“Gracias…” McCall tapped out a cigarette and put it to his lips, then held out the lighter. “¿Por favor…?” There was a comradely chuckle as someone took the lighter, clicked it on and held it to the end of McCall’s cigarette. He felt the heat, heard the crackle…inhaled smoke and murmured again, “Gracias.”

There was another chuckle and a careless “De nada,” as the lighter was pressed back into his hand.

Making friends? he thought as he dropped it into his pocket. Or the condemned man’s last cigarette?

Then hands gripped his arms and he was pushed and shoved and guided until he was walking-stumbling-down what he was certain must be the grass and gravel track they’d been driving on only moments-it seemed like hours-before. There was no conversation among the troops now-no sound except for the muffled tramping of feet, a few bird calls, the screech of a monkey and the whine of a jillion insects.

And a moment later, a burst of automatic weapons fire.

For one interminable instant, McCall thought it was he who’d been shot. Shock lanced through all his vital organs; his knees turned to water. The world stopped.

Then he was pretty sure he hadn’t been shot. And that was much, much worse.

“Ellie!” Her name ripped through his throat. The images in his mind were an agony he was certain he could never survive.

“It’s all right. I’m here.” Relief shook him like a strong gust of wind. Her voice was unexpectedly near…bumpy and frightened but obviously unharmed. “I think they sh-shot the car.”

“The car!” Still quivering and numb with relief, McCall tried to digest that. It made no sense to him, so he ran it through again. “They shot my car?” It didn’t sound any better.

“I think so.” Ellie’s voice was still hushed and shaky. “I heard glass breaking.”

“I see,” said McCall. And after a moment… “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Ellie didn’t like it much, either. She could think of only one reason why their captors would have done such a thing. Fear trickled coldly down her spine. She said with a grim confidence she didn’t come close to feeling, “I had a feeling they might do something like this. That’s why I took out a little insurance.”

There was a grunt and some muffled swearing from McCall. He must have stumbled, she thought, or gotten slapped in the face by a branch; the trail had gotten narrower and considerably more overgrown. She was relieved to hear a surly undertone, “What the hell do you mean, insurance?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him-anyway, the part about leaving half the money behind in their hotel room, buried in her overnight bag and stuffed under the bed. She even thought about telling him about her weapon, and the last-minute premonition that had made her take the ankle-holster off this morning and hide it behind the dashboard of the VW. To the best of her knowledge the smugglers hadn’t found it…thank God. Thank God she still had her visor, too, and her watch and earrings. She should tell him about those, too, she thought. Just in case…

But before she’d made up her mind to do that, one of her captors gave her arm a jerk and rapped out a warning in Spanish, reminding her that they were surrounded by a dozen armed men, any of whom might know more English than they pretended. And she only had time for a hissed, “Trust me,” as she threw up her arms to protect her face from vegetation she couldn’t see.

McCall didn’t answer, but she thought she heard him laugh.

And why shouldn’t he laugh? she thought, once again lapsing dangerously into gloom and self-blame. I’m not sure I’d trust me, either. All I’ve done so far is get us into a mess.

Keep your wits about you, Rose Ellen.

And don’t lose confidence, either, she scolded herself.

Things really weren’t that bad. And so far, not her fault. She really couldn’t see how things would have been any different even if Ken had been with her. After all, they’d expected something like this might happen. Talked about and prepared for just such a double cross. Okay, shooting the car had been a bit unexpected, but so what? The important thing was that she was being taken to the smugglers’ camp, according to plan, presumably to meet with the head honcho. To whom she-or more probably McCall-would explain that if he wanted the other half of his money he was going to have to return them to their hotel unharmed. As McCall might have said, no problemo.

And if things didn’t go according to plan, well…they would just have to find a way to escape, that’s all.

“McCall,” she called softly, “are you there?”

“Yeah.” He sounded, Ellie thought, rather like a bad-tempered camel.

“How much damage do you think they did?”

“To the car?” There was a pause, and then a grudging, “Hard to say. Those Beetles are pretty hard to kill.”

“Think you can fix it?”

