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engineer called yet another simulation up on his screen. He had spent considerable time on this—time that had cost Mussa dearly.
    “Very similar to the fault line of an earthquake. Imagine a girder dropped in a swimming pool,” said the engineer. “A wipeout, I think the Americans say.”
    The engineer brought up a new set of calculations that showed the best place for the device to be located: 8.342 miles from the start of the French side. Such precision would not be possible, the Pakistani admitted, but the closer the better.
    Cherbourg, Le Havre, Calais, Dunkerque, Oostende, Knokke—overwhelmed with a flood that would rival the Patriarch Noah’s. Perhaps that was the one true Lord’s actual intent, thought Mussa. It was not his to know beforehand.
    But the possibility was delicious, was it not?
    Mussa turned to the window, gazing toward the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
    Delicious horror. And it would come at the climax of his complicated plan for revenge: personal revenge for the death of his father, revenge on the nation that had discriminated against him and his family, and revenge on the race that had devastated his people. God was powerful.
    “And when will I be paid?” asked the engineer.
    Mussa turned around, pretending to be shocked. “I thought you were working for the glory of Allah.”
    “Always,” said the engineer. “But I must also see to worldly concerns.”
    “You’ve spoken to Arno?”
    “As you directed.”
    “And the brothers?”
    “The brothers?”
    Arno was Mussa’s lieutenant and was doing much of the work on the Chunnel project; it was necessary that he be kept informed. The brothers were another story.
    “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” added the engineer. The man was very good with computers, but he was not a convincing liar, and so his confusion now reassured Mussa that the brothers—known to him as Said and Jamal, though he doubted those were anything like their real names—had not been contacted. He did not trust them and had kept their operation isolated from his own concerns.
    “I’ve done everything you asked,” said the engineer.
    Mussa nodded. “Then you will be paid promptly, by the grace of God.”
    “The sooner the better. And will there be a bonus?”
    “A bonus? Oh yes.”
    The engineer began to smile. As he did, Mussa took a Glock 25 from his pocket and put three bullets through the engineer’s forehead. Mussa had not planned to kill the man himself, but his greed disgusted him.

3

    William Rubens, the head of Desk Three and the number two man at the National Security Agency, got up slowly from his bed and took a deep breath. He held it, as he had been taught by his yoga teacher many years ago, then slowly exhaled. He repeated the process twice more; after the third time he stretched forward, hands together, and began the sunrise pose, the first yoga posture he had ever learned.
    Rubens regarded yoga more as an interesting collection of ideas than tenets of religion, and his daily routines were more physical workouts than spiritual exercises. He did not believe that souls recycled through the universe, and the Indian theory of the body and its different energies and cycles seemed laughable to him. But the postures did send a warm surge up his spine, relaxing him in a way that sleep never seemed to accomplish.
    Rubens had never slept well, and these days he slept as poorly as ever. It was not the tension of his job; he had dealt with that for a long time. A personal matter bothered him, which was unusual for Rubens. He liked to say that he had no personal matters, and it was not so far from the truth.
    He finished his routine and went downstairs for his coffee. After he poured it, he put his right index finger on the small pad at the right of the secure computer on the countertop. With the fingerprint recognized, the computer proceeded through the first stages of its boot-up. When the screen flashed, Rubens pulled the keyboard out and