“Are you offering to hire us as members of your intelligence service?” Raymond held his arms out. “What’s the per diem?”

  “This is serious.” The natural effervescence of Nasser’s gaze became flintlike. “Anyone who knows about such activities and doesn’t report them will be considered an accomplice. Do we understand each other?”

  Mona’s complexion, which usually had olive undertones, became pale. “I don’t know anyone involved in such things.”

  “Nor do I.” Raymond went back behind the camera he’d set up.

  Nasser stared back at me. I could see many things had changed in a short time. He was no longer the man who had hesitated to sit in the big chair. He had become more like the man who expected the chair to be ready when he decided to sit down.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “You would know if I knew anything.” It was hard to keep my eyes off my shoe tops. “But I’ll continue to be on alert.”

  “Shall we begin filming?” Raymond prompted. “Mr. Prime Minister, do you have the script pages Mr. DeMille wrote for you?”

  “Yes, but I’ve decided not to use them.” Nasser took several sheets out of the folder he had brought in and laid them flat on his desk.

  The crossed-out script pages were covered with Arabic handwriting on the back.

  “I wrote my own speech instead.” He grinned, pleased with himself. “I think it’s better.”

  April 2, 2015

  To: GrandpaAli71@aol.com

  From: Sureshot@protonmail.com

  Gedo, Grandpa,

  I’ve continued sharing your book with my commander and some of the other warriors I’m with. We just got done reading the part where Nasser was trying to menace you guys and scare you in his office. What a dick. There are a lot of arguments among us about what he was really up to, but there’s a general consensus that it would have been better if you’d had a gun instead of a camera with you that day.

  I also wanted to let you know that our own big project is going pretty well. I think I told you before that my video interviews didn’t go so well, but now we’re onto something way bigger than a Hollywood movie. We’re developing an online video game called Kill the Crusader. It’s a first-person shooter that allows thousands of people all over the world to be playing at the same time on their computers. We call it an RPG about RPGs (role-playing game about rocket-propelled grenades, get it?). And since a lot of the people who play these games are kids between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, it’s like the best recruitment tool we’ve ever had. It’s pretty crude, but I got the idea from that Crusades movie you mentioned earlier.

  So thanks. I changed my mind about what I said before. I am actually starting to feel closer to you from reading this.

  Yours,

  Alex

  P.S. Things aren’t working out so well with me and my “wife.” But I’ll tell you about that when I have more time.

  15

  When we drove to the main set to report to Mr. DeMille at the end of the day, I found Sherif and went behind the façade to tell him what I had observed at general headquarters.

  “I think Nasser may be onto us,” I said. “He was saying that anyone who knows about subversive activities must report them—”

  “Stop and breathe in.” He gave me an encouraging pound on both shoulders. “He would say that to anyone. He’s becoming paranoid and frightened. And that’s a good thing. It means he’s about to make a mistake.”

  “He has good reason to be paranoid. He knows a lot of people are trying to bring him down. I’m afraid who could be watching us.”

  “Okay, calm down. No one is looking right now.” Sherif glanced up at an army plane passing low overhead. “I’m going to need you to provide us with the number of guards he had on duty and sketches of the rooms you were in.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Are we planning something else besides what you told me about?”

  He looked around as the wardrobe assistants trundled by with racks of slave costumes and pharaoh’s army tunics.

  “The less you know, the better.” He lowered his voice. “We don’t want to jeopardize any part of the operation.”

  I used the collar of my T-shirt to mop at the perspiration stinging my eyes. “Sherif, I think he may know we’re up to something bigger,” I said.

  “Why?” He grabbed me by the elbows. “Did you say something you shouldn’t have?”

  “No, but he was asking a lot of questions. And he said they had sources who were watching us closely.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything—necessarily.” He tried to laugh. “By the way, are you sure that you weren’t followed after you bought the ‘writing implements’ at the club?”

  “I took every precaution that we talked about, and then some.”

