"Our Right Trusty and Right Well-Beloved Cousins"

by Leviathan0999

I SPY Our Right Trusty and Right Well-Beloved Cousins

Dedicated in loving memory to Robert Martin Culp (August 16, 1930 - March 24, 2010) and John Spencer (December 20, 1946 - December 16, 2005)

"For notable and lasting service to the throne and the people of Khadra, We are pleased to appoint as Knights Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Scimitar, Our right trusty and right well-beloved cousins Alexander Scott Pasha and Kelly Robinson Pasha." -King Abd al-Salaam bin Al Yafeth of the Yaphetite Kingdom of Khadra, age 16, November, 1965, Las Vegas, Nevada

-=o=-

Zahrat el-Saharaa, Khadra, 1967

"Honestly," said the eighteen-year-old King, "other than at the ceremony, there is no need to wear the medals."

Abd el-Salaam bin Al Yafeth, XIXth King of the Yaphetite Kingdom of Khadra, would not have seemed out of place at an aristocratic college's senior prom: a handsome young man, black hair worn a little long, but neatly parted, wearing a tailored, cream-colored tropical-weight suit over a pale-blue turtleneck. His skin was the color of bread crust, and smooth as silk, and his dark eyes sparkled with humor and intelligence.

The man he was speaking to was tall, with a long, slender strength, standing easy, his white boat shoes slightly apart on the cobblestones, white jeans form-fitting on strong, athletic legs, shoulders strong and supple under a pale orange polo shirt. His brown eyes, naturally hooded, were also twinkling with good humor, and below a straight nose, his mouth was quirked into a wry smile.

"Well, but, your Highness," Kelly Robinson said, brushing brown hair back off his forehead, "they're so stylish, so dashing, and what dusky Scheherazade will be able to resist a Knight Commander of the Royal Order of the Scimitar?"

The man standing beside him was slightly taller, his skin the color of dark chocolate, intelligent eyes above strong cheekbones, full lips smiling without irony in a slender, elegant jawline. He was wearing a tan denim jacket and brown v-neck shirt, tan jeans, and good, solid walking shoes. "Quite aside from which," he told the King, "our State Department rather likes the idea of your people here seeing two red-blooded Americans wearing these. Red-white-and-blue heroes in the name of Khadra."

The King laughed delightedly. "Ah, Mr. Scott, you are a never-ending pleasure! Very well, if you can stand straight under the burden of such gaudy baubles, who is a mere King to gainsay you?"

"Glad you understand that, your Highestness," said Scotty, smiling. "After all, in Philadelphia, I'd let you wear your medals!"

"And are you King of Philadelphia, Mr. Scott?"

"You know it, your Majesticness!" said Scotty with a grin.

Kelly laughed, supplying, "Just ask his Mom."

The marketplace on the outskirts of Zahrat el-Saharaa, Khadra's capital city, was like a collision between a 4H fair, an Istanbul ferry and an Arabian Nights movie. In the days before the British, there had been a strong Turkish presence here, and it showed in the turbans and robes worn by so many of the Khadrans, those from the northern tribes especially. But they had arrived, not in caravans of camels, but rusty old pick-up trucks from the backs of which they, like others from all over Khadra, with their trucks and small tents and stalls, sold dates and goat's milk and Beatles and Monkees records and bread and cheese and blue jeans and various kinds of meat. There were pens of goats and tables spread with intricately-worked leather goods, and an ice cream truck that would have looked right at home in small-town USA.

Among them thronged a very mixed lot of citizens, some wearing denim, some khaki, some fine linens. There were more turbans and Turkish robes, there were Burkas and business suits, men in blue collar work-shirts and Kameez and Jalabiya, women in miniskirts and pantsuits and Abaya and Jilbab, and combinations thereof.

Here and there, slight forms were completely covered in robes and hoods and veils, only their eyes showing through thin, exposed slits. "Women," King Bashik explained, "who observe the Salafi tradition. Very strict adherence to a particularly grim interpretation of 7th century Islamic law as practiced - as they claim was practiced - by the Prophet Mohammed." He grinned sidewise. "It's their menfolk who enforce the it. Salafis talk of purity and being closer to Allah, but personally, I think it's just craven gynophobia run amuck. Fear of the power women can hold over men through pleasure." He shook his head. "Insane. But, they are religious, and a growing faction here and elsewhere - I understand the Shah of Iran has been having the Devil's own time with them - and I cannot deny them their rights, any more than you could outlaw the Mormons."

Kelly grinned. "And those Mormon girls, they're not always all that afraid of a little pleasure, no indeed!"

Scotty glanced over at him. "Are you allowed back in Utah yet?"

"Oh, now are you really gonna throw that in my face?" asked Kelly, aggrieved. "I mean, it was all a misunderstanding, you know." He looked down at his feet. "Besides, it's not the whole of Utah, just Salt Lake, man."

They walked through the crowd, two upright bodyguards in immaculate suits leading the way: Al-Shurafaa, "The Honorable Ones," the King's personal protectors. It was a new department created by the King's uncle, the Regent, after an assassination attempt against the King two years previously - one barely foiled by Kelly and Scotty, and in no small part by the young King's own courage - planned and committed his own Chief of Security.

In the center of the busy marketplace, a fountain chuckled happily, coins shining silver and brass and copper and gold under the dancing surface. Around the edge of the fountain stood a half-dozen posts, about waist-height, atop which, attached by brass chains, were silvery dippers. "It is a charitable fountain," said the King, "where passersby may drink freely, and pray for the soul of its founder. The founder of this fountain, though, is lost to history. Nobody knows whose soul receives their prayers."

Scotty seemed bemused. "I thought charity fountains were drinking fountains," he ventured. "A row of little faucets," he gestured, "along an intricate, worked marble facade."

"Ah," said the King with a smile, "your briefers were lazy! They no doubt copied that section of the file for Egypt! No, Scotty, here in Khadra, they have always been based on decorative fountains. A leftover from the Romans, who brought in a system of aqueducts, to bring water-play to several Imperial palaces, vacation homes for Romans of high standing, not unlike the house I had rented in Las Vegas. Wealthy locals copied them."

"You don't usually see these with coins in them, though," said Scotty. "Do you?"

"Quite true," replied the King. "But when I visited your country, in New York, in Washington, in Las Vegas, everywhere I went, I saw fountains full of coins, coins that would be gathered and offered to worthy causes. Your 'March of Dimes,' which fought polio to a standstill, and now works to end birth defects and infant mortality. I thought it a lovely idea, so when I got back to Khadra, I toured the country, and in each charitable fountain, I dropped one hundred gold sovereigns, in a small ceremony." He smiled, looking at once his age, and younger, and older, idealistic and wise. "I'm pleased to say it has caught on."

The looked from the fountain across the marketplace to an ancient stone wall, its gate clearly leading to the burbling waters.

Kelly's head angled slightly over, and he turned to the King. "Your Highness.... What is this place?"

The King's face became solemn. "I see that you already know. You are quite right, Kelly." He pointed as he spoke. "The Romans built that wall, millennia ago, and there is the Fountain Gate: Bab al-Sabeel."

Stillness settled over Kelly and Scotty then, as well.

"How is he?" Kelly finally asked, if only to break the silence.

The King shrugged. "Well enough, I suppose. I visit him, you know. Not Halouf, he is but an ambitious traitor. But Bobby? Yes, him, I visit. Regularly." He looked thoughtfully at the two Americans. "It's very strange, really. I still like Bobby Seville. And he, well, the poor fellow hates me, of course, hates me and everything I stand for, but, well, I'm his only fan. So there he sits in his cell, trapped between bitterness and flattery, the blood of our fathers standing between us." The dark eyes regarded the ground for a moment, then returned to Kelly. "It is very sad, of course, but what is there to do?"

"You're a good man, your Highness," said Scotty, softly.

"If I am," he replied, evenly, "much of the credit is due you, and you, Mr. Robinson." He gestured at the colorful jeep they had arrived in, white ones before and behind it. "Now, please, come, if you will - and if you feel you've shown off your medals enough to please your Mr. Rusk?"

Kelly laughed. "I think we've got that covered, Your Highness."

"True, true," said Scotty. "See how the eyes of all these women follow us."

"Well, yeah," said Kelly, "but that's just because we're so beautiful, man."

"No, that's just me. You, they're all looking at your medal."

"Now, is that any way to talk to your partner? And in front of a King, too, man, I mean, that's just mean, you know?"

"Please, gentlemen," chuckled King Bashik. "Not in front of the royalty!"

-=o=-

"You know, Jed," said the fair-haired man, as he waved for one of the many taxicabs stationed in front of the airport, "I'm still not sure why we're here, and not on Cape Cod."

Jed looked up as the cab drew in front of them. "Well, Leo, first of all, Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, and therefore unworthy of us. If I wanted time on a New England beach, New Hampshire has lovely ones. Seabrook, Hampton Beach. But you know what they don't have, even in New Hampshire?"

"Thousand-year-old Sanskrit parchments that you're going to insist on translating to me at excruciating length?" said Leo McGarry, a wry smile on his genially craggy face.

"Well, yes, those, too, Leo," said Jed Bartlet, at 24, four years his friend's senior, a tall, serious-looking man with dark hair and deep-set eyes separated from a pursed mouth by a long, straight nose, "but I was talking about a King two years younger than you, ascending to the throne of one of the wealthiest, and most successfully modernized countries in the Middle East."

"In the middle of the desert," said Leo, smiling at the driver and helping him get their bags into the trunk. "Which is very, very hot."

"But dry," replied Jed, holding the door for Leo, who slid smoothly into the back seat. "Surely better than slogging through the mud in Viet Nam?"

"Actually," replied Leo, following him in, "you do surprisingly little slogging when you're flying an F105. Mainly, you just push a button, and stuff blows up."

"Hotel Kraliyet," Jed told the driver, and then turned to Leo. "I still say, that war is crap."

"Me, too," said Leo. "Now, you convince President Johnson of that, and we all get to go home."

"Yeah," said Jed, glumly. "There is that." He looked out the window as Zahrat el-Saharaa went by, and his mood lightened. "Still, Leo, this is truly an extraordinary place. You know, back in '54, there was an attempted military coup, here. The Cadre, they called themselves, a general and some colonels, shot the King down in his palace. They say Qumar was behind it. The sultan hated old King Fouad, because he was very progressive. Did you know Khadra has the smallest gap between rich and poor of any country in the region?"

"That's sort of like being the best ballet dancer in Cleveland, isn't it?"

"You're a snob, Leo."

"Have you seen the Cleveland Ballet?" asked Leo.

"Okay, that's a fair point." Jed shrugged. "Anyway, after the old King died, his four-year-old son was next in line, but the King's brother became Regent, and he's kept right up with modernization, and even increased the old King's social programs! What I've read of the young King is, he's much of a piece. We're really lucky to have a chance to see this, Leo. We're going to watch a young man take the throne who could very well remake the entire region!"

-=o=-

"I'm not complaining about the King," Kelly said again, as he and Scotty sat together in the main room of their suite in the palace. "He's great. I mean, he's great! It's like, everything we saw in Vegas two years ago has been refined, and everything that made me want to smack him is gone, all right?"

Scotty poured himself a glass of "Mirinda," which in this case was Orange Crush, over ice. "Well, then, what are you griping about, Hoby?"

"I'm not," replied Kelly. "I'm just concerned about how good this is going to be for our cover. Bashik's Ascension is a big deal. You get that, right?"

Scotty gave him a flat-faced look.

"So the press from the world over is going to be covering the ceremony, and lookie, lookie, look who's there: international tennis bum Kelly Robinson, and his trainer, Alexander Scott. Wearing the highest medal Khadra offers. How's that going to look wherever we go next?"

"We have a cover story, Kel," said Scotty, mildly.

"Our cover story is the truth, except leaving out the part where we're government agents, and we shot at people."

"Right!" said Scotty. "See, it's easy to remember and everything! Besides, man, I reject your fundamental premise!"

"Reject my-" Kelly blinked. "Stanley, what are you talking about?"

"Why is it always international tennis bum Kelly Robinson, and his trainer Alexander Scott? Why not international tennis trainer Alexander Scott, and his bum Kelly Robinson?"

Kelly laughed. "Because then people would expect you to sit on me, man!"

"You're right, man, I see that now, you're way too bony, you'd leave bruises."

Kelly's mouth was open for a riposte but a sharp, rapid knocking on the door interrupted him. He held one finger toward Scotty as he went to the door, saying "Hold that thought!"

The staccato rapping was repeated and Kelly opened the door to the suite.

The difference between fourteen and sixteen is two, a small enough number in the world of mathematics. But in the years of a dark-haired, liquid-eyed Queen, two is a huge number, a vast, towering barrier between an impressive child and a beautiful woman. She was, more than that, the most dangerous thing in Kelly's universe, a beautiful woman in distress.

"Oh, Kelly!" Tears flowed down her cheeks as she threw herself upon him, arms around him, burying her face in his chest. He felt her tears soaking through the white tee-shirt he'd changed into after showering. "You must help us. Even if he refuses, you must!" Her face turned toward Scotty, and she cried, "Please, both of you, you must help!"

"You know we will," Scotty said.

Kelly nodded, stroking her hair like the girl he remembered, not the young woman who held him. "Anything, Nejmet," he said, "you know that."

"There you are!" The King's voice, outside the open door, was angry. "What are you doing here!? I forbade you-"

"Forbade!" spat Nejmet, scornfully.

Kelly took her shoulders in his hands, held her away from himself, telling the King, "Your highness, I promise you, this was-"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" the King snapped. "I know that!" He turned to his Queen. "But if you had been seen, alone in a room with two men, not your husband? That was your reaction to this? To this? Where is your brain?"

"Not beaten into submission by my pride, Biko!" the Queen shot back. "You must tell them. You must show them. You must ask their help. They are your friends, that is what friends do."

The King seemed shocked. "With this, Nuna? With a matter like this?"

"Her Majesty is right about this much, your Highness," said Kelly. "We are your friends. We'll help in any way we can."

"You do not understand," the King said forbiddingly. "This is a matter of honor."

"I may have had questions, your Highness, about your judgment and about your manners," said Scotty, and the King looked up at him, sharply and with dawning memory, "but never about your honor."

"And the unstated corollary," replied the King softly, "is that I could never question yours." He was silent a moment, and turned back to his young wife. "Have I told you, Nuna, that you are most of my wisdom, and all of my common sense?"

She stepped against him, fitting with visible comfort, and drew and gave equally visible strength from the embrace. "No, husband. But I have told you that I am, many times!"

The King smiled tenderly down at her, but his face was serious when he returned his gaze to Kelly and Scotty. "Come, gentlemen. This is a very private matter, we will discuss it in my private office."

-=o=-

King Bashik's private office was a serious, studious room, which in most mansions would be called "the library." It was bigger than the briefing room in Washington where Kelly and Scotty had received their most complex briefings, with bookshelves rising to a vaulted ceiling, and one of those wheeled ladders found in public libraries, to allow access to shelves well above even a very tall man's reach. In one corner was a simple wooden desk, such as might be found in the office of a mid-level bureaucrat, upon which were spread out papers and several books, William and Paul Paddock's Famine and two different editions of Malthus's Principles of Population among them, and a copy of a paper on Borlaug's work in Mexico with dwarf wheat.

There were groupings of comfortable chairs and couches, with tables slightly higher than a coffee table, convenient height for writing or working, low enough not to interfere with conversation.

Bashik gestured to one of these groupings. "Please, sit," he said, and walked over to the bookshelf beside his desk. He pulled three books partially out, and tipped a fourth back at an angle, and with an electronic hum, the section of bookshelf slid aside, revealing a wall-safe. The King looked a little embarrassed. "Please forgive the melodramatics. I went through a bit of a James Bond craze the year before I met you."

"You and the rest of the world, your Highness," said Scotty.

"I was a big fan of Thunderball, myself," added Kelly.

"Yeah, but where was your jet-pack when we needed to escape from that heroin ring?" carped Scotty.

"The bad guy didn't have an eye patch," Kelly shot back. "How many times do I have to tell you, you can only use a jet-pack when the bad guy has an eye patch."

Bashik essayed a weak smile, more in thanks for the effort than actual appreciation of the humor, and turned to the vault itself. It amused Kelly and Scotty to notice that, without any dramatic effort, Bashik had placed himself so that his body blocked any view of his hand turning the combination.

He returned in a moment, and joined them, sitting quietly in an elegant wing-backed chair that he made seem both regal and businesslike, and placed a large brown envelope on the table. He looked very severely at Kelly and Scotty. "What you are about to see, is, of course, entirely fabricated. I know this, even if it can't be proven. If anyone were to suggest otherwise, I would be forced to strike them, quite hard, in the mouth."

There was a coldness to his voice that brought Kelly's and Scotty's eyes up to him with a snap.

"It is, of course, most improper for Her Majesty, Queen Nejmet el-Sabah, to see these. This cannot be helped, as it plainly concerns her." His manner was businesslike, but his voice was hard. Underneath the hardness, though, both Kelly and Scotty, and doubtless Nejmet as well, could detect the faintest undertone of roughness. The young King was holding it together with great effort.

He sat, quite still, for a very long moment, then took the envelope, his hand betraying a faint tremor, and opened it, unwinding a string from around two circular tabs, one on the flap, one on the body of the envelope. There was a broken wax seal still clinging to the edge.

"This envelope was delivered to me anonymously, shortly after we returned from the marketplace. It was sealed with wax, as you can see. The env- Pah! This is nonsense. I waste time. There is no need for investigation. I know whence this came. Here are the contents."

He drew out a handful of eight-by-ten photographs, and handed them to Scotty.

He glanced down at them, and his body stiffened. He looked quickly over to Nejmet with wide eyes. "You-" He cleared his throat. "You've seen these?"

The Queen's face was very blank. "Yes, Mr. Scott, I have."

"I'm very sorry."

Nejmet's shoulders accepted and dismissed the condolence. "It is of little account, in the sweep of things."

"Not to me," said Scotty, handing the first picture to Kelly.

The pictures were a series. Only knowing her personally told the Americans they were fake. They showed Nejmet, naked, with a handsome, dark-skinned young man, perhaps Indian or Pakistani, also naked, who looked vaguely familiar. The photographs showed a sexual encounter, in graphic - pornographic - detail.

"Sajid Khan," said the King, quietly. "An Indian actor. Something of a teen idol in America, apparently, on some television program with an elephant."

"Maya," supplied Nejmet, meekly.

The slightest note of teasing came into the King's tone. "Her highness is rather a fan."

She flushed, her cheeks darkening, but stammered, "He'll have been faked as well. He is a devout Muslim. He would not appear in such pictures."

"He was our guest in the palace a few weeks ago," said the King. "Just for a weekend. A pleasant enough fellow, very serious about his acting. I quite agree that his likeness has been falsified as well."

Kelly looked up at the King. "Your Highness, have you a magnifying glass?"

The King's eyes widened. "I beg your pardon!"

Scotty was leaning in, speaking earnestly, even as the color filled Bashik's face. "Your highness, the first thing we need is to be able to prove these are fakes. There's nothing visible to the naked eye, so we're going to need to be able to examine them more closely."

The King was ill-at-ease with the idea, but relented, bringing two magnifying glasses from his desk.

"I assume there were threats delivered with the pictures?" asked Kelly, as he leaned low over a picture on the table, examining it closely through the glass.

"Yes." Bashik's voice was tight, and he didn't elaborate, looking back and forth between the two Americans as they passed the pictures back and forth, examining them closely.

Nejmet stood and walked slowly through the room, making a large figure eight around the two seating areas, her lower lip pulled daintily between her teeth.

After fifteen minutes, Kelly looked up at Scotty. "Well, if that isn't the goddamnedest thing," he said.

Scotty shook his head. "Nothing. Not a single thing."

"All right, then," said Kelly, speaking quietly. "For all intents and purposes, these are real."

"Enough!" cried the King, leaping to his feet, fists balled before him in a boxer's stance. "Stand up, Kelly Robinson Pasha, stand up and defend yourself!"

Kelly blinked up at him. "What are you-"

"You have impugned the Queen's honor! By law, I could have your tongue cut from your head! Stand up!"

Kelly did stand, angrily, and Scotty sat back to watch, gesturing to a distressed Nejmet to let the scene play out. "Your Highness," said Kelly, his face red with anger, "who the hell do you think you're talking to?"

The King straightened as if slapped, eyes wide with amazement. "I beg your pardon!"

"And well you should!" said Kelly. "We've known Nejmet since she was fourteen! Of course we both know full well that those pictures are fakes! And it's damned insulting-"

"But you said they were real!"

