“It’s a fucking sandstorm, asshole!”

“Yes, and that creature they’ve got up at the house is responsible! Abu Ramzi told me—”

“Abu Ramzi is a fool!”

“Be quiet, both of you!” said the third Guard, who was looking not at the sky but at the road. “Someone’s out there.”

“Where? I don’t see any headlights.”

“Not in a vehicle. Men on foot.” He grabbed his rifle. “Call the main house and the other guard stations and tell them we may have intruders trying to get over the front wall.” On his way out the door, he hit a switch that brought up extra floodlights.

There was someone out there: Just beyond the gate, a figure was crouching to place something against the base of the wall. “Hey!” the Guardsman shouted. “Freeze!” But the figure jumped up and ran back into the storm. The Guardsman continued forward, his eye drawn to the object the figure had left behind: a canvas satchel with a blinking red light on its side.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Saddam Hussein said. He glanced sharply at Mr. Rammal, who threw up his hands in supplication.

“Don’t be too hard on your magician,” the jinn said. “His Akkadian isn’t bad. A few thousand years ago, his incantation might have worked. But I’m afraid you’ve both failed to appreciate what it is that I am.”

“What you are?” Saddam said. “I told you what you are: You’re my servant!”

“Once upon a time I was the property of kings,” the jinn demurred. “But during my long imprisonment I heard, from afar, the words of the prophets: Ibrahim, and Jesus, and last of all Mohammed, peace be unto him. Now I’ve said the words of the shahada and become a Muslim, and pagan enchantments no longer have power over me.”

“That’s not true!” Mr. Rammal said. “My spell drew you in! It forced you to reveal yourself!”

“My pride did most of the work, there.” The jinn shrugged apologetically. “But there is no pride in being a slave of Saddam Hussein—and though I really should stop presuming to know the mind of God, I can’t imagine the All-Compassionate would want me to serve such a wicked person.”

Saddam trembled with rage. He unsnapped the holster on his belt and drew out a huge revolver. Thumbing back the hammer, he pivoted and took aim at the sorcerer.

“No!” Mr. Rammal cried. Then the gun roared and he toppled over backwards onto the sand-strewn floor.

Uday stepped forward, eyes fixed on the jinn. “Let me hurt this one, father,” he said. “I’ll get him to do what you want.”

“Shut up,” Saddam said. He pointed the smoking gun muzzle at the jinn’s temple. “I could kill you, too.”

“You could,” the jinn agreed. “And then when I am dead, I must go before God who will judge me for all eternity. Whose wrath should I fear more?”

Saddam began to tremble again. But before he could pull the trigger a second time, there was an explosion somewhere out on the grounds. “What was that?”

The jinn tilted his head, listening to the wind. “A tall man,” he said. “More princely than you, but no less wicked. He means to make a sacrifice of your entire household.”

More noise: the clatter of assault rifles. It seemed to be coming from multiple locations.

“Qaeda,” said Qusay. He was holding a transceiver to his ear. “They’ve blown the front gate, and they may be coming up from the river as well.”

“You, and you!” Saddam said, gesturing with the revolver at two of his men. “Stay here and guard my property! Qusay, Uday, Abid, and the rest of you, follow me!” He went out into the hall, which was noisy with the shouts of the Republican Guard.

After the others had gone out and the door was shut behind them, a pale Tariq Aziz stepped forward from the shadows and stood wringing his hands over the body of the sorcerer. “This was not my doing,” he said. He looked at the jinn. “I didn’t do anything!”

“I will not have an evildoer for a friend,” the jinn replied.

“I don’t actually remember you,” Mustafa said. “I feel as though I should, but I don’t.”

“Nobody remembers me,” the captain replied. “Nobody but Saddam even knows who I am. It’s made the last couple years kind of difficult . . .”

They had entered the mansion through a back door, overpowering two more Guards in the process. Their goal was the converted prayer room, which Captain Lawrence had learned about from Saddam during one of their late-night sessions, and where he’d guessed the jinn would be taken. But they were still on the ground floor, searching for an unguarded flight of stairs, when all hell broke loose. Now they were hiding in a room just off the chamber that held the Nebuchadnezzar statue. It was the same side room where Mustafa had encountered the English boy; he could still see some toy cars and trucks underneath the furniture.

“You do remember, though,” Mustafa said, careful to keep his voice low. “Why? Because you’re the one who made the wish?”

“I go back and forth on that,” Captain Lawrence said. “Days that I’m feeling sorry for myself, I think God’s punishing me. Most days, though, I figure I got what I asked for. What fun would it be to change the world if you didn’t remember what you changed it from?”

“And Saddam? How did you become his guest?”

“After I realized I couldn’t go back home—that there was no home for me to go back to—I decided I might as well make myself useful.”

“You tried to kill him?”

The captain nodded. “Seemed only right, seeing as he’s supposed to be dead. But Qusay was in charge of the Guard that night and they caught me coming in. When Saddam figured out what I was, he decided to add me to his collection.”

A squad of Republican Guards ran through Nebuchadnezzar’s chamber and charged down the hall towards the mansion’s front door. Most of the gunfire seemed to be coming from the front of the estate. Mustafa kept hoping that the attackers would announce themselves as ABI, but he knew it was too soon for them to have gotten here.

“So what about you?” the captain said. “You’re a cop again, obviously. But what kind?”

“Homeland Security.”

Another nod. “Federal law enforcement—above Saddam. So you got your wish, too.”

“No,” Mustafa said pointedly, “I didn’t.” But then after a moment, he added: “It’s not a bad life, though. And most of the problems with it are at least of my own making, not someone else’s.”

All the power in the house suddenly went out. The side room was plunged into darkness, but Nebuchadnezzar’s chamber remained dimly illuminated by the apocalyptic orange glow coming through the windows in the dome.

“All right,” Amal said, looking out through the archway. “If we’re going to move, I’d say this is the time.”

“Go straight across, to that other opening over there,” Mustafa said pointing. “I remember I passed a stairwell on the way to Saddam’s office.”

They were halfway across the chamber when Uday Hussein and a squad of Guardsmen emerged from the very archway they were headed towards. Both parties stopped short and for an instant just stared. Then one of the Guards started to raise his assault rifle and Amal opened fire with hers, killing that Guard and the man behind him. Then everyone was firing, and moving—diving towards the chamber’s most obvious source of cover. Uday and the two remaining Guardsmen ended up on one side of the Nebuchadnezzar statue; Amal, Mustafa, Samir, and Captain Lawrence ended up on the other.

Amal sat with her back against the statue’s base and fitted a fresh clip into her rifle. “Uday Hussein!” she called out. “We are federal agents! Throw down your weapons and put your hands up!”

Uday laughed. “Is that you, Amal bint Shamal? You want us to surrender? Very well, come over here and show us your ass, and maybe we’ll think about it!”

Captain Lawrence rose to a crouch and prepared to make an end run around Nebuchadnezzar. But Mustafa, looking up at the statue, suddenly recalled something; he put a hand on the captain’s forearm to restrain him and then leaned over to whisper in Amal’s ear.