  “But you still met with this Englishman after he changed the location?”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t have?”

  “No, no, of course not.” He squeezed my arms more tightly. “I’m just trying to be careful.”

  “I wasn’t followed,” I said so emphatically that pigeons in a nearby coop fluttered. “I would have noticed.”

  “I’m sure you would have.” He threw a fake cowboy punch at my jaw, to reassure me. “And you didn’t say anything to anyone either, did you?”

  I had not told him about seeing my father, Mona, and Raymond at the club. Nor did I mention Henry, Yul Brynner, or the two men in ugly suits who had been watching me.

  “Of course not,” I said, afraid of what he would do if he believed my mistakes had hurt the operation.

  Before he could ask me more, I heard a voice on a bullhorn summoning all hands back to the set. Chico Day, the assistant director, was calling out that all crew members were needed on the double. Mr. DeMille had decided he did not like the color of the Per-Rameses gates and wanted them painted again.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Sherif said with an exasperated sigh. “This business never stops.”

  * * *

  The next day I was not on the schedule for the documentary or crew work on the main set. But a pickup truck pulled up in front of my father’s house and idled for several minutes, as if it was waiting for me. When I came out to see what was happening, my cousin’s friend Mustafa leaned out the driver’s window with his pale sweaty face and red beard.

  “Get in the back,” he said.

  I saw he had two other men in front with him. A calf was standing up in the back, blinking and making little bleating sounds.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Your cousin wants to see you.”

  “Why? I just talked to him yesterday.”

  “He’s concerned about something you said.” Mustafa stuck a finger in his ear and glanced back at the calf. “We need to adjust some of our preparations.”

  “Okay, just let me tell my father.” I was already formulating a plan to get away. “We were going to play golf this morning.”

  “It’s better if we go right away.” Mustafa leaned back, so I could plainly see that he had a handgun lying on the passenger seat beside him. “Don’t bother your father.”

  We took a long twisting route out into the Western Desert, the calf swaying and continuing its bleating beside me, its flanks twitching anxiously the whole way.

  The midmorning sun was a glaring inspection light as we arrived at a desolate spot I’d never seen before. A single acacia tree was standing like a lonely prophet in the wilderness. It had a thin, crooked trunk, thorny branches, and dry gray-green leaves.

  “Where’s Sherif?” I asked.

  “He’ll join us later, if he can.” Mustafa came around to the back with the others, the gun plainly displayed outside his tucked-in shirttails now.

  “What are we doing all the way out here without him?” I asked.

  The hatch dropped.

  “Testing the operation.” Mustafa grunted as he carried the squirming calf off in his massive arms. “It’s getting late for mistakes.”

  One of the others helped me down. I realized I had met him before, through my cousin. He was a former Cairo police officer named Osman who had a finicky, exacting look, as if he was constantly smelling something disagreeable. He was a prodigious hashish smoker, like my cousin, and a harsh critic of the drugs, which he never found good enough. He moved with exaggerated efficiency, showing off as he carried a gray package over to the tree and then cracked the neck of one of the time pencils I had bought from the Englishman.

  “We want to see if this works,” he called out. “Or if we have to torture you for bringing us duds. Heh, heh.”

  The rest of them joined in his laughter.

  At that point, I had only a rudimentary understanding of how long it would take for the acid inside the rod to release the firing pin or how powerful the blast would be once the pin struck.

  “Drop and give me twenty-five push-ups right now.” Mustafa shoved me roughly.

  “What? Why?”

  “Do as I tell you. We need to see what you’re made of. Osman was a police officer. And Ramzy was in the Egyptian Navy.” He pointed to the other man, who was trim and as taut as a length of hemp. “But you need to prove yourself.”

  “Does Sherif at least know what we’re doing out here?”

  “He ordered it,” Mustafa said. “Now get down and give me twenty-five. And be prepared to do a lot more.”

