He turned around, looked at us, and almost as an afterthought asked, "May I join you?"

Bian said, "Please do… uh-"

"Jim… please." He moved to the table, sat across from us, and took a moment getting comfortable. He said, "I'm told you two went into Falluja and made the apprehension."

Bian nodded.

He shook his head. "That was… incredibly brave. The same morning the attack started, right?"

"Somebody forgot to warn us," I informed him truthfully.

"Glad you explained that." He smiled. "I was worried that you're complete idiots."

Bian pointed at me and commented, "He told me he was taking me to Vegas. So you can imagine my surprise when…"

Jim chuckled. We all laughed. Ha-ha. Baghdad humor. He said, "Well, for the record, it was worth it. We get a lot of the old regime here, and their testimonies and confessions will be helpful when the Iraqis get around to prosecuting Saddam and the old guard. But their value is historical at this point. Old business. Current operational guys are more rare, and definitely more interesting."

I didn't really want to talk about this, so to divert the conversation, I mentioned, "I didn't even realize the FBI was here."

"The American public doesn't know we're here."

The publicity machine of the besainted Bureau makes Madison Avenue look like pikers, so I was surprised to hear this. "Why are you here?"

He lit a cigarette and spent a moment considering his response. "A little of this, some of that. We give investigations training to the Iraqi police. For a high-value investigation-say, a particularly nasty bombing or VIP assassination-we handle the more demanding criminology work, forensic collection, residue analysis, technical analysis. Also, there are a lot of American firms here-sometimes we investigate them." He smiled. "Believe it or not, there's a lot of graft over here. Uncle Sam is spending over a billion bucks a month, and it brings out everybody's best instincts. Bribery, overbilling, kickbacks, the usual funny business." He stopped smiling. "My detachment's not that big, so sometimes it's just liaison work with the labs at Quantico or referral work with stateside offices."

"This must be a career-enhancing assignment."

He forced a tight smile. "Sure is. If you survive." He added, "But the Bureau does look kindly on overseas hardship assignments. If you're interested, we're all volunteers here. This is where the action is-great training, great experience, and great tax benefits."

This sounded like the standard recruiting spiel, and as with Army recruiters, one thing was not emphasized, and that was the great odds of a premature funeral.

But frankly I was having trouble picturing boys and girls in blue suits and starched white shirts running around Baghdad. Tirey apparently read my thoughts, because he remarked, frowning, "It takes a little adjustment. The hours suck. And the working conditions are almost indescribable." He said, "Also, the cops here are a joke. They're lazy, crooked, corrupt, on the take, infiltrated, or scared shitless of the insurgents."

"Maybe the fact that the insurgents are targeting them has something to do with it."

"Tell me about it. It's just that you can't trust them. They destroy evidence, pollute crime scenes, and feed us false leads. I used to think the stateside cops are a pain in the ass… You know what? I actually look forward to working with the NYPD."

I could've told him that a lot of foreign armies we work with are worse; instead, I nodded.

He continued, "The Bureau has opened a lot of these overseas stations in the past ten years. In the old days, if you wanted fast track, the New York office was the place to be. Now it's pissholes like this." He shook his head.

Truly it was a new world, and the FBI, like the Army, was struggling to find its footing, and its people, trained and bred as they were to fight American crime in American cities, were having to learn new tricks and new angles, with different rules. He mentioned, "You might be interested to know that we flew in a team of financial forensics specialists. Assuming bin Pacha spills, they'll follow the money."

Bian was just responding to that statement when, out of the blue, our conversation was drowned out by an earsplitting noise, the sound of people shrieking and howling, that was really awful. The surround sound system was set at full blast and it sounded like a live concert from Dante's Inferno. I nearly jumped out of my shorts, and Bian actually did jump out of her chair and grabbed and squeezed my arm.

Jim mouthed the word "Relax." He got up, walked to the video screen, grabbed the remote, and pushed the mute button, which brought instant silence. He smiled at us in an amused way. "I tried to warn you. And don't get your pants on fire. It's a tape. Speakers are mounted outside of bin Pacha's cell. A little mood music to put new detainees in the right frame of mind."

And indeed, on the screen you could see bin Pacha's eyes pop open, and then he bolted upright and made a swift visual survey of his new environment. Doc Enzenauer had cautioned us that the after-effects of the drugs and anesthetics would leave him groggy and possibly would impair his judgment for a day or two. But on his face I saw no sign of confusion or disorientation-he knew he was in the shithole of the universe.

Jim had apparently seen this movie before, and wasn't interested in the rerun. He lit another cigarette and, through the billows of smoke, studied Bian and me. He said, "How did you know bin Pacha was in Falluja? And where to find him?"

I mean, it was hard not to admire the sneaky way he'd worked up to this question-this guy was smooth. It was none of his business, of course. But when you say that to a cop they make your business their business. Without pausing, Bian replied, "An informer. A member of his own network, if you can believe it."

"An inside informer? Wow."

"I know. Almost unheard of." After a moment, she added, "You'll enjoy this delicious irony. Zarqawi's people accidently blew up their own man's family with a car bomb. It's about revenge."

Sounded good to me.

But Tirey replied, "What are the odds of that, huh?"

My eyes were intermittently weaving between Tirey, Bian, and the video screen. I saw bin Pacha push off the cot and get to his feet. For a moment he swayed back and forth like an unsteady, one-legged drunk, but eventually he achieved his sea legs and steadied himself. His head turned sharply toward the door, then he stumbled, sort of dragging his fake leg, across the small cell.

Bian was telling Tirey, "When I took prob and stats at West Point, we had case studies like this. You know… assume a country of twenty-three million people, with ten thousand terrorists, who have fifty thousand direct family members, and who detonate two thousand bombs indiscriminately… what's the probability they'll blow up their own families?"

Bian was elaborating too much, which, with a cop or a lawyer, is like slicing your wrist in a shark-filled tank.

"Interesting way to look at it," remarked Tirey, but not all that sincerely. He pulled a drag on his cigarette and said, "Well, here's another curious thing. I was told you two flew into the country for this operation. Why? What's wrong with the local talent?"

Not only was this guy smooth, he was sharp.

On the screen, I observed bin Pacha now gesticulating with his hands. Because our viewing angle was a top-down, you couldn't see his lips moving, though it sure looked like he was conversing with somebody. I really wished I'd paid more attention when Enzenauer explained the after-effects from the drugs and anesthetics. Maybe he mentioned hallucinations during the period when I tuned him out, meaning most of the conversation. I'm not paid enough for medical lectures.

"Don't read anything into it," Bian was instructing Tirey. "Our source is still embedded in the insurgency. You know the mantra-extraordinary sources, extraordinary precautions."