“You fool!” he shouted.

“I am sorry, Doctor. I … I went home to see my family last weekend, the first time in a month. My son had a cold. I promise it will not happen again.”

Hamedi rubbed his temples with thumb and forefinger before fixing an icy stare. “No, Ahmed, it most certainly will not happen again! Get out of here, and send in Faisal! You are the filthy Jews’ best friend!”

The technician stood slowly.

“And if you make a mistake like that again, you will not answer to me. I will feed you to Behrouz. I can assure you he is not of my forgiving nature.”

Ahmed’s eyes glazed over.

“Go!” Hamedi shouted.

The technician scurried away, and Hamedi waited until the door behind him latched shut.

He closed his eyes. Time was getting short, as was his patience. He knew he would have to smooth things over later with Ahmed—the man was actually one of his more competent operators. Still, these were the kinds of mistakes they could not afford, not when success was so near. The pressure was getting to him, robbing him of sleep, but at least he was spared Ahmed’s complications. For Hamedi, family was not a concern. He had no wife, no children, not even any brothers or sisters. His only blood relation was his old mother, and he was no longer welcome at her door. Aside from his work, Hamedi was alone, and for the moment that was a good thing. A distraction avoided.

Hamedi went to work resetting the system, yet his thoughts were elsewhere. After the project was complete? he wondered. Would things change for him then?

That was a question only God could answer.

*   *   *

Hamedi was back in his office ten minutes later, sorting through the most recent internal messages. By his orders, all critical communications, both between the facilities and within the Qom compound, were restricted to paper copy and military courier. Email and electronic file transfers were no longer an option—Israel’s hackers had penetrated their supposedly secure server on three occasions. Three that they knew of, anyway. The result of Hamedi’s directive, of course, was that the movement of information had slowed to a crawl. But at least it was a secure crawl.

A knock came at the door.

“Come.”

Hamedi looked up to see Farzad Behrouz, and it struck him that something about the man seemed more distorted than usual. If he didn’t know better he might think Behrouz was pleased. Hamedi wrote it off to the harsh subterranean lighting.

“Is it true?” Behrouz asked.

“Is what true?”

“I’ve been told you are getting very close.”

Hamedi’s eyes went back to his desk. “We are on schedule. In truth, we would be ahead of schedule if I had more competent technicians.”

“What do you mean?”

“A few minutes ago one of my machinists nearly dented three weeks’ work.”

“Did you make an example of him?”