  After four sets of twenty-five push-ups, they had me run a quarter mile full speed, until I was wrung out and on the verge of collapse. Then I heard a boom and looked up to see the tree disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust. When it all cleared, the acacia was split almost down the middle, with its limbs blown off and the twisted remains of its trunk smoldering.

  The three of them shouted and clapped one another on the back like the Egyptian national soccer team after a goal. The calf, now tied to the back of the truck, stared at me unhappily.

  “What did I tell you?” Mustafa socked me hard on the arm as I got up to watch the smoke clear. “In the Koran, it says the reward for patience is doubled. Eight minutes and fifty-two seconds. Allah Akbar.”

  I rubbed the place where he had hit me, thinking he was paying me back for not being able to pin my shoulders to the wrestling mat.

  He took the gun from his waistband and pointed it at my face.

  “What are you doing, my brother?” I put my hands up. “What’s the matter?”

  “What would you imagine the matter is, ‘my brother’?”

  It’s odd what you notice at such frightening moments, my grandson. The revolver was the kind British carried on the streets of our childhood, an Enfield Number 2 with a top break. Then I fixated on the redness of his beard and the way he mocked my speech, like a man with something to prove.

  “I’ve done everything I’ve been asked to do so far,” I said.

  “There was an arrest made late last night,” Ramzy, the navy man, said. “The authorities took in the English soldier you gave our money to.”

  “‘Took in’?” I gave each of them a searching look. “Is he officially under arrest?”

  “We don’t know yet.” The sun was shining on Mustafa’s outstretched arm as his muscles and sinews tensed. “But we know someone talked.”

  “Why suspect me?” I asked in an indignant squawk. “That man’s a drunken lout. He could have said anything to anyone.”

  “He’s already in custody and our sources tell he’s not talking,” said Osman the former policeman. “His embassy is trying to claim they have jurisdiction and get him sent back to England.”

  “You’re the weak link among us,” Ramzy said with the special contempt that experienced seamen have for landlubbers.

  “How would it even be serving my interests to speak to the authorities?” I asked, trying to appeal to their logic.

  “You’re already in trouble because of what happened to the imam,” Mustafa retorted. “So now you’re trying to find a way to save your own skin.”

  The muzzle of his pistol pressed into my forehead, a cold metal circle imprinting itself where more devout men had their prayer calluses.

  “It still makes no sense, what you’re saying.” I shut my eyes. “Think about it. Nasser can’t be trusted. Even if I told him all that I know, he would have no reason not to use me and throw me away. He’d gladly make me a scapegoat for the imam’s death, if it was convenient. The Brothers are my family now. I could never betray my cousin. Do you think I went to university so I could choose the losing side?”

  “So you believe we’ll win?” Mustafa asked.

  I swallowed and nodded, still not opening my eyes.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “They have the numbers and the money, but we have the belief,” I said. “And nothing is more powerful.”

  In the silence that followed, I smelled the burnt wood of the exploded acacia and heard the calf’s forlorn baying. After a few seconds, the pressure of the barrel lessened against the front of my skull.

  “So you’ve said nothing to anyone?” Mustafa asked.

  “Of course not.” I pried my eyes open. “I know what can happen to traitors.”

  “Do you?” Mustafa asked. “Then prove it.”

  “How?” I rubbed my forehead where I could still feel the muzzle’s stamp.

  “With this.” He shoved the gun at me. “Use it.”

  “On who?”

  My brow felt sore, and so did my pride. I realized this had been a game of some kind and they were all laughing at me a little.

  “Show us that you’re one of us.” Mustafa nudged me with the gun again, his crimson beard a contrast with the sand around us. “That you’re ready to do what it takes to protect the operation if you find out who has been talking.”

  “Are you testing me to see if I could shoot an informant?”

  “Could you?” Mustafa placed the grip firmly into my palm. “Could you look someone in the eye and pull the trigger?”

  “If I had to,” I said, not very convincingly.

