The lighter lit. The fighter laughed, showing white teeth.

“Allahu Ak—!” he screamed and dropped it into the jug. If he expected a blast, he did not get it, for smokeless burns incredibly fast but does not explode. What he got, rather, was an instantaneous transformation of the universe, of which the central feature became the Devil’s blowtorch, which His Satanic Majesty had just ignited. All the mythic furies of lethal flame proclaimed the presence of that which melts everything in a fraction of a sliver of a fragment of an instant. The man himself was wardrobed in flame. The fire simply cloaked him alive, engulfing him to the atomic level, as all eight pounds of H1000 went. He was not a man on fire but a man of fire. Yet still, in the heart of the heart of the burning, he had some rational impulse left and spun backwards, where, in a corner, a collection of similar powder jugs had been stashed.

The result was ten more satanic blowtorches so bright, it hurt to see. The world became flame. The commando grabbed Bob to pull him out, for clearly the room would be completely lost to fire in seconds, the house in a few more, but Bob pulled away, screaming in English, “I have to check it out.”

Few men run into fire; he was one. Though he could feel his skin blistering, he shoved himself forward three or four feet, then five or six, yanked his goggles off for better vision and saw what he could see of the components above the bench before they were consumed by flame. He saw the green boxes of Sierra bullets, the yellow of Berger, the yellow-and-black of Swift, and others. He wasn’t close enough to grab one but had the impression, not clearly confirmed, that the calibration on all the boxes was .338s.

Two or three subsequent cans of powder went, and their Devil’s breath spewed plumes in on him. He saw his sleeve was on fire, twisted, tried to find his way out in the flames, which were now general, and suddenly remembered the laptop. He twisted back against the wave of heat, and though each particle of skin was being clawed with hurt, he managed to reach out, snag the laptop with one grasp, and pull away. He stumbled a step or two, unfortunately gasped and took in some superheated atmosphere and lost another second to a racking cough. At that point, on one knee and in recovery from his hacking spasm, his eyes caught on a large gun case, steel, expensive, a wealthy sportsman’s piece of equipment, leaning against the far wall, buckling as the heat crunched it. Two of three initials engraved on the case in exquisite calligraphy six inches tall were briefly visible, and again he thought he registered them as A and W. Then they were gone.