“Why don’t you get Khattak to set up a fan?” the Scorpion grinned. He was beginning to enjoy watching Harris squirm.

“No electricity, besides there isn’t time. As soon as you get cleaned up and out of your Gunga Din outfit”—looking at the Scorpion as if he had just stepped out of a cesspool—“you have to be on a plane out of here.”

“I still have business here,” the Scorpion said. He’d spent months trying to set up the gun deal with the Afghani rebels and now he had the queasy feeling that the Company was about to pick up its marbles and tell him that they didn’t want to play any more.

“We’d be appreciative if you’d handle this little matter for us first. Very,” Harris said, making a steeple with his fingers. It reminded the Scorpion of the Thai wai greeting and the night a thousand years ago when Alex and he had met Harris for the first time. It was at the Derby King on Patpong Road, the CIA’s favorite watering hole in Bangkok. That was the night Harris had told them about a quick little op in Phitsanulok province. Alex had never come back from that one, and later they learned that the Pathet Lao had impaled him on a bamboo stake.

“How much is appreciation going for these days?” the Scorpion asked.

“I had a feeling you were going to use dirty words.” Harris reached into his pocket and pulled out a color photo and tossed it over to him. It showed a beautiful young woman posing on a park bench which might have been in the Luxembourg Gardens. If people came out of files, hers would have been labeled “All-American Girl—Pretty.” She wore a green silk blouse, designer jeans and a smile that said she could have a love affair with the camera any time she wanted. Her shoulder-length blond hair was tousled in the way that took a top-notch hairdresser half a day to achieve. Her eyes were a disturbing violet with silver specks, sparkling with intelligence. They’d have made the ugliest girl special, and if it weren’t for a touch of wistfulness in them, she could have been posing for a magazine cover. She was the grown-up version of the head cheerleader whom everyone had a crush on in high school. She was a dream girl, the kind who attracts tragedy the way honey attracts flies.

“I hope you’ll be very happy together,” the Scorpion said.

“She turned up missing in Paris five weeks ago. We want you to find her.”

“Have you tried the French lost and found?” the Scorpion said and put the photo on the tray. He was annoyed. This wasn’t his kind of job and Harris knew it.

“The rue des Saussaies put us on to it. I don’t know if they’d appreciate that description,” Harris said drily.