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idea what kind of noise he was
    making because he couldn't hear anything above the thudding of his heart in his
    ears.
    By some miracle, by the grace of God, Simonet managed to make it up on
    deck and down off the ship without being seen. He found the electric cart where
    he'd left it, and ten minutes later, he was locking his office door behind him,
    sweating profusely, gulping in air, totally terrorized.
    Oh God, oh God.
    This was ten million times worse than cigarettes or contraband goods or
    even cocaine. This was terrorism. This was what had taken his two daughters,
    Helene and Josiane, on that ter rible day in Madrid. March 11, 2004. Nine hundred
    and eleven days after 9/11. The day his world ended.
    He could still remember frantically calling the French Embassy in Madrid
    because his two daughters, his two treasures, were visiting Madrid, thinking--my
    two darlings will call me and tell me they've been out shopping or visiting a
    museum or flirting with handsome young Spanish men.
    But it wasn't to be. Josiane and Helene had been on the train coming into
    Atocha Station, and had been blown apart. Someone had pressed a detonating
    device that turned human beings into human hamburger, including his beloved
    daughters.
    Simonet had travelled to Madrid and brought his daughters home in body
    bags that contained small body parts instead of bodies. And he'd come home to a
    wife whose broken heart had simply given out during the night.
    The jihadists had cost him everything he held dear, everything he had in the
    world, and he made it his business to study everything about them. He bought
    books, read magazine and newspaper articles, watched Al Jazeera, attended night
    courses on the history of Islam. Over the past few years, he'd become an expert on
    Islamic terrorism.
    So Jean-Paul Simonet had understood immediately the significance of what
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    he'd seen in the hold of the Marie Claire. If he closed his eyes, he could see it as if
    he were right there again, standing terrified and quaking in the doorway.
    Ten crew members working on the door to a secret cavity that had been cut
    out of one of the holds. Simonet could see into the cavity, see the air mattresses,
    the stock of bottles of mineral water and several large canisters with the black-andyellow international biohazard sign.
    And most terrifying of all, at least forty men, prostrate at prayers just inside
    the door. Forty men with shaheed jackets stacked on one side and lime green
    scarves around their shoulders, just waiting to become shaheed batal--martyr
    heroes.
    Terrorists. Headed for New York with bombs strapped around their torsos
    and access to radioactive material. Simonet's fingers trembled as he fumbled for
    the phone, dropping the cordless receiver in his haste. His hands were slick with
    sweat, he could barely breathe around the terror in his chest. His fingers punched
    in 17, the emergency gendarmerie number, but he hung up almost immediately.
    This information was too important to be given to a telephone operator.
    His brother-in-law knew the Commissaire de Police. That's it--he'd plead a
    headache and leave early. There would be suspicions if the police swarmed his
    office building, people would talk, his name would be known. If there was one
    thing Simonet knew, it was that these people were vicious. He didn't have much to
    live for but by God, he didn't want to die at the hands of these canailles.
    No, much better to leave early and go downtown to the Commissariat and
    speak with the Commissaire himself.
    Having a plan calmed him down a little, until he heard footsteps coming
    down the hallway.
    No one came to his office in the early afternoon. Were they coming for
    him? He stood, terrified, listening as the steps came closer, closer. Two sets, two
    men.
    The information! He had to get it out!
    His eyes fell on the list of files to be sent out for translation. Perfect.
    Simonet knew his way around computers and he knew steganography. Inside of
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