As if he could read Merrill’s mind, he said, “You’re getting off in Cartagena. Chino’s home base. The oldest port in the Americas. Where the conquistadors shipped the gold of the Incas back to Spain. The Incas cursed us with cocaine, said we’d destroy ourselves with it. A cheap call. It was the drug they used to keep their own people in line.”

Merrill was still thinking of Amy’s situation right now. The last he had seen of her, a towel over her head, being hustled into the DH-125. Why do you want to go into the Coast Guard, Sam? He liked to sail, or thought he did, reading all the books, hitchhiking the Puget Sound when he was fourteen, before he met her, to mooch rides on daysailers to confirm what he felt about himself, what was different and – - he hoped – - special. It was what had drawn her to him, that he wanted to be more a beer-sucking, foul-mouthed country dog sniffing after free pussy from the worst barhogs of the frozen asshole of North America. She had had ambitions of her own, a need to spread her own wings and see what she could of the world. The deal between them was done way back then, the two of them hardly more than children, partners, collaborators and conspirators forever. And now here she was, in the worst trouble of her life, and who had brought it upon her.

A fool who had allowed himself to be manipulated onto playing politicians’ bullshit games. Maybe even set up for this, although he couldn’t figure out how, or by whom. Chino? At least his memory was working again. In her childhood her father had called her The Turbocharger Blond.

“You don’t know Latin America at all, do you?”

“Just its ports and navigable rivers.”

“Never had a real revolution. Bolivar was about securing the privileges of the European émigrés over the natives and Africans. As a result the whole place is a living hell. Cocaine is only the tip of the iceberg. If you can still believe in God after a good look in Colombia, you’re a better man than I am. Colombians are the most savage criminals the world has ever known. Have fun. Send me a postcard.”