Crack!
Heat flared up Shannon's neck. He grunted and jerked against the bindings in sudden rage. Tanya's face turned a bright red. But her smile didn't waver.
“Leave her alone!” Shannon screamed. “You touch her and I'll rip your heart out!”
Pain shot down his spine and his head swam, and he knew now that it was Sula's doing. He closed his eyes against the agony.
“Shannon.” She was speaking again and her words flowed like a balm flows. “Shannon, do you remember when we used to swim together, in the pool?”
He opened his eyes.
The Arab stood, dumbstruck.
Shannon remembered.
“Do you remember how I fell into your arms? And how you kissed my lips?”
Her deep blue eyes held him.
The Arab spun his head to Shannon, off balance now.
Tanya ignored him. “Do you know that it was for today that we loved each other then? It was beyond us, Shannon. Our parentsâthey died for this day.”
The words made no sense to him, but her eyes and her lips and her voiceâ they all crashed in on him at once. Her breath seemed to flow to him again.
She was loving him with an intensity he did not know could possibly exist. The blood drained from his head, and he let her words wash over him.
Something she had said made Abdullah step back.
“We're a part of God's plan, Shannon. You are. Like Rahab. God's trump card.”
Shannon's mind spun in wild circles.
“Those bonds of love have never been broken. Tell me that you love me, Shannon. Please, tell me.”
The pressure on his chest felt like a dam set to burst. Tears ran down his cheeks. Blood roared through his ears, and his face twisted in anguish.
“I love you desperately, Shannon.”
I love you, Tanya.
A ball of anguish rolled up his chest, swelling as it rose.
Kill herâ
“No!”
The pain roared in his ears, and for a moment he thought he was passing out. Tears spilled from his eyes and his face contorted in agony.
“Nooooo!” He let the cry run out and he gasped. “No, you sick spineless worm. I
love
her!” Sobs robbed his breath. He sucked in a lungful of air, tilted his head back, and screamed full throated at the sky.
“I love her!”
His cry echoed, silencing the jungle.
And then the ball of pain ripped up through his skull. His muscles tensed in a seizure and then released him. He groaned and sagged to a huddle.
For an endless moment, the world was blank to him. The river stopped rushing by, the ground no longer pressed into his knees, the breeze seemed to freeze. And then slowly his mind began to crawl out of its hole.
“ . . . when I say something, I mean what I say!” The Arab was screaming and his face was red. Shannon turned to Tanya beyond him.
Tanya? He felt oddly as though he had stepped into a new world. Or out of one.
Tanya! What was she doing? She was smiling at him.
He began to sob softly. “I . . . I love you, Tanya,” he said. He knelt there lost, like a child. “I love you. I love you so much. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
“Shut up!” Abdullah screamed.
She began to cry. “Shh . . . no, don't cry, Shannon. We're together again. It's okay now. Everything will be okay now.”
“Tanya,” he sobbed. The forest echoed with his cry. “Oh, God!” he wailed. “Forgive me. I've been so wrong. Oh, God, help me!”
And what have you done, Shannon? What have you gone and done?
Panic skirted through his mind.
I've got to stopâ
Boom!
The gunshot echoed through the trees and Shannon snapped his eyes open. Father Petrus lay on his side, blood leaking from a head wound.
Oh, dear God,
what have I done?
Tanya was crying.
“Shut up!” Abdullah said as his face twisted with rage, and he leapt for Shannon. A knife glistened in his right hand. He slashed forcefully, slicing Shannon's chest to the ribs.
Shannon sat back to his haunches. His head swam.
The Arab trembled from head to foot. His eyes shone black and eager. He stood like a rabid dog over a rabbit. He reached down and cut againâacross Shannon's shoulder.
Shannon moaned. Nausea swept through his gut. He looked at Tanya, pleading. Not for her help. For her love.
“I love you, Tanya
,
” he said.
Tears streamed silently down her face as she mouthed her answer.
I love
you, Shannon.
The Arab slashed again, spittle flying from his lips. The blade flashed across Shannon's chest, forming a cross of sorts. He brought his arm back for another thrust.
