But he didn’t want to listen. He hoped he wasn’t too late, but he didn’t want to listen. He took the first flare gun from his belt and aimed it at the remaining jerry cans at the side of the bunkhouse. He fired, and the flare shot out into the darkness with a noise like tearing paper, arcing and spinning toward its destination.

Tom expected an explosion, but not this kind of explosion. It was instant and astounding, a blast of light and heat and wind, knocking him backward onto the ground, filling the sky with a brief blinding flash and flying debris as the bunkhouse blew apart and disintegrated.

He scrambled back onto his knees, only certain he was still holding the spear when he leaned on it, almost like a walking stick. The barn door flew open and the leader burst out of it. He saw Tom kneeling on the ground and ran toward him.

Tom didn’t hesitate, time slowing down as the bulk of the man careened toward him. Tom pushed himself up, climbing to his feet, and before he was even upright, he thrust the spear forward, into the man’s stomach, pushing harder as it met resistance, fat and muscle and bone, pushing until they crashed into each other, a shattering blow, and Tom could smell the man’s sweat and the beer and meat on his breath.

They spun around each other, as if performing a choreographed street dance, and the man fell onto his back in the dirt, the spear pushed up at an angle into the top of his stomach, under his ribs. The momentum sent Tom stumbling over him toward the open barn door, and even as he tried to right himself, he pulled the other flare gun free and turned to face the barn.

He saw Joel and Chris, their hands tied to a beam above their heads. He saw the other guy standing by them, holding a machete, looking confused, panicked.

He saw the gun in Tom’s hand and said something urgent in Spanish, holding his hands out in submission, and Tom fired. The flare tore in a short haphazard trail across the barn and blasted into him, a scorch-black explosion into his stomach, and the man screamed and fell backward, and he kept screaming for a few seconds more as Tom ran into the barn.

Chris was bruised around the eye. Joel’s T-shirt had been torn off and was lying like a rag on the floor. They were both talking but the roar of the explosion was still in his ears and Tom couldn’t hear them or make sense of what they were saying. He ran over to the man on the floor, dead now, his flesh still burning and sulfurous, and pulled the machete from his hand.

He cut Chris’s ropes first, then Joel’s, and they were still talking but he ignored them and said, “Follow me.”