He stepped up onto a chair, tossed the bundled clothes out into the wind, and eased his body through the opening, headfirst, facing the stars. He pushed himself out until he hung only by the backs of his calves. With one last look into the sea, he kicked his legs free of the porthole and flipped backward into the cold, dark water.

The water crashed about his ears and then he heard only the churning screws from the ship. Blackness hung in the depths below him like deep space and visions of sharks whipped through his mind. He clawed for the surface and shook his head against a sudden panic. The ship ran into the night, leaving him in the white foam of its wake. Casius struck out westward.

He swam for two hours. Three different times, when the rain thinned, he found himself swimming parallel to the distant shore instead of toward it. The waves were high and the rain annoying but the land steadily approached and Casius swam steadily toward it. When the beach finally came, it was a welcome relief.

Casius slogged from the water and sank to the sand twenty meters from the jungle wall. Trees with long vines towered along the perimeter, their menacing arms stretching out in the predawn light. He stood to his feet, adjusted the wet money belts, and walked to the edge of the black forest. He took a deep breath through his nostrils, spit to his right, and stepped once again into the jungle.

If he was right, the CIA would be waiting for him already.

SHERRY BLAKE watched the helicopter twirl toward the sky, shoving gusts of wind in wide dusty circles. Her hair whipped about her face and she lowered her head until the air settled. To her left a jungle airstrip ran along the barren valley floor, carved by a freak of nature itself, not by human hands. The location was a natural choice for the station. Had it not been for the Richtersons’ plantation twenty miles north, her father might have chosen this spot fifteen years earlier.

When she looked up, Father Petrus Teuwen was smiling broadly and looking at her with raised eyebrows. She liked him immediately. Bright white teeth filled his mouth like piano keys. His black hair rested long on his cleric’s collar. Sherry doubted he’d been to a barber in four months.

“Welcome back to the jungle,” he said. “I’m sure you must be tired.”

Sherry let her eyes wander over the jungle line a hundred meters off. “Yes,” she replied absently.

The trees stood tall with moss-covered vines stringing below the canopy. Green. So much dark, rich green. As the chopper’s beating dwindled, the jungle noises came to her. A background of cicadas screeching nonstop, parrots calling against songs of a dozen louder hooters. The branches of a towering tree shook. She watched a furry, brown howler monkey poke its head out and study the mission.