She had logged four guards now. Her two indolent latte drinkers still lounged under the thick portico of the former police station. They had switched from caffeine to cigarillos and appeared to be engaged in an argument about soccer. Every few minutes one of them would stand and laboriously work through a pantomime of some disputed passage of play, while the other theatrically dismissed his efforts with glorious excess, smacking hands over eyes, throwing arms into the air, and calling out ‘¡No no no!’ so loudly she had no trouble hearing them. Two other guards wandered out at random intervals, the first to bum smokes, the second to watch the theatrics and add a few dismissive words of his own. None of them looked like A-listers, but she worried about the unseen men.

Her briefing notes were clear. This was a small detention facility, run by the local Federation militia. It was more of a way station, where prisoners were often held before transfer to the fleet base for interrogation by the Oficina Seguridad, Roberto’s personal gestapo.

The jail was staffed by a militia commander, a deputy and four other men. Given the air of neglect, the sloppiness and general dereliction of duty that seemed to characterise ‘Facility 183’, Caitlin did not imagine the commander to be a bright and shining star of the regime. It was unlikely he’d have adequate security in place, relying instead on the fearsome reputation of Roberto’s security apparatus to dissuade anyone from interfering with his little fiefdom. As a militia enforcer, he was probably a former gang member who’d thrown in his lot with Morales as the dictator grew ever stronger during the post-Wave chaos. La colapso, as it was now known across most of South America.

Chances were, the CO was the one wielding the blowtorch, tyre iron or whatever it was that had reduced the screaming man to such a pitiable state. Caitlin swallowed on a dry mouth as memories of her imprisonment and torture in Noisy-le-Sec tried to break out of a small, black box at the back of her mind. She attended to her craft, as she always did when needing to put aside unpleasant realities.

The Echelon agent reached into her khaki backpack and checked her notes of when the guards had appeared from inside the crumbling stucco building. No patterns. She scanned the entire compound again, using her binoculars, searching for entry and egress points, logging at least three. She plotted her approach: mentally rehearsing the stealthy advance down the hill, under the cover of the forest canopy; her emergence from the brush; the possible scenarios that might play out as she engaged the guards. She was particularly concerned about the thick, stone pillars holding up the red-tiled roof of the portico that shaded the front of the building. They would provide good cover to anyone firing at her. She spent some time pondering how to turn that tactical disadvantage to her favour.