For Honor
by
Y. L. Harris

© copyright August 2001 Yvonne Harris
Cover art by Jenny Dixon
ISBN 1-58608-216-7
Gemstar ISBN 1-58608-390-2
New Concepts Publishing
4729 Humphreys Rd.
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com

For

Lucille and Howard

"It was in Spain that men learned that we can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit. That there are times when courage is not its own reward."

....Albert Camus

SPAIN

Seeking to Appease the Generals
"Perhaps the real transition to democracy begins now"

The menace has crystallized in a single, indelible video tape image replayed again and again on countless TV sets throughout Spain: Guardia Civil Lieut. Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina standing in the Cortes last Feb. 23, holding the Spanish government, and the nation, at gunpoint. Tejero and his fellow military conspirators in the coup attempt were soon arrested, and Spain's young democracy survived its gravest challenge. But now many Spaniards are beginning to wonder just who won that fateful encounter. Far from being totally discredited after the coup, the country's ultraconservative armed forces--unchanged and unbending since Francisco Franco's day--seem hardly affected. "Zero percent of the people here believe that the putsch failed, says a moderate politician in Madrid. "Some think it is still going on, and many believe it actually succeeded."

TIME MAGAZINE, April 20, 1981

AUTHOR'S NOTES

History - The Dirty War

1983 - 1995

Officially, the Spanish civil war ended in 1939, one of the bloodiest civil wars in recorded history. Spanish General Francisco Franco led a military coups against his government. Spain was badly split in allegiance. Some provinces supported Franco and others backed the government in Madrid. The fascist party Falange, along with rich landowners, the Pope, Italy, Germany, and the U.S. all came down on the side of the little general. Russia, Mexico and a few others supported the government.

Where were the Basques in all this? Fighting among themselves over whom to support. Most of them hated the Spanish government, but they hated Franco more.

When the government in Madrid dangled the carrot of freedom and independence to the communities who fought on her side, the Basques and Catalans jumped in with both feet--after they got a signed declaration of their independence. After three years, Franco won and promptly rescinded the freedom papers. Not only that, he was mad. The best fighters in the country, perhaps the world--the Basques and Catalans--nearly defeated him several times. For forty years he retaliated. He turned his crack units of Civil Guards loose on them and gave them free rein. The Guards went on a rampage, raping, killing, torturing.

Basque and Catalan languages were forbidden to be taught in school. Text books were burned. Being overheard speaking Basque or Catalan by a Civil Guard meant a gun butt to the head and a prison term. Thousands of returning Basque and Catalan officers were

dragged off to prison and machine-gunned en masse simply because they'd fought for Spain and not for Franco.

When Franco died in 1975, nearly forty years later, Spain declared herself a democracy. Basques didn't care what she called herself, they still wanted out and demanded their independence. Madrid refused. The Basques formed the ETA--Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the Basque Freedom Party--and began trying to shoot their way out. Over the years, they have killed more than 800 Spanish military officers--with an emphasis on the Civil Guards--and high government officials.

Madrid secretly formed GAL--the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, an organization of hired killers whose purpose was to hunt down and assassinate ETA leaders all over the world. As many as eighty Basques died in a dirty war of kidnappings, torture, bombings and murder, all masterminded by their own government.

When the truth about GAL was exposed in 1995, the government collapsed. Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez was voted out of office. The head of the secret police, as well as cabinet-level officials, are still in prison.

FOR HONOR uses some of the above events to weave a fictional tale. The province of Edorta and the Party of Justice in the story are fictional.

Special thanks must go to Mikel Murga, a good Basque friend in Spain, for his transliterations of Euskera to English and for his insights into what it means to be Basque.

YLH

Prologue

Winter, 1936

San Kristobal, Spain

The tumult of men and horses and barking dogs on the hillside grew louder. A cheer went up when the first flames burst through the roof of the church and licked their way up the steeple. With crackling, popping sounds, they burned upwards toward the golden cross atop Our Lady of the Blessed Innocents.

Arms folded, face impassive, Basque Colonel Kemen Atxaga-Isusi watched the shifting smoke from the hillside. The stained glass windows of the sanctuary, where he’d been christened and married and buried his parents, flickered with fire. The leading holding the panes melted in the fierce heat. Like pieces of shattered rainbow, sapphire and emerald and ruby glass fell to the frozen mud around the burning building.

"Comandante, the priest--he is still inside!" a captain in Madrid's Loyalist troops shouted to Colonel Atxaga.

