“By the beard of the Prophet, this is a terrible mistake, asayid. I am Mahmud the potter, from Aali …” the Scorpion broke off, because the interrogator was laughing. The interrogator looked at the others and they too began to laugh. Just one merry band, the Scorpion thought, chagrined. He shrugged and they laughed even harder. Still, it had been worth a try. Anything was worth a try. He had seen too many men die because they had given up. The interrogator wiped the tears from his eyes and shook his head.

“Truly, asayid Shaw. You are most amusing,” the interrogator said with a wide smirk. The shock of hearing his cover name rippled through the Scorpion like something indigestible. Your point, he thought and inclined his head to the Arab. “The interrogator’s objective is best achieved if he can convince the subject that he knows more than he really does,” Gallagher once told him. They were drinking at Madame Wu’s, that bar on Tu Do Street in Saigon where the MPs never came because according to the story, Madame Wu had once had “razor girls” service a squad of MPs. Razor girls were VC women who reputedly placed razor blades, edge out, inside the one part of their anatomy a male was most interested in. The Scorpion didn’t know whether the story was true or not. Personally he had always figured the MPs never came around because President Thieu got a cut of the profits. “Give the subject a tiny bit of information that he doesn’t think you know and you can get him to believe you know it all,” Gallagher had said, his wash and wear suit hanging gray and wrinkled like an elephant skin.

“By the beard of the Prophet …” the Scorpion began again.

“Enough!” the Arab screamed, his voice climbing into a register usually reserved for hysterical sopranos. “Do you think we are children, that you play with us?”

The Scorpion shrugged. It looked like the Arab was going to play Good Guy/Bad Guy all by himself. The Arab got off the table and stood before him. He looked even shorter standing up than he had sitting on the table.

“You will tell us please, who you are working for and why you were spying on us,” the Arab declared sharply, ominously slapping his leg with a swagger stick to show his impatience. He was an army officer, all right, the Scorpion thought. The kind of bullshit martinet who would’ve been a prime candidate for “fragging” in Nam. Prick the little Napoleon’s pride and something interesting might tumble out, he thought. It was essential that he identify the interrogator, who spoke Arabic with a Palestinian accent. But he had to be sure.

“I don’t talk to camel turds descended from a long line of pig slime mated with dog droppings,” the Scorpion said contemptuously.