ask you something. What the fuck is going on between you and Fazzi? Are you still with us or are you not?”

“Bill, how could you even ask me that? You know me and where I stand. I am right with you, I am an American and that comes first, last and always,” Joseph protested. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“Well what other conclusion should I come too? It appears that my prize agent is sleeping with the enemy and I just can’t help it if I get that impression,” Bill said.

“Tell me you’re not involved with him.”

“I can’t tell you that. Yes I’m involved with him–but not the way you think. What I’m doing is because I now know that this is the only way to gain his complete and unqualified confidence. Marrying his daughter would not have done it. Yes it might have worked if we had years to work on it, but in the end he would never fully trust me.”

“Why not? You would be his son-in-law, a member of his family,” Bill said. “He would have to trust you!”

Joseph, smiling and trying not to laugh in Bill’s face, explained, “First of all, Bill, you, like most westerners, do not understand Arab history or psychology. There is a long Arab tradition of not trusting anyone. For centuries there has always been this intra-family war between individuals as well as clans. Nobody trusts anyone. They don't trust outsiders, least of all in-laws. Hell, even here in the U.S.A., in-laws are not close to each other. Then, add to that the most important fact of all… the fact that Kassie is not his daughter…”

Seeing the look of shock on his face, he continued by explaining, “Early in their marriage, Mary became lonely because of Fazzi’s perversions and she took a lover. She became pregnant by him. When Fazzi found out about it, he was furious about it. He knew it could not be his child. But, as an Arab, he could never admit that his wife had willingly had sex with someone else. That would be an insult to his manhood. He had the man arrested on some trumped up charges and after personally torturing him, he raped him, cut off his genitalia and stuffed them in his mouth. He then killed him and fed him to the fish in the Mediterranean. If she were his real daughter, perhaps he would come to trust her husband. But not as the husband of his wife’s illegitimate daughter. No way. Marrying her off to anyone would give him the chance to get rid of both Mary and her bastard. So you see why I have to do it this way. There is no other way to gain his complete trust. I hate him and I want to throw up every minute I’m with him, but I will stop at nothing to get him, even if it means…”

“I understand now,” Barns said. “If she had married one of our paid informers, it would not have gotten us ‘in’ with him. We would have wasted our money and time for nothing.”

“It would appear that way,” Joseph said. “Just think about it, this way, poor Fazzi is paying for his own downfall. Richard Worthington gets a new account and a chance to get big bucks, Kassie gets her freedom, Mary gets to start a new life, the F.B.I. has an inside man it can trust, and I get a