Atxaga flicked a cigarette into the snow and turned toward a waiting truck. In a hoarse voice, he called over his shoulder, "If he makes it out, kill him."

For Honor

Chapter 1

Basque Parliament Building

Edorta Province, San Kristobal, Spain

August 24, 1995

"Señores, FREEZE!"

Guerrillas in ski masks burst through the doors. Legs braced, carbines wedged against their hips, they trained their weapons on the legislators of the province of Edorta. Fifty-three deputies turned in their seats and gaped in stunned recognition at the bearded man in camouflage khaki filling the doorway.

Comandante Marko Garcia-Atxaga, leader of the rebel Basque Party of Justice, stared back boldly. Beneath the blue beret he wore, his face was bare, exposed to all.

"Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt," he yelled, and stepped into the room.

As he strode down the center aisle toward the dais at the front of the room, he raised the Star Z-62 submachine gun he held and shook it defiantly over his head. Without a glance, he passed the desk that had once been his. Two at a time, he sprang up the steps to the platform.

The white-haired governor of the province, seated alone beneath a tapestry of the Great Seal of the Basques, rocked to his feet in astonishment, his expression changing from fear to outrage.

Silence charged the room, and the scar that seamed the side of the POJ commander's face turned a deeper, dusky red. Stiffly, he waved the older man aside with the gun barrel.

Governor Ernesto Garcia, pale and rigid, stared at the machine gun aimed at his chest. His mouth worked to get the words out.

"Marko, you are insane!" he whispered.

The commander's jaws bunched into two hard knots. "Sit down, Papa," he ordered.

A sudden shout and the loud bang of a chair overturning came from the Visitors' Gallery. Up behind the marble balustrade, masked commandos trained rifles on three plainclothes men. He swore softly. Hands in the air, the agents slowly rose from their hiding places between the seats.

GAL snipers. The Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, the secret, shadowy Spanish Gestapo.

The commander shook his head in disgust. "So much for your democracy, old man!" he growled to the governor. Uneasy, he peered up at the Gallery, his gaze searching across the empty rows. That balcony should have been empty. Not twenty minutes earlier, he'd ordered a sweep of the halls and public areas in the building. He'd wanted no tourists or spectators getting in the way.

Not a hand or a foot turned in the room, all attention riveted on the man in the blue beret on the podium. When he looked up, the deputies did the same, their eyes fixed, as his were, on the pairs of flags high in the gilded dome of the rotunda. All around the room, on every marble column, the red, white, and green Ikurriña of Basque Country hung alongside the blood-red and gold of Spain.

That was about to change.

He leaned against the lectern and looked out over the semicircle of desks, at the frightened faces of the seated men. His jaw tightened. Most of them he called by their first names.

He swung the arm of the microphone closer to his mouth. The distinctive raspy voice that was his trademark echoed over the public address system in Spanish.

"Three years ago, I stood in this very spot and warned against letting Spain build dams here. I told you Basques wouldn't sell and that Spain wouldn't stand for opposition. And I predicted Madrid's reaction--reprisal, force, bloodshed--just like under Franco. You threw me out, remember? Not a man in this room believed me." He turned and jutted a finger at the governor. "Not even my esteemed father."

The governor sucked in a short, sharp breath.

The deputies shifted in their seats and exchanged alarmed glances.

The commander pulled a paper from his shirt pocket and held it up for all to see. "We're a free country now, with an elected government. But, apparently, old habits die hard."

Tight-lipped, he read aloud a list of rapes, murders, and disappearances of Basques who had refused to sell river property to the Spanish Land Control Commission. The killings, he claimed, were ordered by Spain's own Interior Ministry in Madrid and carried out by GAL death squads. He gestured to the GAL agents in the balcony, standing at gunpoint, their hands still in the air.

"And I warned you about them three years ago, also." Eyes burning, he spoke softly into the microphone. "State-sponsored murder--what the hell kind of democracy are we running here?"

Outside in the corridor

The clock above the silent elevators said 1:22. At the far end of the corridor, a well-dressed man entered from the stairwell, out of breath and mopping a handkerchief across his forehead. A small, bouncy woman in a crimson blouse and a white linen suit quick-stepped beside him in high heels. Thick blonde hair swung in two perfect arcs around her face.

"You're out of shape, Doc," Maggie Dixon-St. Clair teased.

Dr. Luis Alazar stuffed the handkerchief into his breast pocket. "It's ninety-three degrees outside and you drag me up seven flights of stairs. Ten more minutes and that elevator would have been fixed," he grumbled in Spanish.

