“He will not give up the union and the harbor,” Soh said quietly. He was sitting on a rusted metal chair in a windowless concrete room roughly ten feet wide by twenty feet long. He guessed that this had been the operations center of the artillery unit that had run the Nike missile installation on the northern end of the island. It was by far the largest room in the maze of low corridors and small side rooms. The military had left behind a few items—metal chairs and tables, and a stack of metal pikes, the operational purpose of which escaped Soh’s imagination.

“Even if he does, will you be able to keep control?” Juan Suarez asked.

“What do you mean?”

Juan Suarez shrugged. “Even if O’Connell is removed, much of what he has put in place will remain. His men. His connections. There will be others who will try to take control, and even if they cannot, I wonder whether we will be able to insert ourselves into a system that has been built around one man and one way of doing things.”

Soh frowned. The thought had occurred to him, but he’d been unwilling to admit the risk of failure to himself. He didn’t like being confronted by reality, but he appreciated Suarez’s keen mind. “What options do we have?” he asked.

“Perhaps none,” Suarez said. “It may very well be that we have to kill many more, even if O’Connell is gone. We will have to find a way to wipe out the old system and build a new one around you.”

“You may be right,” Soh said. “But first we have to deal with O’Connell. He will have to leave, or he will have to give up his daughter.”

Soh had welcomed Suarez back with a nod and nothing more. Suarez understood. They were soldiers, after all. There was no need for any acknowledgment of Suarez’s ordeal, or of Soh’s efforts to have him released. They would remain, as always, focused on their objective; maudlin feelings had no place in their world. If Suarez had been killed by O’Connell’s men, Soh would have missed the tactical advantage that Suarez’s presence gave him, but there would have been no further emotion. It was one of the things that Suarez respected about Soh.

Suarez shook his head. “He will never do that.”

“What possibility does that leave?” Soh asked.

“He will try to get her back with force,” Suarez said after a moment.

Soh gave a derisive grunt. “It would be impossible,” he said. “We are too heavily defended here. There is nothing he can do.”

“Perhaps,” Suarez conceded. “But he will try. We must be ready for him to try.”

Soh nodded. “Agreed. But if he does, his daughter will die instantly. And he will follow almost as quickly.”