HE HOME was large, contemporary, and miles from any other dwelling. They were met at the front gate by a man in a dark British-tailored suit and wearing a turban. He searched Waller and Rice, and Waller’s gun was confiscated. “That’s a customized Heckler and Koch nine-millimeter,” he told the Arab. “I expect it back in the same pristine condition.”

If the man understood this he made no sign of it.

“And my men?” Waller indicated behind him at the six burly fellows who had held on to their hardware. He’d asked the question and thought he knew the answer. In halting English the Arab said that they were free to come inside and could also keep their weapons. Waller frowned at this directive but said nothing.

Rice looked up at the face of the darkened structure. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” he said hopefully.

As they walked up the front drive, Waller said, “Oh, they’re home. I’m sure we’ll be very welcome.”

“Why don’t you sound too certain of that?”

“I am certain. It must be your nerves running away with you.”

“I wonder why,” the other man said under his breath.

The interior illumination was weak enough that Rice had to squint to make out things in the farthest corners of the large rooms. The bodyguards trailing them, Waller and Rice followed the turbaned man deeper into the house.

The man paused at a pair of large double doors that appeared to be made of stainless steel. He opened them and motioned the others through. When they passed into the room, they saw one man sitting at a round table in the center, the space lit only by a single table lamp. The man was dressed in a loose-fitting robe known in the Muslim world as a thobe. He was boxy through the middle though his face was drawn. His beard was trimmed short and he wore no headdress.

“Sit,” he said, motioning to the chairs set around the table.

Waller took his time looking around the room gauging tactical positions and then motioned his men to take up posts in various spots. He eased into a chair and studied the man.

“I was expecting more people,” he said.

“I am authorized,” said the man in clear English.

Waller noted the sheen of perspiration on his face, the way his eyes wandered the room. And then the Arab snapped his attention back to Waller and Rice.

“HEU,” said the man.

“Highly enriched uranium,” said Waller.

“How can you get it?”

Waller looked puzzled. “This has already been explained.”

“Explain again.”

“The HEU Purchase Agreement between Russia and the United States signed in 1993,” began Waller in a monotone as though set to lecture a class. “It’s a way for the Russians to dismantle their stockpile of nuclear weapons, reduce the uranium to a form that can be used in nuclear reactors and other nonweapon processes. I can bore you with terms like uranium hexafluoride, depleted uranium tails, blendstock, and the like, but the bottom line is the Russians had five hundred tons of HEU they agreed to sell to the Americans. Thus far the Yanks have received about four hundred tons, averaging thirty tons per year. The entire process is monitored by both sides except for the initial dismantling and separation of the HEU metal weapons component from the rest of the nuclear weapon. The Russians perform this initial step on their own. In so doing, it allows certain people with contacts inside this process to help themselves to a bit of nuclear gold.”

“And you have such contacts?” asked the man.

Again, Waller looked perplexed. “If I didn’t I can’t think of a reason why I would be here negotiating with you.” He held up his cell phone. “One call can verify that I do.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“For the weapons or the quantity of HEU?”

“HEU.”

Waller noted that the man was rubbing his fingers together a bit too fiercely. He caught Waller looking at this movement, and the hand disappeared under the table.

“Five hundred tons of the material can be used to arm roughly thirty thousand nuclear warheads, or about as many as the Soviets possessed at the height of the cold war. My contacts can smuggle me two hundred pounds of HEU. That’s enough for two warheads that could devastate a large city or be used to arm a number of smaller improvised devices that can be deployed against multiple targets.”

“So it is very valuable?”

“Let’s put it this way. Iran is spending billions of dollars as we speak to build the facilities, technology, and processes to ultimately achieve what I’m offering to sell to you tonight. The only thing more valuable on earth might be plutonium, but that is impossible to get.”

The Muslim sat forward abruptly. “So the price?”

Waller looked at Rice once more and then back at the man. “And you say you’re authorized to make an agreement?”

“To paraphrase you, I wouldn’t be here if I was not.”

“And your name?”

“Unimportant. The price?”

“Two hundred million British pounds wired to my account.”

Waller was about to say something else when the man said, “Agreed.”

Waller glanced down at the Muslim’s midsection and then sniffed the air. He dropped his cell phone and bent down to pick it up. The next moment Rice fell backward as Waller lifted up the table and pushed it on top of the Muslim. He grabbed Rice’s arm and screamed to his men, “Run!”

The next instant Rice felt himself being flung through a window. A jagged edge caught him on the leg, tore his pants, and then bit into his thigh. Something landed on top of him, driving the wind from him. Then he was jerked up and pulled along, his breath coming in gasps, his injured leg bleeding badly.