Maggie let out a low, quiet whoop of laughter. "Ten minutes in this country means a week, a month, or maybe never, and I'm starving." Half-Mexican, half Texan, her breezy Chicano Spanish was faster and more musical than his. She tucked his arm close to her side. "I refereed a basketball game instead of breakfast, remember? All I've eaten today is coffee and one little sticky bun--"

"Txurro," Luis cut in. "In Dallas, it's a sticky bun. Over here, it's a txurro."

"Whatever," she said, smiling. Then, "My kids were fabulous today. You should've seen them play."

"Who won--the pickpockets or the car thieves?"

"Cynic--it was a tie."

"Only if you rigged it so nobody won."

Her mouth twitched. The smile she'd been trying so hard to hide burst across her face in a guilty grin. "Well...now they have to sit down and talk, don't they?"

A child psychologist, she was in Spain for the summer, setting up inner-city recreation centers in Madrid, Barcelona, and San Kristobal to finish the research for her doctorate. The basketball game had been a grudge match between two teenaged street gangs, the Devils and the Gypsy Blades. But that morning, there hadn't been a single fight--not one--although from the first jump-ball, it had been an in-your-face game with gouging and tripping and flying elbows. True, she'd nearly whistled her eyeballs out a time or two, but nobody swung. Fists, that is. Elbows didn't count. "They were absolute angels," she said primly.

Luis arched an eyebrow at her, and Maggie swallowed a laugh. The last time her "angels" played, he'd spent two hours stitching them up.

"They're learning, and so am I," she said quietly.

The rapping of her heels on the marble floor chased echoes through the empty hall ahead. The ornate gold and white corridor with its creamy marble pillars and Gothic arches seemed deserted. Each ivory office door, set deep into its own private alcove, appeared locked.

Maggie pointed to the tall hammered-brass doors to the legislative chamber dominating the end of the hall. "How long will you be in there?"

Luis pulled an envelope from an inside pocket of his suit coat and tapped it against his hand. "Just long enough to give this to Senator Diego and go through the pretext of filing a bid with his Land Control Commission. But the contract is mine--he said so at dinner last night." Luis chuckled. "Better be. It cost me plenty, and he still stuck me with the check."

Maggie's eyebrows pulled together. In addition to his medical practice, her handsome brown-haired pediatrician owned several businesses, one of them a hugely successful engineering firm that he oversaw himself. In El Paso that might raise a few eyebrows. In Spain, not a ripple. "In other words, you're buying that contract. Right?"

"Past tense--bought and paid for."

"That's wrong, and you know it."

Luis shrugged. "Everybody does it."

Maggie swallowed a sudden rise of impatience with him. Whenever he was pulled over for speeding, a frequent occurrence for him, the doctor simply slipped the policeman two 5000 pesata bills along with his driver's license. Eighty bucks. Worked every time.

Three months she'd worked in San Kristobal, and she simply did not understand the way these people did things. Bribery was so common in Spain, it was almost respectable. Winked at. Even lawyers bribed court clerks to push the calendar up for their clients. Luis maintained it was cultural, said Spain's blithe attitude toward bending the rules was a national quirk.

To which she could almost hear her father snort that "Horse thieves had a quirk, too, darlin'. And in Texas, we hung 'em for it."

"Go ahead, I'll wait out here," she said, stopping by a plate glass window overlooking St. James Plaza. "Tell your senator friend I look forward to meeting him at lunch. I've never met a Spanish gangster before," she said coolly. "By the way, who's buying?"

"Don't ask."

Her mouth tightened. "I think I just lost my appetite."

Luis leaned down and brushed his lips lightly across hers. He chuckled. "And of course Daddy Dixon would not approve." He obviously thought it was funny.

She didn't. Next month she was taking him home to meet her folks. But she could smell trouble coming. When it came to ethics, Senator Thaddeus E. Dixon of Texas was as hidebound as a bull.

"Loosen up, Maggie. It's how we do business here," Luis said.

"Where I come from, they'd put you both in jail," she drawled, then bit off the rest of the words. They'd only met three months ago and learned something new about each other every day. She gave him a quick, hard hug and buried her nose in the silky fold of his lapel. Sometimes she swore this man's Chanel smelled better than hers.

She pulled back. "Go on, now. We'll talk about this later."

"No, we won't." Heels clicking, Luis strode down the hall, lean and self-assured in a hip-hugging green suit in the new Italian style he wore so well. Probably another Giorgio Armani. Slightly under average height, his slim physique and elegant bearing made him a tailor's dream. She blew him a kiss as he opened the heavy brass doors and went inside.

