McCall whipped his attention back to Ellie. “Okay. Tell me what?” She stared up at him, and her face was pale and still, her eyes flat and lifeless as stones. Without their golden shimmer and her natural vivid coloring she looked like a faded and washed-out copy of herself. Alarmed, he gave her a wake-up shake. “Come on-we don’t have much time.”

She licked her lips. “He said…that was the general, didn’t he?” Her voice was as flat as her eyes.

He considered briefly whether he ought to slap her, but since he knew he didn’t have it in him to do that, gave her another shake instead. “Yeah, he did. What do you know about him? Come on.”

“I know he’s going to kill us.” Her lashes settled onto her cheeks, dark crescents against cinnamon-dusted ivory. He heard her take a breath and release it in a small, uneven sigh. “Oh McCall…I got you into this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“Into what, dammit?” His throat felt raw. “Tell me.”

She nodded, and once more gazing into his eyes, took in air like a diver preparing to jump. “First I have to know something. How did you know-about the money? How did you know I’d left half of it behind? I only mentioned insurance. I didn’t-”

“I saw you.” His hands fell away from her arms, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He didn’t want to go on looking at her, but for some reason couldn’t tear his eyes from her face. “Last night.” The emptiness of his hands distressed him, so he tucked them into his armpits. “Through the window.”

“Oh…God.” She closed her eyes again, briefly, but when she opened them he thought he caught a hopeful glimpse of that golden fire. “Then…you know about-”

“The gun. Yeah. I saw it. What happened to it, by the way? What the hell did you do with it?” His voice sounded harsh…angry. And yet the feeling inside him wasn’t anger. Not exactly. Damned if he knew what it was.

“I changed my mind. I was afraid we might be searched. I was afraid of what might happen if they found a weapon on me, so I…hid it.”

“For God’s sake, where?”

“In the car-behind the dash.”

He clapped a hand to his forehead and swore in utter exasperation. “Fat lot of good it’s doing us there!”

“Would you rather they had it?” Her eyes glared into his, and now there was no mistaking that golden fire. Color was coming back into her cheeks, too. He felt suddenly as though his heart was bumping around loose inside his chest, ricocheting in dangerous, unpredictable ways.

“Lady,” he said slowly…softly…because he was in a dangerous and unpredictable mood, “who in the hell are you?”

Her eyes clung to his; she moistened her lips and whispered as if it was the most important thing she’d ever say, “Not Mrs. Burnside.”

“Not…Mrs. Burnside.” He repeated the words without really grasping them, because they were so far from anything he’d expected. He stared at her and she stared steadily back, her eyes more like beacons now than flames, and he felt his consciousness shrinking, narrowing, laser-like, until his entire being seemed focused only on her face. He forgot about the guard. “Then…who-” His surroundings…the circumstances…the danger…had all ceased to exist.

Which was why he was caught unprepared when an amused voice-not Ellie’s-replied in only slightly accented English, “May I, señor? May I have the honor to introduce to you Special Agent Rose Ellen Lanagan, of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.”

At the first words McCall had started violently and spun toward the voice, tilted like an off-balance top. Now he jerked an incredulous look back at Ellie. Her face was pale but composed. She gazed past him, her eyes riveted on the speaker much the way McCall might have kept his eye on a coiled-up snake.

“General Reyes,” she said in her dry and raspy voice, “I presume.”

The general laughed, pausing in the process of lighting up a cigar to mumble, “Unfortunately for you…yes.”

He was tall for a Mexican, with native Indian coloring and European features and build-a good-looking man, and aware of it, McCall thought, and obviously proud of his luxuriant black mustache. He was dressed in the same jungle camouflage as the men with him, the only difference being that, instead of an automatic rifle slung over a shoulder or held ready across his chest, he had a big black pistol snapped into a leather holster at his hip. That, and his pant legs were tucked into the tops of a nice pair of well-cared-for lace-up leather boots. The only indication of military rank McCall could see was some indecipherable insignia on his cap.

The general strolled toward them, tossing his match carelessly aside. He removed the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it at McCall as he said to Ellie, “Perhaps you would return the favor. Please be so kind as to introduce me to your friend-” his eyes narrowed as he paused to puff delicately on the cigar “-who I can only say for certain is not your partner, Ken Burnside-who is at this very moment, I am happy to say, recovering from his emergency appendectomy in a Florida hospital. Fate is funny, is it not?” His fine mustache tilted as he made a soft ironic sound. “It appears his so painful and untimely illness has saved his life.”

