She remembered before all this, before the warehouse, when she was sitting in that Mosul bar, wanting, hoping one day to be able to plumb the depths of Hashim’s mind, to put him in her journalist’s crosshairs, to know what made him tick—to find a way into him and his culture, and extract a grain of their essence that might give her a way to shift their drive from blood and vengeance to healing. Perhaps that she’d been unable to extract a grain of reconciliation from her own countrymen fueled her passion to find it in the enemy. She’d been looking for a way through that wall a long time.

“The tablet isn’t magic, Miss Valen. There is no magic there.”

“I know. But it is a road map.”

She watched Hashim compute the complications in the plan she’d set before him.

“Is Nazir still in America?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You would need to send him in first, since, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t been tainted by my actions. He’d need to see what chance I have to influence anyone still in power. That is, if they were to believe there was no surrender, and if you could get me out of here.”

“You think he’d do that?”

“You would need to be the one to ask him. You do know this is a long shot.”

“If we don’t try, we’ll continue to pick each other off the minute anyone gets close to the tablet.”

“Yes. For all its power, it can still unleash the worst in us.”

“Evil is the greatest source of transformation.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“In the energy of the tablet.”

“And you’re telling me this, why?”

“I believe you are our source for that transformation.”

“Because of the evil I’ve done.”

“Yes.”

“You believe I have control over which way ISIS goes?”

“I have to believe it. Otherwise, why are we here? Why have we been brought together?”

He reached out and held her hand.

Her mind said to pull away, yet instinct kept her from moving.

Prisoners weren’t allowed to touch anyone, but Hashim had blocked the guard’s view.

This was the first time they’d touched since the warehouse, when they’d held hands and stopped the ground from opening under them. Her hope was that they could stop the ground from swallowing up the world. But she was afraid.

“How do you expect a culture to change when you still fear me?”

She locked in on him and held tighter to his hand, as if the complexities that lingered might evaporate in the intimacy.