DO YOU believe in God?” Waller asked Alan Rice.

They had just gotten off Waller’s plane after a long flight. Now the two men were riding in the back of a rental Escalade on the way to a meeting. Rice had his gaze on the laptop screen where numbers flew across. If he was surprised by his employer’s question he didn’t show it. “I haven’t thought about it since I was a child, really.”

Waller looked interested. “And if you thought about it now?”

“I would come down on the side that says one should hedge his bets, though I must admit I haven’t exactly been doing that very well.”

Waller looked disappointed. “Really?”

“But with the caveat that one should still count on individual efforts in getting what one wants in life rather than praying to something one can’t see.”

Waller looked pleased by this answer.

“I take it you are not a practitioner of a faith, Evan?”

“On the contrary, I pray every morning and night and go to church every week. I believe in God with all my heart, as did my mother and her mother before her. The French love the good life, but are very pious about their faith, you know.”

“But I don’t understand-”

Waller waved him off. “I don’t condemn others for not believing or, as you say, ‘hedging your bets.’ They must deal with God at some point.” He stared at Alan. “You must deal with God at some point.”

Rice was quick to glance back at the computer screen before an unfortunate choice of words or telling facial expression escaped from him. Then you must deal with God too. And I don’t believe praying twice a day and going to church will save you from hell. Those words would have cost him his life. “So tonight?” he prompted.

Waller nodded slowly and rolled down the window a bit to let in some air. “Another religious vexation, actually. The men we are meeting believe that whoever they kill in life will serve them in death. They also believe that virgins await them in paradise. I’m surprised more men have not converted to Islam based on that concept alone.”

“They might have except for the fact of wives’ putting their feet down on their husbands’ necks.”

“Alan, you are in rare form tonight.”

Rice said in a serious tone, “This is quite a different sideline for you. Dealing with Islamic terrorists?”

“Are you not tired of the Asian whores? How many units does it take to fill the crotches of Western male civilization?”

“Apparently more than we can obtain. But the money is colossal and steady. It’s the cash flow engine for all our other endeavors.”

“A man needs fresh challenges.”

“But highly enriched uranium? To make a nuclear device? It could as easily go off in Montreal as New York. I would not put great faith in their aim.”

“The world needs to be shaken up a bit, don’t you think? Too staid. Too predictable. Those on top have been there a long time. Perhaps too long.”

“I didn’t know you had an interest in geopolitics.”

“There are many things you don’t know about me. But I think we are here.”

Rice looked out the window and saw the building come into view. The plane ride had been very turbulent in the final twenty minutes as they had landed at the tail end of a passing thunderstorm, and the thirty-mile ride out into a rural part of the country had done nothing to settle his stomach. The people they were meeting with were making his belly uneasy for another reason. His boss, of course, had been undisturbed by the storm, or, apparently, by the upcoming meeting.

Anyone who was looking for the parts to a nuclear weapon so that they could detonate it and kill as many people as possible was of course insane. Rice could accept that his employer was at least partially insane, but he had learned how to survive around the man. The folks tonight were an unknown entity. He’d wished that Waller had not insisted that he come.

When he’d attempted to decline the request, Waller was predictably blunt in his response. “The right-hand man cannot select his encounters. And the squeamish cannot be the right-hand man. And, unfortunately for you, I have no use at all for any other body part you possess, Alan.”

The words were jesting, the tone in which they were said was not. Thus Rice had gotten on the plane and flown across numerous time zones to help his boss negotiate the deaths of thousands.

“How do you want to open the meeting?” Rice asked him.

“We will greet, we will smile. If they want us to eat and drink we will. Then we will negotiate. By the way, do not show them the bottom of your shoe, a great insult.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“Yes, the most important of all.”

Rice looked at him expectantly.

“If the need arises to run, make sure you run fast.”

Rice looked shaken. “Do you think the need might arise?”

“I cannot tell. But one thing I do know is I don’t trust desert men in hattahs who want to blow up the world.”

“Then for God’s sake why are we here?”

“I spoke of a man needing a challenge.”

“Do you really think we may need to run?”

“Perhaps. If so, just make sure I am in front of you.”

“And if you’re not?”

“I will shoot you and then run over your dead body.”

THE HOME was large, contemporary, and miles from any other dwelling. They were met at the front gate by a man in a dark British-tailored suit and wearing a turban. He searched Waller and Rice, and Waller’s gun was confiscated. “That’s a customized Heckler and Koch nine-millimeter,” he told the Arab. “I expect it back in the same pristine condition.”

If the man understood this he made no sign of it.

“And my men?” Waller indicated behind him at the six burly fellows who had held on to their hardware. He’d asked the question and thought he knew the answer. In halting English the Arab said that they were free to come inside and could also keep their weapons. Waller frowned at this directive but said nothing.

Rice looked up at the face of the darkened structure. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” he said hopefully.

As they walked up the front drive, Waller said, “Oh, they’re home. I’m sure we’ll be very welcome.”

“Why don’t you sound too certain of that?”

“I am certain. It must be your nerves running away with you.”

“I wonder why,” the other man said under his breath.

The interior illumination was weak enough that Rice had to squint to make out things in the farthest corners of the large rooms. The bodyguards trailing them, Waller and Rice followed the turbaned man deeper into the house.

The man paused at a pair of large double doors that appeared to be made of stainless steel. He opened them and motioned the others through. When they passed into the room, they saw one man sitting at a round table in the center, the space lit only by a single table lamp. The man was dressed in a loose-fitting robe known in the Muslim world as a thobe. He was boxy through the middle though his face was drawn. His beard was trimmed short and he wore no headdress.

“Sit,” he said, motioning to the chairs set around the table.

Waller took his time looking around the room gauging tactical positions and then motioned his men to take up posts in various spots. He eased into a chair and studied the man.

“I was expecting more people,” he said.

“I am authorized,” said the man in clear English.

Waller noted the sheen of perspiration on his face, the way his eyes wandered the room. And then the Arab snapped his attention back to Waller and Rice.

“HEU,” said the man.

“Highly enriched uranium,” said Waller.

“How can you get it?”

Waller looked puzzled. “This has already been explained.”

“Explain again.”

“The HEU Purchase Agreement between Russia and the United States signed in 1993,” began Waller in a monotone as though set to lecture a class. “It’s a way for the Russians to dismantle their stockpile of nuclear weapons, reduce the uranium to a form that can be used in nuclear reactors and other nonweapon processes. I can bore you with terms like uranium hexafluoride, depleted uranium tails, blendstock, and the like, but the bottom line is the Russians had five hundred tons of HEU they agreed to sell to the Americans. Thus far the Yanks have received about four hundred tons, averaging thirty tons per year. The entire process is monitored by both sides except for the initial dismantling and separation of the HEU metal weapons component from the rest of the nuclear weapon. The Russians perform this initial step on their own. In so doing, it allows certain people with contacts inside this process to help themselves to a bit of nuclear gold.”