The man on the other end had a contract with the Estancia Guerrero, but Sarah’s family had used his services many times in the years before they had acquired the Guatemalan holdings. He was the man who had impersonated an FBI agent in San Diego. “What can I do for you, Miss Allersby?”

“It’s more trouble over the item we picked up in San Diego. Sam and Remi Fargo have been here in Guatemala and even managed to find their way onto the Estancia. They’ve been defaming me and my company to anyone who will listen. They seem to think that the marijuana operation on the Estancia is mine, as though I were some tawdry drug dealer. They wanted the police to search my house and all of my properties, if you can imagine.”

“Is there any chance the police will do that?”

“Of course not,” she said. “But I can’t simply ignore them. They left for the United States yesterday. I know they won’t get anywhere with the authorities here, but I have no way of knowing what they can do there. I need to have them watched for a while.”

“Certainly,” he said. “There are two ways to go about this kind of thing. We can simply hire some local San Diego private detectives. That would mean leaving a record that we had hired them and taking the risk that they might have to reveal who hired them in court sometime. Then there’s—”

“The other way, please,” she said. “What we’ve already done in San Diego could generate terrible legal problems. And I worry about this Sam Fargo. He’s vindictive. He won’t be able to let this go. And if he wanted to, his wife wouldn’t let him. I think she’s developed a jealous fear that I’m a threat to her marriage. She’s got nothing going for her but her looks, and as soon as somebody prettier is around, she knows she’s in trouble.”

“All right,” Russell said. “The Fargos haven’t seen me. I can do this myself with one good man. We can be in San Diego in a couple of hours.”

“Thank you, Russell. I’ll have some money sent to your company to cover the initial expenses.”

“Thank you.”

“Just knowing you’re personally paying attention to the problem will make me sleep better. I’m just one person, and I can’t be expected to pay attention to everybody everywhere who wants to harm me.”

“Would you like to set a limit on how expensive this gets?”

“No. If they leave the United States, send people wherever they go. I want to know where they are. And I never want them suddenly showing up on my doorstep again. But I don’t want to leave a record that I had them followed. I really can’t have them ruining my reputation.”