Moustafa stepped back and evaluated his work. As he did, his senses were keen for any disturbances outside. He heard nothing worrisome. As he reached into his pocket for one of the two butane lighters, sweat dripped into his eyes despite the cool air. He flicked the lighter and a flame sparked obediently to life. But then Moustafa snuffed it and cursed under his breath. He had nearly forgotten the last step.
He pocketed the lighter and looked straight up. In most buildings, dealing with the sprinklers might pose a problem — the spray heads were obvious enough, but pipes were often hidden, concealed above painted drywall or a lattice of Styrofoam ceiling panels. Here, however, in a factory setting, all Moustafa had to do was track the lines visually. He followed a series of painted metal pipes through joints and connections, searching for the main line. He felt like he was surveying some massive circulatory system, and in a sense he was — in the event of a fire, these were the arteries that would carry the building s emergency lifeblood.
It took only two minutes. A larger section of pipe led down along one wall and into the concrete slab. There, just above ground level, was a simple valve with a circular handle. It was even labeled for his convenience: emergency sprinkler shutoff. Like turning off a garden hose, he thought. Moustafa turned the valve full clockwise until it stopped. He considered using the hammer to break the pipe above the valve, but Moustafa decided against it, reasoning that he didn't want the water already overhead in the system lines to flood down across the floor. It seemed logical enough.
He went back to the drums and flicked his lighter again. Moustafa worked quickly now, an effort to keep the explosions nearly simultaneous. He had been told this was not critical, but Moustafa took pride in his work. The six fuses, two for each package, were simplicity itself — a cigarette, and secured around it with plastic cable ties, four matches, the phosphorous tips grouped at mid-length. He had practiced at the apartment and found the configuration to be incredibly reliable, the cigarettes turning to ash at a rate that would give him between four and five minutes. In an idle moment, the accountant in him had calculated that each complete fuse had cost twenty-eight cents, most of this going to the American government as a tobacco tax. A delicious irony.
Moustafa lit the fuses in a flurry and ran out the same way he had entered — the back door and the hole in the fence. Once in the street, he slowed to a quick walk and did not pause to admire his work. Not yet. Two blocks away he heard the explosion. Still, he did not look back. Instructions. Get away immediately. Soon Moustafa would be needed for another task, his martyrs mission, and nothing could jeopardize this.
Only upon reaching his car, near a deserted warehouse four blocks away, did he venture a look back. Colson Industries, whatever it was, was out of business. Flames licked high above the roof, their pulsing orange glow reflected in the thick haze above. Moustafa felt pride in his success. But he also felt a tugging sorrow, apprehension. In a matter of days there would be another fire, similar he supposed. And that spectacle would represent his funeral pyre, his departure from this world.
Moustafa turned away, not wanting to watch. He would do his sacred duty. Allah would give him the strength. He began driving carefully toward the safe house. There, Moustafa would check his computer for any last instructions from Caliph. There, Moustafa would pray.
High in a Fleet Street skyscraper, two Barclays financial analysts were seated at adjacent desks. Each had two computer terminals, and the man and woman multitasked nimbly between their screens, deciphering information from one machine while the other spun through commands, then vice versa. As if this was not enough of an overload, stock tickers ran a sliding banner on the wall in front of them, all the major movers and indices represented.
The trading day was about to commence and, as was their custom, the man and woman scoured the Internet for traces of bad luck, disaster, or scandal, anything that could sway their specialized sector — energy. The problems usually came from the Middle East — pipeline attacks in Iraq, seaborne tanker politics in the Straits of Hormuz. Lately, Nigeria and Venezuela had been doing their share of damage, and pirates around the Horn of Africa had been acting up again. But this morning was quiet. No petro-tragedies, and little activity from Hong Kong, where the overnight volatility coefficients had been unusually low.
It was the young woman who spotted the first article, a quick blurb on the Houston Chronicles Web site. She said, "Olson Industries had a fire last night. Their primary furnace manufacturing operation has been decimated. It's going to be down for six to nine months."
The man, older and more experienced, did not even reply. He typed the name of a Russian corporation into his own computer. The results came immediately. "Bloody hell!" he said. "Petrov I. A. burned to the ground!"
The woman's voice took an edge. "There's one other manufacturer, right? Isn't it Dutch —"
"DSR," the man spat, having already typed the full name. The wait seemed interminable, but when the computer finally gave its answer, the man exhaled a deep, controlled sigh. "No, nothing there. DSR is fine."
The two looked at one another. If they had been corporate planners they might have viewed the events in strategic terms, a market opportunity worth targeting. If they had been policemen they might have been curious about the coincidence on a criminal level. As it was, the two financial analysts did their job. They got on the phone.
In the first thirty minutes after the London market's opening gavel, Barclays was on the leading edge of a small wave. Futures indices for gas oil, heating oil, and unleaded gasoline blendstock rose three percent. DSR traded up twelve.
Some people had trouble sleeping on airplanes. Davis could sleep anywhere. He had snoozed on a metal pallet in a C-130 transport, crashed on the deck of an Aegis class missile cruiser in the Red Sea, and slept like a baby in an ice cave during Arctic survival training. So when he got to France after a long night in a Boeing 777 first-class sleeper, he was fully rested.
His first stop was the airport restroom where he ran an electric razor over his face and splashed cold water on the back of his neck. He also donned a fresh polo shirt — dark green and dull, just how he liked it. Diane had bought him a pink shirt once, tried to tell him the color was something called "salmon." Jammer Davis knew pink when he saw it.
From Paris he caught the TGV, a high-speed train that would deliver him to Lyon in less than two hours. He took a window seat in an empty row, settled back as the train began its smooth, quiet acceleration. Not like a Boeing, he reckoned, but quick all the same. In no time, the urban center of Paris gave way to soft brown pastures. Trees vacant of foliage and tawny hedges waited patiently for the coming of spring. Davis watched the countryside roll by, a misty morning blur at almost two hundred miles an hour.
He had spent three years in France as a teenager. His father, a sergeant in the army and a linguist, had been assigned embassy duty in Paris, and so Davis had attended a high school for Foreign Service dependents. He'd grown to like the country, enjoy the people. In the course of it all he had picked up a new language — and a new sport. Davis had played high school football in the States. In France he'd seen the local kids playing something similar, only without the pads. Davis liked the idea, and rugby had become his game.
The train flowed over the track easy and quick. Davis closed his eyes, tried to let his mind go blank. It didn't work. The upcoming investigation was already there, cluttering his mental screen like hard rain on a windshield. He had experience in both military and civilian investigations. The military versions were close to the vest — clipped press releases, no-nonsense colonels staring down cameras. But what most people didn't see in the military boards was the infighting, the flag-grade politics that went on behind the scene. Colonels and generals trying to pitch blame and catch credit. But at least the military inquiries were quick. A month, two at the outside. Civilian accident boards, like the one he was about to wrestle, could take a year or more. And Davis, by nature, was not a patient man.