“Don’t go,” said Rakkim. “Stick around. What are you worried about?”

“Why, you silly. I’m worried about you.” Darwin shoved Stevens off the table.

Rakkim dove for the chair, caught it just before the wire around Stevens’s neck snapped taut. He glanced behind him, but Darwin was gone. Rakkim carefully set the chair on the floor. Stevens had the same raw ligature mark on him as the Secret Service agent.

…the crowd outside the auditorium tore at each other now, wailing at the night sky and the dying stars…

Other limos were peeling out of line, racing down the streets. Some with their lights off in their haste, leaving their clients milling around on the sidewalk.

“Stay put, Anthony,” said Sarah. Tears ran down her cheeks, but her voice was firm.

“I’m not going anywhere until Rakkim shows up, don’t worry,” said Anthony.

Sarah arranged Redbeard’s hands in his lap so that it looked as if he were praying. She wiped her eyes. Impossible to believe he was dead. The TV cut to the Oscars’ host standing nervously onstage. He made a joke but there was no laughter. A camera caught the audience bolting for the exits, then cut back to the host. Jill was there too, weeping, her hands outstretched-it was as good a performance as Sarah had ever seen her give, just the right mix of shock and confusion.

Pounding on the roof of the limo and Sarah jumped. Colarusso. She rolled the window partway down.

“Get out of here while you can,” said Colarusso.

“Rakkim’s not here yet. Why don’t you get in?”

Colarusso shook his head. “I got to help out the uniforms. Command structure is barely holding together.”

“Pop, get in,” said Anthony Jr.

“Duty calls and all that shit, Junior.” Colarusso pounded the roof again for good luck and then walked across the street.

The TV went blank, then cut to a news anchor blabbering about how their broadcast had been hijacked by Zionists. Even he looked as if he didn’t believe it.

Sarah’s cell rang. “Rakkim?”

“We did it,” said Spider, voice cracking. “The Oscars’ website got seven million hits before it crashed, but by then it was too late. Every hit transferred a worm back, sent the download on to everyone in their address book. A chain-letter bomb hot off the grid. Gotta go!”

Sarah shut the cell. Rested her head against Redbeard’s shoulder.

Satellite feeds hijacked the broadcast now. Riots in Chicago and Mandellaville, roads snarled in Paris and Baghdad and Delhi, streets littered with glass and bodies, mosques burning. Complete curfew called in San Francisco, Mayor Miyoki railing against treasonous Hollywood Jews, the Castro District imam calling for jihad.

Ten minutes later, the security lock on the doors beeped and Rakkim slid into the backseat. “Get us out of here, Anthony.” He kissed Sarah. “Redbeard, I hope…” His voice trailed off.

Sarah took his hand as they pulled into traffic.

Through the windows of the limo, they could see the glow from the fires burning all over the capital.

Allah is great.

Rakkim emptied his mind as he stood within the mosque, putting the world behind him. He faced the qibla, pointing toward Mecca, his attention on Allah. He brought his hands to his ears, palms forward, thumbs behind his earlobes. Speaking in Arabic, he recited his salat, the ritual prayer.

Allah is great.

I bear witness that there are none worthy of worship except Allah.

I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the accursed

In the name of Allah, the infinitely Compassionate and Merciful,

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds.

At the end of his devotions he sat back on his haunches, hands on his knees. To complete the prayer he looked over his right shoulder and acknowledged the angel recording his good deeds, then looked over his left at the angel recording his bad deeds.

Now was the time for personal prayers, but Rakkim had none.

The worshipers at the Sword of the Prophet Grand Mosque stirred as Ibn Azziz started to speak, a whisper of anticipation that echoed off the spotless mosaic interior. Over twenty thousand believers packed in, eager to hear his sermon. Rakkim had arrived hours early to get a spot, passing through security and a series of patdowns. Rakkim had been coming to hear Ibn Azziz every day since he’d arrived. He knew the strengths and failings of the one-eyed cleric’s bodyguards and had picked out at least a dozen operatives of the Black Robes salted among the faithful. Rakkim sat within the vast throng, aware of Ibn Azziz’s exhortations, but focused more on the man’s intonation, his facial expressions, his abrupt gestures. He was a powerful speaker, his intensity palpable, and the crowds were even larger now than when he had first arrived, hard-liners streaming into the city by the thousands, heeding his call.

Rakkim had been attending prayers at the Grand Mosque for thirteen days. The day before yesterday, he had spotted Darwin among the devout. Rakkim had offered up no personal prayers to Allah, but Allah had answered his heart’s desire anyway.

The world had shuddered in the months after the Academy Awards, changed in ways that none of them could have foreseen. There had been riots in a hundred cities around the globe, but infinitely more disruptive had been the quiet questions in a billion minds as they watched the download over and over: If the Zionist attack had been a lie…what else was a lie?

At first, the community of Islamic nations had joined President Kingsley in denouncing the interrogation-rehearsal download as a Zionist hoax or a plan by the Bible Belt to threaten the legitimacy of the government in Seattle. Experts were trotted out to explain how such digital manipulations were easily done, and news commentators offered their own sage advice. Talk-show comedians mocked the idea that Lorne Macmillan, the FBI agent who had broken the Zionist plot, would have been part of such a deception. They might even have held the day. The experts might have swayed public opinion. Except that ten days after the broadcast, the Chinese government broke the news of what they had found in a cave near Yichange, along the banks of the Yangtze River.

Carried live around the world, the news conference showed the fourth nuclear bomb surrounded by men in protective gear. Traffic on the freeways slowed, then stopped, as people were riveted to their video cells. Found thirty-seven miles north of the Three Gorges Dam, far enough away that it was never within the security perimeter, the fourth bomb was much more powerful than the ones that had devastated New York and Washington, D.C. It wasn’t just the bomb that proved the truth of the download; the bodies of the three men dead of radiation poisoning were found in the cave. DNA and forensic tests established that all three were known Muslim terrorists with prior arrest records. Not a Jew among them. Two had spent time at Guantánamo and been released by court order. The third was Essam Muhammed, the ringleader, a former student at MIT, a physicist arrested at a minor demonstration years before he died.

Hassan Muhammed, the Wise Old One, disappeared from his Las Vegas redoubt a few days before Interpol arrived. Billions of his assets had been confiscated around the world, but investigators felt they had only scratched the surface. The Muslim nations were as outraged as anyone else, demanding that he be called to account for the desecration of Mecca with a dirty bomb, calling on all Muslims to aid in the search for him. Though there was a worldwide arrest warrant, the Old One remained free, rumored to be in Switzerland, Kuala Lumpur, Pakistan. A hundred places and no place at all.