Shannon spit into the dirt and jogged on. Eight years had come down to this moment, and no person—no woman—would have a say now. Not even Tanya. He had held her and kissed her and at one time would gladly have given his life for her—but she’d changed. And she hated him.

Shannon’s mind grew dark and he groaned above the pounding of his feet. He closed his eyes.

He would show her.

He pulled up at the thought. She wasn’t Tanya any longer. Not really. She’d become Sherry.

He doubled back and ran for the town.

And now he would show Sherry how things worked in the real world. Why he was doing this. How to deal with a world gone sick. Maybe then she would understand.

He would return to the jungle and finish what he had started, and he would let Sherry see for herself.

GRAHAM KEYED the radio. “Roger, go ahead.”

“The mission has changed. Sweep the valley compound and eliminate any unfriendlies you encounter. Copy?”

Graham looked up at Parlier. Parlier nodded. “Ask him what he means by unfriendlies,” he said.

Graham depressed the transmit toggle. “Roger, sir. Request you clarify un-friendlies.”

Static sounded for a moment.

“If you don’t know their name, then they’re unfriendly. Understood? You take out anything that walks.”

Parlier nodded at Graham. “What about the agent?”

“Copy that. What about the agent?” Graham asked into the mike.

“Take him out.”

“Copy. Alpha out.”

Parlier was already walking toward the other men stationed on the cliff. He turned back to Graham. “Get Beta and Gamma on the horn and tell them to follow our lead. I want to be at the base of the cliffs by morning. There Beta spreads east and Gamma spreads west.”

He swung back to the cliff. “Pack up, boys. We’re going down.”

TANYA HAD drifted for over three hours, lying on the hotel bed. Her thoughts spun lazy circles around the notion that she had really lost her mind this time. That this whole thing might well be an extended dream episode in which she had flown the coup and revisited South America only to find Shannon a mad killer instead of her innocent love. After eight years of nightmares a mind could imagine that, couldn’t it? She’d read somewhere that if all the power of the brain were harnessed, it could rearrange molecules to allow a person’s passage through walls. Well if it could walk through solid objects, surely it could conjure up this madness.

A knock on the door about launched her into orbit. She sat up and nearly slipped from the bed.

He walked in then. Shannon. Or Casius, or whoever he really was. The tall, rugged killer with green eyes and firm muscles. She wanted to shrivel into the corner.