There was an uneasy stillness to the night. Shamus always hated these missions in the tropics. As if the bugs weren’t bad enough, the few sounds that did come out of the darkness were unfamiliar. No chirping crickets. No hoot of an owl. No howl of a coyote. No, here there was almost nothing. And when he did hear something, he had no idea what it was, how far away it was, how close it was. No familiarity with the night, like at home. It was unnerving.
“How much longer do you think before that Columbian drug lord comes out of his house?” he asked his partner Mack. “The mosquitoes are eating me alive.”
“They’ve been in there quite a while. It’s almost midnight. It shouldn’t be much longer.”
They kept up their surveillance on the house at the bottom of the hill, the house they had been watc
