MacD opened the book and leafed to a random page. If they needed all transatlantic telephone cables to go off-line, that was a number 3282. If they needed a fake media story run, that was a number 6529, with a subset of numbers listing two dozen types of news pieces. If they needed a nuclear strike anywhere on the planet, that was number 7432, with the GPS coordinates tacked on after.

MacD pointed that last one out to the man from Langley. “Yes,” Overholt said to the unasked question, “the situation is that dire. If need be, I can make it happen. I don’t know how much we can do from our end. Big Brother is watching, and if Bahar catches wind of our interest, he’s going to know something’s up. We’ll try to make some discreet, one-on-one inquiries, but I can’t promise much.”

“I understand.”

They talked for the remainder of the flight, but it seemed too soon that the big Sikorsky was flaring over the apron at the sprawling air station. They’d been directed to land next to a row of parked F-18s.

The chopper’s onboard crewman opened the side roller door, and MacD jumped to the tarmac. The rotor’s downdraft was like standing at the eye wall of a hurricane.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, young man,” Overholt said from his seat. He had to shout over the spinning blades and still-lit turbines. “I was the one who gave Juan his superstition about being wished good luck. I will simply say happy hunting, and, not to put too fine of a point on this, but you are our best and only hope.”

“We won’t let you down, Mr. Overholt.” MacD threw him a wave and backed away as the turbine pitch increased and the chopper took to the air once again.

ABDUL MOHAMMAD, AKA JOHN SMITH, HAD NEVER SEEN his employer in such a towering rage. The American president hadn’t made any speeches about his giving in to Bahar’s demands, as he’d expected. He didn’t think that the president would admit to being blackmailed, but surely he would have appeared on television and contritely explained the shift in U.S. foreign policy.

Bahar had spent the previous day watching repeated coverage of the train crash he’d caused outside Philadelphia, staring raptly at the giant plasma television set, as news choppers shot hours of film of the carnage and reporters on the ground interviewed dazed and bloody survivors.

Mohammad hadn’t known his boss had a capacity to kill. Sure, he’d ordered killings, but on this occasion he had pushed the proverbial button that had snuffed out two hundred and thirteen lives. Bahar had taken a taste of the ultimate power, the power of life and death, and he’d enjoyed it. Abdul saw it on his face and in his glassy eyes.

Now, though, he ranted like a child denied his favorite toy.

“He saw what I could do and still he defies me!” Abdul knew his superior was speaking of the American president. “And sending the Guantanamo prisoners to the World Court? He knew I meant they were to be released back to their home countries. If they wanted to prosecute, that would have been their business.”

The two men were in Bahar’s office at the quantum computer facility. The windows looked out over a bleak and abandoned industrial area, with oil-stained ground and buildings losing their battles with rust. A tall derrick presided over the scene. Unlike the other equipment, it had been refurbished so that it was in working order. Below it was a cement bunker that could withstand any weapon in the Air Force’s arsenal except for a nuke.

What was invisible were all the motion detectors, thermalimaging and standard cameras, and a not-so-small army of guards ready to lay down their lives for the cause. Unlike hired mercenaries, these men were fanatically devoted and had already proven themselves in either Iraq or Afghanistan. They’d been smuggled into the country, once the bunker was in place. It had been built off-site over the past few months by an outside contractor, who thought they were pouring concrete bridge piers, and assembled once the facility had been procured. The computer had been installed at the same time.

As the computer network on the oil rig had calculated, the crystals, once cut to size, were the final pieces to bring the quantum device to life. The machine itself was the size of a suburban living room and was packed with exotic electronics, and, when viewed through a polarizing lens, gave off a red, pulsing aura as though it had a beating heart.

Neither man understood how it worked, how the way the atoms aligned in the crystals was the key to the computer’s ability to deal with quantum fluctuations and counter atomic-scale interference. It had taken years, and the harnessing of the computer farm aboard the J-61, to make it a reality.

When they had turned it on, the machine seemed inert for the first thirty seconds. The scientists weren’t sure if they had succeeded until a disembodied female voice had emanated from the speakers placed in Bahar’s office, saying simply, “Ready.”

The first test had been to switch all the interactive traffic lights in Prague from red to green or vice versa. The computer hacked into the traffic-control system instantaneously and did as instructed, before turning control back over to city authorities. Eerily, it asked, “Why?”

“Because you were told to,” Bahar had replied to the microphones also hidden in his office. His answer had taken a moment because no one had thought the computer would question him. When asked, the computer scientists who’d assembled the computer had no explanation.

They did more elaborate tests, finding better-encrypted systems to infiltrate, until they were convinced that no network on the planet was impervious to their machine and that no database could remain secret.

That is when they launched the assault on the NSA to obtain the nuclear codes. It was rumored that the computers at the National Security Agency weren’t measured in teraflops or petaflops, which is the number ten to the fifteenth power, but rather were measured by the acre. It had taken Bahar’s machine a half second to penetrate the firewalls and access the code.

So with success piled atop success, Gunawan Bahar had been a happy man until he saw that the American response to his demands had been a tepid article buried at the back of a Washington newspaper.

“I was too easy on them the first time,” he railed. “I tried to show my compassion, my humanity, and he spits in my face. I am not some insane fanatic bent on murdering infidels until the very last one is dead, but if that is what he wants of me, then that is what I will become.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” came the calm voice.

“Send this message to the White House: You will give a live speech from the Oval Office or they will all die of thirst, and then I want you to shut down all fifty-one pumping stations that feed water into Las Vegas, Nevada, and don’t turn them back on until I say so.” He’d learned earlier that he needed to be very specific with place-names.

“Task complete,” the computerized voice said tonelessly.

“Let’s see how long he’ll let those people bake in the desert heat before he tells the world that he no longer controls his nation’s destiny. What do you think, Abdul? Clever, yes?”

“Yes, very,” Mohammad said, but he didn’t agree. If it were up to him, every reactor in America would have gone critical days ago. He didn’t understand why his superior was toying with the Americans.

“That was hardly convincing, my friend. You think we should destroy the Great Satan and be done with it.”

Bahar never asked his opinion, so it came as a surprise now. Unsure, Mohammad finally nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You don’t enjoy the irony of us meddling in their policies the way they have meddled in ours. For two generations the Americans have said which regimes rise and fall, and used that capability with little regard for the people it affects. Now we can do the same to them, to tell them their place in the world, to make them feel what it is like to be under someone else’s thumb for a change.