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like a dream, distant and disconnected from reason.
    Musa placed his large hand on the docile child’s head and shoved her under the water.
    Miriam flinched and her guardian’s grip tightened . No no no no . . . Miriam was screaming, but the screams refused to reach past her throat.
    Sita’s abaaya floated around her like a black cloud. Musa’s face trembled red. His eyes, still fixed on some unseen horizon, swam in tears. Miriam’s mind tilted. What she was seeing wasn’t real. This father was not holding his fifteen-year-old daughter under the water in this pool she’d splashed in as a small child. This was just a horrible vision from hell that would end at—
    Sita began to struggle.
    Her legs kicked from her white underdress. Her arms flailed and her hands broke the surface, splashing like fish stranded in the tide. Her veil floated up, and for the first time since her friend’s wedding, Miriam saw Sita’s face. Brown eyes, wide and round. Straining mouth, covered by a wide band of silver tape.
    Musa’s eyes bulged; his arm trembled. His mouth parted and he began to scream.
    But he held his daughter down.
    Musa had chosen the drowning.
    Miriam’s tilting mind fell and crashed. She spun to her right, breaking free of the man’s grip. She had to save Sita. She had to get help! She had to dive in and pull her to safety!
    Her cheek exploded under the guardian’s fist, and the pool tipped to one side. A groan, low and unearthly, broke from her throat. She began to fall. She hit the concrete hard, inches from the water.
    Under the surface, Sita stopped struggling.
    Her father still screamed, long, terrifying wails past twisted lips. The religious man’s emotionless face betrayed the truth: It was not the first time he’d overseen a father drowning a wayward daughter; it would not be the last.
    Sita’s lifeless eyes stared up through shimmering water. Miriam’s world went black.

chapter 4
    k halid bin Mishal bin Abd al-Aziz. That was his name—Khalid, son of Mishal, who was son of the first king, Abdul Aziz. Prophetic, Khalid had always thought, a name that begged him to make his bid for the throne. Technically he was a royal nephew; his father’s brother had been King Fahd before the reigning king, Abdullah, took the throne. Although the first king, Abdul Aziz, had sired forty-two sons, the kingdom required only so many kings. Four to be precise, all of them Abdul Aziz’s sons. That left thirty-eight less fortunate.
    Time was not merciful; the king’s sons now grew too old for a crack at the throne—Khalid’s father was seventy-eight to his fifty-eight. Those who weren’t too old were undeniably far too liberal. It was time for Saudi Arabia to be returned to her great calling as the world’s protector of Islam.
    It was time for a new king, Khalid thought. He’d planned for this day long ago.
    Khalid sat on red pillows with his son, Omar bin Khalid, and Ahmed, the director of transportation. Like the others, Khalid wore the traditional ghutra headdress but topped it with a red circular igaal. The three reclined in a room that looked like a Bedouin tent but was actually a room in Khalid’s palace.
    Omar picked up a glass of scotch and sipped the amber liquor. Alcohol was illegal in Saudi Arabia, of course, but most of the royal homes were well stocked. Khalid himself did not touch the stuff, but every man was entitled to his vices. Omar had more than his share. Women, for one. Not even Khalid approved of Omar’s lack of respect for the young women. He’d bailed his son out of more than one situation involving dead females. One day the gender would be his downfall.
    But today he would use Omar to attain his own ends.
    Both father and son embraced the teachings of the Nizari, a fact that very few knew. As such, they were uniquely qualified to overthrow the current monarchy and restore the days of glory, as God