"I said for all intents and purposes they're real! We can't prove they aren't! It doesn't matter what we know, it matters what we can prove! These pictures are flawless, faultless. There's nothing in them - unless, Nejmet, do you have some sort of mark or blemish that should show in these pictures, but-"

"No," she said, the word almost a sob.

The King stared at Kelly, still flushed with anger. "That it has come to this," he murmured. "That a man asks my wife about her body, directly in front of me, and he is on our side!"

"Well, we are on your side, Bashik," said Scotty, firmly. "I know this is tough stuff, but you have to remember that. We're your friends, and we're here to help you. However outrageous or offensive something may seem, if we talk about something, it's because we're trying to help you."

It was Nejmet who answered, and her voice was very soft, and frighteningly calm. "It does not matter, Mr. Scott. Even if my body bore some mark, some mole, some blemish, that differentiated me from- That! - the fact would be no help to me. The mere exposure of it to disprove the fakery would do every bit as much damage as this filth." She drew another breath. "But the fact is that, however these were achieved, they were done flawlessly. Had I been confronted with these while suffering amnesia, I would take them as proof myself that I had done these things."

The King had dropped back into his chair. He stared sullenly at his feet, then looked back up at Kelly with bleak eyes. "I am... very sorry, Kelly. As you can imagine, this is very difficult for me. But in truth, you cannot imagine, because you are not an Arab. This is... catastrophic. This is... this ends the Yaphetite Dynasty more thoroughly than Halouf ever imagined."

"You said you received a threat," said Kelly, his voice all business, concerned and friendly.

"Yes." Bashik sat back and closed his eyes. "I am to obey commands transmitted to me secretly, as these were-" He waved a tired hand at the pictures. "-from Al Qabda - that is Arabic for The Fist. It is short for Qabdat Sultan Allah El-Mokhtar, The Fist of Allah's chosen Sultan. They are the Qumari secret police. All the charm of East Germany's Stasi and none of the restraint. If I disobey, the photographs will be released." He drew a breath, then opened his eyes. "And there is worse. Along with the photographs, there will be rumors, that Nejmet is pregnant with his child. If that were even publicly suspected I wouldn't be able to so much as order the lowliest private in our army to close a door."

"But, your Highness..." Kelly's voice was gentle. "Surely it will become clear that the Queen isn't pregnant."

"She could very well be," replied the King distractedly, then suddenly looked up, taking in the awkward postures and carefully too-blank faces. "Honestly, gentlemen," he snapped, "she is my wife, surely such a thing is not unheard of!"

"And if I am not pregnant, added Nejmet, "then it will be said that Biko has forced me to abort. It would solve nothing, with these pictures at large."

"Forced you- Surely-" Kelly stammered.

"Mr. Robinson, this is the Middle East," said Nejmet. "Were the Sultan of Qumar in this position, he might be expected to put me to death, cleansing his honor in his errant wife's blood. Were I thought pregnant by another man, even lopping my head off with the Royal Scimitar in the Palace Square would not be enough to rehabilitate the King, especially in the eyes of the military."

"Nuna!" cried the King, his tone so tender that both Kelly and Scotty had to suppress smiles, "I would sooner fall upon it than lop off so much as a single hair of your dear head!"

"Wait," said Scotty, after an awkward moment. "You mean you actually have a Scimitar? Man, I thought it was just a figure of speech, your Majesterialness!"

Kelly pouted. "Yeah, man," he added, "we're supposed to be Knights Commander of the Order, and we never even saw the thing, much less got knighted with it! What kind of deal is that?"

The King actually did smile then, widely and without complication. "It is a ridiculous ceremonial thing, that hangs on the wall over my throne. Jewels in the blade and colored ribbons with silken pompons dangling from the haft! Had I even approached your shoulder with it, you'd have fallen down laughing."

The tension now broken, Scotty leaned forward, elbows on knees, and regarded the King seriously. "All right, your Highness," he said quietly. "The pictures are a dead end. Let's talk about how they were delivered. This envelope was given to you anonymously?"

"That's right. A man from a messenger service brought it into my public office -" the King looked up. "- I have a public office as well, where I work two hours a day in my official capacity. After the Elevation, that will be increased to six. In any case, while there is much security from the Honorable Ones, that office is very much like that of a top executive in any business in New York, say, or Boston. The messenger was admitted, explained that he was required to hand-deliver the envelope directly to me, and that a receipt be signed acknowledging that it was delivered with the wax seal still intact. It was... Unusual, but not unreasonable. Since we last met, I have made great efforts not to... What is your American phrase? Not to throw my weight around. I look back on myself then as rather a spoiled little brat."

"So do we, your Most Exaltedness, Sire," said Scotty. Kelly's face went quite still, and the King's eyebrows rose. "But your heart was in the right place," Scotty continued, "so we're willing to let it go, you see, in the interests of international comity."

Bashik threw back his head and laughed, not long but with genuine pleasure. "Oh, Scotty," he said. "I have missed you, truly I have!" He settled back further into his seat, and resumed his narrative. "The messenger, his duty done, departed, and I opened the envelope privately. I was, of course, I was stunned! Obviously, these were false." He glanced up at the two agents. "Oh, I had no doubts, my friends. I know my wife. But if it makes you easier, there was simply no time, no opportunity, during Mr. Khan's visit. They were never alone." He looked down again. "I had had perhaps ten minutes to absorb the contents of the envelope when my telephone rang. My private line. It is not public knowledge, but not a state secret. A telephone number nobody knows is of precious little use. It was a male voice, disguised. Very careful classical Arabic, with a fake Egyptian accent - sort of a comedian's impression of Omar Sharif. It inquired whether I had examined the contents of my package, and then delivered the threat. Then the line was disconnected.

"Al-Shurafaa traced the messenger back to his service. The package was sent by a man who walked in off the street. A nondescript Arab in a dark suit. The telephone call could not be traced, but Wizarat el-Etisalat - the Telecommunications Ministry - tells us that there were no international calls into the country at the time I received it."

"Can they pull records on the pay phones within sight of the front door of the Palace?" asked Scotty.

The King looked startled.

"The timing," supplied Kelly. "Ten minutes after you opened the package? From a commercial messenger service? That's much too precise. They were watching the palace. They saw him arrive and leave, and then they called you. Had to be one of those pay phones."

"I...don't recall street noises," the King said, dubiously.

Scotty's voice was gentle. "You had a lot on your mind. Why don't you think about it?"

"Or, don't," said Kelly. "Just have the Ministry check for calls from those booths to your private number at the appropriate time. If there's a hit, have your Honorable Ones check it for fingerprints."

"A public phone?" asked King Bashik, his expression dubious.

"It's a long shot, your Stateliness," said Scotty, "but they've been known to pay off, and it doesn't cost much to play it."

"Very well," said the King. "It will be done."

"Now," said Kelly, "We need to think through strategy a bit. You're really no use to them until after your Elevation, when legal rule is transferred to you from your Uncle. That gives us, what, three days before they can make any kind of demand."

Scotty nodded. "And there's something else to think about. This isn't the Atom Bomb."

"I don't know what that means," said the King, but Kelly nodded, saying "Right!"

"The Japanese didn't surrender when we dropped Fat Man on Hiroshima," Kelly explained. "They didn't surrender until we dropped Little Boy on Nagasaki. The A-Bomb only worked because we had more than one, and they thought we could just keep it up until we ran out of cities."

Bashik's voice was impatient. "And?"

Scotty spoke again. "This is a bomb they can only drop once. Once they do it, the damage is done, and they have no more power over you or Khadra."

"They will still have destroyed us, Scotty," said the King, darkly, "myself and the Queen along with me. I suppose my Uncle will be able to reclaim rule, and that may be as good for Ameri-"

"No, you idiot!" erupted Kelly with a smile. The King raised an imperious eyebrow at him.

"If they can only do it once," explained Kelly, "they'll be loath to do it at all. It's a tough game, a tough middle-ground for them to walk. They can't have you decide they don't mean it and will never do it at all, but they also can't use it the first time you balk, or for a trivial gain. You see what I mean. A weapon you can only use once has to be used very deliberately. That just might also give us an edge, give us room to maneuver."

Scotty leaned toward the King again. "I think we're going to need some help. One of your men, local, knows the ins and outs of Zahrat el-Saharaa. Somebody you can trust, but he won't have to be privy to these." Scotty gestured at the pictures. "Is there anyone you can think of?"

The King considered for a moment, then nodded. "There is a man in Al-Shurafaa. He is young, but very brave. He prevented an assassination this past winter, and had to be removed from the protective detail because of his arm." He shook his head slowly, regret painted on his features. "He has a strong sense of duty, even though he chafes at desk work. Your need is for a guide, yes, and translator, with a decent brain?"

Kelly and Scotty exchanged an approving glance, and Kelly responded, "Yes, your Highness."

"I shall assign Maher Sharif, then." The King smiled. "You will like him. Shall I call for him now?"

Kelly shook his head. "The morning will do. Give your Ministry time to find that phone booth, figure out if any other calls were made to or from it immediately before or after the one to you, maybe point us in a direction for a start. Also gives us" -he gestured between himself and Scotty- "a chance to talk things through, see if there are any strategies we can come up with."

The King smiled again, this time knowingly. "Contact your Government, get permission to help us."

"Bashik," said Scotty, very quietly, "you know that we're going to help you no matter what, right? You're not in any doubt about that."

The King looked over at Scotty, his expression surprised, but then settled into a deep and warm stillness at being called by his name. "Yes, Alexander," he responded, with solemnity. "Yes, Kelly. Yes, I do know that. You are more than agents of your government. You are our friends."

"Yes, we are," said Kelly.

-=o=-

Kelly hung up the phone on the table between the twin beds, and switched off the scrambler, laughing quietly.

"What's he say, Duke?" asked Scotty.

"He said, and I quote, Can't you two even go on a goddam vacation without getting into trouble?" said Kelly, still smiling. "Then he said it's just as goddam well America likes Bashik as much as we do, since we're going to work for him whether he authorizes it or not, and he supposes it's just as well to have the new King of Khadra be even more beholden to the good ol' U.S. of A., so we damned well better not screw this up."

Scotty took a sip of his Mirinda. "You know, Hoby, we just may be putting dear old Russell Gabriel under just a bit too much pressure. Have you noticed what a potty-mouth he's turning into?"

"Everybody's a potty-mouth next to you, Augustine," said Kelly. "Some of us just lack your goddamn couth, man, you make the rest of the department look bad!"

Scotty shrugged. "A clean body, a clean mind...:"

"Gets you nowhere with the chicks, man!" added Kelly.

"I seem to do all right, Elvis, all things considered," replied Scotty. "You bring a clean mind, the girls think they need to fill you in, you see, on what you're missing."

"Nothing like being corrupted to bring the perfect night on the town to the perfect ending?"

"Now you're talking, Hoby! You're beginning to see the light."

Kelly grinned. "Anyway, Gabe says we can make use of department resources as needed. And he's going to have the whiz-kids in Photographic see if they can figure out how they made these."

Scotty raised an eyebrow. "Without seeing a sample? Really?"

"Gabe knows what we look for, man, cutlines, shadow matching, graining problems. He's giving them the problem, and seeing what they can come up with."

-=o=-

The Hotel Kraliyet would have looked at home in the more glamorous sections of Paris or Berlin, large and modern and spacious and elegant, the lobby divided into pleasant spaces of classic proportions.

As they left the elevator, Jed held a hand out to stay Leo. "Do you know who that is?"

Leo followed his gaze to two parties of men in the traditional white robes worn by men of the Arabian Peninsula. The groups - a pair of men, and a group of four - were studiously avoiding one another. The pair were an elderly man, thin and frail, hands brown-spotted with thin, crinolined, crepe-like skin, eyes milky and unseeing. His long white hair and beard were thin enough for spotted pink skin to show through. A younger man, dark hair and thick, black beard distracting from the very similar lines of cheekbone and nose that marked him as his son, held the elder's elbow, supporting and guiding him.

"I- Is that the Blind Imam? Whatsisname, El-Hassan bin Yazeed?"

"That's him," said Jed. "And that with him is his son, Imam Amr Hassan."

Leo watched the groups working hard at not noticing one another. "Ambassador Shareef doesn't seem too pleased to see them here."

Jed smiled. "Can you blame them? Bin Yazeed has been giving the Sultan fits for years! I don't think there's been a more influential leader among Qumar's Salafi community since old Abd el-Qawi died."

The diplomats and holy men from the neighboring Sultanate of Qumar made their way to the elevators, the Ambassador's bodyguards roughly shoving Jed and Leo aside to claim their car, all the while ostentatiously unaware of one another.

Leo chuckled. "It sure isn't sitting well with the Ambassador! He's pretty pissed off just to be here!"

Jed's smile deepened. "Uncle Ambassador is the least the Sultan could get away with sending!" He glanced over at his friend. "Come on, Leo, how can you help but enjoy this? This is Middle Eastern Realpolitik 101, and you're getting a front-row view!"

"You know," said Leo, "normal people, they go on vacation, it's beaches, it's casinos, it's stage plays. They don't plan their vacations around political blockbusters."

"I know!" said Jed, gleefully. "People just don't know how to have a good time!"

"Not like we do, Jed," Leo agreed with a wry half-smile. "We having breakfast here in the hotel, or finding something out in the-"

Jed Bartlet was already making for the front door.

"Yeah, I should have known," Leo grumbled, but he was smiling as he followed his friend out into the street.

-=o=-

The man who knocked quietly at the door of Bashik's private office, and limped diffidently inside when the King opened the door to him, was in his mid-twenties, with dark, crew-cut hair that came to a sharp widow's peak, and, seeming a bit out of place with his traditional robes, a rather 'mod' horseshoe-style mustache.

Kelly smiled at that last. "Nice!"

The man smiled ruefully. "I tried a goatee, but I ended up looking like a Republic serial villain."

Bashik smiled tightly at him, then nodded toward his American friends. "Maher Sharif, I'd like you to meet two very good friends of mine, and of Khadra's. This is Kelly Robinson, and this is Alexander Scott. You have heard of them - they're not without fame on the tennis circuit - but there is this which you do not know: Mr. Robinson and Mr. Scott are American intelligence agents. They will be engaged in an investigation on my behalf."

Kelly, closest, extended his right hand, but Sharif offered another rueful smile. "I'm afraid I must offer my left."

Kelly looked puzzled as he awkwardly clasped the proffered left hand, and Sharif's right materialized from within the folds of his robe. It was a horrible pink claw, like a chicken's foot, awkward, gnarled fingers and hand, and what could be seen of a frighteningly thin forearm above them, all covered with drum-tight, shining, puckered skin.

"Thermite grenade," he said, as Scotty took Sharif's outstretched hand in both of his. "It was thrown at his Majesty. It was my good fortune to catch it, and try to throw it back, but it exploded within four feet. I'm afraid my right arm and leg are rather useless. The arm more than the leg, but if your investigation will require running and shooting, I will be little use."

He looked to the King. "Your Majesty, I take it that this investigation involves the messenger you had us trace? And the public phones before the Palace? Is there a reason not to leave it in the hands of Al-Shurafaa?"

The King smiled, first at Sharif, and then at Kelly and Scotty. "As I told you, gentlemen, brains in addition to courage." He turned back to the Security man. "Yes, Mr. Sharif, there is a reason, and I shall not disclose it. Fear not! I do not doubt your loyalty, nor that of anyone within Al-Shurafaa. But this matter requires the, uh, specialized knowledge our Right Trusty and Right Well-Beloved Cousins can bring."

Sharif's eyes widened, and he re-examined Kelly and Scotty with renewed respect. "You are Knights, then, of the Order." He nodded. "It is good to know. His Majesty is not in the habit of awarding such honors frivolously." He bowed to them. "I will, of course, be of any possible service to you."

"Well, thanks, man," said Kelly. "We appreciate it."

Scotty turned to the King. "Your Majesty, did your Telecommunications Ministry have results for you?"

Bashik nodded. "Yes, they did. The call was indeed placed from one of the public phones out front. The kiosk near the southwest corner, at 4:52 PM."

"You have video surveillance of that area?" Kelly asked Sharif.

"Yes, we have." He turned to the King. "If Your Majesty will excuse us?"

"But of course, Mr. Sharif," said Bashik, moving to open the door for them. "I thank you for your service and discretion. Good luck, gentlemen."

Scotty paused to smile at the King. "It will be fine, your Majesty."

"We promise," added Kelly, and followed the others out.

Al-Shurafaa's offices were a spacious, modern suite on the first floor of the castle, with steps going down to further facilities in the basement. The video archives were down these stairs, in a cool, white-walled room, where cartons the size of shirt-boxes sat on row after row of metal shelves, each box dated.

"These are the video tapes from the security cameras outside the palace," said Sharif. "Closed-circuit television, very modern. They are sorted by camera number, then date, then AM or PM." He opened a loose-leaf binder on the desk, and looked at a chart. "The phone kiosk you're interested in is seen by camera number seven. This way."

He led them to the shelves, and they checked boxes until they found the previous day's date, and selected the "PM" box, and hefted it down, to carry to a playback unit on another desk. Kelly removed the large spool from the white cardboard box, and swiftly mounted it on the player, deftly feeding the tape into position, and turning on the small black-and-white monitor.

"You are very good at that," said Sharif.

Kelly laughed. "One of the lesser-known essential skills of the spy biz!"

"Yeah," added Scotty, pulling over extra chairs. "If international peace and brotherhood breaks out, man, the whole covert community will be getting jobs in television, you see, as video editors and cameramen."

They started the tape and fast-forwarded through the afternoon, watching grainy grey ghosts flicker through the scene, accelerated to jerk, like insects, in and out of frame. Kelly dialed back the speed knob as the shadows started to grow long, and the pace of the passersby slowed again to human velocities. A readout showed the time as 4:46:28 PM, and they watched as the form of a smallish, slender man stepped into the telephone kiosk. Scotty glanced at the time. 4:46:34.

The form in the kiosk was shadowed, but facing the palace. In stillness, he was almost invisible, a darker gray shadow amid the gray shadows of the phone kiosk. He suddenly moved, a decisive nod, a straightening, a squaring of the shoulders. His head turned as he watched a young man trot by.

"The messenger," said Maher Sharif, indicating the screen with a dip of his head.

Scotty looked at the clock. 4:48:07.

The shadowy form inside the kiosk waited a few moments. Even in the monochrome shadows, his eyes seemed dark and intent. His mouth spread in a slow smile, and he picked up the receiver, dropped a coin in the slot, and dialed.

The clock. 4:51:57.

The man was speaking. The shadows were too deep for lip-reading, but the expression was hard and satisfied.

4:52:09.

Kelly and Scotty exchanged a glance of similar hard satisfaction. Got him!

The man was animated as he spoke. Not emotional, but pleased, and allowing some energy to materialize in slight shifts of his body, his shoulders. It was a short conversation, and as the man stepped out into the plaza, he paused a moment, smiling, as his eyes adjusted.

"Great!" said Kelly, pausing the image.

The grainy image from the television camera gave no more than they already knew: Not tall, slender, a western-style suit conservative enough for a London banker, dark hair, dark eyes, unremarkable jawline. The features themselves were grainy and indistinct. Kelly automatically flicked the knob, moving the image forward one frame, so the playback heads of the machine wouldn't damage that frame on the tape.

"Let it go, Kel," said Scotty, and Kelly nodded, backing the tape up until the man was back in the kiosk, and then playing it again, at normal speed. The man stepped out of the kiosk, smiling with an ugly sort of triumph, paused, and then turned and walked jauntily away. As was so often the case with video, seeing the man in motion made him seem much more recognizable than in the still image. Not just the manner in which he moved, although Kelly and Scotty had both analyzed and filed his kinesics, his body language, and felt reasonably sure they could recognize that later, but in the transition of motion from frame to frame, the human eye drew in details, and the face seemed clearer: High, sharp cheekbones and a slender nose above dark, thin lips.

"Hang on," murmured Kelly, and ran the tape back a second, then forward again. "Scar, by the left eye?"

"Maybe," said Scotty. The man walked out of the frame.

Kelly backed it up until he was in the booth, and they watched again, and then again. The man didn't do anything different. Whatever secrets he reserved, and there were clearly several, he was not giving up through the video tape. He had told them all he was going to.

"He heading downtown?" Kelly asked Sharif.

"It would appear so."

"All right, then," said Scotty. "Let's go, and see what we can find with vigorous application of eyeballs and skull-sweat, shall we?"

"I'll put the tape away," said Kelly.

"Well, I wish you would," replied Scotty.

-=o=-

"I know them!" said Jed and Leo, at the same time.

They glanced at one another.

"Okay, that was weird," said Leo, as Jed muttered "Let's not do that again."

