To get here, they had to drive down a long boulevard of palm trees, enter a huge vaulted marble entrance hall, submit to metal-detection and frisking, sit in an anteroom for a while sipping tea, take their shoes off, have warm rose water poured over their hands by a turbaned servant wielding an ornate ewer, and then walk across about half a mile of polished marble and oriental carpets. As soon as the door wafts shut behind the grand wazir’s ass, Avi says, "I smell a con job."