Prepared—no, eager—to light up hostiles big time, if it came to that.

“There are two hundred others here, surrounding the grounds and, to be quite honest, I doubt your BlueWatch chaps feel their paycheck is worth going up against our SAS, now don’t you agree?” Barrett-Bone frowned. “Oh, and for the record, I’m obligated to inform you that we’re here with the full knowledge and sanction of the lieutenant general of the Indian Army’s Northern Command in Udhumpar and of Indian Special Branch . . . Which is the diplomatic way of saying, your men discharge a single bullet from a single weapon, you will all vanish and quite unpleasantly.”

Chernayev hesitated. His face red with anger, he looked around. Then he bent forward, set the detonator on the ground and backed up.

In two seconds, SAS soldiers had him in cuffs and relieved of his weapon, phone and personal effects. In only a bit longer than that, Wiki Chang had deactivated the remote detonator.

The British soldiers then disarmed and cuffed the BlueWatch security men.

None too gently, Middleton was pleased to note.

Barrett-Bone spoke again into his collar. “Captain, the detonator’s in our control. Move in and arrest the Mujahedeen. The thermobarics can’t be detonated by them, but some may have other weapons and they’re undoubtedly all fired up.” He sighed. “Fundamentalists are soooo completely tedious.”

A medic from Barrett-Bone’s team arrived and Middleton immediately pointed out Archer. “I want him alive,” he said. “Do what you can to save him.”

“Yes, sir.”

But before the medic got to him, Archer sat up suddenly, stared with unseeing eyes toward Middleton and then collapsed onto his back. He shivered once, then lay still.

The medic ran forward and bent down over the man. He touched his neck then looked up, grimacing. “Lost too much blood, sir. I’m afraid he’s gone.”

The Volunteers were sitting in a large workman’s trailer, near the site of the dam. Charley was in a separate one; her father wanted to minimize the trauma she’d been through. Everyone was dabbing their eyes from the remnants of the CS tear gas.

Middleton had been on the phone with Washington, The Hague, New Delhi and London. Everything Barrett-Bone had told them checked out. The stand-in for the president, the monitoring that MI5, MI6, Langley and the Indian Special Branch had been doing.

Chernayev was being housed in an impromptu prison—another trailer, guarded by Indian Northern Command troops. And Barrett-Bone had just reported that a covert ops team had completed an extraordinary rendition of General Zang. Beijing may or may not have been allied with him and Chernayev, but they distanced themselves from him instantly and ordered two-thirds of its soldiers on the Kashmiri border as soon as feasible.

Despite the rescue, Tesla was irritated at Barrett-Bone, “You hid a tracker on us, didn’t you? In Paris.”