“Hey, buddy, looking good.”

  The sound of Sherif’s voice singing out in English startled me. Down below, Chuck, in his Moses beard and wig, aimed his staff up at us like a rifle and pretended to fire.

  “See? He really does think that we’re friends,” my cousin muttered in Arabic. “I really am a better actor than he is.”

  I shook my head in wonder as I joined him on a platform some eighty feet above the ground. Sherif had constructed a persona that was completely at odds with who he had always been: a cheerful happy-go-lucky laborer in denim overalls who whistled while he worked. And one of the peculiarities of our situation is the more serious our operation became, the more he relaxed and developed a sense of humor.

  “Look around,” he said, hands on hips. “What do you see?”

  Now that the chariot-race rehearsal was over and medics had taken away the fallen man, there was another large-scale rehearsal going on at the right side of the gate. Hundreds of Egyptians, who looked to my eye like village peasants, had been dressed up in rags like slaves of olden days. Perspiring and mostly shirtless, they were using ropes and push poles to drag a giant obelisk toward a square-shaped hole in the ground. The pickup truck carrying DeMille swung around and the director climbed out with his megaphone in his hand, not missing a beat as he transitioned toward rehearsing this sequence.

  “Push harder, you Jews!” he shouted as an Egyptian assistant director tried to keep up with simultaneous translation through a smaller bullhorn. “Harder! Strain your backs, show your muscles. Pull, you mud turtles, pull! Put your backs into it. This is the bitter brine of affliction! Chico, get some more overseers out there, for Chrissakes. Let’s see some real acting! Some emotion! It looks like you’re all posing for a Sears, Roebuck catalogue.…”

  Idris, the production assistant who had replaced me, ran up behind him with the director’s chair. I must confess that it hurt my pride more than a little when he opened it just in time for Mr. DeMille to be seated.

  “What I see is people making a movie.” I answered Sherif’s question. “A very expensive movie.”

  “Good. That’s all you’re meant to see. A pack of filthy lies meant to make us the villains and the Jews the heroes of this libelous fairy tale.”

  “Okay.” I had heard this before from the professor. “What else am I supposed to be seeing?”

  For once, Sherif’s smile overwhelmed his beard. “We’re going to make our own movie, inside their movie. Only it’s going to be much bigger and better than Cecil B. DeMille’s, because it’s going to be real.”

  I picked up a hammer someone had left lying on the platform. “Sherif, what are you talking about?”

  I happened to glance down at that moment and saw Raymond and Mona off to the side of the obelisk rehearsal. He was handing her his ugly little camera with its revolving lenses and showing her how to turn its crank and look through the viewfinder. I had to restrain myself from dropping the hammer on them.

  “Ali, forget them.” My cousin touched the yellow-painted wall we were standing next to. “Look at this.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s just painted wood panel on massive scaffolding,” he explained. “Eleven stories of space. I’ve had them put sandbags at the bottom of the pylons to help stabilize the whole structure so it doesn’t sway too much when the wind blows.”

  “And?”

  “You didn’t ask me what’s inside the sandbags.”

  “Sand, I’m guessing.”

  “TNT and ammonium nitrate. From the ammunition dumps the British left behind in Sinai and the Western Desert.”

  I abruptly became very self-conscious about the vibrations we could set off with any large movement or loud word.

  “Don’t worry.” Sherif nudged me. “They’re not hooked up to any kind of fuse yet.”

  “Sherif, we’re not talking about blowing up the set. Are we?”

  “Of course we are. Why do you think I brought you up here?”

  “But what purpose would it serve? It’s only a movie.”

  “A very big movie. A very big movie that our enemy Nasser has chosen to support. That the Americans have spent truckloads of money on already.” He was clearly enjoying slipping back into his familiar childhood role of being the one to lecture me. “If Nasser can’t protect them with their massive investments, then the foreigners will take their money and go home.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” I allowed.

  “Of course it is. Nasser’s regime will be destabilized and collapse within days. Mohammed Naguib will be brought back into power and the Ikhwan will have a seat at the table. In fact, we’ll own the table, because Naguib will owe us everything.”

  I grew dizzy, realizing how far we could fall. “But do you really think the people will be with us, Sherif?” I asked. “It sounds like hundreds could be hurt.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Ali. We’re not going to do it when there are bystanders and risk casualties.” My cousin took me by both shoulders and shook me. “Think, man. We’re going to set off the charges in the middle of the night, when there’s no one minding the set, except our people in the security ranks, and we can get everything we need into place. It’ll send up a fireball that they’ll be able to see all the way back in Cairo, fifteen miles away. Can’t you just picture it against the black night sky?”

  He put his hands up, framing the shot like a director so I could visualize it.

  “I’m seeing the great Cecil B. DeMille sleeping peacefully in his king-sized bed in the penthouse beside the Nile.” Sherif moved his hands like he was locked into a panning shot. “In the meantime, Nasser is in his bed at general headquarters. Suddenly they both hear a massive boom. In their different locations, they both throw back the sheets and roll out of bed in alarm.” His voice grew thick with portent, as if he were narrating a newsreel. “Through their windows, they see the glorious red eruption like a volcano in the desert night. Oh my, Ali. It will take the heart out of them. Like God himself has decreed their defeat.”

