At that moment, Flix entered the room. “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,” he said, in a weirdly jovial tone of voice. He stopped, momentarily taken aback by the state of the Saudi’s face. “What the hell happened to him?”

“He and my lighter had a disagreement.”

Flix whistled a snatch of a tune, cut off abruptly when he saw that Whitman was annoyed at the interruption. He sobered up immediately. “Seven down, compadre.”

“And you whistling away. Christ on a crutch.”

Whitman was about to add to this malediction when Flix held up a finger, tapped his encrypted sat phone. He toggled on the phone, listened for a moment, then held it out. “For you,” he said, then mouthed “The King.”

“Tell him I’m busy,” Whitman said.

“I won’t.” Flix came toward Whitman. “And, trust me, you shouldn’t either.”

Reluctantly, Whitman rose. Pointing to el-Habib, he said, “Keep an eye,” as he took the phone and went out into the corridor where he could not be overheard.

“Gregory, where the hell are you?” King Cutler’s voice buzzed in his ear like a trapped bluebottle.

“Where d’you think we are?”

“Why haven’t you checked in with your designated local contacts? No one has had a hint that you’re in Beirut.”

“All due respect, those locals are NSA’s people.”

“And?”

“I only sail on a leaky ship once.”

There was a pause while Cutler seemed to digest this. “How d’you propose—”

“I have my own contacts.”

Silence on the line. Then, “So. Are you making progress?”

“Slowly but surely. You can’t believe what a mess Beirut is.”

“Worse than expected?”

“Much worse.”

“Mansour?”

“We’ll get to him. It’s a delicate balance, and the situation is more complicated than we were led to believe. The approach has to be finessed.”

“We need this brief to be a success; future contracts depend on it. I’m counting on you, Gregory.”

“Don’t worry.”

“That seems to be all I’m doing these days.”

He could hear Cutler sigh as if he were standing right next to him.

“Meanwhile, we have a more immediate problem.”

“I already have enough problems on the ground. I don’t need another one from fifty-eight hundred miles away.”

“The problem is closer than that,” Cutler said. “It concerns Orteño.”

“You’re not going to start with the concussion business again. We put that to bed yesterday.”

“Yeah, well, something’s come up. It turns out Flix didn’t have a concussion.”

Whitman stood stock still, and yet his heart was racing. “What did he have then?”

“According to what I’ve heard, an operation.” Cutler’s voice sounded strained, as if it were being beamed in from another dimension. “An unauthorized operation.”

“What?” Whitman moved so that he could look back at Flix, who was standing over el-Habib. “I don’t understand.”