AT 8:00 O’CLOCK MONDAY morning, key members of the White House staff gathered in the Oval Office to wish President Ted Rust happy birthday. They toasted him with glasses of nonalcoholic wine, munched cookies, and sang “Happy Birthday.” Benjamin Benares placed his gift for the president in the middle of the president’s desk.

Just before entering the office he had emptied the tiny vial of liquid onto the ribbon, as he had been instructed to do. Now, he whispered to the president, “Sir, I have brought you a special gift from my home in India. It would embarrass me to have you open it in front of the others. Would you please—please, sir, wait until you are alone to open it?”

“Of course, Benares. How thoughtful of you! All the way from your home in India. Will Valery like it?”

“Of course, she will, sir. I feel she will be overjoyed. But now please excuse me, sir. I have urgent matters to attend to.”

Benjamin Benares opened the door of the Oval Office and walked quickly downstairs to the side entrance of the White House. “I have left some very important papers at my home,” he told the duty officer.

“Would you please get me a car and driver?”

“You are in luck, Mr. Benares,” the security officer said. “There’s one outside now. The driver knows where you live. By the way, I just heard that there is flooding along the Tidal Basin. Tell the driver to keep to the high ground or you won’t make it.”

Benjamin Benares sat in silence during the ten-minute ride home. He told the driver to return to the White House, then lingered at his front door until he saw the vehicle turn the corner. He carefully turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and walked through the house toward the kitchen.

As he passed through the door to the kitchen, two powerful arms pinned his arms to his sides. Something cold touched his temple, and then a .22-caliber bullet ripped through his skull. One of Benares’s assailants unscrewed the silencer from the barrel of the weapon and placed the gun in the dead man’s hand. On the kitchen table, under a sugar bowl, the other man placed a computer-generated suicide note that replicated Benares’s handwriting. Then they carefully opened the door and went out. Shiva had claimed his first victim.

A second and third were not far behind.

WITH ALL OF THE TRAGEDY crowding his world, Ted Rust appreciated every little bit of kindness shown him on his birthday. He was anxious to see the present his new chief of staff had brought him. He had heard of some of the beautiful crafts created by the people of India. Perhaps this would be something rare and expensive. Perhaps that was why Benares was embarrassed for the others to see it.