She turned back to the plate glass window overlooking San Kristobal. The old spired capital of Edorta, the largest of the four Spanish Basque provinces, was wedged between the mountains and the Mediterranean in the far northeast corner of Spain.

From that height, she saw the slum where she worked, saw the clotheslines strung with wash on the rooftops. Between the twin glass towers of the new stock exchange and the Europa Estacíon rail terminal, she caught the bright blue dazzle of the Mediterranean. Beyond, the cliffs of the Costa Brava with their white-walled villas, curved toward France. She smiled softly. Her wedding would be out there.

Seven stories down, aides and government workers hurried across the courtyard between the buildings, trying to finish before the parliament adjourned for lunch. Pigeons were everywhere, waddling across the flagstones, pecking under benches, wheeling in the air. Alongside the gushing fountain in the center of the plaza, an old woman in black threw popcorn to the birds. Dozens of pigeons surrounded her feet, a moving carpet of feathered backs. A shirtless kid on a skateboard zipped around the fountain, arms outstretched. The flock rose in alarm, a gray whirlwind of wings, whistling for the rooftops.

Maggie chuckled and turned away. Typical. In San Kristobal, everything hurried. The energetic Basques walked fast, talked fast, and in two languages--Spanish and their own Euskera. Ethnically, they weren't Spanish at all, not Castilian, at any rate. That she learned her first week in San Kristobal. Call a Basque a Spaniard and eyes flashed.

In twos and threes, the pigeons flapped back.

Pocketbook over her shoulder, she strolled down the corridor, her white pleated skirt swinging above her knees. She had a slim, boyish figure, a small, dainty-looking blonde who rode a horse like a Comanche and demolished a steak like a man.

Heading toward the still-silent elevators, she studied the paintings and sculptures along the walls. Too Rococo for her.

Except for one.

Now that one, she liked. A lot.

An impressionistic floor-to-ceiling mural depicted long-faced Basques fending off an army of grotesque naked pygmies. Done in electric blues and reds and a honking Day-Glo yellow, the mural seemed totally out of place in the staid Basque parliament. She smiled, wondering if it was a not-so-subtle reference to the Spanish civil war. General Franco had been a tiny little man who hated anything Basque. Curious, she bent to read the artist's name and giggled. Of course a Basque had painted it.

Inside the Legislature

The commander looked up from reading the list in his hand. "And two more," he continued, "Manolo Arranz and Juan Idoeta from St. Marti's, both executed Mafia style, hands tied behind their backs. Both had protested the Land Commission's offer for their property. Is it coincidence that both were Basque and both belonged to the Party of Justice?"

For a full minute, he stared at the paper in his hand and said nothing. Slowly, he shook his head. "Self-defense is not revolt, but it is coming to that. Three times I have come here and asked for help, and three times you turned your back."

He swept his finger at the rows of men before him, numb with shock. "You will investigate those dams and you will end the terrorism in Edorta. If not, the Party of Justice will. We will fight Madrid--and you--for independence from Spain. And you should be fighting with us. War is coming. Expect it. Expect this!"

With that, he pointed his gun at the rotunda's ceiling and clamped the trigger back. Shoulders shaking, he emptied the magazine. In a hellish burst of noise, forty smoking black holes ripped across the gilded dome. Plaster flew. Deputies dived under their desks. Overhead, the huge Venetian crystal chandelier swayed back and forth on its chains, ripped from its moorings, and crashed to the floor.

He pumped his fist. "La Raza! La Raza! Viva la Raza!" Long live our race!

The governor lunged.

The commander was too quick. He leaped from the platform and bounded up the aisle, slapping in a fresh magazine as he ran. Ahead of him, his men surged through the brass doors into the hall.

Sharp, rapid pops like an endless string of firecrackers sounded down the hall. Maggie whirled around as the brass doors to the Council Chambers crashed against the walls.

Men with guns burst out.

Shots...shouts...

My God! She threw her back against the mural, her arms outflung like a knife-thrower's target. Her mind jerked, a spasm of disconnected thoughts of violence and terrorists and dying in foreign countries. Eyes wide, she sucked in her stomach.

Men...masks...guns blurred past.

A black-bearded soldier bolted through the Chambers door at a dead run. Unmasked, carrying a gun, he pounded down the corridor to catch the escaping men. Behind him, a crowd of lawmakers ran through the doors, the men from GAL knocking the legislators out of the way.

