Sunday, November 13

Once again I was unable to float on the soothing waters of the Lethe as far into the morning as I had hoped. The cell phone’s display showed it was 6:38 a.m. and that I was getting a call from Jane’s landline.

I picked the phone up and turned on the sarcasm. “You’re really deadset against letting a man sleep, aren’t you?”

There was a pause, and then a young, tentative voice said, “Sorry, Dad. I’ll call later.”

“No, Mathias, no, don’t hang up,” I answered. “No need to apologize. I’m always glad to hear from you. It’s, well, I thought it was your mother, and you know how things are between us. But you must have called for a reason. What is it?”

“Okay. Dad, you won’t tell Mom I called, will you? I want this to be just between you and me. Mom’s even madder at you and more worried than usual.”

“No, Mathias, I’d only tell her if it was something dangerous or bad for your health. Please tell me you’ve not done something like that.”

“I feel like a baby, Dad, but I’ve got these bad feelings about you. Mom told told me that somebody you work with got killed, and I see all the bad news about the war and the fighting in Iraq on television. There’s other stuff too. I keep hearing Mom and Barry talk about having Mr. Green, the lawyer, make it harder for you to visit and call and stuff. Mom says you’ve already checked out of my life any way, that you’re happy as a pig in shit living in your little bubble there in Baghdad--that's exactly what she said--but at least Barry’s telling her to chill out. Dad, I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Handling my teenage son’s unexpected expession of worries about and love for me was harder than responding to my ex-wives’ anger and unhappiness. Jane and Margot were right about my failings as a father. I didn’t deserve Mathias’s concern but I didn’t want to lose him either. I had to stay engaged, put aside my own concerns, and lose the sarcasm and victimhood with which I usually responded to stress and emotions.

“Mathias,” I said. “It’s tough for all of us--you, your sister back in Virginia, even your Mom even though she and I split up long ago--to have me here in Baghdad. The danger and distance and everything else make this a lot harder than when I was back in Washington or on my other jobs in Africa. But Mathias, there’s good stuff, too. I’m getting more time off that I can spend with you. I’ll be home at Christmas time, and of course I’ll visit you in Costa Mesa. Start thinking about whether you want to go skiing or to Baja. We’ll work it out with your Mom, don’t worry. And don’t worry about me keeping safe. There is a war here, sure, but I’m not a soldier, and I’m not looking to prove what a hero I am.

“Listen,” I continued. “I need to apologize to you. I’ve not been as good about keeping in touch with you as a father should. Some of it is the time difference--the 11 hours between Iraq and California is a bear--and some of it is just everything that’s happening out here. A lot of it is that things just slip my mind. But whether you hear from me every day or not, I want you to know that you’re always on my mind and in my heart. If I ever completely, irrevocably dropped out of your life, it would break my heart. I love you son.”

“I love you, Dad.”

The line went silent for a few seconds. I stepped into the breach. “By the way, Mathias, you turn 16 next month. My shopping options here are kind of limited, so why don’t you tell me what you’d like.”

“I’d really like a car,” the kid said without missing a beat. “But I probably won’t get my license til the end of the school year, so that wouldn’t work. How about a Retro 550 Vespa Scooter? It’s got automatic transmission and can’t go faster than 30, that makes it safer and easy to use; and it uses hardly any gas so it’s good for the environment; and Mom wouldn’t have to drive me around; and it looks really cool. What do you think, Dad?”

“What I think, Mathias, is that you’ve already done a lot of thinking about this,” I answered, carefully weighing my words. “I would also bet that you’ve not talked about this with your mother, and that this is something she and I would agree on. A scooter can be real dangerous--and it’s not because you’d be a bad driver, but you’d have to trust all the old farts and idiots on the road to see you. I’m not saying definitely no, but I will have to talk about this with your mother. Listen, Mathias, tell me how are things with you. Is school going okay? Are you still working on stage crew?”

A door chime sounded in the receiver. “I think that’s Evan and Laura and Andrea. They’re coming over to watch a DVD. I’ve gotta go.” The chime range again. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, Mathias,” I said to a connection already gone dead with all the rush of youth.

This was certainly a more auspicious way to start the day than had been the case on Friday and Saturday. Somebody back home who was intimately connected to me was worried about maintaining the bond. Feeling lucky, I punched in the land-line number for Marguérite and Émilie in Virginia; no answer. I tried Émilie’s cell; no answer again. They were still screening out my calls. Getting my daughter back into my life was going to take some time and thought--both of which were also required, I remembered, to try to figure out why and how Herb had died.

Much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t rule out the possibility of a link between Herb’s death and the Al-Maghribiya Project. Aliya, Jaburi, and the other smart, well-educated Iraqis I worked with all believed in a kind of conspiracist astrology. They saw their lives as governed by hidden networks and plots that were engaged in an occult struggle to dominate their lives, their country, the region, even the whole world. To survive, the Iraqis felt they had to be able to read the indirect signs of where the networks were and how they were moving, and then find a way to sidestep or placate these forces. Where Jaburi saw a Persian planet moving malignantly through the house of Iraq, Aliya perceived a dangerous constellation forming around Al-Maghribiya and Muhammad Latif and Jibril at the Prime Minister’s office, and she was convinced that this alignment had somehow exerted the force that pushed Herb to his death. Logically, I should have dismissed this theory out of hand, but long years in Africa left me disposed to believe in the reality, efficacy, and malevolence of occult forces. I had known too many happy customers of Chadian marabouts and Liberian jujumen--Westerners as well as locals, all pleased to have achieved the love or revenge they had contracted for--to dismiss this type of magical thinking out of hand. And understanding magic was like understanding science or police-work; magic followed its own rules of causation and if used in a crime would leave some type of forensic evidence just as surely as a gun or vial of poison. I needed to flesh out what I knew about Al-Maghbribiya, its principals, and their contacts. Lieutenant-Colonel David Ferguson, military liaison with USAID, might be the guy to fill in the facts.

My only commitment this Sunday was a follow-up meeting with the Embassy investigator at around 12:30, so I thought I could usefully fill in the morning by chatting with David over at USAID. When I called--talking around the main issue--he agreed to see me at ten.