“Sula!” Tanya's voice cut across the clearing.
The Arab spun, arm still cocked. Shannon's mind was only half here, at the river. The other half was thinking that he had to stop something. Something only he could stop.
Tanya was staring at Abdullah. She'd called him
Sula
. The corners of her mouth slowly rose. “I know you. We've met. Remember? You're called Sula and it means death.”
Yes, death. Known as Sula to some. Lucifer to others. They were the same. Abdullah was frozen, holding the gun in his left hand and the knife now dripping with blood in his right. His face went white.
Tanya stood with her arms at her side, a new boldness in her posture. “And how are you stopped, Sula?”
The Arab slogged forward three steps. He stared dumbstruck at Tanya.
“You know that I can't let you kill him,” Tanya said softly.
The world began to slow down. Things were going topsy-turvy. He had to stop something. Something much worse than this. And she was going to make sure that he did it.
Abdullah shook like a leaf now. Somehow this strange encounter between him and Tanya had flipped a switch.
Tanya spread her arms, still barely smiling. “You've done this before, haven't you?”
Shannon screamed then. “Abdullah! Take me! Leave her.” He strained against the line, feeling it cut into his flesh. Blood from his chest and shoulder wounds ran down his belly.
The Arab looked at him, his facial muscles quivering. He held the gun at his side.
“No. Take me instead,” Tanya said. She had lifted her arms to form a cross.
The Arab swiveled his head and lifted the pistol to her head in one smooth motion. The world fell to blurred images. Tanya shifted wide blue eyes to Shannon and they poured love into him.
She was giving her life for him!
Shannon's mind lost coherence then. He roared to his feet, snapping the line as he did so. The jungle was screaming.
His head hit Abdullah's back and the man's gun bucked.
Boom!
From the corner of his eye, Shannon saw Tanya standing, her arms spread wide, her head tilted back. Abdullah had shot her! He'd shot Tanya!
The jungle was still screaming, long wails of desperation screeching around his ears.
And then the Arab hit the ground and Shannon crashed down on top of him. He shoved his knees forward, so that he straddled the man's chest. His left hand had found Abdullah's black hair. He snatched his bowie from Abdullah's belt.
Then it occurred to him that the screaming came from his own throat, not the jungle.
For a moment Shannon thought that he had died as well. His soul had been sucked clean of his body, leaving only a vast empty hole. But he knew that couldn't be true, because he was still screaming. “Noooo! Noooo!” Just that, over and over.
Only then did he realize that Tanya wasn't falling. The realization snatched the wind from him and he pulled up.
For a moment Abdullah shifted out of his focus. He jerked his head up and he stared into Tanya's blue eyes. She lowered her arms.
She was alive. Shannon's arms began to shake.
“Don't kill him, Shannon.”
The Arab coughed beneath him.
Shannon breathed heavy, his lungs burned. His worlds were colliding. For a few moments no one moved.
He released his grip on Abdullah's hair. He would follow this woman over a cliff if she suggested it.
You have to stop it, Shannon. Only you can stop it.
He snatched up Abdullah's gun and scrambled to his feet. “Tanya! There's a bomb!” He was frozen by this strange panic that swept through him. He felt oddly vacant.
Tanya, there's a bomb?
What was he saying?
She looked at him dumbly. “It went off alreadyâ”
“No. Another bomb!”
Dear God, what had he done!
Abdullah struggled to his elbows, coughing again. The man should be dead already. But Shannon had changed somehow
.
The fog was gone and that realization was dizzying.
Abdullah stood and backed up slowly, staring. Then he turned and stumbled toward the skiff.
“Stop!” Shannon lifted the gun and fired it into the air. “The next one won't miss.”
The Arab halted.
Shannon ran for him. He wasn't sure how much time he had, but that no longer mattered. Either he would make it or he wouldn't.
The Arab turned around and Shannon shoved the gun under his chin.
“Give me the transmitter!”
The Arab didn't flinch. “It's useless without the code, you fool. I don't even know the codeâ”
“Give it to me!” Shannon screamed.
