With a half smile twisting his mouth, Alicia Clayton’s man abruptly ceased his pleading and returned to his feet. He gave a little nod of acknowledgment, which seemed to please Baker very much. Baker took a single step closer to the man.

“We start off long distance on you, then move in close for the fun stuff.”

“Not yet, Baker,” Kemel said. “He may have information I need.”

“Like what? What is this place, anyway?”

Kemel ignored the question. The less Baker knew, the better. “Disarm them and guard them. You may do whatever you wish when I am through with him.”

He had to hold that out to Baker. During the trip into these hills, Baker and his two remaining men had talked of little else than what they would do to the man who had killed their fellows. But Kemel also had to make sure that what he saw before him now was all of it, that there was no other transmitter. He would learn from the Clayton woman and her hireling how they located this one, and if they knew of any others.

And then…

And then they would all have to die.

Kemel did not relish that. In fact, he had been dreading this moment. He had known about the bomb on JAL 27, but that hadn’t been his idea. It had disturbed him that so many innocent lives had to be sacrificed in order to take one, yet he had also understood the absolute necessity of preventing Ronald Clayton from reaching Japan. And what were 247 lives compared to the well-being of the entire Arab world? A relative few had been sacrificed for a far greater good. Was it not so throughout all history?

But at least those faceless deaths had occurred far away, and by the impersonal agency of an explosive device. Today would be different. The dead would have names and faces, and their killers would look into those faces, watch them die. By his order.

But he had his orders, and agreed with their wisdom, their implacable necessity: No one outside of Iswid Nahr must know about this technology.

He watched Barlowe hold his assault weapon to the Oriental’s head while Baker’s other man, the one he called Kenny, took the lamp from him and removed two pistols. They followed the same procedure with Alicia Clayton’s man who, surprisingly, was unarmed. Baker moved them and the Clayton woman to the side, allowing Thomas Clayton access to the file cabinets.

Baker had finally proved useful. In fact, despite all the setbacks, he finally had accomplished what he had been hired to do. The little transponder he’d placed in the bottom of the woman’s handbag had allowed them to stay miles behind as they’d followed her here. But he would not be rewarded with the huge bonus and lifetime of easy employment he anticipated.