Ethan checked that the black hair dye he applied was holding. His natural dark-ginger hair would have attracted too much attention where they were – Bolivia. He glanced to the side, through the car's tinted passenger window, and spotted five men carrying AKs.

One of them, sitting on a Toyota's hood, looked back at the car, hefting his rifle.

Ethan lowered himself and disengaged the catch keeping his M1911 in its holster.

"Easy," Lucian said. "Guns on the streets are normal here."

Ethan replaced the catch of his holster. He glanced to the side where cartel members played football with kids, their AKs slung over their backs. "You'd think they are a benevolent militia."

"They are kind to the people," Three said from the backseat. The older man's gaze was following Ethan's. "That helps with recruitment. These kids might already be working for them: lookouts, messengers, mules…"

Ethan's eyes found white cloths covering bleeding bodies at the mouth of an alley. Words had been painted on them – thief, debt, rat, disloyal.

Three followed Ethan's gaze again. "But of course it's just pretense. They take every opportunity to remind those who despise them that they hold the power."

"I'm guessing the police are corrupted," Ethan stated.

"Of course," Lucian confirmed, turning into an alley. "All those who want to change things get an express ticket to meet Doña Sebastiana."

Ethan smirked. "Good thing that foreign interests set international killers to clean things up."

"No discussing clients on the job," Lucian and Three scolded at the same time.

Lucian pulled up into a small compound's yard, and the gate closed behind them. He pressed on a remote he stored in the car's central console, opening a heavy sliding door into the largest building.

"Get him out," Three ordered Ethan.

Ethan got out of the truck and moved to the trunk, aiming his pistol at it. He clicked open the door.

The hooded and bound prisoner inside tried to jump out, only to stumble and fall to the ground.

Ethan grabbed the man by his zip-tied manacled hands and pulled him to his feet, patting him down one more time for weapons. Satisfied, he holstered his pistol and dragged him towards the inner door.

From the inside, a Gravekeeper slid open a slit on the reinforced steel door. He scanned them and opened the door without a word.

Beyond that lay makeshift headquarters. It invaded the once living room of this large, multileveled house with supply crates, IT equipment, weapons, and bunks. Two teams of five Gravekeepers were watching the place, hidden from the windows and fully geared up.

"Sir," the doorman said as he saluted Lucian. Many of the Gravekeepers mimicked him as Lucian's gaze swept over them.

In the center, installed on supply crates turned table, Cypher and Tombstone were exploiting intel – photos, documents, hard drives, phones, and more. They glanced at Lucian, Three, and Ethan before going back to their work.

One of the other Gravekeepers opened a metal door to a room refitted with soundproof walls.

Ethan dragged the prisoner into it and sat him on a chair left in the center. The man was screaming through his gag and thrashing but couldn't oppose Ethan's strength. Ethan bound him to the chair with two belts at his feet and one to lock his bound hands at the back of the chair.

Three and Lucian followed. The first leaned against the door's wall, arms crossed, while the second took his time to find and light a cigar.

Cypher joined them in the room with a folder. She placed herself behind the man and opened the stack of loosely bound papers.

Ethan read over Cypher's shoulder as he placed himself next to her. The folder was a detailed package on the man, his relations, his assets, his actions, movements, and relevant phone calls. They had already been briefed on this target, but she had his entire life in her hands.

Lucian circled the prisoner to approach Cypher and take the documents she mechanically held out for him. From behind, he grabbed the hood removed it.

The prisoner blinked under the harsh white neon above him. He took in the monochrome, tan room. His nose wrinkled at the scent of chlorine. He flinched as he saw a tool cart on the side, left open to expose the many torture tools it contained. Then he looked down to see the white tarp spread under him, the same they use to pack their victims.

"Five days ago, you drove a German from the Buena Hora airport. I want to know where you took him," Lucian began in Spanish. After tearing off the cloth gag, he got closer to the prisoner and pressed his cigar on the man's shoulder, drawing out grunts of pain. "We know everything about you. Everything that can hurt you."

The man stared at the family picture Lucian held before his eyes and what looked like a school timesheet.

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'Alonso –,' Ethan read before skipping what he already knew. He skimmed through the kidnapping, torture, and murders of other gang members; he and N.E.S.T. did not care for underworld crimes. The next parts were maddening. He had climbed the ranks of Los Cuervos – the cartel N.E.S.T. was after – by kidnapping, ransoming, and often torturing the children of resisting officials and law enforcers.

"I don't know anything," Alonso said, gritting his teeth through the pain as Lucian still pressed his cigar.

'Just tell us where you're building your new lab so we can have an actual fight,' Ethan thought. In the years since, he had become accustomed to the constant presence of the thrill. But sometimes, when adrenaline ran low from weeks of calm, it demanded more. And when it bellowed its thirst for battle, there was little Ethan could do to calm it.

Lucian moved to enter Alonso's field of view, looking calm as he pulled on his cigar. He rammed his fist into the man's stomach. It was brutal and without warning. He got closer to Alonso's ear as the man finished vomiting on himself. "Five days ago, you drove a German from the Buena Hora airport. I want to know where you took him."

'That sounded like four ribs,' Ethan thought to himself. The size difference between Lucian and Alonso was absurd. Had he punched with all his strength, Ethan knew they wouldn't have a prisoner anymore. But it wouldn't be a big loss. According to the briefing, N.E.S.T. has been ramping up the pressure on Los Cuervos' assets, making it look like a rival cartel, to draw their leaders out. This is one of many leads.

