Once again, Bourne thought, he was in a place where he could trust no one.

He was called to dinner by Rosie. When he turned, she was smiling sweetly at him, her arm outstretched to the waiting chair. In her own unconventional way, she was quite beautiful, Bourne thought, with her long black hair, coffee-colored eyes, and dusky-rose skin. She was trim, with little fat on her, testament to living in the middle of nowhere. She wore no makeup nor any jewelry, save for a gold stud in each earlobe. Her teeth were white and even, her mouth generous, her smile as warm as her manner. Bourne liked her, liked as well the manner in which she handled Vegas. It wasn’t easy for females in such a macho society.

Vegas was already at the head of the table, which was laden with stew, potatoes, two green leafy vegetables, and fresh bread that, as Rosie explained, she had made that morning. Vegas said a brief prayer, then they ate in silence for some time. A carved wooden crucifix observed them coolly from its place on one wall. The food was delicious, and Rosie beamed when Bourne said as much.

“So,” Vegas said, wiping his lips with a soiled cloth, “where is he?”

Bourne looked at him. “Where is who?”

“Essai.”

“Then you do know he was in Colombia.”

“I hoped as much, anyway. I was told he would come and take us away before—” With a quick glance at Rosie he stopped short.

“You can say the name, mi amor.” She was eating slowly, with very small bites, as if afraid if she ate her fill there wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her man and their guest. “I won’t curl up and die.”

Vegas crossed himself. “God forbid!” He scowled. “Never say such a thing, Rosie. Never!”

“As you wish.” Rosie lowered her gaze to her plate as she commenced eating again.

Vegas redirected his attention to Bourne. “As you have witnessed, we are prepared for the inevitable, but I no longer want to stay where we will eventually become vulnerable.”

“But the Domna is everywhere.”

“Essai has promised us asylum.”

“And you trust him?”

“I do.” Vegas shrugged. “But honestly, what choice do we have?”

Bourne thought about that and decided that they had no choice. “Why is the Domna attacking you inevitable?” He put down his fork. “What have you done?”

Vegas was silent for a very long time. Just when Bourne was thinking he might not respond, he did.

“It’s what I haven’t done that has the maricóns worried.” Vegas shoveled food into his mouth and chewed contemplatively.

Bourne waited in vain for him to finish. As Vegas took a swig of peasant wine, he said, “What did the Domna want you to do?”

Vegas smacked his lips. “Spy. They wanted me to spy on my employer and one of my oldest friends. He’s the man who gave me a job when I was broke, a drunkard being thrown out of bars in Bogotá. And spending nights in one alleyway or another. I was young, then, foolish and angry.” He shook his head. “Dios, so angry.” He took another swig of wine, perhaps to fortify himself. “I made my living—if you could call it that—putting my old trusty knife to the throats of nighttime passersby and stealing their money.”

He looked up at the crucifix and scratched the back of his hand. “I was lost, a wastrel, no good for anything, or so I thought. One night, my fortune changed. This man—my intended victim—disarmed me in the blink of an eye. To tell you the truth, my heart wasn’t in that business—it wasn’t in anything. But I had nothing else.”

He shrugged, staring at the dregs of the wine in his glass. He moved to refill it, but Rosie slid the bottle out of his reach. He didn’t go after it. Perhaps, Bourne thought, this was a daily ritual between them.

“What spark of life this man saw in me I can’t say, but see it he did.” Vegas cleared his throat as if he was struggling to keep emotion at bay. “He cleaned me up, took me to his oil field, trained me from the ground up. I found something within me—call it a home, I don’t know. Anyway, it was a place where I felt safe, protected. I worked hard, I loved the hard work. It afforded me a pleasure so acute it was just shy of pain. And now here I am, many years later, having learned my lessons well, running his oil fields for him. I have an instinct for it. I believe he knew even when I did not.” His eyes shone as his gaze centered on Bourne. “And in all those years—it’s decades now—he never told me why he took me off the street.”

“You never asked.”

Vegas turned his head away, as if looking into Rosie’s face would calm him. “That would have been a breach of whatever it was that brought us together.” He sighed now, and pushed his plate away. “This is the man I was ordered to spy on.” His head swung around and now there was the flint of genuine anger in his eyes. “It was a test, you see. A test of my loyalty. And I passed. My loyalty, now and forever, is to Don Fernando.”

For a moment, Bourne thought he had misheard. “What is Don Fernando’s family name?”

“Hererra. Don Fernando Hererra.” Vegas continued eating.

Bourne smiled, still trying to figure out the vectors and implications of this crucial nugget of information. Suarez was moving contraband for Essai. Essai was somehow tied to Hererra, who owned the oil fields Vegas was managing. Hererra had also, somehow, come under the scrutiny of the Domna. Still to be determined: why. Not to mention how Jalal Essai and Hererra had hooked up.

Rosie cocked her head. “Why are you smiling, señor?”

“Don Fernando is a friend,” Bourne said.

Vegas looked up. “How fateful! Essai did well in sending you here. You’ll be our shepherd. Tomorrow we will begin our long journey to Don Fernando.”

After dinner, Hendricks offered to drive Maggie home.

“Let’s go to your place,” she said. “I want to check up on the roses.”

“Do I have to pay you overtime?”

She smiled. “This is for me.”

She got out of the car as they pulled up to his town house. The following car slid to a halt a discreet distance down the block, but still well within range of getting to Hendricks before anything untoward could happen to him. He could imagine his guards worrying that Maggie would hit him over the head with one of her spiked heels.

In fact, Maggie, on the grass, had just taken off her shoes. They dangled from the crook of her forefinger as she stepped lightly across the jewel-box lawn to the rose bed. Kneeling, she whispered to the bushes, touching each one as if they were her children.

When she rose and turned to him, she was smiling. “They’ll be fine. Better than fine. You’ll see.”

“I have no doubt.” Hendricks led her up the brick stairs and opened the front door. All the lights were off for security reasons, and, as he shut the door behind them, they were bathed in a darkness striped intermittently by the streetlights. Occasionally, a powerful beam from one of the guards’ flashlights passed across one of the windows.

“Just like prison,” Maggie said.

“What?” He turned to her, startled by her comment.

“The guard towers. The searchlights. You know.”

He stared at her, the hairs at the base of his neck stirring. She was right, of course, he—and all politicians at his level and above—lived in a kind of prison. He had never thought of it that way before. Or maybe he had. Hadn’t Amanda mentioned something of the sort during their dinner at Vermilion? He passed a hand across his forehead. This evening and the one with Amanda were becoming confused in his mind, blurring. But that was utter nonsense.

Suddenly he became acutely aware that the two of them were standing in the semi-darkness. “Would you like a drink?”

“I don’t know. How long am I staying?”

“That depends on you.”

She laughed lightly. “What will your bodyguards say?”

“They’re trained to be discreet.”

“You mean our sex tape won’t end up on Perez Hilton or Defamer?”