Even as his heart swelled within him, though, his sense of nobility and purpose were tempered with irony. Funny, he thought, that he’d spent so many years trying to hide from his White Knight tendencies, only to finally die because of them. No regrets, though; no use trying to outrun destiny. He began to feel pumped-up and ready…charged with passion. So must Sir Galahad have felt, riding out to face the dragons.

It was about then he realized the shouts were becoming fainter and more distant.

Ellie stirred against him. He felt rather than heard her croak, “They’re going.”

“Yeah…” He felt odd, suddenly. Cold and clammy, hollow inside. His voice seemed to echo as he added, “They’ve gone to tell the general.”

“I can’t believe it.” Her voice was shaking, incredulous. “It worked. They think we jumped. I don’t believe it.”

“’Course it worked,” he mumbled. His wonderful, incredible, quick-thinking Cinnamon Girl… “C’mon, let’s get out of here…” The general might not be so easily fooled. McCall rose to his feet. And realized, to his utter horror, that he was about to pass out.

He sat down again, much more abruptly than he’d intended to.

“McCall? Are you all right? What’s wrong? McCall-” And she was touching him in the darkness, her fingers cold on his rain-wet face. Her hands slipped to his shoulders…his arms…clutched him-hard.

Pain knifed through him. Breath hissed between his teeth and nausea threatened.

“McCall! Oh God-McCall, you’re bleeding. Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

“First I knew of it,” he muttered, trying very hard not to throw up while her fingers were exploring his upper arm.

She said in an appalled tone, “I think you’ve been shot.”

“Just a scratch.” He felt quite pleased with himself at that. He thought it seemed like something Clint Eastwood would have said.

“There’s an awful lot of blood for ‘just a scratch,”’ she said accusingly. He heard rustling sounds as she straightened, then nothing as she thought it over. Then she bent down close to him again and shouted, as if he’d suddenly gone hard-of-hearing, “Are you okay? Can you make it to the jungle?”

“I’m fine,” he barked back at her, and was gratified to discover that it was more or less true. At least the nausea had passed, along with most of the dizziness, now that his heart rate was returning to normal. Suck it up, McCall. If you don’t make it, neither will she. There’s not a chance in hell she’ll leave you here…

He stood up again, more carefully this time, and announced that he was ready to get the hell outa there. It was pretty much the last thing he remembered with any degree of clarity about that night.

By her watch, it took less time than Ellie had expected to find the car; the smugglers’ path through the jungle apparently hadn’t followed a straight line. But just as on that blindfolded trek, the walk out seemed much farther and longer than it really was. Mostly because she was just so worried about McCall. He was hurt-she had no idea how badly. He’d lost blood-she had no way of knowing how much. Oh God, she thought, what if he’s bleeding to death, right now? She didn’t know what she’d do if he collapsed on her-he was too big to carry, and there was just no way in the world she was going to leave him. Not now. Not after…after what? The way he’d saved her life? That didn’t seem all that big a deal right now.

So…what? After she’d gone and fallen in love with him?

Okay, that was a very big deal. And the biggest of a whole series of shocks and confusing turnabouts that had left her reeling and not really sure about anything at the moment.

“I’m fine. Quit fussing over me,” he growled at her, the fourth or fifth time she asked him how he was feeling, sounding reassuringly like his old cranky McCall self. “You make it awful damn hard for a man to be manly and intrepid.”

“You don’t have to be, for me,” Ellie said, amused and tender.

“I do for me,” he snapped back at her, now sounding more than anything like a grumpy child. “I do still have some ego, you know.”

Ellie was thankful for the darkness that hid her smile.

It was only a few moments later, when the electronic signal in her ear was approaching pain level, that she felt him grab her arm as he said in a hoarse whisper, “There-I think I see it. I can see the car.”

She halted, trying to see through the impenetreble sheets of rain. “Where? I can’t see a thing.”

“There-wait. Okay…now, see it?” As if on his command the curtain lifted for just an instant, and there it was…the Beetle’s pale, rounded shape, like some great animal, huddled and miserable in the deluge.

“What about a guard? Can you see anyone?”

“Don’t think so,” McCall muttered. “Looks deserted to me.”

“This thing is going bananas,” Ellie said, listening to the pings in her ear. “My bag should be right around here somewhere, but I can’t…find it. If I just had a flashlight-there’s one in the bag, but-”

“I’ve got one in my toolbox. Wait…right here.” And before she could stop him, he was gone.

It seemed an eternity, waiting isolated and lonely in the darkness and rain, before she saw the slashes of silvery shimmer…the gleam of light on wet metal. And another lifetime before he was back beside her. And it took all her willpower not to hurl herself upon him, trembling and sobbing with relief and gladness. Where was her strength and common sense now?

“No guards,” he panted, his face ghoulish in the flashlight’s shadow. “And only one tire gone, far as I could tell.”

Her teeth were chattering; she clenched them together and asked, “The engine?”

She could see the shine of his teeth when he smiled. “Blew the air filter to kingdom come. Told you those Beetles are hard to kill. She might run a little hot, but she’ll run.”

“What about the tire? Have you got a spare? I can change it if-”

“Never mind the damn tire. She’ll run on the rim if she has to-no need to worry about speed in this mess. We can change it later. Right now let’s find that bag of yours and get the hell out of here.”

Between the flashlight and the pings, that didn’t take long. And miracle of miracles, though sodden and limp on the outside, thanks to its plastic liner, the bag and its contents seemed more or less intact. Ellie gathered it up and held it clutched against her chest as they ran for the car, hands clasped and laughing giddily, like lovers caught out in a summer shower.

