“I don’t blame you for being scared,” said Gravenholtz.

Moseby didn’t answer. In the distance, he saw a stealth helicopter just above the treeline, completely silent, props wafting the branches. He didn’t react, turned and watched the water. Not one man in a thousand would have noticed the chopper. Some kind of new silent-running model, probably tricked out with laser rail-guns and optics capable of counting the pores in Gravenholtz’s nose. So what was Gravenholtz and this fancy bird doing here?

“If you’re nice I’ll give you a ride,” said Gravenholtz.

Moseby pretended not to understand, but realized he wasn’t the only one with good eyes.

Gravenholtz tossed the knife, chunked it deep into the teak railing an inch from Moseby’s hip. “Heckfire, I’ll give you a ride even if you’re not nice.”

Moseby bent down, lifted the stone queen off the shelf, and gently set it down on the deck. “No thanks.”

Gravenholtz spit on the deck, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What makes you think it was a request?”

Moseby plucked a strand of seaweed off the stone queen’s shoulder, kept his attention on her. He didn’t need to look at Gravenholtz to sense him closing in.

“The Colonel wants to see you. Now. I’ll round up your crew later.”

“Tonight’s my anniversary.” Moseby picked tiny bits of sand and moss off the stone queen’s marble surface. “The Colonel will have to wait.”

Gravenholtz laughed. “You believe in God, Moseby?”

Moseby kept working. “Yes, I do.”

Gravenholtz pointed the machine pistol at Moseby’s head. “Better to believe in the Colonel, because God can’t help you now.”

Moseby gently removed a bit of grit from the stone queen’s right eye. “You didn’t come all the way here to shoot me.” He pulled tiny snails from the stone queen’s hair, the perfect spiral of their shells one of the infinite proofs of God. He flicked the snails over the side as he worked on the stone queen, his hands steady, unhurried. “You’re here because the Colonel needs me for a project of some kind. Something special. Something he thinks only I can do. I wouldn’t want to be you if anything happened to me.” He looked up at Gravenholtz. “Pick me up tomorrow morning after breakfast. If I like the Colonel’s business terms, I’ll send for my crew. If not-”

Gravenholtz ripped off a dozen rounds into the stone queen, her head shattering into a thousand pieces. “I know where you live. I’ll set my bird down in your backyard.” He beckoned and the chopper streaked toward them.

Moseby stared at the shattered stone queen. Stood up. He pulled a shard of marble from under his eye, felt blood trickle toward his lip.

Gravenholtz laughed again.

Moseby promised himself that someday-sooner rather than later-he was going to drown Gravenholtz in the man’s own blood and send him to hell still dripping. Christ had commanded his followers to turn the other cheek, to love those that cursed them, but Moseby knew his own limitations.

The Old One cursed his bad luck. First the new German finance minister dies of a stroke-two years’ work putting him in place wasted-and now this. Was running into Gladwell tonight truly just a coincidence? Or had Allah abandoned him after all this time? Found him an unworthy vessel for the fulfillment of prophecy?

The Old One paced the ornate salon of his suite, feeling a faint vibration underfoot, the mighty engines of the luxury liner Star of the Sea churning west across the Pacific, rolling across the bones of monsters. Sandalwood and myrrh burned in the incense brazier, the soothing scents of his boyhood, and all the journeys since. To have come so far, and now…The last time he had been this close to success, Redbeard’s meddling niece, Sarah, and her renegade Fedayeen, Rakkim, had ruined everything. Decades of work unraveled by that overeducated whore.

At least Sarah and Rakkim’s actions against him had been deliberate, but bumping into Gladwell tonight was even more unsettling. He expected worthy adversaries, but fortune had always treated him kindly. The Old One wallowed in doubt for a moment longer, then cast it aside as a stone from his shoe. Gladwell’s presence on board was not a sign that Allah had turned against him, but was rather a lesson given to him by the Almighty. Remain vigilant, for fate can upset even the best plan. That was the teaching. The Old One was far from childhood, but not too old to humble himself before the wisdom of Allah. Bad luck, yes, but not a bad omen.

The Old One kept pacing. His suite was sparsely decorated, mandarin modern, blond wood and titanium, sleek and cool, the essence of Chinese chic. He hated it, but it fit his image as an urbane retiree, a cosmopolitan, high-tech entrepreneur. Swiss three-piece suits, handmade Thai loafers with braided gold-wire tassels. No prayer rug. No mihrab to indicate the direction of Mecca. To all intents and purposes he was a complete modern, an atheist too rich and too smart to honor Allah. When strolling through one of the public areas of the liner, and hearing the discreet call to prayer over the sound system, the Old One had perfected the wan smile of the enlightened as the faithful hurried to their devotions; his smile the same bemused expression he had seen on the faces of the British overlords as a boy when the villagers heeded the call to mosque. The British had rejected Allah then, and now it was too late for them. Alone in his cabin, the Old One prayed, with no witness save Allah. He didn’t need a mihrab to point the way to Mecca. He didn’t need a clock to tell him the time. Allah understood the necessity for stealth.

He sat on one of the sofas in the stateroom, picked up the wireless tablet he had been studying before his ill-chosen foray onto the upper deck of the liner. Better he had kept reading Sarah’s ninth-grade history paper than gone for a stroll in the salt air.

The most contentious question in American history is how the former United States of America became a moderate Islamic nation twenty years after the conquest of Baghdad. Even given the profound spiritual revival that swept across the United States after the Iraq debacle, the suddenness of the transformation was still startling. The televised image of President-elect Damon Kingsley being sworn into office with one hand on the holy Quran while the grand mufti of Seattle administered the oath was a moral triumph that even the most devout could not have predicted.

The history paper had only recently been discovered, lost among the archives of the private madrassa where Sarah had been educated. If he had found it sooner, the Old One might have given the young woman more respect, but he tended to dismiss the female intellect and it had cost him dearly in this case. Sarah had been raised by her uncle, Redbeard himself, head of state security, as fierce and wily an opponent as the Old One had ever faced. She and the orphan Rakkim had been schooled by Redbeard, Sarah in statecraft, Rakkim in the harsh arts. The Old One had concerned himself with Rakkim, but it was Sarah he should have watched.

The Old One studied his reflection in the tablet’s screen-a handsome, hawkish older gentleman who appeared to be in his seventies. A false vision. The Old One was far beyond a hundred, very far, possessed of a God-given vitality enhanced by organ transplants and the best science money could buy. He smoothed his gray hair. He had altered his appearance since fleeing Las Vegas. Had shaved his beard, dyed and restyled his white hair, added spectacles he didn’t need. His cheeks had been widened, his lips plumped, his ears tucked back. One of his doubles had been trapped outside a safe house in Thailand last summer, committing suicide rather than be captured. Even dead, the man looked more like his former self than the Old One now did.