David was the guy you always wanted to know in a war-zone. With his engineering officer’s determination to overcome all obstacles to get things done and the type of straightforward charm that could sell sand in the desert, he was tied in to the supply sergeants who were linked to all the fixers and short-cuts in the Southwest Asia Theater of Operations. David’s biggest coup in my book was the way he worked his network to get the Italian, Canadian, and Australian compounds in the Green Zone hooked up to the U.S. military’s generator-powered electric grid. This ensured light, music, and cold drinks at the Zone’s A-list social events, as well as invitations for David and his friends. He used the same wasta--connections--to escape the assembly line of staff work at the Multi-National Corps, where hundreds of captains and majors and colonels ground out thousands of daily Powerpoint slides detailing the coalition’s triumphal march toward victory and to get assignged instead as the U.S. Army liaison to the USAID economic assistance mission. If the Army wouldn’t approve his repeated requests to lead a combat engineering unit in Mahmudiyya or Mosul, then he might as well get him billeted in the the Green Zone’s cushiest digs--USAID pampered its employees with permanent houses that had real kitchens and separate bed-rooms instead of half a trailer, as well as a dining hall run to the exacting standards of its resident French chef. In these posh surroundings, David was able to serve as a de facto cross-cultural adviser to the USAID Director, explaining the intricacies of the military environment where the Misison’s projects were to take place.

The USAID compound was about halfway to the Rashid Hotel and the IAS building. To save the time and aggravation of having a complete security sweep of my vehicle, I parked across the street from USAID in the lot reserved for the Liberty Pool recreation complex. When I found David in his cubicle in the USAID office space, he looked up from his computer screen--which was filled with an intricate Powerpoint slide laying out steps for deconfliction of USAID and military projects--with a bemused look.

“Said William Perdue, kif halik? Marhaba, marhaba,” he said. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit? You were all mysterious and spooky on the phone, saying you thought I might have some information on a sensitive issue. I guess being mysterious like that is what your people call tradecraft. But I thought you were the people who knew everything.”

“Because I’m such a nice guy, I’ll take that as a compliment,” I responded. “A more cynical person would think you were snidely referring to the whereabouts of Bin Laden or the danger from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. But you know the drill. If we at RAG know anything, it’s due in large part to the cooperation of honest, patriotic Americans like yourself.”

“Just doing my duty,” said David. “Listen, before we get any further, what’s the news on what happened to Herb? I know you thought he was a real pain in the ass, but jeez, dying in Iraq like that, in a stupid accident at a party, that’s harsh. I mean, if you’re gonna get killed here, it ought to be for some better or more heroic reason, or at least something that will look better on Fox News. Didn’t he have a wife or fiancée? It’s gotta be hard on her, not to mention his parents.”

“Well, Herb’s death is, in fact, the reason I wanted to talk to you today, and it’s why I was kinda squirrelly on the phone.” I gave him a sanitized version of what I had heard from Aliya the day before: Herb had stumbled across information about the dubious Al-Maghribiya project that was being promoted by some well-connected dirtbags, in particular Muhammad al-Latif and Dr. Jibril in the Prime Minister’s office; this project seemed to be getting an undue amount of Iraqi and American high-level attention; one of my Iraqis whom I implicitly trusted feared the movers behind Al-Maghribiya were capable of murder to protect their illicit profits; I knew linking this to Herb’s death was far-fetched, but things happened for different reasons and in different ways in Iraq than elsewhere. “And so,” I concluded. “Since you’re spending more time now in the development biz, building things rather than blowing ‘em up, I was hoping that you might have some additional info or insight on Al-Maghribiya.”

“Seeds,” said David. “Seeds. You think there’s a conspiracy to commit murder because of seeds.”

“Huh?”

“The heart of the Al-Maghribiya project is the procurement of a literal shitload of seeds for the Spring planting season out there. Let’s see.” David turned to his computer and opened up a new Powerpoint file. “Alfalfa, green beans, watermelons, cowpeas, cucumbers, carrots, and lots more. Twenty million dollars to ship in seeds via the port of Beirut by mid-February, so the farmers in Al-Maghribiya can plant in time for the Spring harvest. Another eighty million or so for odds and ends--fertilizer, pesticides, spraying machines, tractors, the full Monty. And we’ve got two high-rollers pushing for this. On our side, the Marine general commanding MEF-3--that's the Marine Expeditionary Force for you, in English--out in Al-Maghribiya is convinced that bringing in the seeds and everything else will convince the good, honest local citizens to stop shooting at us and start farming again. That would mean the Marines could stop kinetic operations--you know, what we used to call shooting and bombing--and that the Marine General could tell the CG, our commander in theater here General Casey, that we have a victory out in Al-Maghribiya, and General Casey could tell Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld could tell the President, and we could all go home to a victory parade that much sooner.

“And then, we’ve got the governor of Al-Maghribiya, Sheikh Abd ar-Rahman ar-Rashid, who’s talking to our general and pleading with the Prime Minister and other bigwigs here folks in Baghdad to make this happen. You’ve heard of Rashid, right? He’s a notable in one of the Sunni Arab tribes who made a nice living in the good old days of Saddam by smuggling across the border from Syria. His tribe, the Rashidis, they’ve got a long history of playing both ends against the middle, and now Governor Rashid has upped the ante in this game by becoming just about the only Sunni of any consequence to join up with the Prime Minister’s party, which as you of course know, is all about getting a better deal for the Shias. And this means, of course, that the Prime Minister wants to make things happen for Rashid and his people, to let all the Sunnis know that if they love the al-Da’wa party, then the al-Da’wa party can show some love for them. This is clear as mud, right?”

“Let me check that I’ve got this right,” I said. “The U.S. military wants to send seeds to Al-Maghribiya to try to convince the locals to stop shooting at us. The Prime Minister and his party want to do it so they can reward one of their few Sunni allies, this Governor Rashid. But what’s in it for Rashid?”

