of this nature has a brief shelf life, but mostly because the less people in the know, the less you have to turn into amnesiacs later.
Despite my warning her to stay out of this, Bian butted in. "Why does the rendition have to be genuine?"
Waterbury said, "Shut up."
"But--"
"I said, shut up."
By this point, I think even the sheik seemed to appreciate what the rest of us already knew; Waterbury only opened his mouth to change feet.
The sheik held up a hand and said, "I believe I would prefer to hear about this suggestion."
I thought I understood where Bian was going with this, and on the face of things the idea was very clever; I wished I had thought of it. As I anticipated she would, she said, "I'm suggesting that bin Pacha doesn't need to be rendered. He merely needs to believe he's been turned over."
"Yes, and how would this work?"
"We pump him full of drugs. He'll awaken in a Saudi cell, with Saudi guards, and Saudi interrogators. Sean and I prep him before hand, inform him he's undergoing rendition. I don't care how tough he is. It will scare the crap out of him."
The sheik overlooked this backhanded compliment about his interrogation techniques and nodded thoughtfully.
I slapped on my lawyer hat and quickly offered a few stipulations. "He stays under joint custody. We'll have direct observation and round-the-clock access to his interrogation sessions, and we provide 50 percent of the questions."
Sheik al-Fayef was now stroking his goatee. "And how is this an advantage to me?"
"You know what we know, as we know it," Bian informed him.
I added, "Or you can think of it as avoiding the ugly alternative."
He looked at me. "Alternative?"
I told him, "You can read about it on the front page of the New York Times. I'm not sure what bin Pacha knows that scares you, and I'm not sure you know yourself. But your country has enough of an image problem in America after 9/11. Think about it."
So he thought about it, very briefly, and replied, "I'll grant you your wish."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Turki al-Fayef departed the plane to call his superiors in Riyadh with the news that the old deal had just become the new deal.
Phyllis wanted a word with me, alone. So she and I marooned Bian with her boss, who looked a little frustrated and in the mood to browbeat a subordinate.
The inside of the plane was, as I said, a sauna, and my uniform was pasted to my body. Even Phyllis, who has the physiology of a lizard, sported a light coat of dew on her upper lip.
Neither she nor I said a word as we left the plane, or as we walked together through the hangar and out onto the airfield, where there was a brisk breeze, hot yet refreshing.
Eventually, we were far enough away and I said, not softly, "You screwed us and you betrayed us."
"Harsh words. You look tired. So how are you?"
"Didn't you promise to watch my backside?"
"She's a very attractive woman, don't you think?"
"She's a good soldier."
"And very beautiful, too. Do I sense something developing between you two?"
"I didn't even realize she was female until she walked into a ladies' latrine." I wasn't going to let her change the subject, and I asked, "Why, Phyllis? Why did you cave?"
"Incidentally, you handled Turki brilliantly. He's a tough negotiator. You ran a nice bluff, though you nearly drove it off a cliff." She gave me a long stare and added, "Still, you squeezed a better deal out of him than we got."
"Maybe you didn't push hard enough. Who's 'we'?"
She looked away from me. "Powerful people. You don't need to know their names and I wouldn't tell you anyway."
"Tigerman? Hirschfield? Do those names fit?"
She chose not to answer directly, but did say, "Even three years ago, the Agency could have stood up to the whole lot of them. We've lost so much prestige, clout, and influence since 9/11. Did you know the President is considering a new Director?"
"So what? The old Director will make a bundle off corporate boards and speeches and books. The new Director will learn that he needs you more than you need him. The bureaucracy is forever, and the bureaucracy always prevails."
"I'm not so sure. Washington is changing. The Agency is due for changes also. It has to . . . and maybe that's not a bad idea."
"Who is Turki al-Fayef?" I asked.
"Turki is the number two or three or four in Saudi intelligence."