Abdullah spoke without lifting his head. “You are sure the logs arrived at the boats intact?” He waved the question off with a nod of his head. “Yes, of course, you have said so.”

“Do you think they will give us the agent?” Ramón asked.

Abdullah thought about Casius and blinked. A widening thought in his mind suggested it might be best if they did not deliver the agent. Then his hand would be forced—it would be Allah’s doing.

Abdullah glanced at the clock ticking on the wall opposite them. It had been twenty-four hours and not even a breath from the fools. A chill suddenly spiked at the base of his skull. What if they had ignored the message entirely, thinking him a madman? What if they hadn’t even received the message? It had been relayed through the same relays he would use for the bombs. Five million dollars of technology—all from Jamal, of course.

Abdullah grunted and shoved himself back from the bar. “Something isn’t right. We’ll send another message.”

He walked for the door with Ramón on his heels. His fingers were shaking badly. Power was its own drug, he thought, and it was coursing through his veins. At the moment he might very well be the most powerful man in the world.

FRIBERG JERKED in his seat when the knock came on his door. He lifted his head, but the door opened before he could say anything. Mark stepped in.

Ingersol’s greased hair flopped to the right side. He threw it back with a hurried hand and rushed forward. “We received another message!”

Friberg stood and snatched the message from the man. “Settle down, Ingersol.” But he was already reading the typed communiqué in his fingers.

Ingersol sat in one of the chairs facing his desk. “This guy’s dead serious. He’s adamant that he has a bomb. I thought you said—”

“Shut up!”

Friberg slowly sat. “Forty-eight hours,” he read. “He’s cutting the time from seventy-two hours to forty-eight hours because we have been insufficiently responsive?” He lowered the paper. “That’s absurd! This guy can’t be serious.”

Ingersol’s greasy black hair had fallen to his cheek again. “This isn’t the kind of communiqué a man who’s bluffing sends, sir. He’s either a total imbecile or he does have a bomb. And the fact that he’s survived Casius this long does not bode well for the imbecile theory.” Ingersol stopped and took a long pull through his nostrils.

The director felt a ball of heat spread over his skull. And what if Ingersol were correct? What if . . . ?

The note was signed Abdullah Amir. Disconnected fragments of information fell together in his mind and he blinked. Jamal. Casius was after Jamal.

What if Casius had actually stumbled onto more than the cocaine plant?