The Iranian looked displeased. “I was under the impression this device would kill thousands, knock down buildings.”

“This is not a mushroom cloud boom-maker. If you want that you can go get plans off the Internet. But you’ll find yourself stuck for necessary ingredients like highly enriched uranium. But what this baby will do is scare the shit out of an entire country, shut down the economy, and make people afraid to leave their homes. In a way, just as effective as the mushroom cloud, without all the mess. And a helluva lot cheaper to you.”

This seemed to appease the Iranian. He turned to Shaw after giving the bomb one last affectionate pat. “The price?”

Shaw stood straighter towering over all of them. “The same as the one on the term sheet we sent.”

“That was your opening offer, I assumed. I now want to negotiate.”

“You assumed incorrectly. The price is firm. If you don’t want it, there’re a lot of other people who do.”

The Iranian took a step forward. His men did likewise. “You will negotiate.”

Shaw tapped the contents of the suitcase. “This is a gamma bomb, not a set of knives, not a diamond for the missus. I’m not running a special, no two-for-ones tonight.”

“And the reason we cannot simply take it from you now? For nothing?”

The Tunisian must’ve been a mind reader because he already had his knife back out and his eyes were burning, no doubt with the thought of sticking the blade to the hilt in Shaw’s thick neck.

“And kill you,” the Iranian finished, quite unnecessarily, for Shaw had already gotten the point.

Shaw motioned to a slit on the side of the dirty bomb that resembled a DVD intake slot. “That’s the import drive for the accompanying software package that has the automatic detonation codes and generally makes this thing go boom and the radiation go sizzle. You try to do it without the software the only thing that gets fried is your ass.”