Assumed Identity

David Morrell - Assumed Identity

PROLOGUE

Mexico, 1562.

Less than forty years after the Spanish conquerors arrived in the New World, the systematic extermination of the natives was well under way. Much of the genocide required no effort inasmuch as diseases to which the Europeans had become accustomed. smallpox, measles, mumps, and influenza, for example. did not exist in the New World and hence had a rapid effect on the natives, who had no immunity to them. Those who did not die from disease (perhaps as few as ten percent of the original population survived) were beaten into submission and forced into slavery. Villages were destroyed, the inhabitants herded into labor camps. Every effort, especially torture, was used to compel the survivors to abandon their culture and convert to that of their European dominators.

In Mexico's southeastern extreme, the Yucatan peninsula, a Franciscan missionary whose name was Diego de Landa reacted with shock to the evidence of snake worship and human sacrifice within the Mayan faith. Determined to eradicate these pagan barbarities, Landa organized the destruction of temples, statues, frescoes, any object with religious connotations. and in so doing, he not only separated the Maya from symbols of their beliefs but prevented modern historians from discovering the clues they needed to decipher the remaining hieroglyphs that described the lost, ancient ways.

Landa's greatest triumph of destruction occurred at the village of Mani, where he exposed a secret library of Mayan books. These irreplaceable texts - bound like thin, small accordions and known as codices - 'contained nothing in which there was not to be seen superstitions and lies of the devil,' Landa reported to his superiors. 'We burned them all.'

We burned them all.

A present-day lover of antiquity exhales with despair at the self-righteous, narrow-minded confidence in those words. Bookburners throughout time have shared Landa's purse-lipped, squinty-eyed, jut-jawed, absolute belief in his correctness. But Landa was deceived.

In several ways.

The codices contained historical and philosophical truths in addition to what Landa called lies.

And not all the codices were destroyed. Three of them, salvaged by Spaniards in charge of the burning and smuggled home to Europe as souvenirs, were eventually uncovered in private collections and recognized for their incalculable value.

Known as the Dresden Codex, the Codex Tro-Cortesianus, and the Codex Persianus, they are owned by libraries in Dresden, Madrid, and Paris. A fourth - known as the Grolier Codex and located in Mexico City - has been declared by one expert a fake and is currently under investigation.

But rumors persist that there is a fifth, that it is authentic, that it has more truths than any other, especially one truth, a crucial truth.

A modern observer wonders how Friar de Landa would react if he could be summoned from Hell and made to witness the bloodbath comparable in intensity if not in magnitude to the one Landa caused in the fifteen-hundreds, the bloodbath that could have been avoided if Landa had never begun his inquisition or else if he had been the professional he claimed to be and had actually accomplished his hateful job. Mani, the name of the village where Landa found and destroyed the codices, is the Mayan word for 'it is finished.'

But it wasn't finished at all.

ONE

1

Chicago, Illinois.

'Now I realize you all want to hear about human sacrifice,' the professor said, allowing just the right mischievous glint in his eyes, signaling to his students that to study history didn't mean they had to suppress their sense of humor. Each time he taught this course - and he'd been doing so for thirty years - he always began with the same comment, and he always got the reaction he wanted, a collective chuckle, the students glancing at each other in approval and sitting more comfortably.

'Virgins having their hearts cut out,' the professor continued, 'or being thrown off cliffs into wells - that sort of thing.' He gestured dismissively as if he were so familiar with the details of human sacrifice that the subject bored him. Again his eyes glinted mischievously, and the students chuckled louder. His name was Stephen Mill. He was fifty-eight, short and slender, with receding, gray hair, a thin, salt-and-pepper mustache, square-framed, wire-rimmed bifocals, and a brown wool suit that gave off the scent of pipe smoke. Liked and respected by both colleagues and students, he was beginning the last seventy minutes of his life, and if it were any consolation, at least he would die doing what he most enjoyed, talking about his life's obsession.

'Actually the Maya didn't have much interest in sacrificing virgins,' Professor Mill added. 'Most of the skeletons we've retrieved from the sacred wells - they're called cenotes, by the way; you might as well begin learning the proper terms - belong to males, and most of those had been children.'

The students made faces of disgust.

'The Maya did cut out hearts, of course,' Professor Mill said. 'But that's the most boring part of the ritual.'

Several students frowned and mouthed 'boring?' to each other.

'What the Maya would do is capture an enemy, strip him, paint him blue, take him to the top of a pyramid, break his back but not kill him. not yet at least, the temporary objective was to paralyze him. then cut out his heart, and now he'd die, but not before the high priest was able to raise the victim's pulsing heart for everyone to see. The heart

and the blood dripping from it were smeared onto the faces of gods carved into the walls at the top of the temple. It's been theorized that the high priest may also have consumed the heart. But this much we know for certain - the victim's corpse was subsequently hurled down the steps of the pyramid. There a priest cut off the victim's skin and danced in it. Those who'd witnessed the ceremony chopped the corpse into pieces and barbecued it.'

The students swallowed uncomfortably, as if they felt sick.

'But we'll get to the dull stuff later in the term,' Professor Mill said, and the students laughed again, this time with relief. 'As you know, this is a multi-discipline course.' He switched tones with expert ease, deepening his voice, abandoning his guise as an entertainer, becoming a lecturer. 'Some of you are here from art-history. Others are ethnologists and archaeologists. Our purpose is to examine Mayan hieroglyphics, to learn to read them, and to use the knowledge we obtain to reconstruct Mayan culture. Please turn to page seventy-nine of Charles Gallenkamp's Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization.'

The students obeyed and immediately frowned at a bewildering diagram that looked like a totem pole with two descending columns of distorted, grimacing faces flanked by lines, dots, and squiggles. Someone groaned.

'Yes, I realize the challenge is daunting,' Professor Mill said. 'You're telling yourselves that you can't possibly learn to read that maze of apparently meaningless symbols. But I assure you, you will be able to read it and many others like it. You'll be able to put sounds to those glyphs, to read them as if they were sentences.' He paused for dramatic effect, then straightened. 'To speak the ancient Mayan language.' He shook his head with wonder. 'You understand now what I meant. Stories about human sacrifice are dull. This' - he pointed toward the hieroglyphs in Gallenkamp's book -'this is the true excitement.' He directed a keen gaze toward each of his twenty students. 'And since we have to start somewhere, let's start as we did when we were children, by making lines and dots. You'll note that many of the columns of glyphs -which depict a date, by the way - look like this.' Grabbing a piece of chalk, Professor Mill drew hurried marks on the blackboard.

'Each dot has a value of one. A line - or what we call a bar-signifies five. Thus the first group I drew equals four, the second equals eight, the third is twelve, and the fourth. Well, why should I do all the talking?' Professor Mill drew his right index finger down his list of students. 'Mr Hogan, please tell me the value of...'

'Sixteen?' a tentative, male voice responded.

'Excellent, Mr Hogan. You see how easy it is? You're already learning to read Mayan symbols. But if you put all the numbers on those glyphs together, the date they depict wouldn't make any sense to you. Because the Maya used a different calendar than we do. Their calendar was almost as accurate as our own. It was also considerably more complicated. So, as our first step in understanding Mayan civilization, we'll have to understand their concept of time. For our next class, read chapters one and two in A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by Linda Schele and David Friedel. Meanwhile I'll summarize what you'll be reading.'

And so Professor Mill continued, taking obvious delight in his subject matter. With less than twenty minutes remaining in his life, he was enjoying every second. He concluded the class with a joke that he always used at this point in the course, elicited another anticipated chuckle, answered a few questions from students who lingered, then packed his books, notes, syllabus, and list of students into his briefcase.

His office was a five-minute stroll from the classroom building. Professor Mill breathed deeply, with satisfaction, as he walked. It was a bright, clear, pleasant day. All in all, he felt splendid (less than fifteen minutes to live now), and his delight with how he'd performed in class was enhanced by his anticipation of what he would do next, of the appointment he'd made for after class, of the visitor he expected.

The office was in a drab, brick building, but the bleak surroundings had no effect on Professor Mill's sense of well-being and eagerness. Indeed he felt so full of energy that he passed students at the elevator and walked rapidly up the two flights of stairs to the dimly lit corridor halfway along which he had his office. After unlocking the door (ten minutes to go) and setting his briefcase on his desk, he turned to walk down to the faculty lounge but paused, then smiled, when he saw his visitor appear at the open doorway.

'I was just going for some coffee,' Professor Mill said. 'Would you care for some?'

'Thanks but no.' The visitor nodded in greeting and entered. 'My stomach and coffee don't get along anymore. I have heartburn all the time. I think I'm developing an ulcer.'

The visitor was a distinguished-looking man in his middle thirties. His neatly trimmed hair, custom-made white shirt, striped silk tie, hand-tailored double-breasted suit, and thin-soled calfskin shoes were in keeping with his occupation as a highly paid, corporate executive.

'Ulcers come from stress. You'd better slow down.' Professor Mill shook hands with him.

'Stress and speed are part of my job description. If I start worrying about my health, I'll find myself out of work.' The visitor sat.

'You need a vacation.'

'Soon. They keep promising me soon.'

'So what have you got for me?' Professor Mill asked.

'More glyphs to be translated.'

'How many?'

The visitor shrugged. 'Five pages.' He frowned as a group of students went by in the corridor. 'I'd prefer to keep this confidential.'

'Of course.' Professor Mill got up, shut the door, and returned to his desk. 'Mayan pages or contemporary pages?'

The visitor look puzzled, then realized, 'Right, I keep forgetting Mayan pages are bigger. No, contemporary pages. Eight-by-ten photographs. I assume the fee we negotiated the last time is still acceptable.'

'Fifty-thousand dollars? Very acceptable. As long as I'm not rushed,' Professor Mill said.

'You won't be. You can have a month, the same as before. The same terms of payment - half now, half when you're finished. The same conditions pertain. You may not make copies of the pages. You may not reveal what you are doing or discuss your translation with anyone.'

'Don't worry. I won't, and I haven't,' Professor Mill said, 'although there's nothing so interesting in the translation that anybody except you and me and your employer would care. No matter. You pay me so well that I'd be insane to break the terms of the agreement and jeopardize my future relationship with you. I have a sabbatical next year, and the money you've generously paid me will allow me to devote the entire year to studying the Hieroglyphic Stairway in the Mayan ruins at Copan in Honduras.'

'It's too hot down there for me,' the visitor said.

'When I'm at the ruins, I'm too excited to think about the weather. May I see the pages?'

'By all means.' The visitor reached into an alligator-skin briefcase, pulling out a large, manila envelope.

With less than a minute to live, Professor Mill took the envelope, opened it, and removed five photographs that showed numerous rows of hieroglyphs. He shifted books to the side of his desk and arranged the photographs so that the rows of glyphs were vertical.

'All part of the same text?'

'I have no idea,' the visitor said. 'All I was told was to make the delivery.'

'They appear to be.' Professor Mill picked up a magnifying glass and leaned close to the photographs, studying the details of the glyphs. Sweat beaded on his brow. He shook his head. 'I shouldn't have run up those stairs.'

'Excuse me?' the visitor asked.

'Nothing. Just talking to myself. Does it feel warm in here?'

'A little.'

Professor Mill took off his suit coat and resumed his inspection of the photographs. Fifteen seconds to live. 'Well, leave them with me, and.'

'Yes?'

'I.'

'What?' the visitor asked.

'Don't feel so good. My hands.'

'What about them?'

'Numb,' Professor Mill said. 'My.'

'What?'

'Face. Hot.'

Professor Mill abruptly gasped, clutched his chest, stiffened, and slumped, sagging backward in his creaky, swivel chair, his mouth open, his head drooping. He shivered and stopped moving.

The small office seemed to contract as the visitor stood. 'Professor Mill?' He felt for a pulse at a wrist and then the neck. 'Professor Mill?' He removed rubber gloves from his briefcase, put them on, then used his right hand to collect the photographs and slide them into the manila envelope, which he held steady with his left hand. Cautiously he used the left hand to peel off the glove on his right hand, and vice versa, in each case making sure that he didn't touch any area that had touched the photographs. He dropped the gloves into another manila envelope, sealed it, and put both envelopes into his briefcase.

When the visitor opened the door, none of the students or faculty passing in the corridor paid much attention to him. An amateur might have walked away, but the visitor knew that excitement could prime memories, that someone would eventually remember seeing a well-dressed man come out of the office. He didn't want to create a mystery. He was well aware that the best deception was a version of the truth. So he walked rapidly to the secretary's office, entered it in distress, and told the secretary, 'Hurry. Phone nine one one. Professor Mill. I was visiting. I think he just had a heart attack.'

2

Guatemala City.

Despite his thirty-six-hour journey and his sixty-four years, Nicholas Petrovich Bartenev fidgeted with energy. He and his wife had flown from Leningrad-

Correction, he thought. St Petersburg. Now that Communism has collapsed, they've abolished Lenin.

-to Frankfurt to Dallas to here, by invitation of the new Guatemalan government, and indeed if it hadn't been for the Cold War's end, this journey would not have been possible. Guatemala had only recently, after forty years, resumed diplomatic relations with Russia, and the all-important Russian exit visas, which for so long had been impossible to obtain, had been issued with astonishing efficiency. For most of his life, Bartenev had one consuming dream - to travel to Guatemala, not because he was eager to leave Russia, rather because Guatemala obsessed him. But he'd persistently, repeatedly been denied permission, and all of a sudden it was merely a matter of filling out some government forms and coming back a few days later to get the necessary travel papers. Bartenev couldn't believe his good fortune. He feared that all of this would turn out to be a cruel hoax, that he'd be refused permission to enter Guatemala, that he'd be deported back to Russia.

The jet - a stretch 727 owned by American Airlines. American! For a Russian citizen to be a passenger on a jet labeled American would have been unthinkable not many years ago - descended through clouds, past mountains, toward a city sprawled in a valley. The time was eight-fifteen in the evening. Sunset cast a crimson glow across the valley. Guatemala City's lights gleamed. Bartenev gazed spellbound out his window, his heart pounding with the eagerness of a child.

Beside him, his wife clasped his hand. He turned to study her beautiful, wrinkled face, and she didn't need to say anything to communicate the pleasure she felt because he would soon fulfill his dream. From the age of eighteen, from the first time he'd seen photographs of the Mayan ruins at Tikal in Guatemala, he had felt an eerie identification with the now-almost-vanished people who had built them. He felt as if he had been there, as if he had been one of the Maya, as if his strength and sweat had helped erect the great pyramids and temples. And he had become fascinated with the hieroglyphs.

All these years later, without ever having set foot on a Mayan ruin, without ever having climbed a pyramid, without ever having stared face-to-face at the hook-nosed, high-cheeked, slope-browed visages of the Maya in the hieroglyphs, he was one of the top five Mayan epigraphers in the world (perhaps the top of the top, if he believed his wife's flattery), and soon - not tonight, of course, but tomorrow perhaps or certainly the day after - he'd have managed yet another flight, this one to a primitive airstrip, and have accomplished the difficult journey through the jungle to Tikal, to his life's preoccupation, to the center of his world, to the ruins.

To the hieroglyphs.

His heartbeat increased as the jet touched down. The sun was lower behind the western mountains. The darkness thickened, pierced by the glint of lights from the airport's terminal. Nervous with anticipation, Bartenev unbuckled his seat belt, picked up his briefcase, and followed his wife and other passengers along the aisle. A frustrating minute passed, seeming to take much longer, before the aircraft's hatch was opened. He squinted past the passengers ahead of him and saw the murky silhouettes of buildings. As he and his wife descended stairs to the airport's tarmac, he breathed the thin, dry, cool, mountain air and felt his body tense with excitement.

The moment he entered the terminal, however, he saw several uniformed, government officials waiting for him, and he knew that something was wrong. They were somber, pensive, brooding. Bartenev feared that his premonition had been justified, that he was about to be refused permission to enter the country.

Instead a flustered, thin-lipped man in a dark suit stepped away from them, nervously approaching. 'Professor Bartenev?'

'Yes.'

They spoke in Spanish. Bartenev's compulsive interest in Guatemala and the Mayan ruins throughout Mesoamerica had prompted him to acquire a facility in the local language since much of the scholarship being done on the hieroglyphs was published in Spanish.

'My name is Hector Gonzales. From the National Archaeological Museum here.'

'Yes, I've received your letters.' As they shook hands, Bartenev couldn't help noticing how Gonzales guided him toward the government officials. 'This is my wife, Elana.'

'I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs Bartenev. If you'll please come through this door...'

Abruptly Bartenev noticed stern soldiers holding automatic rifles. He cringed, reminded of Leningrad during the worst of the Cold War. 'Is something wrong? Is there something you haven't told me, something I should know?'

'Nothing,' Gonzales said too quickly. 'A problem with your accommodations. A scheduling difficulty. Nothing serious. Come this way. Through this door and down this hallway. Hurry, or we'll be late.'

'Late?' Bartenev shook his head as he and his wife were rushed along the corridor. 'Late for what? And our luggage? What about-?'

'It's being taken care of. Your luggage will be brought to your hotel. You don't need to go through Immigration and Customs.'

They passed through another door, into the night, onto a parking lot, where a jeep filled with armed soldiers waited in front of a black limousine behind which there was another jeep filled with armed soldiers.

'I demand to know what is going on,' Bartenev said. 'In your letters, you claimed that I would feel welcome here. Instead, I feel like a prisoner.'

'Professor Bartenev, you must understand that Guatemala is a troubled country. There is always much political uneasiness here. These soldiers are for your protection.'

'Why would I need-?'

'Please get in the car, and we can discuss it.'

The moment an escort shut the door on Bartenev, his wife, Gonzales, and two government officials, Bartenev again demanded, 'Why would I need protection?'

The limousine, flanked by the jeeps, sped away.

'As I told you, politics. For many years, Guatemala has been ruled by right-wing extremists.' Gonzales glanced uneasily at the government officials, as if he suspected that they would not approve of his vocabulary. 'Recently moderates have come into power. The new government is the reason that your country now is permitted to have diplomatic relations with ours. It also explains why you were invited here. A visit from a Russian academician emphasizes the good will that the Guatemalan government wants with your country. You were an ideal man to invite because you are not a politician and because your expertise relates to Guatemalan history.'

'The way you speak.' Bartenev hesitated. 'It makes me think you work less for the National Archaeological Museum than you do for the government. What is the name of the dynasty that ruled Tikal?'

Gonzales didn't answer.

'In what century did Tikal reach its zenith of power?'

Gonzales didn't answer.

Bartenev scoffed.

'You are in danger,' Gonzales said.

'What?'

'The right-wing extremists strongly disapprove of your visit,' Gonzales explained tensely. 'Despite the collapse of Communism in Russia, these extremists see your visit as the beginning of a corrupting influence that will make this country Marxist. The previous government used death squads to enforce its rule. Those death squads are still in existence. There have been threats against your life.'

Bartenev stared, despair spreading through him. His wife asked what Gonzales was saying to him. Grateful that she didn't understand Spanish, Bartenev told her that someone had forgotten to make a reservation for them at the hotel, that their host was embarrassed about the oversight, and that the mistake was being corrected.

He scowled at Gonzales. 'What are you saying to me? That I have to leave? I refuse. Oh, I will send my wife to safety. But I did not come all this way only to leave before I see my dream. I'm too old. I will probably not have this chance again. And I'm too close. I will go the rest of the way.'

