“Whatever.” She shrugged. “The man first, I guess. Though he’s more of a monster. Masenak was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal. He was the son of a local crime boss who headed the gambling syndicates in Spain as well as Portugal. His mother was a prostitute who disappeared from the picture after a few years, and Jorge was taken care of by servants and his father. He traveled from racetrack to racetrack with his father, who trained him to become the arrogant son of a bitch he is today. He liked the gambling, particularly the winning, and he was on his way to following in his father’s footsteps. But he and his father didn’t get along all that well and he wanted more power than he could get as the head of a syndicate. He ran away when he was twelve after stealing enough money to start the life he wanted. He surfaced a few years later in Morocco as a mercenary when he was putting together his first guerrilla army to start trying to form his own kingdom. You know what he’s been doing for the last twenty-five years. Blood and gore and murder.” She met his eyes. “That’s all I know. Very general knowledge because I wasn’t interested in him until he committed that atrocity at St. Eldon’s. I’ve been too busy trying to find him to dig any deeper. I’d rather catch him and stop him in his tracks than find out how he got that way. That’s not my priority.” She tilted her head. “But I bet you know more than I just told you?”

“Perhaps. Though you did well for skimming the surface. You hit the highlights. Go on.”

Alisa looked down at the map. She pointed at the large green expanse of jungle. “Masenak uses the Szarnar as an escape route after his army raids surrounding villages and cities. The entire area is known as the Szarnar Jungle, but a good portion of it is rain forest. He’s always found it particularly useful because the foliage is so thick and impenetrable that even the most sophisticated drones aren’t able to detect anything below the tree canopies. There are no real villages present there, because Masenak’s soldiers have either killed or run out the natives.” She pointed to several spots on the map. “But there are still isolated individual bands hiding out in these areas who refused to leave their homes.”

“And became part of the network of ‘sources’ who supply you with information?” Korgan asked softly.

“Perhaps,” she said warily.

“And, if you did locate Masenak, would it be possible to lure him into a trap using those very stubborn villagers?”

“No, he’s too smart and well protected. It would just mean those innocent villagers would be butchered, and any sources I might have would vanish.”

“Pity.” He nodded again at the map. “Go on.”