THE HIT A man waited in an attic room in Srinagar . The room’s only door opened onto a narrow cast-iron spiral staircase to the shop below. The attic was dark with shadows in a dingy half-light. Dust motes danced in the dank air. The room was filled to overflowing with stacks of cartons and boxes. A nest of hosiery and ready-to-wear garments in transparent wrappings had been carefully arranged on an overturned display case. The man lay almost full-length in the nest, cradling a Kalashnikov AK-74 rifle. A length of twine was taped taut from the edge of the display case to a large gap in the broken slats of the shutters on the front window. An irregular patch of light, striped with bars of shadow, crept down the wall beneath the window and down on to the grimy floor. The gunman in the back of the room was invisible to any watchers out in the street. He wore a dark gray woolen balaclava mask that revealed only a narrow crescent-shaped area around the eyes, zip-up navy-b...