He was making light of things, but I’d seen a TV program where a snapping turtle bit through the boot of a naturalist. It had done so as easily as had the shrapnel that shredded mine back in Cesar Calle’s house. “More concerned about getting our weapons wet.”

Rink chuckled at me and I nudged him in the gut with my elbow. To show him I wasn’t afraid of critters I went down the slick bank and into the water. My boots sank deep into the muddy bottom and the water crept up toward my waist. I transferred my SIG to my left hand, the rifle to my right and waded out, holding the guns above my head. When I pushed among the mangroves at the far side Rink followed. If we’d just been on a hiking trip he’d most likely have pretended that some huge reptile had grabbed him, but he was totally serious this time, coming through the water with his face set and his weapons held high. The time for fooling was over: now it was all business. The calm came on us.

The mangrove roots were like the gnarled bars of a huge cage; some poked from the surface like the teasing fingers of a water nymph inviting us down to her deathly realms. The going wasn’t easy and judging by how far the tangled branches stretched out before us it wasn’t going to get any better.

We slogged through the swamp, using our uncanny knack for directions to steer us. The mangroves were tortuous to push through, but we made it, using some of the more exposed roots as stepping stones. Then we came out onto a wide sandbank where sawtooth grass proliferated. The grass hid us well as we moved toward the hospital. The only problem was that it concealed other things too. At one point a bird broke from cover, its wings clattering through the branches of an overhead tree as it sought to flee us. We halted, waited, but apparently no one was alerted by the bird’s frantic escape, so we moved on again.