They were looking across the marketplace plaza at three men, two of them Americans, one black, one white, both rangy and athletic. The white man was so handsome he bordered on pretty, brown hair parted and wavy, eyes twinkling, smile charming. The Negro on the other side of their robed guide - whom they seemed to be treating with respect and good humor - was more serious, with both a slyness and a lightness in his smile and intelligence sparkling in his dark eyes.

"Kelly Robinson!" said Jed Bartlet, and Leo closed the mouth he'd opened to speak. "And his trainer, Alexander Scott. They stayed at my house last summer, when Robinson was playing at Longwood." He glanced over at Leo. "You remember, I wrote you about that weird Russian guy who turned out to be some kind of diplomat, who drowned in Lake Winnipesaukee? It was right around then."

"Which is really kind of funny, when you think about it," replied Leo, "because they spent a few days that fall trying to teach Elizabeth and Josephine tennis, when the Chinese delegation was meeting with my dad."

"That is funny..." mused Jed.

"Yeah," said Leo. He saw Scott's eyes fix on his, and gave an answering smile at the flicker of recognition in the other's expression. "Must be nice to be an international jet-setter."

"Leo, you are an international jet-setter!"

Leo grinned sideways at his old friend. "Yeah, and with a real jet, too! C'mon, let's go say Hello!"

-=o=-

"Heads up, Hoby," said Scotty, tossing a significant glance. "Familiar faces at four o'clock,"

"Oh, yes," replied Kelly. "What a wonderful surprise, two of our babysitting missions coming back to haunt us in one swell foop!"

"Three if you count His Majesty," offered Sharif, and Kelly and Scotty both grinned at him.

"Kelly! Scotty!" The dark-haired young man had come within hailing distance, and they smiled and raised friendly hands in return. "It's great to see you again! Imagine running into you two here in Khadra! My friend Leo McGarry tells me you're already acquainted."

"Yeah, yeah," said Scotty, shaking Jed's hand first, and then Leo's.

"Your father," Kelly told Jed, as he followed Scotty's lead in the handshakes, "recommended me as a tennis teacher to his father, and it's a small world after all!" He turned and waved Sharif over. "Let me introduce you, and we'll all be friends! Maher Sharif, this is Leo McGarry, and Jed Bartlet. Jed, Leo, Maher Sharif."

Sharif bowed. "It is an honor, gentlemen, and a pleasure. I trust you are enjoying my country?"

"It's very beautiful," said Leo.

"And an example for the region," added Jed, "if you don't mind an American having the temerity to say it. Your regent has done more to fight poverty than any other leader in the area."

"Oh, I dunno," said Leo, "King Hussein, over in Jordan, is pretty good."

"He is," agreed Sharif. "Also, he is a very fine chess player. He has visited to play with both the Regent and the King, many times. A very wise and kind man."

"So, you're here for the ceremony?" Jed asked Kelly and Scotty.

"Yes, we are," said Scotty. "We met the King in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, and he very kindly invited us to attend."

"That's great!" Jed's eyes were bright with interest. "What an opportunity to see history, you know? I mean, playing out right before your eyes!"

"It's very much an honor," said Kelly quietly. He held a hand out to Jed again. "Listen, it's really been great to see you, I hope we run into one another again while we're here."

Jed took both the hand and the hint with a smile. "I'm sure we will, Kelly. It's a great city, but not a large one." He turned to Maher. "Mr. Sharif, it's been an honor. I thank you for your hospitality and tolerance. Yours is a very beautiful country."

With more thanks and pleasantries all the way around, the two groups parted ways, and Sharif led Kelly and Scotty deeper into the marketplace. Unlike yesterday, though, when they were merely soaking up the scenery, the two agents were now watching faces and moving bodies, their eyes cross-referencing and filing features and builds and walks.

"Fine young men," said Sharif, favoring his right leg a little more after the morning's walk.

"And much more important than you'd think," said Kelly, letting his mouth work on auto-pilot while his eyes scanned and collated. "Jed is really Josiah Bartlet. His Umptyeth-great-grandfather was Josiah Bartlett-with-two-Ts, who signed the Declaration of Independence. Family's been important in New Hampshire politics for longer than New Hampshire's been a state."

"Oh, hey, that was good," said Scotty. "I like how you saw Maher had no idea what New Hampshire was so you slipped it right in there, real smooth, Homer!"

Sharif chuckled.

"And young McGarry," Kelly continued, "is the only son of Fergus McGarry, of the Chicago McGarrys who became that because Massachusetts was too small for them to be the Massachusetts McGarrys at the same time as old Joe was running the Massachusetts Kennedys."

"Ah!" Maher Sharif smiled. "This Fergus McGarry, he was Ambassador to Iran for a year or so, yes?"

Scotty nodded. "About three years back, yeah."

"I remember him." Sharif was contemplative. "He was a kind man, even when drunk, but drank to excess. I worried about him. He is well?"

Kelly and Scotty exchanged a glance, and Sharif held up a palm. "Forgive me, I spoke out of turn. I may speak of him, as he is only someone I met. You have been responsible for his safety, I know you may not speak of these things."

"Don't worry abou- Oh." Kelly's face hardened, staring at a group ahead of them. "Scotty, eyes front. That's our man..."

"...and that," Scotty completed, "is the Mountain."

"This is not good," muttered Maher Sharif. "The Mountain? This is not good at all."

They stepped back and watched from the shadows as their quarry, looking smaller and thinner than he had on the videotape, led a gigantic black man wading through the crowd. He was as tall as a professional basketball player, but vastly more solid, great slabs of muscle rolling and grinding under his dark brown skin.

"Yeah, I can't disagree there," muttered Kelly. He exchanged a glance with Scotty, knowing they were both remembering the dossier: Letsego 'The Mountain' Kefenste, height, 7 feet, 2 inches, weight, 612 pounds, age, 56. Serious muscle for criminal gangs and covert services alike for about thirty years, migrating slowly northward from his original home in Equatorial Kundu.

"Well, Stanley," he said to Scotty quietly, "here's another fine mess you-"

The sudden alarm in Scotty's eyes stopped him, and he looked quickly back. A woman in ragged, filthy clothes, obviously a beggar, was lying on the ground, as the Mountain drew back a foot to kick her again. Before he could, a boy of maybe five or six leaped at him, screaming. Kefenste's casual backhand sent him tumbling limp to the dirt.

The smaller man, the man who had called to threaten the King, turned and said something angrily to the Mountain, and the two walked in double-time and crammed themselves into a dark gray Renault.

"Maher, get this number." Kelly's voice was hard and quiet. "1684. Got it?"

"1684," repeated Sharif.

"Great. You'll have to get back to the Palace on foot, I'm afraid, we're taking the car. With any luck, they'll lead us right back to their pad. Tell the King. Tell him they have the Mountain. Tell him what that means." He glanced at Scotty. "Let's go, Duke."

But there was something about Scotty... Kelly looked back. Scotty was staring, hard-faced, slightly wide-eyed, at the beggar-boy and his mother.

"Duke." No response. "Duke!" Kelly snapped his fingers in front of Scotty's face, and his partner jerked, as if waking, "We've gotta go, Duke, like now."

The Renault was already at the far end of the plaza, and turning left into a main street.

"All right, Hoby," Scotty snapped out, and said to Maher Sharif, over his shoulder, "Get them some help, man!"

The Al-Shurafaa car was a dented brown Mercedes whose engine was in perfect repair, far swifter and more powerful than it looked, which was entirely by design.

-=o=-

"Jesus, Jed, did you see that?" Leo stared, wide-eyed, as the giant and the smaller man started the Renault.

"Come on!" Jed was already pushing through the crowd toward the fallen woman and child.

As they pushed through, they saw Robinson and Scott - the latter seeming distracted - climbing into a battered Mercedes and starting after the Renault, and Sharif pushing through the crowd to the felled mother and son beggars.

They stopped, turned slowly, with widening eyes, to look at one another.

"The Chinese delegation?" asked Jed.

"Some sort of Russian diplomat?" replied Leo.

"And, King Abd Al-Salaam in Vegas? Didn't I read...?"

"You did, Jed."

"We've got to back them up!" cried Jed Bartlet.

"Are you out of your mind? They're pros! They're obviously pros! We're not trained-"

"I don't mean running in with guns blazing, Leo, I mean following them, so somebody knows where the Hell they are!" He turned and marched off toward the line of taxis at the curb, every line of his back and shoulders radiating determination.

"Oh, this has International Incident written all over it," muttered Leo, and followed in his wake.

-=o=-

"Oh, now, look at this, Hoby," Scotty murmured, as the Renault pulled into the driveway of a house in a residential area just outside of Al-Zahra ("The Flower," as locals called their city.) "The Mountain and the Qumari blackmailer, just one happy family in their nice suburban house. Isn't that nice?"

Kelly glanced over as the huge form of Letsego Kefenste wedged himself out of the Renault, and scowled back at the form of the Qumari agent who climbed easily from the driver's seat. From this angle, in the sun, Kelly saw that his impression from the videotape had been correct, and there was a small, straight scar by the outside corner of the left eye. "You know what, Fred C," said Kelly, "now that I get a good look at him, isn't our buddy from the kiosk Qabeel Alaaeddin? Wasn't he quite the rising star within El-Qabdat?"

"Qabda," replied Scotty, driving on, "I keep telling you, it's El-Qabda! No T, Homer."

"But it's Qabdat Sultan Allah El-Mokhtar," complained Kelly. "So where does the T go?"

"It goes away when it's not indicating the possession of Allah's Chosen Sultan, man," said Scotty, pulling onto the next side street, and parking there. "The T is the hook that attaches it to the Sultan, right?"

"All right, all right," said Kelly, following him out of the car and back up the sidewalk. "Silly way to run a language if you ask me!"

"Says the American English speaker!" chuckled Scotty.

Kelly snickered, "True, true."

They slowed down and moved closer to the shade of a tree before reaching the house the El-Qabda men had driven to, and took a few moments to examine approaches. Two or three cars moved by, a taxi pulled to the curb a couple of houses further up, but the house itself seemed unwatchful.

"You know, Hoby," said Scotty, "that's quite a name our friend from the kiosk is packing. Alaaeddin? That's Aladdin, Jack!" They continued on past the house, glancing as they went by, and then Kelly tapped Scotty's elbow, gesturing with the angle of his head, and without any fuss, they casually turned and approached the corner of the house.

"Aladdin, really?" Kelly's hand had dipped into his pocket, and come out with a small pair of wire cutters concealed in his palm. "Well, then..." Quickly and easily, without fuss and without a pause, he reached down and clipped two barely-visible alarm wires. "All I have to say is," he reached down and, with a rolling motion of his shoulders, lifted the window past its catch. "'Open Sesame!'"

Scotty shook his head in disgust. "No, no, no!" he said, helping him slide the outer pane of the window open to the left. "That's Ali Baba, you Philistine! Can't you keep your Arab clichs straight?"

"Am I tall enough to be a Philistine?" Kelly asked, swinging a leg over the windowsill, and slithering gracefully inside.

"Not really, man, no," agreed Scotty, as he accepted Kelly's offered hand and followed him in. "But if you work hard and eat your Wheaties, you know, you can achieve anything, man."

"Yes, yes," said Kelly, reaching out to close the window again, "The Philistine dream."

Their shoes made almost no sound as they moved deeper into the house.

-=o=-

"Did you see that?" said Leo.

"I am right here, Leo," Jed replied. "Although I'm not sure what that little jiggle at the beginning was."

"So, now what, Mister Nought Nought Seven?" Leo asked. "Go tell someone they broke into a house? And who can we tell?"

Their taxi had already gone, and they were standing in the shadow of a moderately large fig tree. Jed shook his head. "Not yet. We can go to the American Embassy if it reaches that point, but they're probably fine. We'll just keep an eye out for trouble, and do a fade when they come back out."

Leo put a hand on Jed's shoulder and pushed him back a step, fading into the shadows close beside him. An Arab man stepped out from beyond the far side of the house, adjusting a robe over grey twill trousers and a white linen shirt, clearly sealing his fly. In the swishing fabric of the robe, as his hands secured his zipper, they saw a gun, a machine pistol, pushed down through the belt in front of his left hip.

Leo's voice, barely a breath, ghosted into Jed's ear as the man took up station leaning against the wall of the house, between the window the two agents had entered, and another. "That's a C96 Broom-handle Mauser. 20-round magazine, 9 mm parabellum. That's a serious gun, Jed. It's a pro's gun."

Jed nodded. "Come on, then."

They moved quietly back, in the shadows, and ducked into the alley on the far side of the building behind the fig, a shop of some sort, obviously closed for business. A battered, rusted Coca-Cola sign hung askew over the door. "Do we go for help?" Leo hissed.

Jed bit his lip. "I don't like it," he said. "In the time it takes us, anything could happen. Leo, if they try to come back out the way they went in..."

"He can cut them down, no problem."

"We've got to go in and tell them," said Jed.

"How are we going to do that, Commander Bond? You may have noticed, there's an armed guard out there now."

"Nobody likes a smart-ass, Leo," sighed Jed. "Let's go around behind, and see if there's an approach there."

The back of the shop was like the back of a shop in Manchester or Chicago or Newark: trashcans, one knocked on its side, litter that had not reached the trashcans, two or three wooden pallets to stack crates or boxes on, a large delivery door. Empty soft-drink cans. There was a hedge of sorts separating the shop from the house Robinson and Scott did not yet know they were trapped in. Jed and Leo made their way to it, stepping carefully amid the rubbish and debris.

They wormed into a thin patch, and looked beyond. Behind the house was a panel truck, like any bakery might own, its driver's-side door not fully shut. Beyond it stood an old Peugeot, then the Renault. The truck was parked inches from the back of the house, and they could see a window through the empty cab. Between the seats was the dark rectangle of the doorway into the storage area behind.

"Looks promising," said Leo. "If we can make it to the truck, we can slide open the other door, and then that window, and go in that way. Nobody's looking out that window, or they wouldn't have parked the truck against it."

They looked carefully, saw no sign of watchers, and sprinted to the truck, crouching low as they eased the driver's door open, and slipped inside. As he scrambled crabwise after Leo, Jed's foot slid a few inches, and he looked down to see a cellophane-wrapped cigarette package on the floor. The logo was in Arabic, with Latin letters underneath: "Atiyeh."

He reached down and picked it up, nudged Leo. "Look at this."

Leo glanced down. "What? Somebody smokes?"

"No, Leo." Jed's voice was quiet, intense. "Atiyeh is a Qumari brand. They don't sell them here. There's a trade embargo."

Leo half-smiled. "Don't jump to conclusions, Jed," he whispered. "There are a million ways Qumari smokes could have got here. Ever hear of the black market?"

"Not for Atiyehs," murmured Jed. "They're terrible!"

Leo nodded. "All right, we'll keep it in mind, Jed."

He turned back to the passenger-side door, slid it slowly back, and then started examining the window of the house, remembering the odd, rolling movement of Kelly Robinson's shoulders before he slid open the window. It took him a couple of moments, but then he smiled. "Got it," he murmured back to Jed. "You sort of lift and roll the outside window, the one that usually doesn't open, over this latch here..."

He gripped it carefully, rolling his shoulders, and then slid the window open.

"Come on, man."

They crept into the house as quietly as they could, hyper-aware of the sounds of their footsteps. "We need to find them," Leo breathed, "without alerting anybody else."

Jed grinned wryly. "Why, thank you Leo," he whispered, matching his friend's ghostly tones. "Should I occasionally inhale and exhale as well?"

"Yeah, fine, fine," grunted Leo. "Don't blame me if you get enthusiastic about some pre-dynastic art, and get us caught."

-=o=-

Kelly Robinson froze, holding up a hand, and Alexander Scott was still beside him as well, both listening intently to the house's near-silence. After a moment, they exchanged a nod.

"You sure you got that alarm?" Scotty's voice was a ghost on the air.

Kelly nodded. "Anyway, we've been in here almost five minutes."

"Well, Hoby, they're on the move."

"More toward the back of the house, though," replied Kelly. "Maybe we should take a look that way."

There was a sound, and Scotty gestured with his head. He and Kelly ducked immediately into a sideways hall, and thence into a closet. They stood pressed together, breathing against one another's cheeks.

"This sort of thing was much more fun with Andrea," breathed Kelly.

"Well, man, I'm really insulted," Scotty replied. "Besides, Andrea was too squirmy to be a world-class hider, man, she couldn't keep still in a closet if her life depended on it."

"I thought she kept pretty still."

"With you, maybe!"

Kelly grinned. "I thought you didn't like white girls."

"They're all the same color in the dark, Homer."

The sound of footsteps had come and gone while they'd entertained one another, and they slipped back out of the closet, and carefully continued back through the house.

A door suddenly opened close in front of them, and a blond head peered out, first away from them, then turning, and Kelly hissed with surprise and annoyance, "Leo!?"

Leo jumped at the unexpected sight and sound, and then stepped out, followed by Jed. "Great!" Leo's voice was as quiet as theirs, his tone urgent. "We found you."

"You say that like it's a good thing," snapped Kelly. "You know, this isn't like some pickup basketball game anybody can just join in on."

"Listen," Jed replied, "You're in trouble here. We realized what you two are when you took off after those guys , and we followed - just to keep an eye out and get you help if something bad was happening."

"Look, that's real cool and all, but Kelly's right, man, we do this for a living."

"Anyway," Kelly broke in, "if you were just going to keep a watch outside-"

"We came in," supplied Jed, his tone a little sharp, "because you're going to need to find another way out."

Leo confirmed it. "After you came in, a guard showed up with a broom-handle Mauser. He's planted right outside that window."

Kelly glanced over at Scotty. "Dammit."

"What?" asked Jed. "Can't you find another way out?"

"It's not that," said Scotty. "Kelly just hates it when other people are right."

"Broom-handle?" said Kelly. "We'd've been dead meat." As he spoke, Scotty had cracked a door into another room, found it dark and empty, and indicated with his head. "Come on," Kelly continued. "We need to huddle."

In the dark room, door closed, they did just that, leaning together, hands on shoulders, like a football team, to allow them to be as quiet as possible.

"The good news," said Scotty, "is that you two pretty much saved our lives, and no kidding."

"But don't go breaking your arms patting your own backs," added Kelly, "because you set off an alarm in the process. They're out searching the house right now."

"Dammit!" said Jed. "Leo tried to warn me..."

"Leo," said Kelly. "You're Air Force. You know E&E?"

"Escape and evade, yessir." Captain McGarry's tone was tight and clipped, the voice controllers no doubt heard in the tower back in Viet Nam.

"Great," said Scotty. "We're going to go get caught."

"You can't!" hissed Jed.

"We have to," replied Kelly. "Do you have any idea what kind of international mess this turns into if Al-Qabda grabs the two of you in this house? They'd have to kill you, which I'm actually not all that wild about, to be perfectly honest with you."

"And then they have to do something about it," added Scotty. "Probably try to pin it on Al-Shurafaa, and start a whole mess, you see, between America and Khadra."

"Best-case, is," continued Kelly, "they mess that up, and end up at war with Khadra, and America steps in on Khadra's side."

"We can't do that," Jed hissed. "The Middle East is a powder-keg right now! We put American troops on the ground anywhere in this region, and the war we'll end up in will make Viet Nam look like-"

"Exactly," interrupted Scotty.

"The alarm's gone off, and they've gotta find who set it off, or they'll just keep searching," Kelly said. "So, we get caught, and we get ourselves out of trouble later. In the meantime, you hide out until you get an opening, and get the hell out."

"Go to the Palace," Scotty added. "Find Maher Sharif. He's with Al-Shurafaa. Tell him we're here, and they can handle the rest."

Kelly tapped twice on the shoulders on either side of him, put a hand unerringly, in the dark, to Jed's mouth and Leo's, and pulled them quickly back and into another tiny closet, shoving them inside, then following them halfway in and pressing his own back against them as Scotty, directly before him, pulled at the door.

Lights came on in the room, dazzling, and a harsh voice barked, "Makanak!"

While Scotty peered around the closet door, slowly raising his hands, Kelly, close behind him, silently moved his hands behind his back, shifting the clothing and robes hanging there, so as to disguise the two civilians.

"You! Negro! Who is with you? There are two of you!"

At the sound of the voice, in its heavily accented English, Kelly moved slowly out to look past his partner at its owner. Qabeel Alaaeddin stood confident, holding a Soviet Tokarev TT-33 semiautomatic pistol.

"One second quicker!" Kelly complained to Scotty. "That's all you had to be, Jack, one second quicker, and the door would have been closed when Aladdin here looked!"

Scotty hung his head sheepishly. "I'm sorry, man. I guess I'm just not as quick as I used to be."

Alaaeddin shook his head. "No difference. When I am searching, I am not in the habit of leaving doors unopened." He gestured with the Tokarev. "This way."