“Assuming we make it back there, you mean? Don’t know, depends on what they hit. How many tires we have…” His voice trailed away, but not before she heard the hopelessness in it. Assuming we make it back there…

Remorse and regret settled around her again like a cold mist, making her feel chilled in spite of the heat. Poor McCall. She should have told him everything. She should have trusted him. Of course he was thinking that even if they did manage to escape from the smugglers’ camp, they were in the middle of a jungle with no way of knowing which way to go in order to find their way back to their car. And she had no chance to let him know that that scenario, too, had been anticipated and prepared for.

“Too bad they threw away our lunch,” she said, acutely conscious of the guard beside her…of alert and listening ears. “I guess we could have used some bread crumbs right about now…”

McCall’s only reply was another grunt. Oddly, though, this one wasn’t nearly as surly as before. In fact, it sounded almost…surprised.

A moment later she heard him call out to his captors, asking in Spanish for a cigarette break. The request was passed up the line and responses came back, good-natured and relaxed, most of them. The column halted, and Ellie heard the rustle of cigarette packs, the scritch of matches, the click of lighters. Some laughter and low-voiced conversation. She smelled tobacco smoke…a hint of a cigar. It seemed an interminable time, waiting in blindfolded isolation, until they started moving again.

They stopped for a smoke-break several more times after that. And each time, her sense of remorse eroded in indirect proportion to her own physical discomfort. As she waited, slapping at the insects that whined in her ears and flew into her nose in spite of the high-powered repellent she’d all but bathed in that morning, she tried to keep her mind sharp and her impatience in check. But it was a losing battle. What, she wondered, was the matter with these people? With McCall? Dammit, didn’t it occur to anyone that she was miserable and uncomfortable, itchy, hungry, thirsty and in need of a bathroom? What was McCall hoping to do? she wondered. It was almost as though he was trying to postpone their arrival at the smugglers’ camp-assuming that was their intended destination. If so, to what purpose? As far as Ellie was concerned, the sooner they got there the better-at least then they’d probably let her go to the bathroom.

She had no way of knowing how long they’d been walking, or how far from the road they’d gone-for all she knew they might have been walking around in circles-when she began to feel a difference in her surroundings. The air felt cooler, though no less humid. She had a sense of open spaces where branches and vines no longer grabbed at her legs or slapped her in the face. Underfoot, the soft mushy vegetation now seemed to be broken with flat mossy stones. Sunlight that burned hot on the top of her head alternated with patches of deep shade.

In the near distance she could hear the raucous calls of birds-lots of birds-macaws, parrots, toucans and cockatoos, by the sound of it. Too many in one place to be natural. Her heart quickened and excitement prickled through her scalp and shivered her skin with goose bumps. This was it-she was sure of it-the smugglers’ camp. She was here-she’d made it. At last.

Hands gripped her arms, pulling her to a halt. She felt fingers fumbling with the knot of her blindfold. Impatiently, she reached up to take off first her sun visor-carefully-then snatched off the blindfold. She replaced the sun visor, blinking in the suddenness of light, slightly disoriented by the mottled patterns of sunlight and shadow. Then her eyes focused. She uttered a sharp, shuddering gasp.

Staring back at her from out of a thicket of jungle growth, wrapped around with vines and festooned with bromeliads and wild orchids, was a gigantic stone face. As imposing as it was, taller than she was by at least a foot or two, after that first shock her first thought was that there was a kind of sweetness about it, with its blank, sleepy eyes and babyish roundness, like a doll dropped there by some Titan’s child and forgotten.

“Olmec,” McCall said from close beside her.

She glanced up at him…and was utterly unprepared for the fierce stab of joy she felt at the sight of his beard-stubbled, scowling face. Even the scowl seemed wonderfully comforting to her, and the stubble as familiar to her as if she’d known him all her life. And at the same time she felt as if she were seeing him for the first time, or after a long absence. She just wanted to stare at him, drink him in, stamp the image of every line, every pore and whisker indelibly on her memory…on her soul.

I should have told him. I should have trusted him.

She should have-she could have. She knew that now. Now that it was too late. Oh, but why hadn’t she recognized the honesty and intelligence in those keen blue eyes? Why hadn’t she known about the strength and character, courage and honor that lay behind the beard and the don’t-give-a-damn attitude?