“Tornado!” she screamed. She couldn’t see it in the gathering darkness, but she could feel it, feel it like a massive and evil presence, coming deliberately and with purpose, straight for them. “Run!”

Then somehow the horses were gone and she and McCall were running, running hand-in-hand through the cornfields, chests straining and breath like fire in their lungs, afraid to look back, but knowing the tornado was there, coming after them, gaining on them, that strange, evil smell growing stronger and stronger, the aura of menace becoming thicker and heavier, suffocating her…

She woke up in cold vibrating terror. The strange evil smell was still with her, only now she knew what it was. Cigars. And she knew, too, that the menace was real, and that it was there in the room with her.

Chapter 13

“Do not move. Do not make a sound…” So close to Ellie’s ear, General Reyes’s whisper seemed tender, almost like a lover’s. Which made his next words seem all the more obscene. “…if you do not wish to feel your lover’s blood and brains splattered all over your pretty face.”

She was lying on her stomach with the pillow bunched in her arms, and it was the general’s weight that was bearing down on her. She could feel his knee pressing into the small of her back, his hand between her shoulder blades, compressing her chest so it was hard to breathe. Without moving her head, in the soft light of the lamp they’d left burning above the bed, she could see the blurred shape of McCall’s head on the pillow beside her, and just beyond that the slender dark shape of a rifle barrel. She didn’t have to look further to recognize the man who held it-the general’s lieutenant, the smuggler they’d nicknamed Smoker-she couldn’t recall his name. Behind him and toward the foot of the bed, a third form hovered, a faceless backup presence.

“Understand?” The pressure on her spine increased until she feared it would break.

“I…understand,” she gasped. Her mind was racing at lightning speed. She stalled desperately for time, knowing she hadn’t much. “I won’t…make a sound. Please-I can’t…breathe.”

There was a soft chuckle. “I’m glad we understand each other.” The weight on her back lifted, first from her shoulders, then her lower back. She felt rather than saw General Reyes straighten up beside the bed.

“Can I…turn over now?” She could hear McCall’s breathing, raspy and strained. Please be still, she telegraphed silently, desperately. Don’t try anything!

“Go ahead.” The general took one step back. On the outer edges of her peripheral vision she could see him make an impatient motion with his hand. Was there a gun in it? She couldn’t tell. “Slowly.”

Slowly, Ellie raised herself up on her elbows, keeping her head bowed and one hand still hidden under the pillow. She coughed, hard and convulsively, to cover any movement when the searching hand found and closed around the hard, cold shape of the Beretta. She coughed again to cover the sounds she might have made when she thumbed the safety. She counted slowly to three, rehearsing the sequence of her next actions in her mind. Visualizing…preparing.

Then, in a single swift motion she rolled to her side, drew the pistol from under the pillow and fired.

The Smoker dropped backward without a sound; his rifle fell across McCall’s chest. Ellie was dimly aware that McCall had snatched it up and was on his feet, swinging it by the barrel like a club at the other thug, but long before that she had already turned her own gun on the general. Still only half upright, braced on one elbow, she fired once. The general gave a terrible snarl, like a wounded tiger, and lunged. She fired again, just as he fell heavily across her, pinning her to the mattress. Helpless under the deadweight of his body, she could only listen to the sounds of desperate struggle. Grunts…scuffles…a sickening thud. And then silence.

It seemed an eternity-an eternity during which she dared not hope, or think, or feel-before she heard harsh and labored breathing. The suffocating weight on top of her was dragged roughly aside and McCall was staring down at her, teeth bared, his hair sticking out like a wild man’s, eyes burning in his gaunt and ravaged face. She thought she’d never beheld a face so terrible before. Or so beautiful.

“Ellie-oh God, Ellie…” And now his face was a mask of sheer horror as his gaze swept down over her body.

She followed his gaze and found herself fighting an urge to throw up. She caught at his hand as he reached for her. “It’s not mine. It’s not mine. McCall-he didn’t shoot me. I’m okay-I’m okay, I swear. But we have to get out of here. There might be more-McCall, do you hear me? McCall?”

He was staring at her, like a man frozen in mid-scream. She squeezed his hand, shook it urgently, and he finally gave himself a single violent shake and wheezed, “You’re okay…you’re not-”

“I’m fine. It’s the general’s blood.” McCall heard her quivering voice as the roaring in his own ears faded away. He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed hard. “I sh-shot him. What about the other one? Is he d-dead?” She kept staring at him, as though she couldn’t bring herself to look at the three men lying helter-skelter on the hotel-room floor. Reaction was setting in, he realized; in another minute she’d be shaking too hard to walk. And he didn’t think he was in any shape to carry her.

“Don’t know,” McCall said. “And I don’t think we ought to waste time finding out, do you?” He was pretty sure the guy he’d clobbered with the rifle butt was only out cold-no way of telling for how long. No way of telling how many more of the general’s men might be waiting for them outside, either. Or who else might have heard the gunshots, and how long it would take for someone to decide to call the cops-or get brave enough and come to investigate themselves. “Like you said-we’d best get the hell out of here.”

He was already pulling on his pants, barely aware of how cold and stiff and wet they were. He glanced at Ellie, who was still standing motionless, staring down at the general’s body. He started to say something, then realized it was her clothes she was looking at, and that the general was sprawled on top of them. He tossed her his shirt. “Here-put this on. Forget the rest.”