The two agents stepped where he had indicated, and Alaaeddin stepped into the room far enough to glance into the shallow closet, nodded once, then closed the door, pulling a walkie-talkie from somewhere within his suit jacket. "You may cease searching, and secure the house. I have found them. Yes, two of them, as the alarm indicated. I will see to them myself."

-=o=-

They waited, pressed up against one another in tense silence, for long minutes after the door was closed. Finally, in the drawing silence, Leo breathed, "Well, James Bond, this has gone well so far."

Jed barely snorted.

"Let's take a look."

Jed nodded against the back of his head.

The door opened silently, just a few inches, and light from the empty room poured in through the crack.

"Nothing," Leo breathed.

Jed let his head drop back gently against the wall behind him, and stiffened. "Leo."

"Yeah?" Leo's voice was distracted, as he moved his face more out into the room.

"Look. Up here."

In the ceiling of the closet was a rectangular trap-door, just an opening with a ceiling tile laid atop it, the sort typical for suburban attics all over the world.

Leo grinned. "That could work. Give me a boost."

Jed went down on one knee, and Leo used the other knee as a step, reaching up to push the rectangular tile up and off the hatch, then grasped the edges and pulled his head up and through.

The attic was unfinished, with a central walkway under the peak of the roof, and rafters slanting down to each side. Light filtered in through vents at either end, and Leo could see that the attic went in an "L" shape following the plan of the house.

Leo hauled himself up and turned, reaching down for Jed, and they grasped one another's wrists, so Leo could bring him up and through. As he started lifting, there was a click from the outer door, and a grunt from outside the closet, and Jed clamped his lips shut and scrambled silently through the opening. As they moved the cover noiselessly back over the trapdoor, the closet door creaked, and they heard the sound of fabric being pushed around. Another grunt, a few words of Arabic, the closet door closing.

The two men stared at one another, eyes wide, silent, as they heard the sound of the outer door of the room click shut. Leo's eyes widened a moment further - That was too damned close, Jed! - and he angled his head toward the central walkway.

They moved carefully and quietly, choosing their steps with great deliberation.

"Why are you here?"

The voice was sharp and harsh and arrogant, and they both froze for a moment, until they heard Kelly Robinson's voice replying, "Well, you see, man, we were looking for my old friend Rahim Said. We played tennis in Istanbul about a year ago, and he told me, If I was ever in Al-Zahra, you know..."

Jed and Leo exchanged another glance. As Robinson spoke, it became clear that the voices were coming from below and to the left, down inside one of the rooms.

"Allow me to save you some time and effort, Mr. Robinson." The voice was that of the man the two agents had allowed to capture them. "We have a good working relationship with the KGB. They provided us your dossiers when the King announced you would be his guests at the Palace. Let us not waste time with the harmless tennis bum, shall we?"

There was a moment's silence.

"Now, isn't that just great?" said Kelly's voice. "Do you have any idea how much it costs to run that Tennis Bum cover? Do you? And for what?"

"Now, Kel..." began Scott's voice.

"No, now, Jack, I mean it! All the money they blow on rackets, they could have bought us a sports car with an ejector seat by now, man!"

The wide eyes Jed turned on Leo spoke volumes: God! How can they joke like that!?!?

"Amusing," said the voice of the captor. There was a meaty impact, and a groan from Kelly. "Perhaps you have heard that I am famed for my jolly sense of humor?"

Leo bit his lower lip, feeling the enormity of what went on below.

"No," Kelly's voice groaned. "Now that you mention it, I can't say... Scotty, have you heard...?"

"You know, Duke, now that you mention it, I don't think-" Another impact, and a small noise from Scott.

"There is a reason for that," said the harsh voice.

The door below opened, and another voice spoke in Arabic. The leader responded, and there was a moment's dialogue.

Kelly's voice spoke again. "So we're going, then?"

"This is my office, Mr. Robinson. I can hardly get my own work done with you enterprising gentlemen distracting me, now can I. You will be brought to more...suitable...accommodations."

There was a moment's silence.

"You wanna?" said Kelly Robinson's voice.

"Hardly seems worth it, Hoby," came the reply. "Getting locked in with a few extra bruises? Still locked in, man."

"Very wise," said the harsh voice again, and the two men in the attic heard the sounds of footsteps shuffling away.

They exchanged looks again, and with them, unspoken questions. Now what?

Do I look like I know?

The sounds of motion were more distributed now, and Leo began looking at the walkway, trying to see where the floorboards rested solidly on beams, and footsteps would be most likely to be silent over the quiet sounds of office-work below, the shuffling of papers and then the dialing of a phone. He was starting to gesture to a set of nails in the boards when the voice spoke in Arabic. The words were rough and guttural, and then there was a Pah! of disgust, and a click of a switch. The voice spoke again and another voice, this one with the tin-can sound of a speakerphone, responded in halting, heavily accented Arabic, with many stumbles and hesitations.

The man below made another disgusted noise, and barked "Russkogo, to!"

"Nyet!" The canned voice was vehement. "Vash russkii? strashno, obidno! Angliiskii, ispol'zuite angliiskii yazyk."

"Very well. I've had practice of it today."

The tinny voice was irritated, its accent thickly Russian. "You need English for Kefenste?"

There was a chuckle. "Yes, but also for the two American agents."

"What?!?"

"Yes." The voice was calm. "They broke into the house within the last hour. It is this I called to report to the Sultan." On the last three syllables the voice became sharp.

"Yes, yes." The Russian's voice was wearily dismissive. "You know the Sultan has requested our consultation on this. You will speak to me. I will advise the Sultan."

"Al Qabda takes its orders from the Sultan, not foreign lackeys."

"Very well, Alaaeddin. A moment." There was a click through the phone, then another voice.

"You are under attack by American agents?"

Leo's eyes snapped to Jed's. They'd both heard that voice in news reports: it was that of the Sultan of Qumar.

The man below them spoke a few urgent words of Arabic, and the Sultan's voice was a whiplash in response. "English, Alaaeddin! Comrade Colonel Chernenkiev has difficulty with Arabic!"

The man Alaaeddin drew in a long breath through his nose. "The American agents who were guests at the Palace invaded the house and have been captured."

"Your plan has failed," said the tinny voice of Chernenkiev. "If Abd Al Salaam has enlisted the Americans, you will not control him. You must do such damage as you can."

"The plan can still be-" began Alaaeddin.

"No." The voice was the Sultan's. "I will follow Comrade Colonel Chernenkiev's advice. I will call the printers. Packages will be ready to go out by noon tomorrow. In the meantime, release the package you have now."

There was a very long pause.

"Alaaeddin!" The Sultan's voice was angry.

Alaaeddin's reply came from his mouth like sausage meat from a grinder. "As...you will.... Majesty." A moment. "And the Americans?"

"My country would welcome-" began Chernenkiev, but the Sultan cut him off.

"Kill them. Wait until after Evening Prayer, then kill them."

Alaaeddin's voice held a note of triumph that the Soviets would at least be denied this prize. "Yes, Majesty!"

"Very well. You are a good servant, Alaaeddin. It will not be forgotten."

There was a metallic click, and the harsh buzz of a dial tone flowed up from below, before Alaaeddin made a Tcha! sound, and there was quiet. Another click, and the harsh voice spoke again. "Kefenste."

There was a pause.

"Abd Al-Salaam has decided to value his pride over his crown. We are going to endgame. Send Hassan with the package. Use the bread truck."

The rattle of the phone clunking down on its cradle.

"Damn," muttered the harsh voice. There was a bark of humorless laughter, a few syllables of Arabic.

Leo tapped Jed's arm, and when he looked up, their wide eyes locked. Leo's were intense. We have to act. He pointed again at the nails in the walkway, showing it was on top of a rafter. He jerked his head toward the eave at the far end of the attic. Jed nodded, and Leo moved off, carefully and smoothly, choosing his steps.

Jed followed him, eyes wide, looking for nail-heads to be sure he was staying on the beam, and Leo brought him up against the eave. There was a vent, two feet on a side, and Leo gestured him to look down through the slats. Below them was the smooth white roof of the bakery truck. Leo pointed along the top edge of the aluminum vent, and Jed saw it was set on a hinge, so it could be opened for cleaning. The hinge, he was glad to see, shone in the reflected light from below.

He nodded back at Leo, who slowly pushed the vent out. It swung up quietly, and he angled his head, and Jed slipped out past him, placing one foot, then the other, on the smooth sheet-metal roof of the bread truck. He reached up to help Leo down, and as soon as Leo was on the roof, he carefully lowered the vent. There was the sound of a door opening below, and the two Americans dropped to lay on their bellies on the truck's roof.

A soft voice muttered in Arabic, and the driver's-side door of the truck slid backwards to a clang, and then the motor started. Tree-branches brushed over their backs, and the truck turned out onto the street.

"Hang on!" said Leo, and he grasped the edge of the roof, just back of the front edge, and swung himself down, legs arcing out straight before him, swinging down in a mighty kick. The truck wavered, swaying left and right, and began to slow down.

"Come on!" called Leo, and Jed leaned down over the edge to look upside-down into the cab. Leo was holding a slender Arab man by the collar, swinging him away from the wheel, toward Jed. "Get him!"

Jed reached out with one hand, grabbed the back of the man's collar, and yanked, and the man went flailing backward, out of the truck, and fell to the street, rolling as he landed.

"Get in!" called Leo, and reached up to help Jed down into the van. He slipped past him, and picked up a large, sealed envelope from the passenger seat, and Leo was behind the wheel before he got seated.

"What do you suppose that is?" Leo asked.

"Endgame," Jed replied. "It's the weapon that the Qumaris think is going to cost Abd Al-Salaam his throne."

Leo turned the wheel, swinging them on the main road back to Zahrat el-Saharaa. Behind them, the slender Arab climbed to his feet, and limped back toward the house.

Jed looked down at the envelope in his hands, and broke the wax seal, unwinding the sealing string from the round tabs.

"Jesus, Jed, what are you doing?" cried Leo. "That's dynamite! You shouldn't be in it! Leave it for Al-Shurafaa!"

"No, Leo." Jed Bartlet's voice was firm. "Alaaeddin said this would end Abd Al-Salaam's reign. It's got to be some sort of blackmail, and aimed directly at him. If Al-Shurafaa gets hold of it, it may be as bad as whatever they were planning."

"Well, I'm not stopping," said Leo, "so you better see what we're dealing with."

Jed pulled stiff paper from the envelope, and Leo heard his gasp.

"What is it?" Leo glanced over. The picture atop the stack in Jed's hands was lurid and colorful: It showed the young queen, naked, inter-tangled with a handsome young man, his skin the color of a walnut. "Blue pictures? Of the Queen!?!?"

Jed flipped through the stack. "Oh, God, Leo, that was the tame one!" At the bottom was a page typewritten in Arabic. Jed didn't bother with what he knew he couldn't understand, and straightened the sheets of stiff paper. He slid them back into the envelope, re-wrapped the string. "If anybody, and Leo, I mean anybody but the King sees these, his crown won't mean as much as a propeller beanie. We have to get these directly to the King!"

"Well, that should be no problem. I'm sure he's always happy to accept private visits from tourists in stolen trucks!"

-=o=-

"Gentlemen." Alaaeddin's voice sounded almost tired. His gun-hand, however, as he stood just inside the door of the unfurnished bedroom, was erect and watchful. "You do manage to be most troublesome. Who-? No, later for that."

"Man, don't you know the union rules?" said Scotty. "You can't torture us yet. We just got here! We get at least a half-hour settling-in period before you can torture us."

"You know," Kelly told him, "these guys may not have signed the International Super-Spies And All-American Heroes' 329 contract."

"A non-union shop?" Scotty seemed outraged. "Man, you got me working a non-union shop!"

Kelly turned to Alaaeddin. "I'm sorry, we can't be your prisoners. We're union men. ISS&AAH Local 329. We can only be prisoners in a union shop."

"Makin' us doggone scabs, Jack!" added Scotty.

Alaaeddin actually smiled. "I do so enjoy your wit!" he said. "It will have to wait, though, until we have arrived at the new location." He leveled the Makarov at Kelly. "Mr. Scott, do please lie in the center of the floor with your arms outstretched. If you resist or disobey, then I will pull the trigger, and lose whatever intelligence Mr Robinson might have to offer." His smile widened. "And remember, Mr. Scott: with a target like that forehead, I can hardly miss."

"Oh, ouch!" said Kelly, "That was really unkind, man, totally uncalled-for."

Alaaeddin simply watched him as Scotty eyed him, and his gun, then stepped into the room and went down, first to one knee, and then to lay prone.

As soon as he was down, the huge form of the Mountain was inside, striding over with his head ducked to avoid the ceiling. He placed one knee in the small of Scotty's back, and quickly drew in his hands, one and then the other, to tie neatly behind him. He pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket, and shook it out, revealing a cotton pillowcase, and pulled it over Scotty's head.

"Now, Mr. Robinson," said Alaaeddin, pulling another pillowcase and some clothesline from his pocket. "Turn your back, and co-operate. If you resist in any way, Mr. Kefenste will break your partner's neck."

Kelly looked him in the eye, then turned, facing the wall and crossing his wrists behind him.

-=o=-

"Not the Palace," Jed said. Leo looked over to him, his face a question. "Marketplace first."

"Marketplace?" said Leo.

"I want to buy a candle." Jed looked at the back of the envelope, at the wax clinging to the winding string. "A red candle. Re-seal this. Every little bit helps."

Leo shrugged. "Can't hurt, but we're working under a time limit."

"You think I don't know that, Leo?" There was a roughness in Jed's voice. "You saw what's in here! Abd Al-Salaam can't help them if these get out! Not just in public, but even within his own people! He'll be a joke!"

"You think a little wax-?"

"I think if it's not obvious that anybody else has opened this, we'll be more likely to get it to the King unopened."

Leo had parked the truck, and they climbed out. Jed scanned the shops, and pointed to a stall. The sign over it displayed a word in beautifully calligraphed Arabic, followed, in English, with "Chandlery."

"Chandlery," read Leo. "Nice. There's a word you don't hear much any more."

Jed chuckled. "Come on, then."

They bought three large candles in deep crimson, and walked back to the bread truck, which was drawing no attention. In the back, Jed lit the first candle, and let it burn for a minute or so, before lifting it and angling it so that the falling wax dripped and pooled on the string and tabs holding the envelope closed, and then for good measure, laid a line along the edge of the flap. When he was done, the envelope looked, if anything, even more secure than when they had found it.

Leo looked at Jed. "Seems to me, Maher Sharif is still our best bet."

Jed nodded. "He knows Kelly and Scotty, and he knows us, and if he was assigned to them, and we've got to assume he was, then it was probably by the King himself. He'll have direct access."

"What I was thinking," said Leo. He went forward and slid into the Driver's seat. "Next stop, Palace Square."

As Jed slid into the passenger seat, a bit of color on the floorboards caught his eye, and his brow furrowed as he regarded the crushed Atiyeh package. He reached down, and scooped it up into his pocket.

-=o=-

Scotty looked sourly at the unfinished stone-and-mortar walls and rough concrete floor, in the dim light of the bare 20-Watt bulb.

"This looks like the basement of my old house in South Philly, man," he grumbled. "Hoby, you ever get the feeling that they just change the sets behind us while we're blindfolded?"

"Aw, but look at the Palace and the Marketplace, Stanley!" chuckled Kelly. "Some of this gets shot on location."

"I dunno, man, didn't you learn anything from those Hollywood trips? Doesn't take..." He glanced at his watch, "forty-odd minutes to change a set."

"Might," said Kelly. "You know, if it's a union crew."

"Yeah, but, Mr. Hoffa, we've already established this isn't a union shop!"

They sat quietly for a moment. Scotty shifted uneasily on the bare cement.

"Northeast?" Kelly mused. "Near Bashik's new desert-reclamation plots?"

"Smells about right. Enough manure to plant a forest."

The door opened, and Kelly and Scotty looked up from the concrete floor.

Alaaeddin stood there, looking in, his mouth a thin, hard line. Behind him stood the hulking form of Letsego "The Mountain" Kefenste. "I know I waste my time with the question, but I must, in fairness, give you a chance to answer me rather than the Mountain. Where are the other two American agents? What are their plans?"

The two seated Americans exchanged an amused glance.

"American agents?" said Kelly. "That would be us."

"The other two," said Alaaeddin again.

"Man," replied Scotty, "there are no other two! When you got me and Captain Marvel here on the case, there's no need for more, Jack! That's really insulting, man!"

"I think we should file a grievance," said Kelly. He turned to Alaaeddin. "I demand to see your Grievance Officer!"

The corner of the Qumari's mouth twitched. "That would be Mr. Kefenste," he said. He turned to the Mountain. "Take him to the Question Room, Kefenste. Give his...grievances...a thorough hearing."

-=o=-

"Mr. Sharif," said Jed, seriously, offering a hand. They had presented themselves at the Al Shurafaa offices, and spent twenty minutes speaking with various functionaries before he had limped out of one of the corridors.

"Call me Maher," Sharif replied, smiling. "How can I help you gentlemen?"

Jed didn't hesitate. "We need to speak with his Majesty. We know how extraordinary that is. We know that he's in trouble. We know Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott were helping him. They have been captured, and are being held in a house outside El-Zahra. Their captors are under the orders of the Sultan of Qumar himself. Their capture has caused the Sultan to accelerate his plan, and he will be taking devastating action. We must explain all this to the King."

Sharif's smile dimmed to a professional firmness. "We, the Honorable Ones, safeguard the King's security. This is our purview."

Jed shook his head. "No, Maher. I'm sorry, I respect you and the job you are doing, but only the King can deal with this."

Maher Sharif regarded him for a moment, and then Leo.

"A top-secret Al-Qabda base, hidden here in Zahrat Al-Saharaa, in some modest suburban home? I am to accept this, simply on your word?"

Jed reached into his pocket, took out a flattened and dirty piece of litter, foil and paper and cellophane, and handed it to Maher Sharif: a crushed cigarette package labeled Atiyeh.

Sharif examined it, turning it over in his hand, then, apparently satisfied, he nodded, picking up a phone on his desk, and dialing an extension. There was the sound of a voice, words indistinguishable, through the phone.

"Your Majesty," said Sharif. More of the voice from the phone. "It is because I wish my American guests to understand. I have two American tourists, here, Josiah Bartlet and Leo McGarry. They are past acquaintances of Mr Robinson and Mr Scott. They say your friends are in trouble, and so are you. They say they must speak directly with you. They bear documents, which I daresay they will give only to you."

A reply.

"A large, sealed envelope, Majesty. It has not been mentioned, but is prominent."

Another reply.

"Immediately, Majesty." He set the phone down. "You gentlemen will please accompany me?"

They followed him through a door, and into a long, white-walled corridor, to another door that he unlocked with a key, and gestured them through, closing that door behind himself. They were in a room, a little bit longer than wide, about the size of a respectable suburban bedroom. There was another door at the far end, but Sharif stepped ahead, and turned to face them.

"Maher," began Jed.

"Jed, Leo, I will not bring you into the presence of the King, no matter what my orders, until I am satisfied that it is safe to do so. Please stand against the wall, as they do in your American police dramas, and I will search you for weapons."

The two Americans exchanged a look and shrugged, leaning hands-first against the wall. Sharif's left hand frisked them efficiently and thoroughly, and at his, "Thank you, gentlemen," they straightened and turned, but he stood before them, his hand held out. "The envelope, Jed."

Jed shook his head. "I can't let you open this, Maher."

Sharif went to a desk in one corner, and switched on a strong lamp, angling it up into the room. "An envelope like that could contain anything! A knifeblade. Poison. I will not open it, but I must inspect it for safety." He gestured to the light-bulb. "I will look through it, in the light, be assured that it cannot harm the King."

They stood for a long moment, eyes locked. Leo, at Jed's side, looked back and forth between them. Whatever he himself might have thought, he kept his own counsel.

Finally Jed spoke. "Maher, is your loyalty to the Throne, or also to the man?"

Maher blinked at him. "Is that the question?"

"It is," said Jed Bartlet.

Maher regarded him for a moment. His posture did not relax, but he nodded. "Very well. Al Shurafaa's duty is to Khadra. The King is ruler of the Nation, and his safety is of utmost importance. But Nation and Throne and Crown depend upon the man who wears it. My highest loyalty is to my nation, but that is also loyalty to my King." There was another long pause. "And Abd Al-Salaam is a very good man. I like him very much."

"Then you're going to have to trust me, Maher. I haven't met the King, but I trust your judgment, and I trust Kelly's and Scotty's. I'm here, we're here, to save his reign before it even begins. You're going to have to trust me."

