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  A little winded, Franco stopped at the tall chain-link fence and scanned the rear yard with his NV goggles. The collective glow of the city provided plenty of light, so he adjusted the gain down to a lower setting. He didn’t think anyone would be in the yard but didn’t assume that. Moving in slow motion to avoid making any noise, he pulled his suppressed Sig from his waist pack and powered its laser. The red beam wouldn’t activate until he squeezed the button on the weapon’s butt. On the far side of the manicured lawn dotted with banana trees, all of the home’s windows remained dark. Ditto the security light above the sliding glass doors. The view from neighboring houses was screened by vines growing on the chain-link fence. In the middle of the grass, a small water fountain created a trickling sound. Several chairs encircled a fire pit, but he didn’t see any light from it. Had there been any hot coals present, the NV would’ve detected them.

  He issued a barely audible whistle and waited.

  After thirty seconds nothing happened, so he repeated the whistle.

  He heard it then—the clack, clack of a dog door.

  Silhouetted against the house, the dog he’d seen on his drive-by bounded toward him. A few meters away it stopped, lowered its head, and issued a growl. As planned, thanks to the wind at his back, the dog had caught his scent. He backed up a few steps to give it a false sense of domination. Without warning, the animal charged the fence. Franco toggled the laser and sent a subsonic bullet through its nose. The dog collapsed to the grass and convulsed for several seconds before going still. Franco didn’t feel good about killing it, but he didn’t feel terrible either. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all. It was simply a phase in tonight’s operation. Knowing the trajectory of spent shell casings from this pistol, he quickly found the warm brass shell and secured it in his thigh pocket.

  Five seconds later, Franco was over the fence.

  He wasn’t worried about motion sensors or infrared beams because of the presence of the family pet. Dogs and motion detectors didn’t go well together. He took a knee next to the dog and removed its collar.

  Moving from tree to tree, he kept his head up, looking for any sign his suppressed shot had been detected. He also watched for dog shit because he didn’t want to waste time cleaning his boots before entering the house. He wasn’t worried about making a mess, but the odor might be a problem. It’s hard to be stealthy when you smell like dog droppings. At the garage wall, he found the dog door. He held the electronic collar low and was rewarded with a disengagement click. After removing his backpack, he’d have no problem crawling through its opening. And, as with the nonexistent motion detectors, if the dog door had been tied into the security system, it would’ve set off the alarm when the dog passed through.

  Inside the garage he caught the faint odor of gasoline and found only one car, a white SUV. Could the other vehicle be out front on the street or in the driveway? Using the NV, he crossed the slab, being careful to avoid the oil stain, and looked through one of three small windows in the garage door. Nothing. Maybe it was in a shop for service. Nicaraguan roads took a heavy toll on vehicles. The presence of oil on the concrete indicated there was normally a second car in here. He reached down and touched the slick, definitely fresh. He was tempted to leave, but he’d committed himself by killing the dog. Coming back later wouldn’t work unless he hauled the carcass over the fence and dragged it into the canyon. Even so, the dog’s absence would be noticed and create suspicion.

  He was here; he’d stick to the plan.

  The security keypad on the wall showed a red LED, indicating the system was armed. Franco used the collar to unlock a second dog door leading to the interior of the house. Moving slowly, he eased through the opening and stayed on his stomach, quashing the adrenaline rush from invading an unknown home. He held that position for a moment longer before gaining his feet. From somewhere ahead, the Westminster chime indicating 9:45 PM broke the silence. He smiled. Their clock was running fast.

  Holding his Sig tightly against his chest, Franco moved deeper into the dwelling, which had an aged tobacco odor, probably from cigars. He liked the smell. Maybe he’d help himself to a few on the way out. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all one continuous space. The furniture seemed modest, and the walls appeared mostly bare. Whoever lived here didn’t appear to have excessive wealth.

  He knew the hallway at the far end of the living room led to the bedrooms. Although he thought it unlikely, there could be a second dog. Franco entered the corridor and saw four doors, all of them open. The first exposed an unoccupied bedroom, the second led to a bathroom, and the third door revealed an office. The last door would be the master bedroom. A stroboscopic blue glow highlighted the rectangular opening. Franco had a sudden visual of a coffin, eerily lit from the inside.

  He peered around the doorjamb.

  On her side in a nightgown, a woman lay half-covered by a single sheet. Long dark hair covered her pillow.

  On the muted flat-screen TV, a black-and-white western aired to a sleeping audience. An empty wineglass sat on the nightstand along with an ashtray containing several cigar butts. He also saw a cell phone.

  Franco eased inside and approached the bed. The tobacco smell was stronger in here.

  He stood over her motionless form for half a minute, soaking up the feeling of power, of owning this woman.