If we make it to the Volkswagen we’ll be okay, he thought. It wasn’t far to his friend’s place. Al might be home by now, and if he wasn’t, well…under the circumstances, McCall didn’t think his old diving buddy would mind a little breaking and entering.

His shirt hit Ellie about mid-thigh. He watched her struggle with the buttons for a second or two, then abandon the job and just wrap the two halves of the shirt across herself, ignoring the blood that was smeared over the upper half of her body. He felt the tension in his chest ease a little bit when she did that; it had been a hard thing to look at, even knowing the blood wasn’t hers.

“Let’s go,” she said breathlessly.

He nodded; the VW’s keys were already in his hand. Flattening himself against the wall, he fingered the curtain back from the window and took a cautious peek. Tropical Storm Paulette had moved on; the darkness was thinning, leaving only the brightest stars to wink in and out among the remnants of storm clouds. He couldn’t see anyone moving around in the courtyard, or hear any shouts or running footsteps. But when he stuck his head out the door he could hear hushed and excited voices farther down the way, and see the pale rectangles of opened doors.

“Coast is clear,” he whispered. “For the moment. Hurry-”

“Wait-” One second she was there, pressed against his side, and the next she was gone.

“What the hell are you-” That was all he had time for before she was back.

“Couldn’t very well leave without my chocolate,” she said breathlessly, holding up the beach bag. “Or this,” she added, as with the last word she jammed it onto her head-the hot-pink sun visor with the word Acapulco embroidered across the band in rainbow colors.

He rolled his eyes skyward as he caught a glimpse of her smile-or a feeble memory of it. Then they were running, splashing through puddles, running together through the gray dawn as the Day of the Dead awoke with slamming doors, and cautious whispers rose to shouts behind them.

“I just want to know one thing,” McCall panted when they were in the car and he’d coaxed the VW’s engine to grudging, wheezing life. Hunched over the wheel and still breathing hard, he tore his eyes from the alley’s potholes and puddles long enough to throw her a look. “What in the hell have you got in that thing that’s worth risking your life for?”

Ellie was concentrating on breaking apart the chocolate bar she’d just unwrapped. “Video camera,” she said as he took the half she offered him. She paused to lick her fingers. “I’ve got it all on tape-the whole operation…the general’s part in it.” The look she gave him was bleak and frightened, and he knew suddenly that even though the blood on her body wasn’t hers, she had wounds on her soul. “It’s the only proof we’ve got that I didn’t just kill a Mexican government official in cold blood. If we can just get it to someone… Someone we can trust.”

“I’ll get you there,” McCall said. It felt like a vow to him.

Fifteen minutes later he was wishing with all his heart that the video camera in Ellie’s sun visor was still operational. He’d have given just about anything to have been able to record the look on his diving buddy Al Loman’s face when he opened his front door, just as dawn was breaking in all its rosy tropical splendor, to find the two of them half-naked and bloody on his doorstep.

McCall was avoiding her. Ellie was certain of that, just as certain as she was that he’d deny it if she accused him of such a thing. And it was true that she had no proof at all, other than an uncharacteristic heaviness in her spirit…a deep and mystifying sense of loss.

It had been more than twenty-four hours since they’d arrived at the American consulate in Merida, late in the evening in the midst of the eerie and uniquely Mexican celebration of death known as Dia de los Muertos. Postponed by Tropical Storm Paulette, the annual festival had been in full swing, with church bells tolling, streets and shops decorated with papier-mâché skeletons and grinning skulls, and candlelight processions winding their way to local cemeteries for all-night vigils of respect and remembering. For some, the ancient ritual was a solemn occasion; for others-including most of the tourists-it was simply an excuse for a party.

It had seemed odd to Ellie-almost surreal-to be riding in a taxi through streets awash in a magnificent red-gold sunset and filled with carefree people, all singing and dancing and calling out to one another and consuming enormous quantities of pulque. Death had come too close to her-not the papier-mâché make-believe kind, but the real thing. She could feel it still-warm blood no shower could ever wash away…cold terror and yawning black emptiness. She had shuddered and shuddered, gazing at the chanting celebrants and dancing skeletons through the windows of the taxi, and had longed for McCall to notice and put his arms around her and comfort her. But he’d been lost in his own reflections and hadn’t seemed to notice, and for some reason she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him how much she needed him.

It’s been a long and stressful day, she’d thought. We’re both exhausted…probably a little in shock. She realized now that his withdrawal from her had begun long before that, almost from the moment they’d arrived on his friend Al’s doorstep, bloody and barely clothed.

Things had happened so fast after that. She and McCall had been whisked into showers and borrowed clothes and then off to the airstrip and onto a private plane for the long flight across the Yucatan to Merida. During all of that time they’d had no chance whatsoever to talk, no time to be alone together. McCall, of course, had been in constant and friendly company with his friend Al, leaving Ellie with plenty of time to reflect on the fact that she’d just shot two people.

The blur of activity had continued after their arrival at the consulate. There’d been a party in progress there, too, and the sudden appearance of two American citizens in desperate need of assistance hadn’t exactly been a welcome interruption. Once Ellie’s status and the full urgency of their situation had been made clear, she and McCall had been hustled up back stairways and installed in separate rooms and told to “get some rest,” while an endless series of phone calls was begun and the machinery of government agency interaction set in motion.