“That does not preclude him from being Osama bin Laden’s stooge. If anything, his fear and hatred of Al Qaeda would have made him easier to manipulate.”
“To what end, though?” Amal said. “Why would Osama bin Laden want to provoke a war between Arabia and America, or between Islam and Christendom? What would he be hoping to accomplish?”
“I think,” said Mustafa, “that he wants to turn the clock back. Undo modernity and the Republic, and usher in a new Caliphate.” He brought out the CIA report David Koresh had given him and laid it on the table. Then he continued: “Imagine you are Osama bin Laden. A son of privilege, heir to one of the wealthiest men in Arabia. Like many a rich kid before you, though, you’re not content to thank God for your blessings. You become disaffected, contemptuous of what you see as a decadent society and a corrupt political culture.
“Eventually you drop out, go to Peshawar and then Afghanistan. The harsh life of a holy warrior suits you, and your experiences on the battlefield lead you to a dark epiphany. The people of Afghanistan have never lacked for hardship and their suffering has only multiplied under the Russians, yet despite or perhaps because of this, the men you fight alongside practice what seems to you a much purer form of Islam, untainted by latter-day heresy. At some point you ask yourself what a dose of the same suffering might do for the state of the faith in your own country.
“Of course you can’t turn Arabia into Afghanistan. But perhaps you don’t need to. Modern living has made your countrymen so soft, maybe a hard shock to the system is all it would take to herd them back onto the righteous path. God willing, anything is possible; and if there’s one thing being a holy warrior has convinced you of, it’s that you know the will of God.
“So you go home, a hero. You pretend to make peace with the political elite of Riyadh, let them help you into a position of power. Behind the scenes you assemble Al Qaeda, the foundation of a new world order. You send scouts into Christendom to find the crusaders who will serve as your pawns, to make unprovoked war against Islam.
“And so November 9, 2001: The plan is set in motion and succeeds beyond your wildest dreams. Three planes out of four reach their targets. The carnage is spectacular. Even the downing of the fourth plane—the one you’d hoped would kill the young Saudi president—turns out to be a blessing. That same president, horrified by the destruction and his own close brush with death, declares a jihad against terrorism—the holy war you wanted, and then some. Political opinion tilts sharply towards the Party of God. Citizens return to the mosques in droves. God’s will, as you’ve conceived it, is about to be made manifest.
“And then, somehow,” said Mustafa, “it starts to unravel. The Republic trembles but does not fall. As the shock of 11/9 recedes, doubts are raised about the wisdom of some of the president’s actions. And it’s not just the die-hard secularists in the Unity Party asking questions. As the occupation drags on, as word of certain abuses is leaked to the press, fatwas are issued from some surprising quarters: fatwas condemning torture, condemning the erosion of civil liberties, condemning the persecution of Christians—condemning, even, the attack on America.
“To you, for whom devotion to God and devotion to liberal democracy are mutually exclusive, this must all be very baffling. Clearly the rot goes deeper than you realized. More shocks are needed. Fortunately the crusaders are ready to provide them. The Americans are spoiling for vengeance and the Europeans are happy to help. You don’t even have to do anything, just sit back and watch them converge on Baghdad with their bombs and their scriptures. But the guardians of the homeland are alerted now, and a lot of these would-be martyrs are captured and interrogated. And they tell a very strange story.
“As head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, you are one of the first people in Arabia to learn about this peculiar legend the crusaders have latched on to. The parallels between the mythical September 11 and the real November 9 are alarming, to say the least. Some of these people are naming you as the architect of the attack, and even though they’re talking about a different attack, even though they’re madmen, that doesn’t mean your secret won’t be exposed.
“You need to bury this story. You put Al Qaeda on alert and start monitoring interrogation sessions. Crusaders who say the wrong thing are made to disappear, along with whatever artifacts they possess. In the course of this cover-up you become an expert on the mirage legend, and the more you learn the more familiar it all seems, like something from a half-remembered dream.
“Another world. A world in which America is the invading superpower, defiling the holy places of Islam. A world in which Arabia is broken up into minor principalities, in which men like Saddam Hussein and Muammar al Gaddafi are not just criminals or the butts of jokes but heads of state. A world in which the suffering of ordinary Arabs is, correspondingly, multiplied.
“It’s your turn to be shocked. You realize, if this is true, you’ve been wasting your time, struggling inside an illusion, while the situation you were trying to create already existed. All you have to figure out is how to restore it.
“And so, very late in the day, you have a new mission. It’s the same mission the crusaders are on, which ought to be ironic but really just makes sense, since in your pride, you’ve invited the same person to come whisper in your ear. In any case, that is your wish: To return to a world of sorrow, to an Arabia whose people will be ripe to receive your message, the word of God the All-Merciful and Compassionate as interpreted by the mass murderer Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.”
Mustafa paused and drank some tea. Samir was staring at him uneasily, and Amal had picked up the CIA report and was flipping through it.
“It’s an interesting story,” Amal said good-naturedly. “But even with this”—she dropped the report back on the table—“you know no one is going to believe it.”
“No,” Samir agreed. “If you go to the president talking like that, he’s going to think you’re nuts.”
“Oh,” said Mustafa, “but I haven’t even told you the crazy part yet . . . Here. Let me show you a photograph.”
Uday Hussein had come upstairs in pursuit of a maid. He’d been stalking her on and off since she’d started work at the Adhamiyah estate, following her through the house each time he caught sight of her, each time letting her elude him, confident that he could corner her whenever he wished. Today though he’d grown tired of the game and determined to end it, and so he was very annoyed when he burst into a bathroom where he was sure she was hiding, only to find it unoccupied.
He backed out into the hall, turning towards a gallery that overlooked the domed chamber containing the Nebuchadnezzar statue. A male servant was polishing the balustrade; sensing Uday’s attention upon him, he recalled another chore in a distant part of the house and hastened away.
Uday went the other direction, poking his head into rooms at random. In the westernmost part of the hall he paused in front of a massive wooden door banded in iron. The chamber beyond was off-limits but Uday decided to check it anyway, reasoning that if the maid were inside he’d have an excuse to punish her—not that he needed an excuse.
The door somewhat surprisingly was unlocked. Uday leaned into it and swung it wide, then spread his arms and cried “Aha!” No one tried to bolt past him. He lowered his arms again and stood just inside the threshold looking around.
The chamber was octagonal, ten meters wide. In the past it had been used as both a prayer room and an astronomical observatory, and its single broad window was oriented towards the Qibla. Its current focus, however, was neither Mecca nor the heavens, but the heart of the vast desert in the Arabian Peninsula’s southeast quadrant. Sand from that desert had been poured in a series of curving lines on the chamber floor, forming a pattern like a whirlwind viewed from above. In the whirlwind’s eye the brass bottle from Al Hillah had been placed atop a mound of sand, its unstoppered mouth tilted towards the window. Incense burners and stands of bells and chimes were spaced around the whirlwind’s outer edge, and other trinkets and talismans had been arranged within the swirls of sand according to some system Uday had not been schooled in.