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and acetone into explosive crystals as powerful as C-4. But he was paranoid about handling a microprocessor. Shah was not unhappy to leave this world.
    “I have been very careful, I assure you,” said Shah. “Where is it?”
    Kazir nodded to the back entrance. Shah rose and found a gym bag there, a small duffel. He lifted it, tentatively at first. It was heavy, but not prohibitively so.
    He thought to say something more to Kazir, who remained slumped in a chair in the kitchen. But there were no words.
    In the end, he tucked the pack beneath his arm and simply headed out the door. His farewell would be one not of words but of deed.

Chapter 7
    F isk looked through the high-powered monocular spotting scope mounted on a tripod resting on the rubber-coated roof of the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square. The scope’s end was topped with a nylon visor to eliminate any telltale glints of sunlight.
    He was set up between the blowing strands of hair of a model’s image atop a giant Victoria’s Secret billboard advertising their newest padded bra.
    Next to the scope was a tented monitor showing a shaky, human’s-eye view of the Crossroads of the World below. Fisk was connected to the monitor by headphones.
    He bowed toward the spotting scope, panning the square at late morning. Tourists in pairs and in groups, hundreds of cameras going—both 35 millimeter SLR and phone-based—and signboard walkers working to push passersby into comedy clubs, tour buses, and restaurants.
    Fisk looked back up. He did not want to loosen the hinge that would allow him to use the monocular to scan the other rooftops, only to have to reset on his target on the square. But he guessed that the FBI had their own people at vantage points around Forty-fifth Street. As usual, he wondered what they were waiting for. Were they still relying on Shah’s supposed three-day timeline?
    For that matter—what was Shah waiting for?
    Fisk returned to the scope, trying not to get antsy. He eyed the Naked Cowboy posing for pictures with tourists near the bleacher seats at the TKTS discount tickets booth. He watched a walking blue-green Statue of Liberty working the ticket sale lines. He scanned the knot of potential shoppers surrounding a pair of giant M&M’s in white gloves and shoes, one red, the other yellow. He looked at the tables of knockoff handbags and cheaply made souvenirs along the fringes, operated by nervous-looking black marketeers.
    Then he went back to his target, the coffee cart owned and—today, at least—operated by Bassam Shah.
    “Okay,” said Fisk, speaking into a small microphone jutting out of his earphones. “This is ridiculously dangerous. Enough waiting. Time to initiate contact.”
    K rina Gersten wandered the square with a map in one hand and a guidebook in the other. Somebody tapped her on the shoulder, an Asian tourist wanting to get a photograph with the mime dressed up as Lady Liberty. Everybody wanted their picture taken with the green-painted lady holding a foam torch. Gersten obliged and took the picture, watching the coffee cart out of the corner of her eye.
    Tourists everywhere. Gersten played her part, accepting every flyer offered her for discount pizza and free stand-up and strip club admission and bus tours.
    She wore a Bluetooth headset on her ear. The call was open. She could hear Fisk, and he could eavesdrop on her in real time.
    In the Y in the insignia on the front of her stiff new New York Yankees ball cap was a tiny pinhole camera, relaying her perspective to Fisk.
    “Time to initiate contact,” Fisk said.
    “On my way now,” she muttered.
    She walked to the coffee cart, waiting behind a hassled office worker on a break who was arguing into his cell phone. Shah worked the carafe, squirting in flavored creamer and two Splendas. The customer slipped him three one-dollar bills and walked away yammering.
    Gersten stepped up. She could see the sweat on the Afghan’s brow. He looked at her strangely,