Hands pull Jack to his feet. Blood has begun to flow back into his legs and arms. He can feel circulation returning to hips and ankles. Hands guide and push him. He can see nothing. Cars are driving around. There are streets or roads around them, Jack believes. There is the sound of kids and the snorts of pigs and the bleating of goats, or maybe llamas. The smell of dirt and leaf mold. Trees and timber. Congealed with exhaust fumes and something being cooked. Shaking, Jack fears the worst. Imagines a pistol’s barrel pressed to the back of his skull. The click of its hammer. Somewhere in front of him, a door opens with a grinding drag. Hands press him forward. The smells change from exhaust to the indoor smells of foods, musty water, and unwashed bodies. He hears the clatter of shoes, clicking sounds. Water dripping. Lights coming on. Another door opens. The sounds reverberate less now as they enter a smaller space. They are in a hallway. Another door opens, and they are pressed into what feels like a small room. Claustrophobic. The door closes, and the voices become muffled once more. Talking. The conversation grows distant, angry.

Sitting on a floor that is wooden and smells of urine and excrement. The muffled voices return, growing closer and closer. The door opens.

“¿Quiénes son? ” an intense but direct voice demands.

“Who are they?” Matías murmurs, translating for Jack.

Another man’s voice, sounding rather less confident, replies. “One is the driver,” Matías translates. “He says the other is a passenger.”

The intense voice, angry, speaks again, and Matías reports in a whisper, “Why the fuck did you take them? Bring them here?”

“Uh, we thought maybe a ransom?”

“We? Ransom? Are you asking me or telling me, you fucking idiot? All I said was take the chemical. Take the fucking truck. Offload everything and leave the truck. Nothing more. No fucking driver. No fucking passenger. I don’t traffic people—at least, not old, fat fucking men and local drivers.”

“What do we do with them?”

“Ahh, maybe you should have asked that question before you decided to bring them here.”

After a pause comes the sound of hands fussing with a wrapper, then the rasp of a lighter being flicked. The smell of tobacco smoke follows. After a sighing exhalation, the intense voice speaks again, and Matías translates. “I’ll tell where you can’t take them: back to fucking Chile.” Another slight pause, and the voice says, “To the farmhouse, with Carlos. They can help him until I decide what to do about your fuck-up.”

Routed and taken back out the way they came, passing the same familiar smells and sounds. Rough hands load them back into the truck. Jack feels like passing out from fear, exhaustion, and the infernal heat. And Matías tells him, “If this is a dream, we’re in hell, my friend.”