“What do you think? The only deal that consular prick had was the one he made with the local cops, who turned around and made a deal with Chino.” He had another idea for getting to Amy. “You got a map of Cartagena handy?”

“Satellite photos, the works.”

Merrill read the coordinates off the laptop to Waller. “Where am I?”

Ten miles west and south of your last position. You really haven’t gotten very far.”

“Thanks for rubbing it in. And you’re the one telling me I’m down to four and a half hours.” Merrill remembered Ruiz saying he wanted to be out of town tomorrow. Why was he thinking that? That American hood wanted to be fifty miles out to sea, too. “Give mistress Vicky a warm, wet one for me. Thanks, pal.” He hung up. Time to implement that other idea. He found the paper bearing Gregory’s number and called it. He was looking for the kids in the drainage ditch, another idea forming, when Gregory connected.

“Rosario?”

The kids were gone. A car was approaching. Merrill hung up.

“Why are you trembling?”

“It wasn’t supposed to show. It’s what you said over the telephone. That you’d kill babies to punish that man’s family.”

“These are children, not men. They don’t know if what people say about me is true or not.”

“Is it?”

He grinned and topped her champagne glass again. “How do I know what people say?”

“I trust you told him not to look in the trunk because Sam is in there.”

“Possibly. But no matter. The trunk itself is mine.”

He was leading her down a corridor she had not been before. The walls here had always been bare. I’m sorry, I’ve lost my taste for going in circles. It just seems to me that if you tell a kid not to look in a car trunk, that’s the next thing he’s going to do.”

“Perhaps in America,” Chino said, “where children are raised to disrespect their parents. This is Colombia. We have different traditions and customs.”

Arguing with him was pointless. She’d already told him she wasn’t interested in going in circles, so he had immediately spun another. For better or worse, America’s biggest export for decades had been its culture, and young people everywhere were its best customers. Maybe he was right about these kids, but only because they were terrified of him.

Like her.

Like her now. Even in the knowledge that if she did not shake loose of it so she could somehow engage his attention again. She might find herself with nanoseconds to live. Keep it light! She was remembering to tell herself. They were at the end of the corridor, facing a pair of double doors. When he didn’t open them right away, she looked up to him. A cryptic smirk. Another of his games.