‘The moderate majority was irrelevant in all of those cases,’ Roth said. ‘Say just five per cent of Muslims are your pure, by-the-book variety, or what we like to call “radicals”. Islam has one and a half billion followers worldwide. That equates to seventy-five million hardcore jihadists who’ve fully digested every word their prophet told them and are willing to act out his supreme commands. They outnumber the United States military’s combatant forces by fifty-seven to one. And that seventy-five million is another conservative figure, because you can’t always trust that a self-proclaimed “moderate” ain’t just putting on a disguise to mask their true intentions.’

‘Taqiyya,’ Ben said.

‘You got it, pal. The Islamic doctrine of deception that authorises Muslims to hide their real beliefs, convictions, feelings, opinions, to trick the infidels into trusting them. Straight from the words of the Ayatolla Khomeini, when he said, “Allah taught man to lie so that we can confuse our enemies. Should we remain truthful at the cost of defeat and danger to the Faith? We say not.”’

Ben said, ‘I don’t care about their ideology. All that matters to me is whether a person is trying to inflict harm, against me or someone else. Then I have to try to do something about it.’

Roth shook his head harder. ‘You’re getting it back to front. The ideology is the driving force behind the whole thing. The individual nutjob trying to blow himself up and take out a hundred innocent people with him is just a symptom. The real disease is the ideas inside the book. You can’t just treat the symptom. You have to eradicate the root cause.’

‘So you’d want to round up every existing copy of the Qur’an and burn them.’

‘On a bonfire a mile high,’ Roth said with conviction.

‘If history has taught us anything, Tyler, it’s that you can’t ever hope to change what people believe, and you shouldn’t even try. We all know what happens when you try to suppress faith. The best you can wish for is to control their actions, if necessary. In this case, to make sure that the craziest ones don’t carry out their intentions. Then we can do whatever the hell we need to stop them.’

Roth laughed, the intensity in his expression suddenly softening. He stubbed out the remains of his joint. ‘Well, I guess that’ll have to do to be getting on with. We can continue this theological discussion later. It’s late, I’m pooped and I’m gonna hit the sack. There’s a spare room if you want it.’

‘What happens tomorrow?’

‘Let me sleep on it,’ Roth said. ‘I’ll let you know in the morning.’