“That, Will, is kind of murky, and I would guess it’s related to the problems in the project. See, the technical aggie people here at USAID worked up the numbers in the project proposal, and they’re real funny. The amount of seed they want to buy for Al-Maghribiya, which is just one of Iraq’s 18 provinces, would equate, let’s see, yeah, it’s on this slide, here--to a yield of 2.7 million tons of vegetables. But the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates--okay, there it is, on this next slide--that in a normal year Iraqis consume only 2.4 million tons of vegetables. There’s no way Iraq could absorb that much additional vegetable production. The marketing and distribution system just doesn’t have the capacity, and even if it did, the increased supply of vegetables would probably cause prices to collapse, with all sorts of unpleasant implications for rural incomes across Iraq. And, according to the USAID experts, there’s just not enough land in Al-Maghribiya to plant all these seeds. Let’s see, where’s that slide, here it is--they say total crop area in the province, which is mostly used for wheat and rice now, is about 120,000 hectares, but the quantity of seeds purchased would require 90,000 hectares. Where’s that extra land supposed to come from? Either nobody’s really thought this through, or somebody has and just doesn’t give a shit about it.

“And here’s where the Al-Saba’ah Company, run by that guy Muhammad Latif, comes in. Governor Rashid said only Al-Saba’ah had the capacity, the knowledge of markets in Iraq and of port facilities in Lebanon and trans-shipment through Syria, to make this happen. And he’s got the Marines and our Ambassador and the political people at the Embassy convinced of this, so they’re all leaning on my friends at USAID here to find the $100 million to make this happen. I just have a bad feeling that this is the worst and most transparent sort of scam you can imagine.”

David looked at the computer screen again. “That’s what I thought. Think you can spare an hour or so of your precious time? The Iraqis are putting the full-court press on this Al-Maghribiya project, and the two guys you’re fixated on, Muhammad Latif and Dr. Jibril from the PM’s office, are supposed to meet with our new Director, I don’t think you’ve met him, John Wald, and also with some of us technical staff in about 30 minutes. I can get you in by saying you do, ah, political liaison at the Embassy; that’s not too big a lie, is it? You ought to take it easy for now, because what you’re about to see might not be very pretty. Wald has told us that the way for USAID to make a difference is to be, um, helpful in whatever way the Ambassador and the Iraqi bigwigs want. With all the political interest in Al-Maghribiya, I doubt that Wald is going to let us waste a lot of time discussing inconvenient facts.”

So, 30 minutes later--time that David used to fine-tune his Powerpoint slides and that I spent completing the word jumble in the previous day’s Stars and Stripes--we rolled over to the USAID Director’s office. David introduced me to Wald, a little man with a big case of self-serving logorrhea. Wald burbled his pleasure that a political type from the Embassy was joining this important meeting and would be able to let the Ambassador know about USAID’s critical role in supporting broad policy and military initiatives. He wanted to be sure I’d spread the word that USAID was no longer a bunch of thumb-sucking nuts-and-granola types--at this point two USAID agricultural experts came into the office, with names as indistinguishable as their Dockers khakis and Lands End polo shirts--and said all we had to do was look at his record running the USAID Mission in Zimbabwe. Nobody had every moved humanitarian aid as fast as he had, and his focus in Harare wasn’t process but results, and those spoke for themselves; I was too polite to ask about famine, repression, and hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe. Wald’s breathless syllables were eliding into something about lowest damned operating budget per employee of any USAID Mission in the world and unique technical assistance with land reform programs, when, mercifully, the Iraqi principals for Al-Maghribiya shimmered in.

A round of introductions followed, and I was too busy taking in Latif and Jibril to be bothered catching the agricultural experts’ names the second time I heard them. Latif looked like a character from a late-night comedy skit about a nouveau riche Arab with lots of dollars but no moral sense. He had the self-assured bulk of Sydney Greenstreet: a prominent hooked nose, fleshy sensual lips accentuated by a goatee, multiple chins, all topped by a badly dyed perm that put a wave in what remained of his hair. A large gut and fleshy man-breasts were swaddled in a lemon yellow Ralph Lauren Polo shirt--and over this was the pièce de résistance, a lightweight gray cashmere sport coat from Brioni, identical to one with a $3,000-price tag that I’d ogled at the Neiman Marcus at Tysons Corner back home. Jet-black eyes flashed shrewd intelligence, and his smile oozed oleaginous charm. Dr. Jibril Ali Muhammad al-Basri--to give his full name--appeared set to play Stan Laurel against Latif’s Oliver Hardy. Looking 30ish and some 10 years younger than his colleague and dressed in a non-descript dark suit, Jibril was tall and rather slender for an Iraqi official; the black in his hair was all natural. A long, oval face framed dull dark eyes and an expressionless mouth. I couldn’t tell whether the deadpan expression reflected extreme boredom, terminal stupidity, or chronic constipation.

Wald escorted Latif and Jibril to places flanking his chair at the head of the table. From the beginning Wald left no ambiguity as to what he expected from the meeting.

“Mr. Muhammad al-Latif, Dr. Jibril,” Wald intoned. “I’d like to thank you for coming to see us here in the Green Zone to discuss this exciting initiative for Al-Maghribiya province. What I hope to accomplish today is to hear from you as to what we we need to do to make this happen, and to make it happen fast. I think this is a great project. It pulls together everything that our American Administration is aiming to do in Iraq: increase incomes in a poor rural area, create jobs, move healthy food to local markets, make it possible to put a peaceful end to the fighting in Al-Maghribiya, support the Iraqi private sector, and show that Iraqis from all religions and all ethnic groups can work together. And this isn’t important just for USAID. As you can see from looking around the table, the presence of Lt. Col. Ferguson the U.S. Army who works with us here at USAID and Mr. Perdue, a political officer from the Embassy shows how the whole U.S. Mission in Iraq is behind this project.”

“Shukran, that is to say thank you, Mr. John Wald,” said Latif. He eased into his chair, slowly scanned the five American faces in the room, and then settled his dark, liquid eyes on me. “Mr. Burdoo, you are a political officer? Well, Dr. Jibril and I met one of your colleagues at the Prime Minister’s office last week, Mr. Herbert. He was there just three or four days ago to discuss some kind of special project with the American military officer there, but Mr. Herbert was kind enough to call on Dr. Jibril, too, and I was there, and we told him about the seed project for al-Maghribiya because it is so important.”

