As if speaking to school children, Jana said, “Some time ago Devras Sikari was negotiating with the Mujahedeen here in Jammu about power sharing if he could secure an independent Kashmir. But he learned that this person known as the Scorpion and a Chinese associate wanted to fabricate some terror attack as an excuse for the Chinese to invade and occupy Kashmir. They planned to blame the terrible incident on Devras. He learned about their scheme and came up with a plan to expose them: He pretended to enlist the Mujahedeen to help him blow up the dam. Yes, he arranged for some explosives to be stolen and shipped there but he knew the dam was too solid to be destroyed. He was an engineer, remember.”

Tesla said, “But the email we found on Kavi Balan’s computer said he planned to destroy the Village.”

“Wait. No, it didn’t,” Middleton countered. “It just said he had something ‘planned’ for it.”

“And he did,” Jana continued. “He planned to get to the truth of the Scorpion’s plot. He wasn’t going to destroy the Village. He was going to save it—and expose the Scorpion and his associate to the world, if we couldn’t stop them first.”

Middleton had to laugh. He realized that he and the Volunteers were the ones who had accomplished Sikari’s goal: protecting the Village and exposing the Scorpion’s and Zang’s plan.

Jana continued, “My job was to find the Scorpion and eliminate threats. That’s why I needed your daughter . . . to use her to find out what you knew. After Balan failed to kill you, I learned who you were. Not some spy for the Scorpion. Or for those crazy men with the Group. But the Volunteers.” Her face darkened. “I was getting close to stopping you and to learning who the Scorpion was . . . And then tragedy. Archer killed his fa ther.”

Barrett-Bone said, “Tragedy? Why, you helped him do it!”

“Are you mad?” she raged. “Devras was my mentor, a colleague of my father. He was a genius. Archer was a street thug, a fool.” The woman shivered in disgust. “He never understood the politics, the culture, the depth of our region. And like most stupid men, he was easily seduced, by the Scorpion. He never realized that the last thing Devras wanted was a real incident here, especially the deaths of foreigners. It would destroy forever his hopes for a free Kashmir.”

Middleton said, “So you’re the one who shot Archer.”

She sighed. “My only regret is that I couldn’t get close enough to tell him how I despised him before I pulled the trigger.”

“And Crane?” Barrett-Bone asked. “The reporter.”

“I thought he would be valuable in finding Scorpion. He led me to your daughter and her.” A contemptuous nod toward Tesla. “But he gave me little else.”

“You wanted Chernayev and Zang stopped, right?” Connie Carson said.

“Yes, of course, I did.”