Kit wondered at the hatred that could cause someone to have such images permanently inked into the face and head. She knew it existed—she’d seen it in the murder of Dillon and Ollie—so she supposed that it should not have surprised her. And yet it did. It always did.

Watching him, she could feel his determination, and she knew that if he managed to escape again, the odds of recapturing him again were low. And if that happened, the havoc he could wreak was difficult to estimate. Vincente had made clear that the madness had overtaken any other impulse he had, and his only goal was to kill as many Americans as possible. If he and his brother had partnered with Soh and Soh managed to take control of harbors on both coasts, there was no telling how Vincente might be able to spread that madness. Kit wouldn’t let that happen.

“Where is he?”

There was no reproach in Javier Carpio’s voice when he asked the question—no suggestion that anyone had done anything wrong. It was a question that, as a soldier, he asked to assess strategic realities, not to assign blame.

There was no blame to assign, Soh knew. Juan Suarez had never been late for an assignment. He was a careful soldier who believed in the process of extreme, targeted violence. He was good at his job; perhaps the best that Soh had ever encountered. And he was loyal. When Suarez did not show up on time for their meeting at the warehouse, he knew that Suarez had not sold him out. The situation was more serious than that.

“Where is he?” Javier Carpio asked again.

“Dead,” Soh responded. “Or worse.”

“Will this be a problem?”

Soh shook his head. “He knows what to do. He will not betray us.”

“You seem sure.”

Soh could detect a pinch of skepticism in Carpio’s voice. “Do you have reason not to be?” He was not used to being questioned, and the notion that the El Salvadoran would doubt Suarez—one of Soh’s men—annoyed him.

Carpio shrugged his enormous shoulders. “I was in the wars in El Salvador. I had a lieutenant under my command,” he said. “A young, strong, brave man. The bravest anyone had ever known, and the most loyal. I taught him everything I could. I told him about our strategy for wearing the government soldiers down, for cutting their supplies. I told this young man where the best towns were to hide and how to blend into the crowd in those towns.” Javier Carpio took a knife out of his pocket and used it to stab a hunk of cheese that was sitting on the table in the center of the warehouse. Soh couldn’t help but marvel at the size of Carpio’s hand. He slowly sliced the cheese into thin pieces and slid them into his mouth.