The bank manager had not been cooperative. Now he lay next to a mound of goat droppings by the side of the road, blood still running from the gash in his throat, turning the sand black.

It was Hazim, tossing a sack into the bed of the lead pickup, who heard the sound next. He had been in the struggle longer, and he knew what the sound was, and he shouted to the others, and those who heard him ran to the trucks, their hands full or empty, and leapt into the cabs or onto the beds on top of the sacks. Hazim started the engine of his vehicle and put it in gear and stomped on the gas, spraying gravel as the truck surged forward, but it got no farther than two meters before a Hellfire missile from the Predator drone struck, just where the windshield met the hood, and the Toyota and Hazim exploded in a fierce hot ball of flame and metal and dirt. Now everyone was at the remaining trucks, some in the cabs, some on the beds, some hanging on to door handles, running or being dragged. Bashir was sprawled in a truck bed on bags of dollars when the second Toyota exploded. He couldn’t see who was driving the one he was riding on, but whoever it was accelerated violently, swerving off the road onto packed dirt, heading for a concrete bridge over a dry riverbed to hide beneath. The truck bounced through a gully and Bashir tumbled sideways. He grabbed a side panel to avoid falling out and looked back, toward the bank, where he saw someone who might have been Nasruddin, their team leader, the most devout, who monitored the others’ prayers, sprawled on the ground, not moving, his clothes on fire. He saw scattered metal junk that had once been Toyotas. He saw ragged sleeves on arms detached from bodies.

And, looking up, he saw flocks of hundred-dollar bills, burning and spinning, more than he could count, pirouetting in the crystal desert air.

Part One

PART ONE

Philatelists

PHILATELISTS