“This project is very important because the Prime Minister wants it,” Jibril chimed in.

“Quite so,” Latif continued. “But Mr. Herbet did not seem to understand the issues. He asked too many questions and did not see that this project is so necessary. But he is a nice young man, and Mr. Burdoo, I hope you will convey my best wishes to him.”

“I wish I could do so, Mr. Latif,” I said, “But sadly it isn’t possible. I’m afraid Herb died Thursday night, apparently because of an accident.”

“That young man is dead? Oh, that is too sad.” As he said this, Latif’s eyes zeroed in on me. “Too many bad things happen here in Iraq. Even for you Americans in the Green Zone, you must be very careful. People go to the wrong place or sometimes just ask the wrong question, and the awful happens to them. Yes, it is so sad that everybody must watch out here.” Was this a hint that Herb’s poking around into the al-Maghribiya project had somehow led to his death and that I should mind my own business? My stomach started slam-dancing my diaphragm in nervousness, but by a miracle of self-control I kept my face impassive.

Latif smiled at me, shook his head, paused briefly, cleared his throat, and launched a pitch worthy of Willy Loman or Professor Harold Hill. “Yes, especially after the death of our young friend Mr. Herbert, it is more important than ever that we move forward with this criticial project. It is an honor for Dr. Jibril and myself to discuss it with you important and well-informed gentlemen. You know, of course, that it is not because of us that this project matters. No, no. This project is what the people of Al-Maghribiya want. The people of Al-Maghribiya want peace, they want to farm, they want to eat, they want to sell their vegetables and so on and so forth to the people in Baghdad. They told this to their representative, their governor, the Honorable Mr. Shaykh Rashid. And so, if we get them the seeds and equipment they need so they can plant for the Spring, we will make all the good things happen that the people of Iraq and the people of America want, especially your President who liberated us.”

“And the Prime Minister, he says he wants this too,” chimed in Jibril.

“What we need from you, Mr. John, more than anything else, is speed,” continued Latif. “We are now only two months from the planting time. To reach Al-Maghribiya by February 15, we must place our orders by the end of this month. To make these important benefits happen and to bring peace to that sad province, we humbly ask to approve the project now and to move the money to us as fast as possible.”

“We must do this now. The Prime Minister says he wants it, so it is very important.” As Jibril repeated these points, his head nodded up and down like the little plastic dog my sister once glued to the dashboard of the family’s 1969 Oldsmobile F-85 station-wagon.

“Gentlemen, you have identified exactly what we need to do,” Wald enthused. “We can’t afford to waste time, not when your Prime Minister and our President are so involved, and not when peace is at stake. I have already asked my financial management people and lawyers to crash on how to get Washington to move the $100 million you need for this project as fast as possible. When we finish here, I’ll have them put everything in final form and send it back home for the final chop. I’ll let our Ambassador know what we’re doing, and he can use his pull in the White House to make sure the bureaucrats back home don’t stifle this. Now, because Washington doesn’t work on Sunday and we’re eight hours ahead here, I’m afraid I won’t have the final good news for you probably until Tuesday morning our time.”

Jibril jumped in, head continuing its bobs as he spoke. “That’s good. The Prime Minister says this project is important, and we must do it for him and for Iraq.”

“Exactly right, Dr. Jibril,” said Latif. “This project is the key to peace and prosperity in the west, and the sooner it gets going, well, the sooner we will get that peace and prosperity we all so badly want. Mr. John, I admire the efficiency and speed in your operation here, so typical of America and Americans, and I do not want to waste your time. I think some details are important here, like bank data for making the payment so we can buy the seeds and other farm supplies, but your money people will of course know how to take care of that.”

David and the agriculture twins had been shifting restlessly in their seats during the love-fest between Wald and the Iraqis. Before Wald could echo the platitudes that had been pouring out of Latif, David spoke up, hesitantly at first. “Well, John, we all agree it’s great that Mr. Latif and Dr. Jibril were able to join us here. You know that Ron and Rob”--now at least I had their names, even if I didn’t know which was attached to Tweedledee and which to Tweedledum--"and I have been working on some of the technical questions regarding the project, and we, well, we think it would be useful to take advantage of these gentlemen’s presence here to dialog about that. I know I’ve forwarded you these Powerpoint slides on the most important aspects. We were particularly concerned about quantities, because this project seems ready to produce some 2.7 million tons of vegetables, while all of Iraq, according to the UN agriculture people . . .”

Wald cut him off. “David, and Ron and Rob, those are implementation questions, and I think they need to be worked out at your technical level. Today, with Mr. Latif and Dr. Jibril, we’re talking about the broad, strategic questions, about war and peace in Iraq and not about how many cucumbers Farmer Ahmad might be able to sell in Mosul. I invited you here so you’d be able to understand something of these higher-level issues when it comes time--and I think this will be soon--to get these technical, implementation issues worked out. Your contribution here is important, but everything in its place, guys, everything in its place. Mr. Latif, Dr. Jibril--am I correct about this?”

“Mr. John, we are of course open to any questions your colleagues might have,” said Latif. “But as we have been lucky enough to learn from our American friends these past two years, time is money. Today we just don’t have the time to worry about the details, not when getting the money ready is the important thing. We will have to leave in two mintues for our next meeting, at the Council of Ministers, and we cannot make them wait. Otherwise, we would love to be able to learn from you. Mr. John and Colonel Ferguson, please, call our office, and you and your experts can help my staff make this right. I apologize for the errors that must be in our humble program. We in Iraq have been democratic for such a short time, and we have so much to learn from you. But first things first. We need to get the money moving so we can help the farmers.”

“And, please, Colonel, Mr. John, this project is very important for the Prime Minister,” added Jibril. His head was bobbing faster and deeper now, with his chin almost reaching the knot of his ties every third syllable. “We must do this project because it is so high priority for the Prime Minister.”

“Gentlemen, thank you so much once again for sharing with us your time and insights.” Wald got up and walked the Iraqis to the door. Meeting over. “This was so useful for us. We all now know who we are dealing with, and we’re all committed to going forward here. It will be very exciting to make such a direct contribution to peace in Al-Maghribiya Province.” The agriculture twins, David and I filed silently out behind Wald and the visitors.

