“By the way, before I forget, I have for you and your men a present. It isn’t much, perhaps just a small taste of home.” Castro reached over to the shelf under a table alongside his chair and pulled out a newspaper. Immediately, Alim saw the stirring banner on the front page, the large cursive letters in Farsi. He recognized the newspaper. It was the provincial sheet published by his own government and circulated in the mountains near his home. Afundi hadn’t seen news from home in nearly two years.

“I had it delivered in one of our diplomatic pouches,” said Fidel. He tossed it to Afundi across the table. “Share it with your men. They need to hear from home.”

Alim took the newspaper and a drink of water in an effort to wake himself, and tried to glance at the newspaper as he listened.

After spending the entire night reliving his life, it took Fidel less than five minutes to come to the point.

There was a stark contrast between the sentimental old man who lived in the past, the one who had talked Alim to sleep, and the operational warlord Afundi had woken up to in the morning. Alim recognized the difference immediately.

Fidel told him about Nitikin, how they’d met and about the secret they shared. It was Fidel’s sense that fate had delivered Alim and his men to him at a critical moment, when all the stars were aligned, while he still had breath to deliver the message, and his old Russian friend still had the strength to act upon it.

As Castro spoke, Afundi held the newspaper on his lap and glanced at it occasionally with one eye. When Fidel turned to grab the decanter of rum once more, Alim quickly flipped the newspaper over to see the back side. There he saw the photograph of a large American warship. The moment he read the caption printed beneath the photograph, his eyes seemed fixed on the four-column photograph.

According to the paper: “The American warship Ronald Reagan plies the waters of the Persian Gulf on its most recent tour. Its warplanes routinely kill innocent women and children in cities and villages throughout the region. It delivers without mercy the infidel’s poisonous bite on other nations where the Great Satan seeks to impose his will on true believers and the faithful throughout the Islamic world.”

By the time Fidel finished pouring his drink, Afundi’s eyes were back on him, though his mind was not.

“I am certain,” said Fidel, “that given enough diplomacy and time, your own government will see the wisdom of my plan. And that you yourself will come to understand its opportunities. Of course, it must be handled with a good deal of care and discretion. But I’m sure you al ready know that. You see,” said Fidel, “it is a grand opportunity delivered to you and to me, by destiny.”

Destiny or not, for the moment Afundi had problems. The old Russian was sick once more. He was resting in the three-room hut with his daughter. One of the doctors had looked in on him that morning. The physician told Alim that it was not serious, just that the old man was tired. They were working him too hard. He needed more rest. If they were lucky he might be down only for the day, perhaps two. But without him they could make no further progress.

If this were not enough, now there was something else, one more problem to worry about.

Alim saw his man rushing back toward him from the hut. The man had exited from a back window. The fact that he had nothing in either hand told Afundi that the search had been unsuccessful.

“You didn’t find it?”

“No.” The man was breathless.

“You went through everything?”

“All of her bags and her clothing. Besides, I haven’t seen her with it. And I have been watching her closely this time. I don’t think she has it.”

“Then where is it?” said Afundi.

“I don’t know. Maybe she took it with her when she went home. If so, it could still be there, in Costa Rica.”

Afundi thought for a moment. It was a delicate subject, and not one that he wanted to raise either directly or indirectly with the Russian or his daughter.

The man from the Mexican cartel had sent three items to them after killing the American at his home in California and trying to kill Nitikin’s granddaughter. He sent the dead man’s laptop, a printed photograph that none of them recognized, and a small digital camera in a pink leather case.

Afundi had directed the killer to look for a camera because Nitikin’s daughter had told them she borrowed her daughter’s camera to use during her last trip to Colombia. It was the camera that had taken the photos of Nitikin, Alim, and his men.

When Alim checked the camera sent to them from California, he found nothing except photographs apparently taken there, in California. Initially Afundi was relieved. He assumed that the original photographs from Colombia had been erased.

But the reprieve was short lived. That morning, through the interpreter, he had gone out of his way to ask Nitikin’s daughter if she could help him with a new camera he had purchased. He showed her the camera from California without its pink case and with none of the photographs of the Russian’s granddaughter still in it. The mother didn’t recognize it. She told him she had never seen one like it. It was much nicer, newer, and smaller than the one she had used. It was all Alim needed to know. The camera and perhaps the Colombian photographs were still out there.

It was possible that no one would find them, at least not before it was too late, but then again, given his luck so far…

Harry and I are wearing a rut in the road, twenty miles each way every time we need to meet with Katia at the women’s lockup in Santee. But today Harry doesn’t seem to mind. “I think we found one of the coins taken from Emerson’s study,” he tells me. “And this one wasn’t in Arizona.”

According to Harry it showed up in a probate estate, an old man who’d succumbed to a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. His executor found the coin in his safe along with a printed card showing its provenance. The police now have the card and the coin.

“Please don’t tell me they identified Katia as the seller,” I tell him.

“No, according to the records the seller was a man named John Waters. We don’t know if there’s any identification on him yet. I’m told Templeton’s people are checking it out.”

“Stay on top of it.”

“You bet,” says Harry.

This morning when we get to the jail Katia knows by the expression on our faces that there is a problem. We are closeted in one of the lawyer-client cubicles.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

“I want you to think very carefully before you answer the next few questions,” I tell her.

She looks to Harry, then to me. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Did you ever have any difficulty sleeping at night when you were living with Emerson Pike at his house?”

“Sometimes. Sure. I was in a strange house. Especially at the end, I was scared.”

“Did you ever take anything for it, any medication to help you sleep while you were there?”

“No.” She shakes her head.

“Did you ever borrow any medication from Mr. Pike?” I ask.

When she turns to look at me, her eyes are alight with the sudden realization of where this is going. “You’re talking about Emerson’s sleeping medicine.”

“Then you knew about it?” says Harry.

“You want to know if I gave Emerson medicine to sleep the night I left.”

“Did you?” says Harry.

“Yes.”

“Damn it.” Harry turns away from her, looks at the opposite wall, and swears under his breath, several choice words.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Aye, aye…I didn’t think it was important.”