Well, what of it? He had made it his life’s work to deceive. He had deceived his brother, almost every day, greater and greater deceptions, only to see what he could get away with. No, Harris, I don’t know what happened to your books. No, Harris, I have no idea how the stolen whiskey bottle ended up in your room. No, Harris, I did not subscribe to those pornographic magazines in your name. They were little things, of course, childish pranks, but then they had been children. But he’d taught himself how to lie, how to explain away the impossible, to make others believe him when his falsehood was so obvious.

Now he sat with the three men in the dark hovel. There was but a single light above them, a naked bulb powered by a generator that hummed outside. All three stared at him in hot suspicion and dull curiosity, but mostly only one spoke, their leader, a man named Sanam. He was very tall and painfully thin, with a long beard and very intense eyes. He wore the same white robes and taqiyah as Archer.

Sanam sipped his tea. “It is all very sudden,” he said in Urdu. He had been switching all night from English to Urdu to Kashmiri to Arabic as if to keep Archer on his toes, to make him slip up, but Archer spoke all of the languages perfectly, just as Sakari had made certain he could.

“Death is often very sudden,” said Archer. “My father’s death is a terrible blow to me personally and of course to our cause, but it is also the will of Allah. My father has died and I will mourn him, but I will also honor him by continuing his work. It is unfortunate that he should die just as events are coming to a head, but we must not let our trials stand in the way of our goals.”

“I do not love to hear this fair-haired American speak of Allah or the Prophet or the holy Koran,” said Umer, one of the other men. Of the three men, he was the most uncomfortable with Sikari’s disappearance from the scene. “All night you have sprinkled your conversation with such things as though you were salting your meat, but are we children to be so easily deceived? You do not look like a Muslim. You look like an American underpants model.”

Archer sensed Umer would be his greatest obstacle. “I do not see how my European ancestors must keep me from following the path of Islam,” he said, speaking now in Arabic. “My father raised me as a Muslim man ought to raise his son. That I am adopted is no matter.”