Ford found the man’s jugular vein—end of explanation. He balled cotton into Vernum’s mouth and used duct tape.

The Lada had a bad clutch. It needed a ring job and the starboard headlight was out. No big deal in Cuba. In Havana at eleven-twenty, there would be a few cars and donkey carts, but sparse. In the countryside, even on main highways, no matter the time of day, there was no traffic. Just the occasional transiting of a Chinese bus that stunk of propane, a Russian half-track hauling cane, a car or two on wobbly tires, then long spaces of silence and wind over asphalt that had been engineered for the future but led to nowhere but the past.

The bombs of the Cold War had never been deployed—except here where they had detonated in spirit. Their mushroom gloom had emptied the highways in a slow-motion panic that joined two centuries yet isolated the young, the hopeful. Instead of aspiring, instead of coveting their first success, they sold tamarinds and mangoes by the roadside in the silence of asphalt, unaware they were the newest casualties of a long-gone war.

Ford drove to the main road and, after a few miles, turned left toward Vista del Mar, then another left on a rutted lane toward Plobacho. Didn’t see another car, not one, only the sparks of candles and kerosene poverty through trees, while, on the highest hillside, a satellite tower strobed a single red warning to pilots from the north.

That reminded him to check Vernum’s satellite phone. He had to hold it away to see the screen . . . but nothing new to read.

Kostikov hadn’t responded. That could mean only one thing: the Russian knew something was amiss. His next move would be to find Vernum. Right now he would be in his Mercedes, somewhere between Cojimar and Plobacho, watching a laptop or meter locked onto Vernum’s phone. This phone.

•   •   •

WHAT MARTA had called Pauper Cólera Vernum called Campo Muerto—“the field of the dead.” He said a leper colony had burned to the ground here in 1917, but they continued to bury the poor and diseased until the Department of Health had sent in bulldozers fifty-some years ago and changed the name.

“Peasants are superstitious,” he explained. “It’s better not to frighten them, but no one comes here anyway. I told you, man, I knew the perfect spot.” Vernum, with his legs free, no longer gagged, was talkative, full of attitude even with his hands cuffed behind him. “But”—he paused to stress the importance of what came next—“this is between us. A covert action, right? I can’t wait to see the look on that fat Russian’s face when we bring him here.”

They wouldn’t have to bring the Russian if they didn’t hurry. Kostikov would find the place by himself.

Ford said, “He should be in a hospital by now, if what you told me is true. You screwed it up somehow. Or were exaggerating.”

“Jefe, how many times have I explained? You know more about the Russians and uranium poisoning than I do, man.”

What Ford knew was that Vladimir Putin, a former KGB hit man, now president, sometimes ordered agents to use polonium-210 to murder his enemies. A dose the size of a grain of sand, if pure, was so lethal that even if it was immersed in an ounce of water, the victim would die in agony within a week. To Putin, an additional benefit was that his agent would die, too, just from handling the stuff.

Plausible deniability.

But the effects of polonium were dose-dependent. If enough wasn’t ingested or injected, or if the dosage was diluted, the symptoms—diarrhea, vomiting—might linger for months. There was no antidote, but the victim would recover.

According to Vernum, he’d been smart enough to realize what was in the fountain pen, so he had drained the contents into a vial. To the vial, he’d added olive oil. “To make it taste good,” he said. “I put a few drops on his jerked chicken sandwich. The man has had the shits ever since, so I know it’s working.”

Vernum also claimed he’d cut Figueroa with a blade contaminated with the stuff, but was less sure about that. Rather than listen to it all again, Ford gave him a push and said, “Shut up and walk.”

They were on acreage that had been cleared years ago but had gone wild with weeds and wetland vines that thinned as they ascended a hillock that had been piled high by a dredge or contoured by earthmoving machines. Columns of brick sprouted from the bushes in a random pattern, like stalagmites in a roofless cave . . . then a brick wall with holes punched through. On the river side, viewed from the top of the hill where Ford stopped, was the husk of a building with a towering chimney or cupola, no roof, and only three walls.

“Is that where you dumped the bodies?” he asked.

Vernum had admitted killing only two girls, but then imagined himself locked in the trunk of his 1972 Lada while the car burned. After that, he had upped the number to five but insisted, “As a Santero, I took an oath to weed out the bad ones. You know, possessed by evil. Hey—it’s true. There’s a ceremony, man, very strict the way every detail has to be prepared. The purest turpentine, a coconut rind sliced in fourths with a knife that’s been cleaned and sharpened. I can’t, you know, share all the secrets, but it’s about purification. It’s about feeding certain spirits what their hunger craves. Life must feed on life. I don’t expect you to understand, but how else you gonna deal with something so bad?”

Until then, Ford had refused to be baited. “The Esteban girls are evil? Maribel hardly says a word. And the mother, don’t blame some bullshit ceremony on what you planned to do to her.”

Vernum was immune to insult. “How many times I say this? Man, I don’t expect gringos from the Estados Unidos to believe, but it’s true.”

“Good. I’d have to tape your mouth again.”

“All I’m saying is, your religion doesn’t train you—”

“Keep moving,” Ford warned, and started down the hill.

Vernum hustled to catch up. “It doesn’t train you to recognize the signs. The evil ones, they get more powerful as adults. Are you Catholic? Catholics understand that demons are real, man. We can’t see them, of course. They’re like parasites. They move at night like a worm seeking, what do you call it, fertile ground. But, Jefe, when a demon finds the right person—a child with a bad disposition, say—they slip in through the mouth or nose. Pretty soon, you’re dealing with a devil who’s a total maniac. See? Now you understand why I do what I have to do. As I told the Russian, I’m well suited for this type of work.”

Ford’s jaw flexed. He checked his watch. They were almost to the brick shell of what had once been a sanitarium run by nuns—a leprosarium.

Vernum couldn’t stop talking. “When a demon roots inside the brain of a kid, it’s actually a kindness. You know, end their misery before it gets worse. That youngest girl—what’s her name?—the brat squirted acid in my eyes and laughed, she threatened to bite my fingers. A goddamn child.”

Ford had to smile, but only because he could picture Sabina doing it. Vernum was ballsy—hands cuffed, struggling to keep up, his face a mosaic of stitches, yet still preaching in his superior, street-hip way. No . . . he was justifying his own crimes.

“My KGB handler, for instance. Sometimes the things I do, things you do in your profession—I think you’ll agree—it’s necessary for the good of others. You saw the video I shot. That’s how the Russian dealt with that German traitor.”

Some, but not all, of the video. Ford, in a remote part of his brain, had critiqued the way Kostikov had played Vernum, the aspiring spy, against the German agent—a blonde he recognized from Tomlinson’s brief stardom on Facebook. His methods worked but were heavy-handed. A truly gifted operator would have manipulated the scenario so that when the woman went out the door, even the pilot would have believed it was accidental.