“Man, I never thought this little car could look so good,” McCall said, shaking water from his hair as he squeezed himself behind the wheel and slammed the door after him. With the storm suddenly shut outside like an unwelcome stranger, the inside of the car seemed unbelievably still and warm and safe.

“Sorry I insulted her.” Laughing and breathless, Ellie patted the dash-then remembered. Holding her breath, she felt underneath…

“Is it-?”

“Yes-it’s here.” Oh, so carefully, she pulled the gun from its hiding place-her nice little nine-millimeter double-action Beretta Cougar, less than thirty-six ounces unloaded, ten rounds in the clip. She’d hated and feared the thing when Ken had first gotten it for her and insisted she learn to use it in addition to the firearms training the agency had provided. Now, her hands were steady as she checked it over, and her feelings toward it were downright tender. “It’s okay. It’s ready,” she said on an exhalation as she leaned over and placed it on the floor between her dripping feet.

The bag on her lap squelched softly as she opened it. Her searching hands found the flashlight first. She placed it on the floor beside the gun and went back to pawing through the bag.

“What’re you looking for?” McCall’s voice was soft and sputtery as he wiped away rain.

“S-something…” Her hands had begun to tremble. Suddenly, she was trembling-all over. She couldn’t seem to control it. She dug more frantically into the contents of the bag-desperately almost.

There was a tiny click and pale light washed the inside of the Volkswagen. “Here,” McCall said in a gravelly voice, “let me.” Gentle hands lifted the sodden bag from her lap. A moment later he held up a bar of chocolate. “This what you’re looking for?”

She made a small affirming sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a whimper and reached for it. Holding her off like an eager puppy, he peeled the wrapping off and broke it in half, then held one part out to her. She felt her throat swell as she bit into it, her eyes clinging to his through a shimmer of tears as he did the same. And all the while she trembled and ached inside with a strange, fearful happiness. What was this? What is this? Such a small thing, she thought. Such a simple little gesture…and yet she’d never felt so cared for. So loved.

“Don’t suppose you’d have any cigarettes in that bag?” His voice was raspy and seemed unnaturally loud.

“Sorry,” she murmured on a gulp of shaken laughter, hurriedly swallowing tears and chocolate.

“Bread crumbs…” He muttered that under his breath as he searched for the car keys. He seemed surprised to find them still in the ignition, right where he’d left them. “Damned stupid idea,” he said, glowering at the keys but making no move to turn them. He sounded angry, but somehow Ellie knew he wasn’t.

“It wasn’t,” she whispered. “It was a great idea. You just forgot one thing.”

He transferred the glare to her, eyes fierce and bright in a shadowed face. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“You’ve forgotten the story. Hansel and Gretel?” She leaned toward him, urgent and shaking. “Don’t you remember? Bread crumbs don’t work. The birds ate up the trail of bread crumbs. That’s how they ended up lost. That’s how they wound up in the witch’s-”

And suddenly his arms were around her and his hard, cold face was pressing against hers, his beard stubble a soft wet prickle on her skin. She could feel that he was shaking, like she was, and that some of the wet on his face wasn’t rain, either. His breath smelled of chocolate, as hers did. It bathed her face in warm, sweet puffs as he kissed her quickly, urgently-her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and nose, her lips-as if he feared he might never get another chance.

“We have to go…” Who said it? Who cared?

“Yes-yes…I know…”

“They could be after us any minute-”

“We have to get to someplace safe-”

“Just hope the damn car starts…”

“Well, try it and see!”

Ellie sent up a prayer while McCall pumped the gas pedal, then turned the key in the ignition. For the second time in recent memory, the VW’s engine fired on the first try.

Chapter 12

“We can’t go back to the hotel,” said McCall. “That’s the first place they’ll look for us.”

“I know. I know.”

He glanced over at Ellie. She was sitting upright in her seat, eyes riveted on the headlights’ narrow path beyond the windshield, tense as a bird dog on point.

“Hey-we’ve got a good head start,” he said gently. “They can’t come after us in this. We’ve got some time.”

She threw him a look, but didn’t relax. “Not necessarily. Don’t forget, General Reyes is a pretty big cheese in Mexican law enforcement. All he needs to do is make one phone call. There won’t be anyplace in this country where we can hide.”

McCall ducked his head to peer upward into the wind-driven rain. “With any luck this storm will have knocked out his satellite hookup. If we can make it to Chetumal we’ll be okay. I’ve got a diving buddy there-he has a private plane. He can fly us to Merida. If we can get to the American consulate there we’ll be safe.”

“With any luck,” she muttered darkly. But she did sit back in her seat, at last, with an exhausted-sounding sigh.

They were on the main highway, heading east, according to Ellie’s wristwatch, which had turned out to be a compass, too, as he’d suspected it might. They’d stopped to change the tire as soon as they hit paved road, Ellie doing her best to convince him that since he was injured, she ought to be the one to do the job.

Now…McCall was well aware that the world had changed a lot since the 1950s, and that he’d traveled a long road from his dad’s garage in Bakersfield, California, and that women in this century were a whole lot different than his mother had been, with her soft white hands and red nail polish that had never so much as touched a dip-stick. But in his book, there were just some things a decent man didn’t do, and standing around holding a flashlight while a little tiny bit of a woman changed a tire for him was definitely one of them. Anyway, the wound in his arm had stopped bleeding, and even though it did still throb a bit, it was a long way from keeping him from being able to twirl a lug wrench.