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stinging pain lasted for a full twenty-four hours. After that Ray had been deathly afraid of anything remotely resembling an ant.
    It was just him now, alone with the harsh, deafening racket from all the cursed insects and the moon overhead bright enough to cast a cool blue-white glow on tiny patches of the ground. How quickly everything had gone to hell.
    It had come to this point. When all was lost, there was only one of Mantu’s drills left.
    He took off his watch. The glass was so scratched he could barely read the hands anymore, and the cheap pleather band had started to fray. He stuck his thumbnail into the metal seam on the underside of the watch. It took a few tries but finally it popped. The panel fell into the darkness. He could find it later. Right now he was going to press a button that he’d been instructed to use only in absolute life-or-death circumstances.
    When everything else had failed.
    He pressed a tiny red button. Counted to three. Pressed it again. Counted to three. Finally, a third time.
    The watch beeped three times.
    Message sent. GPS coordinates, time of day, a bread crumb trail of where he’d been for the past few days, along with an unequivocal message along the lines of
SOS. Need rescue now.
    He sat, listening to the unsettling call-and-response of the jungle insects, wondering how soon Mantu and the extraction specialists would take to arrive.
    And wondering where in God’s name Ellen and William were being taken.

Chapter Three
    Steve hadn’t expected Lily to be so welcoming. Or so attractive.
    “Please. Sit down,” she said.
    He sat on a black leather couch. The Crawford Trust occupied the top floor of a McLean, Virginia, office building, and Lily’s office was bigger than the entire ground floor of his house in Blackwater. It didn’t even look like much of an office to him, more like a fancy art gallery. Steve didn’t know anything about art, but this stuff—statues on pedestals, and paintings in broad circles of light on the walls—reeked of big money. One of the statues, a vaguely feline hunk of black stone shaped like a buxom woman, unnerved him, though he didn’t understand why.
    “Can I get you something to drink?” Lily was dressed in a black skirt and jacket, both exceedingly tight. And her heels—Jesus. How could she even walk in those things?
    “Just water, please.”
    She smiled. Perfect teeth. “Still or sparkling?”
    Steve cleared his throat. “Just regular, thank you.”
    She went to grab some glasses. He watched her hips shifting beneath the skirt. He’d been intimidated by the Saudi bigwigs and American brass he’d met during his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he felt even stupider around women like her. Women with looks like Lily’s held more power than all of the fat cats combined. One smile could bring all of them to their knees.
    She returned with his water. He hoped she didn’t notice the slight shake of his hand as he took a drink. It had taken months to get a return call, and the next few minutes could either bring him closer to his family or seal them away forever.
    “Well, Steve,” she said. She sat in a wide chair opposite him and crossed her legs. The skirt rose almost to the middle of her thigh and he felt his mouth go drier. “I’m so glad you contacted me. May I ask what prompted you to get in touch? The whole Blackwater thing is something I try not to think about anymore.”
    He had decided to be as truthful as possible. She’d sent a private car to his hotel, after all, so it was obvious she was interested in what he had to say. “I spoke to someone from Blackwater. He doesn’t live there anymore. Used to be the librarian.”
    Lily laughed softly. “Oh, yes. Denny Huffington. The librarian turned conspiracy theorist.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s a sweet man, but I hope he didn’t fill your head with any nonsense about me. He’s a little bit unhinged.”
    “Not really. But he told me that you knew Ray Simon before he