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'Justin, I see you've taken to wearing jewellery,' Cassandra's irritating cousin Julia
pronounced. 'It's a lovely bracelet dear boy, wherever did you get it?'

'It is not a bracelet, Julia, it's a Bedouin warrior amulet,' Justin said. He cast a quick glance
at his remaining friends. 'It was a thank you gift from Madame de Chevalier for…looking after
her.'

'Oh how charming. So you obviously helped satisfy her craving for local culture then.'

'I guess I did, Julia,' Justin grinned. He got to his feet again. 'But now I've got to go, you
know, satisfy something else. I'll be back in a minute.'
Or an hour
.

'Fine dear, but watch out for pickpockets.'

Justin made his way along the corridor. He caught sight of Evan disappearing into the bathroom at
the far end. Cassandra was nowhere in sight.

Now I wonder where step-mama is
.

Justin tapped on the bathroom door as he walked by. It was Cassandra who proclaimed it was
occupied.

Ah, there she is
.

Last week he would have been jealous beyond words. Now his world was different.

Heading on through the next carriage, he stopped for a moment in the walkway between it and his
destination, and pulled the vibrating cell phone from his pocket. It was his father.

Man, what time was it at home? And how spooky, what with me about to meet Ilia, and with
Cassie in the john doing whatever with Evan
.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to talk straight, he decided to call Cassandra's husband back later.
Besides, his own slice of paradise was waiting in the very next carriage.

It never occurred to him, not even for a second, that Ilia de Chevalier would not be on the
train. It had been her idea after all - to meet like spies on the Orient Express.

Justin Baileu West was overcome by the immense physical and emotional pleasure of his own
personal revelation. He felt no guilt. None. Not in what he'd been doing, how he'd been feeling, or
in how he now planned to live his life. It would be guilt free, shame free -
ha! shameless
-
with no irrational fear of eternal damnation. This was his spiritual epiphany; just as coming with
Ilia had been the only truly religious experience he'd ever had.

Stepping back to allow someone out of the lounge car, Justin zigged when he probably should have
zagged to get through the door before it closed. Most of him made it inside, but the door slammed
onto his left wrist. He yelped in pain and dropped his phone in the walkway behind him.

He noticed several people in the lounge car look up when he swore; one person made a move to help
him, everyone else ignored him.

Ilia was nowhere in sight yet.

Had Justin known she was not even on that train to Paris he might have wanted to die right there
on the spot; but she had, in fact, already taken care of that. And her betrayal was absolute.

Five seconds after the microwave chip, entwined in the silver under the lapis lazuli on his
wrist, connected with the receiver on the detonator beneath the lounge car, nine kilos of C4 ripped
the carriage from the rest of the train. The explosion ripped Justin West apart and, in half a
breath, killed everyone he had just laid eyes on.

Seven of the 15 carriages behind derailed in a screaming screeching tangle of metal, wood and
flesh, as they ploughed into the debris of the lounge car. The remaining carriages concertinaed into
the twisted wreckage they had formed. The engine and six front cars were flung from the tracks, as
if from a ground-level catapult; their momentum wrenched back for a brief second before release.

10 Downing St, London
6.45 pm

Eric Hargreaves, Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, moved quickly towards the
Pillared Room. He'd already organised a television to be brought in; but was going ahead to break
the news that all hell - more hell - had broken loose. It was such an awful end to an otherwise
fruitful day.

The talks between the Syrian and Israeli Ambassadors, the PM and the US President had come to an
excellent conclusion and now the sound of laughter and the clinking of ice in glass, or glass
against glass was rolling up the hall towards him. Forty-three guests had joined the official party
for celebratory drinks; only 12 dignitaries would remain for dinner. It really was too bad he had to
spoil such good cheer.

Hargreaves entered through the open doorway of Number 10's main reception area. In a flash, as
was his forté, he placed all the guests. The PM, Tom Buchanan, was on the far side of the
Pillared Room, in the immediate company of President Brock, his Deputy Secretary of State Adam
Lyall, the Syrian and Israeli ambassadors, and the Australian High Commissioner.

Mrs Buchanan and Mrs Brock were holding forth with the American Ambassador and five ambassadorial
spouses.

