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are you going to do?" Nick asked.
    "All we have is a phone call and speculation," Harker said. "I'll pass the info to Langley and let them follow up. Steph, after you check out those calls in the NSA data banks, see what you can find out about this coin."
    She handed it to Stephanie. "Anybody have anything else?"
    "When is Lamont coming back?" Steph asked.
    Lamont Cameron was the fourth part of Nick's team. A few months before he'd gone down with an infection, the result of a wound he'd taken in Jordan. It had almost killed him. Lately he'd seemed depressed. Nick was worried about him.
    "I'm not sure," Elizabeth said. "I'm letting him have as much time as he needs to heal. I shouldn't have sent him on that last mission, it was too soon."
    "It wasn't your fault, Elizabeth," Selena said. "He's the one who wanted to get out of the hospital."
    "I know," Harker said. "But even so..."
    "He'll be okay," Ronnie said. "Lamont is one tough cookie."
     

    CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Ashok Rao was in his office at RAW headquarters, reading a report from the Philippines and trying not to think about his limited future. He felt a sudden, sharp pain, as though a spike had punched into his skull. He got up from his desk and steadied himself. He walked to the private washroom he rated as Secretary of Special Operations, took the bottle of pills Krivi had given him from the medicine cabinet and shook four tablets into his palm. He filled a glass with bottled water and gulped them down. He turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. He patted the skin dry with a towel and combed back his receding hair.
    The image looking back from the mirror showed a balding man with a moon shaped face. Deep pockets of shadow sat like bruises under liquid brown eyes. His skin was a medium brown color with a yellowish cast to it. He was clean-shaven. Rao was sixty-one years old, but today he felt ten years older.
    His office was on the top floor of the agency's new headquarters building on Lodhi Road. He had a fine wooden desk and bookcase, a couch and upholstered chairs of good quality. The walls were painted yellow, with off-white, enameled trim. The floor was covered with thick, blue carpet. A row of windows looked out over the busy road below and across the rooftops of New Delhi.
    O ne wall bore a mandatory picture of the current Prime Minister, a man for whom Rao felt only contempt. Below it was a picture of Lakhan Gupta, the current Secretary of RAW and Rao's boss. On another wall was a picture of the founder of the first Hind u nationalist party. Next to it hung a painting of an eighth century Hindu philosopher called the Great Revivalist. A gold frame with a picture of Rao's murdered wife and son sat on his desk, next to a computer monitor.
    He picked up the picture and gently touched the glass over his wife's face.
    The marriage had been arranged by their parents, as was customary. Before the wedding, Rao had little contact with his bride-to-be. That, too, was customary. Marriage was a contract, a necessary part of the social agreement. Love was secondary, of little importance. What mattered was the alliance between the families. At best, he'd hoped Lakshmi would bear him sons and not argue with him too much.
    It hadn't taken long for Rao to see that Lord Krishna had blessed him. Lakshmi had made him feel like a poet, like a prince. Within months, he was hopelessly in love with her. The feeling was mutual.
    When their son Arjuna was born, it seemed as though the gods had filled Rao's life with joy. If there was any one thing that interfered with his happiness, it was his work. It was dangerous and unpleasant, taking him away from Lakshmi for weeks and months at a time. But it offered advancement and the kind of security that came from being an instrument of state power.
    One day Lakshmi and Arjuna had been waiting for a train on a packed station platform in Srinagar when a terrorist from Abdul Afridi's group opened fire on the crowd. Twenty-seven had