The concussive force of the house exploding hurled him ass over head. Debris poured down, even as he felt Waller covering him with his own body, the older man breathing in strained bursts. Once the boards, bricks, shattered glass, and the odd piece of furniture stopped falling, Waller and Rice slowly sat up.

“What the hell,” began Rice as he clutched his injured leg.

Waller rose and dusted off his clothes. “The idiot was a suicide bomber.”

“How did you know?”

“The thobe is designed to be loose-fitting; his clothes were too tight because dynamite sticks are bulky. His eyes were unfocused and he was looking at us but not looking at us. He was hiding something, and it’s human nature to feel that if you don’t look at someone, they can’t see you. You’ll also note that same instinct in dogs.”

“Unfocused eyes?”

“He was probably drugged to get through his mission, because really who wants to blow themselves up, even for virgins in paradise? And then there was the smell.”

“Smell?”

“Dynamite is contained in water-soaked wooden sticks. It has a distinctive odor. And I also got a whiff of metal. Probably shrapnel balls contained in the canvas pack he had wrapped around his belly. That provides for maximum carnage at the point of origin. I dropped my phone so I could look under the table. There was a bag next to him. It held the battery with wires connected to the explosive that would detonate the bomb pack sewn around his body. Sewn so he couldn’t easily remove it. That’s why he put his hand under the table, to hold the detonator. And the man didn’t rise to greet us. Very unlike a Muslim. But dynamite packs are heavy, and he was probably afraid we might glimpse something suspicious if he exposed himself in that way.” Waller shrugged resignedly. “I should have seen it far earlier. Now let’s take a look at your leg.”

He squatted down and tore open Rice’s pants leg and examined the wound more closely. “Sorry I had to push you through the window.”

“My God, Evan, you saved my life.”

“It’s bleeding, but it’s not deep enough to have hit an artery.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve seen such wounds before. If it were an arterial wound you wouldn’t be conscious because you would have nearly bled out by now.” He used strips from Rice’s pants to fashion a rough bandage. “We’ll get you medical attention as soon as possible.”

He looked over at the house and saw one of his men staggering toward him. He hurried over to the fellow, took him by the arm.

“Pascal, are you hurt?”

“No, just got my bell rung.”

Pascal was Greek and his skin was dark, his hair darker still and curly. He was five-nine and wiry with a motor that never quit. He could run all day, shoot straight, possessed nerves of iron, never moved fast when caution was called for, and no one moved faster if the situation demanded ultimate speed. He was the smallest of Waller’s men and also the toughest. Since Pascal had come to stay with him when he was only ten years old, Waller had groomed him to rise to the top of his security chain. He did not possess the mind to run the actual business, not like he or Alan Rice. But still the man was an invaluable piece of Waller’s security team. “What about the others?”

“Tanner and Dimitri are dead. Dimitri’s head got blown off. It landed in a damn flowerpot. The rest of the guys are okay, just bumps and bruises. Explosion knocked out one of the trucks, though.”

Waller eyed the smoky mass near the front door. The Escalade had taken the brunt of the blast, fortunately shielding the other vehicles from damage. Screams came from their left and Waller and Pascal started running in that direction. From out of the darkness three people emerged; two struggling with one.

Before Waller and Pascal could reach them the two finally won. The captive was the man in the fine suit who’d led them into the house.

“Son of a bitch was trying to get away, Mr. Waller,” said one of the men holding the captive’s arms behind his back.

Waller reached out and gripped the turbaned man’s throat.

“You want me to shoot him, Mr. Waller?” asked Pascal.

“No, no, Pascal. I need to talk to him first.”

Waller looked into the man’s eyes. “You are a little fish. The man who blew himself up? He too was a little fish that you throw back because it is not worth your time. But you are worth my time. I need to know who authorized this. You understand me?”

The man shook his head and started speaking rapidly in his native language.

Waller answered him, in his native tongue. He looked delighted at the shock in the fellow’s eyes before ordering his men to collect Tanner’s and Dimitri’s remains.

“One more thing,” said Waller. He reached into the captive’s pocket and pulled out the customized nine-millimeter pistol that had been confiscated earlier. “I’m quite fond of this gun. So fond, in fact, that I will use it to kill you after you’ve told me what I need to know.”

Riding back to the plane, Waller sat next to Rice. “A doctor will meet us at the airfield and fix your leg,” he said.

“Why would they invite us down here and then try to blow us up?”

“I don’t know why yet. But I will find out and then hit them back far harder than they just hit me.”

Rice shook his head and gave a hollow laugh. Waller shot him a glance.

“What?”

“I was just thinking that after all this you’re going to really need that holiday in Provence.”