The agents, gripping assault rifles, broke out to the front of the pack. On the run, they fired at the escaping men. Bullets cracked, zinged off marble walls, sparked across the floor. The plate glass window overlooking St. James Plaza blew out with a blam! A gold plaster bust of King Juan Carlos exploded into flying white chunks.

A low, fast, fluttering sound....

A dotted line of bullets stitched across the mural, a foot above Maggie's head.

Someone was screaming.

She was.

The running soldier veered left and headed right at her.

And in one blinding instant, Maggie knew he wasn't chasing the guerrillas. He was one of them! With a look of shock frozen on her face, she shook her head slowly at first, then faster. He bore down on her, his left arm reaching...reaching....

She cringed.

His arm whipped around her neck. He yanked her against him, spun around, and faced the men behind, dragging her backwards down the hall. She clawed at the arm around her throat and struggled to stay on her feet on the glassy floor.

"Back off!" her captor shouted at the men from GAL. In his big, loose hand, the stubby gray Star looked like a toy.

One agent lowered his weapon. The other brought his up and into his shoulder. Pitiless eyes flicked past Maggie to the man holding her. With heart-sinking certainty she knew he would shoot through her to get the man behind.

"No...no...." she whispered.

Time clicked into another dimension. Slow-motion. Freeze-frame. The man behind her shoved her violently away. Flame spat from his gun. She saw each vivid burst of orange at the muzzle, heard each crack as the shots left, separate but connected, like beads on a string.

Three bullets struck the agent in the chest, a fourth tore through his right shoulder, a fifth exploded his jaw. Arms upraised, he blew backward in a burst of wet red mist, his rifle punching the shots intended for Maggie into the ceiling.

"Mierda!" Shit! The guerrilla gritted the word out.

The corridor was chaos. The lawmakers stopped, ran the other way, collided with the men behind. Yelling, tripping, they fell over each other in a tangle of arms and legs, gunshots and screams. In the thin blue haze of smoke, guns up, the two remaining men from GAL vaulted over the men on the floor.

Wildly, Maggie looked for somewhere to run.

The guerrilla grabbed her and leaped into the stairwell.

And the last thing Maggie Dixon saw as he snatched her through the doorway was Dr. Luis Alazar in his fancy green suit, diving for safety back into the Legislature.

"Let me go! Let me go!" She beat her fists into the man holding her, trying to break loose.

Two at a time, he charged up the metal stairs with her, the iron clanging under his boots. Three flights up and through a door, they burst out onto the roof. A gust of wind and noise hit her in the face, tearing at her skirt, whipping her hair. Maggie let out a full-throated shriek of blind terror.

Rotors blasting, doors wide open, a giant gray helicopter strained at its wheel brakes. She was still screaming when he heaved her inside and dived in after her.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Chapter 2

The helicopter catapulted off the roof. A tilting dip to the right skidded Maggie across the steel floor and against the high step to the cockpit. The low ceiling was a rat's nest of wires and pipes and hoses. Beneath her hips, the deck shuddered with the roar of jet engines overhead. A few feet away, air rushed like a cyclone past the open door.

The scared stumble of her heart beat raced in her ears. Fast...things were happening too fast!

Disoriented by the noise, the smell of hot metal and hot fuel, she sat up and yanked her skirt down. It had bunched around her hips. A curly haired soldier across the aisle grinned broadly at her legs and the glimpse of blue lace underwear he'd caught.

The other guerrillas sat on benches down the sides of the helicopter, pulling their masks off. Rifles upright between their knees, hard-eyed faces stared openly at her. Most were in their thirties--men, not boys. From their expressions, they were as puzzled by her presence there as she was.

They all wore identical uniforms--boots, camouflage khaki, light blue berets, and blue and black neckerchiefs tied around their necks.

Blue and black--the fighting colors of the Party of Justice.

They were POJ--the only rival of the violent ETA, Euskadi ta Askatasuna, the Basque Freedom Party. Rumor had it, the two were about to merge.

She closed her eyes in a long, slow blink. Fearful images of what they might do to her grew in her mind.

The chopper swung a steep, banking turn around a steeple. Maggie grabbed a seat leg bolted to the floor and hung on with both hands. In the sickening fall of empty air, roofs and chimneys flew by at crazy angles.

Over the clatter of rotors, the men shouted back and forth in Euskera, the ancient language of the Basques. She listened, unable to understand a word. It was nothing like Spanish. This language seemed made up of consonants, throaty and guttural and disturbing.

"Where are you taking me?" she yelled, and climbed to her knees, struggling to stand up in the pitching cabin.

