Back in the sheriff’s office, Walter had offered me a deal. The deal also extended to Rink. Come back to work for him. He’d offered immunity from prosecution, sanction to use deadly force, and a reward package for a job well done. Neither of us had given him our answer yet, but it looked like our old controller had taken it as a given. I was prepared to go along with that misconception while his resources would help us find and kill those responsible for murdering my team.

“When we find this lunatic, we’ll make him tell us who’s responsible.”

“Yeah.” Rink was as loquacious as usual.

I told Walter about our suspicions and how Harvey was cross-referencing spec-ops who had been on active duty in Colombia and who had also trained at Quantico. “I’m hopeful that it will point us in the right direction.”

Walter didn’t question how a retired soldier still had the wherewithal to enter the necessary databases, and I didn’t enlighten him. But maybe in future I should negotiate the same deal for Harvey that Walter had offered us.

“We should widen the search,” Walter pointed out. “Primarily it has been U.S. and British specialists who have trained the Jungla. But other allies have been involved. I’ll get our analysts on to it.”

The Jungla are a crack team set up by the Colombian government whose express mission is to eradicate the problem of cocaine production in the country. They’re highly trained specialists, on a par with many military special forces, but they’re not military, they’re police. Where DAS are akin to the secret police, the Jungla are the storm troopers.

One of the bodyguards stood up and leaned over to whisper in Walter’s ear. Walter nodded slowly.

As the bodyguard sat down again, Walter said, “They obviously have a network inside the country. The man who kidnapped Imogen couldn’t have been working on his own. A boat, a delivery truck and a plane were all necessary to his plans and he needed others to set that up. We have been looking at this angle. We’ve found the plane.”

“Great,” I said.

Before I could ask, Walter went on, “It’s at a private airstrip outside of Miami. But the pilot isn’t speaking.”

“Give me a couple minutes with him,” Rink said.

“Still won’t speak,” Walter said. “He’s dead. A single round to the back of the head. His body was found jammed into a Dumpster.”

“So the killer’s covering his tracks, eliminating anyone who can identify him?” It didn’t bode well for Imogen.

Walter read my meaning. “I’ll contact Hubbard and have her guard doubled. But I wouldn’t worry.”

Easier said than done, but I knew what he was getting at. The killer had moved on to the next part of his plan.