Nazim shrugged. ‘Who refuses?’

‘Someone who wants to play the hero. They’ll have a pretty good idea of what we’re about to do. Few infidels would want to be responsible for helping to kill thousands of their own kind. Unless we ran into a Hitler, but that would be too much to hope for.’

Ah, Hitler. What a champion. If only he’d been one of theirs.

Nazim pondered the problem and saw an easy solution. ‘This senior manager or chief technical officer is most likely to be a man, yes?’

‘I’d say so. The infidels like to pretend they strive for gender equality, but theirs is still a man’s world, mashallah. One of the few things we have in common with them. Why do you ask?’

‘Because if it’s a choice between facilitating the deaths of a thousand strangers or being directly responsible for a pretty young woman’s brains being blown out right in front of his eyes, no kafir will play the hero for long.’

‘I understand what you’re saying, brother. But how do we know there’ll be any pretty young women at the facility?’

‘We don’t,’ Nazim replied. ‘So we’ll find one en route and take her hostage. That won’t be a problem. There’s always some slut around for the picking.’

Abbud thought about it and slowly nodded, warming to the plan. ‘I think it can work.’

‘Of course it can work. Allah’s knowledge has no beginning or end, and He is with us. We can’t lose, brother.’

The terrorists changed course and sped southwards. Soon, very soon, the final phase of their plan would kick into action.

Chapter 60

The facility was owned by Keres Holdings International, one of the oldest and most established multinational corporations in Europe, with fingers in every pie from public utilities to media and telecommunications. The industrial giant’s interests in water, electricity and natural gas supply and waste management had been spun off into a separate company, K.H.I. Environmental, in 2008, which had invested over three billion euros into the development of its state-of-the-art water treatment plant in the scenic hills of the Alpes Mancelles near Saint-Léonard-des-Bois, a few kilometres west of the commune of Alençon.

Discreetly blended into the landscape of a pretty river valley, from the air the hundred-acre site looked like a NASA space centre. The plant’s management prided themselves on being able to comfortably handle over half a million cubic metres of water a day, using the latest eco-friendly technology to remove nitrogen, carbon and phosphate, neutralise odours and eliminate organic matter. The result was beautiful, crystal-clear and sparkling bright water that rivalled the finest mountain spring for purity. K.H.I. even had its own patented thermal treatment process that enabled six hundred metric tons of sludge a day to be converted into renewable energy. The green revolution had arrived.