Colón stank of rust, wet concrete, and exhaust. Tropical rain clung to the crumbling buildings like mildew and soaked the faded billboards and tarpaulin awnings that lined the old waterfront district. Sawyer and Cormac moved through the city like thieves, backs hunched beneath jackets, caps pulled low, civilian and unforgettable. The air tasted like decay. Overhead, vines strangled the balconies of apartments that hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in twenty years. Somewhere nearby, a rooster screamed and slammed its body against razor wire.

  They slipped into El Mercado Municipal without a word. Ashley was there, they just had to spot her.

  Inside, it was a maze of steam, sweaty old men in tank tops, and slaughtered birds hanging from hooks. Meat stalls bled into voodoo booths. Vendors shouted in Spanish, English, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic. One table sold smuggled antibiotics in orange pill bottles without labels. Next to that, a vendor sold black and white powder in wrapped spell sachets. On another booth sat stacks of stolen burner phones. The vendor beside that sold crucifixes and rosaries. One woman, who was so old her skin was translucent to the bone in some places, with snaking purple veins, whispered phrases as she grasped old wooden prayer beads. A man with golden teeth hawked thumb drives that contained “untraceable partitions.”

  They moved deeper. The booths grew stranger. The illegal and the occult blended together. A butcher stirred a basin of pig’s blood with a ladle. A priest sold incense. Eyes followed them. There were too many eyes, looking at them, judging their place in the world. From behind the veils of dark entrances and alleyways, there was always that sense that someone was there waiting for you.

  After two hours of stalking the market the realization hit Sawyer. If Ashley were there, she was already gone or didn’t want to be found. Or maybe something worse happened. Either way, the mystery gnawed at Sawyer and pushed him to continue searching.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Sawyer said.

  “What’s that?” Cormac asked.

  “She wouldn’t have gone to a place like this. She’s not that kind of girl.”

  “Oh man, if I had a nickel.”

  “Shut up. Come on.”

  Sawyer kept his eyes darting down at his phone. He followed the trail of her signal which bounced around a narrowed area on a weathered but relatively upscale structure near the far edge of the district. It was a luxury hotel by Colón standards. It had marble tiles, cracked and dulled. There was gold trim on the windows. Half of it was rusted green. A security guard sat on a stool. He leaned back, snoring, under a portrait of Comandante Supremo Manuel Martinelli with thinning black hair, puffy cheeks, and bloodshot eyes.

  They passed by the security guard, who glanced up and waved them inside. They dressed casual and civilian like they’d been there before. They posed as backpackers looking for a room.

  The woman at the front desk barely looked up. Cormac asked about availability, distracting her while Sawyer skimmed the sign-in logs with his peripheral vision. Nothing stood out.

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  Frustrated, Sawyer stepped out and said, “Come on, man. She’s not here.”

  Maybe she had never been there.

  Sawyer started to open his mouth, but then he saw the car.

  Down the path below, through the thin alley beside the hotel, headlights cut through the murky steam which rose from the drainage gates. A black BMW rolled out from the shadow. Its chassis was too clean for a place like Colón. The car’s tinted windows gleamed under a flickering red lit sign to a local brothel. Three men in sharp suits and expressionless faces sat in the car but there was a figure in the back seat who made Sawyer nearly choke on his spit.

  The girl had worn a black tailored outfit and a black hijab and sunglasses, completely masking her identity, but she momentarily pulled off the hijab to tighten her bun; she kept her eyes cast low. As the car eased forward, she looked up and over as if transfixed by an unseen force.

  Sawyer locked eyes with her.

  She didn’t only recognize him, which was apparent by exhale, there was panic in her eyes. Quickly, she pulled the hijab back over her head and leaned back into the seat, turning toward the older gentleman beside her.

  “There,” Sawyer said. “That’s her. That’s Ashley Cross.”

  Cormac barely had time to react.

  Sawyer tore down the alley chasing after her. He hit the stairwell going full speed. The cold rain started to fall. It soaked into his shirt and drilled his face. His jacket flared behind him.

  The BMW was already two blocks away.

  Sawyer shoved through a crowd of vendors and tourists. He knocked over a vendor cart of umbrellas. The old man pushing it waved his hands in frustration and cursed in Spanish. He righted himself and ran again.

  The black BMW’s headlights vanished around the next corner.

  He stood motionless and wiped the rain from his eyes. He then produced a little comb from his pocket and combed his hair back, breathing heavily.

  Cormac’s boots could be heard behind him splashing through puddles until he finally stopped beside him, heaving.

  “Did you see where she went?”

  “Lost them. But I got a general direction.” He turned to Cormac. “She saw me,” he muttered. “She didn’t even try to escape.”

  “Hostage situation?”

  “Maybe. She wasn’t alone. There were three suits. Definitely not locals.”

  Cormac exhaled through his nose. “Then we kick their doors in and find out who they are.”

  Sawyer looked back toward the Mercado Municipal behind them. Smoke trailed up from some God-forsaken kitchen and tainted the air with something that smelled like rotten roadkill.

  “When do we start?” Cormac asked.

  A kid on a scooter buzzed right past him.

  Sawyer leapt toward him and grabbed the back of the delivery driver’s yellow collar. He ripped him off, taking him down into the mud with him. The scooter collapsed, its back tire spinning. The engine died.

  “State Department,” Sawyer muttered, scrambling to his feet. He grabbed the lanyard around the kid’s neck, ran over to the scooter, and shoved the key inside and twisted it.

  The kid held his hands up, muttering something, surrendering. Then he turned around and sprinted away from them, cursing in Portuguese.

  Cormac’s voice cracked through the storm: “Sawyer, don’t!”

  But he already had. He accelerated on the scooter and sped down the street toward Ashley’s last known location leaving Cormac in the rain behind him.