“I’m sorry, but I had to extinguish the fire when the fog lifted,” he said, dropping to one knee. “They’re gone. We’ll go now.”

He slid through the opening, followed by the woman and then Father Petrus. It dawned on him that if a guard had been waiting in the open he would have hardly noticed. He swore under his breath. For all their talk of killing, the pair might be the death of him.

He looked at Sherry, suddenly struck by her beauty in the full light. “Let’s go,” he said.

“WHERE DID you last have them in sight?” Abdullah asked. It was late and he was tired. Tired from the lack of sleep, tired of incompetent men, tired of waiting endlessly for Jamal’s call.

Ramón leaned over the map in the security room. Other than the laboratory below, this room contained the only real sophistication in the compound. There was the processing plant, of course, and the conveyors that took the logs to the chute through the mountain, but those were relatively basic operations. Security, on the other hand, was always a matter of the highest regard in Abdullah’s mind. Not even Jamal knew what he had here.

The map showed the boundaries of the perimeter security system, a sensitive wire buried several inches under the forest floor. Using radio waves, the system showed the mass of any object that crossed over, allowing them to distinguish animals of smaller mass from humans.

“They crossed here.” Ramón pointed to an area south of the compound. “Three persons. Traveling fast, I think.”

Abdullah blinked, letting the last statement settle. Who could possibly be in the jungle so close to the compound? Hunters maybe. The infection on his lip throbbed and he ran his tongue over it gently. “How can you know they are traveling fast?” he asked.

“They crossed the perimeter here and then exited here, ten minutes later. At first we thought they had left, but within a few minutes they reappeared here.”

Heat spread down Abdullah’s neck. Hunters? Yes, hunters might move about like that. But so deep in the jungle? It could just as easily be a sniper with his spotter. Or a reconnaissance mission, launched by some suspecting party. The Russians, perhaps, somehow tipped off as to Yuri’s location after all these years. Or the CIA.

Or Jamal.

“And what have you done?” he asked.

“I have ordered Manuel to pick them up.”

Abdullah whirled to the man, his eyes glaring. “Pick them up? And what if it’s a sniper? How do you plan on picking up a trained sniper? You don’t just pick up trained men; you take them out!”

Ramón stepped back. “If we kill them and they are in contact with some authority, then their absence will be a warning. I thought they should be taken alive.”