"Harris was never hired. He's a freelancer who began overseas," Sam says, holding on to the neckrest of the seat and repositioning her own neck from left to right, eliciting a vertebral snap. "So they view him differently than they view a staff writer. But they shouldn't. Most freelancers are great. What's important is that every reporter in the foreign press corps thinks the guy's a sensationalist who makes shit up and cuts major ethical corners."

"So, if Harris had been hired in America, it would be better, but because he has international experience, he is frowned upon?"

"He is frowned upon, not because he has international experience, but because as far as we know, he had no local reporting experience. Never covered the cops, the school boards, the local crap every reporter is expected to cover. That's how you learn the ropes. But Harris never did it. He's been war-zone hopping since he graduated college, and he started to make a big name for himself out of it. So who the hell knows what his reporting habits are like. Before Iraq it was Afghanistan, Rwanda, the Balkans. I think he started to make a name for himself there, with a big piece in Harpers or The Atlantic." She turned her head to one side. "Or maybe it was The New Yorker. Whatever. These are the most important magazines in America. Every editor is reading them." She still seems to be struggling to find a comfortable position. "My back is killing me like this. Come sit up here."

Just then, Rizgar swings open the car door and sits down.

"Oh, forget it, I'll come sit in the back." She steps out and shuts the door as quickly as she opens the other. Rizgar shrugs. She slides in next to me and grins with only half of her mouth. She has her left knee on the seat, bent towards me. "Riz, can you turn up the air conditioning? Please. Too hot." She fans her face to demonstrate.

"He doesn't function like a regular journalist," Sam continues. "He goes around rustling up tipsters whom he pays for information. A normal journalist comes to a country and hires one fixer. Harris might hire five or more."

"Like Subhi and Adeeb. But how can he afford that?"

"Well, I don't know. But what I heard from another reporter I really do trust is that when Harris got to Afghanistan, he had a whole gaggle of fixers and tipsters coming to his room every day. He told each one of them that if they came back with a good scoop on Osama or the Talibs at the end of the day, Harris would pay them $100. And if they don't come back with something, they don't get paid." Sam lets out something of a snort.

I consider this information for a moment. "Does he make that much on a story to cover his expenses?"

"Probably. But forget about the money for a minute." Sam looks at me with her head slightly lowered, so that her eyes glare up at me. "Maybe it was only $50 a day. That's not the point. The point is that you can't just throw money around like that to get information. You can't tell people, *I'll pay you if you produce some information for me,' because inevitably they'll manage to come up with exactly the information you want, even if it means completely manufacturing it."

"But that's assuming everyone's a liar."

"I'm not assuming everyone's a liar. I'm just telling you it's something you're not supposed to do. You don't go creating a market for information. If you go out there shouting that you have a demand for something and you're just jumping to pay for it, you can bet your bottom dollar someone is going to come around and supply it. That's not even journalistic ethics. It's basic economics. And what you get in return will be tainted by the fact that it was manufactured for the buyer, which in this case, is probably going to translate into being fed a lot of absolute bogus."

Sam takes a ballpoint pen and picks the blue stopper from the top of the plastic shaft. Then she pulls out the tube of ink, and puts the clear shell of the pen in her mouth, inhaling deeply on her substitute cigarette. "All right, this is getting ridiculous," she says, looking at her watch.

"What if it's just gossip?"

"Come on." Deep grooves appear where her smiling lines should be. "That much shit doesn't follow someone around for no reason."

"But what if it's just...namime. That's what we call it. Like, in English, I guess you would say chatter. Gossip. It's very bad. We've seen it happen a lot of times when the old ladies start talking about some beautiful young girl whom they think is going out with boys, maybe because they've seen her out with one of them. They start to make up stories about how they saw her with so-and-so, and next thing you know, she winds up dead. They usually say it's a suicide, but everyone knows it's really because a family member has killed her."

Sam suddenly seems fascinated by what I have to say. She is searching my face the way I have seen her do to people she is interviewing.

"But despite what I said the other day, I think it's wrong to call it an honour killing, because most of the time, it's a gossip killing," I say. "Gossip is usually what kills these girls. And often it's the women who are perpetrating the entire thing."

Sam rubs her tired-looking eyes and exhales make-believe smoke. "Do you think we could do a story about that at some point? I think readers would find that fascinating."

"Sure we could." A month ago, that would have sounded preposterous to me. But now, anything seems possible.

"I mean, not now. Not until we figure out this documents thing." And she stops rubbing, but leaves two fingers at the inner corners of her eyes, as if her hand could save her, if only for a moment, from seeing us for who we are.

And then it happens, near dark. An assistant approaches the car to tell us we can come in, that Mr Aloomi will see us now. I can't help but wonder, was he here all along, and they were just making a show of him having "arrived"? Wouldn't we have seen a car pull up?

Fayez Aloomi looks younger than I would have expected, a handsome and tanned mid-forties, and he is dressed in the kind of suit I would surely buy if I were to visit England now.

