You don't know what the ripple effect is of even temporarily getting this guy out of commission.

There are unknown consequences that history will only be able to tell us of your actions.

What countries are selling bomb components to some guy in Afghanistan?

No one knows who I am. So everyone, I'm a dumpy salesperson. Meanwhile, I just get back from the Middle East after negotiating some arms deal.

Hello and welcome to the best case worst case. This is Jim Clementi Vittair, the doctoral fellow former New York City prosecutor and Red Redducer, CVS criminal minds.

And with me today from afar is...

Hi everybody, it's Francie Hakes, former state and federal prosecutor Jim. I am once again thrilled to have back our very special guest, first of his kind.

If I was a Game of Thrones fan, which I'm wearing a Game of Thrones t-shirt, I might say first of his name, because that's what they said about the rulers.

And let's be honest, as a CIA guy and the first CIA guy on the podcast, he's kind of the ruler. So anyway, the guy known as first of his name, thank you for coming back.

Yeah, hey guys, hey Francie, hey Jim, my name's Douglas Lalks, happy to be back. My former CIA case officer in Hollywood, Parlance, that's known as a spy or covert operative, which a lot of my contemporaries like to call themselves.

And yeah, I was in the agency for seven years, and then I spent three years in joint special operations command, which is JSOC, and that's like your COT-6 in Delta Force guys. And I want Hollywood.

So amazing, and we're so happy that you did, because otherwise we would never be talking to you, because you'd be in a hole or a ditch or a fifth world country somewhere.

That's right. Well, we were in the middle of talking about this deployment, your first deployment. And if we can continue that story, so our listeners get to hear more from you than from Francie.

I'm not saying that Francie talks too much. I'm just saying we'd love to hear from Doug.

Well, some people do say that a lot. And so I'm sorry Jim, but I have to start with a question. Of course you do.

Well, I'm curious about is there you are. You've learned patch two, you're in Afghanistan. It's a war zone. The whole point of what you're doing is to make contact. So you've got to talk to the locals.

You have to sort of live a bit like a local. I would think to have things in common with the locals. What was that like for you? You're obviously not. Well, I don't think you're Afghani.

But how did you fit in? How did you find the culture? And maybe you can tell us one thing you really liked about. I don't know, local food, local culture, something that you adopted yourself.

Well, I was very blessed because on my first deployment to my first base, my interpreter in the book, I call them John J.A.

And that's a popular Afghan male name J.A. And John. So John stopped me. And look, I was fluent, but oftentimes if you were talking to somebody who how to put this was hyper uneducated.

Okay. So like no schooling at all. They spoke.

Yeah, it kind of be like if you were a foreigner and you listen to rap music in America for the first time, you wouldn't know what the words were because it's a different word, you know, like it's not car.

...