'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.