And now she had to look at Gregory’s shit-eating smile, as he sat up to the bar. He gave her a thumb’s up. “We got him this time. And I will celebrate, I think. Let me have a little of the champagne, please. You can reach the glasses better than I.”

She didn’t move.

“Surely you’re not going to spend your own last moments being petty.”

Tears ran down her cheeks. “You take the cake, you piece of shit. Chino said you were a sadist —”

“A sexual sadist,” he said, helping himself to one of the chips.

“What are those things anyway?”

“Chino didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

He paused, considering his answer. “Something he learned in China. That’s more than you deserve, considering your lack of cooperation. I’ll leave it to him to tell you the rest — if he lets you live. Which I doubt.” His telephone rang. He pushed a bowl in front of her. “Here, you must be hungry.” He took the unit from his pocket. “Hello?”

“Gregory,” Chino said clearly enough for Amy to hear him, “I think we had better seal the house.”

“Very well, Chino, if you think so.” Gregory stared at Amy. “As a precaution,” he added, and put the cell phone away again. He moved back from the bar. She could see the stain on his pants again, mud-colored and thick. She knew what it was. “This doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “You heard: it is just a precaution.”

“I heard you say.”

What she heard was the terror in her own voice. If she had not known what she was feeling before she opened her mouth, anyone who had heard her knew she was strangling on her fear. He moved toward her again. “Let me tell you about your future, little girl. Soon — very soon, now, and so fast you won’t even see it until it’s done — Chino will tire of you. He will tell me to get rid of you. For good. Then it will be my turn to have the big fun. That’s what you gringos call it, don’t you? And believe me, I do know how to do it.”

Merrill ran through the woods long after he was clear of Chino’s men and the shooting so that the woods themselves again enveloped him in their silence. It was a long way to the front of the house via the roundabout course he was following for safety’s sake, and longer still to the spot on the road where he had disabled the Mercedes. He had pocketed the electrician’s clips in case he needed the car again later. If he could remember how to link up the wires.