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checked the heavy gauze bandages—eight of them in all. He had covered the burns with ointments and shot antibiotics into Patrick’s blood. The doctor took the seat in front of his patient, and tucked his little black bag between his feet. Patrick had suffered enough. He would protect him now.
    A day or two of rest and more painkillers, and Patrick would be on his way to recovery. The burns would leave small scars, which would probably fade with time.
    The doctor turned around and patted him on the shoulder. He was so pleased they hadn’t killed him. “He’s ready,” he said to Guy in the front seat. A Brazilian driver started the van and backed away from the cabin.
    They stopped every hour, precisely every sixty minutes, so the antenna could be raised and the cell phone could work around the mountains. Guy called Stephano, who was in his D.C. office with Hamilton Jaynes and a top official with the State Department. The Pentagon was being consulted.
    What the hell was going on, Guy wanted to ask. Where did the feds come from?
    In the first six hours they traveled a hundred miles. At times, the roads were almost impassable. They often fought with the phone trying to get Washington. At two in the afternoon, the roads improved as they left the mountains.
    The extradition issue was sticky, and Hamilton Jaynes wanted no part of it. Important diplomatic strings were pulled. The Director of the FBI called the President’s Chief of Staff. The American Ambassador to Paraguay got involved. Promises and threats were made.
    A suspect with cash and resolve can stifle extradition from Paraguay for years, if not forever. This suspecthad no money on him, and didn’t even know what country he was in.
    The Paraguayans reluctantly agreed to ignore extradition.
    At four, Stephano instructed Guy to find the airport at Concepción, a small city three hours by car from Asunción. The Brazilian driver cursed, in Portuguese, when told to turn around and head north.
    It was dusk when they entered Concepción, and it was dark when they finally found the airport, a small brick building next to a narrow asphalt strip. Guy called Stephano, who instructed him to leave Patrick in the van, with the keys in the ignition, and walk away from it. Guy, the doctor, the driver, and another American eased away slowly while looking over their shoulders at the van. They found a spot a hundred yards away, under a large tree where they couldn’t be seen. An hour passed.
    Finally, a King Air with American registration landed and taxied to the small terminal. Two pilots emerged and went inside the terminal. A moment later, they walked to the van, opened the doors, got inside, and drove it to a spot near their airplane.
    Patrick was gently removed from the back of the van and loaded onto the turboprop. An Air Force medic was on board, and he immediately took possession of the prisoner. The two pilots returned the van to its original spot in the parking lot. Minutes later, the plane took off.
    The King Air refueled in Asunción, and while it was on the ground there Patrick began to move. He wastoo weak and sore and groggy to sit up. The medic gave him cold water and crackers.
    They refueled again in La Paz and Lima. In Bogotá, they transferred him to a small Lear, which flew at twice the speed of the King Air. It refueled on Aruba, off the coast of Venezuela, then flew nonstop to a U.S. Navy base outside San Juan, Puerto Rico. An ambulance took him to the base hospital.
    After almost four and a half years, Patrick was back on American soil.

Five
    The law firm Patrick worked for before he died filed for bankruptcy protection a year after his funeral. After his death, the firm’s letterhead properly included him: Patrick S. Lanigan, 1954–1992. He was listed up in the right-hand corner, just above the paralegals. Then the rumors got started and wouldn’t stop. Before long, everyone believed he had taken the money and disappeared. After three months, no one on the