who answered a few simple questions regarding my hypothesis. Then I told the driver where to take me.
As soon as we were outside the air base gate, I rolled the windows all the way down on both my left and right sides and relaxed back into my seat. The wind and air were freezing and, dressed as I was in thin desert battle dress uniform, I might as well have been naked. The pleasure, though, was indescribable--to breathe fresh air, American air, air that didn't smell like human dung, to be freezing rather than sweating, to drive without worrying about snipers or bombs. Have I mentioned yet that Iraq sucks?
The cabbie caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He mentioned, "Back from Iraq, huh?"
"What gave me away?"
"A lot of them do that," he replied, referring, I guess, to my silliness with the windows.
I could observe only the rear of his head: an older gentleman, pockmarked neck, gray hair, my father's age or thereabouts. "You fooled me . . . at first," he continued. "Most guys head for the nearest bar."
"Well, I'm stuck with pleasure before business."
"How about a woman?" he charitably suggested. "Hey, I know a place, in Bethesda. Real patriotic ladies. They got welcome-home specials for vets that'll turn your pecker red, white, and blue. Yeah?"
"No. Thank you."
"Suit yourself."
"I was there only a few days," I informed him.
"That right?"
"I almost lost the war," I explained, truthfully. "They sent me home."
"Good for you. You still don't look tan enough."
"Office job. Lucky me."
"No kidding?" he asked, sounding slightly disappointed.
"It wasn't all milk and cookies. I picked up some nasty paper cuts and fell off my chair a few times. Want to see my scars?"
This got a chuckle out of him. He said, "Y'know, we really believe in what you boys are doing over there."
"That's why we do it."
"Yeah, horseshit. Saw some action myself. 'Nam, '68 through '69."
"Bad war."
"Name a good war."
"The one you make it home from."
"Hey, that's a good one." He started a long riff about his war, which I didn't really want to talk about. I interrupted and asked, "Which idiot are you voting for?"
"Neither guy. I'm a Nothingican. Like I said, I went to 'Nam. Politicians suck. All of 'em." He laughed.
He went on a bit, while I tried my best not to hold up my end of the discussion. Unfortunately, he was a conversation in search of a passenger and he wouldn't shut up. He eventually said, "Unbelievable about them Saudi princes. Know what I'm saying?"
"Sure do," I replied absently. If I had a gun, I would've shot him, or myself.
"We should form our own charities and send terrorists to kill Saudis. What's good for the goose, make it suck for the gander." He added, "Lord Limbaugh said that. Good one, ain't it?"
"Good one," I said agreeably. I had an important call to make and it really was time to pull the plug on this guy. I said, "Excuse me, but--"
He cut me off. "I mean . . . do those Saudi assholes really expect us to believe that coincidence crap?"
"Coincidence?"
"Yeah . . . them supposed accidents."
"Accidents?"
"You didn't hear? That first guy, Prince Faud, having a car wreck. And that other guy--Ali? . . . Abdul? . . . whoever--the same day skiing off a cliff in Switzerland. My ass. That jerkoff got an involuntary flying lesson."
Goodness. I leaned back in the seat. "Where did you hear this?"
"Radio. The Saudi day-night massacre--that's what the shock jocks are calling it." He asked, "Hey, you don't think our government finally got some balls and whacked them two?"
"Balls? Our government?"
"Yeah . . . what was I thinking?" He laughed.
"Both dead?" I asked.
"Well, when a sixteen wheeler head-ons your ass, or you forget to pack a parachute for your skiing lesson, dead is the usual result. Ha-ha. Those lousy Saudis, though . . . claiming it was just a coincidence. Bullshit. That's what it is--bullshit."
I needed to mull this over, so I sat back, flipped open my cell phone, and pretended to speak into it.
The first thing that struck me was how far behind the power curve I still was. I had spent a lot of time on the plane trying to piece together what Bian had done, and why, and I should've seen this coming. Obviously, I hadn't.
Said otherwise, I was closing in on Bian geographically, and yet mentally we weren't even on the same planet.
Because, second, I now understood who had given the expose to the press about these