  The more he talked, the less far-fetched it seemed. I should explain, Alex, that this was long before the time when suicide bombers and the massive killing of civilians in peacetime were regular news events. But we’d both been out on the street during the revolution just over two years before, and had seen how the king had been deposed after the foreigners’ hotels and businesses were set ablaze with minimal casualties.

  “Will it work?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘Will it work’?” Sherif frowned, with the kind of withering condescension DeMille sometimes showed his assistants.

  “Don’t explosions need something to push against?”

  “It will have something to push against.” He stopped and sighed as if he needed to remember to be patient with those of lesser vision. “This structure will be closed up before they start filming. Don’t you see? We can use what they’ve built against them. And do you know where we first got the notion?”

  “Not at all.”

  “From the Jews themselves.” He pointed in the general direction of Israel. “When they got rid of the British.”

  It took me a moment to understand what he was referring to. Eight years before, our enemies in Jerusalem had their own war to free themselves of the English mandate. Zionists from the Irgun terror group bombed the King David Hotel, where the foreign authorities had their headquarters. They snuck in disguised as Arab workers and waiters, and killed nearly a hundred people. Publicly, most people I knew in Egypt called it “terrorism”; privately, some, especially in the Muslim Brotherhood, admired the boldness and ingenuity.

  “They put the bombs in milk cans by the support columns,” Sherif said, yanking on his beard as his excitement grew. “We’ll use the gasoline in the generators below as kicker charges. It’s brilliant, if I don’t say so myself. The explosion will ignite the material we’ve embedded up here and—boom—if we time it all correctly, the whole thing will collapse under its own weight and burst into the conflagration. Without anyone getting so much as a splinter in the process.”

  I could see how much he wanted my admiration, just as he had when we were boys with our virtue society.

  “It could work,” I admitted. “I see you’ve thought it through.”

  In a way, my cousin was a man ahead of his time. He was envisioning exactly the kind of staged act of destruction that could be filmed and shown over and over on twenty-four-hour news networks and the internet.

  “It will be just like this stupid movie you dragged me to,” he said, wanting to share his enthusiasm. “The one where the blind man tears down the pillars and the temple collapses—”

  “Samson and Delilah? Mr. DeMille’s movie?”

  “He made that?” My cousin threw his head back and for the first time I could remember gave a full-throated laugh. “Oh my God, this is even better. This makes it perfect.”

  “It would be ironic,” I admitted.

  “You know, this won’t even stop him from making this moronic Moses movie,” Sherif said in a musing voice. “He just won’t be able to do it here. He’ll probably just take the insurance money and go back to Hollywood.”

  I must have looked sad when he mentioned that faraway place because he cupped my chin in his hand and squeezed it.

  “Oh, poor Al Harrison,” he said. “You weren’t still thinking they were going to take you with them, were you, Al Harrison?”

  I pushed his hand away. “I should have never told you about that.”

  Down below, Mona was aiming the camera up at us with Raymond hanging over her shoulder.

  I grimaced and bit my lips as I turned back toward the façade. It was better to think about my cousin’s operation. I wanted to feel strong instead of broken. I pictured high-velocity shock waves erupting from the hidden places, knocking out the base on one side of the gate and then the other, destabilizing the structure and causing it to come crashing down, flimsy as a house of matchsticks, nails and planks flying, the giant brought to its knees, collapsing in a mighty thundercloud and leaving only smoldering wreckage.

  My pulse began to quicken as I imagined being part of something so momentous and devastating. I would not have to think of myself as a loser who had disgraced himself in Sinai. Who wouldn’t want to be a warrior instead?

  “But what is it you need me for?” I asked. “I have no ordnance training.”

  “Don’t you see? That’s the beauty of it. No offense, Ali. But everyone thinks you’re a harmless toady who works for movie people.”

  “Oh, thank you for that.” I looked up at the boiling clouds, knowing the sarcasm would be lost on him.

  “Don’t be so sensitive,” he said. “You’re not on anybody’s security watch list, like some of the others in the Ikhwan. So after work tonight, you’ll go by the Mena House switchboard. There will be an envelope in your name left with the concierge, with money and an address inside. It will be an out-of-the-way place.”

  “What will happen when I get there?”

  “There’s an English soldier who says he’s willing to work with us—for a price. He claims he has access to time pencils.”

  “What are those?”

  “Fuses for the explosives.” He saw me look at him blankly and dropped his voice. “Instead of long fuses leading to detonators, they’re just compact devices that you can time to go off.”

  “How much trouble could I get into if I’m caught?”

  “It’s not going to be a problem. There probably won’t be any security officers around to see you. We’ve planned a distraction event. We finally got the permits, so they’ll be watching the march we’re having in the streets to recognize the martyrdom of the imam. And what you’re buying aren’t explosives anyway. They need to be connected to blasting caps to set off the explosives. They can’t arrest you for having them. I just need someone I can trust not to run away with the money.”

