Over some Miami-porn, Michael VOs a few unwritten rules of the spy trade: "Low-level operatives get traded, not prosecuted. You don't shoot foreign operatives if you can avoid it. And you stay away from embassies and consulates." Well, that's not what I learned from Spy Vs. Spy. And that's not something that Michael seems in the mood to honor at the moment. As he and Sam get out of the Charger near the Pakistani consulate in Miami (which is a structure that I'm not sure actually exists), Sam is expressing his doubts. "This is like cursing in church. Technically, this is foreign soil." Michael smoothly corrects that since he's burned, he's only committing a crime, not an act of war. Way to look on the bright side. Michael is adamant about going ahead with their little operation, on the theory that the Pakistanis might have a file on Carla -- that is, if she was in fact stationed in Kurdistan as Michael suspects. Michael passive-aggressively offers to let Sam off the hook and ask Fiona for help instead if Sam really isn't up for this, but Sam takes one for the team while simultaneously getting on Michael's nerves by referring to Fi as his girlfriend in the past tense. "She was never my girlfriend, Sam," Michael lies. Denial? Interesting. Count me in.

Inside the consulate, Sam is waiting at the end of a long line, winding up to create his diversion. He's doing this by making a big show of impatience that gets even bigger when Michael, disguised by a pair of large-framed specs that were out of style ten years ago, cuts in line and goes right to a desk jockey. He claims to be from the Herald and in need of visas, toot-sweet. For some reason the poor woman jumps up from her desk in panic and darts into the back, as Michael's VO explains, "Like all bureaucrats, consulate employees live in fear of a pissed-off journalist." Sam is making more and more of a nuisance of himself, even as a higher-ranking consulate employee comes out and invites Michael into the back. He leads Michael to a desk somewhere in the bowels of the building, but not so deep that Sam's bitching is not still audible. After parking Michael in his guest chair but before attending to him, the consulate guy knocks on a neighboring office door to ask for assistance from a fairly young-looking guy named Waseem. That would be the consulate's security guy. Michael's VO informs us that unlike most consulate employees, who are essentially office drones overseas, the head of security is almost always a spy. Well, that would explain why the guys in those jobs at the Chinese and Russian consulates on 24 were such bad-asses. I'd always wondered about that. The subtitles confirm Michael's statement: "WASEEM -- PAKISTANI SPY." Both he and Michael's host leave Michael alone so they can head back to the lobby together to deal with Sam, who ties them up in an argument about voice levels while Michael gloves up and starts going through Waseem's file cabinet. "One job of a security chief's job is babysitting the secrets," Michael VOs. "If one goes missing, it's a big deal." Michael doesn't even care what he's taking at this point; he just grabs some papers, scribbles some Urdu text on the jacket that once held it, leaves the jacket where Waseem will see it, and takes off. As he goes right past the two consulate guys still arguing with Sam, he VOs, "Play your cards right, and you can trade what you have for what you want." Michael allows himself a smile at his clean getaway. Of course, Sam might end up in a Karachi prison, but covert operatives need to be able to risk taking acceptable losses.