The curly-haired man across from her leaned forward, his arms outstretched, but the big guerrilla shot his boot out and pinned her white skirt to the floor. For the first time she noticed the scar that corded the length of his face. The marred cheek went papery stiff. Grimly, he jutted his finger at the floor for her to sit down. And stay down.

Maggie jerked her skirt free and swallowed an angry retort. On a helicopter full of armed terrorists and ankle-deep in testosterone, the smart thing was to keep her mouth shut. She pulled her pocketbook into her lap and kept her eyes downcast, avoiding eye contact with any of them. Her experience with teenage males and gang mentalities warned her not to cross them. All of these men were dangerous, especially the one with the scarred face.

A prickly feeling on the back of her neck told her he was watching her.

A maze of railroad tracks swept past, mile after mile of rails and sidings, boxcars and locomotives. Out in the open, the helicopter flew over the sprawling RENFE freight yards, San Kristobal's lifeline to Europe. They were flying so low Maggie saw a water tower at eye level through the window. Two men on top of the tower were pumping their fists and yelling across at them. The pilot, a big ham-shouldered man in sunglasses, tossed them a small salute.

For thirty minutes, they flew north toward the French border over a sea of mountain peaks. The Pyrenees lay like a collar around the neck of the Iberian peninsula, separating France from Spain, two hundred and fifty miles of great jagged crests, a solid chain of mountains with few passes. Toward the west and the Atlantic Ocean, the range was lower, more rounded, and gentled itself into the Bay of Biscay. In the Eastern Pyrenees below, purplish-green slopes angled up, steep and sharp, with precipitous drops and sheered-off rock faces. Icy peaks thrust through clouds, two miles into the sky.

A gorge loomed, a dark slit in a solid wall of rock. The helicopter clattered into the narrow opening. Maggie cringed, afraid the rotors would strike the canyon sides. Granite walls amplified the sound--an explosion of noise she felt in her chest. Like some great dark bird, the chopper's shadow skimmed the rock alongside.

Then, out of the canyon and into clear blue air. The pilot dropped lower, skimming mountain rivers at wave-top height. Alpine pastures clung drunkenly to the slopes. Twice, flocks of sheep burst apart at their low approach.

A lifetime later, the revs of the engines changed, each pounding rotor beat separate, as the helicopter hovered. Branches whipped and tossed beyond the open doorway as they descended through the tree tops.

A jolt.

A hand seized her wrist.

"Etorri!" Come on! He hauled her up and out the side door with him. Gripping her arm, he strode for the ring of black-trunked pines around the clearing. Maggie, in her white linen suit and spike-heeled sandals struggled to keep up with him. Past a boulder and up a grade, the forest closed behind them. A few feet into the trees, she tripped over a root and pitched forward. He grabbed her.

"Behi!" he said in a husky Basque. She straightened and looked at him blankly.

"Vaca!" He tried the same in Spanish.

He called her a cow! It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt a reply in Spanish that would have singed that black beard right off his chin. But a caginess in the way he was watching her told her he was testing to see if she understood. She pretended she didn't, gave him a confused look, and thanked him. In English.

He grunted and motioned her on.

High overhead, timber creaked. Here and there, shafts of sunshine wove through the treetops, warming her arms for an instant before he pulled her into the gloom again.

At first it puzzled her. From time to time, he abruptly cut off the trail and trekked around through knee-high underbrush, booting the brambles aside for her. Behind them, the line of soldiers from the helicopter did the same, snaking single file, cutting off the path and through the forest after them, walking in their footsteps.

Mines!

The hairs on her arms separated, lifted, and for a moment she forgot how to breathe. Maggie stopped, terrified to take another step.

"Walk," he snarled in English, and yanked her forward with him. Trembling, she huddled as close to him as she dared, almost grateful for the iron grip he had on her arm.

He led her deep into the woods to a compound of low, solid structures. Only a few small patches of sunlight filtered through the shade. She looked up. Not good. Search planes would fly right over.

Men with guns milled about the camp, heading toward what she assumed was their mess hall. She smelled meat and garlic frying as she passed. Through the door of one of the buildings, she saw a man at a sewing machine beside a pile of boots. Of course. Guerrilla armies walked.

As if to underscore it, another soldier led two donkeys toward a lean-to where a man at a small forge was shoeing a mule. Which probably meant there wasn't a road for miles. Shaken, she began taking in every detail of the camp and the buildings, memorizing where things were. If she got into trouble, she'd better know.

She sucked in a deep breath. Who was she kidding? She already was in trouble.