  Time to get down to business.

  He tucked his Sig into his waist pack and circled to the opposite side of the bed.

  In a quick move, he clamped his right hand over her mouth and yanked her to the floor. Staying behind her, he wrapped his left arm around her torso and hauled her upright. In the mirrored closet door he saw her eyes register confusion first, then abject terror.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. If you resist or scream, I’ll make you regret it. Do you understand me?”

  Completely overwhelmed with panic, she issued a muffled whine. When she tried to shake her head back and forth, Franco tightened his grip on her jaw. He pressed his groin firmly against her hip and moved his head in close. In the event she possessed self-defense training, he didn’t want his balls grabbed or crushed, and he didn’t want to be head butted. A broken nose would require an explanation.

  Franco wasn’t completely devoid of compassion. He knew this woman was terrified beyond all control. He had the power to ease her fear or enhance it.

  “I know you’re frightened, but I’m not going to rape you. All I want is information. Now I’m only going to say this one more time. If you scream or try to run, I will hurt you. Do you understand?”

  The woman nodded.

  “I’m going to uncover your mouth.”

  “Please, I don’t have much money in the house.”

  “I’m not here for your money. I want you to sit on the edge of the bed and answer my questions. Do you think you can do that?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t try anything stupid. If you attempt to run, you’ll be punished. Now please sit down.”

  The woman complied, keeping her legs together with her hands in her lap.

  “Where is your husband? You’re married, yes?”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “He left yesterday morning.”

  “Did he say when he’d return?”

  “Tonight,” she said, but it sounded forced.

  “Please don’t lie to me.”

  “He said it might be a few days.”

  “So he didn’t tell you where he was going?”

  She shook her head.

  “Where does he work?”

  “At embassies.”

  “Your husband works at embassies? In Managua?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Mostly United States and Canada.”

  “What does he do at the
embassies?”

  “I don’t know. He never talks about his work.”

  Franco turned on the nightstand light; he wanted to see her face more clearly. That’s when he saw it, a small framed photo. He stared in shocked disbelief, then picked it up.

  “This is your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “This guy, right here.” He pointed to a clean-shaven man with a full head of dark hair standing next to several US Marines in dress blues.

  “Yes.”

  Viper!

  Franco felt his stomach twist. “Was Pastor Tobias your husband’s father?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been married to him?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “How long has he worked at the embassies?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Does he work for the government?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know about his work?”

  She wiped a tear and didn’t answer.

  “I know you’re frightened, but you’re doing fine. You said he doesn’t talk about his work much. Have you overheard any of his phone calls, anything that might give you a clue about his work?”

  “I’ve heard him talking about American and Canadian companies.”

  “What kind of companies?”

  “I’m not sure. Mining, I think.”

  “Mining?”

  “Yes.”

  Intriguing. “What else can you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. He travels to America and Canada a lot. Sometimes he’s gone for weeks.”

  “Do you think he’s up north now?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t pack for a long trip.”

  “Is that your SUV in the garage?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of vehicle does your husband drive?”

  “A truck.”

  “A pickup? What color and make?”

  “A tan Ford.”

  “What is your security code to the house?”

  She gave him the number.

  “Does his office computer require a password?”

  “I don’t know. He never lets me touch it.”

  “What about you? What do you do for work?”

  Her voice cracked again. “I’m a volunteer at the hospital. I also manage a nonprofit program there.”

  Questioning this woman further would be useless. She was either a really good liar or she truly didn’t know much about her husband’s line of work. He had no desire to torture her in order to find out.

  Franco pushed her backward and straddled her with his thighs. He pulled his handgun and struck her on the side of the head. The trick was hitting hard enough to cause unconsciousness but not hard enough to kill or cause permanent damage.

  She managed a yelp of terror before going limp.

  He eased off her and checked for a pulse. Faint, but present. He’d stay put a little longer to be sure the woman didn’t regain consciousness too quickly. He glanced at the TV. A black-and-white western showed a posse of mounted lawmen chasing a lone bad guy through a rocky canyon. The bad guy kept pivoting in his saddle and firing at his pursuers.

  Franco pocketed her cell phone and left her bedroom.

  Down the hall, he entered the office, closed the blinds, and turned on the desk’s light. He powered on the computer, and not surprisingly, he was greeted with a log-in password screen. He made several attempts to log in using common passwords, but the system locked up after five attempts. It was worth a try, but getting information out of his old kilo friend would have to be obtained the old-fashioned way—through an interrogation. Franco conducted a quick search of Estefan’s office, looking through file drawers and opened mail for anything that might shed light on the man’s profession. Verifying what his wife had said, he saw several textbooks on mining in a small bookcase.

