told to wait. "The President will be with you shortly. He apologizes for the search, but every one has to go through it. Please have a seat and wait."

"I understand, Mr. Barns informed me of the procedure." Joseph said as the secret service men were leaving the room. They smiled at him as they closed the door leaving him alone. He then sat down on the nearest chair and waited.

A few minutes later, another door opened and the President entered the room as Joseph stood up at attention and brought his hand to a snappy salute. The President smiled and said, "At ease Sergeant. You are supposed to be incognito. Please sit down and let's get acquainted. I was going to order some coffee. Would you care to join me?"

"Yes sir." Joseph said as the President lifted the phone, ordered coffee and refreshments. Then Joseph in a rather shaky voice continued, "I don't mind telling you sir that I am a bit nervous. Why am I here? What is this all about? I thought that with the death of Fazzi, this would be finished."

"And well it might be-except for three things." He said. One is that we are not one hundred percent sure he is dead. We only know what the Syrian government has told us and judging from past experiences we have no way of being sure if this is true or not. And the second reason it is not finished yet is that there is a lot of money involved, if I am informed correctly, almost a half billion dollars. That's a lot of money and we would like to see who tries to move on that money. If we do not have someone we can trust in charge of that money, it could be used to fund terrorist activities against us." The President paused took a sip of coffee and a bite of coffee cake and sat back in his chair.

"Sir, I do not believe that Fazzi is still alive. Knowing him the way I do, if he were alive he would not have allowed me to get control this early."

"You may be right, but on the other hand he may be alive and just testing you to see if you could be trusted after his death. If things did not work out, he could always pop up and take up where he left off."

"That is a bit far fetched, but I will accept the possibility for now. You said there were three reasons. What is the third?" Joseph asked taking a sip of his own coffee and then said; "So far I can see little reason for my having to continue living undercover, so to speak."

"Smart boy, Sergeant." He said, "But then I should have known that you would see through the icing. I do have your word that what I am going to say now is between the two of us even if you do not continue?"

"Yes you do."

"We have received a request from some friends that you continue to control the "Fund" and to keep up with your undercover work. You see Sergeant, as I'm sure Mr. Barns has told you-we have never had an agent as close to the top of the Moslem Emirate as you seem to have become. If Fazzi had lived, then his "son", our agent, would have been right there at the top and he would have been able to supply us with invaluable information."

"Who is this