“Never mind. God willing, she will be safe and sound, snug as a bug.”
“She does her studies, that’s her only activity. She is a straight-A student. I see her grade reports.”
“And you never need worry about monkey business, if you know what I mean.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Naturally, we have people in strategic places everywhere to protect our interests. Something could easily be arranged.”
“Samreen is my interest only, no one else’s.”
“To make sure she doesn’t get seduced by the wrong element, you know? America is not a safe place for young Muslim women—with all their drugs and alcohol and young black men, heaven forbid.”
“Are you suggesting having her followed? I won’t stand for it. She is pure and innocent. She has nothing to do with geopolitics.”
“I take you at your word. It is only something to consider for the future, which, Allah be praised, will be long and blessed. Perhaps we could discuss the matter further after meeting at the Facility?”
Agitated, Hazeem spluttered, “There is nothing to discuss, Mr. President. The matter is closed.”
“Ah, I thought you might see it that way. Do you still have a ‘surprise’ for me, then?”
“Here,” Hazeem bristled, handing the phone to someone. “You deal with him.”
“Your Eminence?” said a new voice. “It is I, Tahir.”
“Tahir? You mean, Hazeem really is calling from Facility Six-A?”
“You’d better come see for yourself,Your Prominence. We have made a wondrous discovery.”
Akhmed leapt out of bed. His covers went flying. “What?! A breakthrough?!”
“This is a momentous occasion.”
“OMG! Why the bloody hell didn’t Hazeem say so?! What’s wrong with that man? You’re not yanking my cord, now, are you? Because if you’re screwing around, I’ll reupholster my minibus with your children’s flesh. Baby Tahir will be the steering wheel cover.”
“Congratulations to you and all Iran,Your Heightness!”
“I knew you could do it! Never a doubt in my mind! Break out the Tab.You can make a toast to me.”
“As you request,Your Eminence.”
“I’m on my way down!”
Down was right. Nine floors below a location so secret that even he didn’t know where the heck he was (design was his thing, not directions), the president sat sipping a diet soda and listening with wide-eye, rapt attention as Tahir stood at a control panel in front of a thick-glass observation window, explaining what was about to happen. Next to him sat a lab-coated (he wished he could work his marking-pen magic on that puppy) assistant, and next to the president Hazeem rested against the edge of a counter.
Behind the observation window, marked with several yellow-and-black international radioactivity symbols, a robot arm hovered over a stainless-steel table on which sat one of Akhmed’s matzo balls. Well, he presumed it was his, not imagining anyone else in the country having any. Seeing it made his tummy growl.
“We bombarded this food item”—the scientist couldn’t bring himself to utter a Jewish epicurean term—“with enough rads of enriched uranium to kill an entire harem of goats. When we pass the Geiger counter over it, it should click like a sky filled with locusts, and the needle should bend like the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Very literary,” the despot said, slurping. “But may I remind you, you’re paid to be a man of science, not Kahlil Gibran?”
“Watch.” Tahir nodded to his assistant, who flicked a switch and, with two fingertips, tickled a joystick. The console speaker whirred, and beyond the glass the robot arm swung to a countertop, grasped a Geiger counter, arced over the table, and floated the radiation detector within an inch of the Zionist food item.
The device clicked lethargically.
“Some uranium,” the president scoffed. Did he have stupid written on his forehead? Was this puny demonstration how they intended to save their incompetent hides?
“You don’t understand,Your Greatbigness. I assure you, that dough ball is radioactive enough to fell a camel at a thousand meters. But for some reason it’s clutching those rads like a collapsed star’s gravity field. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a scientific wonder. We haven’t the slightest notion why on an atomic level it’s behaving this way. It could be the texture of the dough—very moist and absorbent—possibly neutronically mutated by some fortuitous outside agent. Or its properties: a certain kind of chicken used in the production of fat, or a method of distilling its grease.”
“Outside agent?” Akhmed hissed, gazing accusatorially at Hazeem.
“Not a person agent,” clarified Tahir. “A circumstantial agent.”
“Speak Farsi, man.”
“Perhaps a serendipitous confluence of forces, each benign in itself, creating an effect greater than the sum of its parts. That microwave oven of yours, for instance: did it emit electromagnetic energy at an aberrant frequency? Or said chicken: what did it eat the day it was slaughtered to produce the fat in the doughy mixture? Or the cracker meal: was it somehow affected by an unusual blast of solar gamma rays—from intense sunspot activity, perhaps? Or…” He hesitated.
“What?” the president demanded.
Tahir cleared his throat. He lowered his voice. “Or possibly the hospital’s X-ray machine.”
“I knew it!”
“Not to say it’s defective, Momentous One,” he clarified. “Only to suggest a possible unexpected influence on the unstable Zionist product, which, as you are well aware, is made with the blood of Christian children.”
“Your point being?”
“We are taking a close look at the X-ray apparatus and also testing the microwave as we speak. Perhaps an examination of the food itself may reveal answers.”
“All mildly interesting, but what does it have to do with our atomic bomb, and”—he glared at Hazeem—“how is it an early birthday present? Are you telling me that this matzo ball will detonate a nuclear device?”
Tahir looked down. “Not precisely, Your Tremendousness.”
“Then I suggest you precisely tell me why you dragged me out of bed.”
The scientist poked the air. “Observe, please.”
As the assistant worked the joystick, the robot arm placed the Geiger counter next to the matzo ball and picked up a nearby hammer, with which it gave the ball a sound thump. The Jewish delicacy split open and scattered in mushy fragments. The radiation detector went wild, its languorous clicking erupting into a plague-like clamor.
“Allah be great!” the president gasped, leaping off his chair and launching his can of pop into the air, soda splattering on the window. Immediately sensing the significance of what had taken place before his very eyes, he exclaimed, “We’ve split our atom! And it’s Jew food!”
“Again,Your Fullness—not exactly. But we’ve done the next best thing. And I quite believe it’s not only as good as an actual nuclear bomb, but in practical respects, even better.”
Akhmed’s eyes narrowed. “Better than the bomb?”
“Please sit again, and I will explain. Would you care for another Tab? And possibly another pair of pants?”