Balan looked over the older husband, who was fairly fit for someone in middle age. From here—50 yards away—he was handsome in a nondescript American way; all of them looked alike to him. And his wife was even more striking up close. The younger man, Balan now decided, wasn’t their son. He wasn’t young enough. Besides he didn’t resemble either of the older couple. Perhaps he was a co-worker or neighbor or the American’s younger brother. His wife, the mother of the baby, was blond and athletic. Recalling his thoughts about sports, he decided she looked like a cheerleader.

Balan reached into the bag and extracted the gun, checked again to make sure it was ready to fire. He then put on a powder blue jacket that said Inspecteur des Plages and a fake badge, slipped the gun’s strap over his shoulder and hung the gun on his back so it wouldn’t be seen from the front.

He thought of Sikari.

He thought of Jana, the cold, beautiful woman now waiting in the van.

Would she await him later that night? In her bed? Perhaps this was only a fantasy. But, as Sikari taught his followers, fantasies exist so that we might strive to make them reality.

Then standing tall, he walked toward the family with casual purpose.

One hundred yards.

Then 75.

Making slow progress over the fine white sand.

The American, smiling from something his wife had said, glanced his way, but paid Balan little attention. He’d be thinking, a beach inspector? Those crazy French. At worst I’ll have to pay five euros for permission to lunch here.

Fifty yards.

Forty.

He would shoot when he was 15 yards away. Balan was a good shot. He’d learned his skill killing Pakistanis and Muslims and other intruders in his home in Kashmir. He was accurate even standing in the open with the enemy shooting back.

The younger woman, the mother beside the baby’s bassinette, glanced his way without interest and then turned back to her music streaming into her ears through the iPod. She leaned forward on her beach chair, looked inside the carriage, smiled and whispered to the baby.

That will be her last image as she died: her child’s face.

Thirty yards.

Twenty-five.

Balan kept a restrained smile on his face. Still, none of them was suspicious. Perhaps they were thinking that with his brown skin he was from Algeria or Morocco. There were many Frenchmen around here who had roots in North Africa.

Twenty yards.

He wiped his palms on his blue jacket.

Fifteen.

All right . . . Now!

But Balan froze as he gazed at the family. Wait . . . what was this?

The two men and the older woman were diving to the sand.