'You are not being asked to leave,' Gonzales said. 'That would be almost as ruinous a political act as if someone attempted to kill you.'

Bartenev felt blood drain from his face.

Gonzales said, 'But we must be extremely careful. Cautious. We are asking you not to go out in public in the city. Your hotel will be guarded. We will transport you to Tikal as quickly as possible. And then we request that after a prudent length of time - a day, or at the most two - you feign illness and return to your home.'

'A day?' Bartenev had difficulty breathing. 'Perhaps two? So little time after so many years of waiting for...'

'Professor Bartenev, we have to deal with political realities.'

Politics, Bartenev thought, and wanted to curse. But like Gonzales, he was accustomed to dealing with such obscene realities, and he analyzed the problem with desperate speed. He was out of Russia, free to go anywhere - that was the important factor. There were numerous other major Mayan ruins. Palenque in Mexico, for example. He'd always been fond of photographs of it. It wasn't Tikal. It didn't have the emotional and professional attraction that Tikal had for him, but it was accessible. His wife could accompany him there. They would be safe there. If the Guatemalan government refused to pay for further expenses, that wouldn't matter - because Bartenev had a secret source of funds about which he hadn't told even his wife.

Indeed secrecy had been part of the business arrangement when the well-dressed, fair-haired American had arrived at Bartenev's office at St Petersburg State University. The American had shown him several photographs of Mayan glyphs. He had asked in perfect Russian how much Bartenev would charge to translate the glyphs and keep the assignment confidential. 'If the glyphs are interesting, I won't charge anything,' Bartenev had answered, impressed by the foreigner's command of the language. But the American had insisted on paying. In fact, his fee had been astonishingly generous: fifty-thousand dollars. 'To ensure your silence,' the American had said. 'I've converted some of it to rubles.' He gave Bartenev the equivalent of ten thousand dollars in Russian currency. The remainder, he explained, would be placed in a Swiss bank account. Perhaps one day Bartenev would be free to travel, in which case the money could easily be obtained.

Failing that, couriers could be arranged to transport prudent amounts into St Petersburg for him, amounts that wouldn't be so large that the authorities would ask questions about their source. Since that visit, the American had come two more times, in each case with more photographs of Mayan glyphs and with the same fee. Until now, the money had not been as important to Bartenev as the fascinating, although puzzling message (like a riddle within a code) that the glyphs revealed.

But now the money was very important, and Bartenev bitterly meant to get full value from it.

'Yes,' he told Gonzales. 'Political realities. I will leave whenever you want, whenever I have served your purpose.'

Gonzales seemed to relax. But only for a moment. Abruptly the limousine arrived at a hotel, the steel-and-glass modern design of which was jarringly unHispanic. The soldiers escorted Bartenev and his wife quickly through the lobby, into an elevator, and to the twelfth floor. Gonzales came with them as a government official spoke to a clerk at the check-in desk.

The phone was ringing as Gonzales unlocked the door, turned on a light, and guided Bartenev and his wife into the suite. Actually there were two phones, one on a table next to a sofa, the other on a bar.

Gonzales locked the door behind them. The phone kept ringing. As Bartenev stepped toward the one by the sofa, Gonzales said, 'No, let me answer it.' He chose the closer phone, the one on the bar. 'Hello.' He turned on a lamp. 'Why do you wish to speak with him?' He stared at Bartenev. 'Just a moment.' He placed a hand over the telephone's mouthpiece. 'It's a man who claims to be a journalist. Perhaps it would be wise to give an interview. Good public relations. I'll listen on this phone while you use that one.'

Bartenev pivoted toward the phone on the table beside the sofa. 'Hello,' he said, casting a shadow against the window.

'Go to hell, you Goddamned Russian.'

As the window shattered inward, Bartenev's wife screamed. Bartenev did not. The bullet that struck his skull and mushroomed within it killed him instantly. The bullet burst out the back of his head, spraying blood across the flying glass.

3

Houston, Texas.

The space shuttle, Atlantis, was on the second day of its current mission. a no-problem launch, an all-systems-go performance so far. and Albert Delaney felt bored. He wished that something would happen, anything to break his tedious routine. Not that he wanted excitement exactly, because he associated that word with a crisis. The last thing NASA needed was more foul-ups and bad publicity, and at all costs, another Challenger disaster had to be avoided. One more like that and NASA would probably be out of business, which meant that Albert Delaney would be out of a job, and Albert Delaney preferred boredom any day to being unemployed. Still, if anybody had told him when he'd been accepted by NASA that his enthusiasm for what he assumed would be a glamorous career would all too quickly change to tedium, he'd have been incredulous. The trouble was that NASA prechecked the details of a mission so often, testing and retesting, going over every variable, trying to anticipate every contingency that by the time the mission occurred, it was anticlimactic. No, Albert Delaney didn't want excitement, but he certainly wouldn't have minded an occasional positive surprise.

A man of medium height and weight, with average features, in that cusp of life where he'd stopped being young but wasn't yet middle-aged, he'd noticed that more and more he'd been feeling dissatisfied, unfulfilled. His existence was ordinary. Predictable. He hadn't yet reached the stage of his syndrome where he was tempted to cheat on his wife. Nonetheless he was afraid that what Thoreau had called 'quiet desperation' might drive him to do something stupid and get more excitement than he'd bargained for by ruining his marriage. Still, if he didn't find some purpose, something to interest him, he didn't know if he could rely on his common sense.

Part of his problem, Albert Delaney decided, was that his office was at the periphery of NASA headquarters. Away from the mission-control center, he didn't have the sense of accomplishment and nervous energy that he imagined everyone felt there. Plus, even he had to admit that being an expert in cartography, geography, and meteorology (maps, land, and weather, as he sometimes put it bluntly) seemed awfully dull compared to space exploration. It wasn't as if he got the chance to examine photographs of newly discovered rings around Saturn or moons near Jupiter or active volcanoes on Venus. No, what he got to do was look at photographs of areas on earth, sections that he'd looked at dozens of times before.

It didn't help that the conclusions of the research he was doing had already been determined. Did photographs from space show that the alarming haze around the earth was becoming worse? Did high-altitude images indicate that the South American rain forest continued to dwindle due to slash-and-burn farming practices? Were the oceans becoming so polluted that evidence of the damage could be seen from three hundred miles up? Yes. Yes. Yes. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to come up with those conclusions. But NASA wanted more than conclusions. It wanted specifics, and even though the photographs that Albert Delaney examined would eventually be sent to other government agencies, it was his job to make the preliminary examination, just in case there was something unique in them so that NASA could get the publicity.

The shuttle's current mission was to deploy a weather satellite over the Caribbean Sea and perform various weather-related observations and experiments as well as transmit photographs. The photograph currently in front of Delaney showed a portion of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. For several years, a blight had been attacking the palm trees in that area, and one of Delaney's jobs was to determine how far the blight had spread, something that could easily be seen in the photographs since the sick, denuded trees created a distinct, bleak pattern. The theory was that substantial loss of vegetation in the Yucatan would disturb the oxygen,'carbon-dioxide ratio in the area and affect weather patterns just as the disappearance of Brazil's rain forest did. By measuring the area of blight and factoring that information with temperature and wind variations in the Caribbean, it might be possible to predict the creation of tropical storms and the direction of hurricanes.

The blight had definitely spread much farther than photographs of the Yucatan taken last year indicated. Delaney placed a transparent, scale-model map over the photograph, aligned topographical features, recorded measurements, and continued to another photograph. Perhaps it was his need for a break in his routine. Perhaps it was his need to be surprised. For whatever reason, he found that he was examining the photographs far more diligently than usual, paying attention to matters that weren't related to the palm-tree blight.

Abruptly something troubled him, a subconsciously noticed detail, a sense that something was out of place. He set down the photograph he was examining and went back to the one he'd just finished looking at. Frowning, he concentrated. Yes, he thought. There. At once he felt a stimulating flow of adrenaline, a warming in his stomach. That small area in the bottom left corner of the photograph. Those shadows among the denuded palm trees. What were those shadows doing there?

The shadows formed almost perfect triangles and squares. But triangles and squares did not exist in nature. More, those shadows could be made only by sunlight that struck and was blocked by objects above the ground. Large objects. Tall objects. Normally, shadows didn't pose a mystery. Hills made them all the time. But these shadows were in the Yucatan's northern lowlands. The descriptive name said it all. Lowlands. There weren't any hills in that region. Even if there were, the shadows they cast would have been amorphous. But these were symmetrical. And they occupied a comparatively wide area. Delaney made quick calculations. Thirty square kilometers? In the middle of an otherwise dramatically flat section of the Yucatan rain forest? What the hell was going on?

4

'For our final report, something old discovered by something new. Computer-enhanced photographs received from the space shuttle, Atlantis, have revealed what appears to be a large area of unsuspected Mayan ruins in a remote section of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. The rain forest in that region is so dense and inaccessible that it could take months before a preliminary assessment of the ruins can be completed, but a spokesperson for the Mexican government indicated that the apparent scope of the ruins suggests that they have the potential to rival the pyramids, palaces, and temples at legendary Chichen Itza. To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so we move on - into the past. This is Dan Rather. For CBS news, good evening.'

5

The Virgin Islands.

The visitor noted that several more artifacts - figurines, ceramics, and masks - had been added to the collection. All were authentic, expensive, and illegally obtained examples of ancient Mayan craftsmanship. 'The woman disappeared.'

'What?' The old man, who'd been distracted as he attached an intravenous line to a needle in his arm, snapped his head up. 'Disappeared? You assured me that wasn't possible.'

'I believed it wasn't,' the fair-haired man said. His tone was somber. 'She was being paid so well and treated so lavishly that I thought it highly unlikely she would want to leave.'

The old man glowered, his thin body rigid with fury. Seated in a leather chair in the main cabin of his two-hundred-foot-long yacht, flanked by displays of his current passion, Mayan art, he stretched his gaunt frame to its maximum. His gaze intensified by his glasses, his pinched expression emphasized by his thick, white hair, he dominated the cabin, even though he wasn't tall. 'Human nature. Damn it, that's always been your problem. You're excellent when it comes to tactics. But your emotional range is so limited that you don't understand.'

'She was lonely,' the pleasant-faced man said. 'I anticipated that possibility. My people were watching her in case she attempted to do something foolish. Her maid, her butler, her chauffeur, the doorman at her condominium building in Manhattan - all of them worked for me. Every exit from that building was constantly watched. On those rare occasions when she had permission to leave it, she was followed.'

'And yet,' the old man rasped, his nostrils flaring with angry sarcasm,'she managed to disappear.' His white hair contrasted with the pewter tint of his skin, which in turn was emphasized by the gray of his robe, the left sleeve of which was rolled up to admit the intravenous tube leading into his arm. 'You. I blame you.' He pointed his bony, right index finger. 'Everything depends on her. How in God's name did this happen?'

The well-dressed man gestured in frustration. 'I don't know. My people don't know. It happened last night. Between two a.m. when the maid last saw her and noon when the maid decided to check on her, the woman managed to get out of the condo and the building. We have no idea how. When I learned what had happened, I decided I'd better report to you in person rather than use the telephone. I caught the first available flight.' He gestured toward the starboard windows of the cabin and the numerous other yachts in St Thomas' hotel-rimmed, sunset-tinted harbor.

The old man squinted. 'Willingness to face blame. I respect that. It's rare for a sociopath to have character. Does she have access to her bank account?'

'No. Since she was provided with all the comforts she wanted, she had no need to spend money. Hence she didn't realize that the bank statements she was shown, the ones that indicated her salary deposits, were for an account that required me to cosign for withdrawals. The money's inaccessible to her.'

'Jewelry?'

'She took it all. The diamond necklace alone is worth four-hundred-thousand dollars. In theory. But of course, the stones aren't genuine. Still, there are only certain establishments in the New York area that would have the resources to buy such an item, if it weren't a copy. And since she doesn't know it's a copy, she'll have to go to them. My people are watching those establishments.'

The old man frowned. 'Assuming she's able to obtain money, and I suspect she will, given the ingenuity she showed in escaping your people, where would she go? What can she do?'

'She'd be a fool to go back to her former patterns. She has to assume that we'll watch her relatives, her friends, and her previous business associates, that we'll tap their phones, et cetera. If she's smart, and she's proven she is, she'll go to ground. The last thing she wants is trouble from us.'

'Us?'

'From you.'

The old man gestured with a wrinkled hand, his eyes harsh with disapproval yet glinting with superiority. 'Human nature. You still haven't learned the lesson. If loneliness made her run, the one thing she won't do is go to ground. She'll want companionship. She'll want the security and satisfaction of a life that she creates, not one that's forced upon her. She won't trade one cage for another.'

'Then what will.?'

The old man stared at his intravenous line and brooded. 'She'll get help.'

'From?'

'There are only two reasons for someone to help someone else,' the old man said. 'Money and love. We can't possibly anticipate who would work for her. But I wonder if she would trust a stranger who is loyal to her only for money. I suspect that someone in her position would prefer to depend on love, or at least friendship. Who in her background has the skills to help her?'

'As I told you, her family, friends, and former contacts are under surveillance.'

'No. Look deeper. She wouldn't have fled unless she had a plan. Somewhere there's someone who knows about this sort of thing and whom she knows she can ask for help. Someone who isn't obvious. Someone she trusts.'

'I'll get started immediately.'

'You've disappointed me,' the old man said. 'Your success in Chicago and Guatemala was so encouraging that I'd arranged a reward for you. Now, I'm afraid, I'll have to withhold it.'

An intercom buzzed on a table beside the old man's chair. He pressed a button. 'I told you not to interrupt me.'

'Sheik Hazim is returning your telephone call, Professor,' a female voice said.

'Of course. I'll speak to him.' The old man rested his hand on the telephone beside the intercom. But before he picked it up, he told his visitor, his voice stern and flinty, 'Don't disappoint me again.' He adjusted the flow of red liquid that drained from an intravenous bottle into his arm - blood treated with hormones from unborn lambs. 'Find the bitch before she ruins everything. If Delgado discovers she's loose, if he discovers she's out of control, he'll go after her and possibly us.'

'I can deal with Delgado.'

'Of that, I have no doubt. Without Delgado, however, I can't do business. I can't get access to the ruins. And that would make me very unhappy. You do not want to be near me when I am unhappy.'

'No, sir.'

'Get out.'

TWO

1

Cancun, Mexico.

All the hotels were shaped like Mayan temples, a row of terraced pyramids along the four-lane highway dividing the sandbar that until twenty-five years ago had been uninhabited. Buchanan ignored them and the red, brick sidewalk along which, concentrating, he walked with deceptive calm. As twilight thickened into night, what he paid attention to were the disturbing proximity of tourists before and behind him, the threatening rumble and glare of traffic passing him on the right, and the ominous shadows among the palm trees that flanked the hotels on his left.

Something was wrong. Every instinct and intuition warned him. His stomach felt rigid. He tried to tell himself that he was merely experiencing the equivalent of stage fright. But his experience of too many dangerous missions had taught him the hard way to pay attention to the visceral, warning signals that alerted him when something wasn't as it should be.

But what? Buchanan strained to analyze. Your preparation was thorough. Your bait for the target is perfect. Why in God's name are you so nervous?

Burn-out? Too many assignments? Too many identities? Too many high-wire, juggling acts?

No, Buchanan mentally insisted. I know what I'm doing. After eight years, after having survived this long, I recognize the difference between nerves and.

Relax. You're on top of things. Give yourself a break. It's hot. It's muggy. You're under stress. You've done this a hundred times before. Your plan is solid. The bottom line is quit second-guessing. Get control of your doubts, and do your job.

Sure, Buchanan thought. But he wasn't convinced. Maintaining his deceptively leisurely pace in spite of the pressure in his chest, he shifted leftward, relieved to escape the threatening traffic. Past the equally threatening shadows of the dense, colorfully flowered shrubs that lined the driveway, he proceeded warily up the curving entrance toward the glistening, Mayan-temple shape of Club Internacional.

2

Buchanan's appointment was for nine-thirty, but he took care to arrive ten minutes early in order to survey the meeting place and verify that nothing about the site had changed to jeopardize the rendezvous. For the past three evenings, he'd visited this hotel exactly at this time, and on each occasion, he'd satisfied himself that the location was perfect.

The problem was that this night wasn't those other nights. A plan that existed perfectly on paper had to match the'real world,' and the real world had a dangerous habit of changing from day to day. A fire might have damaged the building. Or the site might be so unusually crowded that a discreet, nonetheless damning conversation could be easily overheard. An exit might be blocked. There were too many variables. If anything disturbed him, Buchanan would disguise his concern and drift back into the night. Then by prior agreement, when his contact arrived at nine-thirty and didn't see Buchanan, the contact would know that the circumstance wasn't ideal, a euphemism for 'get your ass out of here,' that the meeting had been postponed until eight tomorrow morning at breakfast at another hotel, and of course Buchanan had arranged a further backup plan in case that second meeting, too, was postponed. Because Buchanan had to assure his contact that every precaution was being considered, that the safety of the contact was Buchanan's primary consideration.

So Buchanan strolled past the two Mexican porters at the entrance to Club Internacional. Inside the lobby, he eased beyond a group of jovial American tourists on their way to Cancun's Hard Rock Cafe and tried not to breathe the perfumed, acrid odor of insecticide that the hotel periodically sprayed along its corridors to discourage the area's considerable population of cockroaches. Buchanan wondered which the guests hated more - the offending spray or the ubiquitous insects which after a while seemed as commonplace as the area's numerous lizards. While a maid unobtrusively swept up dead insects, Buchanan hesitated at the rear of the lobby just long enough to notice a Japanese guest coming through a door beside the gift shop on the left. That door, Buchanan knew, led to balconies, rooms, and stairwells to the beach. One of many exits. In working order. So far so good.

To his right, he proceeded along a short hallway and came to steps that went down to a restaurant. As on previous nights, the restaurant was moderately busy, just enough for Buchanan and his contact to be inconspicuous but not so busy that they'd be surrounded by potential eavesdroppers.

Again so far so good. Perhaps I'm wrong, Buchanan thought.

Perhaps everything's going to be fine.

Don't kid yourself, a warning voice insisted.

Hey, I'm not about to cancel a meeting just because I've got a case of nerves.

He felt briefly reassured when a Mexican waiter came over and agreed to sit him at the table he requested. That table was ideally situated in the far right corner, away from the other diners, near the exit to the hotel's gardens. Buchanan chose a chair that put his back to the wall and gave him a view of the stairs leading down to the restaurant. The air conditioning cooled his sweat. He glanced at his watch. Nine twenty-five. His contact would be here in five minutes. Pretending to study a menu, he tried to seem calm.

At once, pulse increasing, he noticed two men appear at the top of the stairs that led to the restaurant.

But Buchanan had expected to meet only one man.

Both were Hispanic. Both wore beige, linen suits that were stylishly wrinkled, their yellow, silk shirts open to their breastbones. Each had a gold Rolex watch as well as several gold neckchains and bracelets. Each was thin, in his thirties, with chiseled, narrow, severe features and thick, dark, slicked-back hair gathered in a ponytail. Their hooded eyes were as dark as their hair, and like their hair, their eyes glinted. Predator's eyes. Hawk's eyes. Merciless eyes. The men were gemelos, twins, and as they descended toward the restaurant, they braced their shoulders, puffed out their chests, and exuded confidence, the world at their command.

