The Maybach arrived at the airport and floated past the terminals along the chain-link fences to the special entrance to the private jet hangars. The guard opened the gate as soon as her car was in sight. Some crazy revolutionary wasn’t going to drive up in a car worth nearly half a million dollars and blow up a plane. Her driver took her to her hangar, and she saw the plane had already been towed out. The pilot, Phil Jameson, was going through his preflight check. The fuel truck was driving off down the line toward its next customer. Sarah Allersby’s steward, Morgan, was visible through the lighted windows, refilling the refrigerator and stocking the bar.

The Maybach stopped, and she said to the driver, “I’ll be away for at least a month. You’ll get thirty days’ pay and then you’ll be called when I need you again.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He popped the trunk, took out her suitcase, and rolled it to the plane. Morgan came to take it for her.

He carried it up the steps, placed it in the closet, closed the door, then placed a strap across the opening so even if the door opened, it couldn’t move. “Can I take your coat?”

“Yes,” she said, and shrugged it off. It took only a few more minutes before the cabin door was closed and the pilot began to taxi out toward the end of the runway.

A few minutes more and the plane turned into the wind, sped along the runway, and lifted into the air. As Sarah looked out the window and down, she saw the little country receding below her, keeping with it all the recent strife and disappointment and the unpleasant little people who had thwarted her efforts. As her plane rose above the puffy layer of white clouds into the dark sky, she felt lighter, cleaner, and without unpleasant encumbrances. She was flying home to London. It would be comforting to visit her father and to shelter in his big, powerful presence. And London was still London. Maybe this trip would be fun.

FRAIJANES, GUATEMALA

The truck carrying Russell and Ruiz reached the large, forbidding Pavón prison at the edge of the suburban town of Fraijanes. As they joined the men being herded out of the army trucks, Ruiz said, “I don’t see any lawyers.”

Russell said, “They’ll be here. She wouldn’t let us rot in a place like this.”

The soldiers herded them in through a high gate made of iron bars with razor wire at the top. Ruiz whispered, “I don’t even see any civilian guards. I think this is one of those places where the prisoners run things.”

“Don’t worry,” said Russell. “She’d have to be crazy to abandon us.”

“Let’s hope she’s not,” said Ruiz. “Either way, we’d better get ready to make our own way out.”

LONDON