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down?”
    Stirring himself from the past, Brooke said to Anne, “The ISI won’t permit it. After Mumbai, there were a few ‘punitive’ measures, all a charade. With the ISI’s protection, LET continues to train hundreds of jihadists every year. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal gives LET a shield; if India invades Pakistan in reprisal for the actions of LET, it runs the risk of a nuclear attack.” Turning to Grey, Brooke asked, “What odds would you quote me on reprisal now? Or nuclear war?”
    Grey watched the picture shift to thousands of Indians in New Delhi, flooding the streets to express their grief and anger. “You know the history,” he said wearily. “Before 9/11, LET hijacked an Air India flight to swap hostages for prisoners jailed by India, including an ally of Bin Laden’s. A month after 9/11, they launched a failed assault on the Parliament they’ve now destroyed. That time, only the attackers died. But both countries mobilized for war. President Bush and Colin Powell had to use every ounce of influence to head off a nuclear nightmare.”
    Anne gently took the cigarette from his hand, grinding it out. “The Mumbai attack was far worse,” she said. “Why didn’t that cause another crisis?”
    â€œCalculated restraint by India. But LET achieved its immediate goal—disrupting a rapprochement between India and Pakistan.” Grey glanced back at the television. “Like this one, that attack involved intricate planning and operational sophistication. The fact that LET didn’t claim credit allowed the ISI to protect its operations, using its cover as an Islamic charity. Now this.”
    In the semidarkness, Brooke forced himself to turn from the screen. “I assume this is LET’s reaction to our pressure on Pakistan to focus on the Taliban.”
    â€œIn part. Some senior officers in the Pakistani military resent that—as does the ISI, which provides the Taliban with clandestine support and allows it to move back and forth across the border to Afghanistan to kill American soldiers. But on a deeper level, this is about who controls Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—the civilian government or the army. Right now, the army does; the prime minister wants some say. My guess is that the army will use this opportunity to remind the civilians who decides when the arsenal gets deployed.” As he studied the images of the dead and injured on the screen, both Indians and tourists, Grey’s tone became somber. “After Mumbai, the Indians held back. But this time the bombs and missiles may be coming out of their hiding places. God help us if this tragedy goes nuclear.”
    Turning to the screen, Brooke watched an EMT carry a corpse from the wreckage of the Taj Mahal. Bowing his head, he summoned as much of a prayer as his tattered beliefs could muster.
    In Peshawar, Al Zaroor pulled aside the blind, peering into the crowded street. When he saw the car, he closed the blind, pausing only to watch the riot beginning in Mumbai, the faces of Hindus suffused with hatred as they started hunting down Muslims. Then he switched off the television and left.
    The operation had begun.

FIVE
    A s dusk fell, Al Zaroor waited for the warrior so essential to his dream.
    Back against the thick trunk of a tree, he looked down from rolling hills at a two-lane road that ran through the verdant farmland of the Punjab. The air was hot and humid, very different from the place where he had first encountered Ismail Sharif a year before. But he still recalled the jolt of recognition: in the face of this stranger, Al Zaroor had seen his younger self.
    They sat at an outdoor café in the village of Madyan, a Taliban stronghold in the Swat, sampling pastries and drinking thick black coffee. The café was set on a green hillside sloping to a narrow river whose rushing current carried its own echo. Moved by the beauty of their surroundings, so