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The scene out there-the chopper, the president, the crowds, the reporters, legit and phony-was utter chaos. But this area, by the viewing stand, was nearly deserted. There were no witnesses to the horrible drama playing out.

Middleton shouted to Chernayev. “Don’t, Arkady. There are a thousand reasons why you can’t do this.”

The Russian ignored him and glanced at Archer.

“Ten seconds,” the wounded man gasped.

It was then that another voice intruded. “Actually, not a thousand, but there are several very good ones.” A sweaty, dusty but well-dressed man broke from the brush. The accent was British. It was the man swimming through the crowd not long before. “Reasons for not pushing that button, I mean.”

Chernayev stepped back, the BlueWatch shooters swinging their guns onto the Brit.

“Ah, ah, don’t be too hasty there,” the man said. He looked toward Chernayev. “Ian Barrett-Bone,” he said, as if introducing himself at a cocktail party.

“Who the hell are you?” the Russian asked.

The man ignored the question. “First of all, my team has been recording everything for the past half hour. Pictures of you are on hard drives in several very secure locations. You push that detonator, some of the best law enforcement agencies in the world will come after you. And they will find you. That’s if you get away, of course. Which you probably won’t. Since three of my snipers are sighting on you at this moment.”

The Russian looked around uneasily.

“You won’t spot them. They’re much better than… ” His voice trailed off as he contemptuously regarded a swarthy BlueWatch security man nearby. The Brit continued, “Oh, the second reason you don’t want to push the button and kill the president? It would be a bit of a waste of time. Owing as how he’s not really the president.”

“Chto?” The man gasped.

“Oh, please, Arkady. Think about it. American foreign policy can be counted on for some monumental blunders, but the administration is hardly foolish enough to send their chief executive into a known threat zone like this. The real president’s in Washington. Monitoring everything that’s going on here, by the way.”

“A look-alike?” Connie Carson whispered.

“Quite so. We weren’t exactly sure what would happen here but I knew it involved the Scorpion and some associate from the People’s Republic. We put this charade together to flush the main ops into the open.”

Archer was staring at the LZ. Dismayed, he raged, “Something’s wrong. The marines and the Secret Service… They’re not leaving. They’re targeting Sanam’s men.”

Middleton asked the logical question. “And who’s ‘we’?”

Barrett-Bone said, “MI5, Foreign Operations Division. We’re working with the CIA and U.S. and British military.” He spoke into his collar and immediately two dozen men in serious combat gear stepped out of bushes, guns trained on Chernayev and the nearby BlueWatch security people.

Middleton recognized the uniform and the winged dagger insignia of the famed British Special Air Service, an infantry unit like the U.S.’s Delta Force or Navy Seals. The gravity of their mission was heralded by the fact that two were armed with FN Minimi machine guns and the rest had their SA80 assault rifles mounted with “Uglies”- underslung grenade launchers.

Prepared-no, eager-to light up hostiles big time, if it came to that.

“There are two hundred others here, surrounding the grounds and, to be quite honest, I doubt your BlueWatch chaps feel their paycheck is worth going up against our SAS, now don’t you agree?” Barrett-Bone frowned. “Oh, and for the record, I’m obligated to inform you that we’re here with the full knowledge and sanction of the lieutenant general of the Indian Army’s Northern Command in Udhumpar and of Indian Special Branch… Which is the diplomatic way of saying, your men discharge a single bullet from a single weapon, you will all vanish and quite unpleasantly.”

Chernayev hesitated. His face red with anger, he looked around. Then he bent forward, set the detonator on the ground and backed up.

In two seconds, SAS soldiers had him in cuffs and relieved of his weapon, phone and personal effects. In only a bit longer than that, Wiki Chang had deactivated the remote detonator.

The British soldiers then disarmed and cuffed the BlueWatch security men.

None too gently, Middleton was pleased to note.

Barrett-Bone spoke again into his collar. “Captain, the detonator’s in our control. Move in and arrest the Mujahedeen. The thermobarics can’t be detonated by them, but some may have other weapons and they’re undoubtedly all fired up.” He sighed. “Fundamentalists are soooo completely tedious.”

A medic from Barrett-Bone’s team arrived and Middleton immediately pointed out Archer. “I want him alive,” he said. “Do what you can to save him.”

“Yes, sir.”

But before the medic got to him, Archer sat up suddenly, stared with unseeing eyes toward Middleton and then collapsed onto his back. He shivered once, then lay still.

The medic ran forward and bent down over the man. He touched his neck then looked up, grimacing. “Lost too much blood, sir. I’m afraid he’s gone.”

The Volunteers were sitting in a large workman’s trailer, near the site of the dam. Charley was in a separate one; her father wanted to minimize the trauma she’d been through. Everyone was dabbing their eyes from the remnants of the CS tear gas.

Middleton had been on the phone with Washington, The Hague, New Delhi and London. Everything Barrett- Bone had told them checked out. The stand-in for the president, the monitoring that MI5, MI6, Langley and the Indian Special Branch had been doing.

Chernayev was being housed in an impromptu prison-another trailer, guarded by Indian Northern Command troops. And Barrett-Bone had just reported that a covert ops team had completed an extraordinary rendition of General Zang. Beijing may or may not have been allied with him and Chernayev, but they distanced themselves from him instantly and ordered two-thirds of its soldiers on the Kashmiri border as soon as feasible.

Despite the rescue, Tesla was irritated at Barrett-Bone, “You hid a tracker on us, didn’t you? In Paris.”

“Of course, I did. On you, actually. I wasn’t sure if Ms. Middleton would go along for the ride-whatever the ride was going to be.”

“But you tried to kill us!”

“Think back, luv.”

“I warned you about ‘luv.’”

“Sorry. But obviously I wasn’t going to kill you. I was looking out for you. It would have been awkward if you’d been captured or killed.”

“Awkward,” she muttered.

“And I did need to get in touch with Harold here. We tried everything but he’d gone missing.”

“You could have said something about who you were.”

“How could I do that? If you were captured, I didn’t know how much you’d tell. I know the Volunteers don’t go in for intense interrogation, but a lot of people do, you know.”

At this, for some reason, Nora Tesla fell silent, avoiding Middleton’s eyes.

Middleton then said wryly to the British agent, “And you also needed to use us for information.”

A knowing smile. “Obviously, Colonel. That is the way the game’s played, right? There’s a lot at stake here. I’ve been after the Scorpion for several years now, undercover. Posing as someone with an interest in Sikari, a businessman, a mover and shaker. But the leads dried up… Funny that, considering all this ado about water. We heard some chatter about that bizarre reporter, Crane, that he had some leads. We put him in play and got him to the suburbs of Paris. We tried to make him think one of us was the Scorpion-the fellow driving was our station chief in Paris. He even wore a copper bracelet I bought at Selfridge’s. Crane didn’t fall for it, I think. But he did follow up on our suggestion to go to your flat, Middleton.”

“You used him as bait,” Tesla snapped.

The British agent looked at her as if she’d exclaimed, Why, the earth is round! “It worked, didn’t it? We got