By Jon Wertheim, SI.com

On top of everything else, money was tight. Devoting all his energies to resolving his legal status, James couldn't hold down a job, and Clements was studying full-time for an advanced nursing degree. One month they were behind on the rent and were warned that they faced eviction. The next day a letter arrived miraculously from an anonymous airline pilot.

"You helped save 200 lives and a $30 million plane," the letter said. "I think you deserve more than a pat on the shoulder." Enclosed was a check for $200.

"We made rent," James recalls. "Of course, reading that letter, we also broke down and cried."

The next chapter

In the Hollywood version of the Kwame James story, he becomes an NBA All-Star, helps achieve world peace and, of course, lives blissfully ever after. While the real-life plot hasn't followed quite that arc, perhaps it's headed toward a happy ending.

In the summer of 2003, having wearied of relying on others for help, James and Clements were married by a New York justice of the peace, making James a legal resident. He expects to receive his green card "any day now," he says, and he'll be eligible for full citizenship in three years.

His passion for basketball still burned for a while. He called minor league executives and was invited to play for the Gary Steelheads of the CBA and the Brooklyn Kings of the USBL. If he didn't turn heads with his play, he still made a good impression. He also found a balance between letting the teams market his story and not shamelessly "playing the hero card," as he puts it.

"Kwame's one of the classiest guys I've ever met," says Dan Liebman, a former owner and assistant coach of the Kings. "Unless you asked, you never would have known him as anything but a hardworking player."

In 2004, eager to exorcise memories of his previous, unhappy stint in Europe, James returned to France and signed on with BC Longwy, a B-league team near the Luxembourg border. He became the Kevin Garnett of Alsace-Lorraine, playing all three frontcourt positions, scoring 20 points a game (second highest in the league) and averaging nearly a triple double. He had no illusions about the caliber of the competition, but basketball had never been this much fun, this gratifying. After his last game of the season, mission accomplished, he retired from hoops.

Last July, James and Clements had a formal wedding ceremony that melded traditions of the Caribbean with those of small-town Indiana. "We were just determined to make [our relationship] work," she says. "No matter what got thrown in front of us, it wasn't going to stop us."

The newlyweds bought a modest two-bedroom apartment in Virginia, where Jill found a job as a registered nurse and Kwame is trying to break into pharmaceutical sales. His existence isn't completely back to normal, though, and he has slowly come to accept that it may never be. He still fears backlash from terrorist groups. (He asked SI not to name his city of residence.)

Plenty of times, banished thoughts and memories come echoing back to him, as they did in April when Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker who belonged to the same London mosque as Reid, was sentenced to life in the same Colorado maximum-security prison as the Shoe Bomber. James would like to see the movie Flight 93, but he doubts he could make it through a screening.

Unable to abide his wife being the sole breadwinner, James waited tables for a time. Nowadays he offers personalized basketball workouts at local gyms. "I won't lie, it's been a struggle," he says. "People say to me all the time, 'Kwame, you're famous.' Let me tell you, I'd give it up in a second for this never to have happened."

James heaves a long, reflective sigh. As he replays the past five years, forces war within him. Finally, optimism wins. "You know how in the NBA, no matter how far down a team gets, you just know they're going to make a run? In my life, I've had my down period. I'm ready to make my run."

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