Amy sat at the end of one of the sofas. The young, darker-haired man sat opposite her, the bad tooth, smirking, next to him. She noticed that neither seemed to be carrying a weapon now. She twisted around in her seat to the third man, who was standing behind her. He had no gun, either. “He knows we’re here,” he said.

She could play the game. “What do we do, wait?”

“For this man, yes, we wait.”

A full five minutes passed before the door opened again, and a tall man with graying black hair stepped in like a doctor entering his examination room. The man was over forty, even-featured, with deep-set dark eyes, wearing a lightweight, closely-tailored Italian suit of muted brown plaid, a medium brown shirt with a white collar, and a dark brown silk tie. He looked down at Amy and smiled without baring his teeth, one hand in his pants pocket as if he were modeling the suit. “Welcome to Cartagena,” he said in impeccable English. “You look none the worse for your journey.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be a travel day,” she said.

“Indeed.” Another small, tight-lipped smile. He looked to the others. “We have been following your exploits across the Caribbean keenly. Obviously, you faced a more formidable opponent than you had imagined. Still, all in all, not such a bad job. In spite of the unbelievably high casualties.”

“Then we’re going to get the rest of our money now,” said bad tooth. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

“You’re going to be paid in full. We do have one small problem.” He took his hand from his pocket. In his palm was chrome-plated automatic pistol so small Amy did not believe at first that it was real. The others had no doubt. Their collective groan was an admission of complete defeat. She had never heard a sound like it from more than one man at a time, she recognized, and then only at work, when a man in a hospital bed understood, like it or not, that he had embarked on the journey of dying. She didn’t want to believe this meant the same thing. The well-dressed man turned to the one who had tried to help her. “Would you mind saying, ‘Nice tit’?”

The Mercedes had been bugged. She had no doubt about the gun now. “Not him!” she yelled.

“Say it, please.”