She was the single pleasure he’d been afforded over the past few months as he’d bided his time in this sweltering Colombian rathole along the banks of the Tagua River, watching, waiting, listening for a sign the deal was about to go down. He’d positioned himself at a round wooden table in the shadows, his back to the wall—an assassin’s habit. From this vantage point he could quietly watch the cantina door, as well as see who ventured in from a deck that tilted drunkenly over a coffee-colored estuary that snaked down through mangrove swamps to the sea. Outside, monkeys screeched and swung from massive kapok trees that brooded over the building and sent giant roots down into the anaconda-infested waters. Inside, it was strangely empty for a Friday night. An older couple, maybe in their seventies, drank beer from big mugs at a table across the room. At another table a group of men—cacao plantation workers—huddled over drinks and smoked dark tobacco cigarettes, skin glistening.
