The bomb maker saw the cars coming a long way off. The road was flat and broad and straight, a model highway. But a strong east wind had been blowing for a couple of days, and now the wind had stopped, leaving sand and dust across much of the black asphalt and on the shoulders, so all he saw at first was two tan clouds like long tails. His mind had to supply the vehicles ahead of them like the heads of comets, but then he could see them, two black cars moving fast.

He stared at them, trying to make out any features he could. They could be the FBI or the ATF or some other agency. This was certainly the way they would come, fast and obvious as they traveled up the road from Los Angeles. Probably there would be other vehicles from the opposite direction, and then off-road vehicles crawling over the hills from behind his land on the old mine roads. When they converged to surround him, they would probably bring in a helicopter so he would know there was no way to be unseen, and no way to outrun them.

He went to the control box he had mounted on the wall of the coat closet near the front door, looked out the peephole toward the road, and waited. On three walls of the closet he had put steel plates from the floor to the six-foot level. The inner side of the closet door had a steel plate on it too, so they couldn’t just fire at the house with high-penetration rounds and hit him through the walls. The peephole was hidden behind the upper part of the black metal mailbox he had mounted on the porch wall outside, so he could look without anyone seeing the lens.

He opened the control box, where he had installed a board of toggle switches that activated the firing circuits of mines he’d planted in various places. One set was where the driveway met the highway, and there were others in rings around the house at a hundred yards, seventy-five, fifty, and twenty-five. He had mines down the center of the driveway every ten feet. He could activate any of the mines individually, or sweep down a whole row of toggle switches with the side of his hand.

He believed in explosives. They were reliable and instantaneous and merciless. He didn’t have to aim them; he just had to look out and watch to see when an attacker reached the particular rows of shrubs he had planted at various distances from the house. He had planted the rows of shrubs in front of his mines so attackers would choose them as places to take cover.

The bomb maker had also prepared in other ways for an attack. He had a pair of H&K MP5 rifles that he modified to restore them to fully automatic fire, and several thirty-round magazines for each. He had only one pistol in the closet, a Sig Sauer .45 with two magazines.

He didn’t imagine that if this turned out to be a visit from federal agents he would escape. He wouldn’t, but getting him would cost them a great deal. The number of corpses he made would be an expression of his value.

The two black cars slowed and stopped at the end of his driveway. Then they stayed there while the clouds of dust and sand slowly drifted away. Even at this distance he knew that the engines were still running because none of the windows rolled down. The Mojave Desert in August was a very hot place to sit in a closed car without air-conditioning. He remained motionless, watching them not move and thinking that the last hour of his life had begun.

He heard a phone ringing. He felt for his cell phone in his pocket and looked at it, but the screen was black. Had it been the house phone? He opened the closet door cautiously, because he knew that calling him would be a great way to lure him out of a hiding place. He ducked low and hurried to the phone on the other side of the living room. He heard the ring again, but it was not this phone.

What was the matter with him? The men in Niagara Falls, Canada, had given him a cell phone. The ones in the car must be those men. He ran. He had hidden the phone in his kitchen inside a cupboard and run the charging wire down through the cupboard to the outlet under the sink to keep the battery charging. As he picked up the phone the ringing stopped. He was sweating, the kind of sweat that felt as though it had been squeezed out of him. He stared at the telephone, trying to remember the number they had given him to call. He pressed the button to get the opening screen. The phone had been programmed with that number. Just as he raised his other hand to touch the screen the phone rang again. He swept his finger across the screen. “Hello?”

“We’re at the end of your driveway and we want to talk to you. Come out to us. Don’t bring anything with you.”

The bomb maker took everything out of his pockets and put it on the kitchen island. He set the phone down with his wallet and keys and walked to his front door so he would be visible when he stepped outside.

He opened the door, used the button on the doorknob to make it lock automatically, and closed the door. He had a key hidden under a pot among some potted succulents near the closest ring of land mines, so he knew he wouldn’t have to break in later.

He went down the steps, holding his hands a few inches away from his sides so they wouldn’t think he had a gun or knife. The walk seemed long, and he felt self-conscious being watched.

When he reached the car, the back door swung open and a man got out. He was tall, with close-cropped dark hair and dark skin. He patted the bomb maker’s legs, belly, and back, then lifted the bomb maker’s arms and ran his hands up and down his sides. Finally he ran his index finger around the inner side of the waistband of his pants to check for anything hidden under his belt. Then he ushered the bomb maker into the backseat of the car, got in after him, and closed the door.

The tint of the car’s windows was so dark he had not been able to see its inhabitants from outside. These four were not the ones he had met in Canada. All but one looked younger, maybe in their mid-twenties. They were all in good physical condition with muscular arms, flat bellies, and buzz-cut hair. The only exception was a man in the front passenger seat whose head was shaved. He seemed older. They had a military look, and their expressions were set and unchanging, but the older one half-turned in the passenger seat to look directly at the bomb maker.

The driver shifted and drove onto the highway for a mile or so before the bald man said, “We’d like you to do something.”