Back at David’s cubicle, he gave his assessment. “Well, that meeting was interesting if not particularly useful. I don’t know what type of Kool-Aid they’ve been handing out to the people who are making decisions on this project, but it looks like John’s been drinking it by the gallon. Your friends there, Latif and Jibril, it looks like they’ve got a nice racket going, and they’ve snowed a lot of people here and apparently back in Washington. Once they get their $100 million, they won’t change a damned thing about the quantities of seeds and tractors or anything else. There’s a lot of room for fiddling on this contract; I just hope that some part of what they’re stealing ends up with the poor farmers in Al-Maghribiya. But I know you don’t care about who’s ripping off the government or the poor farmers, not in general and certainly not here. To answer the question I know you want to ask--my answer is no. These guys are dirtbags and slime, but they sure don’t look like murderers to me. Latif wouldn’t want to risk getting stains on that nice piece of cashmere he was wearing, and Jibril’s head would be bobbing too fast for him to ever get a good bead on somebody he was told to shoot. Yeah, these guys are all about dirty money, but that’s a very different kettle of fish than killing.”

“I don’t know, David,” I answered. “What did you make of Latif’s comments about talking about the project with Herb and about Herb’s death? He didn’t exactly say anything, but he sure shot me a look that was full of meaning. God damn Herb. This is just like him. He had this meeting over at the Prime Minister’s office and didn’t say 'Boo!' to me about it. Another one of his fucking did-you-know-that bombs, and this one could take me out. David, there’s just too much bad stuff happens here for me to rule anything out. Take Aliya, for example, that lady lawyer I’ve told you about, the one who’s smarter than just about anybody, she’s says Latif and his people are bad guys who worked with Uday Hussein and who are capable of anything. Aliya was telling me . . .”

David interrupted me. “That’s why you’re so worked up. You’re thinking about Herb’s death with the little head dangling between your legs rather than the big empty one between your shoulders. I should have seen this a while ago. You’ve got a crush on what’s her name, yeah, Aliya. That’s clearer now than ever. Yeah, she got you with her story of being in prison and how she got out, so now you see yourself as the knight in shining armor who’s going to rescue the damsel in distress.”

“C’mon, David, give me more credit than that. Any way she’s married and a Muslim, and can you imagine the administrative and security shit I’d have to go through if I got involved with an Iraqi woman?”

“I didn’t say you were doing anything,” David said “Just that you’ve got a Jones for this girl. And I wanted to give you a helpful warning against letting it cloud your judgment.”

“Hell, David, you know me,” I pleaded. “What with the ex-wives, kids who hate me, 25 years on the federal payroll--I've got so many things clouding my judgment that letting Aliya bat her pretty brown eyes at me every now and then won’t make a damn bit of difference. Yeah, logically, or logically by American standards, it just doesn’t stand to reason that Herb would have been killed because of a dirty deal for seeds. But then again, there are just too many little threads that somebody seems to be knitting together. I’m not quite at the Agent Mulder point, where I’m believing that the truth about the little green men is out there somewhere, but I just can’t reject a link either. You know as well as I do that nothing here in Iraq is as it seems, and the record of U.S. Government functionaries like us in understanding anything about this place has been pretty abysmal. And what’s the harm if there is no link?”

I glanced at my watch. “Shit. I’ve got to be at the Embassy at 12:30, in 10 minutes, to talk to that FBI investigator about his investigation. Should be tons of fun. Do you know her, Eleanor Kelly? I think she needs something that you’d be able to give her a lot better than I could. I mean, what with your training in weapons and the physical standards the Army wants you to meet, I think you’d be a lot better able to handle a cocktail of guns and handcuffs and Jack Daniels than a weenie civilian like me. Well, thanks for the info and the chance to sit in on that meeting, David. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay, Will, glad to be of help. Just stay sane, bro, alright? Baghdad is not a normal place, and people start getting weird ideas here. See you later, man.”

When I got to my vehicle in the Liberty Pool lot, this time I didn’t begrudge the security sweep. The previous day’s tire-slashing and all the additional information about Latif, Al-Sabaah Company, and the Al-Maghbriya Project had made me jumpy. My mood didn’t improve when I found that the front left tire was flat, and appeared to have been slashed--just like what had happened to the front right tire the day before. This couldn’t be a coincidence, it had to be an unambiguous message from somebody. But could Latif or Jibril or one of their hirelings have worked so fast? I had stayed in the USAID compound at most 10 minutes longer than they had, which didn’t leave much time for giving the order to slash the tire and then for the deed to be done. Although Latif had issued his barely veiled warning about Herb’s “snooping around,” I had kept my mouth shut and my profile low in the meeting. What would make Latif and Jibril think I was anything other than a friendly, supportive Political Officer from the Embassy, as John Wald had identified me?

The three Gurkha guards at the gate told me that, between my arrival at ten and the current time, 12:15, nobody unusual had entered or left the lot: several dozen American soldiers going to the pool, a carload of Italian carabinieri, and a few civilian females. They had seen no Iraqis going in or out of the lot, and the Gurkhas bristled when I suggested that somebody may have somehow scaled the 10-foot walls, slid over the razor wire on top, dropped into the parking lot and taken a knife to my tire without their knowing it.

“Sah, maybe you no drive no good,” one of them said. “We see you always in hurry, you nevah miss holes in road. Maybe that put hole in tire.”

It tends to be hard to argue against the truth, and the Gurkhas’ accurate observation of my driving habits reinforced the likelihood that they would have noticed anomalous comings and goings in the parking lot. I was already running late for my meeting with Eleanor, the FBI investigator at the Embassy, so I gave my head what I hoped was a wise and mysterious shake, got behind the wheel, and limped back to the garage for yet another tire change and repair.

Greaseman the mechanic didn’t exactly greet me like a long-lost brother.

“You fucked over another one of my tires, man,” he observed. “You go out of your way to park on top of the same fucking piece of razor wire over at the Rashid?”

