I couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to be able to watch that kid grow up. A lump the size of Manhattan formed in my throat as I thought about how I wouldn’t be able to show him how to properly shoot a basketball. Or buy him his first Lego set. Or give him another donkey ride.

I knocked my head backward against the shack.

Thwack, thwack, thwack.

I’d risked everything. And for what? For a woman who didn’t even want me? For a woman who left me? And what did I expect? That even if I somehow rescued Gina, she would move back to Seattle with me? That we would just start up right where we left off?

I wanted to be filled with regret, but the more I smacked my head against the wood, the more certain I became that if I hadn’t come to Bolivia, that if I hadn’t at least tried to rescue Gina, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. Sure, I would have been able to give Clark a few more pony rides, but I would have been a broken pony. One destined for the glue factory.

Gina was worth the risk.

Of course, there was a 98 percent chance I was going to be executed in the next fifteen minutes, but I would do it all over again.

Probably.

“Hey,” I said, giving Vern a nudge. “Ask them why they had a goat locked up.”

Vern asked.

One of the soldiers answered, and the rest of them laughed.

Vern told me, “He says if they don’t lock him up, he will find a way to get into the cocaine and start humping everything he sees.”

I doubted this was true, but it was still funny.

I asked, “Where did he come from?”

Vern asked the soldier, and a moment later translated: “He just showed up one day a few months back. Probably wandered away from one of the small villages nearby. They like him. He’s kind of like their mascot. His name is Paco.”

I glanced over to where Paco was eating the soldiers’ discarded cigarette butts.

A moment later, another four-wheeler emerged from the trees and parked near the three others. All the soldiers who were smoking dropped their cigarettes and stamped them out with their feet.

The man behind the wheel of the four-wheeler was older and more kempt than the others. He didn’t carry a gun. From the way he walked—shoulders back, a bit of a swagger—I guessed he may have done his own killing years ago, but now he had others pull the trigger.

Our lives rested in this man’s hands. A simple nod from him and we were toast.

I turned to Vern and said, “Are you up to date on your life insurance policy?”

He lifted one eyebrow but said nothing.