The bomb maker waited. He could not have said what country these men were from, but he sensed it was an old-fashioned place, and traditional cultures always seemed to him to be prickly about formalities. He tried hospitality. “You’re welcome to come to my house to talk in comfort. I have cold drinks and comfortable furniture and air-conditioning.”

“We don’t know you that well.”

“My new friend beside me just searched me for guns or recording devices and found none.”

The bald man said, “We can’t know what you have in your house. You could have both. Or maybe the authorities have been watching you all year, and they’ve put transmitters in your house without your knowledge. The result would be the same.”

“Believe me,” said the bomb maker. “If they knew who I am and where I live, they would have brought an army. I’ve been killing police officers for weeks.” He knew he should stop talking.

The bald man sighed. “If they learn about you later, they’ll search your house for fingerprints and DNA. If we don’t go there, we don’t have to worry about that. But we didn’t come here to argue.”

“Why did you come?” Instantly he realized that this could have sounded disrespectful. So he added, “What can I do for you?”

The bald man smiled, and his teeth looked odd, with spaces between them, but straight and even. “Good. That’s the right attitude.”

“Thank you.”

“You and we are at war with the United States, and that’s a serious thing. We understand that you set off a bomb at a police party last night. How many did you kill?”

The bomb maker resisted the temptation to deceive or exaggerate. “I don’t know. The television news said only two.”

“Both police?”

“No. Nurses. Or one nurse and a young orderly.”

“Is there a chance they just haven’t told the public about other deaths or very serious injuries?”

“It’s possible. Sometimes more people die later. But we can’t count on it.”

“No matter. You disabled a hospital. We saw pictures of the building. A hospital can be as important as a few bomb technicians. And you’ll get the others.”

“Yes,” said the bomb maker. “I will. What happened was—”

“We don’t care what happened. You kill or you die. Learn from your mistakes, and try again. And I want you to do something else for us.”

“What is it?”

“We’re going to need weapons. We didn’t want to risk bringing any here ourselves, but we don’t need to. You’re an American citizen. You can buy them for us.”

“What kind of weapons?”

“We need fifteen Kalashnikov rifles, fully automatic. We need fifteen pistols. Ammunition and high-capacity magazines.”

He knew he would have to be careful now. “I’m a bomb maker. I don’t have an armory of guns.”

“Of course not,” said the bald man. “But you’ll buy them for us.”

“This could take some time,” the bomb maker said. “There are laws, even for citizens, and the government is very careful about that kind of weapon. The ammunition for an AK is hard to find, and has to be bought in small lots. Each of the rifles will have to be altered, the trigger and sear mechanisms replaced with hand-tooled ones so the rifle will fire on full auto.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” the man said. He was getting impatient. “So do what’s necessary.”

The man lifted a small day pack off the floor in front of him, swung it over the back of his seat, and tossed it onto the bomb maker’s lap. “Here. You’ll need money for the guns and ammunition. I don’t want you using any of the bomb money. Buy and transport everything yourself. Don’t bring in other people. Use the cell phone when the guns are ready for us.”

He stared at the bomb maker hard, as though he were trying to decipher a form of script he had never read before. “Don’t get caught.” He tapped the driver’s arm and the car pulled onto the shoulder. “Go home and do your work.”

The man who had let the bomb maker into the car now slipped out and stood holding the door open. He watched the bomb maker get out and swing the day pack over one shoulder. The bomb maker moved slowly, hoping to hear one of the men in the car say something to another, so he could hear the language they spoke, but they said nothing and looked ahead through the windshield, not at him. The man got in and closed the door, and the big sedan glided back onto the highway like an alligator sliding into a river. A moment later the second car slid onto the road and accelerated after it.

When he was alone, the bomb maker swung the day pack around to his belly, unzipped the main compartment, and looked inside. There were stacks of hundred-dollar bills, all with paper bands as though a bank had banded them. One probably had, but there was no printing on the bands. He estimated that the hoard was another hundred thousand dollars. He closed the pack.

The sun was bright and fixed just past the highest point of its arc. The two cars were already out of sight. He turned toward his house and began to walk. It took only about three minutes before he wished he had brought a hat and sunglasses. The sun on the desert seemed almost white. He judged that he was two miles from home and would be there in forty minutes. When thirty minutes had passed he still couldn’t see the stretch of road where he lived, so he revised his estimate to three miles.

He knew very well why they had left him out here. If he had been the sort of man who got scared and changed his mind, he might call the police or FBI and turn them in. He wasn’t the kind of man who panicked, but these people weren’t fond of risks.

After another ten minutes he saw houses he recognized—both abandoned—and after another mile, he found his own. He turned and walked up his driveway, found his key, and let himself into the bath of cool air in the dim interior of his house.

During the walk he had been thinking about the guns. He would have to do some planning and some traveling to fill the order. He wondered about his backers. Did they know everything about this country, or nothing? Were they able to assess what was difficult for him and what wasn’t? The only thing he could be sure of was that they wouldn’t care.