“I thought you and Redbeard weren’t speaking.”

“I guess he decided to change the rules.”

The band finished the song, the dancers clinging to each other in the red and yellow houselights. The lead singer toasted the crowd with a flute of khat champagne, finished it in one long swallow, and threw the empty glass onto the floor. Her fans followed suit. Mardi was going to have to bump up the price to maintain a profit. A spotlight drifted across the crowd and Rakkim tapped the screen with a forefinger. “There you are.”

Another agent leaned against the back wall, watching the dancers. Rakkim had only glimpsed him for a moment in the spotlight, but it was long enough. The third agent was a slim, pockmarked dandy in red toreador pants, with a cruel face and a pencil mustache. The dandy would have come in earlier; he would have checked out the basement, ambled into the back rooms, pretending to be lost. Now he was waiting for Rakkim to show himself, or try to escape.

“Slip out my private exit,” said Mardi. “I’ll tell Redbeard’s men that I haven’t seen you.”

Maybe that’s why Sarah hadn’t met him at the Super Bowl this afternoon. It was almost a relief to think that it was Redbeard who had stopped her, not her better judgment. He wasn’t worried about Sarah. Redbeard would be angry with her for disobeying him, but his anger would only go so far. Rakkim had no illusions about his own privileged status. He might call Redbeard his uncle, but that was only a sign of respect. Sarah was the daughter of Redbeard’s only brother. She was blood, Rakkim was not. He considered taking Mardi’s offer; there were a dozen places he could hide in the Zone without fear of being found. He could meet Redbeard at a time of his choosing.

The houselights came up. The pockmarked dandy watched a pretty girl walking across the room. He looked up suddenly, stared at the hidden security camera.

“Get out of here,” said Mardi.

Rakkim thought of Sarah. No telling the things Redbeard was saying to her. He headed for the door.

CHAPTER 3

Rakkim removed his shoes, then washed his hands in the lightly scented water of the fountain. He splashed his face, ran his wet fingers through his hair. When he turned, Angelina was there with a towel. He kissed her on both cheeks. “Salaam alaikum.”

“Allah Akbar.” Redbeard’s housekeeper was a short, older woman, her broad face framed by the headpiece of the black chador, the loose robe that fell almost to the floor. It was almost 2 A.M., but Angelina was wide-awake. When he had had nightmares as a child, she had been the one to comfort him, crooning lullabies until his eyes closed. He had grown up believing that she never slept. Twenty years later and he still wasn’t sure.

Like Redbeard, Angelina was a devout, moderate Muslim. She could drive, had gone to a secular school, and had her own bank account. She said her prayers five times a day, kept the dietary law, and dressed modestly. She fasted during Ramadan, donated 2.5 percent of her total worth to charity each year, and someday, someday, she was going to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj that all good Muslims were required to do at least once in their lifetime.

Angelina gently touched the side of his head where the hair had been singed by the pockmarked dandy’s stun gun. “We’ve missed you, Rikki.”

He smiled. “Speak for yourself.”

“We’ve all missed you.”

“How’s Sarah? Is she all right?”

Angelina embraced him, robe rustling, and he smelled the spices that clung to her, garlic and cinnamon and sweet basil, cooking smells from childhood. “Worry about yourself.”

He kissed her again, then started toward Redbeard’s office. When he looked back, she was watching him, hands clutched.

The drive from the Zone to Redbeard’s villa had taken forty-five minutes, Rakkim in the back of the ambulance the security agents were using to transport him, siren wailing. The two subordinate agents sat in the front, nursing their wounds, while Stevens, the pockmarked dandy, slouched on the bench seat across from Rakkim, flicking his stun gun off and on. The smell of ozone filled the air. He tried to smile at Rakkim, but his split lip and bloody nose made it painful. Rakkim had smiled for the both of them.

Rakkim knocked twice on the office door, waited, then let himself in. The office was as he remembered: a wood-paneled, windowless room containing a large walnut desk and chair, two computers, a phone bank knobbed with privacy guards, and a leather sofa on which no one had ever sat. Rough, goat-wool tribal prayer rugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan covered the floor, Redbeard preferring their muted natural dyes. A door on one side of the office led out to the water garden. Another led down to the bomb shelter.

No paintings were on the walls, no honoraries, no photos of Redbeard with presidents or ayatollahs. Just a map of North America and three aerial-surveillance photographs taken immediately after May 19, 2015.

Rakkim stared at the stark, black-and-white wreckage of New York City and Washington, D.C., trying to take in the miles of shattered concrete and twisted metal, but it was impossible. The photo from ground zero at Mecca was less dramatic, but equally devastating. The nuclear bombs that had been smuggled into New York and Washington, D.C., had been city busters, but Mecca had better security. The device detonated at the height of the hajj had been a suitcase nuke, a dirty bomb. Over a hundred thousand who had made the pilgrimage died later of plutonium poisoning, but the city itself was intact. The Great Mosque could clearly be seen in the photograph, surrounded by worshipers who refused to leave. Though the city remained radioactive, the faithful still came every year to fulfill their obligations. Rakkim wiped away tears, embarrassed, certain there were cameras in the room and that Redbeard was watching.

At first, the U.S. media blamed jihadis for the attacks, Muslim radicals who had never forgiven the Saudis for their rapprochement with the West. The ruse might have succeeded, but a week later, the FBI captured one of the Zionist conspirators who was truly responsible, and he led them to the others involved in the plot. Their confessions were broadcast internationally. The United States immediately withdrew the defense umbrella that had helped protect Israel since its creation, and within a month the Zionist state was overrun by a Euro-Arabic coalition. Only the offer of sanctuary by Russia saved the Zionists from extinction.

The map of North America showed the same configuration as in the textbooks Rakkim had studied in school-the Islamic Republic outlined in green, the Bible Belt in red. The red states included all of the old Confederacy, plus Oklahoma, Northern Florida, and parts of Missouri. Missouri had been a trick question on his final exam in history. The map showed Kentucky and West Virginia as red states, but they were still being contested on the ground. The Nevada Free State was white, denoting its unique and independent status. Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico were green states politically, part of the Islamic Republic, but socially they were extensions of the Mexican Empire.

Rakkim walked to Redbeard’s desk and picked up the book left open on the desk, wondering if it was a test or a trap that Redbeard had set out for him. How the West Was Really Won: The Creation of the Islamic States of America through the Conquest of Popular Culture. The book had originally been Sarah’s Ph.D. thesis, rewritten and published for a mass audience two years ago. It became a bestseller, but her premise was so controversial that the publisher had been wise not to use Sarah’s photograph on the jacket-even today, she wasn’t recognized on the street.