“ ‘V. Howell Industries,’ ” Mustafa read from the card. “This is the source of the mirage artifacts?”

“It’s as close to the source as I’ve been able to get,” Saddam told him. “My agents have traced several of the items in my collection to V. Howell. Whether they’re the origin or just a link in the chain I can’t say.”

“And this address: 1145 Jefferson Davis Pike, Herndon, Virginia . . .”

“It’s a small office park.”

“In Fairfax County?”

“Yes. A section that the Marines didn’t burn down. From the outside it looks like a low-security facility, but every spy I’ve sent in for a closer look has failed to report back.”

“So this is the big lead?” Samir said. “An office park in America?”

“It’s more than you had,” Saddam said. “It’s more than Bin Laden has. Al Qaeda would give a lot for that address, I’d bet. Though whether they’d be able to do anything with it . . .”

“But you think we can?” said Mustafa.

“If you’re working for the president as you claim. You can have the Marines escort you while you make your inquiries. I imagine they’d be only too happy to help convince V. Howell Industries to cooperate.”

“And if we end up disappearing like your spies?” Amal said. “I’m sure you’ll shed a tear for us from the safety of Baghdad.”

Saddam shrugged. “I promised information, not immunity from danger. I think it’s more than a fair trade. But here, I’ll sweeten the deal . . .” He reached into the safe again and pulled out a sheet of paper. “This information is less exclusive, but still quite valuable.”

The sheet contained a list of names. “Who are these people?” Mustafa asked.

“Candidates for my own deck of cards,” Saddam Hussein said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I believe you would call them ‘persons of interest.’ If you can find them and get them to talk, they should have many fascinating things to tell you.” He added: “I’d like to interrogate one or two of them myself, if I could. In fact I would pay for the privilege. Handsomely.”

“But you don’t know where they are?”

“At least some of them should be living in or around the American capital,” Saddam said. “A few others may be in Texas. They will probably be people of influence, well respected, but however much power they have, it won’t be what they feel they deserve.” His expression clouded. “They’ll be . . . frustrated. Eternally frustrated.”

“You are talking in riddles,” Mustafa said, “and I’m afraid after being up all night I have no head for it . . . Who are these people? How did you get this list?”

“I can’t tell you where the list comes from.”

“Somehow I thought that would be your answer.” Mustafa sighed and stared at the paper. “What kind of name is ‘Condoleezza’?”

“A woman. A black lady. She’s less interesting to me than some of the others. The names higher up the list, those are the ones I really want.”

The top two names on the list were almost identical. “A father and son?” Mustafa asked.

“Yes,” Saddam said. “Those two I would very much like to have as my guests.”

“You would like . . . So is this list for our benefit or yours?”

“There’s no reason why we can’t all benefit. If you should find any of these people, and if, after questioning them, you decide to pass them along to me, I will of course show my gratitude. Get me the father and the son, and you can have anything that is within my power to give . . . But please, don’t say yes or no now. Just keep my offer in mind.”

Mustafa ran a hand through his hair. He looked from the paper to the card and back again, then took another long look at the brass bottle. “Very well,” he said finally, “I’ll thank you for this information and see where it leads us. Enjoy your ‘battery.’ ”

“Oh, I will,” Saddam Hussein said. “And you, Mustafa al Baghdadi . . . Good hunting.”

Book Three

The Glory and the Kingdom

THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE

Lyndon B. Johnson

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Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908–December 30, 2006), a Protestant of the Disciples of Christ sect, was president of the Christian States of America (CSA) from November 22, 1963 until April 9, 2003. He seized power in the wake of the Kennedy family assassinations and was deposed during the Arabian invasion of America.

EARLY LIFE

Johnson was born in Stonewall in the Evangelical Republic of Texas. His father was a government official whose fortunes declined after he incurred the wrath of a powerful Baptist senator. In 1929 the entire family was forced to flee into exile in America.

RISE TO POWER

Little is known of Johnson’s activities over the next quarter century, but by the mid-1950s he had become a member of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the American national police bureau charged with maintaining internal security. In 1958 Johnson uncovered a plot by a former naval officer named Richard Milhous Nixon to assassinate then-president Joseph P. Kennedy. Two years later, when Kennedy abdicated in favor of his son John, Johnson was put in charge of the DOJ’s Secret Service branch.

On November 22, 1963, during a state visit to Texas, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by a sniper. Back in Washington, D.C., Johnson ordered the Secret Service to round up the rest of the Kennedy clan and take them to a safe location. That evening, Johnson went on television and announced that the plane carrying the Kennedys to Hyannis Port had blown up in midair. “For the good of the country,” he said, he would assume the powers of the executive himself. He then declared martial law . . .

While he solidified his grip on power, Johnson also began laying the groundwork for the conquest of his birth country.

“FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM . . .”

Under interrogation following his capture by Coalition forces, Johnson’s senior advisor Henry Kissinger revealed that since at least the 1960s, Johnson had had a recurring dream in which an angel recited to him the closing line of the Lord’s Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.” In the dream, Johnson understood “the kingdom” to be a reference to the Republic of Texas, while “the glory” was America; “the power” was Johnson himself, destined by God to unite the two nations—and ultimately, the entire North American continent—under one rule.

In September 1964, Johnson publicly accused the Texas CIA of masterminding the Kennedy killings. Among other evidence, he cited the suspicious death, in custody, of Dallas sniper Lee Harvey Oswald—murdered, Johnson said, to prevent him from revealing on whose orders he had acted. The Texas government formally denied Johnson’s charges. Johnson put his armies on alert and prepared America for war.

Both Kissinger and military strategist Robert McNamara recommended a naval blockade of the Texas coast followed by an amphibious assault. But Johnson, inspired by another dream, decided to attack over land. As Texas and America do not share a border, this meant going through another country—either the Pentecostal Gilead Heartland, or the independent kingdoms of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Johnson chose to go through Gilead. He manufactured a casus belli, claiming that American patrol boats on Lake Erie had been fired at by ships of Gilead. On November 1, 1964, he launched a three-pronged ground assault west out of Appalachia. The attack went smoothly at first, but on November 3, an early blizzard blanketed the Midwest and halted the advance. Pentecostal militias, undaunted by the snow, counterattacked the Americans’ supply lines; by the time the weather cleared two weeks later, Johnson’s troops were starving and running out of fuel and ammunition. They staged an emergency retreat to the mountains, but were forced to abandon much of their equipment, which the Gileadites then seized . . .