The Oracle Year(100)

The magazine had sent a reporter to the other side of the world to obtain an interview with T?r?kul. He had proven elusive, but the reporter had managed to track down one of his subordinates, a Colonel Bishtuk.

He repeated most of the facts Will knew from his own research: his ancestors had built the mosque; his people still had every right to the mosque; their heritage had been stolen; his leader, the great T?r?kul, would lead them to victory . . . but then there was something else. Something new. Will’s eyes widened.

“Holy shit,” he said.

Will grabbed a green pencil from the passenger-side door. He flipped through the notebook on his lap until he found the pages related to Qandustan. All the entries were written in blue. Will drew big, green, dramatic circles around the edges of the page, designating it as firmly Site related.

“I knew it,” he said to himself.

According to Colonel Bishtuk, T?r?kul had decided to attack Uth when he saw the city’s lights go out during the worldwide blackouts that spring. He called it a sign from Allah, and at that very moment T?r?kul had vaulted onto his horse and ridden to gather the tribes.

The invasion in Niger had given T?r?kul the opportunity, the blackouts had given him the inspiration—and the Site had caused them both.

Will reached up, pulling off his headphones.

“Leigh!” he said. “Check this out. Qandustan’s definitely a big part of the picture.”

He looked up to see Leigh staring straight ahead, her face slack.

“Qandustan,” she said in a dazed voice. “Yeah? Qandustan. How about that?”

“What’s the matter?” Will asked.

“Listen to the radio, Will,” Leigh said.

He hadn’t even realized it was on. He focused his attention on the words, a deep voice speaking in a language Will didn’t understand, emphatic and angular.

“What is this?” Will asked. “I can’t understand it.”

“It’s audio from a clip that a local TV station in Qandustan broadcast last night our time—that’s their morning. The translation will come through in a minute. They’ve already run it a few times,” Leigh answered.

“Can you just summarize?” Will said.

“Yup,” she said. “T?r?kul’s got a nuke.”

“What?” Will said. Leigh glanced at him. She looked ill.

“The anchor said it’s an old missile from the USSR, an SS-24. They used to mount them on trains and trucks, I guess, and drive them around. They were completely self-contained, and they kept them moving all the time so a U.S. strike couldn’t take them out.”

Leigh reached down and turned off the radio.

“They aren’t even sure if it works, and he’s not saying how he got it, or where it is. But T?r?kul’s calling it the Sword of God, and he’s saying that the council in the mountains is taking too long to come back with their vote. He thinks they’re screwing with him—stalling until his enemies can regroup.”

Will hunched forward, gripping the notebook in both hands, his mind deep in the Site’s web, trying to understand.

“What does T?r?kul want?” he asked.

“The elders need to come down from the mountains within forty-eight hours, or he’ll launch the Sword of God against Uth. If his people can’t have the mosque, he doesn’t want anyone to have it.”

Will leaned back.

“Jesus,” he said. “They better get word to the old guys to hurry up their vote.”

“They can’t,” Leigh said. “They’re hidden, in a cave or something. That’s the whole point, remember? No one knows where they are. They’ll come back when they come back.”

“To a big, smoking hole in the ground,” Will said. “I don’t understand why the Site would do this. What the fuck would be gained from some city in Central Asia getting vaporized?”

“Will, you don’t understand. It’s not just Uth. All night long . . . while we were asleep . . . the world . . . it’s all falling apart.”

Leigh’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

“Qandustan has a defense treaty with China. So China said that if Uth gets nuked, they’ll send attack bombers into the mountains where they think T?r?kul is hiding. Half the Muslim countries in the world said they’d fight to stop that, and that includes Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.”

“Pakistan and China both have nukes, too,” Will said.

“And the Saudis,” Leigh said. “Apparently for a while. They thought now would be a good time to announce it. The U.S. has a defense treaty with them, just like China with Qandustan. So if China starts fighting the Saudis . . .”

“So that’d be it. Everyone would jump in. Boom.”

Will closed his eyes, his gut churning, thinking about the Site laughing at him for putting up his idiotic fake predictions, trying to change a world that wouldn’t even exist in a few days.

“In one fucking night?” he said.

He felt Leigh’s hand on his back, a tentative touch.

“What’s going to happen, Will? Tell me you know what’s going to happen.”

Will thought, and wondered, and had nothing to say.





Chapter 40




Leigh pushed her cart down the aisle, looking at the nearly empty shelves, attempting to ignore the news broadcast running on the store’s speaker system, giving an update on the global crisis—nothing she didn’t already know, and nothing she wanted to hear.