“I’m sure you’ve got it under control,” Carson said. “Please, go back to work. You said the disk was encrypted—”

“A real bear.”

“You haven’t been able to decode it?” Carson didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, so she tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. Everyone said Wiki Chang was the best, but if Langer, a hobbyist, and Tampa PD hadn’t been able to crack it, and his pal at Homeland Security, a pro, had already given it a whirl . . .

“No, I’ve got the disk decoded. See?” As if the other three monitors were only for show, Chang held up a slim laptop, tilting the screen until she nodded her approval.

“I’m not even sure what I’m looking at.”

“It’s a ZIP file, an archive containing a bunch of other files. I opened it using ‘fcrackzip,’ this terrific brute-force ZIP cracking program for Linux. I mean, it really didn’t have a terribly complicated password and even if it had been way more complex, there are tons of cryptanalysis tools I could have used. The encryption in ZIP files just isn’t all that good.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Carson said.

Chang hurried on, pointing at the screen with an index finger for emphasis. “Now the coded files are all picture files, see? They were taken by a Nikon. Except for this one. This one’s pretty cute. It’s not a photo—it’s a diagram, see, a blueprint of a hydroelectric dam. I matched it to the architectural drawings and schematics for the Baglihar dam project.”

“In Jammu and Kashmir.”

“Right. Good old J&K, but see this? The blueprints have been altered.”

“Altered?”

“Added to. These look like plans to set up a heavy-water reactor at the core of the dam. In a kind of subterranean chamber.”

Carson couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. “But that could be what we’ve been looking for, what Sindhu Power and Electric was shipping overseas, the parts for the heavy-water reactor. Does it say when the reactor will go online? Does it give a date? We’ve got to get in touch with Middleton.”

“Hold on, Connie. The plans—the alterations—to accommodate the heavy-water reactor . . . I’ve been looking at them, and excuse me, but they’re either bullshit or they’re incomplete. The way they are now, they’re like a high-class con, a way to justify some incredible expenditures, but they won’t actually do the trick. There’s a reason the patent for this stuff was applied for, but never granted. This whole ‘copper bracelet’ technology seems to be built around faulty assumptions.”

“Copper bracelet?”

“Yeah, because of the shape of the copper pipes,” he said.

“Okay, so the reactor won’t actually go online?” Light glinted off Chang’s oversized lenses and Carson shifted her head to get a clearer look at the screen.