“It’s based on the W-82/XM-785 artillery shell from the sixties,” Wazir says, “but it’s a little more advanced. My own design, really. Fifteen kilograms of fissionable material, beryllium reflector, weighs less than a hundred pounds. It’s a linear implosion device. The fissile material is formed into an egg shape and it’s surrounded by a cylinder of high explosive rigged for simultaneous detonation at each end. An inert wave-shaper channels the shock wave so as to compress the egg into a spheroid to achieve supercriticality. The calculated yield, best case, would be over two kilotons, but I’d be happy with one point five or even one. Of course I haven’t tested it, but the math is right and the people I used for the assembly were all Dara artisans. I figured anyone who could manufacture a perfect working replica of a Beretta nine-millimeter out of an old crankshaft could do the job. The firing sequence runs off IGBT transistors rather than krytron tubes, not as efficient but a lot more available. I had the boards custom made in Malaysia and wrote the software myself. This is one of six.”

He smiles like a schoolboy who has given the right answer. Then he sees that Theo is pointing the pistol at him and he frowns a little.

“Why are you pointing that at me, Theo?” he asks.

“Why? Fuck it, Wazir, you’re my brother, but I’m not going to let you blow up an American city with that thing.”

Wazir looks stunned; he gapes. “An American city? Why on earth would I do such a thing? That’s crazy!”

“Thank you. That’s a good description of al-Qaeda.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Theo! There’s no such thing as al-Qaeda. Was there such a thing as the jihad? You were there. It’s just different factions. Sometimes they cooperate; sometimes they fight. Some of them are maniacs; some of them are perfectly reasonable people trying to fix an intolerable situation, which is the oppression and humiliation of the umma. Sure there are some who’d love to destroy New York or Tel Aviv, but I’d be a maniac myself if I listened to them. You saw what happened when those idiots knocked down two office buildings on 9/11. Can you imagine what America would do, what Israel would do, if we blew up one of their cities? They have thousands of nuclear missiles. They’d massacre every Muslim in the world.”

“So what are you going to do with them?”

Sonia says, “He’s going to blow up Ras Tanura.”

“What?” says Theo.

“It’s the Saudi oil terminal. Ten percent of the world’s oil supply flows through it,” she says.

“Yes,” says Wazir, “and we will also take out the Khor-el-Amaya terminal in Iraq and Kharg Island in Iran. The other bombs will go to the giant Saudi fields, Ghawar and either Khurais or Manita, I haven’t decided. All at once, of course. The world oil supply will be reduced for a period of several years by about forty percent. Yes, they can rebuild, but it’s going to be hard to do in radiation suits in eighty centigrade heat.”

Theo looks at his mother, remembering her television interview.

“This was your idea.”

“I was speaking theoretically,” she says. “I had no idea he was going to put it into actual practice. He’s going to kill thousands of people. Do you think I wanted that?”

Theo realizes that his gun is pointing at her and he moves it away. He says, “Mother, just once I wish you’d tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth,” she says. “Ask him.”

Theo turns to Wazir. “Well?”

“Does it matter?” Wazir says. “Really? Ideas cause events. That’s the story of the twentieth century. Do you think that the theoretical anti-Semites, respectable people all of them, all the intellectual race theorists, ever imagined Auschwitz? Or earnest European communists ever imagined the Gulag or Katyn Forest? What did I learn from her in all those years, Theo, when she was more my mother than she was yours? That oil is the curse of the umma; that it is inherently corrupting, worse than slavery; that Wahabi puritanism funded by oil is essentially a fraud, a fig leaf the Saudis use to salve their consciences while they live like emperors; that what the umma needs more than anything is to be left alone to find its way back to God; and that it will never be left alone as long as the oil flows smoothly out of the terminals. So that’s one reason why I am going to turn off the taps.”

“What’s the other reason?” asks Theo, after a pause.

Wazir’s face changes, and Sonia sees the mujahid boy flash out again, a startling resurrection, and in thick Pashto he says, “Revenge, of course. I am a Pashtun, after all.”

“Revenge for what?”

“For everything!” cries Wazir. “Against being manipulated. Against being treated like a tool. Against the arrogance that believed I could be treated so. Against the arrogance that allows a tenth of the world to live in peace, comfort, and security, ignoring the miseries of the rest. Against the idea of collateral damage. Against the lazy stupidity of the Americans and the diligent hypocrisy of the oil sheikhs. That world has to be smashed. It can’t go on. But I am only one man and that’s all I could think of. Is that enough?”

“It’s enough,” says Theo. “But I can’t let you do it, brother.”

“Why not? Don’t you feel the same way?”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m a soldier and you’re an enemy. It’s an honor thing. Where are the other bombs?”

“What if I don’t tell you? Will you torture me?”

“Don’t be stupid, Wazir!”

“She knows,” says Wazir, pointing at Sonia. “She helped me set up the networks under the noses of her CIA masters, and it was easy because none of them could imagine blowback on this scale. You could torture her as well.”

Theo looks at his mother, and she thinks it is the same look he wore when he was a little boy and she came home from her long journeys, a look that said, Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong? A look that is a window into a heart that can never be healed.

“Is he right, Mom?” Theo asks. “Is he telling the truth?”

She says, “Why did you come, Theo? You’re not supposed to be involved in this.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell involved now. So tell me! He’s blowing smoke, isn’t he? I get the CIA connection, I get the whole Trojan horse thing. But you didn’t know about the bombs, did you? You didn’t help him plan this?”

Sonia remains silent. She can hear her own breathing and Theo’s and the faint sounds of the village night, someone coughing, the distant rumble of a truck, a night creature calling, the wind. It goes on, this silence, for a long while, it is almost a contemplative silence, she thinks, waiting for God to speak, but at last it is Wazir who speaks.

“You know, Theo, I’m not sure you understand your mother. She’s a very strange person, and I say this as someone who has met some very strange people indeed. Did you know she followed a Sufi pir all through the trip to Central Asia? She didn’t put that into the book. An odd brand of Islam, really. They believe that everything written about God is in some sense wrong, because if you propose a complete picture of God, it’s not God by definition, because God is beyond all human description. And it follows that Saint Paul was somewhat wrong and the Gospels are somewhat wrong and the Prophet, peace be on him, was somewhat wrong too. God doesn’t make deals with His creatures. He’s always a surprise, and trying to chain Him to a human religion is folly. That’s what she taught me and I believe it, because otherwise the world does not make a bit of sense.”

He laughs, a little hysterically, Sonia thinks, but Theo doesn’t even smile. Grimly, still covering Wazir with his pistol, he rummages in his pack and pulls out a coil of rope and what looks like a cheap portable radio.

“What are you doing, Theo?” she asks.

“I’m going to tie up Wazir, Mom. And then I’m going to call my control and tell them I’ve located the nuke and for them to come and get it. And us. Wazir, put your hands behind you.”