Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to. Rickard remembered the words that Jimena had once quoted to him. He believed they were the words of the philosopher Sophocles. “What is this, bitch? Reverse psychology? You think that if you invite death I’ll spare you?”

“You will kill me or one of Silva’s men will do it. I don’t care. I will be with my child again.” She glanced again at the wreckage of her body, then calmly at Rickard. “I will be whole again.”

“That’s debatable,” Rickard said. “Considering that I’m going to cut you to pieces.”

Jimena peered up at him with her one good eye. In its dark depths there was resolution. “Just make sure that you do it right this time. I’ve suffered enough: don’t leave me the way you left your wife.”

“My wife’s dead.”

A smile tugged at Jimena’s lips. Again it was as if she were patronizing an obstinate boy.

Rickard’s eyes puckered. “I shot her.”

Jimena coughed out a laugh. “I was shot too, and much worse than Alisha was. You failed to kill her, the way you failed everything else.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I?”

“Because you’re a deceitful bitch, just like every other woman I ever . . .”

Rickard noted the subtle movement of Jimena’s other hand beneath the sheets. “What have you got there?”

He leaned down, readying the knife.

And that was when he heard the clipped command from behind him.

“Drop the knife, Rickard.”

The metamorphosis that came over Jimena’s features was shocking. She went from calm resolution to insane hatred in a heartbeat. Without looking, Rickard knew who had just entered the room. Jimena twisted, surprisingly fast for one who’d appeared so feeble all this time, and the gun that she had concealed under the sheet switched from aiming directly at his gut to the man in the doorway behind him. Jimena shrieked and fired at the same time.

Bullets punched through the sheets, making a series of small black holes in the material. Then they sped past Rickard. He was already reacting, spinning away, but he wasn’t quick enough and felt like he’d been kicked in the ribs. His feet caught under the bent knee of Cesar Calle and he stumbled, falling over the dead man to sprawl on the floor. Rickard immediately rolled over, going for his own gun, as he stared incredulously back at the woman.

Jimena was still screeching like a wildcat. She tore her hand from under the sheet, lifting out a Smith and Wesson Sigma, and reared up to get a cleaner shot at her target. Rickard knew that the gun had a capacity for seventeen rounds: enough were left that Jimena was a real threat to his ongoing existence.

But so was Joe Hunter.