“So be it,” Janson said after a pause. “These aren’t men with poetry in their souls.”

“And, yes, they also understood that your name wasn’t exactly unknown to us.”

“Because of Baaqlina.”

“Come.” Márta Lang stood up. “I’m going to introduce you to my team. Four men and women who are here to help you any way they can. Any information you need, they’ll have, or know how to find out. We have dossiers filled with signals-intelligence intercepts, and all the relevant information we could gather in what little time we had. Maps, charts, architectural reconstructions. It’s all at your disposal.”

“Just one thing,” Janson said. “I know the reasons you’re turning to me for help, and I can’t refuse you. But have you considered that those same reasons may be why I’m exactly the wrong person for the job?”

Márta Lang gave him a steely look but did not reply.

The Caliph, attired in brilliantly white robes, walked across the Great Hall, a large atrium on the second floor of the eastern wing of the Stone Palace. All signs of the bloodbath had been rinsed away, or almost all. The intricate geometric pattern on the encaustic tiled floor was disfigured by only a faint rust tinge on the grout where blood had been allowed to rest too long.

Now he took a seat at the head of a thirty-foot-long table, where tea harvested from the province of Kenna had been poured for him. Standing to either side of him were the members of his personal security detail, stalwart and simple men with vigilant eyes who had been with him for years. The Kagama delegates—the seven men who had participated in the negotiations convened by Peter Novak—had already been summoned and would arrive momentarily. All of them had performed their duties well. They had signaled an exhaustion with the struggle, a recognition of “new realities,” and lulled the meddlesome mogul and the government representatives with talk of “concessions” and “compromise.”

Everything had been executed according to plan by the seven plausible Kagama elders, all of whom had the movement credentials to be accepted as spokesmen for the Caliph. Which was why one final act of service would be required of them.

“Sahib, the delegates are here,” said a young courier, keeping his eyes bashfully on the ground as he approached.

“Then you will wish to remain and observe, to tell others what transpired in this beautiful room,” the Caliph replied. It was a command, and would be honored as such.

The wide mahogany doors slid open at the other end of the Great Hall, and the seven men filed in. They were flushed with excitement, buoyant with the expectation of the Caliph’s gratitude.

“I behold the men who negotiated so expertly with the representatives of the Republic of Anura,” the Caliph said, in a loud, clear voice. He rose. “Revered officers of the Kagama Liberation Front.”