"Thanks a lot for seeing us on short notice," Sam chimes, holding her hand across a desk piled high with paperwork. "I know you must be very busy these days. I really don't want to take up a lot of your time but I came to you because I know you've been really helpful with our reporters in the past. Some people in our Washington bureau are big fans of yours. Joe McClintock in particular sends regards."

"Oh, Joe. He's a fine reporter. I think he did a very thorough job on all of the WMD coverage before the war. He was one of the few reporters who was able to demonstrate how dangerous Saddam really was. In fact, he was the first one to report the uranium story, when it was discovered that Saddam was about to buy yellowcake from Niger. Do you remember?"

"Of course," Sam says. Her eyebrows lift knowingly, almost like a barrier holding back more than she is letting on. "I spend a lot of time in Washington."

"Oh?" He shifts forwards and picks up the card she had put on his desk. "I didn't realize. Your card says Paris Bureau Chief."

"Yes, actually, I'm ending my posting there and taking up a Pentagon posting back in Washington, so I've been in DC a lot in the past year to get a feel for the job." Sam never mentioned that, and I'm wondering if it's true. "By the way, this is Nabil al-Amari, my translator."

He meets my eyes and nods with a quiet, slurred salaam aleikum. "Miss Katchens - Samara," he says, picking up her card from his desk. "What a lovely name. Very interesting. Can I call you Samara?"

"Of course."

"Samara, I would appreciate it if this were totally off the record."

"No problem," she says, though I can see the petulance in her face.

"You know," Aloomi says, "I served as an advisor to the Iraq office at the Pentagon. I know what government documents look like and I helped the Americans with them for years, while I was doing my PhD in Virginia." He signals to see the folder, and Sam pulls it out of her bag and presents it to him. He leafs through the copies of the documents Harris sent Miles via e-mail when the story first ran. The other day, Miles e-mailed them to Sam, and she printed them out at the Hamra's business centre, which actually has a working printer.

Aloomi looks up. "It's obvious these documents are copies of the real thing."

"They are?" Sam hesitates, draws in a breath. "How can you tell?"

"The insignia. Do you see?" He points to the calligraphy at the top. The letters fold in on each other in a way that makes it a little difficult to read, like the old signature of the Ottoman Empire. "I don't know if you'd know the difference, but...you, Nabil." He shifts the page towards me. "Do you see the way the *qaf' here becomes the *rah' here?" He points to a dip in the Arabic "q" at the end of Iraq to the "r" in jumhuriyye, or republic. "It's obvious right here. And here," he says, pointing to ties in between other letters, where the same stroke for ending one is used to start another. "This insignia is difficult to imitate. Impossible."

None of what he's saying makes a solid argument, but I nod anyway and say I see.

"If your editors think that these documents are fakes," he says, pushing the folder back towards Sam, "you should tell them, what was that saying you have in America? They are barking at the wrong tree."

"Up," says Sam.

"Pardon?"

"Barking up the wrong tree."

Aloomi suddenly stands, pushes his tie again over his middle. "I wish I could help you but I really don't think there's any point in expending any more energy here."

Sam stands up slowly, and I follow.

"Are you sure you can't try to find some other documents for us with Uday's signature? That couldn't be too difficult, with all the boxes of documents you have here. I'm sure everyone back in Washington would really appreciate your help with this." Sam smiles, seeming sweet - and yet threatening.

He looks through her, not at her. "I'll have to check with some other people at our headquarters to see if there's any way we can help you." He walks to his door and holds the knob. "But honestly?"

Sam and I walk towards the door. I have a feeling of being dismissed. Sam looks at him, indicates she's waiting for him to finish.

"With all due respect, I wouldn't bother wasting time on this, if I were you," he says. "You should just be glad that the Tribune was first to report the story of Mr Jackson's corruption. Unfortunately, that's the way the world works. Corrupt politicians in the free world and brutal dictators in the Third: they make great friends." He smiles broadly. "You must know that."

Sam places a hand on her hip. "How will we know if you do have something for us?"

"If I have something that can help," he says, pacing the three steps back to his desk and then picking up her card, "I'll call you. Or drop something off for you." He studies the card. "Did you write your Thuraya number on this?" He flips it over, where Sam has written a long line of numbers. "Ah, so you did." He looks at me and back to her. "Well, anyway, I can always find you at the Hamra Hotel, I presume?"

Sam glares.

"I have been hearing that all of the top journalists are staying at the Hamra now because it's considered the popular place to be," he says. "And you have that lovely swimming pool, too."

"Yes, it is something. I go there sometimes to see some of my colleagues. But I don't stay there. I'm at the Sheraton."

"I see. Also a good choice." Once again he makes for the door and opens it as if welcoming us in, though he's showing us out. He holds out his hand to Sam and she takes it stiffly, as if she's unsure whether she wants her skin to meet his. And then his hand reaches mine, squeezing the bones a little too hard.

30.

Squeezing Sam is dipping chunks of bread into the hummus, but she hasn't touched the kebab. I ask her why, and she says she doesn't like red meat. I consider telling her that it's quite brown now, but it would sound too cheeky. She insists she is not a vegetarian because she occasionally eats chicken. But if you don't eat meat, as far as I can see, you're not really eating a normal diet.

