The man guarding the hostage tent was a good ten feet from the entrance flap, and he was the only one of Munoz’s men who appeared to be awake.

It made her uneasy.

She hesitated. It could be nothing.

She had passed Ron Timbers on the edge of the forest and knew that he’d had the camp under surveillance for most of the evening. He would have called her if there was a problem.

If he knew about the problem.

At any rate, she couldn’t stop now unless she had good reason.

She circled around in the trees until she was behind the hostage tent.

Catherine slit the canvas of the tent. Carefully. Silently. It was a small tent and the guard at the front entrance was only a scant ten feet from where she was working. But that lack of tension she’d sensed in the camp might be a positive. The guard had appeared both sleepy and bored.

Let him stay that way, she prayed, as she lifted the torn flap. And let Winters and his daughter realize that there was no threat from someone trying to break into the tent. But then hostages weren’t guaranteed to be thinking straight after two weeks of terror and incarceration. She started wriggling into the tent.

Darkness.

She couldn’t make out anything for the first moment.

She froze.

Good Lord, the stench.

She was too late. She knew that smell.

Rotting corpse.

They were dead, and the tropic heat had already begun the decomposing process.

She had to be sure.

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark now, but she didn’t need to see to find her way to the dead. The overpowering smell led her unerringly across the tent.

A man, hands tied, shot execution style in the center of his forehead. Catherine Ling swore beneath her breath as she sat back on her heels beside the body. She had known that it was a strong possibility Munoz would keep his word and kill Ned Winters when the Colombian government refused to give up Munoz’s brother. Stupid bastards. What difference did it make if they had to go back and catch one more scumbag drug dealer? No, they’d rather risk an international incident and the death of an innocent American businessman.