His host looks amused. “You’re funny, Jack,” he says. “This is my country. I was born into struggle. I used to be a farmer’s kid myself, much like Escobar. I looked up to him. Then, to break away from my parents, I became a delivery man. Then a sicario, and now a leader. A boss. I can’t feel compassion for you, Jack. I can only admire what you built. Please. You’re what, sixty? And never suffered like me until now. Is that it? Ha! Please. You have the business smarts, but not the savagery to survive real strife. That do-or-die mentality. I thought, with all you’ve done, your roots of being raised by a struggling single mother. What you built, you could be like the great cocaine baron of Colombia. Pablo Escobar, only in an alternate universe, in an educated manner.”

Jack is not seeing it in that same distorted, fragmented light—words and views twisted to fit Sebastián’s agenda. And Jack tells him, “All that Escobar did for his people, his family, was create grief and misery.”

“Jack, how can you say that?”

“Because I know what I did for my family. My wife, my kids. I wasn’t there for them. I worked all my life for money. More and more of it. And in the end, it was for nothing. Now they’re gone, and I have no one. Nada.”

Taking a small black box from his breast pocket, Sebastián opens it and pulls out a cigarette. Lights it. Inhales and blows smoke. “Cry, cry, cry. You’re swimming in self-pity, my friend. A victim mentality. Look at what you’ve survived in South America. We tracked you. You want companionship. You could buy all the women you want. I can introduce you to a harem of beauties. Untouched.”

“That’s not love.”

“Love? Love only bleeds you of worth. Distorts your discipline. Your emotions. Confuses the soul. You make bad decisions when you rely upon love. Was it love that helped you build your company?”

“At first, it was—the love of wanting to succeed.”

“And you did. And had you not, your family wouldn’t have lived in the comfort they had. Regardless, I’m sending you back to your people, Jack. Back to los Estados Unidos.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

“Look, your economy supports my trade. Your people reached out to me. I’m returning the favor. Your people miss you. Finish your supper. Freshen up, and then I’m getting you to my contacts, who will get you to Panama to meet your people in Guatemala.”

“I’m not going.”

“Oh, Jack, don’t make this exchange difficult.”