“Why would you want to?” Harvey had the same hatred for men who hurt women as I did, but he wasn’t thinking of Jimena Grajales in the same way as I was. “She’s responsible for more murders than Hannibal freakin’ Lecter.”

“She was hurting . . .”

“She was insane.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But maybe we would’ve been the same if we’d seen our child murdered.”

The silence that followed my words was interrupted only by the flap of a bird’s wings as it broke cover. We had already paused in our march, but the bird’s frantic flight now made us crouch and scan the forest for whatever had disturbed it. In the end I decided that it was most likely only the weight of our words and I gave the all-clear sign. We moved on.

“So what do you make of Rickard turning up here?”

Glancing at Rink, I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “Revenge? From what I heard, he blamed Jimena for sending a team to kill him. He was talking about Del Chisholm and his men.”

“He didn’t know that they were only there to take Alisha to safety?”

“Jimena told him she’d nothing to do with that, but it made no difference. Rickard came here to kill her, and nothing she said was going to change his mind.”

“The guys that were with Rickard,” Harvey said. “Who were they?”

Harvey, I recalled, hadn’t been party to the conversation I’d had earlier with Nunez when he’d recognized those attacking Cesar Calle’s stronghold. I kept it simple.

“A rival outfit. Jimena mentioned someone called Silva. It looks like Rickard changed sides but my guess is he was only using Silva’s resources so he could get at Jimena.”

“Looks that way,” Rink said. “You think Rickard has run back to this Silva dude now?”

“No. I think he’s done what he came here for. If he was going to stick around, he’d just have waited at Calle’s place for Silva to arrive.”

“So what’s your best guess?”

“He’s on his way back to Miami.”

“You sound pretty sure about that.”

“I am. Jimena told him that Alisha survived.” Scrubbing a palm through my dusty hair, I could feel gobbets of blood sticking to my scalp. “And knowing what he is now, I think he’ll want to put that right.”

“First chance we get, we should warn Walter.”

“We’ll do that once we’re back at the staging post. The Junglas have satcom: I want Walter to pull a few strings and organize us a fast pickup and get back there before Rickard does.”

“You’re planning on using Alisha as bait?” Harvey rolled his head.

“Rickard’s going after her. It’s best that it’s under controlled circumstances when he makes his play.”