Mustafa turned his attention to the pale man. “I am Mustafa al Baghdadi,” he said. “Who are you and what do you want with me?”

“My name is Timothy McVeigh,” the pale man replied. “I’m an agent of the Texas CIA and I was sent here to find you—to protect you.” His eyes flicked briefly to the dead man, and then to the pile of rubble across the pike, before returning to Mustafa. “The director would like to see you, sir.”

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Christian Intelligence Agency

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The Christian Intelligence Agency, or CIA (sometimes also referred to by its members as “Christ in Action”), is the primary espionage arm of the government of the Evangelical Republic of Texas. According to the public version of its charter, the CIA’s function is to collect and analyze intelligence on foreign governments, organizations, and individuals. However, it is believed that the agency also engages in domestic spying and acts as a secret police force, detaining, torturing, and assassinating political dissidents.

The CIA’s headquarters are located in Crawford, about 15 kilometers west of the city of Waco . . .

“No,” Umm Husam said firmly. “I cannot permit this.”

They were standing in the parking lot of another strip mall on the far side of the crossroads. More Humvees and a tank had arrived, and the road was now blocked off in all four directions. The only nonmilitary vehicles that had been allowed through were a couple of fire engines, whose crews, under the watchful eye of Marine riflemen, were working to put out the gas station. Two helicopter gunships now circled overhead, and a medevac chopper had just landed. With Lieutenant Fahd heading back to base still unconscious, Umm Husam was the senior officer on site.

“I understand your reluctance to allow me to go with this man,” Mustafa said. “But if he wanted to kill me, I think he would have done so already.”

“If he kills you he cannot kidnap you,” said Umm Husam. “Do you know the term Verschärfte Vernehmung?”

“ ‘Sharpened interrogation.’ It’s a Lutheran euphemism for torture.”

“American Protestants call it enhanced interrogation. The latest version is what’s known as crucifixion: The victim is tied spread-eagle to the hood of a car and driven around at high speed. Road debris pelts the front of the body, while heat from the engine block causes burns to the back.”

“I don’t believe he intends to crucify me, either.”

“If you are wrong, you won’t be the only one who pays.” Umm Husam shook her head. “I am sorry, but I don’t wish to risk more Marines on a rescue mission.”

Mustafa looked at McVeigh, standing just out of earshot with a pair of Marine guards. “He predicted this would be your reaction.”

“That hardly makes him a seer.”

“He asked me to give you this.” Mustafa held up a gas station map of the county, backfolded to show a portion of Herndon village. “A gesture of good faith, he says. He’s marked the location of a house that he claims is the current headquarters of the leader of the militia that attacked us.”

Umm Husam chuckled. “You want to know who really lives there? Someone this man has a grudge against. Perhaps someone he owes money to.”

“Here I would be inclined to agree,” said Mustafa, “except for one thing . . .” He showed her what was written on the map beside the circled address. “Do you recognize this name?”

“No.”

“So it’s no one famous, then?”

“Not that I am aware of. Why?”

“Before I left Baghdad, I was shown a list of people who were in some way connected to my investigation here. This name was on that list.”

Umm Husam remained skeptical. “What list is this? Who showed it to you?”

Before he could answer, Amal appeared beside him. She’d been helping load Salim into the medevac chopper, and the hand she grabbed the map with was still sticky with her son’s blood.

She said to Mustafa: “Find out what the house looks like.”

McVeigh’s co-disciple Terry Nichols drove up in a silver van with a guitar logo and the words MESSIAH PRODUCTIONS painted on its side. The Marines let him through the roadblock, and McVeigh opened the van’s rear doors and bade Mustafa get in. “You’ll have to sit on the floor,” he said apologetically, “but it won’t be a long ride.”

“It’s fine,” said Mustafa. “Do you need to blindfold me?”

“Not for this part of the trip, no.” He glanced up knowingly at the helicopters overhead. “It’d be pointless.”

Samir, who had not been invited, stood by waiting to see if McVeigh would wave him aboard at the last moment. Umm Husam, in the midst of a planning session with Amal and several Marines, looked over as well, her expression making it clear that she still wasn’t happy about this. Mustafa nodded to them both, mouthing, “God willing.” Then McVeigh shut the doors.

The ride, as promised, was brief, their immediate destination a railway underpass just off the Davis Pike. As they entered the underpass and eased to a stop, Mustafa raised his head up and saw a second van, with identical markings, driving away out the far side: a decoy for the helicopters.

“Now we wait awhile,” McVeigh said. “Go ahead and stretch your legs, but stay under cover.”

They all got out. Nichols went to urinate behind a pillar. McVeigh lit a cigarette and offered one to Mustafa. As they stood smoking, Mustafa looked around the underpass, his attention drawn to a phrase—T.A.B., HAJJI!—spray-painted on the far wall. A shallow pit dug into the embankment beneath this graffito held the remains of something that had been doused in gasoline and burned. Mustafa drew deeply on his cigarette and tried not to think too hard.

Eventually a car came. The driver, a gray-haired white man with the beard and sun-leathered skin of a Rocky Mountain tribal warrior, got out and nodded to McVeigh and Nichols. “Keys are in it, Randall,” McVeigh told him, and the man nodded again and got into the van and sat behind the wheel with the engine off. Nichols got into the front passenger seat of the car.

McVeigh turned to Mustafa. He pulled a cloth hood from his pocket and said: “If you don’t mind . . .”

This next part of the trip was longer. With the hood over his head Mustafa couldn’t see the road, but the cloth was thin enough that he could still judge light from dark, so when they stopped again he could tell they were outside in the open. McVeigh helped Mustafa out of the back of the car and led him, still hooded, across a gravel-covered expanse.

“Two steps up, here.” They pushed through a thick plastic curtain. “OK,” McVeigh said, and Mustafa pulled the hood off.

They were inside a building that was still under construction. The outer plywood walls had been attached, but the windows were open holes covered with plastic sheeting and the interior was bare studs and concrete. The studs were furry with dust, as if construction had halted some time ago.

“This way,” McVeigh said.

The building was long and modular, each of its several sections consisting of a cluster of rooms surrounding a central corridor. Each section was more finished than the last—drywall appeared, then paint, fixtures, and carpeting—and the repetitive nature of the floor plan gave Mustafa the sense of a single office suite assembling itself around him as he walked. The final section had power. The sudden blast of air-conditioning caught Mustafa by surprise and he reacted as his father might have, clutching at the gooseflesh on his arms. “The director likes it cold,” Timothy McVeigh said.