“We have an idea. Witnesses at your hotel saw your wife being kidnapped, and airport authorities tracked the planes south long enough to give us an idea where they were headed. A lot of people have been working on this, Commander, believe me. The police on the island seem to be willing to accept your account of the rest of it, when you can give it to them. Where are you now, sir?”

“The Tropicana.”

“Not your best choice.”

“Ah, actually, I’m in the lobby. I thought I was going to check in, but I forgot my American express card.”

“How are you dressed?”

“In a shirt and my bathing trunks. Look, I want to find my wife!”

The Colombian government is doing everything it can to get her back. It knows exactly where she is. This is their country, and we have to respect that. I want you to stay right where you are,” Cody said. “We’ll be right down to get you.”

Merrill hung up. The last of the gaudily-dressed people slid into their taxi and Merrill thought of the dead driver at the airport up north. He had caused that man’s death. For now he could not let himself think beyond getting to Amy, but if — when, he had to keep telling himself –- he got to the next step, he was going to have to take the taxi driver’s family in his personal calculations for the rest of his life. Amy would be way ahead of him, arguing that what he had done, he had done for her.

What was he doing? An instinct had clicked on when Cody had said, “sir,” after asking him where he was. Merrill had just spent the past month with professional politicians and bureaucrats whose use of the word “sir,” had always preceded an attempt to manipulate him to follow their own usually-secret agenda. Merrill had directed Cody to the lobby so Merrill could see who rolled up to the entrance.

The same instinct had gone to red alert when Cody had used the construction, “How are you dressed?” instead of, “What are you wearing?” The former said too clearly, “How do I describe you to the others?” Merrill could not afford to allow himself to be lulled into believing this place was something other than what O’Malley had described –- or that his own sense of the people he was dealing with should be ignored.

A BMW 7-series sedan rolled up to the entrance of the hotel and a man got out of the front passenger seat and looked to the front and rear and then leaned over and spoke to a man in the back seat, and then the rear door opened and a well-dressed older man with thinning gray hair got out and quickly led the other into the hotel.