Terrio fingered a photograph from his jacket. The picture showed Frank, Pike, and a chemical-company executive named Delroy Spence in the El Salvadoran jungle. The air had smelled of rotten fish and burning oil when the picture was taken. The temperature had been one hundred twelve degrees. Spence was dirty, lice-ridden, and wearing the remains of a tattered blue business suit. Meyer and Pike were wearing T-shirts, faded utility pants, and M4 rifles slung on their arms. Meyer and Spence were both smiling, though they were smiling for different reasons. Spence was smiling because Pike, Meyer, and a man named Lonny Tang had just rescued him after two months of captivity at the hands of a band of narco terrorists. Meyer was smiling because he had just cracked a joke about retiring to get married. Meyer looked like he was fourteen years old.

“What does this have to do with now?”

“You and Meyer were mercenaries.”

“So?”

Terrio studied the picture. He flexed it back and forth.

“He’s all over the world in shitholes like this, hanging out with the wrong kind of people. Maybe he started importing more than clothes.”

“Not Frank.”

“No? None of his friends or neighbors knew what he used to do. Not one of the people we interviewed. This little picture is the only thing from those days we found in his house. Why do you think that is?”

“Cindy didn’t approve.”

“Whether she approved or not, the man kept secrets. Maybe he wasn’t the man you thought.”

“I can’t help you.”

Terrio slipped the picture into his pocket.

“This home invasion crew doesn’t pick homes at random. They don’t drive around, and say, hey, that one looks good. Sooner or later, we’re going to learn Meyer had something they wanted—dope, cash, maybe the ayatol lah’s secret jewels.”

“Frank sold clothes.”

Terrio glanced at Deets, then returned to the tan sedan without another word. Deets didn’t follow.

Deets said, “So you haven’t seen this guy in ten years?”

“No.”

“Why is that? You have a falling-out?”

Pike thought how best to answer, but most of it wasn’t their business.

“Like I said, his wife.”

“But it was your picture he kept. And your tattoos. What’s up with that, Pike? Some kind of unit thing?”

Pike didn’t understand.

“The arrows?”

“Yeah, here and here, like you.”

On the day Frank’s contract expired and he left the contract service for good, Frank Meyer had no tattoos.

Pike said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deets made a stiff smile, then lowered his voice.

“I never met someone who’s killed as many people as you, still walking free.”