Buchanan tried to look relaxed while he intensified his awareness. The men immediately headed in his direction. Their footsoldiers would have given them his description, Buchanan knew. More, there would have been surreptitious photographs taken of him. He dreaded being photographed.

As the twins reached his table, Buchanan stood to shake hands with them. He deliberately hadn't worn a jacket, wanting them to see that he wasn't armed. They would note that his navy shirt was tucked under his belt rather than hanging loose and possibly concealing a pistol. They would also note that his shirt was somewhat tight, sufficiently so that if he were hiding a tape recorder or a transmitting device, the outline would be obvious. Of course, state-of-the-art transmitters were so miniaturized that one could easily be disguised as a button on his shirt, just as a small handgun could be secured above his ankle beneath his pants. Not that Buchanan would need a handgun at this proximity. The ballpoint pen in his shirt pocket could be equally lethal. Nonetheless Buchanan knew that these hawk-eyed men would appreciate his gesture of apparent openness. At the same time, he took for granted that, despite their display of confidence, they would maintain the wariness that had kept them alive this long.

They greeted him in English.

Buchanan replied in Spanish, 'Thank you for meeting me.' He used 'ustedes,' the formal word for 'you.'

'De nada,' the first man said and gestured for Buchanan to sit.

Both glanced around the restaurant, seemed satisfied by the meeting place, and sat as well. No doubt, Buchanan thought, they'd ordered subordinates to check the restaurant's suitability before they'd arrived. Presumably they also had stationed guards inconspicuously outside the hotel and in the corridor that led to the restaurant. As a further precaution, they took napkins from the table, spread them on their laps, and made a smooth, practiced motion with their right hands that told Buchanan they'd slid a pistol beneath each napkin.

Finally settled, they studied him.

'You have cojones,' the first twin said.

'Gracias.'

'And the luck of a fool,' the second twin said. 'We could have dealt with you permanently at any time.'

'Claro que si,' Buchanan said. 'Of course. But I hoped that you would listen to reason. I have confidence in the business opportunity I came to offer you.'

'Our business is already satisfying,' the first twin said.

'So what makes you think that you can make our business even more satisfying?' The second twin squinted.

Buchanan spoke softly. 'Because you know how satisfying my own business has become. I take for granted that I'm reasoning with disciplined businessmen. Professionals. The proof is that you didn't respond to my efforts by. as you put it. dealing with me permanently. You saw how.'

Buchanan coughed discreetly in warning and cocked his head to the left.

Their waiter approached and gave them menus. He compared his two Hispanic guests to the solitary norteamericano and obviously decided that since Cancun was Mexico's most popular resort for Americans, he would give Buchanan the most attention. 'Would you like a drink, senores?

'Tequila for me. Y para mis compadres?' Buchanan turned to them.

'The same,' the first twin said. 'Bring lime and salt.'

'Make it doubles for everyone,' the second twin said.

As the waiter departed, the first twin scowled, leaned over the table, almost touching Buchanan, and whispered hoarsely, 'No more bullshit, Se¤or Potter,' the first time he'd used Buchanan's pseudonym. 'What do you want from us? This is your one and only chance.' He reached toward the napkin that covered his lap and patted his pistol. 'Give us a reason not to kill you.'

3

The briefing had been at a safe site in Fairfax, Virginia, an apartment on the second story of a sprawling complex into which Buchanan could easily blend. He had rented it under his then pseudonym of Brian MacDonald. He had a driver's license, a passport, a birth certificate, and several credit cards in that name as well as a detailed fictional background for that temporary identity. His telephone bills indicated that he phoned a number in Philadelphia every Sunday evening, and if anyone investigating Brian MacDonald had called that number, a cheery female receptionist would have answered, 'Golden Years Retirement Home.' That establishment did in fact exist, a profitable cover organization for Buchanan's employers, and its records indicated that a Mrs MacDonald, Brian's 'mother,' was in residence. She wasn't in her room at the moment, but she'd be pleased to return a call, and soon an elderly woman who worked for Buchanan's employers would return the call, the destination of which would of course be traced, the conversation recorded.

Buchanan's fictitious occupation at that time, three months earlier, had been that of a computer programmer. He had an interest in and talent for computers, so that part of his assumed identity was easy to establish. He worked at home, he told anyone who happened to ask, and the powerful IBM in his apartment, supplied by his employers, validated his claim. As a further proof of his bogus identity, each Thursday he sent backup computer disks via Federal Express to New Age Technology in Boston, another profitable cover organization for Buchanan's employers, but to maintain the skills of his true occupation, each evening for three hours he exercised at the local Gold's Gym.

Mostly he waited, trying to be patient, maintaining discipline, eager to do his real work. So when an executive from New Age Technology at last phoned, announced that he'd be in Fairfax on business, and wondered if he could pay a visit, Buchanan thought, Soon. Soon I'll be useful. Soon I won't be bored.

His controller knocked on the door on schedule. That was four p.m. on a Friday, and when Buchanan-MacDonald glanced through the door's security eye, then let him in, the short, gaunt man in a rumpled suit placed his briefcase on the living room's coffee table, waited for Buchanan-MacDonald to close and bolt the entrance, then studied his surroundings and asked, 'Which would you prefer? To go for a walk or stay here?'

'The apartment's clean.'

'Good.' The hollow-cheeked controller opened his briefcase. 'I need your driver's license, your passport, your birth certificate, your credit cards, all of your documents for Brian MacDonald. Here are the release forms for you to sign, and here's my signed receipt.'

Buchanan complied.

'Now here are your further documents,' the thin-lipped controller continued, 'and the acceptance form for you to sign. Your new name is Edward Potter. You used to be employed as a. Well, it's all in this file. Every detail of your new background. Knowing how retentive your memory is, I assume that as usual you'll be able to absorb the information by the time I come back to retrieve the file tomorrow morning. What's wrong?'

'What took you so long to get in touch with me?' Buchanan asked. 'It's been two months.'

'After your last assignment, we wanted you to disappear for a while. Also we thought we'd have a use for you as Brian MacDonald. Now that scenario's been discarded. We've got a much more interesting project for you. I think you'll be pleased. It's as important as it is risky. It'll give you quite a rush.'

'Tell me about it.'

His controller studied him. 'I sometimes forget how intense field operatives can be, how anxious they are to. But then, of course, that's why you're field operatives. Because.'

'Because? I've asked myself that many times. What's the answer?'

'I should have thought that was obvious. You enjoy being someone else.'

'Yes. Exactly. So indulge me. Pretend I'm a method actor. What's my new character's motivation?'

4

In the restaurant in Cancun's Club Internacional, Buchanan showed no fear when the first twin threatened him. Instead he replied matter-of-factly, 'Give you a reason not to kill me? I can give you several million of them.'

'We have many millions as it is,' the first twin said. 'What makes you think a few more would make us risk trusting you?'

'Human nature. No matter how much money a person has, it's never enough. Besides,' Buchanan said, 'I didn't offer a few million. I offered several.''

'Hard to spend in prison. Impossible to spend in the grave,' the second twin said. 'The practical response to your offer is to eliminate your interference. We resent a competitor, and we have no need for a partner.'

In the background, the drone of conversing diners muffled their exchange.

'That's just the point,' Buchanan said, still showing no apprehension. 'I don't want to be your competitor, and you do need a partner.'

The second twin bristled. 'You have the nerve to tell us what we need. Your eggs are truly hardboiled.'

'But they can be cracked,' the first twin growled.

'Definitely,' Buchanan said. 'I knew the danger when I set up shop here.'

'Not only here, but in Merida, Acapulco, and Puerto Vallarta,' the second twin said angrily.

'Plus a few other resorts where you apparently don't know I've established contacts.'

The first twin's eyes narrowed, emphasizing their hawklike intensity. 'You have the impudence to brag to our faces.'

'No.' Buchanan shook his head emphatically. 'I'm not bragging. I'm being candid. I hope you'll appreciate my honesty. I assure you, I'm not being disrespectful.'

The twins considered his apology, frowned at each other, nodded with sullen reluctance, and leaned back in their chairs.

'But by your own admission, you've been extremely industrious,' the second twin said. 'And at our expense.'

'How else could I have attracted your attention?' Buchanan spread his hands deferentially. 'Consider the risk I took, a norteamericano, suddenly conducting business not only in Mexico, but in your backyard, in your country's resorts, especially here in Cancun. Even with my special knowledge, I had no idea who to approach. Fernandez, I suspected you,' Buchanan told the first man. 'But I had no idea you had a twin, and to tell the truth' - Buchanan switched his attention to the second man - 'I don't know which of you is Fernandez. When you entered this restaurant, I confess I was stunned. Gemelos. Twins. That explains so much. It was never clear to me how Fernandez could be in two places, Merida and Acapulco, for example, at one time.'

The first man twisted his thin lips in what passed for a grin. 'That was our intention. To cause confusion.' Abruptly he sobered. 'But how did you know that even one of us had the first name of Fernandez?' He spoke with increasing speed and ferocity. 'What is this special information to which you refer? When our subordinates paid you our courtesy of warning you to stop interfering with our business, why did you ask for this meeting and give our subordinates the names on this sheet of paper?

To demonstrate, the first twin reached into his wrinkled, linen suit coat and produced a folded page. He slapped it onto the table. 'The names on this paper are some of our most trusted associates.'

'Well' - Buchanan shrugged -'that just goes to show.'

'Show what?

'How mistaken you can be about trusted associates.'

'Fucker of your mother, what are you talking about?' the second twin demanded.

So the bait really worked, Buchanan thought. I'm in! I've got their attention! Hell, they wouldn't have both shown up if they weren't afraid. That list of names spooked them more than I hoped.

'What am I talking about?' Buchanan said. 'I'm talking about why you should trust me instead of those bastards. I used to belong to the.'

Again Buchanan coughed in warning.

The twins stiffened as their waiter returned, carrying a tray from which he set onto the table a plate of sliced limes, a bowl of salt, a small spoon, and six shot glasses filled with amber tequila.

'Gracias,' Buchanan said. 'Give us ten minutes before we order dinner.'

He used the tiny, metal spoon to place salt on his left hand, on the web of skin between his thumb and first finger. 'Salud,' he told the twins. He licked the salt from his hand, quickly swallowed the contents of one of the glasses, and as quickly bit into a slice of lime. The sour juice of the lime spurted over his tongue, mixing with the sweet taste of the tequila and the bitterness of the salt, the various flavors combining perfectly. His mouth puckered slightly. His eyes almost watered.

'Never mind drinking to our health. Just worry about yours,' the first twin said.

'I'm not worried,' Buchanan said. 'I think we're going to have a productive relationship.' He watched them lick salt, swallow tequila, and chew on wedges of lime.

Immediately they placed more salt on their hands and waited for him to do the same.

As Buchanan complied, it occurred to him that his was one of the few occupations in which the consumption of alcohol was a mandatory requirement. His opponents wouldn't trust anyone who didn't drink with them, the implication being that an abstainer had something to hide. So it was necessary to consume quantities of alcohol, for the purpose of gaining trust from those opponents. By vigilant practice, Buchanan had learned the limit of his tolerance for alcohol, just as he'd learned how believably to pretend that he'd exceeded that tolerance and to convince his opponents that he was drunk and hence saying the truth.

The narrow-faced twins raised their second glass of tequila, clearly expecting Buchanan to do the same. Their dark eyes glowed with the anticipation that he would soon lose control and reveal a weakness.

'You were saying,' the first twin said,'that you suspect the loyalty of our associates because you used to belong to.'

5

'The Drug Enforcement Administration,' Buchanan's controller had told him three months earlier. They'd sat opposite each other in the living room of the safe-site apartment in the sprawling complex in Fairfax, Virginia. Between them, on the coffee table, the gray-haired controller had spread documents, the details of Buchanan's new identity, what was known in the trade as his legend. 'You have to convince your targets that you used to be a special agent for the DEA.'

Buchanan, who was already assuming the characteristics of Edward Potter, deciding how the man would dress and what foods he preferred, pressed the tips of his fingers together almost prayerlike and raised them meditatively to his chin. 'Keep talking.'

'You wanted to know your character's motivation? Well, basically he's sick of seeing the war against drug dealers turn into a joke. He thinks the government hasn't provided sufficient funds to prove that it's serious about fighting the war. He's disgusted with CIA interference whenever the DEA gets close to the really big dealers. According to your new character, those big dealers are on the CIA payroll, supplying information about the politics in the volatile Third World countries from which they get their product. So naturally the CIA clamps down on the DEA whenever one of the agency's informants steps in shit.'

'Well, that part won't be hard to fake. The CIA does have the biggest Third World dealers on its payroll,' Buchanan said.

'Absolutely. However, that's about to change. Those Third World dealers have become too smug. The information they've been supplying isn't worth squat. They think they can take the agency's money, do virtually nothing in return, and in effect give the agency the finger. Apparently they didn't learn from our invasion of Panama.'

'Of course not,' Buchanan said. 'After we grabbed Noriega, other dealers took his place. Nothing changed, except children starved to death because of the economic embargo.'

'Good. You're beginning to sound like your new personality,' Buchanan-Potter's controller said.

'Hey, I lost friends in the Panama invasion. At the start, I believed the invasion was necessary. But when I saw the pathetic follow-up -why doesn't the American government do things all the way?- I wanted to vomit.'

'Even better. You're convincing me, and I know you're acting, so obviously you've got a damned fine chance of convincing your targets.'

'But I'm not acting.'

'Buchanan, give it a rest, okay? We've got a lot of details to cover. So save your method-acting techniques until later.'

'Don't call me "Buchanan." My name is Edward Potter.'

'Sure, right, Edward. Maybe it'll give you further motivation to know that your assignment is intended to compensate for the half-hearted follow-up to what happened in Panama. Your ultimate objective is to scare the living be Jesus out of the agency's Third World drug-lord informants who still make jokes about the American lives lost in the useless invasion of Panama.'

'No. That's Buchanan's motivation. I don't want to hear that. I don't want my mind to be contaminated. Just tell me about Edward Potter. What's his motivation?'

The pallid controller lowered his head, shook it, and sighed. 'I have to tell you, Buchanan-'

'Potter.'

'-sometimes you worry me. Sometimes I think you absorb yourself too much in your assumed identities.'

'But you're not risking your ass if I forget who the hell I'm supposed to be. So don't fool with my life. From now on, talk to me with the assumption that I'm Edward Potter.'

Again the controller sighed. 'Whatever you want, Edward. Your wife divorced you because you were too devoted to your job and not enough to her and your two sons. She remarried. Because of the numerous threats you've received from drug dealers, she asked for and was granted a court order that forbids you to come anywhere near her and your children without prior approval from her and without guarantees of safety. Her new husband earns two hundred thousand a year as an owner of several health spas. You, by comparison, earn a paltry forty thousand, or rather used to earn that amount, a salary that's especially humiliating in contrast with the millions earned by the scum you arrested and saw released on bail and eventually plea-bargained to a short-term sentence in a minimum-security prison. You're convinced that if you'd accepted the bribes you were offered, your wife would have been satisfied with a new house, et cetera, and wouldn't have left you. When everything you believed in collapsed, you got pissed. You decided that by God, if you couldn't beat the drug lords, you'd join them. You'd show your fucking wife that you could earn a hundred times as much as her faggot new husband. Your dick was bigger than his.'

'Yes,' Buchanan-Potter said. 'My dick is bigger.'

The controller stared. 'Amazing.'

Buchanan-Potter's cheek muscles hardened. 'So how do I get even?'

6

'You used to be an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration? In the restaurant in Cancun's Club International, the first Hispanic twin spoke softly yet with paradoxical force. Shocked, he and his brother jerked back in their chairs.

'Take it easy,' Buchanan said. 'I'm on your side now.'

'Certainly,' the second twin said derisively. 'By all means. Of course.'

'And you truly expect us to believe this?' the first twin demanded. 'To accept that you're a defector and to trust you?'

'It's not as if I haven't made a gesture of good faith,' Buchanan said. 'That folded sheet of paper beneath your hand. If you put pressure on the Bahamian bank officials you hire to launder money, you'll find that the supposedly loyal associates I mentioned on that list all have secret, offshore bank accounts. Now I realize that graft is a way of life down here. But I think you'll agree that the amounts your supposedly loyal associates put away for a rainy day are considerably higher than payoffs and kickbacks alone would explain.'

The second twin squinted. 'Assuming for the moment that your information is correct.'

'Oh, it is. That goes without saying. After all, I'm guaranteeing it with the best collateral imaginable.'

'And what is that?' The first twin tapped his fingers on the table.

'My life. If I'm lying about those bank accounts - and it won't be hard for you to discover if I am - you'll have me killed.'

'But in the meantime, perhaps you'll be able to accomplish whatever you intend and drop out of sight before we can get our hands on you.' The second twin squinted more severely.

'What could I possibly accomplish?' Buchanan gestured. 'Until you investigate the men on that list and decide if my information is valuable, you won't let me into your confidence. You won't do business with me.'

'We might not do business with you, even if you're telling the truth.' The first twin kept tapping his fingers on the table.

'There's always that possibility.' Buchanan shrugged. 'But the way I see it, I'm taking all the risks and you're taking none. Certainly there's nothing risky about your meeting me here - at a mutually agreeable, neutral place - for drinks and dinner. At the worst, you've been inconvenienced. From my point of view, however, at the worst, I get dead.'

Without looking at each other, the twins seemed to reach a mutual conclusion.

'Exactamente.' The second twin turned toward the half-filled restaurant, caught their waiter's attention, pointed toward the glasses on their table, held up two fingers, and then waved his hand in a circle, indicating he wanted another round of tequila, doubles for everyone. Seeing the waiter nod, he pivoted toward Buchanan. 'You interrupted before I could finish my earlier question.'

'Perd¢n. So ask it now.'

'Assuming you're telling the truth about these offshore bank accounts, how do you explain the considerable amounts you claim our associates have hidden from us? What is the source of those funds? They must be bribes from drug-enforcement officers for supplying information. Because the only other explanation would be that they're stealing a portion of our merchandise or else the money we collect, and I assure you we can account for every kilo we send to the United States and every dollar we get back.'

Buchanan shook his head. 'Bribes alone won't explain the tremendous sums in these offshore accounts. As you're aware, drug-enforcement officers have never been known for being overly generous with their bribes. Their budget's stretched too thin. But as it happens, you're wrong about having protected yourselves against theft. Your men are running an extremely sophisticated skim operation.'

'What? The second twin looked stunned. 'No es posible.'

'It's not only possible. It's a fact.'

'I'm telling you, we'd know!'

'Not this way. Not the way they're doing it. They're using rogue DEA officers to help them skim. How many shipments did you lose last year? An approximate percentage. Ten percent?'

'More or less,' the first twin said. 'It's inevitable that some of our shipments will be discovered. Couriers get nervous and make mistakes. Or DEA officers happen to be at the right place at the right time. We expect a certain percentage of losses. It goes with the business.'

'But what if some of those couriers weren't as nervous as they pretended?' Buchanan asked. 'And what if those DEA officers had advance warning to be at the right place at the right time? And what if those couriers and DEA officers were in business for themselves?'

