“Can you clear it for me to have a chat with Chernayev?”

“I’ll check with Mr. Barrett-Bone, sir, but from SAS’s perspective, it’s fine.”

He thanked the officer and hung up. He told the other Volunteers what had happened.

“But none of the BlueWatch people would have shot him—they were working together.”

Middleton said, “This one has too many questions left for me. I need some answers.”

He headed out the door into the blaring sun, Nora Tesla beside him.

They approached the trailer where the prisoner was being held. Middleton identified himself to the six Indian guards, who checked IDs and then nodded them through the temporary barbed wire perimeter, after verifying that Barrett-Bone and the SAS had okayed their interview.

The trailer was big—a doublewide American model, with air-conditioning. In the front office, two guards sat in metal chairs, gripping H&K machine guns. One checked their IDs and placed another call to their superior officers and, it seemed, to Barrett-Bone. Middleton didn’t mind; there couldn’t be too much security with these particular prisoners.

Then he hung up and said, “You can go in, in a moment. As soon as the nurse is finished.”

“Nurse?”

“British army nurse.”

Middleton frowned. “Is Chernayev injured?”

“No, no. She said it was a routine check to allow him into London.” He smiled. “Maybe he needs inoculation against mad cow disease.”

“Allow him into London? There’s no quarantine coming from India. Anyway he’s not going on a commercial flight. Who approved it?”

“An officer in our command.”

“Inside, now! Keep your weapons ready.”

“She was just a nurse.”

“I’ll call Northern Command if I have to.”

The guards regarded each other. They rose, readied their machine guns.

One covered the door while the other unlocked and flung it open. He peered inside, his face a mask of shock. “There is problem. No, no!”

The other Indian soldier raced into the room, Middleton and Tesla right behind.

They stopped fast, seeing Chernayev’s body. It was in the middle of the small office, whose windows were covered with thick steel mesh. He’d been shot in the back of the head as he tried desperately to claw his way out.

“The nurse,” a guard whispered, gesturing at the only other door in the room, leading to a third office.

“There’s a back door?”

“No, just the one, the front.”

The nurse was trapped. They’d keep her pinned and call in a marine tac team. “I’ll get—”

“No, we will stop her.”

“Wait!” Middleton whispered. “She can’t—”

They flung the door open and blinked as a brilliant light, the sort used for construction site work at night, clicked on. Blinded, they staggered back as four well-placed silenced rounds found their targets—the men’s foreheads.