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Ammar clutched Ibn's hands for assurance He tried to speak, but could no longer utter coherent words Only ani supporting his shattered jaw

"We are in a small chamber inside one of the mine tunnels"

Ibn spoke softly into his ear "They came very close, but I had ti place"

Ammar nodded and desperately tried to make himself understood

It was as though Ibn could reach through the pitch ess and read Ahts "You wish to die, Suleiether but not one minute before Allah decides"

Ammar slumped in despair He had never felt so disoriented, so completely out of control The pain was unbearable, and the thought of living out his days in a maximum-security jail cell, blind and mutilated, devastated him All instinct for self--preservation had deserted hi dependent on anyone for his hourly existence-not even Ibn

"Rest, th when it comes time for us to escape the island"

Annnar collapsed and rolled to his side His shoulders caainst the tunnel's uneven floor It et, and thetoo much pain to notice the added discomfort

He became more and more despondent His failure had beco; then a curtain slowly forlow appeared, a glow that bloo flash, and in that one chilling limpsed the future

He would survive through revenge

Mentally he spoke the word over and over until at last his self-discipline returned

The first decision he carips ho should die at his own hands, Yazid or Pitt? He could not act alone He was no longer physically capable of assassinating bothHe would have to trust Ibn to share in the revenge

Auished over the decision, but in the end he had no choice

Ibn would draw the coyote, while Ammar's final act would be to slay the viper

Pitt refused to fly home on a stretcher He sat in a co chair, and stared out theat the snowcapped spires of the Andes Far off to the right he could see the green plateaus that hlands Two hours later a distant gray haze advertised the crowded city of Caracas, and then he was gazing at the horizon line where the turquoise of the Caribbean met a cobalt-blue sky from 12,000