As the waiter brought the second round of drinks, the group became silent. The moment the waiter departed, they assessed the restaurant's customers, assured themselves that no one was close enough to overhear, then faced each other, raising glasses, going through the ritual of consuming salt, tequila, and lime.

'Finish what you were saying.' The first twin clearly hoped that the alcohol would affect Buchanan's judgment and reveal a weakness.

'Their system's quite clever.' Buchanan set down the slice of lime from which he'd chewed. 'The rogue agents from the DEA have to satisfy their superiors that they're doing their job. So they surrender a portion of what they confiscate. Then the government brags about how it's winning the war on drugs, and the American television networks report the latest victory on the evening news. But what the government doesn't know, and of course the American public, is that other shipments were confiscated and that those shipments were sold to American drug dealers. The money from those sales - millions - is divided between the rogue DEA officers and the trusted associates you've put in charge of sending the shipments. As far as you're concerned, those shipments have been accounted for. By your own admission, you expect those losses. As long as you receive your usual profit, why would you think you were being cheated?'

Both twins glowered.

'How do you know this? the second twin rasped.

'Because, as I told you, I used to belong to the DEA. I wasn't on the take. I was one of the good guys. That's how I thought of myself, dummy that I was. I did my job. But I'm not blind. I saw what was going on. The thing is, drug enforcement is the same as any other police work. You don't turn against your fellow officers. If you do, they have ways to make your life a nightmare. So I had to keep quiet. And then.'

Scowling, Buchanan gulped his further glass of tequila.

'Yes? And then?' The second twin leaned toward him.

'That's none of your business.'

'With respect, given our reason for meeting here, it's very much our business.'

'I had personal problems,' Buchanan said.

'Don't we all? We're men of the world. We understand personal problems only too well. There's no need to be defensive. Unburden yourself. It's good for the soul. What problems could have.?'

'I prefer not to talk about it.' Buchanan made his elbow slip off the table, as if the tequila had started to work on him. 'I've told you what I came to say. You know how to reach me. Use your contacts to investigate your associates' offshore bank accounts. When you find out I was telling the truth, I hope you'll decide that the three of us can cooperate.'

With heart-stopping recognition, Buchanan glanced toward the stairs that led down to the restaurant and noticed a man, an American, in company with an Hispanic woman who wore a revealing dress and too much makeup, approach a waiter and ask for a table. The American was in his forties, tall, with extremely broad shoulders and a bulky chest, his sandy hair trimmed upward in a brush cut. His ample stomach protruded against his too-small, green T-shirt and hung over the waist on his low-slung jeans. He wore sneakers and puffed on a cigarette as he gave orders to the waiter.

Oh, Jesus, Buchanan thought. His mind raced. How am I going to-?

The first twin shook his head. 'Too many things about you trouble us.'

Desperate to avoid the man who'd entered the restaurant, Buchanan concentrated on his targets.

'Crawford!' a booming voice called.

Buchanan ignored it. 'What exactly troubles you?'

'Crawford! By Jesus, long time no see!' The booming voice cracked crustily and became a smoker's cough.

Buchanan continued to direct his attention straight toward his targets.

'Crawford!' the voice boomed louder. 'Have you gone deaf? Don't you hear me? Where by Jesus did you get to after Iraq?' The voice was made more conspicuous because of its heavy, drawling Texas accent. 'When they flew us to Germany and we touched down in Frankfurt, I wanted to buy you a drink to celebrate gettin' out of that Arab hell hole. But one minute you was there in the terminal with all them officials greetin' us and reporters aimin' their cameras. The next minute you dropped out of sight like one of our broken drill bits down a dry well.'

The drawling voice boomed so close that Buchanan couldn't possibly pretend to ignore it. He shifted his gaze from his fidgeting targets toward the looming, sun-and-alcohol-reddened face of the beefy American.

'I beg your pardon?' Buchanan asked.

'Crawford. Don't you recognize your ol' buddy? This is Big Bob Bailey talkin' to you. Come on, you can't have forgotten me. We was prisoners together in Kuwait City and Baghdad. Jesus, who'd have ever figured that nutcase would actually believe he could get away with invadin' Kuwait? I've worked my share of tough jobs, but when those Iraqi tanks pulled onto our drillin' site, I don't mind admittin' I was so shittin' scared I.'

Buchanan shook his head in confusion.

'Crawford, have you got post trauma whatever the hell the shrinks who talked to me in Germany called it? Have you been drinkin' more than I have? This is Big Bob Bailey speakin' to you. We and a bunch of other American oil workers was held hostages together.'

'I'm pleased to meet you, Bob,' Buchanan said. 'But apparently you've confused me with someone else.'

The twins watched Buchanan intensely.

'Give me a break. Your name is Crawford,' the beefy American said. 'Jim Crawford.'

'Nope. Sorry. My name's Ed Potter.'

'But-'

'Honestly I'm not Jim Crawford. I'm Ed Potter, and I've never seen you before. Whoever Jim Crawford is, I must resemble him.'

'More than resemble, and that's a damned fact.'

'But you're mistaken. I'm not him.'

The twins watched Buchanan with greater intensity.

'Well, I'll be a.' The American looked uneasy, his sun-and-alcohol-reddened face becoming redder with embarrassment. 'Sorry, pal. I would have sworn. I must have been partyin' too much. Here, let me make up for interruptin' and buy you and your friends a drink. Honest to God, I didn't mean to bother you.' The American backed off, staggering slightly as he retreated.

'No problem,' Buchanan said.

7

But it was a problem. A big problem. One of the nightmares Buchanan dreaded was the risk that a contact from a previous assignment would wander into a present one. Twice in Buchanan's career, fellow specialists had happened to enter locations (a pub in London, a cafe in Paris) where Buchanan was using false identities to recruit informants who might help him infiltrate terrorist networks. In each case, Buchanan had noticed the subtle look of recognition in his fellow operative's eyes. Briefly, Buchanan had felt nervous. However, his counterpart - obeying an absolute rule of tradecraft - had ignored Buchanan and soon, when it seemed natural, had left the location.

But while Buchanan could count on the tact of a professional, there was no way to guard against the spontaneity of a civilian whom he'd encountered on another mission, a civilian who had no idea of Buchanan's true occupation. The beefy American - now retreating in confusion to a table where his female escort waited - had indeed known Buchanan in Kuwait City as well as in Baghdad, and Buchanan's name at that time had indeed been Jim Crawford. Prior to the Allied counterstrike, Buchanan had been inserted at night via a high-altitude, low-opening parachute drop into Kuwait to reconnoitre Iraqi defenses. Buchanan had buried his jump equipment in the desert, then hiked through the dark toward the lights of Kuwait City. He wore civilian clothes - a soiled workshirt and jeans - and carried documents that identified him as an American oil worker from Oklahoma. If stopped, his cover story would be that he'd gone into hiding when the Iraqis invaded. His scraggly beard, unkempt hair, and haggard appearance would reinforce that story. For three weeks, aided by Allied sympathizers, he was able to use a small, two-way radio to broadcast important information to his superiors, but prior to his extraction by submarine, an Iraqi patrol had discovered him on the way to the beach.

It wasn't any wonder that Big Bob Bailey shook his head in confusion as he joined his female escort at a table in the restaurant. After all, Buchanan had spent a month with Bailey and other captive oil workers, first in the confinement of a demolished, Kuwait City hotel, then in one of several trucks that transported the Americans from Kuwait to Iraq, and finally in a warehouse in Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein eventually set free the Americans 'as a Christmas present to the United States.' They were flown via Iraqi Airlines to various destinations, one of which was Frankfurt, Germany. Big Bob Bailey sat next to Buchanan during the latter flight. Big Bob Bailey chattered endlessly, with nervous relief, about how when they touched down he intended to get good and drunk with his good ol' pal, Jim Crawford. But when they entered the terminal, Jim Crawford disappeared among the crowd, shielded by plain-clothed, Special Operations personnel who hurried Buchanan to a safe site and intensely debriefed him.

That had been twelve assignments ago, however, and Big Bob Bailey had become just another vaguely remembered contact to whom Buchanan had played one of his numerous roles.

Big Bob Bailey. Damn it, he was from another life. From several lives past. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was ancient history. Big Bob Bailey was just a minor character in.

But at the moment, Big Bob Bailey was very much a major character in this life, Buchanan thought in dismay.

And Big Bob Bailey wouldn't stop looking over at Buchanan, all the while squinting and shaking his head as if he wasn't just confused now but angry, convinced that Buchanan was Jim Crawford and insulted because Buchanan wouldn't admit it.

Jesus, Buchanan thought, he looks pissed off enough that he might come over again! If he does, my cover will be absolutely destroyed. These two Mexican drug distributors didn't stay alive this long by being idiots. Check their eyes. They're already wondering what's going on. I've got to.

'I guess it's a variation on an old joke,' he told the first twin. 'South of the border, all Americans look alike, sometimes even to each other.'

'Yes,' the first twin replied.

'Very amusing,' the second twin said flatly.

'But he certainly attracted attention to us,' Buchanan continued.

'I think the sooner we get out of here, the better,' the second twin said. 'Especially before that man comes back here, which I suspect he's about to do.'

'Fine with me. Let's go.' Buchanan stood to walk toward the stairs that led up from the restaurant.

'No, this way,' the second twin said. He touched Buchanan's arm and gestured toward the rear entrance, a sliding glass door that gave access to the hotel's night-shrouded gardens.

'Good idea,' Buchanan said. 'It's faster. Less conspicuous.' He signaled the waiter that he'd left money on the table and turned toward the glass door.

As Buchanan stepped from the restaurant into the humid, fragrant gardens, as he heard the glass door being slid shut behind him, he noticed that the twins had positioned themselves on either side of him. He noticed as well that they held the napkins beneath which each had earlier concealed a pistol in his lap, and the napkins didn't look empty. Finally, he noticed a piece of the night step from between tall bushes to the left of the door, bushes that would have given the bodyguard a hidden view through the glass while Buchanan spoke with the twins.

The bodyguard was Hispanic, unusually tall and large-boned.

Like the twins, he held a pistol. Hard to tell in the shadows, but it looked like a Beretta 9-millimeter equipped with a sound-suppressor.

And imitating the expression on his employers' faces, the bodyguard scowled.

8

'Who the fuck are you?' the first twin demanded, jabbing Buchanan's chest.

'Hey, what are you-?' Buchanan tried to object.

'We're too close to the windows of the restaurant. Someone inside will see,' the second twin cautioned his brother. 'We need to go down to the beach.'

'Yes,' the first twin said. 'The beach. The fucking beach.'

'Todavia no. Not yet,' the bodyguard warned. He unhooked a handheld metal detector from his belt and quickly but thoroughly scanned it over Buchanan.

The metal detector beeped three times.

'His belt buckle. His keys. A pen,' the bodyguard said, not needing to explain that the buckle might conceal a knife, that the keys and pen could be used as weapons.

'Take off your belt,' the first twin ordered Buchanan. 'Drop your keys and the pen on the ground.'

'What's wrong? I don't understand,' Buchanan insisted.

The second twin showed his pistol, a Browning 9-millimeter. 'Do what you're told.'

The bodyguard jabbed his Beretta into Buchanan's left kidney. 'Rapido. Ahora. No-'

Buchanan complied, removing his belt, dropping it along with his keys and his pen.

The first twin snatched them up.

The second twin shoved Buchanan away from the restaurant toward the gardens. The bodyguard kept the Beretta low, inconspicuous, and followed.

9

The gardens were spacious, filled with flowering shrubs, trickling pools, and meandering paths. Here and there, small lights of various colors projected from the ground, illuminating the walkways, tinting the shrubs, reflecting off the pools. Nonetheless, compared to the glare from the windows of the towering hotel, the garden was cloaked in darkness. Anyone who happened to look out would see merely the vague, moving shadows of four men out for a stroll, Buchanan thought. Certainly an observer wouldn't be able to see that three of the men held pistols by their sides. Not that it mattered. If anyone did see the weapons and felt compelled to phone the police, whatever was going to happen would have ended by the time the police arrived.

As Buchanan proceeded along a walkway toward the splash of waves on the beach, he assessed his options. One was to take advantage of the garden's darkness, overpower his captors, and escape, using the shrubs for cover in case any of his captors survived his attack and starting shooting. Or at least Buchanan could attempt to escape. The problem was that his captors would be anticipating the likelihood of his using the darkness. They'd be primed for a sudden movement, and as soon as he made one, he'd be shot. The sound-suppressor on the bodyguard's Beretta would prevent anyone in the hotel from hearing the weapon's report. By the time Buchanan's corpse was discovered, the three Hispanics would be far from the area.

That wasn't the only problem, Buchanan thought. If he did manage to catch the Hispanics by surprise, the darkness that initially helped him might then work against him. All he needed to do was collide with an unseen object as he fought with his captors. If he lost his balance.

But a further problem - and the one to which Buchanan gave the most importance - was that the Hispanics might be threatening him merely to test him. After all, he couldn't expect the twins to believe his cover story simply because his manner of presenting it was confident and convincing. They'd need all sorts of proof about his authenticity. All sorts. Every detail of his fictitious background would bear up under investigation. Buchanan's controllers had made sure of that. A female operative was posing as Ed Potter's ex-wife. A male operative was posing as her new husband. Each had a well-documented fictitious background, and each had been coached about what to say if anyone asked questions. Certain members of the DEA were prepared to claim that they'd known Ed Potter when he was an agent. In addition, the details of Ed Potter's DBA career had been planted in a dossier in government computers.

But perhaps Buchanan's opponents would take the solidity of his cover story for granted. Then what other way did they have to verify his authenticity? The more Buchanan thought about it, the more the issue became: were the twins truly furious or only pretending to be? Would the twins question his credibility just because a drunken American had claimed to have known him as Jim Crawford, or was it more likely that the twins would take advantage of the drunken American's claim and use it as a pretense for intimidating Buchanan, for trying their best to frighten him, for doing their damnedest to find a weakness in his confidence?

Layers within layers. Nothing was ever self-evident, Buchanan thought in turmoil, as his captors nudged him along a path toward the muted lights of an outdoor bar at the edge of the beach.

The bar had a sloping, thatched roof supported by wooden pillars. There weren't any walls. Bamboo tables and chairs surrounded the oval counter, giving several groups of drinkers a view of white-capped waves in the darkness. Sections of the hotel bordered the gardens, so that the only way for Buchanan and his captors to get to the beach was to pass near the bar.

'Do not expect those people to help you,' the first twin murmured on Buchanan's right as they neared the bar. 'If you make a commotion, we will shoot you in front of them. They do not matter to us.'

'They are drunk, and we are in shadows. As witnesses, they are useless,' the second twin added on Buchanan's left.

'And they cannot see my pistol. I have covered it with my jacket. But be assured I am aiming it at your spine,' the bodyguard said behind Buchanan.

'Hey, let's lighten up, okay? I'm missing something here. Why all this talk about shooting?' Buchanan asked. 'I wish the three of you would relax and tell me what's going on. I came to you in good faith. I wasn't armed. I'm not a threat to you. But all of a sudden, you-'

'Shut up while we pass the people in the bar,' the first twin murmured in Spanish.

'Or the next words you speak will be your last,' the second twin said. 'Entiende? Understand?'

'Your logic is overwhelming,' Buchanan said.

A few tourists glanced up from their margaritas as Buchanan and the others walked by. Then one of the tourists finished telling a joke, and everybody at that table laughed.

The nearby outburst in reaction to the joke was so loud and unexpected that it made the twins flinch and jerk their heads toward the noise. Presumably the bodyguard was also surprised. There wasn't any way for Buchanan to know for certain. Still, the odds were in his favor. He could have done it then. He could have taken advantage of the distraction, smashed the side of his hands against the larynx of each twin, kicked backward with his left foot angled sideways to break the bodyguard's knee, and spun to snap the wrist that held the Beretta. He could have done all that in less than two seconds. The light from the bar made him able to see clearly enough that he wouldn't have had to worry about the accuracy of his blows. The agonizing damage to the throats of the twins would have prevented them from breathing. In their panic to fill their lungs with air, they would not have had time to think about shooting Buchanan, not before he'd finished the bodyguard and swung back to finish them. That would have taken another second or two. All told, four seconds, max, and Buchanan would have been safe.

But as confident as he was of success, Buchanan didn't do it. Because his safety wasn't the point. If all he cared about was his safety, he wouldn't have accepted this mission in the first place. The mission. That was the point. As the laughter of the tourists subsided, as the twins and their bodyguard regained their discipline, as Buchanan and his captors finished passing the bar and reached the murky beach, Buchanan told himself, How would you have explained it to your superiors? I can imagine the expression on their faces if you told them the mission failed because you got so nervous you killed your contacts. Your career would be over. This isn't the first time someone's aimed a pistol at you. You know damned well that on this assignment it would have happened sooner or later. These guys aren't dummies. Plus, they'll never trust you until they learn if you can handle stress. So let them find out. Be cool. Play out the role.

But what would Ed Potter do? Buchanan wondered. Wouldn't a corrupt ex-DEA officer try to escape if he thought the drug distributors from whom he was taking business had decided that killing him was less risky and less trouble than becoming partners with him?

Maybe, Buchanan thought. Ed Potter might try to run. After all, he isn't me. He doesn't have my training. But if I behave the way Ed Potter truly would, there's a good chance I'll get myself killed. I've got to modify the character. Right now, my audience is testing me for weakness.

But by God, they won't find any.

Club International had a sidewalk that ran parallel to the beach. The stars were brilliant, although the moon had not yet risen. A cool breeze came off the ocean out of the darkness. Hearing the distant echo of more laughter from the bar, which was shielded from him by a row of tall shrubs and a waist-high wall, Buchanan paused at the edge of the sidewalk.

'All right,' he said. 'Here's the beach. It's nice. Real nice. Now would you put those guns away and tell me what in God's name this is all about? I haven't done anything to-'

10

'God's name?' the first twin asked and shoved Buchanan off the sidewalk onto the sand. 'Yes, a name. Many names. That's what this is all about. Ed Potter. Jim Crawford.'

Buchanan felt his shoes sink into the sand and spun to face the twins as well as their bodyguard, where they stood slightly above him on the sidewalk. 'Hey, just because some drunk thinks he knows me? Haven't you ever been mistaken for-?'

'The only person I have ever been mistaken for is my brother,' the second twin said. 'I do not believe in coincidence. I do not believe that in the middle of a conversation about my business and my safety, I can ignore anyone - drunk or not - who interrupts to tell me the man I am speaking to is not the man he claims to be.'

'Come on! That drunk admitted he was wrong!' Buchanan insisted.

'But he did not look convinced,' the first twin snapped.

Two murky silhouettes approached along the beach. Buchanan and his antagonists became silent. The Hispanics stiffened, wary. Then the silhouettes walked near enough for Buchanan to see a man and a woman - American, early twenties - holding hands. The couple seemed oblivious to their surroundings, conscious only of each other. They passed and disappeared into the darkness farther along the beach.

'We can't stay here,' the second twin said. 'Other people will come. We're still too close to the hotel, especially to the bar.'

'But I want this matter settled,' the first twin said. 'I want it settled now.'

The bodyguard scanned the beach and pointed. 'Por all¡. Over there.'

