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“He has a phone?”

“No, no lines go up there. But I think he has a cellular. The insurance company insisted. I mean, he’s terribly old.”

Her face was creased with that genuine concern that only California youth can show for anyone over sixty. She rifled through a Rolodex and came up with a number. Martin noted it, thanked her, and left.

Ten time zones away, it was evening in Baghdad. Mike Martin was on his bicycle, pedaling northwest up Port Said Street. He had just passed the old British Club at what used to be called Southgate, and because he recalled it from his boyhood, he turned to stare back at it.

His lack of attention nearly caused an accident. He had reached the edge of Nafura Square and without thinking pedaled forward. There was a big limousine coming from his left and although technically it did not have right of way, its two motorcycle escorts were clearly not going to stop.

One of them swerved violently to avoid the clumsy fellagha with the vegetable basket attached to his pillion, the motorcycle’s front wheel clipping the smaller bicycle and sending it crashing to the tarmac.

Martin went down with his bicycle, sprawling on the road, his vegetables spilling out. The limousine braked, paused, and swerved around him before accelerating away.

On his knees, Martin looked up as the car passed. The face of the rear seat passenger stared out the window at the oaf who had dared to delay him by a fraction of a second.

It was a cold face in the uniform of

a brigadier general, thin and acerbic, channels running down either side of the nose to frame the bitter mouth. In that half-second, what Martin noticed were the eyes. Not cold or angry eyes, not bloodshot red or shrewd or even cruel. Blank eyes, utterly and completely blank, the eyes of death long gone. Then the face behind the window had passed by.

He did not need the whisperings of the two working men who pulled him to his feet and helped gather up his vegetables. He had seen the face before, but dimly, blurred, taken on a saluting base, in a photograph on a table in Riyadh weeks before. He had just seen the most feared man in Iraq after the Rais, perhaps including the Rais. It was the one they called Al-Mu’azib, the Tormentor, the extractor of confessions, head of the AMAM, Omar Khatib.

Terry Martin tried the number he had been given during the lunch hour. There was no reply, just the honeyed tones of the recorded voice advising him: “The party you have called is not available or is out of range. Please try your call later.”

Paul Maslowski had taken Martin to lunch with his faculty colleagues on the campus. The conversation was lively and academic. Over the meal Martin thanked his hosts again for their invitation and repeated his appreciation of the endowment that had funded his visit. He tried the number again after lunch on his way to Barrows Hall, guided by Near Eastern Studies Director Kathlene Keller, but again there was no reply.

The lecture went across well. There were twenty-seven graduate students, all heading for their doctorates, and Martin was impressed at the level and depth of their understanding of the papers he had written on the subject of the Caliphate that ruled central Mesopotamia in what the Europeans call the Middle Ages.

When one of the students rose to thank him for coming all that way to talk to them and the rest had applauded, Terry Martin went pink and bobbed his thanks to them. Afterward, he spotted a pay phone on the wall in the lobby. This time there was an answer, and a gruff voice said:

“Yeah.”

“Excuse me, is that Dr. Lomax?”

“There’s only one, friend. That’s me.”

“I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve come from England. I’d like to see you. My name’s Terry Martin.”

“England, eh? Long ways away. What would you want with an old coot like me, Mr. Martin?”

“Want to tap a long memory. Show you something. People at Livermore say you’ve been around longer than most, seen just about everything. I want to show you something. Difficult to explain on the phone.

Could I come up and see you?”

“It ain’t a tax form?”

“No.”

“Or a Playboy centerfold?”

“ ’Fraid not.”

“Now you got me curious. Do you know the way?”

“No. I have pencil and paper. Can you describe it?”

Daddy Lomax told him how to get to where he lived. It took some time. Martin wrote it all down.

“Tomorrow morning,” said the retired physicist. “Too late now, you’ll get lost in the dark. And you’ll need a four-wheel drive.”