  “Then do it.” Mustafa folded my fingers around the grip. “Let us see that you really have the heart of a warrior.”

  He stood back, revealing the calf dipping its head and staring at me curiously.

  * * *

  It was dusk by the time we got back to Cairo. Sunlight had just faded on the Nile, replaced by the cherry neon flash of a Coca-Cola sign on the black rippling surface. We had taken a byzantine route back from the desert to make sure we hadn’t been followed. We made a stop at a butcher shop in Faiyum to deliver the remains of the calf who had to give her life in order for me to demonstrate my loyalty. Then we continued to the city and the professor’s houseboat, rocking gently on the evening current.

  I heard him speaking in the main cabin as I stepped off the dock, his voice high and straining with didacticism as if he were back in the classroom. But as I stepped through the beaded curtains into his salon, with Mustafa and the others right behind me, I was brought up short.

  A camera had been set up in the living room. Professor Farid sat erect and a little overwhelmed by the large pillows on his couch while Raymond filmed him and Mona held out a boom microphone.

  “Yes, the title of this song was truly ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.’” My teacher wagged a finger, the sound of his pained outrage filling the cabin. “I could not believe my own eyes when I saw the film. Not just base animal lust, but pure material desire! Sung by this blond harlot in a hot-pink gown that barely covered her breasts. I ask you, what could more epitomize the diseased foreign state that’s trying to impose its will on the peoples it hopes to subjugate? We’ve given the world the pyramids, the library at Alexandria, the temples of Karnak and Luxor, and what do you give us? Marilyn Monroe! You see? This is why we resist you.”

  His voice trailed off as he glanced toward those of us just arriving.

  “Cut.” Raymond took his eye from the viewfinder. “I think we got it that time. Mona, don’t bother with the slate. We’re ready to check the gate and pack up.”

  “What is this?” I asked.

  It was as confusing as walking in on the middle of a feature or finding a Christmas tree in the middle of the Al-Hussein Mosque’s courtyard. These things simply could not coexist. Especially not when I had Mustafa, Osman, and Ramzy at my back, eager for an excuse to take me back out to the Western Desert again.

  “Mr. DeMille wanted us to include as much of Egypt as possible,” Raymond said with a sporting shrug. “He thought Professor Farid would appreciate having the Ikhwan Muslimin point of view represented in the documentary.”

  “He’s been very impressive,” Mona added. “Especially as a counterpoint to what we already have.”

  “Excellent.” I nodded, with a sickly smile.

  The floor rocked beneath us, from the wake of a passing motorboat. Who could have possibly suggested that this was a good idea? Yes, I could imagine DeMille thinking he might placate and flatter a troublesome critic by putting him in front of a camera. But why would he have risked Nasser’s wrath by giving a known Muslim Brotherhood spokesman such a platform?

  “Did you ever think you would see me in the movies, Ali bey?” The professor offered me one of his rare smiles.

  His teeth were still in a state of anarchy, incisors and canines facing one another like rioters. He told me that he’d bolted from a dentist’s chair in America because he feared the gas that he’d been given was altering his thoughts. He had no idea how bad they would look on film, and now I was in no position to warn him.

  “Miss Mona says that you’re next bound for Alexandria,” the professor said.

  “Ostazi?” I reverted to the old honorific.

  “To film our glorious new leader’s propaganda speech to the masses,” he said sarcastically. “It should be quite the show.”

  I looked from him to Mona, still trying to get my sea legs as the boat kept rocking. Everyone appeared to be acting contrary to their normal best interests. The professor referring respectfully to Mona, when I knew he disdained her as much as he disdained all of his other female students. Mr. DeMille handing over screen time to a known enemy of Nasser’s in a film he was producing for the prime minister. And Mustafa, whom I had overheard speaking offhandedly about using the pretext of another uprising to burn down the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo and attack known Jews on the street, nodding pleasantly at Raymond.