Buchanan looked. Near the white-capped waves, he saw, were the distinctive outlines of several palapa sun shelters. Each small structure had a slanted, circular top made from palm fronds and held up by a seven-foot-tall, wooden post. Plastic tables and chairs, as white as the caps on the waves, were distributed among them.

'Yes,' the first twin said. 'Over there.'

The Hispanic stepped from the concrete onto the sand and shoved Buchanan hard enough that Ed Potter could not have resisted the thrust, so Buchanan allowed himself to stumble backward.

'Move! Damn you and your mother, move!' the first twin said.

Continuing to stumble, Buchanan turned toward the deserted shelters. Immediately the Hispanic shoved him again, and Buchanan lurched, concentrating to maintain his balance, his shoes slipping in the sand.

The effect of adrenaline made his stomach seem on fire. He wondered if he'd been right not to defend himself earlier. Things had not yet gotten out of control. But the first twin was working himself into a rage. The insults and shoves were occurring more forcefully, more often, and Buchanan had to ask himself, Is this an act? Or is it for real?

If he's acting, I'll fail the test by ignoring some of those insults. If this guy shoves me any harder, if I don't anticipate and absorb the impact, he'll knock me down. He'll dismiss me as unworthy of respect if I don't make a pretense of resisting.

But how much resistance can I show and still be Ed Potter? And how much resistance is enough to satisfy the twin without truly making him angry?

And-

The question kept nagging at Buchanan.

-what if this is for real?

As Buchanan reached a shelter, the first twin shoved him again, knocking him across a plastic table.

Buchanan straightened and spun. 'Now that's enough! Don't shove me again! If you've got questions, ask them. I'll explain whatever's bothering you. I can settle this misunderstanding! But damn it, keep your hands off me!'

'Keep my hands off you?' The first twin stepped close to Buchanan, grabbed Buchanan's shirt and twisted it with his fist, then raised the shirt so that Buchanan felt suspended by it. 'What I'd like to do is shove my hand down your throat and pull out your guts.'

Buchanan smelled the tequila on his breath.

Abruptly the twin released his grip on Buchanan's shirt.

Buchanan allowed himself to topple, sprawling again across the table, this time on his back instead of his chest. It took all his discipline to restrain himself from retaliating. He kept reminding himself, The mission. You can't jeopardize the mission. You can't fight back until you're certain he intends to kill you. So far all he's done is shove, insult, and threaten you. Those aren't good enough reasons for you to abort the mission by responding with deadly force.

Surrounded by darkness, glimpsing the lights of the hotel beyond the twins and their bodyguard, Buchanan stared up at the first twin, who grabbed him again, jerked him to his feet, and thrust him into a chair. Buchanan's spine banged against the plastic. Waves splashed behind him.

'You promise that you can explain? Then do so. By all means, explain. It will be amusing to hear' - the twin suddenly pressed the muzzle of his Browning 9-millimeter pistol against Buchanan's forehead - 'how you intend to settle what you call this misunder-standing.'

That almost made the difference. Buchanan's pulse quickened. His muscles compacted. Inhaling, he prepared to-

But the twin hasn't cocked the pistol, Buchanan noticed, and the Browning doesn't have a sound-suppressor. If he intends to kill me, isn't it more likely that he'd want to avoid causing a commotion? He'd use the bodyguard's Beretta, which does have a sound-suppressor, so he wouldn't attract a crowd from the bar.

It's still possible that this is an act.

Sweating, mustering resolve, Buchanan watched the second twin approach.

The man stopped beside his brother and peered down. Even in the gloom, his eyes were vividly hawklike. 'Listen carefully,' he told Buchanan. 'We are going to talk about names. But not the name that the drunken American called you in the restaurant. Not Jim Crawford, or at least not only Jim Crawford. And not just Ed Potter. Other names. Many other names. In fact, so many that I find it impossible to remember them all.' He pulled a folded piece of paper from his suit coat. 'You gave us a list of names of our associates whom you claim betrayed us. Well, I have a different list, one with other names.' He unfolded the paper and aimed a penlight at it so he could read. 'John Block. Richard Davis. Paul Higgins. Andrew Macintosh. Henry Davenport. Walter Newton. Michael Galer. William Hanover. Stuart Malik.'

Oh, shit, Buchanan thought.

The second twin stopped reading, scowled at the sheet of paper, shook his head, and sighed. 'There are several other names. But those will do for purposes of illustration.' He refolded the piece of paper, returned it to his suit-coat pocket, and at once thrust the penlight close to Buchanan's face, aiming it into Buchanan's right eye.

Buchanan jerked his face away to avoid the light.

But the bodyguard had shifted behind Buchanan and abruptly slammed his hands against the sides of Buchanan's head, making Buchanan's ears ring. The sudden, stunning pressure of the hands was like a vice. Buchanan tried, but he couldn't turn his face away. He couldn't avoid the blinding glare of the slender beam of light aimed into his eye. He reached up to grab the bodyguard's smallest fingers and snap them in order to make the bodyguard release his grip.

But Buchanan froze in mid-gesture as the first twin cocked the Browning, the muzzle of which was now pressed against Buchanan's left temple. Christ, Buchanan thought, he just might do it.

'Bueno. Muy bueno,' the first twin said. 'Don't make trouble.'

The penlight kept glaring at Buchanan's eye. He blinked repeatedly, then scrunched his eyelid shut, but could still see the light through the eyelid's thin skin. He scrunched the eyelid shut tighter. A rough hand grabbed the side of his face, clawing at the eyelid, forcing it up. The light again glared. Buchanan's eyeball suddenly felt hot, dry, and swollen. The light felt like a bright, hot needle that threatened to lance his eyeball as if it were a festering boil. Buchanan needed all his self-control not to struggle, not to attempt to break away from the hands that bound him - because he knew without doubt that if he struggled again, the first twin would blow his brains out.

'Bueno,' the first twin repeated. 'Muy bueno. Excelente. Now, if you wish to live, you will tell us what all of those names that my brother read to you have in common. Think well before you answer.' He nudged the muzzle of the Browning harder against Buchanan's temple. 'I cannot respect, do business with, or tolerate a liar. The names. What is their secret?'

Buchanan swallowed. His voice was hoarse. 'They're all me.'

11

Except for the splash of the waves and the pounding of Buchanan's heart, the night became silent. Then, in the distance, laughter echoing from the hotel's outside bar broke the quiet. The twins and the bodyguard seemed frozen. At once they moved, the first twin lowering his pistol, the second twin releasing his grip on Buchanan's right eyelid, then shutting off the penlight, the bodyguard removing his vice-like hands from the sides of Buchanan's head.

The first twin studied Buchanan. 'I did not expect the truth.' He sat on a chair near Buchanan, placing his Browning on the table so its muzzle was pointed at Buchanan, leaving his hand on the weapon. 'I asked you earlier. I'll ask you again. Who are you?'

'Ed Potter.' Buchanan closed his right eyelid, massaging it, still seeing the painful glare from the penlight.

'And not John Block? Or Richard Davis? Or Paul Higgins?' the first twin asked.

'Or Jim Crawford?' the second twin insisted.

'I never heard of Jim Crawford,' Buchanan said. 'I don't know what the hell that drunk in the restaurant was talking about. But as far as John Block, Richard Davis, and Paul Higgins are concerned, they're. How did you find out about my aliases?'

'You do not have the right to ask questions.' The first twin tapped the barrel of his pistol on the table. 'Why did you assume those names?'

'I'm not a fool,' Buchanan said. His right eye watered. He kept it closed and squinted at his captors with his remaining functional eye.

'You expect me to come to Mexico, start smuggling drugs north and weapons south, and use my real name? I'd use a false name if I were dealing drugs in the United States. Here in Mexico, where a yanqui is conspicuous, I had all the more reason to use a false name.'

The second twin turned his penlight on and off as if in warning. 'A false name is understandable.'

'But so many false names?' The first twin persisted in tapping the side of his pistol on the table.

'Look, I told you I was doing business in more places than Cancun,' Buchanan said. 'I have bases in Merida, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, several resorts I haven't mentioned.'

'But you will,' the second twin said. 'You will.' His voice thickened with emotion. 'The names. I want to hear about these names.'

Buchanan slowly opened his right eye. The glare from the penlight was still seared upon his vision. If his gambit didn't work, they would try to kill him. There'd be a fight (if he was lucky and had the opportunity to try to defend himself), but he didn't have much chance of surviving a struggle against three men while his vision was impaired.

'Answer!' the second twin barked.

'I take it as a given that when an American does illegal business in a foreign country, natives of that country have to be recruited,' Buchanan said. 'Those natives can go places and do things that the American wouldn't dare to without the risk of being conspicuous. The local authorities have to be bribed. The drugs need to be picked up from the suppliers. The weapons need to be delivered to those suppliers. There's no way I'm going to try to bribe the Mexican police. Even as bribable as they are, they might decide to make an example of a gringo and stick me in jail for a hundred years. I'd just as soon someone else took the risk of picking up the drugs and delivering the weapons, especially when it comes to dealing with those crazy bastards in the Medell¡n cartel. Let's face it - Mexico's so poor there are plenty of young men who are glad to risk their lives if I pay them what they think is a fortune but what to me is nothing. Of course, I need recruits in every resort where I do business, and while I'm in those resorts, I need a cover story to account for my presence. A tourist attracts attention if he comes back every three weeks. But a businessman doesn't, and one of the most commonplace American businessmen at Mexican resorts is a timeshare condominium salesman. American tourists don't trust Mexican salesmen to lease them real estate. But they'll trust an American. Under assumed names in all the resorts where I have a base, I've convinced the authorities that I'm legitimate. Naturally I use a different name in each resort, and I have false documents in that name. But here's the trick. If my Mexican recruits in each resort get picked up by the police or questioned by suppliers who have turned against me, my recruits don't know the assumed name I'm using. They don't know where I live or where I do business. Except on terms of my own choosing, they have no way to get in touch with me or to lead the police or a drug supplier to me. The name by which each recruit knows me is also assumed, but of course I don't need identification papers for those other names.'

The first twin leaned forward, his hand on his pistol. 'Keep talking.'

'Each of the characters I pretend to be has a particular style of clothes, a preference for different foods, an individual way about him. One might slouch. Another might stand rigidly straight as if he used to be in the military. Another might have a slight stutter. Still another might comb his hair straight back. Or have spectacles. Or wear a baseball cap. There's always something about the character that's memorable. That way, if the police start asking questions about a man with a certain name and certain mannerisms, it'll be difficult to find that man because the mannerisms are as false as the name. I mentioned after that drunken American confused me with someone else back at the restaurant - his mistake is a variation of an old saying that all foreigners look the same to Americans. Well, that saying can be turned around. Most Americans resemble each other as far as Mexicans are concerned. We weigh too much. We're clumsy. We've got too much money, and we're not very generous with it. We're loud. We're rude. So any American who has easy-to-describe, individual characteristics will be remembered by my recruits, and if they're forced to give that description - "he has spectacles and always wears a baseball cap" -to an enemy, all I have to do is assume a different set of characteristics, blend with other Americans, and become invisible.'

Buchanan watched the twins, wondering, Are they buying it?

The first twin frowned. 'Since you use so many false names, how do we know that Ed Potter is your true identity?'

'What motive would I have for lying? I had to tell you my real name or else you wouldn't be able to investigate my background and satisfy yourselves that I'm not a threat to you.'

Buchanan waited, hoping that he'd overcome their misgivings. He'd followed a rule of deep-cover operations. If someone challenges you to the point that you're about to be exposed, the best defense was the truth, or rather a version of the truth, a special slant on it that doesn't compromise the mission and yet sounds so authentic that it defeats skepticism. In this case, Buchanan had established a cover, as he'd explained to the twins, but then he had yet another cover, that of Ed Potter. The latter cover was intended to manipulate the twins into accepting him as a partner. But the false names he used as a time-share condominium salesman in various resorts, and the further false names that he used with his recruits, had not been intended as a way to impress the twins and demonstrate that he would be an asset to them.

Rather those false identities had been a way for Buchanan to protect himself against the Mexican government and, equally important, to prevent the Mexican authorities from tracing his illegal activities to a covert branch of the United States military. The last thing Buchanan's controllers wanted was an international incident. Indeed, even if Buchanan were arrested while he was posing as Edward Potter, his activities could still not be traced to his controllers. Because he had yet another cover. He would deny to the authorities that he had ever belonged to the DEA, and in the meantime, his controllers would remove or erase all the supporting details for that assumed identity. Buchanan would claim that he had invented the DEA story in order to infiltrate the drug-distribution system. He would insist, and there would be supporting details for this cover as well, that he was a freelance journalist who wanted to write an expose about the Mexican drug connection. If the Mexican authorities tried to investigate beyond that cover, they would find nothing that linked Buchanan to U.S. special operations.

'Perhaps,' the first twin said. 'Perhaps we can work together.'

'Perhaps?' Buchanan asked. 'Madre de Dios, what do I have to do to convince you?'

'First we will investigate your background.'

'By all means,' Buchanan said.

'Then we will determine if some of our associates have betrayed us as you claim.'

'No problem.' Buchanan's chest flooded with triumph. I've turned it around, he thought. Five minutes ago, they were ready to kill me, and I was trying to decide if I'd have to kill them. But I did the right thing. I kept my cool. I talked my way out of it. The mission hasn't been jeopardized.

'You will stay with us while we verify your credentials,' the second twin said.

'Stay with you?'

'Do you have a problem with that?' the first twin asked.

'Not really,' Buchanan said. 'Except that making me a prisoner is a poor way to begin a partnership.'

'Did I say anything about making you a prisoner?' The second twin smiled. 'You will be our guest. Every comfort will be given to you.'

Buchanan forced himself to return the smile. 'Sounds fine with me. I could use a taste of the life style I want to become accustomed to.'

'But there is one other matter,' the first twin said.

'Oh? What's that?' Buchanan inwardly tensed.

The second twin turned on his penlight and flicked its glare past Buchanan's right eye. 'The drunken American in the restaurant. You will need to prove to our satisfaction that you were not in Kuwait and Iraq at the time he claims he spent with you there.'

'For Christ sake, are you still fixated on that drunk? I don't understand how I'm supposed to-'

12

'Crawford!' a man's voice boomed from the darkness near the hotel's bar. The voice was deep, crusty from cigarettes, thick from alcohol.

'What's that?' the first twin quickly asked.

Oh, no, Buchanan thought. Oh, Jesus, no. Not when I've almost undone the damage from the first time.

'Crawford!' Big Bob Bailey yelled again. 'Is that you flashin' that light over there?' A hulking silhouette lurched from the hotel's gardens, a beefy man who'd had too much to drink and now had trouble walking in the sand. 'Yes, you, damn it! I mean you, Crawford! You and them Spics you're talkin' with under that fancy beach umbrella or whatever the hell it is.' He stumbled closer, breathing heavily. 'You son of a bitch, I want a straight answer! I want to know why you're lyin' to me! 'Cause you and me both know your name's Jim Crawford! We both know we was prisoners in Kuwait and Iraq! So why won't you admit it? How come you made a fool of me? You think I'm not good enough to drink with you and your Spic pals or somethin'?'

'I don't like the feel of this,' the first twin said.

'Something's wrong,' the second twin said.

'Very wrong.' The first twin snapped his gaze away from Big Bob Bailey's awkwardly approaching shadow and riveted it upon Buchanan. 'You're trouble. You Americans have an expression. "Better safe than sorry."'

'Come on, he's just a drunk!' Buchanan said.

'Crawford!' Big Bob Bailey yelled.

I don't have another choice, Buchanan thought.

'Shoot him,' the first twin told the bodyguard.

(I've got to-!)

'I'm talkin' to you!' Big Bob Bailey stumbled. 'Crawford! By Jesus, answer me!'

'Shoot them both,' the second twin told the bodyguard.

But Buchanan was already in motion, lunging from the plastic chair, diving toward the left, toward the first twin and the Browning pistol he'd set on the table, his hand spread over it.

Behind Buchanan, the bodyguard fired. With the sound-suppressor on the barrel, the guard's Beretta made a muffled pop. The bullet missed the back of Buchanan's head.

However, it didn't miss Buchanan entirely. As he rose and lunged, his right shoulder appeared where his head had been, and the bullet sliced, burning, through the muscle at the side of that shoulder. Before the bodyguard could shoot a second time, Buchanan had collided with the first twin, toppling him over his chair, simultaneously grabbing for the first twin's weapon. But the first twin would not let go of it.

'Shoot!' the second twin told the bodyguard.

'I can't! I might hit your brother!'

'Crawford, what the hell's goin' on?' Big Bob Bailey yelled.

Rolling in the sand, Buchanan strained to keep the first twin close to him as he fought for a grip on the pistol.

'Move closer!' the second twin told the bodyguard. 'I'll shine my light!'

Buchanan's shoulder throbbed. Blood streamed from the wound, slicking the first twin and himself, making it hard for Buchanan to keep a grasp on the twin and use him as a shield. As he rolled, sand scraped into his wound. If he'd been standing, the blood would have streaked down his arm to his hand, causing it to become so slippery that his fingers wouldn't have been able to wrench the pistol from the first twin's hand. But he was prone, and his hand stayed dry as he struggled in the sand. He sensed the bodyguard and the second twin rushing toward him. He heard Big Bob Bailey again yell, 'Crawford!' And all at once, the first twin fired his pistol. Unlike the bodyguard's weapon, the twin's Browning did not have a sound-suppressor. Its report was shockingly loud. The bodyguard and the second twin cursed, scrambling to get out of the line of fire. Buchanan's ears -already ringing from when the bodyguard had slammed his hands against the sides of Buchanan's head - now rang louder from the proximity of the shot. Buchanan's right eye still retained a harsh afterimage from the glare of the penlight that the second twin had aimed at the eye. Relying more on touch than on sight, Buchanan rolled and struggled with the first twin to get control of the pistol. His shoulder ached and began to stiffen.

The first twin fired the pistol again. As much as Buchanan could tell, the bullet went straight up, bursting through the palm fronds at the top of the shelter. But Buchanan's already compromised vision was assaulted by the pistol's muzzle flash. 'Jesus!' he heard Big Bob Bailey yell. Despite the ringing in his ears, he also heard distant exclamations from the hotel's outside bar. He sensed the bodyguard and the second twin surging toward him once more, and suddenly he managed to grab the first twin's right thumb, twisting it, yanking it backward.

The thumb snapped at the middle joint with a sound that was soft, gristly, not so much a crack as a crunch. The first twin screamed and reflexively loosened his hold on the pistol, needing to relax his hand, to reduce the stress on his thumb. In that instant, Buchanan wrested the pistol away and rolled, sand sticking to his bloody shoulder. The bodyguard fired. As Buchanan kept rolling, the bullet struck next to him, and Buchanan shot four times in rapid succession. His vision was still sufficiently impaired that he had to rely on other senses - the touch of sand that the bodyguard scattered while he rushed closer to Buchanan, the sound of the muffled pop from the sound-suppressed Beretta - to help him estimate the bodyguard's position. Three of Buchanan's bullets struck the bodyguard, knocking him backward. Buchanan immediately twisted, aiming to his left, firing twice, hitting the second twin in the stomach and the chest. Blood spurting from between his unbuttoned silk shirt, the target doubled over and fell.

