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“We have tried,” explained Sir Paul, “not to duplicate—the Americans and ourselves—but, alas, there may be some element of duplication. I apologize again. And now, Mr. Sinclair.”

The CIA Head of Station, unlike the Whitehall civil servant who had almost sent the scientists to sleep with his verbosity, was direct and to the point.

“The thing is, gentlemen, we may have to fight these bastards.”

This was more like it. Sinclair spoke as the British like to think Americans speak—direct, and unafraid to mince words. The four scientists gave him their rapt attention.

“If that day ever comes, we will go in first with air power. Like the British, we will want to lose the absolute minimum possible in casualties. So we’ll go for their infantry, their guns, tanks, and planes. We’ll target their SAM missile sites, communications links, command centers. But if Saddam uses weapons of mass destruction, we would take awful casualties, both of us. So we need to know two things.

“One, what has he got? Then we can plan for gas masks, capes, chemical antidotes. Two, where the hell has he put it? Then we can target the factories and the storage depots—destroy it all before he can use it.

So study the photographs, use magnifying glasses, look for the telltale signs. We’ll keep tracing and interviewing the contractors who built him these factories and the scientists who equipped them. That should tell us a lot. But the Iraqis may have moved it around a bit. So it comes back to you gentlemen, the analysts. You could get to save a lot of lives here, so give it your best shot. Identify the WMD for us, and we’ll go in and bomb seven shits out of it.”

The four scientists were smitten. They had a job to do, and they knew what it was. Sir Paul was looking slightly shell-shocked.

“Yes, well, I’m sure we’re all deeply grateful to Mr. Sinclair for his—er—explanation. May I suggest we reconvene when either Aldermaston or Porton Down has something for us?”

When they left the building, Simon Paxman and Terry Martin strolled in the warm August sunshine out of Whitehall and into Parliament Square. It was thronged with the usual columns of tourist buses. They found an empty bench close to the marble statue of Winston Churchill, glowering down on the impudent mortals who clustered beneath him.

“You’ve seen the latest from Baghdad?” asked Paxman.

“Of course.”

Saddam Hussein had just offered to pull out of Kuwait if Israel pulled out of the West Bank and Syria out of Lebanon. An attempt at linkage. The United Nations had rejected it out of hand. The resolutions continued to roll out of the Security Council: cutting off Iraq’s trade, oil exports, currency movements, air travel, resources. And the systematic destruction of Kuwait by the occupying army went on.

“Any significance?”

“No, just the usual huff and puff. Predictable. Playing to the audience. The PLO liked it, of course, but that’s all. It’s not a game plan.”

“Has he got a game plan?” asked Paxman. “If so, no one can work it out. The Americans think he’s crazy.”

“I know. I saw Bush last night on TV.”

“Is he crazy, Saddam?”

“Like a fox.”

“Then why doesn’t he move south into the Saudi oil fields while he has the chance? The American buildup is only starting—ours, too. A few squadrons, carriers in the Gulf, but nothing on the ground. Air power alone can’t stop him. That American general they’ve just appointed ...”

“Schwarzkopf,” said Martin. “Norman Schwarzkopf.”

“That’s the chap. He reckons he’ll need two full months before he has the forces to stop and rol

l back a full-scale invasion. So why not attack now?”

“Because that would be attacking a fellow Arab state with which he has no quarrel. It would bring shame. It would alienate every Arab. It is against the culture. He wants to rule the Arab world, to be acclaimed by it, not reviled by it.”

“He invaded Kuwait,” Paxman pointed out.

“That was different. He could claim that was correcting an imperialist injustice because Kuwait was always historically part of Iraq. Like Nehru invading Portuguese Goa.”

“Oh, come on, Terry. Saddam invaded Kuwait because he’s bankrupt. We all know it.”

“Yes, that’s the real reason. But the up-front reason is that he was reclaiming rightful Iraqi territory.

Look, it happens all over the world. India took Goa, China took Tibet, Indonesia has taken East Timor.

Argentina tried for the Falklands. Each time, the claim is retaking a chunk of rightful territory. It’s very popular with the home crowd, you know.”