So, Hood thought, the whiteboards are full of intel but the killers are free to roam about the cabin.

He looked at monitor two and watched Johnnie and Ray playing Halo on the living room fifty-four-inch TV. Hood lifted an audio headset to his ear and winced: As usual the boys had the volume up loud. The hidden mikes were so good they could pick up both ends of a phone call, and this video combat game blaring through the home theater system sounded like Armageddon itself.

Johnnie and Ray were the two Americans, poor kids recruited from the rough Buenavista streets, kids with voracious desires and stunted notions of self-control. Hood knew their plan for happiness: Get a gun, get a job using it, get some decent clothes, get a better gun, get a car, get a big-screen television, get a truck, get a girl. Then, if you were still alive get a house, somewhere to put your girl and your stuff. They always bought the house last. It was the same for all the young pistoleros along the border. The cartels didn't care if they were American or Mexican. Global economy, thought Hood. Johnnie was the seventeen-year-old and he had earned a new Dodge Ram 1500 two weeks ago as a bonus for a hit in Tijuana. Chunks flying out the back of his head, as he'd bragged to Ray one evening, over and over. Johnnie had washed the gleaming black truck fourteen consecutive nights, up late, inside the garage of the Agate Street safe house so the neighbors wouldn't see him. He talked to the truck as he polished its coat.

Only Oscar was unaccounted for now. He claimed to have a girl-friend in Buenavista but no matter how much the other assassins teased him, Oscar had so far refused to bring her to his lair.

Hood heard two sharp knocks on the front door of the office, then the buzz from the ID reader. He glanced up at the security camera, then looked at the first light of the October morning just now touching the drawn blinds.