But the bodyguard was still on his feet, Buchanan realized. The man had been hit three times and yet seemed only dazed. Buchanan abruptly understood that all three bullets had struck the bodyguard's chest and that the Hispanic had seemed so unusually large-boned because he was wearing a concealed, bullet-resistant vest. As the bodyguard straightened and aimed yet again, Buchanan shot him in the throat, the left eye, and the forehead. Even then, he feared that the bodyguard might spastically squeeze off a shot. Buchanan tensed, desperate to squirm backward. But instead of firing, the bodyguard rose as if trying to balance on his tiptoes, leaned back as if balancing now on his heels, and toppled across the table. At the same time, Buchanan felt thrashing to his right, twisted onto his side, and shot the first twin through his left temple. Blood, bone, and brain - hot and sticky - spattered over Buchanan's face.

The first twin shuddered, dying.

Buchanan in turn inhaled deeply and trembled, overwhelmed by adrenaline. The repeated shots from the unsilenced Browning had intensified the agony of the ringing in his head. Due to years of habit, he'd mentally counted each shot as he'd pulled the trigger. Four toward the bodyguard. Two toward the second twin. Three more toward the bodyguard. One toward the first twin. Earlier the first twin had fired twice. That made twelve all told. Buchanan hadn't worried about using all his ammunition because he knew that the Browning was capable of holding thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Normally he wouldn't have needed to shoot so many times, but in the darkness, he couldn't guarantee precision. But now his remaining bullets would not be enough if the shots had attracted the twins' other bodyguards. In a rush, Buchanan crouched behind the table, aiming toward the gloom of the beach, the glow of the lights at the outdoor bar, and the gleam of the lights at the hotel. A loud, nervous crowd had gathered on the sidewalk that flanked the beach. Several men were pointing in Buchanan's direction. He didn't see any armed men rushing toward him. Quickly he made sure that the bodyguard and the first twin were dead. While stopped at the first twin, he searched the body, retrieving his belt, his keys, and his pen.

He didn't want anything associated with him to remain on the scene. In a greater rush, he checked the second twin, groped inside his suit coat, and pulled out the list of names - Buchanan's pseudonyms -that the second twin had read to him. He left the other list, the names of supposedly disloyal associates that he'd given the twins. The authorities would investigate those names and try to implicate them in these killings.

Or so Buchanan hoped. He wanted to accomplish at least some of what he'd been sent here to do, to inflict as much damage on the drug-distribution network as he could. If only this mission hadn't gone to hell, if only.

Buchanan suddenly froze. Big Bob Bailey. Where was he? What had happened to-?

'Crawford?' an unsteady voice murmured from the darkness.

Buchanan strained his vision to study the night, his eyes now less impaired by the glare of the penlight and the strobelike flash of the shots.

'Crawford?' Bailey's voice sounded oddly muffled.

Then Buchanan realized - Bailey had been stumbling toward this table the last time Buchanan had seen him. When the shooting started, Bailey must have dropped to the beach. His voice was muffled because he was pressed, face downward, against the sand.

'Jesus Christ, man, are you all right?' Bailey murmured. 'Who's doin' all the shootin'?'

Buchanan saw him now, a dark shape hugging the beach. He shifted his gaze toward the crowd on the sidewalk near the hotel's outdoor bar. The crowd was larger, louder, although still afraid to come anywhere near where guns had been fired. He didn't see any bodyguards or policemen rushing in his direction. They will, though. Soon, he thought. I don't have much time. I have to get out of here.

The pain in his shoulder worsened. The wound swelled, throbbing more fiercely. Urgent, he used an unbloody section of his shirt to wipe his fingerprints from where he'd touched the top of the table and the sides of a chair. He couldn't do anything about the prints he'd left on the glasses in the restaurant, but maybe the table would have been cleared by now, the glasses taken to the kitchen and washed.

Hurry.

As he started to swing toward the first twin, wipe fingerprints from the pistol, and leave it in the twin's hand, he heard Bailey's voice become stronger.

'Crawford? Were you hit?'

Shut up! Buchanan thought.

Near the hotel's bar, the crowd was becoming aggressive. The glow from the hotel was sufficient to reveal two uniformed policemen who sprinted off the sidewalk into the sand. Buchanan finished wiping the pistol clean of fingerprints and forced it into the first twin's fingers. He pivoted, stayed low, and ran, making sure he kept his right shoulder close to the splashing waves. That shoulder and indeed his entire right side were covered with blood. He wanted the blood to fall into the water so that the police couldn't track him by following splotches of his blood in the sand.

'Alto!' a man's gruff voice ordered. 'Halt!'

Buchanan raced harder, staying low, charging parallel to the waves, hoping the night would so envelop him that he'd make a poor target.

'ALTO!' the gruff voice demanded with greater force.

Buchanan sprinted as fast as he could. His back muscles rippled with chills as he tensed in dread of the bullet that would-

'Hey, what do you think you're-? What are you shovin' me for? I didn't do nothin'!' Big Bob Bailey objected with drunken indignation.

The police had grabbed the first person they came to.

Despite his pain and his desperation, Buchanan couldn't help grinning. Bailey, you turned out not to be completely useless, after all.

THREE

1

Baltimore, Maryland.

Pushing a squeaky cart along a dark, drizzly, downtown alley, the woman dressed as a bag lady felt exhausted. She hadn't slept in almost forty-eight hours, and that period of time (as well as several days before it) had been filled with constant dread. Indeed, for months, since she'd first met Alistair Drummond and had agreed to his proposal, she'd never been free from apprehension.

The assignment had seemed simple enough, and certainly the fee she earned was considerable, her accommodations lavish. As a bonus, she seldom had to perform. Mostly all she had to do was stay in the Manhattan condominium with its splendid view of Central Park and let servants take care of her, occasionally deigning to accept a telephone call but making it short, pretending to be hoarse because of a throat problem that she claimed her doctor had diagnosed as polyps and that might require surgery. Rarely she went out in public, always at night, always in a limousine, always wearing gems, a fur, and an exquisite evening gown, always with protective, handsome escorts. Those outings were usually to the Metropolitan opera or to a charity benefit, and she stayed just long enough to insure that her presence was noticed, that she'd be mentioned in a society column. She permitted no contact with her character's former friends or former husband. She was, as she'd indicated in a rare magazine interview, beginning a period of self-assessment which required isolation in order for her to commence the second act of her life. Her performance was one of her best. No one thought her behavior unusual. After all, genius was subject to eccentricities.

But she was terrified. The accumulation of fear had been gradual. At first, she had attributed her unease to stage fright, to becoming accustomed to a new role, to convincing an unfamiliar audience, and of course, to satisfying Alistair Drummond. The latter particularly unnerved her. Drummond's gaze was so intense that she suspected he wore spectacles not to improve his vision but rather to magnify the cold glint in his eyes. He exuded such authority that he dominated a room, regardless of how crowded it was or how many other notables were present. No one knew for certain how old he was, except that he was definitely over eighty, but everyone agreed that he looked more like an eerie sixty. Numerous face lifts, combined with a macrobiotic diet, massive amounts of vitamins, and weekly infusions of hormones, seemed to have stopped the evidence of his advancing age. The contrast between his tightened face and his wizened hands troubled her.

He preferred to be called 'professor,' although he had never taught and his doctorate was only honorary, the result of a new art museum that bore his name and that he'd had constructed as a gift to a prestigious but financially-embattled, Ivy League university. One of the conditions of her employment had been that the 'professor' would have access to her at all times and that she would appear in public with him whenever he dictated. As vain as he was rich, he cackled whenever he read his name - in company with her character's - in the society columns, especially if the columnist called him 'professor.' The sound of his brittle, crusty laughter chilled her.

But as frightening as she eventually found Alistair Drummond, even more frightening was his personal assistant, a pleasant-faced, fair-haired, well-dressed man whom she knew only as Raymond. His face never changed expression. It always bore the same cheery countenance, regardless if he helped Drummond inject himself with hormones, looked at her in a low-cut evening gown, watched a weather report on television, or was sent on an assignment. Drummond was careful never to discuss the specifics of his business transactions while she was present, but she took for granted that anyone who had accumulated so much wealth and power, not to mention world-wide notoriety, by definition had to be ruthless, and she always imagined that the assignments Drummond gave to Raymond would have repugnant consequences. Not that Raymond gave any indication. Raymond always looked as cheery when he left as when he returned.

What had made her uneasiness turn into dread was the day she realized that she wasn't merely pretending to be in seclusion - she was a prisoner. It was unprofessional of her, she admitted, to have wanted to break character and take an unescorted afternoon walk in Central Park, perhaps go over to the Metropolitan art museum. The moment the thought occurred to her, she repressed it. Nonetheless, briefly she'd felt liberated, and subsequently she'd felt frustrated. I can't, she thought. I made an agreement. I accepted a fee - a large fee - in exchange for taking on a role. I can't break the bargain. But what if.?

That tantalizing question had made her impatient with her narrow world. Except for a few sanctioned outings and an occasional performance on the telephone, she spent most of each day exercising, reading, watching video tapes, listening to music, eating, and. It had sounded like a vacation until she was forced to do it. Her days had become longer and longer. As much as Alistair Drummond and his assistant made her uneasy, she almost welcomed their visits. Although the two men were frightening, at least they were a change. So she had asked herself, What if I did break character? What if I did go out for an afternoon walk in Central Park? She had no intention of actually doing so, but she wondered what would happen if.? A bodyguard had suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor outside her unit and had prevented her from getting on the elevator.

She was an experienced observer of audiences. She'd known from the start - the first time she was allowed from the condominium, escorted into Drummond's limousine - that the building was being watched: a flower seller across the street, a hot-dog vendor on the corner, no doubt the building's doorman, and no doubt someone like an indigent at the rear exit from the building. But she had assumed that these sentries were there to prevent her character's former acquaintances from arriving unexpectedly and catching her unprepared. At once, now, she had realized that the building was under watch to keep her in as much as to keep others out, and that had made her world even smaller, and that had made her even more tense, Drummond had made her more tense, Raymond had made her more tense.

When will I be able to get out of here? she'd wondered. When will the performance end? Or will it end?

One evening as she put on her diamond necklace - which Drummond had told her would be her bonus when the assignment was completed - she'd impulsively scraped the necklace's largest stone across a glass of water. The stone had not made a scratch. Which meant that the stone was not a diamond. Which meant that the necklace, her bonus, was worthless.

So what else was.? She examined the bank statement she was sent each month. A gesture of good faith from Drummond, each statement showed that Drummond had, as he had promised, deposited her monthly fee. Since all her necessities were provided, she had no need to use that money, Drummond had explained. Thus, when her assignment was over, she'd be able to withdraw the entire, enormous sum.

The bank statement had an account number. She knew that she didn't dare use the telephone in her condominium (it presumably was tapped), so she had waited for the rare opportunity when she was allowed to leave the condominium during the day, and when the bank would be open. It had given her enormous pleasure that during a pause in the political luncheon's program of speakers, she had whispered to Alistair Drummond, who had brought her, that she needed to go to the ladies' room. Taut-faced, Drummond had nodded his permission, gesturing with a wrinkled hand for a bodyguard to accompany her.

She had leaned close, pressing a breast against him. 'No, I don't want your permission,' she had whispered. 'What I want is fifty cents. That's what it costs to get into the toilets here.'

'Don't say "toilets".' Drummond had pursed his lips in disapproval of her vulgarity.

'I'll call them "rose bowls" if you want. I still need fifty cents. Plus two dollars for the attendant with the towels. I wouldn't have to ask you if you'd give me some actual money once in a while.'

'All your needs are taken care of.'

'Sure. Except when I have to go to the ladies' room - excuse me, the rose bowl.' She pressed her breast harder against his bony arm.

Drummond turned toward Raymond beside him. 'Escort her. Give her what she asks.'

So she and Raymond had proceeded through the crowd, ignoring the stares of celebrity worshippers. Raymond had discreetly given her the small sum of money she had requested, and the moment she had entered the powder-room part of the ladies' room, she had veered toward a pay phone, inserted coins, pressed the numbers for the bank into which Drummond deposited her fee, and asked for Accounting. Several society women who sat on velvet chairs before mirrors and freshened their makeup turned in recognition of someone so famous. She nodded with an imperious 'Do you mind? Can I have some privacy?' look. Conditioned to pretend not to be impressed, the society matrons shrugged and resumed applying lipstick to their drooping lips.

'Accounting,' a nasally male voice said.

'Please check this number.' She dictated it.

'One moment. Yes, I have that account on my computer screen.'

'What is the balance?'

The nasally voice told her. The sum was correct.

'Are there any restrictions?'

'One. For withdrawals, a second signature is required.'

'Whose?'

Raymond's, she learned, and that was when she knew that Drummond didn't intend for her to get out of this role alive.

It took several weeks of preparations, of calculations, of watching and biding her time. No one suspected. She was sure of that. She made herself seem so contented that it was one of the best performances of her career. Last night, after going to her bedroom at midnight, after keeping her eyes shut when the maid looked in on her at two, she had waited until four to make sure that the maid was asleep. She had quickly dressed, putting on her sneakers and gray, hooded exercise suit. She had stuffed her purse with the necklace, bracelets, and ear-rings that Drummond had promised her, the jewelry that she now knew was fake. She had to take them because she wanted Drummond to think that she still believed the diamonds and other gems to be real and would try to sell them. His men would waste time questioning the dealers she was most likely to approach. She had a small amount of money - what she'd been given for the attendant in the ladies' room, a few dollars that she'd stolen in isolated dimes and quarters from her maid's purse while her maid was distracted by a task in another room, twenty-five dollars that she'd brought with her the first day she'd started this assignment. It wouldn't take her far. She needed more. A great deal more.

Her first task had been to leave the condominium. As soon as she'd realized that she was a prisoner, she'd automatically assumed that the door would be rigged to sound an alarm and warn her guards if she tried to escape in the night. The alarm was one of the reasons she had waited several weeks before leaving. It had taken her that long, whenever the maid wasn't watching, to check the walls behind furniture and paintings and find the alarm's hidden switch. Last night, she had turned it off behind the liquor cabinet, silently unlocked the door and opened it, then peered left down the corridor. The guard who watched the elevator could not be seen. He usually sat in a chair just around the corner. At four in the morning, there was a strong possibility he'd be drowsing, relying on the sound of the elevator to make him become alert.

But she had no intention of using the elevator. Rather she left her door slightly ajar - she didn't dare close it all the way and risk making an avoidable noise - then turned to the right, walking softly along the carpet toward the fire door. That door wasn't guarded on this floor, but in the lobby, the exit from the stairwell was. With painstaking care, she eased the fire door open, closed it as carefully behind her, and exhaled, wiping sweat from her hands. That had been the part she most dreaded, that she'd make a noise when she opened the fire door and alert the guard. The rest, for a time, would be easy.

She hurried down the cold, shadowy stairwell, the rubber soles on her sneakers making almost no sound. Forty stories later, energized rather than fatigued, she reached the lobby door but didn't stop and instead continued to the basement. As she made her way through dusty storage areas and the noisy furnace area, passing a clutter of pipes and circuit breakers, she feared that a custodian would confront her, but no one seemed on duty, and eventually she found stairs that led to a rear exit from the building, one that was far enough from the conventional exit that anyone watching the other exit wouldn't notice someone leaving the basement.

Still cautious, she turned off the nearest light before she opened the door so that no illumination would spill out and reveal her. Then she was in an alley, feeling the chill of late October, hurrying along. She wished that she'd been able to bring a coat, but all the coats in her character's closet had been expensive, designed to be worn with evening clothes. There'd been nothing as inconspicuous as a windbreaker. No matter. She was free. But for how long? Fear and urgency gave her warmth.

Without her wig, special makeup, and facial-altering devices, she no longer resembled her character. But even though the public wouldn't recognize her, Alistair Drummond had a photograph of her "original appearance. So she didn't dare use a taxi. The driver, if questioned, would remember picking her up at this hour and in this vicinity, especially since she was Hispanic. The driver would also remember where he'd dropped her off. That destination would be a safe distance from where she intended to go. It would not reveal anything that put her in danger. Nonetheless she considered it better if she permitted Drummond no leads whatsoever, false or true, and instead just seemed to vanish. Besides, given the little money she had, she didn't dare waste it on a taxi.

So she ran, to all appearances an early morning jogger on the nearly deserted streets. She went hunting, skirting Central Park, trying to look like an easy target. Finally two kids with knives emerged from shadows. She broke both their arms and took the fourteen dollars she found on them. By dawn, her exercise clothes dark with sweat, she rested in a twenty-four-hour hamburger joint in Times Square. There she sacrificed part of her meager funds on several steaming cups of coffee and a breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, and English muffins. Not the sort of breakfast she usually ate and certainly not recommended by the American Heart Association, but given the frantic, furtive day she expected to have, she needed all the calories and carbohydrates her stomach would hold.

She sacrificed more of her meager funds to go to a theater that showed movies around the clock. The only woman present, she knew that she'd attract predators in the almost-deserted seats at seven in the morning. She wanted to. When the movie ended and she left the theater, she carried fifty more dollars, money that she'd taken from three men whom she'd knocked unconscious, using her elbow, when each - a half hour apart - had sat next to her and tried to molest her.

By then, a few cut-rate clothing stores were open, and she bought a plain wool cap, a pair of wool gloves, and an insulated, black nylon jacket that blended with her gray exercise clothes. She tucked her hair beneath her cap, and with her slightly baggy exercise clothes hiding her voluptuous breasts and hips, she appeared overweight and androgynous. Her costume was almost perfect. Except that her clothes were new (and she remedied that by dragging her cap, gloves, and jacket in the gutter), she looked like most of the other street people.

Next, it was time to pick her spot among the hucksters beginning to set up shop on the curb along Broadway. It took two hours, a watchful eye for the police or anyone else who showed undue interest in her, and several prudent shifts of location, but she finally used her powers of performance to sell all of her jewelry to tourists, amassing two hundred and fifteen dollars.

That gave her enough to travel - not enough to fly, of course (which she wouldn't have done anyhow because the airports would be among the first places that Drummond's men would check), but certainly enough to take a train, and a bus would be even cheaper. Plus, the way she was dressed, she thought she'd be more invisible on a bus, so she ate a hamburger while she walked to the junkie-infested Port Authority Bus Terminal, and by noon she was on her way to Baltimore.

Why Baltimore? Why not? she thought. It was close enough that a ticket there wouldn't use all her money. At the same time, it was comfortably far. She had no previous associations with Baltimore. It was simply a random selection, impossible for Drummond to predict, although if he eliminated the cities with which she'd been associated and if he arbitrarily chose the remaining big cities within a certain radius of Manhattan, he might make a lucky guess. Nothing was guaranteed. She had to be careful.

En route to Baltimore, while she studied the other passengers to determine if any was a threat, she had ample opportunity to think about her options. She didn't dare fall back into old patterns. Her family and friends were a danger to her. Drummond's men would be watching them. She had to construct a new persona, one unrelated to any character she'd assumed before. She had to make new friends and create new relatives. As far as employment was concerned, she would do whatever was most tolerable, as long as it wasn't anything she'd done previously. She had to make a complete break with the past. Getting the proper documents for a new false identity wasn't a problem. She was an expert.

