‘I suppose I should ask how you ended up running that operation. Not a lot of call for herringbone roadblocks, snipers and intersecting fields of fire in the cattle business, is there? Not even when working for Mickey D.’

‘Mickey D? I do not understand… Oh, McDonald’s. I see.’ An arid smile cracked open the dark, sunburnt rock of the cowboy’s face. ‘The catering manager of the resort, an American, once worked for McDonald’s in Houston,’ he explained. ‘I met him on business many years ago. We drank a lot of tequila and he embarrassed himself, eating the worm like a college boy. Well, he was a college boy, I suppose. But I looked after him. I knew he had taken the job here, so this week I came looking for work. Any work.’

‘I see,’ said Jules, nodding. ‘But security work? That’s not your business.’

‘Men are my business. Running cattle and running men. You have never bossed twenty vaquero, no? I have bossed many more. Hard men, not to be crossed. Much harder than those idiotas.’ Pieraro threw a contemptuous look back over his shoulder.

‘Yeah, I get that. But that Roberto guy, he really is ex-military or something, right? He handles the tactical side, yes – where to place your good shooters and how to set up the roadblock?’

The cowboy remained quiet for a moment before finally muttering: ‘He is Colombian. AUC – Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia.’

‘What’s that, some sort of fascist coke-smuggling outfit?’

‘Paramilitaries,’ said Pieraro before hurrying on. ‘So, you have a proposal, Julianne.’ He pronounced the first portion of her name as Chooley.

As the little car wound its way down towards Revolcadero Beach, the signs of breakdown and chaos in the social order became much less evident. The streets remained free of rubbish and any indication of conflict. Huge villas and gated resorts sat quietly underneath palms and soaring canopies of transplanted tropicals. Few people moved about, apparently preferring to hunker down behind their high walls, but those who did, did not seem especially fearful or concerned. Jules scanned the scene for any obvious signs of things beginning to fray, but found none. Perhaps Miguel and his gang were helping to hold it back for now. She decided to take a punt on his honesty.

‘You have three children, Miguel, right?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Two girls and a little boy.’

‘Would you like to get them away from here? From Mexico, I mean.’

There was a slight delay before he answered. ‘Very much so. What you said before, it was not all true. But some was – about how things will soon turn for the worse. I have seen the worst of people. I know what to expect.’

They began to travel downhill through a neighbourhood of large modern houses, some of them set back within vast grounds. Jules caught the first sparkles of sunlight on water as glimpses of the bay showed through the verdant surroundings.

‘Okay, here’s your deal. Passage out of Mexico for you and your family if you can help me put together a passenger list. A short one. People who can pay upfront, right away, in euros, British pounds or trade goods. Stones and jewellery, high-end stuff only – gold, platinum, diamonds, and so on. I have a yacht that can accommodate two-dozen passengers and the same number of crew… well, I can accommodate a hell of a lot more, but I’m not interested in more. I’m not running a budget operation.’

It was Pieraro’s turn to fix her with a measured, vaguely contemptuous look. ‘You have misread me, today, Julianne,’ he told her. ‘Taken me for something I am not. You, however, I can read very well. I have met your type before. You are not an honest person. You are not good. Good, honest people do not carry themselves with weapons into danger, real danger, like you did before, with such… composure, no? You are familiar with men such as that.’ Again, he jerked his head back in the direction from which they’d come. ‘You have used weapons such as this.’ A nod now towards the SPAS 12. ‘You have killed people before. Yes?’

‘When I had to,’ she said tightly. ‘When it was them or me.’

‘This I understand,’ he conceded. ‘But you must understand me now. If I help you, if I entrust to you the lives of my wife and children, your own life, it is entrusted to me then. It is held within my hands. Do you understand? If you give me reason, I will close my hands and take that life from you.’

‘I understand,’ said Jules.

Pieraro slowed down and stared into her eyes. ‘Good. Then we have a deal.’

Monique grunted and dropped to the still-wet ground like a puppet cut loose from its strings. A single round had felled her. Caitlin went down on the dirt under the angry buzz of bullets zipping overhead.

‘Son of a bitch!’

She rolled over Monique and grabbed her by the backpack. Strap in hand, juggling her own hold-all, Caitlin hauled the young woman towards the door of the nearest apartment block. She didn’t pause to think, to examine her surroundings, to question the choices she was already making. Her largest handgun, the Glock 19, had quickly appeared in her free hand and it roared, biting huge chunks of wood and masonry from the solid timber door.

Rather than screaming, Monique was gasping and grinding out an arrhythmic series of grunts, like somebody punched in the stomach trying and failing to draw air into their lungs.

Glass shattered as rounds zipped and cracked past Caitlin’s head to chew up the brick facade of the old, run-down tenement. The gunfire echoed against the bricks and mortar of the surrounding apartment buildings. She logged the direction and volume of fire, and part of her mind calculated that they faced maybe three attackers.

Three? She looked out of the corner of her eye. No, four shooters. They’d emerged from a white van that had turned down onto this wide street just a minute ago. Four, she could be certain of – but were there more? A second vehicle perhaps? A lookout who’d been scoping the street for hours?

Her boot slammed into the door, which flew open and crashed into the wall, and they were suddenly through, into a darkened passage that smelled of boiled cabbage and dog hair. She dropped Monique on the threadbare carpet running down the long, poorly lit hall and spun back towards the street.

Caitlin holstered her Glock and hauled out both of her Steyr TMP s from the shoulder rigs under her jacket. With the safetys flicked off, she held the weapons out around the corner of the door and unloaded both of them into the free fire zone of Route d’Asnieres in the direction of the van. The outgoing fire sounded like canvas sheets ripping in the high wind.

After three bursts, she took a quick peek to her left around the doorway to check her surroundings and see what she’d caught. – A civilian, on a bicycle, lying in the centre of the road, probably dead. Head shot. Shit.