The man beside her led her up the steps and across the porch of a small cabin in the trees. Without a word, he shoved her through the door and closed her inside. If she'd ever had any doubt who they were, the red, white and green Ikurriña hanging on the wall--the flag of the Basques--cinched it.

She spun around. "Wait--please!"

A hasp squeaked on the other side, and then the

finality of a padlock snapping shut. She sagged against the door. This just couldn't be happening to her. It made no sense. Something--she didn't know what--went wrong at the parliament, and POJ grabbed her to get away.

Trembling, she wiped her damp palms down the front of her skirt and pushed away from the door.

The cabin was small. Thick wood beams stretched across the ceiling. To her left was a counter with a small propane stove and a few dishes. Above them were flimsy shelves stacked with milk cans and rusted old sieves that looked as if they hadn't been used in years. A shepherd's hut, she guessed. A woman at a market in San Kristobal told her shepherds made cheese in their spare time and sold it when they came back down.

On the wall over a pile of law books and next to the flag, hung a huge map of Edorta. She walked over and studied it. Clusters of colored pinheads marked sites she recognized as being locations of the new hydroelectric dams--dams being built with Spanish and French and Portuguese money. The press hailed them as the ultimate in international cooperation. But Spain was building those dams in Edorta, and most Basques didn't want them there.

Luis did. ALAZAR CONSTRUCÍON y INGENIRIA built most of the power plants.

Her gaze swept the tiny rooms, noting the unpainted wood walls and plank floor. A gun holster lay on the table. Empty-- damn! A fleece-lined rancher's jacket hung from a peg on the back of the door. Slowly she prowled around the room, looking for some way out. She felt the molding around the doorway, put her shoulder under the window and shoved. The door was padlocked, the windows nailed shut. Standing alone in the center of the room, she fought a surge of black panic, caught in a nightmare that had turned out to be real.

Her father had warned her bluntly to stay away from Spain. "Don't go. It's government by full moon over there," he'd told her, worried by the radical ETA. They demanded independence and had been bombing and killing for years to get it.

ETA kept three of the four Basque provinces--Alava, Vizcaya, and Guipuzcoa on the Atlantic coast--in constant turmoil. Edorta, the largest of the Basque provinces, had always sided with Spain. There was no ETA in Edorta, and there never had been. Maggie tried to placate him by saying that the ETA Basques were all the way over on the other side of Spain. Dixon had bellowed at her that "all the way over" wasn't as far as Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

He paused. With anger still heating his words, he'd added, "And Edorta's not that big. What if you run into somebody you know?--and you know damned well who I'm talking about."

"You mean Mikel. I can't believe you still refuse to say his name." Maggie had laughed and hugged him. "Relax, I was in high school when I knew him...ancient history, Daddy. If I do see him, I'll buy the rat a drink and maybe push him in the ocean. You'd like that."

But the chances of that happening were minus zero. Mikel Garcia never wanted to see her again, either. One look at Maggie Dixon, and he'd take off like a horse with his tail on fire. Again.

At Dixon's request, a marine colonel stopped by her office at the college before she left for Spain and tried to prepare her for situations like this. Spain, like the U.S., did not negotiate with terrorists, he warned. "Protect yourself, Miss Dixon. Stay away from dangerous people and dangerous places. And if you ever step into a building or a street and see no locals around, get out of there fast because something's going down."

She flopped into a chair at a table by the cabin window, wishing with all her heart that she'd paid more attention. There hadn't been a soul in that corridor at the Parliament. She'd noted that at the time, but had shrugged if off.

She slipped off the white linen jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. Absently, she smoothed the wrinkles out, as if somehow they were important. In the last hour, she'd been kidnapped, shot at, and seen a man killed. And she hadn't fallen to pieces. In fact, she thought she was handling it rather well.

A hoarse sob ripped from her throat with no warning. Covering her face with her hands, she began to shake uncontrollably.

A few minutes later, she lowered her hands and glanced out the window beside the table. Men's voices and a whinny came from right outside. A line of men carried wooden crates to a string of mules with wicker panniers hanging on their sides. The big black-bearded man was loading the baskets, shifting the weight around on the animals, and yelling out orders. She dug a tissue from her purse and blew her nose, cheered by the thought that if they had him loading mules, he was down at the bottom in the chain of command. And that suited her just fine. Him she intended to stay away from.

She got up and went back to the sleeping alcove she'd seen earlier. A low chest under the window and two narrow beds nearly filled it. On one of them lay a worn copy of Plato's Republic, a matchbook tucked inside for a bookmark. The way he acted, Mein Kampf was more his speed. She riffled the pages, then tossed it aside. Couldn't be his. It was written in Greek.

