In what amounted to the village square, he clambered down off the truck and slung his bag of equipment over his shoulder. The pickup immediately drove away, leaving him standing in the cool breeze washing off the hills around him. There he was met by mistrust and a number of guns leveled at his chest. Rickard looked each of the four men surrounding him in the face. He showed them as much disdain as they directed at him.

Since looking like Joe Hunter was no longer an issue, he’d cut and dyed his hair a sleek black, tinted his skin and added dark contact lenses to his new image. He looked passable as a local, but no one here was fooled. It didn’t matter as they knew exactly who he was anyway: if not by name then by reputation.

“Silva didn’t see fit to come meet me himself?”

The four men sneered at him now.

“Didn’t expect he would.” Rickard shrugged. “But I didn’t think he’d send the Marx Brothers either. Which one of you is Groucho?”

“That would be Guarapo,” said one of the men, slapping the back of a hand to his chest. He was a tall, sloping-shouldered man whose round face looked like he’d done a few rounds in the boxing ring. There were ridges of scar tissue along his eyebrows and his nose had been flattened along the bridge. He indicated that Rickard follow him, while the others made a loose skirmish line behind him. Rickard smiled at the man’s naiveté as he walked.

Parked under a lean-to was a much newer pickup than the one Rickard had traveled here on. It had a tarpaulin canopy on the back and bench seats. He didn’t expect to ride up front, so Rickard tossed his bag inside and then clambered up, taking a seat at a back corner. Guarapo and a curly-haired man climbed in the front while the others kept Rickard company. They held their assault rifles across their thighs and he thought that if he wished, he could take out both of them with his knife before they got off a shot. But to do that would disenfranchise him with the local warlord, Alvaro Silva, and for the time being Rickard needed him.