The man with the red face wore a .45 pistol in a holster and he kept his right hand beside it as he walked, occasionally brushing the handgrip with his thumb as though to reassure himself that it was always in reach.

One of the armed escorts spoke in Spanish to the red-faced man’s companion. The man called to his friend, “Hey, Russ? He said they’re bored. If you don’t want to do it, they will.”

“Thanks, Ruiz. Tell them they can go back now. I’d like to finish this ourselves.”

“What for?”

“There are some things I like to do myself. If you don’t feel up to this, why don’t you go back with them?”

“No, I’ll stick with you.” Ruiz turned and dismissed the others in Spanish. One of the men handed him an entrenching tool, a short handle with a shovel blade. He took it, and said, “Gracias.” The group went back toward the pyramid while Sam, Remi, and their two captors continued walking.

“Maybe you should have let those guys do it,” said Sam. “It’s a lot easier to rat out two men than ten.”

“What are you talking about?” said Russell.

“You just got Sarah’s permission to kill us,” said Remi. “Once you do, then anybody who knows about it owns you. That includes all of those men who just left.”

“No,” said Russell. “They own you if they see you do it.”

“Oh come now,” said Sam. “You march us off, they hear gunshots, and only you come back. Not exactly the perfect crime.”

“Keep walking,” said Ruiz.

Remi said, “We’re a bit too well prepared to be the sort of people you can just kill and nobody asks questions. The United States Embassy knows the exact GPS position where we were going to be today.”

“Don’t worry about us,” said Russell. “We’ll manage.”

“By the way, what happened to your face?”

“You did.”

“Really?” said Sam. “How did I do that?”

“Your little booby trap in Spain. The blue ink didn’t come off, so I had a chemical peel.”

“Does it hurt?” asked Remi.

“Of course it hurts. But it’s feeling better every second. Pain is easier to take when other people feel it with you.”

He led them into the jungle, and they walked on a path that took them through thick stands of trees and across a couple of ditches that must have been streams during the rainy season. When they were a mile or more from the archaeological site, they reached a secluded valley with a dry streambed at the center of it. Russell said to Ruiz, “Give him the shovel.”

Ruiz kept his distance and tossed the small olive drab tool at Sam’s feet.

“Dig,” said Russell.