He might have caught the mild dose of influenza from his wife or children. He had sneezed and gone back to his labour on the electronics bench.

He did not know that the sneeze would kick-start an operation launched from a far-away city. He had been bent over the bench and was wearing the magnification optics he used when working on the software he adapted with kit brought in from the United States. From the land of the Great Satan, he could obtain dual use passive infra-red devices or high-powered cordless phones with a range of near to seven miles from a base station, and dual-tone multi-frequency gear: the PIR, HPCP and DTMF, and the zappers for unlocking car doors and… The Engineer used them to provide the electronic signal to improvised explosive devices and to his design of explosive formed projectiles. From the safety and security of his workshop he created the bombs that would be carried along the rat-runs that criss-crossed the border of his country with Iraq to kill and maim. The sneeze had been perfunctory, and he was able to get his handkerchief out from his trouser pocket to smother the second. He had not stopped in his work and had not thought through the consequences of that minor eruption in his nose.

Had he done so he might have realised that a fine film had scattered from his face. Some minuscule droplets had wafted down on to the bench and a few had come to rest on the circuit he was putting together.

He had gone on with his work methodically and carefully. He had built the explosive formed projectile. He had a production line in a small factory area behind his workshop and the shaped copper charge was manufactured there to high-precision standards by experienced technicians. By his late-morning break, he had completed the electronics of a killing kit capable of defeating the electronic counter-measures of his enemy, and had begun on another, using the same procedures and techniques. They could almost have been described as a signature. The device onto which he had sneezed was now sealed, boxed and ready for transportation.