“Why? Maybe a psychological anthropologist could tell you. All I know, hell, in early childhood kids seem to find pleasure in anal smearing, messing with their own excrement. It’s a precious part of themselves, they hate to let go of it.”

He bit another chunk out of his martini. “Some people carry this retentiveness into manhood. Sculptors, some say, sublimate it into art. The Assamans sublimated it into architecture—their beehive buildings look like neat piles of shit. You know what they call them? Nagamat garas. Which more or less means, according to Durchfall, ‘It-comes-out-of-you, you-go-inside-it.’”

“How much excrement goes into the compound?”

“How much? Only the Assamans know—probably a lot. But there’s one other ingredient, the most important in the mix. The magical agglutinate that binds it together.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out.”

“We…?”

“Look,” he said, “costs of materials have skyrocketed, but here we have a product that has withstood the ravages of time and the elements, an innovative substance that costs practically nothing to produce, and the supply is unlimited—God knows the world is full of mud, straw, and shit. The yield can be fireproofed, insulated, deodorized, drilled, painted, glued, sawed into bricks. All we have to do is find that one elusive ingredient that makes it work. Then we set up processing plants from here to Timbuktu and watch the money roll in.”

“You keep saying ‘we’…”

“I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime. If you’re the red-blooded, hell-for-leather, idealistic American I think you are, here’s your chance to combine benevolence and the accumulation of wealth beyond a sultan’s dreams, along with a niche in the highest echelons of RAT while you’re still young enough to enjoy it. Shall I go on?”

“Please do.”

“Now. Abdul, of course, is the key to the acquisition of BRIT…”

“Of what?”

“BRIT. Appellation I coined, compounding BRICKS and—”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to renew your contact with him, so we—you and I—can gain access to Assama.”

“What about the war?”

“That’s not a problem. All kinds of specialists have access to Iraq.”

“What about Abdul’s old man who won’t let anybody in?”

“We could get around him, I’m sure, if Abdul were on our side.”

“How do we get around Abdul?”

“That, son, is entirely up to you. Woo him with soft rhetoric…”

“That didn’t get you anywhere.”

“Promise him anything…”

“I need guidelines.”

“I’d prefer not to indulge in premature specificity. However, you might tell him we’re offering a feasibility study of his country’s economic potential, absolutely free. Or tell him RAT is prepared to draft him a loan at minimal interest, to be diverted toward any endeavor he might endorse.”