"You should come back in the winter and have my mother's kubbeh soup."

"Oh yeah?" She is eating the vegetables and the pickles, and occasionally a french fry. It's a treat to be eating again at Lathakiya, but she's missing the best part. "What's that?"

"Kubbeh? It's a very famous Iraqi dish. It's like a, what do you call that? A dumping? Sorry, a dumpling! A dumpling with meat inside it, except that the outside is better than a dumpling."

She gulps her Coke, draining the glass. I'm amazed how she could stay away from red meat but is happy to fill up on this. "But I don't eat meat."

"It's just little bits of meat. Not really like a big piece of meat. Mincemeat, that's what they call it. It's very delicious - it's the best thing on a cold winter day. You have to come to my house and try it. Mum makes the best."

Sam shapes her lips in a way that suggests she doesn't fancy the sound of it at all. "Maybe she'll make me a veggie one? As I said, I don't eat meat. Only chicken."

Realizing she isn't going to budge, I reach for the last kebab, although I've probably had one too many already, as my stomach is pressing against my belt. I consider loosening it a notch, then decide against it.

"Sam, that thing that Aloomi was going on about, the yellowcake issue, about how Saddam tried to buy it from Niger?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, my cousin Saleh says that report was totally fake. And he says Chalabi, or someone at the INC, made it all up. A total fake."

Sam wipes her mouth, leaving a lipgloss afterglow on her napkin. "Really? Saleh who wants a job? How would he know?"

I shrug. "He knows. I guess from working at the UN liaison office here. I've been meaning to tell you more about it. I mean, I wasn't totally sure I believed him. Though now that I saw Aloomi act the way he did, it's starting to make more sense."

"Start over. Tell me again about Saleh."

I stab into the last kebab on the table and push it into my mouth, glad for the need to chew, and therefore to think. "He works for the UN, but as I mentioned to you before he wants to get out, and he hopes we can get him a job somewhere."

"Tell him he should check out CARE. I think they're hiring translators."

"Oh, yes? Good." I hand her my small notebook. "Can you write down the names? I mean, of anyone you know there? It would help."

Sam jots down two names as I talk. "And?"

"The night before last, I told him about our story. And then, early this morning, he stopped by and gave me a lift to the Hamra, and in the car, he gave me a lot of information about forgers."

Her eyes narrow. "Wait. What did you tell him?"

"Not the whole thing, of course, just that we were looking for some information - that we are investigating the issue of fake documents, of where they come from."

"The issue?" Sam wipes at the dust on the napkin holder. "Nothing specific? I have a hard time believing anyone would be satisfied with that explanation."

"It wasn't really an explanation, Sam. It was just a short visit. I had told him that we could use some help, he said that he wanted to do anything he could."

"Well?" Sam suddenly looks anxious.

"He thinks a lot of the information Chalabi and the INC people gave to the Americans before the war was fake. This morning, he gave me a description of how to find several forgery operations in Sadr City, and he thinks these are the places where such documents were made."

Sam stops picking at the radishes on the table and looks over to the waiters, in case they might be listening. "Really? Can we go?"

I nod. "Maybe I should go first, to check out if it's okay for you."

Sam's mouth twitches, her nostrils widen. "We might not need to go more than once. I think I should just go with you. I'll wear an abaya."

"It isn't just about wearing an abaya. You look too American. And even if you were Iraqi, an Iraqi woman wouldn't be involved in going to these places."

Sam grabs a wad of napkins, more than she needs, and wipes her hands on them. Then she takes a tiny plastic bottle from her bag and spills a gooey clear liquid on her hands, rubbing them together.

"What's that?"

"Oh this?" She turns the bottle around to look at the label. "It's Purell." She reads on. "Instant hand sanitizer. Disinfectant." She turns the logo towards me and smiles. "Makes life a little cleaner."

"Do Americans use this all the time? After every meal?"

"Of course not!" she laughs. "I mean, some people - when you're in a place where it's...where you're travelling." She rubs her hands together, giving off an odour that is a mix of ammonia and menthol. "Want some?"

I shake my head, and mouth to the waiter that we would like tea. Thinking again about how my refusal could be insulting, I hold out my hands.

Sam spills a drop into each palm. It feels like cold glue, but after rubbing it into my hands for a moment, it disappears.

"Actually, you're supposed to use it before you eat so that you're eating with clean hands," she says. "But whatever. Sometimes I do things backwards." She dips her head closer to me. "How does your cousin know about these places? Is he involved in this sort of thing?"

"No!" I probably sound too forceful, but the question is a little off-putting. "No, absolutely not. But he was some kind of management official at the UN liaison office in Baghdad, and of course anyone in those jobs had to be approved first by Saddam. He's a smart guy, my cousin Saleh, and basically innocent - he was doing what he had to do to survive. I don't think he ever really liked Saddam. He's definitely not a Ba'athist, though his father probably was."

Sam nods. "Okay."

"Okay, so, during the oil-for-food programme, and you know, during the years of the embargo against Iraq-"

"The sanctions?"