Seconds later he was at the truck’s passenger door, and for the first time he saw who was inside. His heart leapt. On one side in the back was his mother, silent but with tears of happiness welling in her eyes. Next to her, on the reclined second seat, was a man—at least Hamedi thought it was a man, so dirt-encrusted and emaciated was the figure. The poor soul was nearly lying flat, and connected to an IV bag that was hanging from the upper riding handle. His face was craggy and withered, but he seemed extremely alert. Hamedi had not expected a third person in the truck, but given the man’s condition he easily arrived at a solution—this was one of the men who had trekked through the desert three weeks earlier to kill him. By some amazing turn, he’d escaped the forewarned platoons Behrouz had put in position. Hamedi was pleased, although on seeing the handgun in his lap he hoped the man had been given an updated mission briefing.

“Let’s go!” snapped the driver.

Hamedi stared at the Toyota’s last occupant. He hadn’t been sure at first—clean-cut with fair hair, a lean body he’d last seen covered in neoprene, the face no longer masked in camouflage shading. But the direct gaze and commanding voice left no doubt. It was the kidon from Geneva.

“Now!” he insisted.

Hamedi reached for the door handle, but paused. He checked his watch.

“Wait,” he said. “Only twenty more seconds.”

At first the driver didn’t seem to understand his meaning, but then Hamedi turned toward the west. No one said a word as they all looked across the desert. Heat was already rising in the early morning, a wavering mirage that deconstructed the horizon. The facility was just visible ten miles off, a handful of large white buildings surrounded by squat storage hangars, a few antennas and utilities sprinkled in for good measure. These structures, Hamedi knew, were no more than a place marker for what lay below—a massive complex that had been decades in the making. The Toyota’s engine had not yet been turned, and so the only thing Hamedi heard was the quick rhythm of his breathing. With five seconds to go even this took pause.

And then it happened.

The speed of light having its advantage, the first sensation was that the complex visibly shuddered, as if a full square mile of earth had bounced on a trampoline. Then a billowing wall of dust skirted the perimeter. There would be no classic mushroom cloud, Hamedi knew, the mechanics being all wrong for that. No spherical fireball, no rising column of heat to generate a Rayleigh–Taylor instability. Underground blasts dissipated energy in an entirely different manner.