Harrison had his hand to his ear already. “Lead Three, what just happened?”

Cochrane turned around and saw Fitzpatrick hurrying toward them. He was carrying a shotgun.

“What’s happening?” he said.

“Lead Three,” Harrison said, “I need a status check now.”

Cochrane saw Fitzpatrick’s eyes go wide and, for the first time, panic turned in his gut.

“Get out of the car! Get out now!”

The mine detonated.

The car was tossed into the air and flipped over.

Cochrane, Jones, Harrison and Martinez were dead before it crashed back down on its roof.

* * *

He had an excellent vantage point. Jeno’s Pizza was just down the street from the location that had been chosen for the attack. He had bought a Hawaiian slice and had taken it to a table in the window from where he could look up and down the street. He had watched as the two cars had crashed into one another, carefully arranging the ‘accident’ so that the road was rendered impassable. He had listened silently over the radio as the team that had been put together for the operation reported on the progress of the convoy.

It had all been just as they had planned. They had worked on the attack with the information received from Langley. They had been supplied with the time of the meeting and the route that the ambassador would take to reach Bolivar Square. After that, they had relied upon the reports of the locals—the pedestrians and the drivers, the shopkeepers and customers—who worked for the cartel. The lookouts reported on the progress of the convoy through the city.

Cochrane had ignored the advice of his security detail and had insisted that the meeting to sign the accord should take place on Colombian soil. There had been so much pressure on him to conclude the agreement that he had ignored the target that his success in the negotiations had painted on his own back.

The man looked out at the consequences of the ambassador’s chutzpah now: the burning wreck of the car, smoke billowing up into the pure blue sky. He took out his phone and tapped the screen to call the single number that had been stored in the memory.

“It’s Number One,” he said. “Tell her it’s done.”

He ended the call, opened the phone and took out the SIM. He left fifty thousand pesos on the table, stood and collected his things. He was a big man: six foot four and heavily built. His normally pale skin had grown tanned from working outside, and his sandy blond hair had been bleached by the sun so it was closer to platinum. There wasn’t much he could do to disguise the fact that he was a foreigner.