Sharif gazed back at him. "With a sealed, uninspected envelope."

"You can inspect it," Leo said. Jed looked over at him, and Leo nodded back. "Hold it, juggle it, feel it, bend it. But you can't look through it. It's that important."

Jed nodded. "Yes, that works."

Sharif considered another moment, and then nodded, holding out his hand.

Jed handed him the envelope, and Sharif spent a moment on it, bending it, shaking it close beside his good left ear, his eyes closed with concentration. He finally looked down at it again, in his hand, and then over to the powerful desk lamp.

Jed and Leo exchanged glances. Leo angled his chin forward by a millimeter. Jed shook his in negation by the same amount.

Sharif approached the desk, the strong light throwing his shadow grotesquely across floor, wall, and ceiling.

The two Americans watched, faces still and serious.

Sharif placed the envelope under his right arm, turned the goose-necked lamp back down toward the desk, and shut it off.

"Come," he said, holding the envelope back out to Jed as he led them to the far door. "His Majesty awaits."

The young King met them in a room that Jed and Leo would have called a library, but that Sharif had called the King's private office. He was a handsome, self-possessed young man, his eyes dark as they tracked the envelope in Jed's hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Maher," the King said quietly. He looked seriously at the security man. "May I call you in your office for further assistance in a while?"

Maher Sharif smiled, with a gesture halfway between nod and bow. "Of course, your Majesty. I am ever at your service."

As the Honorable One backed out, closing the heavy door behind him, the King turned to Jed and Leo. "He is a very good man," he told them. "I sometimes think I'd be lost without him." His focus sharpened on Jed, and he offered a solemn hand. "You are Mr. Josiah? No, I'm sorry, Mr. Bartlet. Forgive me, I'm a trifle distracted."

"I imagine so, your Majesty," said Jed, clasping the offered hand briefly. As the King shook with Leo, he continued, "And I can't offer you much relief. Leo and I bumped into Kelly and Scotty and your Mr., uh, Maher in the marketplace. We'd both met Kelly and Scotty previously. We didn't know it at the time, but I guess we were part of their cover for- Well, anyway, it seemed only polite to say hello. After that, there was an assault in the marketplace. A man attacked a woman and child-"

"I am aware of this," said the King. "Mr. Maher reported it to me, although at that moment, he didn't mention you. This man is known to the authorities."

Jed nodded, and Leo leaned forward. "It appears that Kelly and Scotty knew him too," he said. "They took off in hot pursuit."

"And, you know," Jed added, "tennis bums aren't really known for crime-busting, and seeing that, and remembering how we had met them before, well, we figured out that tennis isn't their only game. And, well, I decided that we should follow them, so if they got into trouble, someone would know."

"And they have." The King's eyes flickered down to the envelope again.

"Yes, your Majesty. They, er, broke into a house outside the city. At, er...."

"81 Shari' Ibrahim," supplied Leo.

"Where the men they were following had gone. Someone named Kefenste, an Alaaeddin, and a Hassan. They took orders on the phone from the Sultan of Qumar himself, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We followed Kelly and Scotty in to warn them of a guard, and set off an alarm. They let themselves be captured so we could escape. We hid in the attic. Eavesdropped. The man Alaaeddin, he seems to be in charge here, he called to report in, and spoke with a Russian named Chernenkiev, and the Sultan. The Russian felt that Kelly and Scotty going into the house meant that you were not going to be controlled. He advised that all there was to do was as much damage as possible immediately. The Sultan agreed, said that he was calling printers, and packages will be going out by noon tomorrow, and he ordered Alaaeddin to send out his package immediately." Jed gestured with the envelope. "This package. Alaaeddin called it 'Going to Endgame.' Then the Sultan ordered that Kelly and Scotty be killed after evening prayer."

The King's gaze moved quickly up and down, from Jed's face to the envelope in his hands, lips hard-pressed, eyes intense. He shook his head once, quickly, turned to his desk, lifted his telephone.

Jed automatically turned away from him, giving him a symbolic margin of privacy. His eyes fell on a table near the desk, on which stood a beautifully-carved chess set, in onyx and ivory. Jed gasped softly. The rooks were elephants carrying archers in battle-towers on their backs, the bishops turbaned Viziers, the knights armed with scimitars. Jed nodded, gazing back into antiquity as he listened to the King speak.

"Mr. Maher?" Bashik was saying. "Send a strike team to 81 Shari' Ibrahim. Rescue mission. Messrs. Robinson and Scott are being held there, or were when Messrs. McGarry and Bartlet left." His eyes flickered to a desk clock. "Time is of the essence. Give instructions, though, that this is a rescue mission, not a law-enforcement operation: no evidence is to be seized, no documents to be examined, until I am present." He paused. His eyes closed. "You must see to it, Maher. Please." Another moment. "Thank you, Maher."

He hung up the phone and turned back to the two Americans. Jed turned back to face him from the chess set.

"You managed to escape," he prompted them.

"Yes, sir," said Leo. "On the roof of a bakery truck they were using for 'Endgame.' One man aboard, Hassan. He was carrying that package. We took over the truck, threw him out, and left."

"I'm not going to lie, your Majesty." Jed held the envelope out to him. "We've seen what's in this. I re-sealed it myself to make it less tempting to your staff." He paused. "I'm very sorry, your Majesty."

Bashik picked up the particular tone of sympathy, and snapped sharply at Jed, "It isn't her!"

"Of course, your Majesty," said Jed, immediately.

"It isn't! It is her face, and the face of a recent guest in the Palace, but it is some form of photographic trickery, I assure you."

Jed lifted a palm. "Pax, your Majesty." The King's face came up, an eyebrow raised, at the Latin. "I take you at your word, and in any case, it's not for me to judge. I'm here - we're here - to help."

"There is no help." The King's voice actually trembled as he spoke. "What can be done? Perhaps an air-strike on every printing press in Qumar? You have likely watched me give my last order as a King." His eyes took in the ancient chessboard. "My last before I turn over my King. As Alaaeddin called it, endgame. I don't see how we can stop this now."

"But perhaps I do, your Majesty," said Jed. "Just maybe."

"What have you got in mind?" asked Leo, and the King stilled, waiting.

Jed turned to Leo. "Remember who we saw at the hotel, this morning? At the elevators?"

"Shareef?" said Leo. "The Qumari ambassador?"

The King and Jed both shook their heads, for their very different reasons.

"Shareef will not help us," said Bashik. "He is the Sultan's nephew."

"No," said Jed Bartlet. "But El-Hassan bin Yazeed might."

"The Bahji," breathed Leo.

"The Blind Imam and his Ulema?" said Bashik. "They have no power over the Sultan."

"But think of it, your Majesty," replied Jed. "A network of ultra-conservative clerics. The Islamic equivalent of Jewish Hassidim, or possibly our Quakers or Amish? Militating to teach the Salafi tradition? A quaint but uncompromising moral voice: the Bahji."

"Yes, but what have the Bahji to do with this?" asked the King.

"They've got a lot of support among the clergy," said Leo. "All over Qumar."

"And those shepherds," added Jed, "tend flocks. Congregations. If we bring that-" Jed pointed at the envelope. "-to binYazeed, and tell him these photographs are fakes... Surely to falsify pornography of a teenaged girl in order to strike at her husband was never something Allah had in mind! It can't be hard to persuade him that this is an outrage in the eyes of God."

"So then, he can mobilize the Bahji," added Leo. "And before the Sultan can release the photographs, they will have been publicly denounced as fake! Protests in the street against the Sultan's shameful affront to Allah!"

"Even if he goes ahead and releases them," Jed finished, "they won't be believed. Not with the Qumari public calling them fake before you've even had a chance to make a statement."

The King's eyes were wide, his face pale. "Are you mad!?!? You think I will return these - these - to two American tourists of little account, to wander loose in my kingdom with some fabulous scheme to use them to convince a cleric to riot in the name of holiness? My kingdom trembles on the brink of catastrophe, four hundred years of our history, the entire Yaphetite dynasty, crashing to an end, my friends in enemy hands, sentenced to death, and the best you can offer is this- this-"

"In the middle of the Fifteenth Century," Jed Bartlet said, "After the fall of Constantinople, the Turkish forces which occupied the north of what is now Khadra were recalled to Turkey." His voice was rich, now, and considered, the voice of a teacher, and it filled the room. "Many of the officers had come to like the life they led here, and so they stayed, and ruled as princes over a merging and disintegrating collection of city-states. For more than a hundred years, these Turkish northern countries warred and skirmished continually with Arab tribes from the south, who rejected as invaders the generations of Turkish descendants who had been born in this land. Then the eldest son of the leader of the southern alliance took as captive the youngest daughter of the ruling prince of the northern territories. Neither expected to fall in love, but fall they did, and they returned to her father's palace, where the southern leader surrendered his sword, and knelt before the Prince, his neck exposed, to ask for the hand of the young princess."

Leo and the King were very still, watching Jed as he spoke, the King with growing respect in his eyes, and Leo with a dawning of something more like reverence.

"The father, impressed with his courage, and touched by his trust, stayed his hand, and gave his blessing. A century of war ended in marriage." Jed's eyes moved over the black-and-white squares, the exquisitely carved pieces. "In commemoration, the Prince commissioned a fine, hand-carved chess set in ivory and onyx, and gave it to Yapheth Abd al-Mutakabbir, who would now be the first King to rule over North and South alike, and who swore to make a green land for all, thus founding Khadra, the Green Lady of the Desert."

Jed picked up the white King's pawn from the stone board. "We can do this, your Majesty. I know it seems overwhelming, and I respect that it's hard to trust two men you've never met with your future and your bride hanging in the balance. I know it looks like there are a thousand things that have to go right and a million that can go wrong. But we can do this. Don't concentrate on the details. Look at the whole board."

He placed the pawn two squares forward in the classic opening gambit.

"Your move, your Majesty," said Jed Bartlet.

-=o=-

Scotty's hands hurt. So did his shoulder. He had pounded against the door of the cell, thrown himself against it as Kelly (Mom's name was Grace) screamed. He had shouted Kelly's name, shouted jokes, knowing that if he could hear Kelly, then Kelly could hear him, and hoping his voice would give his brother (not Russell, no, not Russell) a lifeline to hold onto.

It had shocked him how quickly Kelly had begun to scream.

It wasn't that he hadn't heard it before. Kelly Robinson was not a man who believed in the macho posturing of suppression. "It doesn't give 'em anything," he'd told Scotty, long ago. "What does it tell them? That they hurt you? They know that. And if they thought they hadn't, they'd just try harder. It's no fun for them to listen to, and every now and again, you can scare some dummy into laying off because he thinks he's going to damage the merchandise. So go on and scream your damn head off."

But Scotty couldn't. He couldn't tell Kelly why, wouldn't even really tell himself why. But when Scotty screamed, it was torn from him, uncontrollably. That satisfaction, he would withhold as long as he could.

Willing though Kelly was to scream when the need arose, it usually took longer than the minute or so that passed between his exit from the room, and the high, ragged shriek that drove Scotty against the door, bellowing his partner's name.

Again and again the scream tore through him as he pounded on the door, calling out, "Hang in there, Caruso!" and "No go, man, Fay Wray got the part!" and "I swear, that's how Elvis got his big break!"

Finally, there was a pause and then a crash! and then shouts that weren't Kelly's, angry voices, not quite loud enough to distinguish their words. "Attaboy, Kel!" he shouted. "I knew you could tick 'em right off!"

It wasn't silence after that, but nothing he could identify, until, five minutes later, footsteps approached the door. "Mr. Scott," came Alaaeddin's voice. "We have gained all we can from Mr. Robinson. It will be no inconvenience at all to shoot him in the base of the skull. Do please step back from the door."

Scotty did so immediately and without question, stood back against the far wall, stones rough against his back.

The door opened, and Kelly was catapulted through it, tumbling to curl up around himself at Scotty's feet. Scotty was crouching to him when the voice, self-impressed and self-amused, brought his face up with a snap to see Alaaeddin's cold smile through the door. "I trust," he said, "that you heard Mr. Robinson's grievances?"

There was no actual thought or planning, no idea about what would happen next. Alexander Scott simply launched himself in a snarling leap any jungle cat would have recognized across the room. Before either of them knew it, he had Alaaeddin's lapels in his fists, and swung him to slam back against the doorframe.

"What did you do to him, you son of a-"

He got no further. Kefenste's backhand caught the side of his jaw, and he was thrown back to sprawl atop his partner. "Bad boy," muttered Kefenste, his voice, the grinding of stone against stone, penetrating the starbursts exploding in Scotty's vision. "Didn't your mother ever teach you to watch your language?"

The door closed with a solid thud and they lay for a moment like that, in an untidy pile, like discarded rubbish.

"Duke...." Kelly finally moaned.

"Yuh?"

"Not that you're not...warm and all...but I was kinda planning...on breathing today."

"Com- Complain, complain, man..." Scotty rolled off his partner to lie beside him, his head still ringing. He lay there for another moment, breathing deeply, trying to clear his head. "You okay, Kel?"

"Well," allowed Kelly, "I may be singing soprano."

"Really?" Scotty's voice was disgusted. "Really? Man, these guys just have no class. I mean, Jack, that went out with tying old ladies to railroad tracks!"

"No, no," gasped Kelly. "You give brother Alaaeddin too little credit. All the modern conveniences, Fred C, everything's electric."

Scotty's hands clenched into fists. He closed his eyes, thinking. "Battery. House current didn't blink."

Kelly managed a weak laugh. "Not anymore, Dobbsie. I managed to knock it down and break off the covers. All the fluid's all over the floor in there. Watch your step."

Scotty finally rolled his head to examine Kelly's face. His right eye was puffed almost closed, and darkening quickly. "I see when the battery went, they went for battery."

Another cracked chuckle. "Yeah, they didn't seem to appreciate my efforts at redecorating, Fred."

"Well, you know, new ideas for interior design never catch on right away, you see, it takes time for the people to catch up with the visionary few."

"Yeah..." the word came out in a sigh.

"Russ- Kel?"

Silence.

"Kel!"

"Yeah, Duke."

"You okay? I mean, you know, car battery, that's twelve volts, right? Not likely to be permanent damage."

"I think I may play the violin again," breathed Kelly.

"Listen, the worst is probably surface burns. Aloe, some antibiotic ointment-"

"Dobbsie." Kelly's voice was firm.

"Uh... yeah?"

"Listen, Fred C, I know you're my trainer and all, but, I'm telling you right here and now. I'll take any advice you wanna give me, but this injury, I'm treating my own damn self, okay?"

Scotty felt a chuckle bubble up in his own throat. "All right, Hoby, you go for yourself, then." He sat up. "I'll hand you the ointment and walk out the door."

Kelly rolled onto his back. "You're a gentleman...and a scholar...sir, and I...thank you."

"So, I guess somebody made some trouble, huh?"

Kelly grinned savagely. "What I gather..." he breathed for a second, "after they caught us, they decided... they couldn't make Bashik their whipping-boy. Decided to just ruin him and have done with it. Sent a man out... with the last of the pictures, and two Americans jumped him and stole them, and the truck they rode out on."

Scotty laughed. "Well, all right, Jack. It's like the whole US of A has come out to support my main man Bashik!"

-=o=-

The King's eyes burned into Jed Bartlet's and his mouth opened, and he said, BANG!

Jed blinked, and his brain caught up with the sound of an inner door slamming open that had interrupted the King's answer. The King spun toward the lovely, dark young woman who stormed into the office like March in New Hampshire.

"What are you doing here, Nejmet?" he snapped. "This is not your-"

"Biko, do you honestly intend to finish that sentence?" she shot back. "I saw Maher Sharif leading a strike team out of the palace. You think I don't know what he's-" Her flashing eyes took in the two young Americans. "Oh. Hello." She turned toward them, extending a hand. "I am Nejmet, the Queen."

Jed stepped forward and took her offered hand first. "Jed Bartlet, your Majesty."

Leo followed quickly with his own hand, murmuring, "An honor, a real honor. I'm Leo McGarry."

Her smile was distracted. "Thank you, Mr. Bartlet, Mr. McGarry-" Her eyes focused. "Any relation to Fergus McGarry?"

The King's head also snapped up at that, focusing on Leo.

Leo eyes widened. "My father."

"A very kind man," she told him with a smile. "He visited the Palace while he was representing your nation in Iran."

The King nodded, his head tipping toward the chessboard. "It is an honor to meet his son. We played chess many times. He was a wily player. If you have inherited his skills..."

"I've inherited quite a lot from him, your Majesty," said Leo, bowing his head. "But Jed, here, beats the pants off me every time."

The King's eyes were serious, as he turned to regard Jed Bartlet. "And are you," he asked, "the strategist Mr. McGarry has you?"

"I don't know." Jed was as serious. "I try to be."

"What are you talking about?" Queen Nejmet's voice was firm. "Is Maher's team following some plan of Mr. Bartlet's?"

"No, your Majesty," replied Jed. "Although it is on account of us." He looked over to her husband, deferring to him.

"These gentlemen are old friends of Kelly's and Scotty's. They came here to report to me that they have been captured by Al Qabda. I have sent Maher to the location where they were captured." He paused. "The Fist have decided that I cannot be controlled. They ordered the release of these." He waved the envelope. "There are printers at work in Qumar which will be shipping out more by noon." He pushed his hand back through his hair. "These gentlemen seem to think that the answer is to give a free preview to the Blind Imam and his son, and start academics rioting in their ivory towers."

She plucked the envelope from his hands, broke open the seal.

"Your Majesty!?" Jed's and Leo's voices were both shocked.

"Nothing I haven't seen, gentlemen," she told them, with a humorless smile. "Although much I have not done." She withdrew the photographs, and glancing through them with distaste and resolve in equal measures. "Although it is sweet for you to be concerned for my 'innocence.'"

"I will not have these out of this room," said the King. "Your plan.... Your plan has some merit, but the risk! If these are taken, if they are seen...." He shook his head. His voice, when he spoke, was full of pain. "She is my wife, you see. I cannot-"

"Biko!" Her voice was sharp and urgent. "What is this plan?"

Leo stepped in, even as the King opened his mouth to speak, and the King nodded toward him. "As your husband says, your Majesty, the Blind Imam, El-Hassan bin Yazeed. He has a far-reaching network of Muslim clergy throughout Qumar. We thought to bring word of this plot to him, with evidence, in the form of that package. It is surely an offense against God and the Prophet to smear a young woman with filth like this in order to ruin her husband. Only the more so if she is Queen, and he, King."

"And I will not risk the exposure," said the King. "I cannot."

"It would be moot," the Queen shot back, stepping to her husband's side, "come noon tomorrow. But it may be moot already." She held up the typed sheet of paper Jed had not tried to read. "This was in the package."

The King's gaze sharpened upon it as she read aloud, translating into English for the benefit of the two Americans. "Our luck has been very good. We have managed to photograph the Queen and Khan in excellent light, with a number of appropriate expressions. It was particularly good fortune that they played a most strenuous game of tennis. The Queen's grimace upon twisting her ankle should prove especially useful. Their expressions of strain and effort will be most appropriate for physical pleasure. The skin tones and builds of the body models must match precisely. Based on the photographs provided, there should be several images of coitus, and three of oral pleasure. Success seems quite certain. Do not copy this message. Return it with the package of photographs. It is signed, Alaaeddin."

They stood a moment in silence, absorbing the words and their impact. Jed and Leo exchanged a glance, both feeling a slight lessening in tension, and then the King turned suddenly to his wife, and declared, quite forcefully, "I do not want you playing tennis with Kelly!"

The smile that spread suddenly across her face was like the sunrise, and she punched him playfully on the shoulder. "You are a great fool, Bashik!"

The King did not smile, but his expression lightened a bit. "In so many, many ways." he turned toward the Americans, taking the paper from his wife. "Here." He held the sheet out to them. "You may not take the photographs. They are too dangerous. They are too..."

Bartlet nodded.

"But you may take this. This is evidence of the conspiracy. It should prove enough."

Jed Bartlet accepted the typed sheet, and Leo asked with a reaching hand, and was given the empty envelope. He offered its open end to Jed, who slid the page back into it.

"Your Majesty," Leo began, but was interrupted by the strident jangle of a telephone on the King's desk.

"Yes." The King's voice into the phone was businesslike. "I see. Hold the premises, I shall be there shortly." He replaced the phone into its cradle. "That was Mr. Maher. I must leave. They have taken the house where Kelly and Scotty were captured, and it is empty. It appears that Al Qabda has decamped in haste. I must examine the premises before they search for clues." He looked back and forth between the two young Americans. "I have known you for less than an hour, and my kingdom is now in your hands. To wish you luck would seem self-serving, but I do it anyway. Be careful. Go with God."