But as she considered her existential condition, she wondered if she was prepared to make the sacrifice. She liked the person she'd been before she met Alistair Drummond. She wanted to be that person again. Had she been foolish? Had she misjudged Drummond's intention? Perhaps she should have been patient and continued to live in luxury.

Until you served your purpose and your performance was no longer necessary.

And then?

Remember, the gems were fake, and there was no way you were ever going to get the money Drummond claimed to be paying you. The only explanation for the way he rigged that bank account was that he planned to have you killed and take back the money.

But why would he want me killed?

To hide something.

What, though?

The bus arrived in Baltimore at nine in the evening. A cold drizzle made the downtown area bleak. She found a cheap place to eat - more caffeine, calories, and carbohydrates, not to mention grease (she rationalized that the fat might help insulate her from the cold). She didn't want to waste her remaining money on a hotel room - even a cheap one would be disastrous to her reserves. For a time, she roamed the back streets, hoping that someone would accost her. But the man who grabbed her and whose collar bone she broke had only fifty cents in his pocket.

She was tired, cold, wet, and depressed. She needed to rest. She needed a place where she'd feel reasonably safe, where she could think and sleep. When she found a shopping cart in an alley, she decided on her next role. After wiping dirt on her face, she threw trash into the cart. With her shoulders slumped and with an assumed, crazy, empty look in her eyes, she pushed the cart, wheels squeaking, through the drizzle, a bag lady on her way to a shelter for the homeless that she had just passed.

What am I going to do? she thought. The confidence she'd felt when escaping had drained from her. The rigors of her new life weighed upon her imagination. Damn it, I liked who I was. I want to be her again.

How? To do that, you've got to beat Drummond, and he's too powerful to be beaten.

Is he? Why did he hire me? Why did he want me to put on that performance? What's his secret? What's he hiding? If I can find that out, maybe he can be beaten.

One thing's sure. Without money and resources, you need help.

But who can I ask? I don't dare turn to my friends and family. They're a trap. Besides, they haven't the faintest idea of what to do, of what this involves.

So what about the people you trained with?

No, they're a matter of public record. Drummond can use his influence to learn who they are. They'll be watched in case I approach them - as much a liability as my family and friends.

The drizzle increased to a downpour. Her soaked clothes drooped and clung to her. In the gloom, she felt every bit the spiritless bag lady she pretended to be.

There's got to be someone.

The cart she pushed kept squeaking.

You can't be that alone! she wanted to scream.

Face it. The only person you could trust to help you would have to be someone so anonymous, so chameleonlike, so invisible, without a trace or a record that it would be like he'd never existed. And he'd have to be damned good at staying alive.

He? Why would it have to be a man?

But she suddenly knew, and as she reached the entrance to the shelter for the homeless, a man in a black suit with a white, ministerial collar stepped out.

'Come, sister. It's not a fit night to be out.'

Playing her role, she resisted.

'Please, sister. It's warm inside. There's food. A place to sleep.'

She resisted less stubbornly.

'You'll be safe, I promise. And I'll store your cart. I'll protect your goods.'

That did it. Like a child, she allowed herself to be led, and as she left the gloom of the night, as she entered the brightly lit shelter, she smelled coffee, stale donuts, boiled potatoes, but it might as well have been a banquet. She'd found sanctuary, and as she shuffled toward a crowded, wooden bench, she mentally repeated the name of the man whom she had decided to ask for help. The name filled her mind like a mantra. The problem was that he probably no longer used that name. He was constantly in flux. Officially he didn't exist. So how on earth could she get in touch with a man as formless and shifting as the wind? Where in hell would he be?

2

Until 1967, Cancun was a small, sleepy town on the northeastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. That year, the Mexican government - seeking a way to boost the country's weak economy - decided to promote tourism more energetically than ever. But instead of improving an existing resort, the government chose to create a world-class holiday center where there was nothing. Various requirements such as suitable location and weather were programed into a computer, and the computer announced that the new resort would be built on a narrow sandbar in a remote area of the Mexican Caribbean. Construction began in 1968. A modern sewage-disposal system was installed as well as a dependable water-purification system and a reliable power plant. A four-lane highway was built down the middle of the sandbar. Palm trees were planted next to the highway. Hotels designed to resemble ancient Mayan pyramids were constructed along the ocean side of the island while night clubs and restaurants were built along the inner lagoon. Eventually, several million tourists came each year to what had once been nothing but a sandbar.

Cancun's sandbar had the shape of the number seven. It was twelve miles long, a quarter mile wide, and linked to the mainland by a bridge at each end. Club Internacional - where Buchanan had shot the three Hispanics - was located at the middle of the top of the seven, and as Buchanan raced away from it through the darkness along the wave-lapped beach, he ignored the other hotels that glistened on his left and tried to decide what he would do when he reached the bridge at the northern end of the sandbar. The two policemen who'd arrived at the scene of the killings would use two-way radios to contact their counterparts on the mainland. Those other policemen would block the bridges and question all Americans who attempted to leave. No matter how much effort it took, the police would respond promptly and thoroughly. Cancun prided itself on appearing safe for tourists. A multiple murder demanded an absolute response. To reassure tourists, a quick arrest was mandatory.

Under other circumstances, Buchanan would not have hesitated to veer from the beach, pass between hotels, reach the red-brick sidewalk along the highway, and stroll across the bridge, where he would agreeably answer the questions of the police. But he didn't dare show himself. With his wounded shoulder and his blood-drenched clothes, he'd attract so much attention that he'd be arrested at once. He had to find another way out of the area, and as the beach curved, angling to the left toward the looming shadow of the bridge, he stared toward the glimmer of hotels across the channel that separated the sandbar from the mainland, and he decided he would have to swim.

Unexpectedly he felt lightheaded. Alarming him, his legs bent. His heart beat too fast, and he had trouble catching his breath. The effects of adrenaline, he tried to assure himself. It didn't help that he'd drunk four ounces of tequila before fighting for his life and then racing down the beach. But adrenaline and he were old friends, and it had never made him lightheaded. Similarly his profession was such that on several occasions he'd been forced into action after his deep-cover identity required him to gain a contact's trust by drinking with him. On none of those occasions, however, had the combination of exertion and alcohol made him lightheaded. A little sick to his stomach, yes, but never lightheaded. All the same, he definitely felt dizzy now, and sick to his stomach as well, and he had to admit the truth - although his shoulder wound was superficial, he must be losing more blood than he'd realized. If he didn't stop the bleeding, he risked fainting. Or worse.

Trained as a paramedic, Buchanan knew that the preferred way to stop bleeding was by using a pressure bandage. But he didn't have the necessary first-aid equipment. The alternative was to use a method that at one time had been recommended but had now fallen out of favor - applying a tourniquet. The disadvantage of a tourniquet was that it cut off the flow of blood not only to the wound but also to the rest of a limb, in this case Buchanan's right arm. If the tourniquet were applied too tightly or not relaxed at frequent, regular intervals, the victim risked damaging tissue to the point where gangrene resulted.

But he didn't have another option. Sirens wailing, lights flashing, emergency vehicles stopped on the bridge. As Buchanan paused at the edge of the channel between the sandbar and the mainland, he glanced warily toward the darkness behind him and neither saw nor heard an indication that he was being pursued. He would be, though. Soon. Hurriedly, he reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the folded belt that the second twin had taken from him and that Buchanan had retrieved after shooting the man. The belt was made from woven strips of leather, so there wasn't any need for eyelets. The prong on the buckle could slide between strands of leather anywhere along the belt. Buchanan hitched the belt around his swollen right shoulder, above the wound, and cinched it securely, tugging at the free end with his left hand while he bent his right arm painfully upward and with sweating effort used his trembling right fingers to push the buckle's prong through the leather. His legs wobbled. His vision blackened. He feared that he would pass out. But at once, his vision returned to normal, and with tremendous effort, he compelled his legs to move. Already he sensed, without being able to see the effect clearly, that the flow of blood had lessened significantly. He didn't feel as lightheaded. The trade-off was that his right arm now felt disturbingly prickly and cold.

Concerned that his blue canvas deck shoes would slip off his feet when filled with water, he removed them, tied their laces together, and wound the laces tightly around his right wrist. Then he took out the list of his pseudonyms that he'd removed from the second twin's corpse. After tearing the sheet into tiny pieces, he quickly waded into the darkness of the channel, the surprisingly warm water soaking his knees, his thighs, and his abdomen. As white-capped waves struck his chest, he pushed his feet off the sandy bottom and surged outward. A strong current tugged at him. In small amounts, he released the bits of torn paper. Even if someone managed impossibly to find all the pieces, the water would have dissolved the ink.

Relying on the kick of his muscular legs to give him momentum, he turned so his right side was below him, allowed his wounded right arm to rest, and used his left arm to stroke sideways through the water, adding to the power of his legs. The shoes attached to his right wrist created drag and held him back. Determined, he kicked harder.

The mouth of the channel was a hundred yards wide. As Buchanan pulled with his left arm and thrust with his legs, the water soaked the belt around his right shoulder, stretched the leather, and caused the tourniquet to loosen, decreasing the pressure above his wound. His right arm - no longer cold and prickly - now felt warm and sensitive to the tug of the current. Salt in the water made his wound sting.

Maybe the salt will disinfect it, he thought. But then he smelled the film of oil and gasoline on the water, left by the numerous power boats that used the channel, and he realized that the water would contaminate his wound, not disinfect it.

He realized something else - the loose tourniquet meant that his wound would be bleeding again. Blood might attract.

He swam with greater urgency, knowing that barracuda were often seen among the area's numerous reefs, knowing as well that sharks were sometimes reported to have swum up the channel and into the lagoon between the island and the shore. He had no idea how large the sharks had been or whether they were the type that attacked swimmers, but if there were predators in the water, the blood could attract them from quite a distance.

He kicked. His foot touched something. A piece of wood perhaps. Or a clump of drifting seaweed. But it might be.

He thrust himself faster, his foot again touching whatever was behind him.

He was a quarter of the way across the channel, far enough into it that he felt small, swallowed by the night. Abruptly he heard the drone of a motor to his left and frowned in that direction. The drone became a roar. He saw the lights of a swiftly approaching power boat. It came from the lagoon, sped beneath the bridge, and hurried through the channel toward the ocean. A police boat? Buchanan wondered and strained to get out of its way. As he kicked, he again felt something behind him. He weakened from further loss of blood. Staring frantically toward the approaching boat, he suddenly recognized the silhouette revealed by its lights. The vessel didn't belong to the police. It was a cabin cruiser. Through its windows, he saw several men and women drinking and laughing.

But the vessel was still a threat. It kept speeding toward him. Halfway across the channel, feeling the vibration of the cruiser's engines through the water, so close that within a few seconds he would either be seen by someone on board or else struck, Buchanan took a deep breath and submerged, veering downward, forced to use his injured arm to help him gain more speed, to avoid the passing hull and the spinning propellers.

The rumble of the cruiser's powerful engines assaulted Buchanan's eardrums. As he dove farther, deeper, the shoes attached to his right wrist impeded the already awkward motion of his injured arm. He heard the cruiser's rumble pass over him.

The moment it diminished, he arched fiercely upward, feeling lightheaded again, desperate to breathe. Beneath him, something brushed past his feet. Hurry, he told himself. The decreasing pressure against his ears alerted him that he was almost to the surface. His lungs seemed on fire. Any second now, he anticipated, his face would be exposed to the night. He'd be able to open his mouth and-

Whack! His skull struck something large and solid. The impact was so unexpected, so painful, so stunning that Buchanan breathed reflexively, inhaling water, coughing, gagging. He might have briefly passed out. He didn't know. What he did know was that he inhaled more water, that he fought to reach the surface. He grazed past the object he'd struck, burst into the open, and greedily filled his lungs, all the while struggling not to vomit.

What had-?

His head felt squeezed by swelling pain. In agony, desperate to get his bearings, he found himself facing the receding stern of the brightly lit cabin cruiser. Ominous, a long low shadow stalked the cruiser. The object must have been what Buchanan had struck. But he didn't understand what-

And then he did. A dinghy. The cruiser's towing it. I had no way of knowing about-

Something brushed past his legs again. Startled into action, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and now in his skull, Buchanan twisted onto his stomach and swam without regard for his wounded shoulder, using both arms, kicking with both legs, striking whatever it was that bumped past his feet. The opposite shore, the gleaming hotels past the beach, grew rapidly closer. As Buchanan stroked deeply with his left hand, his fingers suddenly touched sand. He was into the shallows. Standing, he lunged toward the beach, his knees plunging through the waves. Behind him, something splashed, and as he reached the shore, he spun toward the gloom of the channel, seeing the phosphorescent wake that something in the water had made. Or perhaps it was only his imagination.

Like hell.

Breathing heavily from pain, he wanted to slump onto the sand, to rest, but he heard the blaring rise and fall of more police sirens, and he knew that he didn't dare remain in the open, even in the darkness, so he mustered discipline, drew from the depths of his resolve, and turned his back to the bridge, staggering away from the channel, proceeding along the curve of the beach, studying the glow at the rear of the various hotels.

3

Here, as at Club Internacional, the beach was deserted, tourists preferring to go to bed early or else to party at Cancun's many night spots. Buchanan chose a hotel that didn't have an outdoor bar behind it and trudged from the sand. Remaining in the shadows, he found a lounge chair beneath a palm tree and slumped. There were other chairs, but what had attracted him to this particular chair was that a guest had left a towel upon it.

He slipped the belt from the top of his right shoulder, pressed the folded towel over his wound, and looped the belt several times over the towel, securing it tightly, attempting to make a pressure bandage. Although the towel became wet and dark in places, it seemed to reduce his loss of blood. For how long, he couldn't tell. Right now, all he wanted to do was rest.

But there was too much to do.

He unlooped the laces that attached his deck shoes to his right wrist. The canvas of his shoes was pliant because of the water. It shouldn't have been difficult putting them on his feet. But doing so and lacing them was among the hardest tasks he'd ever attempted.

His skull throbbed from its impact against the dinghy. The sharp pain remained as severe. Gingerly raising his left hand to his wet hair, he touched a gash and felt a large area of swelling. The water in his hair prevented him from determining if the gash was bleeding and if so, how much.

At the same time, the salt in the water had severely aggravated the pain in his wounded right shoulder. That injury, too, was swollen. It pulsed against the pressure bandage. In addition, disturbingly, the fingers of Buchanan's right hand trembled.

He told himself that the trembling must be the result of the trauma to his shoulder or of the struggle with the first twin and his subsequent swim across the channel. Relief after stress. Something like that. Hey, when you exercise with weights, he reminded himself, your hands sometimes shake afterward. Sure.

But only his right hand trembled, not both of them, and the fingers seemed to have a will of their own. He couldn't help worrying that something serious was wrong.

Move. You're acting like you've never been in a firefight before.

With effort, he stepped closer to the back of the hotel, leaving the shadows of the beach, moving warily onto concrete, passing more palm trees, approaching muted lights around a small, oval swimming pool.

The pool, surrounded by tropical bushes and patio furniture, was deserted. Staying close to the cover of shrubs, Buchanan reached the first, dim, overhead light, where he noticed that his wet shoes left prints on the concrete. He noticed as well that his shirt and pants still dripped water. What interested him most, though, was that the blood on his clothes had been rinsed away. A small blessing in a night of disasters. As soon as his shirt and pants dried, they wouldn't attract attention. But the blood on the towel strapped to his shoulder would certainly make people look twice.

He needed something to loop over his shoulder and conceal the towel. A jacket would be ideal, but the only way he could think to get one was by breaking into a room, and that was out of the question. Oh, he could pick a lock with ease if he had the equipment, which in this case he didn't, but only amateurs smashed windows and caused a disruption, which in this case he'd be forced to do.

So what are you going to do?

The pain from his injured skull aggravated the pain in his wounded shoulder. The combination was excruciating. Again he felt dizzy.

While he still had strength, he had to hurry.

He veered to the left toward a tunnel. Concrete stairs led up to the right toward the rooms on the upper floors. But his interest was directed inside the tunnel toward stairs on the left that went down. He couldn't imagine that a hotel with as impressive a design as this would be crude enough to lodge tourists below ground. So the only reason the hotel would have rooms down there would be for storage and maintenance.

He squinted at his digital Seiko watch, the sort of time piece he'd decided an ex-DEA officer would wear. It was still functioning after his swim, and when he pressed a button on the side, the LED display showed 11:09. This late, he doubted that the maintenance staff would still be working. He listened carefully for any voices or footsteps that echoed up the stairwell. Hearing none, he started down.

His rubber-soled deck shoes made almost no sound on the stairs. At a platform, the stairs reversed direction and took him to a dimly illuminated corridor. It smelled mouldy and damp. The odor would be a further reason for workers not to remain down here. Peering cautiously from the bottom of the stairwell, seeing no one at either end of the corridor, he stepped from cover, proceeded arbitrarily to the right, came to a metal door, listened, heard no sound behind it, and turned the knob. It was locked.

He continued to another door, and this time after he listened and tried the knob, he exhaled as the knob moved. Slowly pushing the door open, he groped along the inside wall, found a light switch, and flicked it on, relaxing when he saw that the room was unoccupied. The light bulb that dangled from the ceiling was as sickly yellow as those in the corridor. The room was lined with metal shelves upon which tools and boxes had been stored. A small, rusted, metal desk was wedged in one corner, and upon the desk-

- despite his pain, Buchanan felt a surge of excitement -

-sat a black, rotary telephone.

He shut the door, locked it, and picked up the phone. His heart pounded as he heard a tone. He quickly dialed a number.

A man answered. Buchanan's case officer. To be near Buchanan at this phase of the mission, he'd rented an apartment in the mainland part of Cancun. Normally he and Buchanan communicated by means of coded messages left at prearranged dead-drop locations on a predetermined schedule. Rarely, because of the risk of electronic eavesdropping, did they speak on the telephone, and only then between preselected pay phones. Never, while Buchanan was under deep cover, had they met. Buchanan had access to a protective backup team if he suspected he was in danger, but given the paranoia of the men he'd arranged to meet tonight, it had been decided that the benefit of the backup team's presence in and around Club Internacional would be offset by the danger that the drug distributors and their backup team would sense they were being watched. After all, the mission had been progressing according to plan. There'd been no reason to suspect that the meeting would not go smoothly. Until Big Bob Bailey showed up. Now Buchanan didn't have to worry about jeopardizing his cover if he phoned his case officer. What worse could happen? Buchanan's contacts were dead. The mission was blown.

What worse could happen? Oh, something worse could happen, all right. The Mexican police could capture him, and his superiors could be implicated in three murders. He had to disappear.

'Yes,' Buchanan's case officer said.

'Is that you, Paul?'

'I'm sorry. No one by that name lives here.'

'You mean this isn't.?' Buchanan gave a telephone number.

'You're not even close.'

'Sorry.'

