'I'm also the photographer,' Buchanan said.
Delgado gestured dismissively. 'There will be an opportunity for photographs later. Se¤orita McCoy, may I offer you a drink before lunch? Perhaps wine?'
'Thank you, but it's a little too early for.'
'Sure,' Buchanan said. 'Wine would be nice.' There hadn't been time to teach Holly not to turn down an offer to drink with a target. Refusing alcohol stifled the target's urge to be companionable. It made the target suspect that you had a reason not to want to relax your inhibitions.
'On second thought, yes,' Holly said. 'Since we're having lunch.'
'White or red?'
'White, please.'
'Chardonnay?'
'Fine.'
'The same for me,' Buchanan said.
Delgado continued ignoring him and turned to the servant, who had remained at the door. 'Lo haga, Carlos. Do it.'
'Si, Se¤or Delgado.'
The white-coated servant stepped back and disappeared along the hallway.
'Sit down, please.' Delgado led Holly toward one of the padded leather chairs.
Buchanan followed, noticing a man on a patio beyond the glass doors that led to the study. The man was an American in his middle thirties, well-dressed, fair-haired, pleasant-looking.
Noticing Buchanan's interest in him, the man nodded and smiled, his expression boyish.
Delgado was saying, 'I know Americans like to keep to a busy schedule, so if you have a few questions you would like to ask before lunch, by all means do so.'
The man came in from the patio.
'Ah, Raymond,' Delgado said. 'Have you finished your stroll? Come in. I have some guests I would like you to meet. Se¤orita McCoy from The Washington Post.'
Raymond nodded with respect and went over to Holly. 'My pleasure.' He shook hands with her.
Something about the handshake made her frown.
Raymond turned and approached Buchanan. 'How do you do? Mister.?'
'Riley. Ted.'
They shook hands.
At once Buchanan felt a stinging sensation in his right palm.
It burned.
His hand went numb.
Alarmed, he looked over at Holly, who was staring in dismay at her right palm.
'How long does it take?' Delgado asked.
'It's what we call a two-stepper,' Raymond said. As he took off a ring and placed it in a small jeweler's box, he smiled again, his blue eyes bottomless and cold.
Holly sank to her knees.
Buchanan's right arm lost all sensation.
Holly toppled to the floor.
Buchanan's chest felt tight. His heart pounded. He sprawled.
Desperate, he fought to stand.
Couldn't.
Couldn't do anything.
His body felt numb. His limbs wouldn't move. From head to foot, he was powerless.
Staring above him, frantic, helpless, he saw Delgado smirk.
The blue-eyed American peered down, his empty smile chilling. 'The drug comes from the Yucatan Peninsula. It's the Mayan equivalent of curare. Hundreds of years ago, the natives used it to paralyze their victims so they wouldn't struggle when their hearts were cut out.'
Unable to turn his head, unable to get a glimpse of Holly, Buchanan heard her gasp, trying to breathe.
'Don't you try to struggle,' Raymond said. 'Your lungs might not bear the strain.'
5
The helicopter thundered across the sky. Its whump-whump-whumping roar vibrated through the fuselage. Not that Buchanan could feel the rumble. His body continued to have absolutely no sensation. The cabin's presumably hard floor might as well have been a feathered mattress. Neither hard nor soft, hot nor cold, sharp nor blunt had any significance. All was the same: numb.
In compensation, his senses of hearing and sight intensified tremendously. Every sound in the cabin, especially Holly's agonized wheezing, was amplified. Beyond a window of the cabin, the sky was an almost unbearably brilliant turquoise. He feared that he would have gone blind from the radiance if not for merciful flicks of his eyelids, which - like his heart and lungs - weren't part of the system controlled by the drug.
Indeed his heart was nauseatingly stimulated, pounding wildly, no doubt at least in part from fear. But if he vomited (assuming that his stomach, too, wasn't paralyzed), he would surely gag and die. He had to concentrate on controlling his fear. He didn't dare lose his discipline. The faster his heart pounded, the more his lungs wanted air. But his chest muscles wouldn't cooperate, and the panic of involuntary, smothering hyperventilation almost overcame him.
Concentrate, he thought. Concentrate.
He struggled to fill his mind with a calming mantra. He strove for a single, all-consuming thought that gave him purpose. Juana, he thought. Juana. Juana. Have to survive to help her. Have to survive to find her. Have to survive to save her. Have to.
His frenzied heart kept speeding. His panicked lungs kept insisting. No. The mantra wasn't working. Juana? She was a distant memory, years away - in Buchanan's case, literally lifetimes away. He'd been so many people in the meanwhile. Searching for her, as determined as he'd been to find her, he'd really been searching for himself, and as a new, all-consuming, all-purposeful thought filled his mind -
-it was unwilled, spontaneous-
-Holly-
-listening to her struggle to breathe-
-need to help Holly, need to save Holly-
-he suddenly knew that he finally had a purpose. Not for Peter Lang. Not for any of his other assumed identities. But for Brendan Buchanan. And that realization gave him an urge to look forward rather than behind, something he hadn't felt since he'd killed his brother so long ago. Brendan Buchanan had a purpose, and it had nothing to do with himself. It was simply, absolutely, to do everything in his power to make sure that Holly survived this. Not because he wanted her to be with him. But because he wanted her to live. Trapped in himself, he had found himself.
While his heart continued to speed, he sensed - from a change in pressure behind his ears - that the helicopter was descending. He couldn't move his head to notice where Delgado sat next to Raymond, but he could hear them talking.
'I don't see why it was necessary for me to come along.'
'It was an order that Mr Drummond radioed to me as I was flying to Cuernavaca. He wants you to see the progress at the site.'
'Risky,' Delgado said. 'I might be associated with the project.'
'I suspect that was Mr Drummond's idea. It's time for you to pay off your debt.'
'That ruthless son of a bitch.'
'Mr Drummond would consider it a compliment to be called ruthless. Look down there. You can see it now.'
'My God.'
The helicopter continued descending, the pressure behind Buchanan's ears more painful.