“As am I a student of history,” said the Kagama rebel chief. His ebony face looked almost coal black in the dim light of the desert evening. “My studies tell me that territories swiftly claimed can as swiftly be reclaimed. What do your studies tell you?”

“They tell me that history is made by great men. And something about you indicates that you are a great man—a Caliph indeed.”

“The Prophet has been generous with his gifts,” said the Kagama, who had little time for false humility.

“Yet great men have great enemies,” the Libyan intelligence official said. “You must be very cautious. You must be very cautious indeed. You are a threat to powers that will stop at nothing to annihilate you.”

“It is possible to be crippled by caution,” said Tabari.

“You speak truly,” said the Libyan. “A risk for lesser men than you. It is your very boldness that vouchsafes your greatness, the security and survival of your cause, its final victory. Your khalifa shall be established. Yet everything will depend upon the timing and the targeting.” He looked around at the rapt faces of the five seniormost leaders of the Islamic Jihad, and then returned to the fabled leader of the Kagama Liberation Front. “Come,” he said. “Let us go for a walk together, Caliph. Just you and I.”

“Al-Mustashar’s advice is a treasure beyond price,” one of the hosts told Ahmad Tabari. “Go with him.”

As the two men strolled around the desert encampment, a cool wind began to gust, billowing through the Caliph’s long robes.

“I can assure you that your setbacks will prove only temporary,” the Libyan colonel told him in a low voice. “There is much I will be able to help you with, as will certain of our allies within the Islamic Republic of Mansur. Soon your cause will be coming along swimmingly.”

“And in what will it swim?” the islander asked the desert warrior with a brooding half smile.

“That’s easy,” Ibrahim Maghur replied, and his face was utterly serious. “Blood. The blood of the infidel.”

“The blood of the infidel,” the Caliph repeated. The words were both reassuring and uplifting.

“How the hell can you know such a thing?” Janson demanded.

“Cross-tabulation of wire transfer indices,” said Berman, vigorously stirring jam into his tea. “Origination code can’t be spoofed.”

“Come again?”

“Sixteen million dollars comes from account in name of Peter Novak.”

“How? Where?”

“Where I say. Amsterdam. International Netherlands Group. Where Liberty Foundation have headquarters?”

“Amsterdam.”

“So no surprise.”

“You’re telling me that at a time when Peter Novak was locked away in a dungeon in Anura, he authorized a transfer of sixteen million dollars into a blind account I controlled? What kind of sense does that make?”

“Could be preauthorization. Preauthorization possible. Postauthorization not possible.”

“No jokes, Grigori. This is crazy.”

“I just tell you origination code.”