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al-Qaeda.
    “A few choices,” Duto said. “One, Montoya is lying, looking for a hundred K. And he’s the luckiest scammer in the world because he picked up the phone the same day this other plot came in. Two, it’s open season on station chiefs and these plots happen to be unrolling at the same time. Three, Iran has hired one of our case officers to kill one of our station chiefs. Am I missing anything?”
    “Heart, soul, conscience,” Shafer said. “But in this case, no.”
    “So call the seventh floor, tell them about Juan Pablo,” Wells said. “Let them figure it out.”
    “Too squishy. It’ll look like I’m interfering. Like I can’t back off, let Hebley do his job.”
    “Talk to Montoya yourself, then.”
    “I’m scheduled for like the next three weeks. Plus this isn’t a guy I want to be seen with. He’s not senatorial. For lack of a better word.”
    “But you’re okay sending John?” Shafer said.
    “John’s a big boy. He’ll be fine.”
    Wells wondered how dangerous Juan Pablo Montoya really was. No matter. As Duto’s emissary, Wells should be safe. Anyway, the trip would take his mind off Anne. “You sure you want to waste your favor on this? Using me as a messenger boy for some two-bit narco.”
    Duto nodded.
    “Then Guatemala City it is.”
    So: a new assignment. He wouldn’t be going back to New Hampshire.
    Wells wanted to pretend he felt something other than relief. He couldn’t.

5
    GUATEMALA CITY
    T he United 737 came into La Aurora International from the south, so close to the concrete rooftops that Wells could count clotheslines. Even before the jet stopped rolling, Wells lit up his phone. No messages. Not from Duto or Shafer. And not from Anne. He wished she hadn’t given him a month. Without it, they might have made a clean break. He was thinking about her more than ever. Or maybe she’d intended that.
    He needed to put her aside. Drugs, gangs, and poverty made Guatemala one of the world’s most dangerous countries. Wells was unarmed. Naturally, he hadn’t taken any weapons on the cruise. Not even a knife.
    Just the ring.
    The sun was low in the sky as Wells stepped out of the airport. He called Montoya, but no one answered. At his hotel, he channeled his frustrations into a monster workout. Two hours of cardio, another of lifting. The exercise exhausted him, but still he slept poorly. He dreamed that Anne stood on the front of the
Titanic
, her arm cocked back. He yelled to her. She ignored him and flung the ring into the ocean.
    When he woke, he found himself annoyed by his lack of imagination. His unconscious was stealing from movies now? He should have dreamed . . . he didn’t know what. Of his parents, maybe. Their house in Hamilton. Something that connected past and future.
    But thinking about the past meant thinking about the men he’d killed. He’d walled himself off. Now he saw that imagination was memory’s twin. His forced amnesia gave him movies for dreams. He closed his eyes, saw himself hiking on a ridgeline, sheer thousand-foot cliffs on either side, an army of the dead behind him, wool-thick fog rolling toward him.
The only way out is through.
    He showered, shaved, called Montoya.
    “Buenos días.”
    “And good morning to you.” Wells wished he spoke Spanish. He’d always enjoyed its smoothness.
    “Who is this?”
    “John Wells. I work with Vinny Duto.”
    “You are in Guatemala, Señor Wells.” The guy spoke the last two words like a Telemundo villain. A joke, Wells figured.
    “Sí.”
    “I told the
comandante
I’d meet him. Not an errand boy.”
    “Never been called that before.”
    “Do you have my money, errand boy?”
    “We can discuss that in person.”
    “So you don’t.”
    Wells was tired of this Latin braggadocio. “You think a United States senator jumps on a plane because you say so, you’ve sampled too much of your product. I promise you’ll get paid. Assuming this story isn’t complete caca.”
    Montoya laughed. “Be