"Thank you, your Majesty," said Jed Bartlet.

-=o=-

It was no great surprise, Scotty thought, that Kelly's shoulders and back were rigid with tension. Alexander Scott's fingers, long and firm and still studiedly gentle, worked through the knotted, cramped muscles, loosening and relaxing them, every touch aimed at helping regularize his partner's pulse and breathing, to soothe and gentle him, encourage his circulation.

Shock could be fatal, Scotty knew, but the danger passed quickly, and keeping the patient, the victim (not Russell, no, not Russell) warm was a huge part of it. Step one was to cover him, keep body heat in. This branch of the Khadra Hilton didn't have a blanket, so he'd stripped off his heavy cotton shirt to put on Kelly, dragging his arms through the long sleeves; layered over his partner's light T-shirt, it would insulate, help ward off the immediate danger of shock in the chilly cell. He couldn't risk exposing Kelly's torso, so he'd slipped his hands under the layers of clothing to rub his back. The direct contact and friction of skin-on-skin, the normalcy of the act of massage, so familiar to both of them, was step two. Keep his blood flowing, warm and strong, ease his mind as well as his cramping muscles. The muscle tremors were subsiding already, as his hands worked knowledgeably over pressure points and Chakras, letting his fingertips work like an acupuncturist's needles to put pressure to bear on specific spots that would spread healing to larger areas.

It had been hard to figure out a good place for Kelly to be, to keep his body away from the heat-leaching stone of the floor. Scotty finally ended up sitting Indian-style on the floor, Kelly sitting facing him, his buttocks cradled on Scotty's legs and ankles crossed at the small of Scotty's back. Kelly's head lay on his shoulder as his hands worked those quivering, cramping muscles. Scotty thought it best not to mention basing the position on an illustration in the Kama Sutra. Kelly would love that!

As Scotty's fingers worked outwards along Kel's shoulders again, he felt the head shift against his collarbone, and the trembling hands moving softly up to the back of his head. Kelly probed with surprising gentleness at the growing knot where his head had hit the stone floor.

"Gonna have quite the goose-egg, there, Pard," Kelly murmured into his clavicle.

"Well, you know, Kel, maybe it will turn out to be golden."

"I have not noticed, Duke, that that has been our general run of luck in this."

The door opened, and the hulking form of Kefenste filled it. He chuckled, low in his throat, a sound like two boulders grinding together. "So sweet," he ground out. "Get up, little Alexander. It is your time."

"No, Hoby," said Scotty. "I can't say that it has."

-=o=-

Jed and Leo glanced at one another as they stood outside the hotel-room door, as long seconds ticked away after Jed's firm knock.

The voice that finally answered through the door was low and smooth, but spoke English, with a silky accent. "What do you want?"

"We need to speak with you and your father, Imam Amr," Jed said clearly.

"You know me?" asked the voice.

"Not personally, Imam, but I know that you are Amr Hassan, and your father, El-Hassan bin Yazeed." Jed drew a breath. "I know you share the strongest moral voice in Qumar. I bring you what I'm sure will be unwelcome news of your Sultan."

The voice rolled in a gentle laugh. "Unwelcome news of the Sultan is often welcome here." The door swung open a few inches, and the sharp, dark features regarded them. "I have seen you in this place. Who are you?"

"My name is Jed Bartlet, Imam. This is Leo McGarry. We do not represent any government, we are here as individuals. But we have learned of actions your Sultan is taking in your name, the name of all your people, which we feel sure you would not welcome. May we come in, and explain?"

There was a moment of consideration, and then the dark face bobbed in an assenting nod, and moved back with the opening door. A thin voice called from within the room, and Amr Hassan spoke over his shoulder: "In English, Father, please. Our guests are American. They tell me they are here to deliver unwelcome news of the Sultan."

The two Americans followed Hassan's inviting hand, and stepped into the living-room of the suite. The pale, papery figure of El-Hassan bin Yazeed was sitting on the sofa, his eyes staring sightlessly into nowhere. His thin voice laughed softly. "Seldom is news of our beloved Sultan anything else."

"Sit, gentlemen," said the blind man's son, gesturing to other chairs around the coffee table, on which stood two open boxes containing fresh, white, cotton shirts. He addressed his father again as they seated themselves. "Father, I present two American civilians, who claim they have dire news. Jed Bartlet, and Leo McGarry."

"McGarry?" The Imam's face turned in their general direction, milky eyes giving no indication. "Are you related to Ambassador McGarry?"

"My father, sir," said Leo.

"I trust he is well?"

"Yes, sir. Retired to Chicago, now, and very happy indeed."

"Ah." The Imam's voice carried an undertone of amusement. "And thus, not sending his son as some sort of sub-rosa emissary."

"No, sir," said Leo. "I'm nobody's emissary, I'm just Jed's friend."

"I see." Bin Yazeed's head angled slightly away from Leo, and he addressed empty air. "You, Mr. Bartlet, bring news of the Sultan?"

"I do, sir," said Jed. "We both do. Leo also witnessed what I am here to report."

"Very well, then," said the Imam, his face turning toward Jed's voice. "Tell me your tale."

Jed drew in a deep breath. "There are things I can't tell you, of course. Suffice it to say that we were trying to help some fellow Americans in trouble, and found ourselves inside a house being used by Qabdat Sultan Allah El-Mokhtar. We overheard a telephone conversation between an Al Qabda officer and the Sultan himself. The conversation revealed that the Sultan was attempting to blackmail Abd Al-Salaam. He had created, had falsified - I'm sorry, sir, there is no other way to say it - pornographic photographs of Queen Nejmet, and was threatening to release them. The King had defied him, and he ordered immediate release of the pictures. We managed to steal the ones that were here in Khadra, but the Sultan has printing plants working to create more, which will be released by noon tomorrow."

As Jed spoke, Amr Hassan leaned forward, eyes intent, and stroked thumb and forefinger down his mustache. His father, however, simply sat, expression neutral. "So... Two Americans with no standing bring me a tale of an eavesdropped telephone call and an evil scheme? And what am I to do with these tidings?"

"Imam," said Leo, "we represent no government. This is not some political trickery."

"And if it were, you would say so?" The Blind Imam's voice was warmly amused. "And, of course, you have no proof."

"We do, Imam bin Yazeed," said Jed Bartlet. He held the large envelope toward him, then caught himself and extended it to Amr Hassan instead.

Hassan opened the envelope, and drew out the typed sheet of Arabic. "A document," he explained, "typed in Arabic." He read it aloud to his father, the Arabic words flowing from him like the chuckling music of a country river.

His father listened with quiet indulgence. "If true," he said, "it is an outrage in the face of Allah and the Prophet... But how can we know? Anyone may sit down before a typewriter and write such as a fiction."

Amr Hassan spoke again in Arabic, his words quicker, his voice more urgent.

"You are being rude, my son, to our American friends." The Blind Imam sat back. "My son feels that your news is providential. He feels that I can use it to mobilize religious folk in my country against the Sultan. He feels that we can use such outrage as a springboard to real political power."

"Think of it, Father!" Hassan's voice was intent. "The Bahji are already listened to by many. Looked to for our expertise in the words of the Prophet and the ways of God. Our people are hungry for moral leadership! If we can bring them this news, show them the Sultan's ungodly contempt for a woman's purity, they will demand the guiding Hand of Allah. Who better to lead them to Grace than we who have studied the way?"

Bin-Yazeed considered in silence for a long, long moment. "To be in a position to bring the wisdom of the Prophet into the Palace and marketplace!"

"Father, we could help guide our nation in the name of God."

"And if it is untrue? We will be fools. We will look like posturers grasping for power on the foundation of lies! The Bahji will be in ruins! How can we risk it? How can we risk it without proof?"

Hassan sat for a moment, mouth pressed tight, eyes focused on Jed. Then he sat forward, and gently lifted a plain white sheet of smooth cardboard from the shirt-box on the coffee table before them. He rattled the stiff sheet. "There is a picture. It is clear that it has been created falsely. It shows the young Queen. She is naked. Her breasts are fine and pert, and there is a man with her, a handsome man who is not the King. His hands are on her body." He handed the cardboard to his father, whose fingers moved across its slick surface, and picked up the sheet from the other box. "It is another photograph, I can tell it is fake. She is pleasuring him with her mouth."

Jed sat back, eyes wide. He turned toward Leo, and saw equal shock staring back at him. They turned back to Hassan, and he gazed coldly at them, his chin tilted up in challenge. Go ahead and tell him, his eyes said, and your cause is doomed.

The four men sat in their separate silences, two in shock, one in challenge, and one... The Blind Imam's beard quivered for a moment, sightless eyes wide, and Jed watched, honestly not knowing whether or not he would blurt out the truth of what had just happened before him.

"YES!" cried the Blind Imam. "I have him! That irreligious cur is mine!"

His son nodded his grim satisfaction. "I knew, father, that these men would be welcome."

Bin Yazeed faced Jed and Leo. "I am quite sure you cannot allow me to keep these. No matter, no matter, the Sultan will provide plenty. You will excuse us, please. There is much work to do." He turned toward his son, and issued a torrent of Arabic, Jed and Leo forgotten.

The two Americans exchanged a glance again, and a last look at the challenging dark eyes of Amr Hassan, as they gathered up the envelope and letter, and they stepped to the door and let themselves out into the hallway.

They walked in silence toward the elevator, and then Jed drew a long, deep breath.

"We can fix it," Leo said. "Tomorrow, when this is all over, we can go to him, tell him the truth."

Jed nodded tightly. "After the lie has served our purpose."

"Do we let Qumar destroy the King, then?"

"No," said Jed Bartlet. "No, we don't."

-=o=-

Why does he get to me like this?

Alexander Scott tried to keep his motions smooth and controlled as the Mountain pushed him along ahead of him, but each hard jab of the heel of the massive hand between his shoulder blades was intended to throw him off-stride, or actually send him to the floor. But that wasn't enough, any more than his sheer size and power, to explain the sick feeling that had been roiling in the pit of Scotty's stomach since first seeing him this morning. So why, then?

But he knew that the answer was right there, right in his head, and that he was shying away from looking at it, seeing instead his Mom's face, in lines of equal parts determination and fear, Russell's tears shining on his cheeks.

He was slammed, face first, into a closed door. "Clumsy boy," said Kefenste. "You never learned how to open a door?"

The large hand knocked the plates from Scotty's small ones. "Can't you do anything right? Look what you did! Dropped the dirty dishes! You best clean that up, boy!"

"Well, you know, not everybody can be a graceful gazelle like you, Mountain," Scotty mumbled, shaking his ringing head.

The rough voice barked with laughter. "Graceful gazelle! That's good!" The huge hand twisted the knob, threw the door wide as the other shoved again between Scotty's shoulder blades, sending him sprawling to the floor. "Joke while you can, boy! Laugh before you cry."

"Shut up, boy, before I give you something to cry about!"

"Cry?" Scotty pulled himself up to a kneeling position from where he'd landed on the floor. "Man, I get paid too well to cry." He stayed on hands and knees, shaking his head again. "What's Alaaeddin paying you, anyway? Should be enough to keep you from crying, I'll tell you that much, Jack."

"The pay is not so great," said Kefenste, and there was a separate sound underlying his words that Scotty recognized, and he began to lift his head. "But I do like the perks."

That sound resolved before Scotty could focus on the sight of the man, leather sliding along cloth, and his eyes began to track the motion as his vision closed in on the swinging end of Kefenste's belt slithering from the last belt-loop, and then flashing to slap into his palm with a loud Crack!

"Oh, now, come on!" Scotty reached for, but could not quite achieve, a tone of casual incredulity. "With a belt? Are you kidding me? Man, nobody uses a belt these days!"

The leather moved through the air with the unconscious, sinuous grace of a swimming snake, but at the speed of a lightning-bolt, and pain flared across Scotty's cheek before the sound of the Snap! reached him.

"I do," said Kefenste. "It is all I need."

Scotty started to stand, knees shaking, and the leather sliced sideways through the air, across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, the blow landing with enough force to send him over backwards. He lay panting on the floor, looking up at the gigantic shape looming over him.

"Who do you think you are, boy!?" His father's voice is a deep rumble from high above him. The tiles of the bathroom floor are cool under his bare back. The empty Scotch bottles gleam where they lay beside him.

"There are two more Americans. Agents. Working with you. You and Robinson covered their escape with your lives. What was their mission? Where are they now?"

"You hit! When you drink that, you hit us. You hit Mom!"

"It's just us, man," Scotty gasped. "How many times do we hafta tell you, we're it!"

"Mine!" The voice is thick with rage. The big man smells of liquor. No matter what he's got at home, he always stops first at a bar. "My wife. My brats. My Scotch!" On some level, realization dawns for Scotty: It's going to be worse this time. It's going to be worse because his father understands. He understands what Scotty did when he poured the Scotch down the toilet, and he understands why, and he understands that Scotty was right to do it. He understands that he's wrong, and he understands how wrong he is, and knows that Scotty knows how wrong he is, and that, that knowledge, that judgment, is going to buy Scotty the worst beating yet.

"I don't care, really," Kefenste said. "The mission is in endgame, and nothing your partners do can change it. What I don't like is that you talk to me as if I'm so stupid that I will think down is up and white is black. Answer me, don't answer me, it doesn't really matter." The belt snapped down again, a blinding, white-hot star of pain bursting over Scott's right eye. "You'll never have respect, so I shall settle for teaching you fear."

Scotty rolled shakily away from the giant, eyes clenched shut, breath shuddering from his body, and the leather belt cracked across his back, ripping his thin undershirt open, a line of fire as his chest scraped over the concrete floor, the shirt catching on the little nubs in the rough cement.

"I am your goddam father, you little snot! I put the roof over your head and the clothes on your back and the food on your goddam table! You'll show me respect!" The buckle of the belt strikes Scotty's side so hard that his flesh will bear its shape for weeks. "Bad enough your uppity mother don't know her place, you think I'm going to let you-" The voice is interrupted by a grunt as his father swings the belt again, the buckle sending a spray of blood up from the boy's forehead.

The next blow sliced against Scott's neck, a line of blood and fire from ear to collarbone.

The rage comes then, inside young Alexander Scott, white-hot and tight-focused like a welder's torch, and the words form in his head, That's enough! and he rolls onto his side, and his leg straightens in a pistoning blow into his father's stomach.

But he's only a boy of seven, and Virgil Scott is a grown man, a Navy veteran, and the blow serves only to make him angrier. His own huge foot slams into the boy's stomach, and he helplessly curls around it, hearing his own thin voice scream.

Scotty rolled again, got his feet under him, and launched himself up, head-first, toward Kefenste's solar plexus. The grating chuckle sounded again as the huge knee came up swiftly into his face, and his momentum curved upward and he seemed to hang, semi-conscious, in mid-air for a moment, before folding to the floor at the Mountain's feet. He looked up and saw, in a terrible frozen moment, the savage grin before the heavy foot drove into his gut, his breath expelled from him in a solid mass as he was thrown backward against the wall.

The foot smashes this time into his back, over his kidney, and he arcs backward in time for the belt-buckle to come up under his chin, sending another thin spray of blood onto the floor. Part of him wants to just sink into misery, but the knowledge stays with him, keeps him aware and focused. He knows his father's job. It's to care for him, to protect him and raise him up into a man, raise him up to one day be a father himself. And as the blows and lashes begin to run together, he knows this much. Whatever kind of man he will grow up to be, it will be in spite, not because, of his father.

And while he cries out sometimes with pain, young Alexander Scott does not weep.

He slid to the floor, vision whited out, ears ringing, and blinked up at the figure towering above him, the figure that was both Letsego Kefentse and Virgil Scott. The belt came curling down at him again, with the same blinding speed from past and present, lines of fire searing across his skin again and again, crossing over one another in a blazing pattern, like a drunkard's game of tic-tac-toe, childhood, adulthood, the drunken father, the paid thug, amalgamated by his semiconscious brain into a single malevolence, a single hateful power, a storm-cloud that lashed down on him with thunderclaps of speeding, slicing leather.

Boy and man were one as he lay on the concrete, writhing and twisting, trying to avoid the lashing, vicious belt, all his efforts poured into the muscles that held his jaw clamped shut, his only thought a repeated childish mantra: I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

Finally, there was a savage growl, wordless rage, and the massive hands picked him up, shook his body like a rag-doll, his head snapping this way and that, before throwing him back against the cellar wall. Father? Mountain? He couldn't know. The enormous fist took him under the chin, and the back of his head met the concrete wall, and then, after an explosion of red through his vision, all was black and silent.

-=o=-

The abyss yawned before the young King, and all he could do was wait until it had either swallowed him and everything that mattered to him, or some miracle he had no control over lifted him from its lip like the God from the Machine in a Greek play. The desk at which Qabeel Alaaeddin had planned his destruction was barren now, save for one sheet of notepaper, on which words had been scrawled in fluid, quick Arabic. It was in no way addressed to him, but Bashik was in no doubt. Well-played. I respect that you go down fighting. He had searched the house thoroughly, and turned up no sign of the photographs, no sign of his American friends, and no sign of Al Qabda. Just this one sheet of paper, mockery and salute in two pithy sentences. Soon would be the hour of Evening Prayer, which would, if the two tourists spoke truth, ring the death knell for his friends.

All he had was ashes. His friends spirited off to their deaths. His Throne reduced to a milking stool. His wife - Nejmet! - disgraced. And for what? Because, hundreds of years ago, Qumar thought to annex Khadra, and King Yapheth, then an aging lion, had both routed and embarrassed the invading army, sending its general home without dignity - or, indeed, trousers. There it had begun, with Qumar demonstrating, hardly for the first or last time in human history, that there is none so unforgiving as the biter who has been bitten, the enginer hoist with his own petar. And so it comes to this. Generations of slights passed back and forth between neighboring nations, no better than young brothers kicking each other under the dinner table, and at the cost of how many lives, how much human misery, all to try to avenge the humiliation of an attack thwarted!

He sat back, closing his eyes. Perhaps I am too young to sit upon a throne. It seems I do not have the stomach for it. He shook his head as he heard the sound of someone approaching the office, the rising, tinny voice of a transistor radio held excitedly with its volume high.

"Your Majesty!" Maher's voice was excited. "Your Majesty, there is news! There is news from Qumar! Riots in the streets! Listen!"

The King focused on the cool excitement of the BBC World Service reporter: "...just minutes ago, shouting Arun Alaik! 'Shame on You!' Arun ala el-Sultan! 'Shame on the Sultan!' and Qawadeen, which means... Er... 'Procurer' or 'Panderer.' Also, and this is more complicated, Mushawehi el-Sum'at, which means, roughly, 'One who has stained the honour of a woman.'"

Another voice, apparently from the studios in London, asked, "Gerald, do you know what this is in aid of?"

"It's not entirely clear yet," answered 'Gerald,' "but apparently, a sort of conservative clergy group, called the Bahji, has accused the Sultan of some sort of plot against neighbouring Khadra, whose boy King is to be elevated to active control of the Throne this week. The target seems to be, not the King, but the Queen, who is a mere sixteen years old, in the form of, how shall I say it, photographs of her which have been somehow doctored to appear 'Blue.' The Bahji claim to have a document that proves this plot originated in Qumar, at the order of the Sultan himself. While they have no particular love of Khadra, the Bahji are outraged that their government has waged such dishonourable warfare through attacking the chastity of a young woman."

"Have these clerics, the Bahji, you called them, been a political force in Qumar in the past, then?"

"No, Duncan, they haven't, which is one of the surprises here. They have been viewed as a fringe of ivory-tower intellectuals. That they have mobilized so many of the general public into direct confrontation with the Sultan is quite extraordinary. I daresay that the political ramifications in Qumar will be far-reaching indeed!"

The King had leapt to his feet, his eyes brightening. "They did it!" he grabbed the radio out of Maher's good hand, held it high above his head. "Those two lunatics have somehow managed it!"

Maher gazed at the King, his expression neutral, and Bashik, his eye caught, focused on him.

"That was it?" Maher asked. "That was your great secret? Phony pornography of Her Majesty? You think that I, who have served you both so well, would have been taken in by mere camera trickery?"

The King paused a moment, turning off the tinny yammer of the BBC as they moved on to Test Match scores, and then returned his guardian's gaze, his own expression stiff. "You have no wife. Have you a younger sister, perhaps?"

"I have a niece, Majesty." Maher's tone was quiet, thoughtful. "She is fourteen."

"Fourteen." Bashik nodded. "So imagine that you receive a package of photographs of her. She is naked, she is pleasuring a man..."

Maher's face blackened. "Be careful, your Majesty."

"Exactly!" Bashik's voice was low and intense. "You think I could share such with even you, my friend? They were perfect! Perfect!"