“No, Grease, I was over at USAID, and that’s what’s weird,” I said. “I can’t believe this is something I did. Look at it, the same sort of slash as yesterday but on the opposite side. It’s almost enough to make you think somebody’s trying to get me.”

“Probably just some son of a bitch pissed off at the way you drive or park, Will. I can get this fixed for you by tomorrow morning, but if you keep fucking up my tires like this, I don’t know if I can keep helping you.”

I promised to take better care of his tires and hurried up towards the Embassy. Dropping off the car took 20 minutes that I hadn’t budgeted, and my half-jog up to the Embassy reminded me that, even in mid-November, the Baghdad sun was hot. When I finally stepped into Eleanor’s office--late, sweating, and puffing from my exertion--she shot me an angry look. I was relieved to see that the holster against her left breast--the first place my eyes went--was empty. She looked back down to her desk, where her Glock was field stripped, with the parts laid out on a towel for cleaning.

“I didn’t know if you’d remember our appointment,” she said, “So I thought I’d get something useful done. Have a seat while I finish up here.” With her left hand she picked up the barrel up to her eye, squinted at me through it, then grabbed a metal bristle brush with her right hand and silently twisted it several times through the barrel.

“Sorry, Eleanor,” I said, my breath coming a little more regularly. “I was at a meeting over at USAID, then had a real bad flat on my car, the second day in a row. Weird and a real pain in the neck.”

She put the gun barrel down and turned her eyes on me. She gave me an appraising once-over, colder and more guarded than the one early Friday morning. If nothing else, it suggested that she was sober now.

She grunted unsympathetically. “You’ve just got to watch where you’re going and what you’re doing, and you’ve got to be better at planning your movements. This is a war zone, even here in the Green Zone. It’s not like driving through the parking lot at Tysons Corner mall.

“Any way, we’ve wasted enough of both of our time here, and I suppose we should get to the business at hand, the death of your friend Herbert Bennett,” Eleanor continued.

She shuffled through some papes on the left side of her desk and handed me a folder. “Here’s a copy of my draft report, laying out what I’ve found so far, and frankly I don’t know if I’ll find out much more. According to the autopsy conducted by the docs at Ibn Sina, Bennett died at approximately twenty-three-thirty-five hours on Thursday, 10 November, from cranial trauma incurred by a fall of approximately 45 feet onto a concrete surface. His other injuries, fractures of two cervical vertebrae and the right humerus, as well as various contusions, are consistent with a fall. The docs say they found no signs of struggle or a fight on his body that would suggest he had been pushed.

“And that pretty much tracks with what that Aussie security guy, McNabb, and I found when we looked at the roof. No blood, no torn bits of clothing, nothing like that. We did find a cigar that was still smoldering, which corroborated your statement that Bennett had gone up there for a smoke, and some empty beer cans that could have been there for a few days. So everything is pointing to an accidental fall, except for one thing. We just can’t figure out how a guy who by all accounts wasn’t inebriated could have fallen over the wall at the edge of the rof, which is three-foot tall and by all signs perfectly sound structurally. You might think suicide, except there’d be no guarantee of actually killing yourself from 45 feet, and with all the weapons around here, there are much surer ways of taking yourself out. And nobody has reported that Bennett expressed or showed any suicidal intentions since his arrival here. I think we’d only know what happened and why he fell if there was an eyewitness who had been on the roof with him, and there doesn’t seem to be one.

“That’s all I’ve got, Will. I’ve shown you mine, now it’s time for you to show me yours.” It must have been my imagination that, as she sat back while saying this, her blouse settled down her torso and gave the day’s first hint of her cleavage. Her face relaxed from professional glower to something approaching a smile.

“Thanks, Eleanor,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to say here. Nothing that Jim and I have found in Herb’s effects or his papers or his on-line files down at RAG seems to shed any light here. No hint of suicidal thinking, no suggestions of enemies who hated him enough to kill him. From what we have there, it just looks like one of those stupid, tragic things.” I wasn’t lying here, but I didn’t see any reason to raise the issue of the Al-Maghribiya seed project and Muhammad al-Latif. Eleanor’s report on Herb’s death was tidy and tangible, and it appeared as if it would wrap things up neatly and acceptably for Herb’s family, the Embassy, and my own group. The possible link to Al-Maghribiya was murky and multi-layered, and unraveling it, I thought, would be beyond the sophisitication of an FBI agent or any cop.

“Nothing else?” Eleanor face returned from near smile to cop dead-pan. “Don’t you work pretty close with Iraqis from the Ministry of Defense office over by the Rashid Hotel? I can’t believe you haven’t discussed what happened to Bennett with your Iraqi friends. It is their country, after all, and maybe they know something.”

This line of questioning was a surprise. I didn’t remember having told her what my advisory role was or where I did it. After a bit of reflection, though, I guessed it wasn’t too surprising that she was able to piece this together from talking to people who knew Herb and me.

“Well,” I said. “I was over there yesterday morning and of course talked about Herb’s death with our Iraqi friends. The senior guy I work with on a regular basis, Brigadier Jaburi, said we Americans were lucky to be able to die in accidents instead of having terrorists always trying to murder us. We talked in pretty general terms, of course, because, as you can understand, we try not to air our dirty American laundry in front of the Iraqis. If something tangible comes from them, of course I’ll share it with you. In fact, I’ll be seeing them again tomorrow, probably mid-morning or so.”

“Okay.” Eleanor had put her deadpan cop face back on. “We’ll stay in touch on this, but I think most of what’s left to do is formalities. We’ll probably have the paperwork wrapped up so Bennett’s remains can get shipped home in 72 hours or so, let’s say Wednesday.” Her eyes--still cold--shifted from me to the disassembled Glock on her desk. “I think that’s it for now. I’ve got to get this back together and then make certain that all that paperwork’s good to go back to Washinton tonight.”

“Thanks for the time and info,” I said, tucking the envelope with her draft report under my arm and ducking out the door. I decided, so long as I was up at the Embassy, to see if Maria-Theresa could spare a few minutes for me.

