Summary

The novel begins with a “top secret” (1) memo written by the chairman of an unnamed committee, detailing their findings on “The Tracking and Pursuit Department” (1), whose activities have recently been suspended. The department was established jointly by an Iraqi intelligence agency and the U.S. military, and made up of astrologers and other psychics responsible for predicting the future sites of terrorist attacks. (The year is 2005, during the second Iraq War, when the U.S. military was a ubiquitous presence in the country). The department was headed by a man named Brigadier Sorour Mohamed Majid. The memo goes on to say that someone within the department had been leaking documents to a writer on the outside, and that this writer is currently under investigation.

In Chapter 1, there was a suicide bombing in Tayaran Square in the Bataween district of...