Yet in so many other ways Ben could no more get into Nazim’s mindset than he could relate to an extraterrestrial being. Nazim was a terrorist. Probably the most natural-born terrorist Ben had ever known. His whole raison d’être was to cause havoc against innocent people. He had been responsible for a great many deaths in his lifetime, but never until now had he had the means to wreak such mass destruction on the hated West. As his options diminished, the pressure mounted and time turned against him, all his energy would be focused on coming up with the quickest and most effective new method of carrying out genocidal murder.

And now Ben had to go against his own nature and try to think like that himself.

What would he do, in Nazim’s place? Possessed of the means to rub out the lives of millions of ordinary, unsuspecting civilians, what would be the most rapid and direct way to launch his strike? You wouldn’t waste time and energy depending on middlemen to distribute the fentanyl onto the streets. That opportunity had come and gone. No, instead you’d focus on deploying that weapon directly against its targets. As many of them as possible, and all at once. Causing maximum damage, instantly, like detonating a nuclear warhead over a population-dense area.

Ben stared at the map until its little lines and squiggles seemed to float in front of his eyes and lost all meaning. Willing it to yield up its secret. His mind churning so hard that his brain ached. He flashed back on the image he’d pictured, of Nazim in his canoe, polluting the clear sparkling river water with his poison.

And that image led to another. One that made sudden and terrifying sense. He looked again at the map, and traced Nazim’s route downwards with his finger, and landed on the spot, and understood.

When the realisation hit him, it made his guts twist.

He turned to Roth.

‘I think I know what they’re going to do.’

Chapter 59

From the moment he’d heard the first crackle of gunfire coming from the village, even before the skirmish on the beach with the idiot locals who thought they could stop him, Nazim had known that he was going to have to abandon his strategy. The new one hadn’t been long coming. As he and his remaining men hurriedly loaded as many barrels as they could aboard the pickup trucks, piled in and took off, he’d already decided what he must do next. And he liked it.