They were sitting in a small restaurant in a village 20 kilometers from the Baglihar dam. The restaurant was really the front room of a dilapidated shack. The rest of the shack served as the home for the family that ran the place.

At the moment, Sanam and Umer were the only customers. The young boy who had been serving them had gone into the back to leave them in peace while they ate.

“What is it?” Sanam asked.

“The remote controls for the detonators.”

“What about them?”

“They don’t work.”

Sanam froze for a moment, startled by his old friend’s words. “They are defective?”

“Not exactly. When we put them inside the dam, there is too much concrete. The signal must not be getting through.”

“But they work otherwise?”

“I had one of the men smuggle a remote back out and I tried it. Outside, it worked fine.”

The idea of eating no longer appealed to Sanam. Everything they had been working toward, the years of infiltration and manual labor, all the pressure he’d put his men under for the last two days, it was all for nothing. And the opportunity they were going to squander, undone by something as simple as a blocked radio signal. How could this have even happened?

“The American,” Umer said, “we shouldn’t have trusted him. He’s given us equipment he should have known would not work.”

Sanam could see murder in his friend’s eyes. “Calm down, Umer. There’s still time. I’ll talk to him and get remotes that will work.”

“And if they are faulty too?”

“We will deal with that if it happens.”

“I don’t like this,” Umer said, his unhappiness still written on his face.

The sound of shuffling feet from the back of the restaurant announced the return of the serving boy. He approached their table to ask if they wanted anything else.

“Nothing more, thank you,” Sanam said.

As soon as the boy had cleared the dishes and returned to the back, Umer said, “I tell you I don’t like this.”

“And I tell you that I understand,” Sanam said. “I am not happy about this either. I will talk to the American and I will see what can be done.”

Middleton’s eyes flew open.

What the hell was that?

He’d been dead asleep, then something pulled him out of it so fast his heart raced. A dream? If it was, it would have been the most intense one he’d had in years. What then?

He reached over to the nightstand and checked his watch.

It was 4:09 a.m.

Middleton knew he should try to go back to sleep. Lying there awake would only drive him crazy. As he started to close his eyes he heard a muffled pop. Then another, and another.

Gunfire. It was coming from the front of the estate.