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"Sometimes he goes to the bay with his brother," one of the fishermen told the women. The men told them where Adolfo lived and the route Father Alcazar usually took to get there. They got back in the car and headed north, María opening the window, lighting another cigarette, and puffing on it furiously.

"I hope this doesn't bother you," María said of the cigarette. "They say that the smoke is bad for others but I can assure you that it saves lives."

"How do you figure that?" Aideen asked.

"It keeps me from getting too angry," María replied. She did not appear to be joking.

They found Calle Okendo and drove two blocks to the southeast. The street was narrow; when they reached the two-story apartment building María had to park half on the sidewalk. Otherwise there wouldn't have been room for another vehicle to get by. Aideen put her.38 into the pocket of her windbreaker before she slid from the car. María tossed her cigarette away and slid her gun into the rear waistband of her jeans.

The downstairs door did not have a lock on it and they entered. The dark stairwell smelled of a century of fishermen and dust, which tickled Aideen's nose. The steps creaked like dry old trees in a wind and listed toward the dirty white wall. There were two apartments on the second floor. The door to one of them was slightly ajar. María gave it a push with her toe. It groaned as it opened.

They found Father Alcazar. He was kneeling beside the naked body of a man and weeping openly. His back was toward them. María stepped in and Aideen followed. If the priest heard them he made no indication of it.

"Father Alcazar?" María said softly.

The priest turned his head around. His red eyes were startling against his pale pink face. His collar was dark where it was stained with tears. He turned back to the body and then rose slowly. Backlit by the sharp morning light his black robe looked flat, like a silhouette. He walked toward them as though he were in a trance. Then he removed a jacket from a hook behind the door, went back to the dead man, and laid it across his body.

As he did, Aideen had a chance to study the body. The victim had been tortured, though not out of vengeance. There were no burn or knife marks on his torso. His eyes, ears, breast, and groin appeared to be intact; only his limbs had been worked over. He'd been tortured for information. And his windpipe had been smashed; to kill him slowly, as opposed to a blow to the head. Aideen had seen this before, in Mexico. It wasn't pretty, but it was prettier than what the drug lords did to people they tortured for betraying them. Strangely enough, it never stopped other people from betraying the Mexican seńorios, as they called them. The dead men and women always believed that they were the ones who would never be caught.

The priest turned back toward the women. "I am Father Alcazar," he said.

María stepped toward him. "My name is María," she said. "I'm with Interpol."

Aideen wasn't surprised that María had told him who she really was. The killings were escalating. This wasn't the time to go undercover.

"Did you know this man?" María asked.

The priest nodded. "He was my brother."

"I see," María said. "I'm sorry we couldn't have gotten here sooner."

Norberto Alcazar gestured weakly behind him as fresh tears spilled from his eyes. "I tried to help him. I should have tried harder. But Adolfo-he knew what he had gotten himself into."

María stepped up to the priest. She stood as tall as he did and looked flush into his bloodshot eyes. "Father, please-help us. What had Adolfo gotten himself into?"

"I don't know," the priest said. "When I arrived here he was hurt and talking wildly."

"He was still alive?" María asked. "You've got to try to remember. Father, what he said! Words, names, places-anything."

"Something about the city," Norberto said. "About a church. He said a place or a name-Amadori."

María's eyes burned into his. "General Amadori?"

"It could be," Norberto said. "He he did say something about a