I want to thank Cate Paterson for her support both locally and internationally, Joel Naoum for his professionalism, patience and determination to draw the best from my work and Nicola O’Shea for the black art of copyediting. And finally, to scientists everywhere, whose discoveries are the fuel for fiction writers all over the world.

Red winds, the disfiguration of faces and people being swallowed into the ground. The moon is buried in darkness and the world is folded.

Signs of the Yawm al-Qiyamah,
the Day of Judgment,
Mohammed ibn Ismail al-Bukhari

(810–870)

ONE

Beneath the ruins of Persepolis, modern Iran

‘Are you ready to witness history being written, my friend?’ Mahmud Shihab appeared from the back of the canvas tent like a ghost. ‘Salem Agha-ye, Hakim,’ he said softly and kissed the military man on each cheek before grasping his upper arms and looking earnestly into his face. ‘History being written in this, the very cradle of Persian antiquity – it is fitting, yes?’

‘Salem mamnoon, Shihab. Yes, inshallah, God willing.’ The soldier nodded and parted his dry lips in a yellow smile, showing rows of teeth stained by decades of smoking the pungent local Marlleak cigarettes.

Mahmud Shihab led Hakim to the back of the tent, where a modern metal door was embedded incongruously in the ancient stone wall. He entered a code into the recessed keypad and the heavy door swung inwards soundlessly. As Shihab escorted the military man down a dimly lit corridor carved into the interior of the ancient Persepolis ruins, a proud smile curved his lips at the thought of the design and engineering feat he had mastered beneath this once great city of the kings. Above them, its mighty stone skeleton still dominated the landscape and had survived twenty-five centuries of rain and rock-cracking heat – a powerful symbol of a time when Persia had commanded the world.

And now Shihab had been chosen to oversee a project so important that its success would shape Iran’s place in the world for the next century, or perhaps even forever. The operation was codenamed Zirzamin Jamshid, The Basement of the Kings. Shihab liked the name – Jamshid was a mythical king who, legend had it, had buried his amassed treasures throughout his mighty empire. The president had chosen the name himself, and had told Shihab that there was no more valuable treasure than the capability to produce nuclear weaponry beneath the scorching earth of the Iranian desert. Shihab recalled that first meeting with the great man, his intense countenance and his softly spoken command. ‘Bring me success and you will bathe in riches in this life and the next.’ He had been too nervous to reply and had only nodded and bowed.

Hakim sneezed, interrupting Shihab’s thoughts. Beneath the ruins, the temperature was pleasantly cool, but the atmosphere was dry and filled with fine powdery dust that sparkled in the cones of light thrown down from the low-wattage ceiling lamps.