Johansson stomped on the accelerator as Pablo climbed into the golf cart, not waiting until he was fully seated.

The two men rode in silence as Johansson followed a paved path through the jungle. They entered a shaded clearing dotted with more armed men in fatigues. To their right sat a pyramid-shaped pile of gray rocks. A group of ragged men, wearing dirty, sweat-stained clothes, were shoveling the rocks into small carts and pushing them down a carved path.

The golf cart bounded through another stretch of dense jungle, then stopped in front of a large, windowless concrete structure. Its flat reinforced roof, landscaped with vegetation, disguised it from the air even more realistically than the landing pad. Only a row of palm trees on either side of the entrance offered the structure any semblance of warmth.

Pablo jumped out of the cart. “Thanks for the lift. Don’t bother to keep the motor running.”

“I wouldn’t plan for a long visit, if I were you,” Johansson said, then drove away.

As Pablo climbed a short flight of steps to the doorway, a breeze from the lake helped stir the muggy air. A guard at the threshold opened the door and escorted him inside.

In marked contrast to the plain walls outside, the building’s interior was an exercise in opulence. Built as a personal residence, it was decorated in bright tropical colors, illuminated by a surplus of overhead lighting. As Pablo was led down a white-marbled corridor, he passed a sunken living room decorated with modern art on one side and an indoor, glass-enclosed lap pool on the other. The rear of the house ran along the rim of a low hillside that jutted above the water. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased an expansive section of Gatun Lake.

Pablo was led to a large open office that overlooked the rocky shoreline below. In the distance, a containership could be seen heading south through the canal on its way to the Pacific.

He stood in the doorway a moment until he gained the attention of the man seated behind an antique mahogany desk. Edward Bolcke peered over a pair of reading glasses and nodded for Pablo to enter.

Beginning with his conservative suit and tie, every detail of Bolcke’s appearance testified to his exacting nature. His silver hair was perfectly coiffed, his fingernails precisely trimmed, and his shoes highly polished. His office was almost spartan in décor, his desktop devoid of clutter. Bolcke took off his glasses, leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and stared at Pablo through hawk-like brown eyes.

Pablo took a seat across the desk and waited for his employer to speak.

“So what went wrong in Tijuana?” Bolcke asked, the words tinged with a German accent.

“You know that Heiland destroyed his own boat during our initial operation,” Pablo said. “This, of course, upset our planned extraction. Before we could get an appropriate recovery vessel there, the Americans arrived and raised the test model. They were from their civilian group NUMA, though, so we had no trouble getting the device from them at sea. But two of their men managed to follow us to shore in Mexico. And there was also a female investigator involved.”

“Yes, so I hear.”

Surprised at Bolcke’s comment, Pablo cleared his throat. “There was a traffic incident in the streets of Tijuana as we were making our way to the airport. The device was destroyed, and Juan was killed in the collision. I lost my man Eduardo as we made our way out of the situation.”

“Quite the blown opportunity,” Bolcke said, his eyes narrowing. “At least there appear to be no repercussions.”

“All the men I work with are trained mercenaries from Colombia with manufactured identities and no criminal records. There will be no connection to you.”

“A good thing, as the team you sent to Idaho was also killed.”

Pablo stiffened in his chair. “Alteban and Rivera are dead?”

“Yes. They were killed in a ‘traffic incident’ after departing Heiland’s cabin,” Bolcke said, his expression stern. “The female investigator, one Ann Bennett, and the Director of NUMA, whom you apparently met in Tijuana, were responsible. Fortunately, I was able to arrange the recovery of the research plans in Washington.”

Bolcke reached into a desk drawer, retrieved a thick envelope, and slid it across the desk. “You shall enjoy a fine payday, my friend. Your own wages, plus those of your four dead comrades.”

“I cannot accept this,” Pablo said as he reached over and grabbed the envelope.

“No, I pay for the job, not the results. In light of the events, however, I have decided to rescind the bonus I had intended to pay for your good work at the Mountain Pass Mine.”

Pablo nodded, grateful to get his hands on the envelope. “You have always been generous.”

“I will not be so generous should there be any more failings. I presume you are prepared for the next assignment?” He crossed his hands on the desk as he gave Pablo a fixed stare. Pablo avoided the gaze, instead looking at Bolcke’s hands. That’s what gave the man away, the hands. They were thick, gnarled, and blemished by the sun. They weren’t the hands of a man who had spent his life in corporate boardrooms, as Bolcke appeared to be. They were the hands of a man who had spent a lifetime digging rocks.

Born and raised in Austria, Edward Bolcke had spent his youth scouring the Alps for gold and rare minerals. It was his means of escape after his mother had run away with an American GI, leaving him in the care of an alcoholic father prone to violence. The young Bolcke’s mountain hikes fostered a love of geology, which led to a degree in mineral resources engineering from Austria’s University of Leoben.

He took a job at a copper mine in Poland, and before long was hopscotching the globe, working tin mines in Malaysia, gold mines in Indonesia, and silver mines in South America. With an uncanny ability to locate the richest ore concentrations, he boosted recovery rates and profits everywhere he went.

But in Colombia, life threw him a twisted bone. Bolcke took an ownership interest in a small silver operation in the Tolima district. His astute analysis of the claim revealed a more valuable deposit of platinum alongside his property. He secured the rights and struck a major deposit, making him wealthy in a matter of months. While celebrating his good fortune in Bogotá, he met the vivacious daughter of a Brazilian industrialist and soon married.

He led a storybook life for several years, expanding his riches from the mine—until one day he returned to his home in Bogotá to find his wife in bed with an American consulate worker. With a fury he never knew he possessed, he shattered the man’s skull with a rock hammer. His wife came next, her throat crushed by his thick, burly hands.

A Colombian jury, well greased by his defense attorneys, acquitted him on the grounds of temporary insanity. He walked away a free man.

He was free physically, but not psychologically. The event reopened childhood scars of abandonment, while slashing new wounds. A bloodthirsty anger flooded his soul—and refused to recede. He sought revenge, turning to the easiest victims he could find: helpless young women. Cruising the slums of Bogotá at night, he would hire young prostitutes, then beat them unmercifully to vent his rage. Nearly gunned down one night by a watchful pimp, he finally abandoned that outlet for his rage and left Colombia, selling his remaining interest in the mine.

Bolcke had invested in an underperforming gold mine in Panama and he relocated there. Years earlier, he had studied the mine’s operations and knew it had been mismanaged. A privately held American firm with other holdings owned it, and to take control he was forced to purchase the entire company. But to enable the deal, he had to forfeit a portion of the mine’s equity to Panama’s corrupt government, headed at the time by Manuel Noriega. When the U.S. military ousted Noriega, the succeeding government laid claim to the mine and harassed Bolcke into amassing a mountain of legal bills before he reacquired ownership at a considerable cost. He blamed the Americans for his losses, inflaming an already deep-seated hatred against the country.