“Your men were pleasant company on the ride over. They made me very welcome.” Rickard didn’t bother looking at Guarapo, but knew he probably hadn’t earned himself any less enmity from the rough-faced man.

“Good. Good.” Silva indicated a chair that one of his men placed alongside the desk. “Please be seated, Mr. Rickard. We have much to plan and much to do. But first! There was something you promised me . . . ?”

The second test. Rickard put down his bag of equipment. He sat, placing his forearms on his thighs and peered across at the men arranged around the room. “Yes, Señor Silva, there was. So . . . which of these men is the DAS commander?”

Directly opposite him, a mustachioed man jerked at his words. He looked at Rickard and then swung his disbelieving gaze on to Alvaro Silva. The man’s face began to elongate in realization of his fate, a mix of hurt and resolution.

From the front of his jacket Rickard pulled out a Glock 17 and fired a single round between the eyes of Jorge Gutierrez.

There was a stunned silence. It was broken moments later by Alvaro Silva’s slow handclap, which was joined by the others in the room, growing in volume and enthusiasm with each beat.

Rickard slipped the Glock 17 back inside his jacket as the man who had acted as intermediary between him and his original employer slumped down in his chair.

“I think that amply proves whose side I’m on now.”

Silva smiled in his genial-old-man way. “Gutierrez has been playing both sides, going between me and my competitor, Cesar Calle, taking money from the two of us. It’s right that you killed the traitor for me. I’m only sorry that you didn’t make it last a little longer.”

“It’s like you said earlier, Señor Silva, we have much to plan and much to do. Wasting time on that two-faced dog would be counterproductive.”

Silva indicated Guarapo. “Take him out of here before he stinks up the place. Make sure that he disappears, Guarapo. He is DAS after all and will be missed.”

Rickard had loaded his Glock with hollow-points. The bullet had punched through the policeman’s forehead and fragmented inside, pulping his brain, but there was no exit hole. A slow trickle of blood leaked down his face, following the contours of his large nose and pooling along the edge of his moustache. There wasn’t much threat of a mess from the wound, but the man had voided his bowel and a rank stench drifted from him.

Guarapo—obviously deeming the unsavory task below him—called for help from some of his men outside. Two of those who had sneaked off for a smoke came in looking sheepish under the stares of their leaders, took Gutierrez by his elbows and knees and carted him away. Guarapo gave them explicit orders for his disposal, which earned a lazy smile from Silva.