“I take no offense, Mr. Starr,” said the Arab. “We are here to learn. That is why some of our own trainees are working with your men at the Riding Academy, under a Title Seventeen grant for cultural exchange. To tell truths, I am impressed that a man of your seniority took the time to deal with this matter personally.”

Starr waved that aside with pleased modesty. “Think nothing of it. If you want a job done right, give it to a busy man.”

“Is that something else your old daddy used to say?” Diamond asked, his eyes not leaving the report as they raced vertically down the center of the page, speed-reading.

“Matter of fact, it is, now you mention it.”

“He was quite the folksy philosopher.”

“I think of him more as a rotten son-of-a-bitch, sir. But he did have a way with words.”

Diamond sighed nasally and returned his attention to the action report. During the months since the Mother Company had assigned him to control all CIA activities touching the interests of the oil-producing powers, he had learned that, despite their institutionalized ineptitude, men like Starr were not stupid. They were, in fact, surprisingly intelligent, in the mechanical, problem-solving sense of that word. None of the chitlin grammar, none of the scatological paucity of language ever appeared in Starr’s written reports of wet-work assignments. Instead, one found concise, arid prose calculated to callus the imagination.

From going over his biographic printout, Diamond had learned that Starr was something of a hero figure among the younger CIA operatives—the last of the old breed from the precomputer era, from the days when Company operations had more to do with swapping shots across the Berlin Wall than with controlling the votes of congressmen by amassing evidence of their fiscal and sexual irregularities.

T. Darryl Starr was of the same stripe as his over-the-hill contemporary who left the Company to write inarticulate spy novels and dabble over his head in political crimes. When his gross ineptitude led to his being caught, he clung to truculent silence, while his cohorts sang mighty choruses of mea culpa and published at great profit. After serving a bit of soft time in federal prison, he sought to ennoble his panicked silence by falling back on The Unwritten Code, which declares, “Thou shall not squeal—out of print.” The world groaned as at an old joke, but Starr admired this bungling fool. They shared that blend of boy scout and mugger that characterizes old-timers in the CIA.

Diamond glanced up from the report. “According to this, Mr. … Haman, you went along on the spoiling raid as an observer.”

“Yes. That is correct. As a trainee/observer.”

“In that case, why did you want to see this confirmation film before reporting to your superiors?”

“Ah… yes. Well… in point of most absolute fact…”

“It wouldn’t be possible for him to report his eyeball reactions, sir,” Starr explained. “He was with us up on the mezzanine when it all started, but ten seconds later we couldn’t find hide nor hair of him. A man we left behind to sweep up finally located him in the back stall of the public benjo.”

The Arab laughed briefly and mirthlessly. “This is true. The calls of nature are as inopportune as they are empirical.”

The First Assistant frowned and blinked. Empirical? Did he mean imperative? Imperious?

“I see,” Diamond said, and he returned to his scan-reading of the seventy-five-page report.

Uncomfortable with the silence, the Arab quickly filled in with: “I do not wish to be an inquisitor, Mr. Starr, but there is something I do not understand.”

“Shoot, pal.”

“Exactly why did we use Orientals to make the slap?”

“What? Oh! Well, you remember that we agreed to make it look as though your own men did the hit. But we don’t have no A-rabs in the shop, and the boys we’re training out to the Academy ain’t up to this kind of number.” Starr did not consider it tactful to add that, with their genetic disabilities, they probably never would be. “But your Black September boys have been members of the Japanese Red Army on their operations… and Japs we got.”

The Arab frowned in confusion. “You are saying that the Japanese were your own men?”

“You got it, A couple of Nisei boys with the Agency in Hawaii. Good ol’ boys too. It’s a real pity we had to lose ‘em, but their deaths put what you call your stamp of verisimilitude on your otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. The slugs they dig out of them will be from a Beretta, and the local cops will get credit for pinching them off. They carried documents identifying them as Red Army members helping their A-rab brothers in what you call your unending struggle against the capitalist whatevers.”

“Your own men?” the Arab repeated in awe.

“Don’t sweat it. Their papers, their clothes, even the food that’ll be found in their stomachs… it all makes them out to be from Japan. Matter of fact, they flew in from Tokyo just a couple of hours before the hit—or slap, as we sometimes call it.”

The Arab’s eyes shone with admiration. This was precisely the kind of organization his uncle—and president—had sent him to the United States to study, to the end of creating a similar one, and ending their dependence on their new-found allies. “But surely your Japanese agents did not know they were going to be… what is your term for it?”

“Maximally demoted? No, they didn’t know. There’s a rule of thumb in the shop that actives shouldn’t know more than they need to do the job. They were good men, but even so, if they’da known they were gonna do a Nathan Hale, they might’a lost some of their enthusiasm, if you catch my drift there.”

Diamond continued to read, his vertical sweep of eye always well ahead of the mixing and analyzing operations of his mind, which sorted and reviewed the data in a way best described as intellectual peripheral vision. When some bit failed to fall into place, or rang false, he would pause and go back, scanning for the offending fragment.

He was on the last page when the internal alarms went off. He paused, turned back to the preceding page, and read carefully—this time horizontally. His jaw muscles rippled. He lifted his eyes and produced a characteristically understated exclamation: for a moment he did not breathe.

The First Assistant’s eyes flickered. He knew the signs. There was trouble.

Diamond drew a long-suffering sigh as he handed the report back over his shoulder. Until he had evaluated the problem, he would not alert the Arab observer. His experience told him that it is unwise and wasteful to equip Arabs with unnecessary information. It is not a burden they carry gracefully.

“Well?” he asked, turning his head slightly. “Are you satisfied, Mr. Haman?”

For an instant the Arab failed to recognize his code name, then he started and giggled. “Oh, yes. Well, let us say that I am impressed by the evidence of the films.”

“Does that mean impressed, but not satisfied?”

The Arab pulled in his neck, tilted his head, and lifted his palms, smiling in the oblique way of the rug merchant. “My good friends, it is not for me to he satisfied or unsatisfied. Dis satisfied? I am merely a messenger, a point of contact, what you might call… a…”

“Flunkey?” Diamond offered.

“Perhaps. I do not know that word. A short time ago, our intelligence agents learned of a plot to assassinate the last two remaining heroes of the Munich Olympics Retaliation. My uncle—and president—expressed his desire to have this plot staunched… is that the word?”

“It’s a word,” Diamond admitted, his voice bored. He was out of patience with this fool, who was more a broad ethnic joke than a human being.

“As you recall, the staunching of this evil plot was a condition for continued amicable relations with the Mother Company in matters relating to oil supply. “In its wisdom, the Mother Company decided to have CIA handle the matter—under your close personal supervisory, Mr. Diamond. I mean no offense to my brave friend, Mr. Starr, but it must be admitted that since certain bunglings of CIA-trained men led to the downfall of a most friendly and cooperative President, our confidence in that organization has not been without limits.” The Arab tipped his head onto his shoulder and grinned apologetically at Starr, who examined his cuticles with deep interest.