Edward Drake, ex-head of MI5 now Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was chatting with
the boffins from Telamon. Richard Thorpe, head of MI6, was deep in conversation with three
Commonwealth trade delegates.

In between were a variety of lower ranked officials. Only one of the President's secret service
members was in the room, the others were in the foyer, or having supper.

Drake and the two Telamon directors moved across to join the Prime Minister's group a moment
before the Chief of Staff got all the way across the room. Hargreaves waited politely while Drake
finished his introductions.

'…introduce you to Darius Rashid and Michael Dawson from Telamon, the California
communications institute consulting with us on the new sat-nav program.'

'Excuse me, Prime Minister,' Hargreaves said.

'Oh hello, Eric. Do you need me?' Tom Buchanan responded to the slightest tilt of his secretary's
head, excused himself for a moment and took a few steps away with him.

'There has been a terrible train crash sir,' Hargreaves began slowly and quietly, until he
realised the PM had stiffened in horror. He reassured him, quickly, 'In Europe, sir; but a very bad
one apparently. It's somewhere in Luxembourg close to the French border, near Belgium.'

'Oh dear, oh my Lord,' Buchanan said, genuinely concerned but relieved he could rein in the shock
that latched to his assumption it was a local tragedy and therefore about to need his attention.

'Early reports do suggest it was a bomb, I'm afraid. There are many, many dead.'

'Oh bloody hell.'

'Indeed, Prime Minister. I have taken the liberty of organising a television set to be wheeled in
here - the news is out anyway. And when you are ready, I will arrange the telephone calls to your
counterparts in, ah, well Luxembourg and France to begin with.'

'Thank you, Eric. In the meantime, if you could let their ambassadors know that we will provide
any assistance they may need.' The Prime Minister returned to his group.

'What's up there, Tom? You look like you've seen a terrorist,' Garner Brock drawled, grinning at
his own humour.

God help me!
Adam Lyall strongly resisted the urge to gag his Commander in Chief.

'I may as well have, Garner,' Buchanan said. 'There's been a train accident of some kind near the
French border. It looks like it may have been a deliberate attack.'

'Oh no,' said the Syrian Ambassador, Abdu-l-Qadir.

'Goddamn terrorists!' Brock swore. 'What the hell do good folks have to do for just a month of
peace, let alone a peaceful world?'

Odd question from the mouth of Roger Ramjet
. Lyall nodded in polite agreement with his
President.

'My Chief of Staff is having a tele brought in, oh here it comes,' Buchanan said. 'I gather it's
not long happened, but is all over the news already, of course.'

Other guests, curious as to why a huge television was being pushed into this room, moved out of
the way as two men wheeled it over to the wall with the power and aerial connections. The same men
then deftly rearranged some of the green upholstered chairs to allow seated views of the screen.

'Excuse me ladies and gentlemen,' Buchanan announced. 'I am so sorry to interrupt the evening's
celebration but it seems there's been an attack on a European train, I believe near the Luxembourg
border. The television is for immediate information. Of course, if any of you need to contact your
embassy or anyone else, please speak to my staff. They are at your disposal.'

The plasma screen came to life, ready-tuned to the live horror still unfolding on the other side
of the English Channel. The air was virtually sucked from the room as more than 40 people gasped in
collective shock at the BBC images of the tangle of wreckage, small fires in the dark, the eerie
flashing blue and orange of countless emergency vehicles, circling helicopter spotlights, bedraggled
and damaged people being tended or helped away, rows and rows - already - of draped unmoving bodies.

Someone broke the stunned silence with, 'Oh those poor people,' and then all began speculating.
The BBC studio presenter was saying that, 'while no group had yet claimed responsibility for the
incident, authorities at the scene said it was obvious the wreck had been caused by a large
explosive device'.

'It's beyond me why any civilised human being would want to make a claim on such destruction and
misery.' It was the American First Lady. Elaine Brock had come to stand by her husband but had her
arm looped supportively through that of Marjorie Wilde, US Ambassador to Britain. They were joined a
moment later by the head of the SIS, Richard Thorpe.

'This is a terrible state of affairs,' Buchanan pronounced, turning to his Security and Intel
chiefs. 'Teddy, Richard - you two and I will have to get together in a moment to review this.'

'Of course Prime Minister,' Drake said, as he and Thorpe nodded.

