The Envoy & His Navel Liaison

Murray's thoughts were more lyrical.

"As I caught her glance, I felt she was drawing me into her very soul," he writes in his 2006 memoir, "Murder in Samarkand" (called "Dirty Diplomacy" in the 2007 U.S. edition). "She looked lost and anxious, like she really didn't want to be there. She defied the impossible by exuding, at the same time, such ripe sexual attraction and such innocent vulnerability. Her body invited sex while her eyes screamed, 'Save me.' "

The ambassador slipped a $20 bill in her panties and gave her his business card. He told her he was married, but he wanted her to quit the club and be his mistress.

She didn't call.

But he knew where to find her.

'Money Is Important'

Now, four years later, they are sitting in a Hilton hotel in London, close to the apartment they share in the city's funky Shepherd's Bush section.

She is wearing a tight sweater and camouflage pants, high lace-up boots and no jewelry. Her English is nearly perfect, like her posture. She wants to be an actress, and Murray, who paid her father a $9,000 dowry to take her out of Uzbekistan, has also paid for drama classes.

"My dream is to play the part of one of Oscar Wilde's women," she says. "My screen ambition is to play one of those James Bond girls."

In a few hours, she will be back onstage in a small London theater, performing her one-woman show, "The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer," which she and Murray wrote with a friend. The show is booked to move to London's West End, opening Feb. 4. Murray also has sold the movie rights to his book to British director Michael Winterbottom, whose most recent film was "A Mighty Heart," about slain journalist Daniel Pearl.

Despite those successes, Murray says the couple still has a net worth of less than $30,000, half of which is an antique Bible he owns. Alieva says she is still surprised that Murray, an important ambassador in his Uzbekistan days, is now nearly broke.

"I really thought he had some savings as an ambassador," she says, turning to him with a sharp laugh that says she's only half-kidding: "I still can't understand. How could you have no savings?"