Abdullah dug in his pants pocket and pulled out the black transmitter. Shannon grabbed it and shoved the man away. He turned it on end, activated it with a familiar flip of the power switch, and stared at the number pad.
He lifted an unsteady hand, entered a five-digit code, pushed the green button on the left, and waited. In less than three seconds the red light on the top blipped once.
Transmission confirmed.
Tanya had come up and stood with her arms limp at her sides. The Arab stared at him white faced.
“Only Jamalâ”
“I am Jamal.”
Abdullah's face slowly went white. His lips suddenly twisted to a snarl and he launched himself with a scream. Shannon reacted without thinking. He stepped into the charge and brought his right palm across the man's head. The impact dropped Abdullah like a sack of grain.
For a long moment Shannon just stood there, staring at the fallen terrorist.
“You are Jamal?” Tanya asked. “Who is
Jamal?”
The strength left Shannon's legs. He backed away from them then, suddenly horrified. “Jamal,” he said.
She took a step toward him. “Yes, who is Jamal, Shannon?”
A desperate urge to run rushed through his head. His limbs began to shake.
“Shannon . . . Nothing Jamal has done will change my love for you.” She smiled.
It was too much. Shannon dropped his head and sobbed.
She came at him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It's okayâ”
“No!” He spun away.
“Please . . .”
Shannon turned back and flung both arms wide. “I am Jamal! Don't you see? The bombs are mine!”
She blinked. Her face turned white.
He took a breath. “I made a vow, Tanya . . . Everyone who had a part in the killing of . . . our parents. The terrorists, the CIA.” He paused . . . it was sounding absurd.
She stared at him for a long second. “A nuclear bomb?”
He looked at her desperately. “Sula . . .” was his only explanation.
“He took you.”
Sorrow boiled over, and he turned from her, sobbing again. “Oh, God . . . Oh, God,” he prayed. He caught his breath. He sat hard to his seat and put his head between his knees.
Her hands were suddenly on his shoulders, and he wanted to pull away.
“Tell me what you did,” she said.
He closed his eyes.
“Tell me.”
How could he tell her?
He lifted his head and swallowed. He spoke, only half hearing himself. “I found out that the Brotherhood had sent Abdullah to South America for the purpose of building and smuggling a bomb into the United States. That's why they established the drug routes. And the CIA helped them, without knowing about the bomb. They wanted Abdullah out of Colombia, so they suggested Venezuela. That's why my parents were killed. Your parents.”
“And how did you become Jamal?”
“I decided the best way to destroy them was to take over their plan. Hijack it and use it to destroy the CIA. I persuaded the Brotherhood to let me coordinate parts of the plan. I took a good plan and made it better.”
“A bomb wouldn't have killed just the CIA,” she said softly.
“I know. I don't know. It didn't matter.” He could hardly remember why he had done it now.
The Arab had stopped his groaning and lay still, perhaps unconscious. The jungle screamed about them, oblivious to all of this. They sat still for a while. She was stunned; he was numb.
“But it's okay now,” Tanya said softly. “If you hadn't become Jamal, the second bomb would have gone off.” She paused and her fingers began to work on his shoulders.
He turned to her.
“And if I hadn't loved you,” she continued, “the bomb would have gone off. Father Petrus was right. If my parents hadn't come to the jungle, or if we hadn't fallen in love, or if Abdullah had chosen a different location, the bomb would have gone off. It was all God's leading, his turning evil to good.”
Shannon understood what she was driving at, but the notion seemed impossible.
“If our parents hadn't been killed?”
She nodded. “Yes, if our parents hadn't been killed, the bomb would have gone off. They would have done it without you and today three million people would have died around Washington.”
Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he jerked his head.
Abdullah was halfway to them, face snarled and black, a bowie knife in his right hand. His scream began then, when he was only ten feet away.
Shannon rolled to his right, away from Tanya, palmed the pistol he'd taken from the man, and came up on one knee, gun leveled. Killing had been like breathing for the last eight years. He'd lived to kill as much as he'd lived to breathe. He'd hunted and he'd slaughtered and always he'd relished each death. Sula.