Nearly everyone in the room looked shocked or appalled, and in some cases downright distressed.
Adam Lyall felt unmoved. No one present had yet claimed friend or family as a possible passenger on
the doomed train, nor shouted in horrified recognition at someone on the screen; but so many in the
room were, nonetheless, visibly upset.

Lyall instead wondered if, as his ex-wives maintained, there really was something wrong with him
and whether an expert in such things might have an opinion. The images on the screen had no adverse
affect on him at all and despite his role in this being clear, he remained indifferent. Was he
perhaps inured to the blood and the carnage and the loss; was that his problem, his tragedy? Or was
he simply one sick bastard?

He did consider the possibility that after the debacle in the Pacific he was probably just really
pissed; especially after having to listen to the Australian Ambassador, or Commissioner or whatever
she was, go on and on about the successful rescue of the Laui hostages - like she'd been personally
responsible. Lyall tuned back into the conversation.

'Please all of you go, do what needs to be done,' the Prime Minister was saying to his guests.
'Dinner will now be at 8 pm for those who can or wish to stay. We still need to eat, my
friends.'

'Life goes on and terribly on,' noted Darius Rashid.

'Yes it does, doesn't it,' agreed the First Lady.

Excellent; dinner
. Adam Lyall felt suddenly hungry, and was pleased the Brits got their
priorities right.

Oh, maybe that's it. I've just got some stiff-upper lip in my genes, or a fine British ramrod
up my arse.

Dallas, Texas
Tuesday 12.40 pm

Kyle 'Kero' McTeal was only one ballpark away from the cranky old truck Jesse-Jay
had stolen from mad Burt Wiggins back in Carthage, when the call kicked in and the bomb went
off.

The lethal combination of 43 bags of ammonium nitrate fertiliser soaked in nitro-methane and
jammed into the truck against barrels of diesel fuel, 30 balloons of blasting gel and a couple of
remote-activated detonators, lifted two floors and the roof off the butt-ugly Jackson Street
car-parking building.

Motor vehicles in hundreds of pieces, chunks of concrete and metal pipes, even a bunch of signs,
blew sky-high and then fell back down in a thunderous series of earth-quaking shocks. It was as if
the Lord Almighty had chucked a godly fit and emptied heaven onto downtown Dallas.

Kero always reckoned he was a lucky, unlucky bastard. He watched, mouth agape, as the windows of
buildings all around the corner of Jackson and Griffin shattered into a million pieces, then he bent
down to pick up a bottle he could collect a dime on. That's when the shock wave hit him and blew the
soda bottle clean out of his hands, taking his fingers with it. He collapsed in a dead faint and a
second later was buried beneath a shower of shit and debris.

Two miles outside of town, on Route 35, Jesse-Jay Bagget and Micah O'Brien
witnessed the rise of dust and rubble, heard the explosion a moment later, and then watched the
carpark fall back to earth.

'Well ain't that a pretty sight.'

'It most surely is, Micah. But wasn't it, like, five minutes early.'

'Does it matter?' Micah shrugged.

'Not as long as it puts the frighteners on those that count.'

'My thoughts exactly. Start her up, Jesse-Jay; we got an appointment for the main event.'

Finally, the real deal
. Jesse-Jay put the Lincoln in drive and pulled out onto the
highway.

Micah offered him a smoke, one he'd first lit for himself. Jesse-Jay wouldn't have never shared
spit with that useless Kero, but he didn't mind doing so with Micah O'Brien. He relaxed at the wheel
for the drive south to Killeen, where the other five regulars of the Carthage Thunder Militia,
Eastern Unit of the Texas Star Brigade, were waiting for them.

US State Department's Operations Center,
Washington
Tuesday 1.50 pm

US Defence Secretary, Nathanial van Louden, stood staring at a wall map of Western
Europe before sticking a coloured pin between the names Bettembourg and Dudelange, which was as
close as he could get to the site of the European train crash near the French border. The TVs in the
bank of screens behind him - tuned to CNN, Fox NEWS, Sky, the BBC and Al Jazeera - were beaming in
sound and ghastly images of the wreckage from the attack 45 minutes before at the hands of some
pissed group of terrorist/anarchist/communist/insurgent/neo-Nazi/ separatist whackos.