“He’s nobody-just a guy I hired to bring me here,” Ellie said breathlessly, pushing in front of McCall. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“That is too bad…” The general moved with a relaxed and easy swagger into the shade of the lanai, leaving his contingent of armed soldiers outside. McCall felt those hackles rising again when he halted in front of Ellie, but the general was looking over her head at McCall. “No man should have to die without knowing why, eh?”

McCall felt a shock wave of rejection shake Ellie’s body…and when had his hands come to be holding her upper arms? He’d no recollection of having put them there.

“Is that not true? So, Mr…?”

“It’s McCall.” He ground out the words between his teeth.

“Ah. So, Mr. McCall, if you like I will tell you what this foolish woman has so carelessly involved you in that is going to cost you your life.”

“Why not?” Badly in need of calming, McCall patted the pocket where he normally kept his cigarettes and found a half-smoked cigar there instead. He took it out and put it in his mouth, and instantly heard the scritch and flare of a match. “Damned nice of you,” he muttered as he bent his head to accept the general’s light, then watched the match, still trailing a tiny plume of smoke, drop into crushed and trampled grass.

The general chuckled. “I admire a man who can keep his sense of humor under such circumstances. It really is too bad that I must kill you. But…unfortunately it is necessary to discourage the United States and Mexican governments once and for all from any further interference in my…shall we say, my private business enterprises. The United States, you see, has a very low tolerance for war casualties. To have two of their agents killed-”

“One,” Ellie said sharply. “One agent-me. I told you-he’s nobody. He doesn’t know anything. If you just let him go-turn him loose-by the time he finds his way out of the jungle-if he does-you’ll be long gone, as usual. What harm can he do?”

“Interesting… You seem to care a great deal what happens to this man.” There was a long pause while the general squinted at her through smoke, smiling slightly. McCall didn’t much like the looks of that smile. He could feel his blood pressure soaring…adrenaline squirting into his system…ancient male-female protective instincts rampaging.

Then he heard Ellie snort a wholly unconvincing denial, and the significance of that finally penetrated the red fog of rage that had enveloped him. He felt a new and strange sensation…a growing, spreading, tingling warmth inside his chest that felt incongruously…impossibly like joy.

“Well.” The general gave a thoughtful shrug. “That may be most useful to me later on. You see,” he said, bringing his attention back to McCall, “for years the combined resources of our two governments have tried-unsuccessfully-to halt the lucrative and growing business of trafficking in rare and endangered species.”

“And drugs,” Ellie bit out in a contemptuous tone.

The general waved that impatiently aside. “Only a small sideline. Why waste the cargo space, eh? However, time after time, the government has attempted to raid these traffickers’ camps, only to find an empty nest, the birds flown-pardon a little joke. Why?” He paused, arching his eyebrows, enjoying himself. “Because there is no camp. The smugglers operate here in the jungle much like what you call in the States a floating crap game. Here one day, gone the next, without a trace-you see?”

“Of course they were gone,” Ellie said bitterly. “With you telling them when we were coming.”

The general acknowledged that with a complacent chuckle. “However, Mr. McCall…” once again he paused directly in front of Ellie, and this time McCall could feel the menace radiating like heat from his narrowed black eyes, “…even advance warning would not prevent government forces from finding these traffickers, if someone were to gain access to their camp and plant tracking devices… Ah yes, I see you understand. That was to have been the task of Agents Lanagan and Burnside. First, establishing themselves as buyers-a young married couple who own a pet shop-they then express dissatisfaction with the condition of the merchandise and suggest that they might be able to use their superior knowledge of wildlife-Miss Lanagan has an advanced degree in biology, did she tell you that?-to the advantage of all concerned, by increasing the survival rate of the merchandise and the profits as well. To do this, they naturally would have to visit the source of the merchandise-yes…clever, eh? Once in the traffickers’ camp, the agents would plant tracking devices in, say, something that must always travel with the personnel-communications equipment, perhaps. Or the men’s clothing…their shoes. There are a thousand possibilities. And the devices these days can be so small as to be almost undetectable.