Tearing into the bread, Jack revels in the joy of eating. It is the first good food he has had in weeks, and his senses are on overload. He swallows and says, “But Escobar was a drug lord.”

Sebastián says, “In this part of the world, you don’t have many options if you want to be comfortable. You take the path that is sometimes risky.”

Jack’s business head, his philosophy to succeed, kicks in and he says, “A person’s choices dictate their future. Create where they find themselves. What they are doing. How they’ll react. And what their next choice will be.” He thinks of Carlos. His family. Choosing to be a farmer. Making coca paste. The man’s choices were limited by his surroundings, by those who ruled around him.

“A synergy,” Sebastián says. Then he stands, holding a newspaper. He approaches Jack. “See here.” Unfolding it, offering it to Jack, who wipes his hands on the napkin in his lap. Looking at the paper. On the cover, a headline: fortune 500 mogul buys ticket and disappears in south america. The subhead below reads, “Friends and Company Worried, in Search.”

“That’s you,” he says, setting the paper on the table.

Jack looks at his plate of food, ignores the paper. “I don’t care,” he says. “I don’t want to be found.”

Sebastián walks back to the other end of the table, sits back down. “Why?” he asks. “You’re a very popular man. Powerful.”

“I don’t wish to be. I don’t want it. I want to disappear.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no one. Money means shit without my wife, my daughter. My mother. Without my family.”

Swirling the wine around in his glass, Sebastián inhales the bouquet, then takes a drink. “Family? You could remarry. Create a new one. Shit, you could buy another if you wanted.”

“It wouldn’t be real. Wouldn’t have any substance.”

“Substance? Why do you need substance? You came to South America, Jack. What were you running from? Death? You’re a man who has a lot of power. What more could you want?”

Jack feels a surge of anger. And he asks, “Do you know what I’ve been through? Where I’ve been? Struggling to exist in conditions I never even knew existed, let alone encountered.”