Despite my preoccupation with thoughts of Herb’s death and a possible murderous conspiracy to embezzle millions of dollars by importing unwanted seeds, I was caught gape-mouthed and wordless by what I saw in Maria-Theresa’s office. Every available square inch of desktop and bookshelf, as well as most of the floor, was piled high with sports clothes--t-shirts, polos, windbreakers, fleeces, and baseball caps. The colors ran the full Lands End palette, from muted Beachwood khakis and deep ebonies to pastel Bermuda blues. On closer inspection I saw that every item was embroidered with the eagle-and-shield logo of the Department of State and the legend “American Embassy Baghdad Iraq.”

Maria-Theresa glanced up from her computer and waved me in. “Always a pleasure to see you, Will. And you’re in luck, I’ve got a few minutes for you, once I finish this message.” She looked back at the computer and delivered a quick flurry of keystrokes, ending with a flourish on the “enter” key. “Good, done. Come in, sit down.”

“Well, Maria-Theresa, are you getting out of the law biz,” I asked as I settled into the one chair that was not covered with t-shirts. “I mean, it looks as if you’ve got your full Winter collection on display here.”

“Oh, that. The Embassy front office decided that baseball caps and polo shirts were a delicate legal matter that only I could ajudicate. Do you know Ralph, one of the engineers working with the advisory team for the Ministry of Electricity, down in the south end of the Palace? He’s a good Republican, got a solid entrepreneurial bent, and he figured there was a deep, unsatisfied market among all the Americans and Brits and other foreigners stuck here in the Green Zone for high-quality logo clothing items that people could buy as souvenirs for the folks back home. He hooked up with some factory in Ohio that must have cloned whole villages of little Pakistani children with delicate hard-working fingers, because it seems they do the best and cheapest embroidery work in North America. Open up one of those packages and feel the quality, the number of threads they use for the work. Very impressive. Any way, Ralph ordered hundreds each of t-shirts, ball caps, polos, and this other stuff, and started selling them out of his office. Word got around that he had the best stuff in town, and there was a constant flow of people going to the Electricity Office, demanding to buy the logo clothing. The stuff was flying out of the box, with Ralph making five, ten dollars on each item.

“And that was the problem, leading to me getting called in. The other eight people in Electricity couldn’t get any work done, with all the visitors and their vocal agonizing over color and fit and quantity, and they were looking for a way to put an end to it. One of Ralph’s colleagues got the idea that there was something illegal because he was making a profit by selling items with the official logo and emblem of the Department of State and the U.S. Embassy, a sort of copyright infringement. So, this woman filed a complaint with the Embassy Administrative Officer, who thought it probably had merit but didn’t want to take final responsibility. Since we’re one of the rare Embassies in the world with a resident lawyer, the Admin guy thought I was just the person to make the decision and spare him a headache. They decided to temporarily seize the evidence of potential wrong-doing and entrust it to my safe-keeping while I worry my poor blonde head about it. I actually kind of like having it here; it adds a bit of color and makes me feel like I’m 19 again and reliving my brief career in the active-wear department of Marshall Field.”

“So how are you going to rule on this weighty matter?”

“I really don’t know,” Maria-Theresa said. “This isn’t exactly the most pressing issue facing us here in Iraq. At some point Ralph is going to start squawking about all the working capital tied up in my office, and I’ll have to make something up just to keep my peace of mind.

“But Will,” she continued. “You didn’t come here for this clothing conundrum, did you? This must be about what happened to poor dead Herb.”

“Yeah, I’d like to run what I’ve learned and heard by you,” I said. I outlined for her Eleanor’s report, in which all signs pointed to an accident. Logically, I should accept this. But then there were Aliya’s worries about a link between Herb’s death and the business with Al-Maghribiya and Muhammad al-Latif. I trusted Aliya implicitly, I told Maria-Theresa, and if she said these were evil people capable of murder to protect ill-gotten profit, then I believed her. Aliyah was smart and had suffered prison and maybe worse in the old days because of dirtbags like Latif. And my fortuitous meeting with Latif and Jibril earlier that day at USAID only fed my suspicions. Latif knew Herb--the stupid little shit was out playing boy-spy and getting in over his head without anybody else back at the office knowing about it--and there was a menacing edge to the pleasantries that had oozed out of Latif for my benefit. And there was the slashing of my tires, which had happened only after Herb’s death and my own nosing around in this. Aliya, I said, Aliya is right that there’s something deeply wrong here.

“Aliya,” Maria-Theresa repeated. “Aliya is, I think, the answer to all this. I’ve heard you talk about her before, and now it’s becoming clear. You’ve got a thing for her. This is one of your romantic nerd things, isn’t it? Poor Will: you see yourself as Han Solo and Aliya as Princess Leia, and Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt are lurking out there trying to do nasty things to your princess. I’m certain Aliya’s as smart and strong and impressive as you say, but it’s not just your brain that’s at work here, it’s something limbic. You want to believe that Herb was murdered, Will, because that would give your life meaning and adventure, and you can build a whole romance of joining hands with the endangered lady lawyer and unmasking a vast nefarious plot.

“Will, don’t you see how that’s part of a pattern in your life? From what I’ve seen of you in 25 years, you’ve never just been able to be. You’re always running to or away from something. You married two good women and with each of them had a good kid, and you couldn’t leave it be. Things were good, but you wanted them to be perfect. And where did looking for this perfection get you? In a hot, dusty war zone, where you devote your spare time to drinking too much and looking for that true, unworldy romance. Will, what do we always say, that Baghdad is the island of broken toys? You’re not a broken toy, not yet, but you’ve got to slow down, breathe, just be. And Will, on Herb’s death, I think even Eleanor was right on this. It was just an accident. Sometimes bad stuff just happens, especially in a place like this.” She paused. I reflected and said nothing. “Talk to me,” Maria-Theresa said.

I sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe something that looks like an accident really is just an accident; Herb’s last cigar was just a cigar. Aliya can tell a compelling story, and Muhammad Latif virtually has Hollywood Bad Guy tattooed across his forehead--but yeah, I’ll grant there are a few steps required before we can go from that to murdering Herb at the Aussie House. And, yeah, I do feel something for Aliya. She’s smart and brave and, as an Iraqi woman and married, she’s unavailable--which of course just makes her irresistible to a confused clown like me. Good Lord Almighty, Maria-Theresa, how do you put up with listening to me and my interminable woes and whack-o conspiracy theories? I’ve now got another problem, though, because the blonde has just shown how much smarter than me she is, and God only knows how stupid that makes me. I better go now before I look any dumber.”