  The platform we were standing on was no longer swaying in the wind. But my interior scaffolding was still vibrating. Especially when I looked down again and saw Raymond put his hands on Mona’s shoulders and turn her like a piece of equipment, to film something else.

  “And you really think we can pull this off?” I asked.

  Sherif put a hand over his heart. “Look, Ali, from the time we were small you’ve said you wanted to be like the cowboys and the soldiers in the movies. Now is your chance. You can help bring down this hypocrite Nasser. And when the histories of this time are written and our names can be revealed as the victors, you’ll be remembered as a hero.”

  “I wish I could be as certain as you are.”

  “Our side will prevail,” Sherif assured me. “We’ll be celebrated. Despite themselves, the Americans will even make a movie of it.”

  “About this attack? You think they’d show their own set in flames?”

  “Definitely.” He nodded. “They’ll show it all over the world, like that zeppelin that blew up.” He walked toward the ladder to begin the long climb down. “Trust me. If there’s money to be made from blowing things up, they’ll sell tickets.”

  February 3, 2015

  To: GrandpaAli71@aol.com

  From: landocalr@protonmail.com

  Grandpa,

  I wish that you and Sherif could see where I am now. It is truly a paradise.

  All armed resistance has been pushed aside and the pharaoh’s soldiers have melted away like the cowards they are. We have come into this town, which I still am not permitted to name, and we have changed it almost overnight. The black flag of our militia flies over the town square. Like your cousin, I am working the Promotion of Virtue unit for now. All the haram places that sold liquor under the counter have been shut down. So have the stores that sold CDs and DVDs with Western depravity. Now the voice of the muezzin rings out from the minarets, and the songs of Jay-Z and Beyoncé have been silenced. The men have all started to grow beards and the women now cover themselves from head to foot in burka and niqab. You can no longer even see a quarter inch of bare ankle! When I finally meet the bride I’ve been promised next week, I will make sure she dresses this modestly.

  We have laid claim to some of the American-made military equipment that the army abandoned in Iraq and our rivals brought over here. It’s insane. My comrades, who come from all over the world, are having a great time firing off artillery and driving tanks in circles. My turn is supposed to come soon.

  And, yes, we have closed down all the movie theaters. No one will be seeing Thor or Captain America here soon, I can personally assure you. I broke into the projection both, with the others, and watched the confiscation and burning of the prints.

  It’s funny, though, that you mention your friend Mustafa. It’s a common enough name here, but my American upbringing was so corrupting that I keep reading it as “Mufasa,” like the father from that silly Disney Lion King cartoon. Thank Allah that I’m beginning to forget all of that.

  I hope you don’t mind, but I have shared some of what you’ve written with my brothers in the struggle.

  To be honest with you, a lot of them were down on you at first. As you know, anyone not involved in the struggle is the enemy of faith. I don’t need to add that some of the decisions you made would bring shame on any family. But now that the story is turning toward the path of righteousness, I can see that you did try to redeem yourself by doing something of significance with your cousin.

  I also took the chance to show some sections to some of my commanders, who have otherwise strictly forbidden communication with outsiders. But when I told them that you’d been involved in qisas, the principle of equal retaliation, they were interested in hearing more. So I have been allowed to stop by the internet café in the nearest town (which I am not permitted to name) and print out a few of the pages you have written for the censor to review. Thanks to God, we can continue our exchange.

  P.S. Some of my friends are totally into reading this out loud. Especially when too many people are using Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto IV on the lame PlayStation setup they have at the house we took over. I think some of them may just be doing it to embarrass me, though.:)

  Yours in triumphant conquest,

  Abu Suror

  February 4, 2015

  To: landocalr@protonmail.com

  From: GrandpaAli71@aol.com

  Grandson,

  I am concerned to see you starting to sound like a fanatic. And it saddens me to hear you renounce so much of your old life. Especially since I so enjoyed the hours we spent watching The Lion King over and over when you were a very small child sitting on my lap.

  But your message also reminds me of how I was when I started to get caught up. It’s painful and deeply unsettling how much I recognize of myself in you. I wish something I could say would make a difference. But sometimes I think the old trying to talk to the young is like the dead talking to the living.

  Thank you, at least, for letting me know you’re still okay. Please take care and write again.

  Yours in sorrow and compassion,

  Grandpa

  13

  All at once, my pointless and servile life had significance. I had become a secret agent, like in one of the English spy novels my father read. After my day of work on the set, I went back into the house to change into a blazer with a red pocket square, as Sherif had told me to wear, then strolled over to the Mena House front desk to pick up the money and address where I was to meet the English contact.

  There was money in the envelope that had been left in my name—fifteen hundred Egyptian pounds, to be exact. But instead of the obscure location that my cousin had promised, a short handwritten note told me that the original spot had been compromised and instead I should proceed immediately to the Auberge des Pyramides nightclub just down the road.