Chase called to check in as they drove to El Poblado. Hicks put the call on speaker and Ellie listened in. Chase reported that there had been no additional activity at the cartel property, save that two sentries had taken up position outside it. Hicks told him to stay where he was and await instructions. Chase said that he would and ended the call.

“He won’t do anything on his own?” Ellie asked.

“I don’t know. He’s impatient.”

“But not stupid?”

Hicks shrugged. “I don’t know him all that well.”

Ellie checked the map. “There,” she said, pointing.

Hicks pulled over to the side of the street. Ellie looked out of the windshield. It was a pleasant neighbourhood, clearly reserved for Paisas with a little more financial heft behind them than other areas that they had passed through. The houses were set back from the street by a margin of grass that was, in turn, punctuated by well-kept trees. Some of the properties were sheltered behind brick walls. The house that Ziggy’s research had identified was a poor relation to some of the others on the street—it was a single-storey villa that wasn’t walled, and the car in the drive was a Nissan Leaf rather than a more expensive imported sedan—but it was neat and tidy and had a larger than average garden enclosing it.

Ellie gazed at the windows. Most were dark save for the one at the corner of the property; a little golden light bled out through the slats of a Venetian blind.

Hicks was looking, too. “This guy,” he said. “He’ll help?”

“I don’t know. He’s going to be pretty pissed off with me.”

“Why?”

“Because we’ve been lying to him ever since we got here. But I don’t really have an alternative if he turns me down. It’s him or nothing—and nothing probably means that Milton and maybe Baxter don’t have much longer to live.”

“You’d better be persuasive, then,” he said. “I’ll wait for you.”

* * *

Ellie crossed the sidewalk and made her way along the gravel path to the front door of the property. She knocked tentatively on the door and then, when there was no reply, she rapped her knuckles against it with a little more force. She heard the sound of footsteps and saw a shadow move across the stippled glass.

The door opened a crack, still held in place by a security chain. “Who is it?”

“Special Agent Ellie Flowers.”

There was a moment of silence and then the door closed. Ellie wondered whether it would remain closed, but then heard the rattle as the chain was disengaged and saw that the handle was turned again.