As his feet ate up the miles, a few new frames joined that clip running through his brain. They showed a young woman trapped screaming in a box while her own father soaked up the bullets above her.

Tanya.

She had latched her claws into him. He couldn’t shake the images. In fact, they seemed to work their way deeper into him with each footfall, like barbed spurs.

She was as beautiful as the day he’d last seen her, swimming in the waters beneath the waterfall. His mind drifted to old memories. To tender moments that seemed grossly out of place in his mind. Snapshots from a fairy tale of happy endings. Pages filled with laughter and gentle embraces. Sweet delicate kisses. Windblown hair across a fair neck. Soft words whispered in his ear.

I love you, Shannon.

Tears blurred his eyes and he gave a grunt before clenching his teeth and shoving them back.

Abdullah, Abdullah, Shannon. Think of Jamal. Think of the plan.

Tanya, oh, Tanya. What has happened? We had paradise.

But Abdullah had snatched it away, hadn’t he? And the CIA. They would all die. All of them.

Shannon ran under the canopy, desperately fighting the terrible ache lodged in his throat. Then years of discipline began to win him over to his mission. He had come to this jungle to kill. He had waited eight slow, agonizing years for the perfect timing, and now it was here.

Sula . . .

He lowered his head and replayed the brutal slaying of his parents, isolating each bullet as it spun through the air and landed into flesh. With each slap of his feet, another bullet bit deep. With each breath, the helicopter’s rotors rushed through the air. A knife to the throat would be too good for Abdullah. His death would have to be slow—the blood would have to flow long.

When Shannon came upon the bank where he’d left Tanya, he was barely aware of himself. He swam through a black fog.

He entered from the south, through tall trees and scarce brush. The murmur of flowing water carried in the stillness. A gentle breeze played over the grass.

Tanya lay in the grass.

Shannon pulled up.

She was on her back in the middle of the grass. Not that he expected her up and working, but she lay folded with one leg under her torso—odd for sleep.

Shannon scanned the tree line quickly. He tested the air but the wind was at his back. She could be sleeping, still exhausted from the long trek.

He watched her chest rise and fall with each breath. For a long time, he watched her and the ache in his throat returned.

Dear Tanya, what have I done? What have I done to you? He closed his eyes. When he opened them, his vision was blurred.