JOHNSON: Yes, but one is God’s number. And zero, you can guess who that belongs to. Eight, however, eight could be a man, or aspects of man.

AL TALIB: And how do you interpret this dream, Mr. President?

JOHNSON: Some things don’t change. The world could be turned upside down and still some things would remain exactly as they are. The Almighty Himself, of course. Good and evil. The creed of God’s disciples.

AL TALIB: And the person of Lyndon Baines Johnson?

JOHNSON: I am who I am.

AL TALIB: And the transformation of the world, what is that an allusion to? The invasion of your country?

JOHNSON: A week ago I would have answered yes. Now . . . Now I think my reversal of fortune is only a piece of a larger whole.

AL TALIB: What is the larger whole?

JOHNSON: You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. But it all makes sense now. I understand what I’m doing here. It’s about continuity.

AL TALIB: Continuity, Mr. President?

JOHNSON: God wanted to keep a Texan in charge. He upended everything else, but He still wanted that: a Texan, with something resembling a brain, to lead America in her darkest hour. And really, who else are you going to get to fill that role?

AL TALIB: I don’t understand.

JOHNSON: That’s all right, Mr. Al Talib. You will, in God’s own time. Peace be unto you, sir.

During the second refueling stop, in the Azores, some of the crew came off the plane to pray and Mustafa joined them. Afterwards he noticed something about the way they’d been facing, and realized that since leaving UAS airspace they’d crossed another invisible boundary. He spoke to one of the airmen, who confirmed that he was right.

“From here, the direction of the Qibla is eighty-six degrees, slightly north of east. It’s an effect of the earth’s curvature,” the airman added, used to dealing with civilian officials whose grasp of world geography was poor. “Mecca is closer to the equator, so on a flat map it looks as though you ought to pray facing southeast. But if you plot it on the surface of a globe, you see that the shortest distance to Mecca is actually a great-circle route, which—”

“I know what a great circle is,” Mustafa said gently, picturing a younger version of himself standing at the front of a classroom.

“The effect is more pronounced in America,” the airman said. “In Washington, the Qibla direction is fifty-six degrees. And should you continue on to the west coast of the continent, you’d be facing almost due north when you prayed. Of course the cannibals in the Rocky Mountains would probably eat you before you got that far . . .”

When they were airborne again, the pilot announced they’d be at Andrews Air Force Base in another five hours, around 9 p.m. local time. A flight attendant described the special landing procedure. To minimize the threat from ground-based missile attacks, the plane would stay above ten thousand feet until it was directly over the airfield, then spiral down quickly to the runway. “Especially in darkness, it may seem like we are out of control and about to crash, but God willing we’ll be fine, so please don’t panic.”

Mustafa had more reading to do but decided to rest his eyes for a few minutes first, and fell into an uneasy sleep that lasted for the rest of the flight. When the cargolifter began its terminal dive, he dreamed he started awake to find the plane packed with Americans. In the seat beside him a woman was reciting a rosary in terror, and when Mustafa stood up and looked about the now strangely enlarged passenger cabin, he saw other frightened faces—some praying, some crying, some whispering covertly into cell phones. None of these people seemed able to see him, but that could change in a heartbeat, and he did not think it would be healthy to become the focus of all that fear.

Struggling to keep his balance in the steeply angled aisle, he made his way to the front of the plane. Two Arab men in civilian dress stood guard outside the cockpit door, and with the certainty of dream Mustafa knew they were no more his allies than the Christians in the back. He passed ghostlike into the cockpit, where another Arab sat hunched over the controls.

They were very close to the ground. It was morning, not night, and Mustafa could clearly see the American capital across the river ahead. He also saw an airport off to the right, but they weren’t turning towards it. Instead they were headed straight for a large pentagonal building on the near side of the river. This was deliberate. The pilot had the plane under control and he was calm, smiling like a man on his way into paradise.

“Hey, moron!” Mustafa shouted at him. “You’re going to murder us all, what’s wrong with you?”

The pilot gave no answer, just dipped the nose of the plane a bit farther. Mustafa made a grab for the controls and woke for real aboard the cargolifter even as its wheels bumped the runway at Andrews.

Across the aisle, Amal let out a sigh of relief and then laughed. “Now that’s a landing!” she said. Samir, tearing at his armrests in the next row forward, added: “Already I hate this country.”

THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE

Green Zone

The Green Zone is a heavily fortified region of Washington, D.C., that served as the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority. It measures roughly 10 square kilometers and is surrounded by a blastproof concrete wall topped with electrified razor wire. Entry into the Zone is only possible via helicopter or through one of seven tightly controlled checkpoints.

The Green Zone includes the National Mall, a large open park space lined with monuments and government buildings that is claimed by some sources to have been the original inspiration for the Zone’s name. By 2004, however, with the American insurgency in full swing, “Green Zone” was understood to be a reference to the fact that this was an oasis of relative safety in an increasingly dangerous area. The rest of Washington—and America—became, by extension, “the Red Zone.”

In January 2009, control of the Green Zone passed from the Coalition Authority to the newly installed American government. Many of the Coalition troops have since withdrawn to bases outside Washington. However, a sizeable garrison of UAS Marines remains within the Zone to safeguard the Arabian, Persian, and Kurdish embassies, and to help American security forces defend against the continuing insurgent attacks.

NOTABLE SITES IN THE GREEN ZONE

· The White House

· The Capitol Building (undergoing reconstruction)

· The Washington Monument

· The CSA Treasury Building

· The Smithsonian Creation Science Museum

· The Watergate Complex

Mustafa woke again, from a dream of smokeless fire. He was lying on a four-poster bed with an embroidered canopy. Samir was a snoring lump on a second bed to his left, and to his right was a massive oak chest of drawers. A sign atop the chest, just legible in the faint glow of a nightlight, claimed that all three pieces of furniture were the onetime property of Pope Urban II. As for the room, it had originally been an office; looking between the bedposts Mustafa could see a windowed door, the words ASSISTANT CURATOR painted in reverse on the glass.

He sat up, remembering a helicopter ride from the airbase and a hasty meet-and-greet with a Marine Colonel Yunus who had been assigned to act as their host. Mustafa estimated he’d gotten to sleep between eleven and midnight. His watch now said 11:30, which, whether a.m. or p.m., seemed unlikely.