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the Square of the Shahs, Shahyad, before the Revolution. How inspiring they were—almost as inspiring as the Holy City of Qom and the holy mosque of Jamkaran.
    Soon.
    “O Muslims,” he began again. “Of signs and portents and wonders have we long spoken. Of the Occultation. Of the Expected One. For centuries have we endured and suffered under the false promises of men such as Mohammed Ahmad, who slew the infidel Gordon at Khartoum but left us with nothing but blood and desolation and disappointment while the Crusaders took our lands, even unto the blessed city of al-Quds, where the Jew sits, plotting against us.
    “O Muslims—the time has come, for I bring you joyous news.” He paused once again, for effect but more—for divine inspiration. He breathed the air in deeply, letting the breath of Allah wash over him, purging and cleansing him, revealing holy Truth to him as had been vouchsafed to only a handful of great men in the centuries since al-Hasan secluded his holy person in the sacred well.
    Greatness. It felt good. It felt holy. It felt right.
    “O Muslims. The Day of Deliverance is at hand.”
    He stopped and waited. Part of being a holy man was the sacred caesura, the final dramatic pause that signified to the Believers that Truth had been revealed, the sacred Promises had been made—Promises that must and would be kept. Because a holy man also knew that Promises unrealized, Promises unkept would be turned back on him with the force of a thousand suns—with the force of the infidel Jew Oppenheimer, who said “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” at the birth of Trinity.
    So far away and yet so near. Deep in the heart of the Jew city of New York, at one of the Jew holy places for a people who had lost their faith. No longer would the Brothers bomb their so-called holy places, for not even the Jew believed in them anymore.
    No, this time they would strike at the heart. Their great financial center the Believers had already destroyed. But that was not enough. Not enough for the Jew, who could always find money. Money could be lost and found again—they had been doing that for centuries, frustrating the Believers, who had forced them into dhimmitude in al-Andalus and made both them and the Christian dogs like it.
    But health—life—was something else. They might die for money, but unlike the Believers, they would not die for Death.
    The infidel West no longer believed in the afterlife. It was too cowardly, too solicitous of its own misery. But a Believer would willingly give up his life and the lives of his women and children, in furtherance of the Truth.
    Which was, at last, in the person of Ali Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Mohammed Fadlallah al-Sadiq, so near to hand.

    “O Muslims,” he shouted. “The Messiah will not rise unless fear, great earthquakes, and sedition take place. The worst kind of humans will become leaders. Women will rid themselves of the hijab. Men will dress like women. Adultery will become common.”
    They responded with a roar. The signs and portents were all around. They knew that the time of the Coming was near. They were shaking their fists at the heavens, their ranks a sea of signs proclaiming DEATH TO THE GREAT SATAN , DEATH TO ISRAEL , DEATH TO AMERICA.
    “O Muslims, on all sides we are afflicted with oppression and injustice, just as the holy Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, so long ago predicted. And what did he say? That a nation from the east will rise . . .”
    He was working the crowd now, letting their anger and their faith swell and build like a mighty wave.
    “. . . and prepare the way . . .”
    “ Allahu akbar !” shouted the crowd.
    “. . . prepare the way—for the Coming of the Imam Mahdi !”
    He threw out his arms as if to embrace all of creation, slowly raising them upward.
    As that moment, a blinding flash of light tore through the sky. It was like a lightning bolt hurtled from the hand of Allah, propelled to earth, there to form and