“Ha, ha. Funny boy!” He pulled another item down from the shelf. It appeared to be a plastic Bic lighter. “Do you smoke? No, you’re a yuppie. Of course you don’t. It’s bad for you. But bring this along anyway and pretend. It’s a stun grenade. You arm it by pulling down on the gas jet and turning the flint wheel, just the way you’d light it normally. Three seconds later, it detonates. So throw it and turn your back, quick. You don’t want to have this in your hand when it goes off, I promise you. And cover your eyes; it puts out a lot of light. Here, take a couple. What the hell?”

I took the exploding lighters, and put them in my pocket, next to my Mont Blanc assault fountain pen.

“Don’t you love this shit?” said Frank. “Isn’t this what it’s really all about? What else do you want? Do you need any disguises? I have wigs, glasses, all that stuff. Voice-alteration devices? False documentation? Uncle Frank has the whole candy store, right here.”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just a reporter, going on an interview. With any luck, the fellow I want to talk to is going to end up in jail.”

Frank looked at me—a lean, cocky, thirty-seven-year-old at the end of my one-day encounter with the black arts. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Are you scared, son? About what’s going to happen, I mean.”

I thought a moment. “Yes,” I said. “I’m quite scared.”

“Good. You had me worried for a minute. But as long as you’re scared, you won’t do stupid things. Now come to Papa.”

He embraced me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Rubino was waiting for me back in Frank’s office. He was neatly dressed, looking very bureaucratic in contrast to Frank’s disheveled attire. He asked me to join him in a nearby conference room. “Well, now. How did it go?”

“Pretty good, I think. I learned a lot. I have to ask you, who was that guy Frank, my instructor?”

“His name is Frank Jones. That’s his work name, at least. I don’t know his real name. He’s an old washout from the Near East Division. He made a lot of money in the Middle East after he retired from the agency, but then he lost it all. He’s broke, basically. We give him a small contract to help him get by, but I’m not sure he’s worth the trouble. This may be his last month on the payroll. Funny old guy, isn’t he?”

“I liked him a lot. I got a sense, talking to him, what it must have been like in the old days, when you guys were waving guns around and barking orders and the whole world was going your way. It must have been fun.”