Clutching her precious briefcase, she arrived at the mosque and walked around the nondescript building, which was one of the few here free from graffiti. It was one of the biggest in London. Nearly twenty-five hundred men prayed here daily; women too, though shunted ignominiously away behind dirty curtain partitions.

Jana looked for security. Nothing out of the ordinary. She needn’t worry.

All was going according to the plan.

She paused near the entrance. Shivered as a gust of wind swept over her.

And she turned, walked into the Café Nero across the street, ordered a latte.

In this neighborhood, even in a Starbucks-like coffee shop chain, it was a bit unusual to see a woman alone without her husband or brother or a clutch of girlfriends. Traditional values flowed strongly here. In fact, an honor killing by a Pakistani brother of his eloped sister had taken place only two blocks away.

As Jana took her coffee, sat and shrugged off her coat, a bearded man in a turban walked in and regarded her contemptuously, despite the conservative outfit she wore and the scarf.

She decided if he made any comment to her, she would, at some point, hurt him very, very badly.

He took his tea, muttering to himself. Undoubtedly about infidels, women and respect.

Another glance at the mosque.

And she felt the exhilaration of a mission nearly completed.

The mission that was Devras Sikari’s life plan.

Devras had been one of the most brilliant revolutionaries of his time. While Chernayev and Zang and Archer and the Mujahedeen believed that their goals could be achieved by explosives and gunfire, Devras knew that was short-sighted, the approach of the simple-minded. Childish.

Why, look at Palestine and Israel, look at Sri Lanka and the Tamal Tigers, England and the IRA. Look at Africa.

Oh, there was nothing wrong with violence as a surgical tool; it was necessary to eliminate risks. But as a means to achieve a political end?

It was inefficient.

Devras understood that the best way to achieve his goal of Kashmiri independence involved a different, far more potent weapon than thermobaric explosives, snipers or suicide bombers.

That weapon?

Desire, want, craving.

At Cambridge and afterward, Devras Sikari—along with her father and their Indian classmate—had indeed managed to duplicate the copper bracelet technology that had been perfected by the Germans during World War II. She’d lied to Middleton and the others about that.

In fact, the three men went far beyond the original design and created an astonishingly simple and productive system for the creation of heavy water.

But, realizing its potential and how he might exploit it, Devras insisted on patenting only a portion of the technology, leaving out key parts of the science, without which it would be impossible to bring the system online.

In the briefcase she carried now were the encrypted diagrams, formulae and specifications of these core elements omitted from the patents.