This statement was so blatantly disingenuous I had to laugh.

He did not like this and gave me a nasty look.

"Yet," Bian noted, "when you learned he was about to be apprehended, your ambassador rushed to the White House and intervened. If this… if Ali bin Pacha was beneath your radar, why go to such extraordinary trouble?"

Another question he didn't want to hear. In fact, I had not put this piece together, and Bian's analysis caught me by surprise-not the fact that the Saudis wanted to hide bin Pacha's secrets, per se; something else. It caught him by surprise as well, and he simply stared at her.

Since he was no longer answering, Bian answered for him. "You were aware bin Pacha was part of a terrorist cell and you knew rich Saudis were giving him money. Until he was about to be captured, you didn't care, or… you did care, and approved of his activities."

"This is speculation. Completely absurd."

She kept her eyes on his face.

I also was studying al-Fayef's face. He was too much the veteran professional to do something stupid, like look guilty, or even more stupidly, confess. But he did lick his lips a few times, and with a shaky hand he fumbled out a fresh cigarette and lit it.

He turned to Phyllis and insisted, "I have nothing more to say. Now you must tell me what you intend to do."

Actually, he'd told us as minimal truth he could get away with: a careful mixture of what we could learn on our own, what was intuitively obvious, and what any intelligent regional expert could divine from the facts. The problem for us, and the bigger problem for him, was what he didn't tell us, but that Bian had just surmised.

Regarding Phyllis, as usual her eyes conveyed one emotion, her lips another, and neither betrayed what probably was in her heart, or in her head. I was sure she was angry, frustrated, and worried. But for Phyllis, emotion and logic were never at war; it just never occurred to her that reason has a peer, or that emotion should incubate action. She announced unequivocally and, I thought, predictably, "What's done is done. We move forward."

Bian asked, "What does that mean?"

"It means what it means."

"What about justice?"

"For who?" Phyllis asked.

"For the soldiers who are fighting. For those who are dead. For their families, for their loved ones. For America."

"There is no justice for dead soldiers," Phyllis replied with typically chilling logic. "They are not murder victims-they're casualties of war."

"The Saudis have been feeding money, people, and who knows what to their killers. We now have the names of two princes." Bian looked in al-Fayef's direction and added, "It sounds like there are more names, and possibly the Saudi government's implicated as well. You can't ignore or paste over that."

Wrong, because Phyllis turned to al-Fayef and said, "It's not in our interest to expose the royal family to… embarrassment."

He smiled, though I saw no hint of pleasure or even contentment in his eyes; I saw relief. He said, "Good choice. It would be, you know, a disaster for both our countries." He looked around the room, at each of our faces, then added agreeably, "A war is going on, after all. We must remain friends. Good allies."

After all he had just said, about America, about our arrogance, about our incompetence, I was amazed that a bolt of lightning didn't strike. Apparently, while Bian and I missed the cues, the sheik and Phyllis had moved to a new song, this one titled "Row, row, row the boat gently down the stream."

And, in fact, Phyllis gave a cool nod to her sheik friend.

He said, "I recognize, however, that we have caused you certain difficulties." He waved his cigarette in small circles through the air. "Embarrassments. Inconveniences."

"Your sensitivity is greatly appreciated."

He leaned back into his chair and exhaled a long stream of smoke. "Two names, Phyllis. This is all I have been authorized to offer."

Phyllis shuffled her hands and replied noncommittally, "If they're the right names."

"Yes, yes… of course." He watched her face. "There is a man in Syria, a man who arranges the shipment of weapons and jihadists into Iraq. A smuggler of considerable talent and cleverness." Phyllis looked unimpressed, and he quickly emphasized, "He is big. Very big. Perhaps a third of the mujahideen entering Iraq flow through his channels."

Phyllis stared at him, then nodded. "We're halfway there."

"And I have heard of another man, a Saudi expatriate, who recruits jihadists in Jordan. He-"

Phyllis interrupted. "Forget about him. Recruiters are too easily replaced."

"Ah…" A pained expression came to the sheik's face, and he hesitated before he said, "There is another man, in Iraq, who decides the targets the mujahideen strike in the city of Karbala."

Phyllis bent forward with intensified interest.

"Alas, he also is Saudi, from a prominent family-his father is a dear friend of many years-and it… I am greatly pained to betray him."

This guy was a real craftsman, and probably he threw that in to make us all feel better. After a moment, Phyllis observed, "You know, of course, that names without addresses are of no use."

"And you know, of course, that my guards will depart with me. Also that infernal machine," he said, pointing at the recorder, with its incriminating recording. He quickly added, "And I'll give you the man in Jordan for free. We have no use for him."

"The recorder and guards are yours. I have no use for them."

As I said, Bian and I were not clued in to the rules here, but the flesh trading was apparently over, because the sheik rose from his seat and began casually brushing ashes off his white robes, even as he nonchalantly took a final pull from his stinky cigarette and crushed it beneath his foot. After about three seconds, he opened his valise, rummaged inside, fished out three manila folders, and slid them inelegantly across the table. He said to Phyllis, "Their names and where they can be found. Also background information that I am sure will be helpful when you interrogate them."

Phyllis grabbed the folders and, one by one, opened them and inspected the contents while the sheik picked up the recorder and inspected it to be sure the damning tape was still inside. They had just sold their souls to each other, and still did not trust each other.

The sheik said to Phyllis, "My sincerest apologies to the Director." There was an awkward pause, and then with a pained expression he confided, "I had no option, Phyllis. It was this, or my job."

She nodded.

"If not me, it would have been somebody else."

"I'm sure."

He looked at Bian and said, "It was a pleasure meeting you." He turned to me and could not help smiling. "Better luck next time, Colonel."

I smiled back. "Count on it."

I knew what Bian was going to say, and she said it. "Go to hell." My sentiments exactly.

The sheik shrugged his robes and left, gently closing the door behind him.

Phyllis quietly read the files and, more to the point, quietly ignored Bian and me. She did not want to have this discussion, and seemed to be silently hoping the problem-us-would go away.

But we did not go away, and she finally looked up at us and asked, "What did you expect?"

"We didn't expect anything," I replied. "Just definitely not this." I asked, "Was this little charade prearranged?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means he walked in here with those folders, and you just allowed him to walk out of here with everything he wanted."

"This is how our business works. Turki is a professional, and professionals come prepared." She looked at Bian. "You don't have to like it, but this is how you have to play it."

"I don't like it," Bian responded.

"No? Well… try thinking about what will save the most American lives, what will help win this war. Compromises are necessary evils."