  Back at the door leading to the garage, he punched in the security code. The LED turned green.

  He returned to the bedroom and hoisted the woman over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry technique. She felt light, no more than fifty kilograms. Hauling her through the house and out the sliding glass doors to the western edge of the property took less than a minute. Back in the garage, he grabbed one of the five-gallon gas cans he’d smelled earlier and returned to the master bedroom. He left it there and began scanning the ceiling for smoke detectors. He found four.

  Using a chair from the dining room, he reached up to the ceiling and removed the battery from the kitchen’s detector. He repeated the procedure in the other three locations, including the garage. If the devices were wired into the security system, the fire department’s response would now be slower. Someone would have to see the fire and call it in. Because of the late hour, the house would probably be fully involved before anyone noticed it. Franco knew modern homes didn’t burn easily unless they had some help—such as an accelerant. The gasoline would speed things up nicely. To give the fire more oxygen, he opened some of the windows. Next, he located the attic access in the first bedroom and stood on the bed to push the cover up and aside.

  Satisfied he’d prepped the house for the quickest possible burn, he began sloshing gasoline around the interior of the master bedroom. Franco knew the fire would eliminate all traces of forensic evidence he may have left behind, but more importantly, it would rattle his former kilo colleague. A distracted and unfocused enemy was a vulnerable enemy.

  He returned the depleted can to the garage and grabbed a second. He emptied most of its contents around key areas of the living room, dining room, and kitchen before creating a wet trail out the garage door and over to the dog door. The last of the gasoline went on the wall above the dog door where it cascaded down to the concrete.

  All was set, but he felt as though he were forgetting something . . .

  The cigars.

  Being careful to avoid scuffing his boots on the carpet, Franco reentered the office and raided the cigar box. He tucked his Sig into his belt to make room for the smokes and stuffed his waist pack to the bulging point. Before leaving the office, he removed a piece of paper from the printer.

  Outside at the dog door where he’d first entered, he felt his exhilaration build. He rolled the piece of paper into a long tube, folded it flat, and inserted it about a third of the way under the sill of the dog door, creating a time-delay fuse. Standing off to the side, he struck a match, lit the paper, and ran toward the fence. At first nothing happened, and he thought he’d have to go back.

  But just as he turned, the house seemed to exhale a collective breath.

  The sound was amazing, as if from a giant organ pipe.

  All the fumes ignited simultaneously in a low-pitched whoof. Glass flew outward like orange glitter.

  Within seconds, the entire house glowed from every window.

  Resisting an overwhelming urge to flee the scene, Franco scaled the fence and calmly walked over to the canyon’s rim.

  Smoke was already billowing from the window frames and gabled roof vents.

  As tempting as it was to stay and watch from this distance, he needed to clear the area before the police and fire department arrived. Viper’s wife would be okay. He’d laid her down far enough away to avoid a radiant burn from the fire. Letting her live was the right thing to do.

  A few minutes later, he finished his ascent on the opposite side of the canyon. He bent at the waist and rested his hands on his knees for a half a minute to catch his breath. He felt the pressure of time but stayed to watch the fire. An impressive sight, the flames towered more than six stories high. At one point, the inferno transformed into a cyclonic form, twisting skyward in a macabre dance. Swirling out from the top of the mushroom cloud, embers rained down on the surrounding neighborhood like amber-colored snow.

>   The fire department’s reaction time surprised him. The first engine rolled on scene at the twenty-minute mark. Given the distance from the fire station and the time of night, he hadn’t believed such a quick response was possible, but it was too little, too late. By the time the volunteers deployed, the roof and walls had already collapsed. Reduced to a smoldering pile, the house wouldn’t give up any forensic evidence.

  After putting his backpack into the backseat, he shook his head at the connections he had discovered between himself and Estefan Delgado. Seeing Viper in the photograph had been startling. They’d had no contact over the years. And yet somehow, Pastor Tobias had been Viper’s father. And Viper worked for the government in the mining sector. Franco shook his head again. All coincidence, to be sure. But Viper wouldn’t see it like that—just the opposite.

  At least when Viper’s wife regained consciousness, she wouldn’t be able to give the police anything beyond being questioned and attacked by a man in a ski mask. Killing her would’ve been easier and cleaner, but he didn’t believe in offing women and children.

  For now, Franco held the advantage. He thought it unlikely Viper knew of his involvement in Macanas’s organization. He’d never let anyone photograph him. In retrospect, perhaps killing Tobias without a thorough interrogation had been a mistake. He’d suggested as much to Macanas when they’d discussed Tobias’s interference with the discipline of Mateo, but Macanas had been adamant about eliminating Tobias as quickly as possible.