There was a silent, awkward moment, as Maher Sharif absorbed the words, the knowledge. "But you knew, your Majesty."

The King was still for a full minute, no flicker of motion or expression as Maher waited. "I did not," he finally said. "In the first moments.... But my uncle has taught me never to make a decision in anger, never to make a decision without thinking it through. It took time for me to realize that there had been no opportunity. But I knew that I loved my wife more than my honor. I knew that I would protect her no matter what."

Maher's eyes widened. "Majesty! You would- You could- Such a stain on your honor?"

"I am good with plants and things that grow. There are jobs in America. Perhaps I could be a florist."

Maher looked down to the floor. "I... Majesty, I could not.... I could not."

"And who could blame you?" The King's voice was bitter. "So you have been taught from boyhood. To build your honor on the behavior of another, and to place it above even love. They say we in Khadra are a progressive people, Maher. Yet we have so far, so very far, yet to go."

"If that is where we are to go," Maher's voice was hushed, "I can think of no other King who could lead us on such a road."

The King's mouth turned into a smile darker and more bitter than a scowl. "I suppose we can thank Seville for that." Maher's head snapped up to face his. "You recall when I visited him seven months ago, I left in a rage?"

Maher nodded. "I do, Majesty."

Bashik's face was a mask. "He was lashing out at me again. You know how he is, I've told you before. We talk of his music, and he begins to enjoy my admiration. Then he remembers where he is, and why, and he must erase that fellow-feeling with cruelty. He claimed that my mother did not die miscarrying my brother. He claimed she was carrying his brother, and that my father put her to the sword, killing her and the child both."

"Majesty!" Maher was shocked. "You do not believe that!"

"Of course I don't. It was Bobby, trying to hurt me. When he resorts to cruelty, he knows no bounds. But, still..." the King drew in a deep breath. "If my father were told that she had been unfaithful? That the child she carried was not his? Would he not, in the name of 'honor,' have put her to death? Killed mother and child both? I was four when Seville's father killed him. I barely remember him at all. What I do remember was that he was distant, and forbidding.... And that he seemed very sad. No, Maher, I don't believe it... But I do know that it is possible. And so I have had a chance to think of this notion of honor. And if my father did live, and my mother die, by such a notion, it cost him all too much. I do not believe he lived a single happy day after her last."

"But, Majesty... To be a man... It is a heavy burden to carry, but must we not bear it?"

Bashik frowned at his trusted guardian. "Those pictures..." he gestured at the radio. "They are perfect. Perfect. If they had been made public, without the Bahji's protests, no-one in Khadra would have believed them false. This burden of being a man, it would have required that I put Nejmet to death, by my own hand. My own hand, Maher!"

Maher looked evenly at him.

"If that is honor, my friend," the King spoke firmly, "if that is manhood, I'll take something else."

Maher looked to the floor. "No man in this Kingdom would follow you. None would respect you."

Bashik stood, erect and decisive. "Just one more folly, then, from which I have a duty to lead them." He placed a hand on Maher Sharif's good shoulder. "Come, Maher, it is clear that there is nothing here to be found. By all means, leave a detachment to sift for evidence, but we must look elsewhere. What do you have for me?"

Maher looked for a long moment at his King, and then nodded. "This house is a rental property, Majesty. I have dispatched Hamal's unit to the renter's office, to see if he has rented other, similar properties. It is a place to start."

-=o=-

It was all Kelly Robinson could do to refrain from clawing at the rough-hewn walls. He could deal with the dark, with the rank smell of manure - certainly with the pain that seemed to roil in some molten core of himself. But the quiet, man, the quiet was killing him! There had been a murmur of voices at first, too quiet to make out, and there had been the sounds of impacts, and sharp cracks! like pistol-fire, sure. But after those first moments, no deep sound of Scotty's voice. Just the physical sound effects of violence.

Why won't that stiff-necked hero just let himself go and scream already! Least he could do is let me know he's alive! He pushed his hands back through his hair. Oh, no! Not you! Not Alexander Scott, no sirree Bob! You have to be all upright and stoic all the damned time! Would it kill you to just let out a little peep from time to time, instead of just daring them to go further and further trying to get a rise out of you? Just a little bit of noise to let your long-suffering partner know you're still alive? Is it too much to ask you to just give me a damned sign!

He was closer to Scotty than he had ever been to any other human being, in his entire life, but there was still a place inside the man, a closed-off room he could never penetrate, and when things were really bad for Scotty, he went there, went there and closed the door with a solid CLICK! right in Kelly's face, locking him out, keeping him at bay. Oh, how he hated that!

It didn't make sense to him, for one thing. He'd grown up the only child of an honorable but distant father. After his Mom had- After she was gone, his Dad had withdrawn even further. He taught young Kelly so much about Justice, and so much about man's inhumanity to man, taught him how important it was not to stare into that abyss that, as Nietzsche wrote, looks also into you. He'd taught him the importance of bringing monsters to book for their crimes.... But he'd taught his son damned little of love, of hate, even of feeling itself.... And even so, Kelly was all nerve endings, all feelings, always looking for connections, always opening his heart. And Scotty, raised by such an amazing lady, with that great little sister, and a little brother, too, off in Dental school, if you could believe that, Scotty was the one who could back himself into that little room inside, and slam the doors shut on the whole universe, putting a barrier between his heart and the world that would make that pointy-eared guy on the TV space show proud.

Maybe he needed it, to protect himself, to be what he'd worked so damned hard to be.... But Kelly wondered if he knew what that cost the people who - and, especially here in his head, Kelly wasn't afraid to use the word of himself - loved him.

And now he prowled the small basement room, every movement an unnoticed exercise in conquering the pain within him, and wondered whether the only person left he truly loved was alive or dead, wondered if one of those cracks he'd heard had been a pistol-shot, and he concentrated on the only thing he could do: Keep moving, keep moving, and listen, listen, listen.

The grunt that eventually came, low and guttural, alternating between some African language and English obscenities, accompanied by heavy footfalls, and also, oh, my stars and garters, the dragging of heels on the floor, was perhaps the sweetest sound Kelly had ever heard. They wouldn't bother dragging a stiff back to the cell. Time enough to drag my body out and throw it in the pit with his later.

He had backed away to the far wall by the time the dim light clicked on and the door banged open. He needed to see to Scotty, first and foremost. No need to make things difficult with pointless attempts to attack or escape... Or even make the Mountain think he was planning such. He stood, facing the door, his hands open and facing forward, a few inches from his sides: I am no threat to you. Don't worry about me. Just give me my friend.

The Mountain stood in the doorway, his expression frustrated, his hands hooked into Scotty's armpits as he hung volitionless, his heels dragged behind him on the floor. The Mountain stared at Kelly with wordless hate, then threw the unconscious agent across the room as easily as a ragdoll. The slack figure struck Kelly full on, and it was all he could do to wrap his hands around his partner's form as he fell back, curling to shield him from the concrete wall and floor as they fell.

By the time he had gathered the wits to look, Kefenste was gone, and the door, shut.

They lay tangled on the cold floor, Kelly squeezing his eyes shut in a series of slow-motion blinks, marshaling his will against the sickness swirling through him. He didn't matter, his roiling gut and ringing head didn't matter. Scotty mattered.

"Okay, Dobbsie," he murmured. "All right now. How we doin', Lancelot? Doin' okay? Come on, talk to Kel."

There was no response. His hands were moving with professional thoroughness over his partner's form, over limbs and ribs and neck and skull, trying to ascertain the extent of the injuries. Scotty had been beaten, certainly, with some sort of whip or lash, but as far as Kelly could tell, there were no broken bones. Small favors, but today, I'll take what I can get!

"Come on, Herman, talk to me, man, talk to me, willya?" His hands were both controlled and frantic as they moved over the dark, battered skin. "Tell me what you need, okay? Please?"

The form stirred, and a soft, quiet moan came from within. "Russ- Russell?"

"Oh, man, is that justice? I'm the one here with you, and you're calling for the boss?"

"I didn't cry, Russell. I didn't let him go after you." The voice was proud and plaintive. "Not tonight, Russell, not tonight, okay?"

Kelly's eyes widened. "You're not talking to Russell Gabriel Conway, I'll tell you that right now. What is it, Scotty? Talk to me."

"He won't be drinking tonight, boy, and he's got it all out for now, so he won't be after you or Mom. You're all right, Russell, you're okay for tonight."

"Jesus!" Kelly sat back an inch or two, still cradling his partner in his arms. "Your brother. Mom?! Oh, Scotty, man, where are you?"

"You just hang on, Russell, just hang on, I promise it won't always be like this. One day, when I'm big enough, I'll be able to really stop him. I promise, Russell, just hang on, okay? You won't always have to be afraid of Daddy."

"Jesus!" Kelly's mind reeled at this gut-punch within a gut-punch. He knew Scotty's father was away. He was a Navy man, served overseas, sent some money home when he could. He'd never known more about him than that, but that was enough. A Navy man, away from home, providing for his family. Kelly had always thought of him with the vague admiration due a virtuous man one didn't know.

But this window had opened into Scotty's depths, into his childhood, into his past.... Into that secret room he'd been so bitterly resenting, and now he was seeing a different Virgil Scott. Drunkard, child-beater. Wife beater? Kelly tried to imagine Mom - imagine Grace Scott - cowed and beaten before some lumbering, gin-sodden hulk of a man, and his mind wouldn't, couldn't, conjure up the image. But Scotty, Alexander Scott, what, a teenager? Earlier? Standing between that hulk and his family? Oh, that he could see! Oh, Scotty!

He jiggled his partner softly in his arms. "Come on, partner, rise and shine, now. No more time for napping. No more time to laze about, come on." Yeah, come on, man, come back to me, man, wake up, because I don't think I can even live if I hear one more word of this. This is the secret place I wanted into, and Alexander Scott, you magnificent son of a bitch, I want out, so WAKE UP!

Kelly's face was crumpled into a mask of rage and pity, and his hand traced over his partner's head, over the tightly-kinked hair that was surprisingly soft under his fingertips. His hand returned for a second caress, and he suddenly saw himself from the outside: the gesture, as an adult to a child; the expression, pity and horror. If Scotty saw that... He hardened his face, and shook Scotty a little more firmly. A kind of seismic shudder rolled up the long, dark body from feet to head, a wrenching, clenching spasm, and he groaned, low and harsh.

"Woah! Easy, there, ole cowpoke. Ease on up there." Kelly's voice was soft as he steadied Scotty through the tremor. "But you gotta come on, man, come on back. I need you now." He gave him another gentle shake. "Please?"

"Don't worry, Russell." Scotty's words were an echo of just a few moments ago, but his tone was very different; his voice was rougher, but also more immediate, more solidly concrete. Kelly drew in a breath that was almost a wince in itself. He needed his partner, time was running short, but he hated to see him lose the shelter of unconsciousness. "It's all right." His eyes were starting to blink open. "It's going to be okay, Russell, I promise."

Kelly worked to guard his expression, worked not to wince as his partner's eyes focused on him, then dipped. He busied his hands ripping apart the remains of the torn, sliced, bloodied undershirt. "I don't know how you figure that, Stanley," he said, using the shreds to dab at the blood smeared over the brown skin, "but by the time you are reporting to Russell Gabriel, you should probably do it in the past tense, am I right?"

"You think?" groaned Scotty.

"Yes, I do," Kelly replied. "Good grief, you have to ask? And you a linguist, too, Hortense, how embarrassing is that?"

"Well, you know..." Scotty's voice was soft. "I haven't had my coffee yet, you see." He visibly steeled himself, and looked up into Kelly's eyes, then drew in a deep breath through his nose. The verbal fig-leaf of plausible deniability, silently offered, was as silently accepted. "You know I'm no good until I've had a cup of Joe."

"Yeah, well..." Kelly trailed off as Scotty swiped at his eyebrow with the back of an impatient hand, sweeping aside a trickle of blood that was dripping near his right eye. He reached out with the torn shirt, and dabbed gently there, as well. He bit back a gasp as the damage was revealed; the white of the eye was bright red, the swelling around it all of a piece with the livid welts that seemed to cut across Scotty's face like knife-slashes He cleared his throat, then spoke again, his voice as easy as if his back weren't a wound steel spring. "Man, that Kefenste, he really seemed to get more into his work with you than with me, Melvin."

"How you figure?" Scotty was looking down at his shoes again.

"Well, you know, he just gave me the odd zap when Alaaeddin gave the word." Kelly's tone was casual, as if he wasn't still fighting the urge to double over the fire in his center. "Looks like he really went after you, though, and he sounded pretty enthusiastic from here. Of course, I guess he had to be, to make up for you being such a damned shellmouth!" He glanced at the familiar scar over his partner's collarbone, now wet with the blood of a new wound. "What'd he hit you with, anyway?"

The scuffed toes of Scotty's sneakers clearly held endless fascination. "His belt, man."

"His belt? Really?" Kelly asked despite himself. "Man, that's- What's that all about?"

Scotty shuffled his feet as he sat up, looking down at the scuffed sneakers. "I dunno, Hoby," he finally mumbled. He took another breath, glanced briefly up at his partner. "Maybe he got into some rum-flavored caramels, man."

The hand holding the bloodstained shirt drifted slowly down into Kelly's lap. Somewhere in the house, a fan kicked on, or an air conditioner, and the 25-watt bulb flickered, the shadows moving over their faces as if they were sitting by a campfire.

"The demon himself," Kelly finally said, all the skills of his job bent to keeping his tone light. "Well, we both know, a man who's been into them, well, anything can happen."

"True, true," his partner murmured to the dirty sneakers.

Kelly looked down at the floor as well, eyes drawn to a dark crack in the concrete, so black in the dim light that it could have gone a fraction of an inch, or to the center of the Earth. "Yeah, the Mountain's quite a guy. You know he got into this business, what, twenty years ago? After he beat his five-year-old son to death. Kid was trying to get between the Mountain and his mom, see, and old Letsego Kefenste, well, he took exception to his son being a hero." He ignored Scotty's soft snort upon hearing the word, little more than a breath, ignored his partner's headshake, and pressed on. "The demon himself, you see, was in him even then."

"Five years old." Scotty's voice was quiet. "You wonder where that kid would be if he'd managed to survive? Living through something like that, you know, it can really mess with a kid's mind." Alexander Scott started to raise his face to Kelly's, but, clearly unable to look him in the eye, looked down unhappily at the crack in the floor. Kelly frowned, looking hard at his partner's face, trying but failing to catch Scotty's averted eyes. "Probably leave him a little screwy for the rest of his life."

"Yeah, well, you know, Fred C, a kid who'd put himself in harm's way like that, to protect his mother, risk getting killed, get himself beat... The wonderfulness of that kid, y'know? If he'd lived, he oughta been proud of himself."

Scotty's voice was hard, cold. "But he didn't, did he?" He modified his desperate tone, reaching for casual. "He died, and his mom died, and, and none of it meant a thing."

"Oh, I think it did," Kelly said lightly, but firmly. His hand reached out and touched an uninjured spot on Scotty's shoulder. "No shame in having crummy, lousy stuff happen to you when you can't stop it. You know that." He drew a breath. "All a guy can do is his best to do what's right. Even if it's at a terrible cost."

"Yeah, well..." Scotty reached down, picked at a loose shred of rubber from the binding of his sneaker. "Some prices are too high. And sometimes, the wrong guy has to pick up the tab. How could some little kid like that foot that bill and not end up, you know, damaged goods?"

Kelly looked back down into the tiny infinity of that crack on the floor, fingertips lightly brushing Scotty's shoulder, and then looked back up to his partner. "When my dad was in Nuremburg, he told me what my man Nietzsche said: 'That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.' I mean, you know, the kid would have had to have it in him, but it is possible to rise above..." Kelly gestured vaguely with one hand. "Well, whatever you gotta, I guess."

Scotty lifted his eyes to meet his partner's. "Might be a whole life, though, wondering if he was really rising above it, 'cause he's always stuck down in it, inside himself."

Kelly's smile was, for a moment, as gentle and happy as if they'd been sharing a sunset at Las Brisas or dessert at Grace Scott's table in Philadelphia. "Well that, you see, is why our excellent young man would have friends. To tell him when he can't tell himself, you see, that he's made it."

-=o=-

The Queen's arms were not long enough to encompass both of them, so what was attempted as a giddily-squealing embrace ended up something akin to a spread-armed push, before she gathered Jed's and Leo's hands in hers and pulled them into the suite.

"You did it!" she cried, pulling them toward a modernist sofa in front of a very large - possibly even twenty-seven inch - console television. On the screen, black-and-white video, ghosting and unsteady, showed a rioting crowd battling police before an onion-domed palace. Signs, crudely painted in elegant Arabic, were swung as weapons against truncheon-wielding forces. "Look!" Nejmet cried. "On the Sultan's very doorstep!"

"And Kelly and Scotty?" asked Jed Bartlet. "Has there been any word?"

The dancing eyes dimmed. "No. The King called. He tells me he and Sharif's team are going to question the landlord of that house." She pushed delicate fingers through lustrous hair. "They're still captive, and here I dance and squeal my joy! Such an example I set for my people!"

"Your Majesty..." Jed Bartlet's tone was soft and urgent. He gestured toward the flickering screen. "That is why all this has happened. That's why all of us have done what we have. Why Kelly and Scotty put their lives on the line. Why we stood silent while Amr Hassan lied to his father."

"You know," said Leo, "now is probably the time to go tell him."

"Wait, lied?" The Queen looked back and forth between them. "What do you mean?"

Leo turned to her. "I'm sorry, your Majesty. When we visited the hotel room, bin Yazeed was not persuaded by the printout. Hassan used blank cardboard from a box of new shirts to convince him he was seeing the pictures."

"And we stood there," said Jed Bartlet, "and let him lie to his blind father because it suited our purpose." he turned to Leo. "You're right, we have to-"

He was stilled by Leo's raised hand, his expression of surprise, and he turned to follow his eyes to the television. The screen now showed a business-suited, swarthy man with a dark beard, speaking to the camera, while, displayed behind him, was Kyoichi Sawada's famous portrait photograph of bin Yazeed, looking both ethereal and eternal, his face grim and clouded with dark judgment.

They listened to the deep, low tones of the newscaster, Arabic pouring forth from the TV's speaker like sepulchral music, and Nejmet's hand flew to her mouth, eyes widening.

"Your Majesty, please!" said Jed.

Her voice was choked. "The blind Imam. El-Hassan bin Yazeed. He is dead, he is dead. He was found dead in his hotel room, just minutes ago." She paused again, to listen to the newsreader. "Amr Hassan called for help. He said he'd left the room to buy shirts in the hotel shop, and when he returned, his father lay dead in their suite!"

The two Americans turned to one another, exchanging wide-eyed stares.

-=o=-

Kelly's hands worked their way down Scotty's left calf, massaging the ankle with deft, strong fingers. "Yes, sir," he said, "just as I thought."

Scott smirked down at him. "What's the prognosis, Doctor?"

"You're going to be in enormous pain the whole time we're fighting."

"Well, that's good, man, that's great, 'cause, you see, there's really nothing to concentrate the mind quite like fighting while doubled over in agony. Suppose we just sit this one out?"

"Well, that's one option, but I was thinking about that other thing that concentrates the mind so well."

"As well as fighting for your life when you just wanna lie down and cry?"

"Maybe better."

"And what's that, Hoby?"

"That's, they're gonna kill us in about a half-hour!"

Scotty looked at him for a moment. "You're right, that one's good, too."

"See? What did I tell you, Gaston?"

Scotty stood, stretching his hands over his head. His breath whistled inward between his suddenly-clenched teeth, but he bent back as far as he could, and Kelly straightened, with no small effort, and began to do the same.

"You're right, Alphonse," Scotty grunted. "As easy as falling off a log."

"Through a wood chipper."

"And into a meat grinder."

"Then a blender."

"Set to 'Puree.'"

"We should make a hell of a Smoothee," Kelly managed, somehow combining a clenched grimace with a smirk.

"With you as half the ingredients? Couldn't be served to minors, man! Be about a hundred-and-forty proof."

"Too bad Alaaeddin seems to be a 'good Muslim,'" Kelly groaned, bending down to touch his toes. "Won't even touch that Demon Rum. Otherwise, see, we could make us into that Smoothee, get him to drink us, then escape while he's sloshed."

"You know who will, though," Scotty breathed, sinking into another deep knee bend. "The Mountain. Remember his dossier?"

"Didn't he used to go get himself drunk right after he beat some poor soul into toothpaste?"

"You know, I believe he did."

"'Course, he's still bigger and stronger than King Kong."

Scotty's grin was feral. "Nearly as smart, too."

"'Course, the other guys have guns," said Kelly.

