An image of a nuclear weapon detonating filled her mind and suddenly she wanted to tell Casius everything. She had to—even if there was only the smallest chance of it all being true.

She swallowed at her dry mouth and held her tongue. What if he was part of this? But of course, he was part of this. So then, which side was he on?

They walked for a long time, in a dumb silence. When they did talk, it was her doing. She asked small questions, mostly, pulling short but polite answers out of him. Answers that seemed pointless.

“So you work for the CIA, right?” she finally asked.

“Yes.”

“And you said that they were after you? Or are you after Abdullah?”

He glanced at her. “Abdullah?”

“Back at the compound. I could be wrong, but I think he’s a terrorist. He’s got a bomb, I think.”

Casius walked on, mumbling something about everyone having a bomb.

He led her to a small village while the sun still stood overhead. Despite the availability of phones in the town, he insisted that she not contact anyone yet. He would call and alert the right people to Abdullah’s operation, he said.

He made his call and then convinced a fisherman to lend them a small pontoon boat. They were soon rushing downriver, accompanied by a whining twenty-horse outboard and a backdrop of birds squawking in the treetops.

“Thank you for what you did back there,” Sherry said, breaking a long stretch of silence. “I guess I owe my life to you.”

Casius glanced at her and shrugged. He stared off to the jungle. “So what makes you think this Abdullah character has a bomb?”

She considered the question for a moment and decided she should tell him. “Do you believe in visions?” she asked.

He looked at her without responding.

“I mean supernatural visions. From God,” she said.

“We’ve been over this. Man is God. How can I believe in visions from man?”

“On the contrary, God is Creator of man. He also is known to give visions.” It sounded stupid—something she was just really believing for the first time herself. She could almost hear him mocking now. Sure, honey. God speaks to me too. All the time. He told me just this morning that I really need to floss more regularly.

She plunged ahead anyway. “That’s how I know Abdullah has a bomb.”

“You saw that in a vision?” He spoke in a voice that might as well have said, Yeah right, lady.

“How else?” she said.

He shrugged. “You saw something at their compound and pieced it together.”

“Maybe brilliance isn’t something that comes with seven years of higher education. But then neither is stupidity. If I say I had a vision, I had a vision.”

He blinked and turned his head downriver.