Don’t do this, he said to himself.

You are in deep enough trouble already.

Man, they are going to eighty-six your ass out of here if they catch you.

And it’s so unlike you to do anything at all contrary to official policy.

But…it was such a good idea.

And like all good ideas, it was simple.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the man he’d found cut to pieces in the motel three months before the Roberto Lopez shooting. It struck him as something more than coincidental that the man was Salvadoran, as Wally Deaver had told him, even if his credentials and the Bureau ID’d him as an Eduardo Lachine of Panama City, Panama. But one man had seen Lanzman. That was Deaver, in Boston, back when he’d been a DEA agent at the Bush drug summit in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1990.

Why not fax Wally a morgue ID of the stiff? And that way find out if…

He tried to think of what it would mean if a Salvadoran secret agent had been murdered in New Orleans a few months before the assassination of a Salvadoran archbishop unloved by his own country’s regime. But it gave him a headache, and he went back to work.

The general leaned forward, proposing a toast, his white teeth gleaming, his eyes radiant with joy.

“To our friend, Colonel Raymond Shreck. A very great man. A truly wonderful man!”

He raised his glass, which was filled with an expensive wine.

The general was a sleek, smiling man named Esteban Garcia de Rujijo, and at thirty-eight, through great ferocity in a multitude of hardfought campaigns, he had become the commanding officer of the Fourth Battalion (Air-Ranger), First Brigade, First Division (“Atlacatl”) of the Salvadoran Army. His unit was nicknamed Los Gatos Negros, or Panther Battalion, for their jet-black berets.

“Thank you, sir,” said Shreck, in Spanish.

Shreck, eyes hooded, wore his old uniform with Ranger tabs, Special Forces MACV lightning patch, his Corcoran jump boots glossy black, the trousers bloused into them. He carried his green beret under his epaulet. The uniform still fit perfectly and its creases were razors. The Combat Infantry Badge dominated a chestful of ribbons, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart and the Silver Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters, all of which were his.

Shreck and the general – and a third man – sat at a dinner table in a large museum of a house, on two thousand prime acres in the hills just north of the seaport city of Acajutla, in northern El Salvador. The house was not the general’s, at least not yet. It belonged to another man also named de Rujijo – the general’s father. It had been owned by the de Rujijos since the Spanish had conquered the region in 1655.

The third man, who was sitting next to Colonel Shreck, was a small, merry, elderly gentleman named Hugh Meachum, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Plans and, since his rude retirement from the Agency in 1962, a fellow at the Buddings Institute of Foreign Policy in Washington, D.C. If the general was el gato negro, then Hugh Meachum, a connoisseur of pipes and wines and ironies, was el gorrión, the sparrow.

“The general is very pleased with you, Raymond,” said Meachum. “He should be. You certainly saved his bacon.”

“Yes, bacon,” said the general, who had been educated first at El Salvador’s National Military Institute, and then at the National War College in Washington, D.C., and the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

“It is not an easy thing to kill a priest,” said the general. “Not even a communist priest.”

“The general believes that Archbishop Roberto Lopez was a communist,” said Meachum. “He truly does.”

Shreck knew this was the sort of thing that amused Meachum. Meachum often privately marveled at the sheer barbarity of these people. They were capable of anything, and it took a great deal of skillful handling to prevent them from going hog wild. They were capable of killing in the thousands. The general had killed in the thousands.

“A most excellent operation,” said the general. “Muy excelente. The world thinks that a crazy American tries to shoot the president of the United States and accidentally hits this pious bystander. And nobody knows it’s really justice reaching out to kill a communist priest.”

He had a pockmarked face and a dark mustache. He was dressed in evening clothes, including a red plaid cummerbund. He wore a high-polish stainless steel Colt 10mm Delta Elite in a shoulder holster. Shreck had noticed its ivory grips when the general had bent to pour the wine.

“It was an expensive operation,” Shreck said.

“Cheap, whatever the cost.”

“And oh-so-very necessary,” said Hugh Meachum. “That archbishop was going to get the Panther Battalion investigation opened again. And he had the president’s ear, too. And how very, very embarrassing for many people that would have been.”

“It was wonderful,” said the general. “Tell me, though, Colonel Shreck. The great shot that brought this communist priest down. A great shot, no?”

“A great shot, yes,” said Shreck.

“Who do you have who could make such a shot? What a shot! It is truly an amazing shot.”

“It was,” said Shreck. He himself wished he knew who hit that shot. Whoever he was, the guy could shoot, maybe better than Bob Lee Swagger.

Shreck looked over at Meachum, who only twinkled, as if he’d had a bit much to drink.

“I would someday,” said the general, lifting his wine, “consider it an honor to shake this man’s hand.”

So would I, thought Shreck.

“We will convey your sentiments, of course,” said Hugh Meachum.

“It was muy excelente,” said the general. “Perfecto. Number One.”

Shreck almost said, Yes, except for the asshole who got away. But Meachum had warned him not to raise the subject. The general was somewhat touchy.

Shreck took a quick glance around the baronial dining room of the de Rujijo estate; outside, in the twilight, a vast garden undulated over rolling land down to a pond, a perfect oval, inscribed into the earth so that the setting sun would reflect dazzlingly off of it at twilight. Beyond was the jungle; and beyond that, the sea, a gleaming band some two miles or so away.

“You should know, Colonel Shreck, that for us it did not go perfectly.”

“Oh?” said Shreck.

“But not to worry.”

“Oh my,” said Hugh Meachum. He took another sip of wine.

“A traitor. Yes. A traitor.”

Shreck nodded, waiting, thinking, oh shit, what now?

“Who learned of our arrangement. And fled.”

“Messy,” said Hugh Meachum. “Very messy. Certain people will not be pleased.”

“Not to worry,” the general repeated.

“And why not, sir?” asked Shreck.

“The traitor was betrayed himself. He was hiding in Panama. When he finally thought it was safe, he flew to New Orleans. To the FBI. But we were waiting. Do you remember the wonderful electronic surveillance vehicle your organization provided to our intelligence service?”

“Affirmative,” said Shreck.

“With this, we tracked him. We made certain it was our Eduardo, and we eliminated him in a manner that communicates to all who know of such matters our seriousness of intentions.”

Shreck nodded.

“And now I drink,” said the general, “to my brave compadres and to the glorious future of our two nations.”

“Hear, hear,” said Hugh Meachum.

Fuck you, thought Shreck.

The next morning, waiting for the helicopter that would take him to the airport for the jet back to the United States, Shreck stood in the meadow before the great house and looked at the sea. It was a gray day, windy and moist, with a chill in the air surprising for the tropics. The chill made him think of the mornings in Korea, when he’d been just a kid, and all the times he’d sworn in Korea that no matter what happened to him, he’d never be cold again in the morning.