He paused and looked at me.

He said, "Like your government in Washington, Tehran also has many views, many factions. Not everybody there is happy with Sistani, or with Sadr. So I give this gift of great intelligence significance to certain friends in Iran's government, they pass this along to the appropriate people, and now-wallah!"-his chubby hands flew through the air and he performed a silly pantomime of pulling a rabbit out of a hat-"Mahmoud Charabi has his own very powerful supporters in Tehran-and here, in Iraq."

Amazing. Basically, he had found Iranian doppelgangers of Cliff Daniels, and just as he had exploited Daniels, he now was using these "friends" to make deeper inroads inside Iran's government. Then again, maybe it wasn't so amazing. Every con man has his favorite swindle and the conviction that what works once, can work again and again. I should tell his new Iranian friends how well it had worked out for Cliff.

In that light, I said, "When you play so many sides against the middle, sometimes you forget where the middle is."

He interpreted this literally and replied, "Washington is seven thousand miles away. Iran is next door." He got a sort of thin smile on his lips and added, "In the long run it will make no considerable difference. Do you know why?"

"I have the feeling you're going to tell me why."

"Because it is entirely irrelevant. Frankly, the Iranians have as little control over me as you, as America. I am Iraqi, Colonel. I do not even like the Iranians."

"That's not a good enough why, Charabi. Tell me more."

"Because what I have is fear of the Sunnis who, you might have noticed, receive considerable support from our Sunni neighbors. These people, they are savages. Murderers. For decades, they have slaughtered and crushed my people, the Shia, while they lived regally off the oil wealth that rightfully belonged to all of us. If saving my people means partnership with the Iranians… What was that priceless phrase of Churchill's? That one about Stalin? The one about sleeping with the devil…?"

"I think, Mr. Charabi, it was we who slept with the devil. And you should worry deeply about what happens when America learns about your betrayal, about what an asshole you are. We've lost many lives and spent a fortune trying to liberate your country."

"Betrayal? Ah, I think not, Colonel. I merely passed along a gift. The selection of this gift was not mine, was it? You have read these messages. You know this choice was Cliff's." Shaking his head at me, he added, "Your problem, I think, is not with Mahmoud Charabi… it is with Cliff, who, after all, is now well beyond your reach."

This apparently jogged his mind, because after a moment he complained, "Americans are too impatient. They do not like long wars and struggles. You have this maddening obsession for instant gratification."

He thoughtfully played with his lower lip, then added, "If your army departs prematurely, my people will be slaughtered. So what was for us a big dilemma, by bringing in my Iranian friends, I have now helped turn into your big problem. Now you dare not leave for fear that the Iranians will fill the vacuum, and you will have fought this war only to turn Iraq over to them. Yet if you do leave, Iran will rush in, and my Iranian friends will save us. So, Mr. Drummond, your people face a strategic checkmate, and the Shia, my people-Allah be praised-win either way. Either the Americans or the Iranians, or both of you, will save us. It is a nice position for us, don't you think?"

What I thought, as I looked at this man, was that he was about ten steps ahead of anybody in Washington. He was right, we are a nation addicted to instant gratification-instant food, instant sex, instant victories. Also, we never think deeper than tomorrow. Here, he had not only helped lure us into Iraq, he had already devised a trap play to keep us there. It was amazing, I thought-and very troubling.

I changed subjects and asked, "What was Clifford Daniels to you?"

"A friend when I needed a friend."

"I find it interesting that you would describe him that way. And I'll bet he would find it interesting. Because now you're here, and he's in the morgue."

And it was interesting. I could call this man a liar, a schemer, a thief, a murderer, and a traitor-but accusing him of bad friendship really got under his bonnet. He flew into a long and indignant harangue regarding his "most dearest friend," admitting that Cliff was, yes, an ordinary human being with warts and blemishes-with an excessive professional appetite, perhaps, and yes, that off-putting self-importance some people found obnoxious-but also he was noble and dedicated, a flawed saint, and so forth. Arabs have a real flair for flowery bullshit, and by the time he anointed Daniels the Lafayette of Iraq, I was ready to blow lunch.

When my host has a gun, however, I tend to listen patiently and behave. For some reason, Charabi felt a need to expiate about Daniels, so I nodded agreeably as he spoke. I actually let him finish before I said, "Cliff Daniels was an idiot. When that became clear-even to himself-he went to pieces. A blowhard, a drunk, a womanizer, a man who went psychotic over his career."

"No, he was-"

"He was a small, weak man with unhealthy appetites. A man with elephantine ambitions and pygmy talents on a pathetic quest for power and fame. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong meal ticket-you."

"I did not say Cliff was perfect."

"No, you didn't. From the moment you met, you recognized exactly how stupid, how vain, and how vulnerable he was. You exploited those ambitions and vanities. By persuading him to support you and your lies about Iraq, you made a fool out of him, and later, as his world began imploding, you exploited his despondency and made a traitor out of him. With a friend like you, a man has more enemies than he can handle."

"Well…" he replied, suddenly uncomfortable. Then he found the bright side, and confessed, "It is a big relief for me to learn this was not suicide, but murder. I was feeling… a little guilt."

"You're not off the hook. His murder was the direct consequence of your relationship."

"But I did not kill him." This topic obviously bothered him, and he had the gun, so he changed it and asked, "Tell me about this major. Why do you believe I kidnapped her?"

He had rested his Glock about two feet away on the desktop, I noticed. About twelve feet from me, and I began inching my chair in short, noiseless scoots across the carpet.

Actually, I was somewhat surprised that Mr. Charabi was revealing so much of his thinking to me. Of course, this did not mean he trusted me or enjoyed my company-this meant I was dead.

Instead of answering his question, I asked him, "Did Cliff ever tell you how he learned we broke Iran's code?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It was a tightly controlled CIA program. He wasn't supposed to know about it. It's… well… something of an embarrassment."

He laughed.

"To be truthful, a friend of mine has his ass in a sling over it," I told him with a wink. "I owe him a favor."

"You're saying your agency still does not understand how this occurred?"

Another short scoot. "Why are you surprised? These are the same people who never noticed Aldrich Ames's shiny new green Jaguar sedan in the Langley parking lot."

He seemed to relish this analogy, as well as the irony that Cliff- and by extension, he as well-had picked the Agency's pocket. If I had to guess, he still harbored a grudge that the CIA had rejected his early overtures for a partnership, and later, that Agency people trashed his reputation around Washington and in the press. He obviously had a big ego; now he was being petty. He said, "Why don't I give you a hint? The CIA courier for this cell was a woman."

"Oh… and-"

He nodded. "And… yes. She was not especially attractive, but as Cliff liked to say, all ladies look the same in the dark." He shrugged. "Theirs was a most brief affair." He smiled and added, "I was given the impression from Cliff that her pillow talk was more intriguing to him than the lady herself."