"True, true," replied Alexander Scott. "I like to think of that as a kindness."

"Do you? And how's that, Stanley?"

"Think of them as providing for others who haven't brought their own."

Kelly smiled at him. "You know, that's what I really respect about you, man, your ability to see the good in everybody. Here I was resenting those kind souls, but you have shown me the error of my ways."

"Well, I would hope I have, man, honestly. You should be more charitable."

"You know, I really should, sir, I really should at that."

-=o=-

Something like the very grimmest of smiles was playing with the King's lips as he slid into the back of the al-Shurafaa car with Maher Sharif. "In the middle of my reclamation project," he was telling his most trusted security man. "It seems this Alaaeddin has a sense of humor!"

"I find little cause, Majesty, for mirth." Maher tapped the glass divider, and, when the driver glanced back, nodded at him, and then, as the car set off, looked back to his King. "He has made the most dishonorable war upon the Kingdom, and your Majesties."

"I would not be much of a King, my friend, if I was not prepared to be the target of our enemies, and Nejmet would not be much of a Queen. Filthy as his attack was, friend Alaaeddin shows glimmerings of wit. I am willing to acknowledge that while I stuff his filth down his throat!" He glanced out the window. "And soon is the battle joined."

Maher's expression darkened. "Would that I could forbid you, Majesty! Such a battle is no place for our King!"

The King's eyes did not, in fact, flare with sparks and flames, but they may as well have. "He attacked my wife, Maher. I claim the privilege!"

The car slowed, and the driver glanced back at Maher, who nodded. The glass partition slid smoothly down into the seat-back. "I have just heard," the driver said, "On our security band: the blind Imam is dead. His son... found... him in their hotel room, shortly after he had called his people back in Qumar."

The King did smile then, dark and cynical. "And so, as soon as the Bahji gain teeth, Amr Hassan is there to take their reins. Bin Yazeed dead. Did he fall, or was he pushed? A pit of vipers!" He leaned toward the driver. "Thank you, Nasir."

The driver nodded - "Your Majesty." - and the glass partition slowly rose again.

-=o=-

There wasn't any doubt in Qabeel Alaaeddin's mind. Today, this evening, he was a bad Muslim, and not in the sense of his friend Hashim, who had once told a Belgian diplomat at a State dinner, "I'm a bad Muslim, so just give me a pork chop."

But as he stood respectfully, facing Mecca, hands beside his head, palms forward, he was nowhere near to putting the world behind him. While his voice carried the music of Heaven, the words "Allahu Akbar," his mind was in the dimly-lit basement, with two brave men he did not hate, but would soon kill.

He moved smoothly through the steps and stages, the Qiyam and the Fatiha, the Ruk'u and the Qauma, his voice clear and steady in prayer and praise to Allah. But this was not to be a performance. This was not for others to see or hear. This was a time for Qabeel Alaaeddin to give himself over to his God, his mind only on the Almighty and his duty to him, and instead, instead....

Instead he was contemplating his place, not in the eyes of God, but on the chessboard of international intrigue. He had nothing in particular against Khadra, and some admiration for Abd-al-Salaam - all the more so since this stratagem of sending these Americans after him! - but his Sultan burned for vengeance, and Qabeel Alaaeddin was his Fist. So he had set about the boy-king's destruction. If he bore no ill-will for Abd-al-Salaam, still less did he bear for the young Queen, but she was the ideal path to her husband's destruction, so he had built his trap around her.

And then these Americans! They had attacked swiftly and cunningly, and had kept their heads and their counsel so well that while he was congratulating himself on their capture, their compatriots were undoing his plans. It was only a delay, of course, the printing plants in Qumar were working, and the King and Queen were walking dead, corpses that simply had yet to fall. And Scott and Robinson had kept silent under questioning, and under torture, their accomplices long gone to safety. He wished he could call back to the Palace, learn if they had done more mischief than stopping his initial release of the pictures, but this secondary safe-house, a mere bolt-hole, smelling of the manure of the desert reclamation project, had no telephone service.

He had gone, without even being aware of the words or motions, through the Sudjood, the Qu'ud and back into Sudjood again. No honor to himself nor Allah in prayers unfelt, but God was good, and knew perfection was His realm, not Alaaeddin's. One day's failure would be forgiven in a heart that was true to Allah.

How could he not respect these men, who could be bloodied, but somehow, even in the abject state the Mountain had left the Negro in, never bowed? Their courage and humor, the laughter that covered an iron discipline. These were worthy men, true professionals, men who he'd be proud to share a table with, share stories of missions gone awry, and victories snatched through force of will.

Qu'ud again, then body and voice proceeded to the second and fourth Rakats. He had had a full station in the main safe-house, but with Hassan left injured in the street, with the others not cleared for deeper knowledge of affairs in Khadra, he and the Mountain had been forced to relocate - let's not kid ourselves, Qabeel, you fled! - with their prisoners, and now they were hunkered down in this harbor of last resort, undone by the swift, decisive action of a King they had all clearly underestimated, and by the daring of these Americans, seen and unseen!

He didn't even know how he'd reached the Tashahhud and the Salawat. Possibly what was bitterest to him was that he Russian's advice - orders, orders to the Sultan himself! - had, in the end, been right. The King had not been defeated, he had gone swiftly on the offensive, and these Americans, seen and unseen, had been the destruction of the entire Khadra station. All he was left now was this last bolt-hole, and his orders, to be carried out after Evening Prayer.

He looked over his right shoulder, acknowledging the angel who recorded what good he did, and over his left, to the angel recording his sins. Each time, he spoke softly: "As Salaamu 'alaikum wa rahmatulaah." "Peace and blessings of God be upon you."

Then he wiped his face with his palms, and stood, rolling his prayer-rug as he did so, and turned and strode to collect Kefenste, and then kill the Americans, and go home.

-=o=-

Kelly hissed as he tossed the light-bulb back and forth between the pads of torn tee-shirt on his fingers.

"Careful, there, Hoby," murmured Scotty. "We're gonna want that!"

"I know, I know, Duke, this precious glass bubble shall, in and of itself, deliver us from the hands of friend Alaaeddin!"

Scotty's voice tightened. "Well, it's more useful if we have it than if we don't. And it's not like this thing isn't just as hot!"

Kelly could barely see him in the dark, as he pulled the socket from the ceiling, trailing wires up into the asbestos insulation on the ceiling. He reached up with his other hand to pull the wire from the staple, and then followed the wire back to the next one.

"Just don't short it out, Stanley," said Kelly. "It's not much good to us if you do."

"Thank you, Mother." Scotty carefully pulled out the next staple, wrapping slack wire around his hand. "And, don't worry, I did put on clean underwear this morning in case I get in an accident."

Kelly grunted. "You know this has, oh, maybe one chance in twenty-seven of working, right?"

"Yeah," the chuckle was there in Scotty's voice. "Because you, Diamond Jim, you never like to play at long odds!"

"Well, if I've gotta," Kelly agreed, "this is the stake I like to put on it: the kind where if I lose, I'm no worse off than if I didn't play the hand. We're just as dead if we go out sitting on our duffs."

Scotty pulled loose the last staple, and moved over by the door. "So let's see if I can deal us some slightly better cards." He checked the length of free wire he had in hand, and felt around in the insulation over the door itself. "Come on, come on...."

Kelly watched, his mouth a firm line, his eyes narrowed in the near-darkness.

"Gotcha!" Scotty reached up with the wire, and tucked it up into the insulation, where the ceiling met the wall over the edge of the door-frame. He rolled the wire down, and swung it sideways, hooking the wire around the doorknob, so the socket hung perhaps eight inches below.

"Now the fun part," offered Kelly.

"Oh, boy, oh, boy! Better than Coney Island!"

Scotty knelt and pushed the cheap metal sleeve up the wires by feel, then felt carefully for the slot of the the screw on the nearest of the two wires. He pressed his thumbnail into the slot and slowly began to turn it.

Kelly clamped his jaws over the desire to tell Scotty again to be careful, not to shock himself, not to get himself killed at this point, not to short out the wire, rendering the whole thing moot. Man's got enough on his mind.

Scotty pulled the first wire free, bent it carefully back away from the socket, and then slowly rotated the fixture to reach with his thumbnail for the other screw. "Easy, there...." he breathed. "Slow and easy, that's right...."

Doing fine, babe. Kelly's mouth actually shaped the words, but with no voice to carrying them to his partner.

Scotty's hand shifted, and the socket fell, bouncing from his bare belly, while he carefully bent away the other bare wire. The two bare twists of copper looked blue in the deep twilight, barely leaking into the room. Scotty moved back slowly, shuffling on his knees, his hands up and out by his sides, willing the bare wires not to shift.

As he got near, Kelly reached down to help Scott to his feet. "Not long now, Melvin."

Scotty swung his arms and shoulders, wincing as he loosened the tightening, bruised muscles, carefully avoiding the hand in which Kelly held the bulb. "Uh-huh. Dark as it is? Any time at all, Hoby. Any time at all."

Later, writing up their report, he'd agree with Scotty that it was less than five minutes. But while they stood there, side-by-side in the dark, staring at the black-against-black rectangle of the door, Kelly thought it might have been longer than he'd spent with Alaaeddin, Kefenste, and the car battery.

"Man, this is worse than waiting for the next episode of Terry and the Pirates!" he breathed.

Scotty just hummed his music, just loud enough for Kelly to hear: "NanananaNanananaNaah! NanananaNanananaNaah!"

The corner of Kelly's mouth twitched in a hint of a smile.

Scotty's voice cut off in mid-Nah, and Kelly heard the ghost of a noise in the hall outside. They stared at the dully-shining doorknob, and it turned smoothly. The Mountain was starting to taunt them as the door moved, the bare wires sliding up toward the knob as the door pushed in.

"Ah, Little-" Kefenste's voice was cut off by its own scream, as blinding blue sparks arced around the doorknob.

Scotty stepped forward, watching grimly as the sparks exploded, listening to the involuntary quaver of Letsego Kefenste's scream, until the short circuit blew its fuse or breaker, and as darkness fell again, he kicked the door wide.

Kefenste roared again as the knob was torn from his hand. Kelly thought he smelled cooked meat along with the ozone, and hoped the knob was taking parts of the Mountains' palm with it.

"Move!" Alaaeddin's voice was sharp and commanding. Kelly slid sideways, focusing on the sound. "You're blocking my shot!"

The Mountain stepped in through the door, and Scott shuffled to his left, keeping the huge body between himself and the open door, as Kelly, now to the right, went down to a deep, painful crouch.

"I will enjoy killing you," growled Letsego.

"Woo!" Scotty gasped as the Mountain's breath washed over him. "You'd enjoy anything with that much scotch in you!"

There was muzzle-flash in the doorway, as Alaaeddin followed his henchman into the enclosed space, and Kelly drove himself quickly up toward him, his right hand, holding the still-hot bulb by its threads, driving toward the grim face the gunfire had lit.

"Bad news for you," Kefenste grunted. A pile-driver of a fist rocketed toward Scotty. "I am a mean drunk!"

Scotty shifted slightly, and the punch sailed past. "Yeah, y'see, the worse news is that I'm a mean sober guy. And that's why I'm going to beat the stuffing out of you!"

Across the room, Alaaeddin cried out as the glass bulb broke against his cheekbone, and the jagged glass in its center drove into his left eye. Kelly's left arm wrapped around him, trapping Alaaeddin's gun-hand against his hip, and he drove the bulb up again, tearing a jagged rip in Alaaeddin's nostril.

Scotty ducked under a roundhouse left, and threw two sharp jabs over Kefenste's kidney, and shuffled back a step, drawing the larger man off-balance.

Alaaeddin swung sideways, pulling Kelly with him, slamming him against the wall. Kelly's grip loosened, and as the Qumari pulled his gun loose, he dropped onto his side on the floor, driving his foot up. Alaaeddin's gunshot went high as the kick drove his wrist up, and Kelly spun, bringing his other foot in a swing that caught that wrist, and the pistol dropped from slack fingers.

Scotty's hands were quick - Kelly, seeing from the corner of his eye, cringed inwardly at the pain it must be causing him - as he slapped Kefenste across his face, left and then right, before dancing back and sideways.

Alaaeddin started to lean down, attempting to recover the Tokarev, as Kelly rolled to his feet, And as he came up with it, Kelly's hands wrapped around his forearm and swung him back to the door-frame as hard as he could.

Scotty punched the large, solid belly, and danced back toward the still-swinging door, Kefenste following him, huge arms windmilling almost un-aimed.

The pistol fired again, bullet thudding into the floor, and then the wrist struck the wooden door-frame with all the weight and speed Kelly could get behind it. The splintering bones sounded like breaking celery, and the pistol fell again.

As The Mountain lowered his head and charged him, Scotty reached up and grabbed the trailing, dead wires, pulling them loose from the ceiling, and swinging them forward in a circular, whip-like motion. The cord circled Kefenste's neck, and Scotty jumped a flailing arm and circled behind him, pulling the wire tight.

Kelly bulled Alaaeddin out into the hallway, punching his trunk as hard as he could.

The Mountain's large, stubby fingers scrabbled at the cord but found no purchase as Scotty kicked at the back of his knee, driving him off his feet.

Alaaeddin kicked up savagely, but Kelly had turned sideways, deflecting the blow with his hip. He reached with a casual hand for the Qumari's uselessly-flapping right.

Kefenste had got no higher than his knees when Scott's right knee landed between his huge shoulderblades, and Scotty pulled with both hands on the wire, The sausage-fingers flailed helplessly to get under the wire, but were too large, too calloused and clumsy.

"Go to sleep, man," Kelly Robinson gasped, as his fingers closed around Alaaeddin's right hand, and he began to twist, savagely. Alaaeddin shrieked, his good eye rolling back in its socket. "Just, go to sleep."

Kefenste's large hands tried to reach back for Scotty, but the smaller man stayed carefully out of reach. The swinging of the arms slowed, slowed.

Alaaeddin's eye fluttered closed, and he sank against Kelly's chest, his scream faded to a curious sigh.

Kefenste's huge form lurched forward, and he fell, face-first onto the floor.

The two Americans stood, panting, looking at one another.

"Yours dead?" Scotty managed to gasp.

Kelly shook his head. "No. Yours?"

Scotty shrugged. "Dunno."

There came a sound of pounding feet on the steps, and Kelly threw himself backward into the room, as Scotty threw himself forward, both scrabbling for the fallen Tokarev.

The pistol rose clasped between both their hands, Kelly's finger on the trigger with Scotty bracing his wrist at a perfect firing angle aimed toward heart-level as a flashlight stabbed around the corner and toward them.

Kelly's finger pulled in the play on the trigger, poised against the tension, and almost, almost, pulled it tight when Bashik's voice called, "At ease, men! Our friends seem to have made a rescue unnecessary!"

-=o=-

"That," said Jed Bartlet, "was, without a doubt, the most impressive thing I've ever seen." he turned to his best friend. "Wasn't that amazing, Leo?"

Leo adjusted the collar of his tuxedo, looking around the crowded reception hall. "Well, remember, I've seen napalm attacks."

"You are just the enemy of fun, aren't you?"

"Only yours, Jed," said Leo, and then drew to attention as the King approached. "A very moving ceremony, Your Majesty," he said by way of greeting. "Jed was just telling me how impressed he was."

King Bashik reached with one long finger behind his ear and under his heavy ceremonial turban. "Primarily, I imagine," he said, "because I didn't scratch under this dreadful thing until afterwards!"

"Oh, Biko, stop complaining!" The Queen's approach was like a spring breeze. "Tomorrow morning, you can declare it a historic artifact, and consign it to the Royal Museum forever!"

"Your Majesty!" greeted Jed and Leo in unison, as Bashik slid an arm around her waist.

"Mr. Bartlet, Mr. McGarry! I'm so glad you stayed for the reception!"

Leo bowed. "We may not be statesmen," he said, "but we know better than to say No to a King in his own country!"

"Truly," Jed added, "This is better than I could have hoped when I planned my vacation for this week. My best plan was to see the ceremony from the back row!"

"Your Majesterialness! Your Magnificence!" The voice was a little hoarse, but filled with warmth, and Alexander Scott's gait may have been stiff as he approached them, Kelly Robinson actually limping behind him, but both men's smiles were broad and approving. Their tuxedos were identical except for the jackets: Scotty's was pink, Kelly's pastel blue.

Bashik's answering grin was like a sunrise. "Kelly! Scotty! I was wondering where you'd got to!"

"The bathroom, your Majesty," said Kelly. "We needed to raid a medicine cabinet. We may have exhausted Khadra's supply of aspirin."

"I'll order the import of more instantly!"

"How does it feel, man?" asked Scotty, very quietly. "Now that your uncle is just a relative, and you're running the show?"

Bashik's grin didn't fade as he answered, "Terrifying."

"Still," said Kelly, "One problem you're not likely to have to deal with any time soon: I don't bet Qumar will be making a lot of noise for a few years after the trials!"

"Don't be so sure," said Jed Bartlet. "There's not much more obstreperous than a corrupt country caught with its hand in the cookie jar. If I've read my history right, there'll be parades for Alaaeddin, with his arm in a sling, and a very piratical eye-patch."

The Queen shook her head sadly. "I fear you're right, Mr. Bartlet."

Leo half-smiled. "It's distressingly common, Your Majesty."

Bashik's smile had faded through this, and Scotty put a hand on his shoulder. "They probably will make trouble, Bashik, but that's all right. You can handle it. You've surely proved that."

"And, you may yet get a breather," added Leo. "I suspect the Sultan's going to have his hands full with the Bahji."

At this, Jed Bartlet's expression grew still, and he and Leo exchanged a glance. The Queen watched this with solemn eyes, nodding slowly, and her husband cocked his head at her, his own eyes questioning.

"It's nothing, Biko," she said. "Messrs Bartlet and McGarry saw something, between the Blind Imam and his son."

"Not to worry," Bartlet told the King. "But it didn't leave me with much of an opinion of Amr Hassan."

Bashik nodded. "He is a cut-throat. He may be troublesome, but I doubt he can command enough loyalty to last." He clapped a hand on Jed's shoulder. "My guess is, if the Bahji last as a political power for more than five years, it will be without him, and someone from the Sultan's family will be in charge. Possibly Shareef or his son."

"I have to wonder, though," said Leo McGarry, thoughtfully, "what grows from the seeds we've planted here."

-=o=-

Epilogue Oval Office, the White House, Washington DC May 17th, 2002, 1:03 AM

"It's almost 8:00 AM in Qumar," continued Leo. "You shouldn't cancel the trip. You should tell me to call the State Department."

President Bartlet's eyes narrowed at his Chief of Staff. "Why?"

Leo's face was serious. "What are the alternatives?"

Bartlet hesiated. "What are you..."

"What are the alternatives? Are we going to attack Qumar?"

"Maybe," the President replied.

"Now?" asked Leo. "We could kill all the armed teenagers we want, we still won't have Shareef. Let's get some more intelligence, let's get some more counsel."

Josiah Bartlet's voice was bitter, "More counsel is going to help me violate international law."

"It's pretty easy to say this is a war scenario."

The president shook his head. "It's pretty easy to say anything is a war scenario."

"This is-"

Bartlet rolled on as if he hadn't spoken. "The war on poverty. It's a slippery slope."

"Stop it," Said Leo.

"What?"

Leo sounded, if anything, tired. "Just stop it already. This is the most horrifying part of your liberalism. You think there are moral absolutes."

"There are moral absolutes," replied the president.

"Apparently not," said Leo. "He's killed innocent people. He'll kill more, so we have to end him. The village idiot comes to that conclusion before the Nobel Laureate."

"Il Principe has justified every act of oppression-"

"This is justified." Leo was firm. "This is required."

"Says who?" challenged the President.

His chief of staff didn't give an inch. "Says me, Mr. President. You want to go ask some more people, they'll say so, too."

"Well, a mob mentality is just-"

"Not a mob," Leo told him. "Just you. Right now. This decision. Which, by the way, is one of self-defense. Let Shareef come here and we have options. Cancel the trip and we have none. That's all we're talking about right now."

"There are moral absolutes," said Jed Bartlet.

Their eyes locked, and for a moment Jed Bartlet was twenty-four years old again, looking over at a Leo who was infinitely younger as well, two pairs of eyes wide as Amr Hassan rattled the stiff cardboard from the new dress-shirt's box, and told his father, "It is another photograph, I can tell it is fake. She is pleasuring him with her mouth." Jed and Leo, staring, saying nothing.

"Make the call," the President said.

Leo's eyes were dark. "Thank you, Mr. President."

THE END

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Notes: Dedicated to Robert Culp and John Spencer, with acknowledgement to Clive Clerk. Sequel to "Sparrowhawk."