“Do you believe that someone would want this chemical that you were hauling?”

“It’s possible,” Matías whispers back. “Someone always wants what I haul.”

“But who would want it?”

“Narcos or traficantes, maybe. I do not know; I’ve never been abducted.”

“So there’s the possibility that what you’re hauling can be used to make drugs, you think?”

“It’s a possibility, I suppose.”

As the bumps rattling Jack’s bones bring him more pain, Matías’s words bring more worry. The words narcos and traficantes and drugs bring worry, awakening a revulsion deep in his consciousness. Images from the world news, of mass graves being discovered, beheadings, bodies hanging from overpasses, men brandishing automatic weapons with their identities covered by death’s-head masks, soldiers of drug wars along the border. This is not what Jack was in search of. How did he manage to get himself abducted? And where are they taking him? What is going on? The more Jack questions everything in his mind, the faster his heart beats and the more his worry escalates.

Every so often, he twists his neck, readjusting the position of his face to keep the cloth from blocking his airflow. The condensation from his breath has dampened the sack to the point that the cloth grows heavy and makes breathing difficult.

Being overweight and out of shape doesn’t help. Lying facedown, gut pressed up against his diaphragm, the fat around his upper body adding stress to his lungs and heart. Add to that his limited mobility, the heat, and the condensation gathering in the hood’s fabric, and he feels as if he were suffocating.

Trying to imagine something positive to take his mind off the situation, Jack focuses on his breathing. His inhalation and exhalation. Trying to slow his pulse, control his nerves. An exercise he learned and practiced many times in one of his many leadership seminars over the years. Inhaling deep and holding his breath for five seconds before exhaling, imagining he is somewhere else, somewhere with a cool breeze, maybe a swimming pool or a lake, comfortable seating like a lounge chair or a recliner, all peaceful and low-stress, blue sky overhead. Someplace soft. His mind begins to calm, to slow down and drift. The tension in his body eases. His eyes close, and his body lies limp. He is walking on a beach of gray sand. In the distance, bright surf rolls and pounds. The sky overhead and out over the sea is deep-space blue, cracking with heat lightning. A balmy breeze soothes his skin. At the edge of the sand sits a figure. Hesitant, Jack moves toward the shape. Getting closer, he sees the smoke-colored hair shot through with blond. It is Sarah. Dressed in a thin, gauzy white cotton shirt, swimsuit beneath, tanned arms are hugging her knees to her chest. Jack kneels to touch her, and she says, “Don’t.”