"I drove him to Rurrenabaque; he got on a boat after that," Alonso revealed.

"Who was on the boat?" Lucian asked.

"Luis Vaca," Alonso answered.

Cypher looked lost in her thoughts for a moment. When she finally looked back at Lucian, she said, "He's lying. Vaca was on a weapon's deal hours away from the place."

"No, no, I swear…" Alonso begged.

Lucian clamped open the prisoner's mouth with his left hand and grabbed an incisor tooth with his right thumb and index finger. As he pulled, Alonso gurgled screams of pain until the tooth came loose with a snap. Lucian threw it onto the tarp at Alonso's feet. "Five days ago, you drove a German from the Buena Hora airport. I want to know where you took him."

"How often does it really work?" Ethan asked Lucian. They were outside the room, waiting to see if Three was any more successful.

Lucian drew on what little remained of his cigar for a long moment before answering. "Ten, twenty percent of the time. It's more about getting the right person, and the right intel to interrogate them with. But if they know nothing, they start making shit up."

"And when they know something?" Ethan asked.

"Depends. Guys like him know their bosses won't hesitate to defile and murder their entire family if they speak, but they usually come around." Lucian smothered the butt of his cigar on an ashtray and left it there. "The ones I can't crack are the religious nuts."

"How long does it take?" Ethan asked.

"Minutes, hours, days – there is no definitive answer. But you need to know how to do it fast; it might give you field intel if you can get it out of an enemy." Lucian pressed the release on the side of his plate carrier to remove it. "Get changed. I need a drink."

Ethan glanced at Lucian. He had used the tone that usually meant a test was coming. Without a word, he walked to one of the building's more isolated sections, where the Gravekeepers had set up pseudo lockers. He removed his rifle to fix it on a meshed wall. He tossed his empty magazines in the dedicated sports bag and grabbed full ones, stashing them in his plate carrier before placing it below the gun.

Tombstone came to him with a set of vacuum-sealed clothes. "These should fit you."

"Thanks," Ethan said. He removed his combat shirt to replace it with the off-white shirt he found in the pack.

"What is that?" Tombstone asked, looking at a knife cut that he had suffered while subduing Alonso. She seemed annoyed by it, as had been the case with any of Ethan's injuries she discovered. She left the corner of the room and came back with a tray of medical supplies. "Sit down."

Ethan dropped the shirt back into its bag and sat on a crate. He had not taken the time to examine his wound and now realized that it was still bleeding. It wasn't life-threatening, but it wouldn't have healed by itself and would have become an issue if left untreated.

"You know you have HemCon bandages in your kit, right?" Tombstone pressed a gauze filled with antiseptic against the wound.

"I keep them for when I get shot," Ethan retorted.

"Yes, because only bullets can make you bleed out," Tombstone scolded.

"I keep them for wounds that would bleed me out in minutes, not days," Ethan tried again. He winced as she took out a piece of gravel lodged inside the wound.

"How was your flight?" she asked, finishing cleaning up the wound.

"I don't know how Lucian can sleep in these things. It felt like flying in a washing machine," Ethan complained. He still felt sore from the many turbulences they experienced over the Atlantic Ocean. He nodded towards the interrogation room. "But the job went well."

"Besides getting yourself stabbed," she quipped.

"Cut," he corrected. In the thrill of battle, he had not seen Alonso grabbing his dead goon's knife while he tried to subdue him. He had realized early enough to dodge, though poorly, and only blamed himself for not noticing the blade in their surroundings. "How have you been?"

"This place sucks. It's hot, and the mosquitoes take more steroids than Lucian." Tombstone began to stitch up the wound. Her movements had grown steadier and faster in the few years since she healed him for the first time. "Speaking of which, you aren't taking anything, right?"

Ethan had gained quite a lot of muscle since the last time they saw each other. "No, that's natural."

"That's unfair," Tombstone said. She finished stitching the wound but started again with a second layer. "I've been training every day for months, and I barely feel a difference."

"I thought you looked more athletic," Ethan lied. Her coffee, energy drink, and snack diet couldn't have allowed for it. "Maybe you should ask the docs for a meal plan; it could help."

"I'm done," she said, cutting the wire now stitching his wound. "I'd say: try not to move too much. But we both know you won't listen, so I made it tougher; you'll just have one more scar."

"Thanks," Ethan said. Looking at her hands, he noticed thin scabs over her knuckles. He lifted her hand with his fingers to get a closer look.

She flinched away from him. In his worry, he forgot how much she despised being touched.

"Did someone attack you?" he asked.

"I… 've been training with the others. Just in case," Tombstone sheepishly answered. She replaced all her tools and supplies onto the tray before standing up. "See you."

Ethan pulled the shirt over his head, wincing as he pulled on the stitches. The way she moved back seemed like fear, or maybe disgust. He'd killed her father, an abusive monster she hated, but he didn't know how she felt. Tombstone never talked of the time they met, nor before it.

The idea made something cold spread in his chest. He exchanged his camo pants for jeans and moved his pistol from his hip to the inside of his belt.

Lucian's voice boomed from afar, "You ready? I'm heading out."

"Yeah." As Ethan guessed what Lucian was planning, the thrill took back over, drowning his worries. He tightened the laces of his boots and hid a knife in the right one. "Coming."

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