“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 okay—”

“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?”