Buchanan hung up and rubbed his throbbing forehead. The number he'd given his controller was a coded message for which an expanded translation would be that the mission had to be aborted, that an absolute disaster had occurred, that he'd been injured, was on the run, and had to be extracted from the area as soon as possible. By prior agreement, his case officer would try to rendezvous with Buchanan ninety minutes after Buchanan's call. The rendezvous location was on the mainland in downtown Cancun, outside a cantina near the intersection of Tulum and Coba Avenues. But every plan had to allow for contingencies, had to have numerous alternative agendas. So if Buchanan didn't make the rendezvous, his case officer would try again at eight tomorrow morning outside a coffee shop on Uxmal Avenue, and if Buchanan still did not arrive, the case officer would try once more at noon outside a pharmacy on Yaxchilan Avenue. If that third contact failed to happen, Buchanan's case officer would return to his apartment and wait for Buchanan to get in touch with him. Forty-eight hours later, if the case officer still hadn't heard from Buchanan, he would assume a worst-possibility scenario and get out of the country, lest he too become a liability. A delicate investigation would be set into motion to learn what had happened to Buchanan.

Ninety minutes from now, Buchanan thought. I have to get to that cantina. But spasms in his right hand distracted him. He stared down and saw the fingers of his right hand - and only those ringers, not those on his left hand - twitching again. They seemed not to belong to him. They seemed controlled by a force that wasn't his. He didn't understand. Had the bullet that slashed his shoulder injured the nerves that led down to his fingers?

He suddenly had trouble concentrating. The pain in his skull increased. His bullet wound throbbed. He felt something warm and wet seep from the towel that formed a pressure bandage over his wound. He didn't need to look to know that the towel, held in place by his belt, was becoming saturated and starting to leak.

His vision became alarmingly hazy. At once, it cleared as he tensed, hearing footsteps beyond the door.

The footsteps echoed slowly, hesitantly, along the concrete corridor, increasing in volume. They stopped outside the door. Buchanan sweated, frowning when he saw and heard the doorknob being turned. As a matter of course, he had locked the door after he'd entered the room. Even so, whoever was out there presumably worked for the hotel and might have a key. Someone out there pushed at the door. When it wouldn't open, the person shoved harder, then rammed what probably was a shoulder against it. No effect.

'Who is in this room?' a gruff male voice demanded in Spanish. Knuckles rapped on the door. 'Answer me.' A fist pounded. 'What are you doing in there?'

If he's got a key, now is when he'll use it, Buchanan thought. But what made him come down here and check this particular room? The hesitant footsteps I heard along the corridor. the man seemed almost to be looking for something.

Or following something?

As Buchanan shifted quietly toward the side of the door where he could shut off the light and grab the man if he used a key to enter, he glanced down and realized that the man had indeed been following something. Buchanan's drenched clothes had dripped on the concrete, making a trail.

Buchanan listened nervously for the metallic scrape of a key that the man would shove into the lock. Instead what Buchanan heard was more pounding, another indignant 'What are you doing in there?', and sudden silence.

Maybe he doesn't have a key. Or else he's afraid to use it.

Abruptly the footsteps retreated, clattering along the corridor, diminishing up the stairway.

I've got to get out of here before he has time to come back with help, Buchanan thought. He freed the lock, opened the door, checked the dim corridor, and was just about to leave when he noticed what seemed like rags on one of the shelves. The rags were actually a rumpled, soiled, cotton work-jacket and a battered, stained baseball cap from which the patch had been torn. He grabbed them. After using the jacket to wipe his fingerprints from everything he'd touched, he hurried along the corridor and up the staircase, seeing the wet trail he'd made.

The trail didn't matter now. All that did was getting away from the hotel before the worker came back with help. They'll probably call the police about a prowler. The police will be so frantic to arrest a suspect for the three killings that they might decide this incident is related. They'll focus their search in this area.

Buchanan swung toward where the shadowy beach would eventually take him near downtown Cancun. Heading north, he ran midway between the white-capped waves and the gleaming hotels. A fragrant sea breeze cooled the sweat on his brow and cleared the utility room's foul smell from his nostrils. The breeze had sufficient strength that it might even dry his wet clothes.

But abruptly he stumbled, losing his balance enough that he almost fell. It wouldn't have worried him so much if he had tripped over an unseen object. However, he had stumbled for the worst reason he could imagine. Because he was weaker. His wound pulsed, soaking the towel with blood. His skull throbbed from the sharpest headache of his life.

Wedged between his right arm and his side, he had the rumpled, cotton work-jacket and the stained, baseball cap. Gingerly, he set the cap on his head. The cap was battered enough that it might attract attention, but without it, the blood that it hid would certainly attract a lot more attention. Breathing with effort, he draped the soiled work-jacket over his right shoulder, hiding the blood-stained towel strapped over his wound. Now he could take the chance of showing himself in public. But as he pushed a button on his watch and looked at the digital time display, he discovered to his shock that almost an hour had passed since he'd phoned his case officer. That's impossible! I left the utility room just a little while ago.

You think.

Pal, you must be having blackouts.

Buchanan's thoughts became more urgent. He would have to veer between hotels and get a taxi on the throughway. Otherwise he'd never be able to reach the rendezvous site in time to meet his case officer. Unsteady, he left the beach.

He'd been right about one thing at least - the breeze from the sea had dried his clothes sufficiently that they didn't stick to him.

But the breeze no longer had any effect on the sweat that dripped from his brow.

4

'Jesus,' Buchanan's case officer said,'that wound needs stitches. Take off your cap. Let me look at. Yeah, oh, man, that gash on your skull needs stitches, too.'

They were stopped at an abandoned gas station on Highway 180, thirty kilometers west of Cancun. After taking a taxi into the downtown part of the city, Buchanan had waited no more than half a minute at the rendezvous site before his case officer stopped a rented Ford Taurus in front of the busy cantina and Buchanan got in.

The case officer was in his fifties, slightly balding, slightly overweight. His clothes. sandals, a lemon-colored polo shirt, and lime-colored shorts... matched his cover as a tourist. He and Buchanan hadn't worked together before. Buchanan knew him only as Wade, which Buchanan assumed was neither his real name, nor his usual cover name.

After Buchanan explained, Wade exhaled. 'Shit. It's completely unsalvageable. Damn it to hell. God. Okay, let's think a minute.' He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. 'Let's make sure we. The police'll be watching the airport in town and probably the one on Cozumel. That leaves us the next closest option.'

'Merida,' Buchanan said.

Wade increased speed as he drove from Cancun. 'That's assuming our best move is to get you out of the country. Maybe you ought to hole up somewhere. Go to ground. Hey, all the police have is a description that fits a lot of Americans. It's not like they have a photograph. Or fingerprints. You said you took care of that.'

Buchanan nodded, feeling nauseous. 'Except for the glasses I drank from in the restaurant. I couldn't do anything about them. The odds are they were taken to the kitchen and washed before the police thought to check them.' Buchanan raised his uninjured left arm and wiped increasing sweat from his brow. 'The real problem is, everybody in the restaurant heard Bailey call me Crawford, and me insist that I was Ed Potter. So the police have a name that Mexican emigration officers can watch for at airports.'

'That doesn't bother me,' Wade said. 'I brought an alternate passport and tourist card for you. Another pseudonym.'

'Good. But the police also have Bailey himself. They'll insist he help one of their artists prepare a sketch, and once copies of that sketch are faxed to every airport and every emigration officer, anybody who resembles the sketch will be stopped when he turns in his tourist card and pays his exit fee. I have to get out of the country before that sketch is distributed. Plus.' Buchanan stared at the fingers of his right hand. They were twitching again, an unwilled motion as if they weren't a part of him. His wounded arm seemed on fire. Blood soaked the towel strapped to his arm. 'I need a doctor.'

Wade glanced in his rearview mirror. 'I don't see any headlights behind us.' He peered ahead along the narrow forest-lined highway. 'This deserted gas station is as good a place as any.' He pulled off the road, got out, took something from the back seat, and came around to Buchanan's side of the car.

But after he opened Buchanan's door, exposed Buchanan's injuries, and aimed a narrow-beamed flashlight at them, he muttered, 'No shit you need a doctor. You need stitches.'

'I can't depend on somebody local not to notify the police about a gunshot wound,' Buchanan said.

'No problem,' Wade replied. 'I have contact with an American doctor in the area. He's worked for us before. We can trust him.'

'But I can't waste time going to him.' Buchanan's voice was raspy, his mouth dry. 'The police will soon have that sketch ready. I have to reach Merida. I have to get on a plane out of Mexico. Hell, Florida's just a couple of hours away by jet. When I said I need a doctor, I meant stateside. The quicker I'm out of here, the quicker I can.'

'You'll bleed to death before then,' Wade said. 'Didn't you hear me? I said you need stitches. At the least. I don't know about the gash in your head, but the wound in your arm - it's hard to tell with so much blood - it looks infected.'

'The way it feels, it probably is.' Buchanan struggled to rouse himself. 'What's that you set on the ground?'

'A first-aid kit.'

'Why didn't you say so?'

'Hey, what you've got wrong with you is more than any first-aid kit's going to help.'

'I keep forgetting. You're a civilian. One of those guys from the Agency.'

Wade straightened, defensive. 'You don't expect me to reply to that, do you? Besides, what difference does it make?'

'Just open the kit,' Buchanan said. 'Let's see what you've got. Good. My people prepared it. Pay attention. Do what I tell you. We've got to get the bleeding stopped. We have to clean the wounds.'

'We? Come on I don't know anything about this. I haven't been trained to-'

'I have.' Buchanan tried to stop his mind from swirling. 'Take that rubber tube and tie it above the wound in my shoulder. For five minutes, a tourniquet won't do much damage. Meanwhile.'

Buchanan tore open a packet and dumped out several gauze sponges.

Wade finished tying the rubber tube around Buchanan's exposed shoulder. The bleeding lessened dramatically.

'That plastic container of rubbing alcohol,' Buchanan said. Tour some of it onto those gauze sponges and start wiping the blood away from the bullet wound.' It seemed to Buchanan that his voice came from far away. Fighting to remain alert, he pried a syringe from a slot in a block of protective styrofoam and squinted at the label, satisfying himself that the contents were an antibiotic. 'Use a clean sponge and wipe some of that alcohol on the upper muscle of my right arm.'

Wade did what he was told, then quickly resumed cleaning the bullet wound.

Buchanan injected the antibiotic into his right arm. As soon as he withdrew the needle, the fingers of his right hand starting jerking again. Clumsily he returned the syringe to the slot in the styrofoam block.

'There,' Wade said. 'I finished cleaning the edges of the wound.'

'Now pour that hydrogen peroxide into it,' Buchanan said.

'Pour?' Wade asked. 'That'll hurt like-'

'Nothing compared to dying from blood poisoning. The wound has to be disinfected. Do it.'

Wade unscrewed the top from the hydrogen peroxide, pursed his lips, and poured what amounted to several tablespoons of the clear liquid into the long slash of the wound.

In the glow from the flashlight propped on the seat, Buchanan saw the liquid enter the slash. He saw his flesh and blood begin to bubble, like boiling acid. The pain suddenly hit him, even worse than the pain he'd already been feeling. It gnawed. It stabbed. It burned.

His vision doubled. He wavered.

'Buchanan?' Wade sounded alarmed.

'Do it again,' Buchanan said.

'You can't be serious.'

'Do it again. I've got to be sure the wound's clean.''

Wade poured. The wound bubbled, its edges turning white, clots of blood welling out. Sweat slicked Buchanan's face.

'And some on the gash on my head,' Buchanan murmured.

This time, Wade surprised Buchanan by complying without objection. Good, Buchanan thought through his pain. You're tougher than I expected, Wade. You're going to need to be when you hear what you have to do next.

The hydrogen peroxide felt as if it ate through Buchanan's skull and into his brain.

He shuddered. 'Fine. Now you see that tube in the first-aid kit? That's a triple-antibiotic ointment. Squeeze some on the gash on my head and a lot more into my bullet wound.'

Wade's movements became more confident.

Buchanan felt the tourniquet digging into his right shoulder. Apart from the agony of the wound, the arm seemed swollen and had no sensation. 'Almost done,' Buchanan told Wade. 'There's only one more thing you have to do.'

'One more? What's that?'

'You were right. I need stitches.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I want you to sew me up.'

'Sew you-? Jesus Christ.'

'Listen to me. Without stitches, once that tourniquet's released, I'll hemorrhage. There's a sterile surgical needle and thread in that foil pouch. Wash your hands with rubbing alcohol, open the pouch, and sew me up.'

'But I've never done anything like-'

'It isn't complicated,' Buchanan said. 'I don't give a damn about neatness, and I'll tell you how to tie the knots. But it has to be done. If I could reach that far around my shoulder, I'd do it myself.'

'The pain,' Wade objected. 'I'll be so clumsy. You need anesthetic.'

'Even if we had some, I couldn't risk using it. I have to stay alert. There's so little time. While we drive to Merida, you have to coach me about the identity you're giving me to get out of the country.'

'Buchanan, you look as if you're ready to pass out as it is.'

'You son of a bitch, don't ever do that to me again.'

'Do what? What are you-?'

'You called me "Buchanan". I forgot about Buchanan. I don't know who Buchanan is. On this assignment, my name's Ed Potter. If I respond to the name "Buchanan," I could get myself killed. From now on. No, I'm wrong. I'm not Ed Potter anymore. I'm. Tell me who I am. What's my new identity? What's my background? What do I do for a living? Am I married? Talk to me, damn it, while you sew me up.'

Cursing, insulting, commanding, Buchanan forced Wade to use the curved surgical needle and stitch the bullet wound shut. With each thrust of the needle, Buchanan gritted his teeth harder until his jaw ached and he feared that his teeth would crack. The only thing that kept him from losing consciousness was his desperate need to acquire his new persona. He was Victor Grant, he learned. From Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He customized cabin cruisers and yachts, specializing in installing audio-visual electronics. He'd been in Cancun to speak with a client. If he had to, he could give the client's name and local address. The client, cooperating with Buchanan's employers, would vouch for Victor Grant.

'Okay,' Wade said. 'It looks like hell, but I think it'll hold.'

'Smear antibiotic cream on a thick gauze pad. Press the bandage onto the stitches. Secure the pad with a wraparound bandage, several layers, and wrap the bandage with tape.' Buchanan sweated from pain, his muscles rigid. 'Good,' he said. 'Now release the tourniquet.'

He felt a surge of blood into his arm. As the numbness lessened, his flesh prickling, the already severe pain became worse. But he didn't care about that. He could handle pain. Pain was temporary. But if the stitches didn't hold and he hemorrhaged, he didn't need to worry about remembering his new identity or about getting to the Merida airport before a police sketch of him was faxed there or about being questioned by an emigration officer at the airport. None of those worries would matter. Because by then he'd have bled to death.

For a long minute, he stared at the bandage. No blood seeped through it. 'Okay, let's move.'

'Just in time,' Wade said. 'I see headlights coming behind us.' He shut the first-aid kit, slammed Buchanan's door, ran around to get in the driver's side, and veered onto the road before the headlights came near.

Buchanan tilted his head back, breathing hoarsely. His mouth was terribly dry. 'Have you got any water?'

'Sorry. I didn't think to bring any.'

'Great.'

'Maybe there'll be a place open where we can buy some.'

'Sure.'

Buchanan stared ahead through the windshield, watching the glare of the car's headlights pierce the night. He kept repeating to himself that his name was Victor Grant. From Fort Lauderdale. A customizer of pleasure boats. Electronics. Divorced. No children. The tropical forest crowded each side of the narrow road. On occasion, he glimpsed machete-scarred trees from which chicle had been drained to make chewing gum. On occasion, too, he saw groups of thatched huts, aware that the inhabitants were Maya, with the broad features, high cheekbones, and folded eyelids of their ancestors who had built the great monuments at Chichen Itza and other ancient cities now turned to ruin in the Yucatan peninsula. Rarely, he saw a dim light through the open door of a hut and a family sleeping in various hammocks, the hammocks helping them to stay cool and to keep them safe from reptiles prowling in the night, for Yucatan meant 'place of snakes.' Mostly what he noticed was that every time the car approached a group of thatched huts, evidently a village, a sign at the side of the road said TOPE - slow down - and then, no matter how slowly Wade drove, the car lurched over a traffic bump in the road and jolted Buchanan enough that his head jerked off the back of the seat, brutally intensifying the pain in his skull and in his shoulder. His right hand again became spastic. Away from the sea, the humidity on the peninsula felt smothering. But the air was so still, so laden with bugs that the car's windows had to be closed. Victor Grant. Fort Lauderdale. Pleasure boats. Electronics. He passed out.

5

Despite a ground-mist that obscured the illumination from the moon and stars, Balam-Acab had little difficulty moving through the rain forest at night. Part of his skill was due to his having been born in this region. After thirty years, he was thoroughly at home in the jungle. Nonetheless, the jungle was a living thing, ever shifting, and another reason that Balam-Acab knew his way so well through the crowding trees and drooping vines was the feel of stones beneath his thin sandals. After all, he had made this particular journey many times. Habit was in his favor.

In the dark, he let the flat, worn stones guide his footsteps. During the day, the pattern of the stones would not be evident to an inexperienced observer. Trees thrust up among them. Bushes concealed them. But Balam-Acab knew that a thousand years ago, the stones would have formed an uninterrupted path that the ancients had called a sacbe: 'white road.' The name was not strictly accurate inasmuch as the large, flat stones were more gray than white, but even in its dilapidated condition, the walkway was impressive.

How much more so would it have been during the time of the ancients, before the Spanish conquerors, when Balam-Acab's ancestors had ruled this land? There had been a time when Mayan roads had crisscrossed the Yucatan. Trees had been cut, swaths hacked through the jungle. In the cleared section, stones had been placed, forming a level that was two to four feet above the ground. Then rubble had been spread over the stones, to fill the gaps between them, and finally the stones and rubble had been covered with a concrete made from burned, powdered limestone mixed with gravel and water.

Indeed the path that Balam-Acab followed had once been a smooth road that was almost sixteen feet wide and sixty miles long. But since the extermination of so many of his ancestors, there had been no one to attend to the road, to care for and repair it. Centuries of rain had dissolved the concrete and washed away the rubble, exposing the stones, and the area's numerous earthquakes and the sprouting vegetation caused them to shift. Now only someone as aware of the old ways and as attuned to the spirit of the forest as Balam-Acab was could follow the path so skillfully in the misty darkness.

Stepping from stone to stone, veering around unseen trees, sensing and stooping to avoid vines, alert for the slightest unsteadiness underfoot, Balam-Acab maintained perfect balance. He had to, for if he fell, he couldn't use his arms to grab for support. His arms were already occupied, carrying a precious bowl wrapped in a soft, protective blanket. He hugged it to his chest. Given the circumstances, he didn't dare take the risk of packing the bowl in his knapsack along with his other important objects. Too often, the knapsack was squeezed against a branch or a tree. The objects within the knapsack were unbreakable. Not so the bowl.

The humidity in the underbrush added to the sweat that slicked Balam-Acab's face and stuck his cotton shirt and pants to his body. He wasn't tall - only five foot three, typical for the males of his tribe. Although sinewy, he was thin, partly from the exertions of living in the jungle, partly from the meager diet provided by his village's farms. His hair was straight and black, cut short to keep it free from insects and prevent it from being entangled in the jungle. Because of the isolation of this region and because the Spanish conquerors had disdained to have children with the Maya, Balam-Acab's facial features bore the same genetic traits as his ancestors when Mayan culture was at its zenith centuries before. His head was round, his face broad, his cheekbones pronounced. His thick, lower lip had a dramatic downward curve. His eyes were dark, with the shape of an almond. His eyelids had a Mongolian fold.