. "Call your boss. Tell him to cancel that call to the Pentagon."

"Her." I took her cell phone. "Give me a moment. She's going to throw a fit."

"Sounds like a tough woman." She gave me a sympathetic look and added, "I'll say it again… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you in hot water."

She opened the glass door and stepped back inside, then moved to the far corner of the living room, where she crossed her arms, pretended to study the carpet, and I could observe her observing me.

I flipped open her cell phone and dialed Phyllis. Miss Teri Jung, her lovely and very affable secretary, answered and said to hold on.

Phyllis made me wait a full minute before she came to the phone. I sensed she was in an unhappy mood when she opened by saying, "Drummond, I am exceedingly unhappy with you."

"I understand."

"You had better be calling from your car."

"I understand."

"I'm expecting a good explanation for your silliness during that phone call."

"I understand."

"If you say that again, I'll-"

"Are you ready to listen?"

I heard her draw a sharp breath. I tend not to draw out the best qualities in my bosses. She said something I already knew. "This better be good."

So I succinctly recounted what I had observed and what I surmised, including that Cliff might have had a helping hand when he killed himself, that Major Tran was suspiciously territorial toward that briefcase, and that perhaps it contained something incriminating, or worse. Phyllis is a good listener-at least a patient one-and she did not interject or comment until I finished. Then she said, "This is curious."

"I know why it's curious to me. Why is it curious to you?"

"Well…"

We were already off to a bad start. "Start over."

Silence.

"Phyllis, I'm involved. Tell me what's going on here, now, or I'll let Tran walk out with that briefcase."

"You're too nosy for your own good."

She meant for her own good, but with her that might be the same thing. I said, "Three questions. Who is Cliff Daniels? Why are you and the Feds interested in him? And why am I here?"

"This is… inconvenient. I can hardly elaborate over an insecure cellular phone connection." After a moment, she added, "Had you been following the news you would have noted in last week's Post that Clifford Daniels has been ordered to testify before the House Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee."

"Why?"

"I suppose because Cliff Daniels was Mahmoud Charabi's handler."

A lot of Arabs are in the news these days, but I was familiar with that name. Twenty years before, Mahmoud Charabi had fled Iraq, two steps ahead of a posse of Saddam Hussein's goons, who stayed on his tail and had a clear agenda. There followed a few attempted whacks, including a nasty affair with a hatchet in a London hotel and a shotgun ambush outside a Parisian nightclub. Then Saddam called off the dogs; either other Iraqi exiles bumped Charabi down on the hit list or he was no longer worth the effort. Thus he entered his rootless and peripatetic figure stage, seeking haven first in Switzerland, then London, then Paris, and eventually setting up shop in Washington. As with many exiles driven by restless ambitions and old grudges, he founded an organization for the liberation of his homeland, the Iraqi National Symposium.

Many of these so-called liberation and opposition groups are little more than social clubs for nostalgic expats, associations for preposterously lost causes, or scams for gullible fools to throw money at. The world is indeed a wicked place, filled with nasty tyrants, hateful prejudices, ancient crimes unrepented, starvation, diseases, genocide, and fratricide; all of which, of course, is Pandora's fault-though I suspect human nature also may have something to do with it. And for every wrong, there is somebody who wants to make it right.

In Washington, there are literally thousands of these expat revolutionaries in the wings, organized into hundreds of groups and organizations, all vying to get their dreams and their causes on Uncle Sam's to-do list. The lucky few even find rich and/or powerful patrons to bankroll and lobby their causes. But there is, I suppose, something romantic and adventurous about these foreign people peddling grand ideas for miserable places, because they are highly sought figures on the Hollywood Stars Seeking Grand Causes tours, the D.C. cocktail circuit, and in Georgetown's more storied salons. And why not? Listening to Xian discuss why anguished Tibet must be liberated and free certainly makes for more ennobling table talk than the hubbies bitching about greens fees at the Congressional Country Club. Personally, I prefer uncomplicated company when I eat-definitely when I drink.

But it's clear what draws these galvanized exiles to our shores: our unimaginable power, and their deplorable lack of it; our "light on the shining hill" mentality, and their fingers pointed at dark places; our uniquely American sense of can-do compassion, and their desire, no matter how selfless, to exploit it.