The Pakistan Interior Ministry official stretched back in his chair, narrowed his eyes, and surveyed his latest "customer". It seemed like an age before he finally broke the awkward silence.
"So you want a visa extension," he purred beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "We will see."
I handed over two passport photocopies and a letter from my boss stating I was covering the "current situation" for The Irish Times. The official then proceeded to study my passport, meticulously turning over each page.
The silence seemed endless. I amused myself by watching the huge fan whirring over his head, generating a welcome breeze in the stifling mid-thirties heat.
After several minutes, the official looked up, peered at me across his dusty desk, and exclaimed: "So, you are American then?" His forensic examination of my passport had obviously been an act.
"No" I almost screamed. "I am Irish. I am Irish".
"Irish! You have your own problems with terrorism, don't you? Your own Osama bin Laden," he chuckled.
One hour, lots of paper shuffling and an in-depth discussion on the Northern Ireland peace process later, I left the office clutching the letter which would ensure a continuation of my stay.
I had been two weeks in Pakistan and my 14-day visa was about to run out. It seemed liked every other journalist in Pakistan covering the current crisis was in the same boat.
With colleagues I travelled the three hours by road from my base in Peshawar to Islamabad to get paperwork sorted. The one hour spent with my new Interior Ministry friend was only the start of a long drawn-out process. From this office I had to go to the Foreign Ministry and hand in the letter. I was to return in three hours.
I arrived back to find my name on a list of journalists approved for visa extension. But it was not over yet: I was told to go back to Peshawar to get my passport stamped.
Back in the frontier city the next morning my guide - who knew somebody who was connected to a certain official - speeded up the final leg of the process. I sat for 45 minutes in small dingy office with about 10 local people waiting for passports. Two officials were stamping passports by hand. Shelves groaned under the weight of thousands of files, their pages yellowed with age.
Pakistan bureaucracy has to be seen to be believed. In government offices all over the country thousands and thousands of officials operate at a snail's pace, filing and processing forms by hand. The red tape proved almost as big a trial for journalists as the story they were here to cover.
To get permission to go to the Pakistan/Afghanistan border two weeks ago it took half a day and copious form filling at three different North Western Frontier provincial government offices.
There is another war of sorts being waged in Pakistan this week. This one involves hundreds of foreign media representatives and the Pakistan authorities. Unable to control the 1,000 or so journalists, photographers, and television crews based in the frontier town of Peshawar, the capital Islamabad, and in Quetta, the authorities have started to clap down on our movements.
They are no longer issuing permits to allow journalists go to any of the refugee camps in Peshawar and Quetta. They are also refusing reporters access to the border and tribal areas.
In the main media centre in Islamabad, the Marriott hotel, journalists have their bags searched by a new security check set up at the front door. In Quetta journalists are practically caged in.
Arriving in droves to cover possible US strikes against Afghanistan, media members are intercepted at Quetta airport by police with automatic rifles and escorted through the old garrison town to the Serena Hotel. They are told it is for their own protection. Uniformed police officers sit at the front door with automatic rifles across their knees.
Sitting in the air-conditioned lobby with its Afghan rugs, journalists are approached by over-friendly strangers, alias members of the Pakistan intelligence service. In Peshawar, reporters have been busy giving the authorities the slip, sneaking around the region. I was detained by police for a half an hour, had my notebook confiscated and was given a serious ticking-off after I was caught interviewing five families who had just made the long journey from Afghanistan to a refugee camp outside the town.
A Japanese journalist was detained for several hours and had his camera film destroyed when he went to the border area without permission.
Among the few winners in the current crisis are hoteliers, local journalists and car rental agencies. The price of hotel rooms and car rental has doubled in the time I have been in Peshawar.
Pakistani reporters hang out in hotel lobbies touting for business as guides and interpreters. They charge newly arrived foreign journalists who know no better $200 a day for their services, the equivalent of a month's salary.
And meanwhile, the waiting game continues.
miriamd@163bj.com