Book excerpt: Like his contemporaries in Dorsey’s other Panama novels, Ebi has had an erotic and adventurous life. Joining the Army after high school, he’s recruited into Special Forces, and serves as a Ranger for ten years. Later he’s recruited by the ‘Company’, completing twelve years of successful missions all over the world. As a highly experienced Ranger within the Company, he leads difficult and dangerous missions. At the same time, he plans his eventual escape into retirement. Over the course of his professional life, he has had three women who have professed their love for him. He would like to take one of these women into retirement with him, but is faced with a moral dilemma in making his choice of his close friend Rayan. They must stage their deaths, and find a suitable place to escape. The concern is, can they actually escape? Or is it true that “no one can successfully retire from the ‘Company’?