He mumbled it. The man turned quickly to the bad tooth as the bad tooth tried to rise from the sofa and the man shot him under the left eye. The report of the pistol was piercing and flat in the small room. The bad tooth slumped back in the sofa, blood pumping from his face. The well-dressed man turned to the young one and shot him in the side of the head so he fell face-first on the sofa. The well-dressed man turned again and pressed the little gun against the chest of the one Amy had begun to trust and pulled the trigger three times fast. The man hovered for a moment, then dropped to the floor like a bag of wet sand. Amy screamed. The man gave her a big smile. Warm, even.

“You may relax now,” he said. “I am not going to hurt you.”

She was still screaming, stamping her feet and clenching her fists. Slowly his smile faded. It was as if he didn’t even see her. He was crazy – clinically insane. He looked as if he wanted to regain his composure from a moment of bliss, one he had expected. Jesus, she thought, did he just ejaculate? Nothing would surprise her now. She turned away from the carnage of the sofa. He seemed to see that, too, as he returned to consciousness, and he stepped back, the gun pointed at her.

“You killed them because somebody copped a feel?” She was starting to tremble. She had to get hold of herself. She could not let herself go into shock.

He said, “If I were your husband, you would want me to do no less.”

“My husband’s dead – that’s why you killed them, didn’t you?”

He grinned, flashing his insanity again, and put the gun away. “I don’t kill men for that kind of foolishness. You didn’t understand what I said. I told these men that they had not done such a bad job. Your husband isn’t dead. He’s here in Colombia, which is exactly where we wanted him in the first place. In point of fact, he is about to make the mistake that drops him into our net. This is our country, and more than you can possibly imagine, we make the rules.”

The thought that Sam was alive had her reeling. Here? How crazy was he? “Don’t underestimate him, Chino –”