Maria-Theresa smiled, got up to hug me farewell, and said, “Remember, Will. Be. Just be. Rest. Sleep. Exercise. Please. I can’t be your mother and protect you from yourself all the time."

As I left the Embassy and walked back to the Cabana, I felt less agitated than I had since Thursday night. My venting to Maria-Theresa and her advice to me had had a calming effect, putting the situation in context. As I reached the 200-yard-stretch of dirt road channeled between blast walls, I drew up a mental balance sheet of what I knew or suspected about Herb’s death, with the suppositions on the debit side and the hard facts on the credit ...

WHAM! A loud dull explosion filled my ears; a blast wave staggered me. I looked around and saw a plume of dust and smoke rising maybe 20 yards away, behind the blast wall to my left. Loudspeakers came to life spitting static. “Attention in the Embassy, attention in the Embassy. Indirect fire has been reported in the International Zone. Take cover immediately. Repeat, take cover immediately. Attention in the Embassy ...” I looked again at the billowing dust. There wasn’t much smoke. The charge in the incoming round--and I couldn’t tell the difference between a rocket and mortar--must have been inert, and it looked as if the round hadn’t hit anything major. Praise the Lord, I whispered in my best lapsed Presbyterian manner, for the lack of a storage and maintenance ethic in the artillery units of Saddam’s army. Still, there was a good chance another round or two could be headed my way. I decided for form’s sake to jog the rest of the way to the Cabana and take shelter in the office.

Once inside I ducked into the bathroom to splash the sweat off my face and cool the redness away. As long as I was back in the office, I might as well check in with O’Dwyer, and I figured there would be room for just one red face in the room. As I made my way to Jim’s office, I heard another, somewhat fainter explosion--meaning the bad guys were able to get off a second round--and a repeat of the “Attention in the Embassy, take cover” warning. The people in the Cabana looked up for a second or two, cocked their ears to the muffled sounds, then carried on with whatever they had been doing.

The sporadic shelling did not seem to have made any impact on Jim. As I did my mood appraisal from the door to his office, I saw the face was as red as ever and heard the usual steady hammering of his meaty fingers on the keyboard. He looked up and caught me in the act of assessment.

“Stop gaping at me like I’m some type of one-legged monkey in a high-wire act,” Jim said. “Come on, Perdue, come in and sit down.”

As I settled in a chair, he kept talking. “Well, it looks like you’re not the only person around here with a hard-on for that fucking al-Maghribiya project and that dipshit con artist, what’s his name, right, Latif. I just got back from the Ambassador’s senior staff meeting, and you know how I hate those fucking wastes of time even on a good day. That guy is such a self-serving idiot, even compared to the other morons I’ve seen working as Ambassadors. I think he wouldn’t even be able to find his asshole except for those two blonde girls and the fat boy working as staff assistants, which is the fancy State Department way of talking about the person who wipes your crack whenever you even think about farting. Jesus, what was I saying? Oh yeah, Maghribiya. Well at the senior staff meeting, the Ambassador droned on for a good 45 minutes about the importance of getting seeds to the farmers there in time for their Spring crops so they’ll drop their Kalashnikovs and pick up their hoes, and about how this guy Muhammad Latif is the big swinging dick among the ‘emerging entrepreneurs’ of the new Iraq--he even kept a straight face when he spewed that out, the dumb bastard probably believes his own bullshit. And then, at the end of this crap-a-thon, the Ambassador pulled me aside for 10 more minutes of preaching about the importance and creative vision of this Maghribiya project--I swear, the man was preaching about the link between seeds and farmers and terrorists like he was goddam Pat Robertson on the teevee--and then asked me for whatever type of intelligence support we can give him about it. So I just sent a message back home, asking for whatever research and analysis we can find on Muhammad Latif. What a fucking waste of time. Latif’s a shit. The project’s a scam. Nobody in Maghribiya is shooting at Marines because he’s unhappy about not being able to grow cucumbers; it’s because they’re a bunch of mean, ignorant bastards who’ve been marrying their cousins since before Adam. Well, Will, I hope you found something out about what happened to whats-is-name, Herb.”

I handed Jim the envelope that Eleanor had given me with the draft summary of her findings. “Eleanor from the Bureau says all physical evidence is consistent with an accidental fall. I’d like to believe this, I really should believe this, but I just keep thinking there’s something really off here and really evil about Latif.” I outlined for Jim my meeting with Latif and Jibril at USAID. I focused on Latif’s comments about having met Herb. “I can only interpret what he said as a threat, a reminder that Herb somehow fucked with him, and look what happened to him. And I also get back to Aliya. I just don’t think she’d get this worked up over nothing.”

“You’re not screwing her, are you Will,” Jim asked with his usual delicacy. “Because if you are, you’ve got a lot of paperwork and interviews you owe the security guys. I think this girl has really got under your skin. Jesus. Try to use the big head from time to time, the one you hang your eyeglasses on. Latif is a fucking piece of scum, and it sounds like he enjoys talking tough, but you know you’ve got nothing but hunches and suppositions to pin on him. And the say-so from your girlfriend. Will, why don’t you take a break, go to the gym, and then take a nice long cold shower? Maybe that will calm you down for an hour or two. Any way, the report from that bimbo Eleanor looks like good news. If the Bureau and Embassy report an accident instead of a murder, we’ll have a lot less shit to worry about. After that cold shower, keep your eyes and ears open, but don’t obsess on this crap, and let me know if you find anything new.”

I left Jim’s office and determined I had been given an order. I went to the gym, flexed various muscles for a while, sweated, took a shower (albeit warm), and then interpreted the spirit of his order as including a decent, leisurely dinner gorging myself on pasta with marinara sauce followed by a plate of gooey chocolate truffles, and the early to bed. No reading, no television, just unconsciousness.