At first she missed it, a guerrilla doll on a blanket at the foot of the bed. Everyone had heard about "Marko" dolls. The mountain women fashioned them after Commander Marko Garcia, the leader of the Party of Justice, and sold them as souvenirs.

Once, clicking around the dial, she'd caught the end of a piece on the evening news about the Party of Justice and the popular Spanish senator who'd quit politics to lead the uprising against Madrid and the dams.

The program had ended with a long shot of a truck convoy of POJ commandos passing through a small town in the Pyrenees. People lined the route, cheering from the packed roadside and from the balconies of pretty pastel houses. Women had held up their "Marko" dolls as he rode by in the lead truck, waving like a king to his subjects. To the hill people, he was a hero; to his government, a traitor. For three years Spain had tried to catch him, and for three years the wily POJ leader had slipped every trap they'd set. Former military intelligence, he knew more dirty tricks than they did.

She picked the doll up, her mind racing. Garcia headed the POJ, so he was the one she had to talk to, not that Neanderthal with the mules out there. Garcia couldn't possibly approve what that hothead had done today. She wasn't naive enough to think he didn't know about the raid on the parliament--he probably planned it--but not taking a hostage. That didn't happen until the shooting started, which meant they didn't know she was American, didn't know who her father was.

Thoughtfully, she nibbled at her lower lip. In the three months she'd been in Spain, she'd seen that one TV show about the POJ--and only the end of that. Almost nothing was in the papers about them. She had little to go on, except the senator angle.

Garcia had been one, and she was the daughter of one. That might count for something. Usually she never mentioned who her father was, but this time she'd throw Senator Thaddeus Dixon's name all over Spain, if it would get her out of here. A small smile worked at her mouth. And if the fearless Captain Marko reacted the way most people did, this time tomorrow she'd be back home.

She squeezed the guerrilla doll. Stuffed with foam and about ten inches long, it was made from flesh-colored fabric and had a soft, golf-ball-sized head. It was dressed in army clothes, little cammy trousers tucked into little black boots, a scrap of a blue and black neckerchief, and a little blue beret. Beady button eyes peered from the eye slits of a small black ski mask. Maggie worked a finger under the edge of the little hood and stretched it off over the doll's head.

She stared at the doll's face. A line of tiny black X's was sewn down one cheek. In disgust, she tossed the doll onto the bed. She could forget about going home tomorrow.

Maggie clasped and unclasped her hands, watching him from the alcove window. That creep with the mules was Commander Marko Garcia himself, in the flesh. She'd completely misread him, should have known he wasn't just another soldier. He'd been the last one out of the building, and he was the one who took her.

From the other side of the mule he was loading, Garcia looked up at the window. Maggie tensed and stared back, refusing to look away. Eyes locked, neither moved for several moments. Then, he turned his back and sauntered off into the trees. As he did, she felt an instant's squeezing hurt, a sense of déjà vu that flickered and flashed and then was gone. Blindly, she stared at the empty place on the path where he'd stood. He reminded her of someone.

When he returned, he carried a crate on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. Typically Basque. Most of them looked nothing like the Spanish. Basques were leaner, longer in the face, more athletic. Like the others, he'd taken his shirt off. Displaying his muscles, and he had plenty of those, she thought sourly. Got them from beating up Spaniards in bars, no doubt.

His skin, shiny with sweat, was the high-altitude bronze of skiers and climbers. She sniffed. Curly black hair climbed out of his pants and up his belly, then fanned into a tangle of dark chest hair from shoulder to shoulder. "Guerrilla" suited him in more ways than one. Her nostrils flared. She hated hairy men.

You loved it on Mikel.

I was seventeen. What did I know?

She looked hard at the man outside. Something about the set of the shoulders, the cocky way he held his head reminded her of...of Mikel Garcia. She shook her head as if to clear it. Same age, same height, same coloring.

But there, the similarity ended. Mikel had been an officer, handsome, intelligent, urbane. That Garcia out there was none of those. And Garcia was such a common name in Spain, like Smith or Jones back home. Two of her students were named Garcia and so was Luis's nurse.

Still, the age, the height, the hair...

Ridiculous.

...the name, the scratchy voice.

Her eyes drew slowly to the stack of law books in the corner. Apprehension snake-crawled through her stomach. In the back of her mind, a door she'd shut tight years ago blew wide open. Mikel had been a lawyer, too.

She couldn't get to the alcove fast enough. Dropping to her knees in front of the chest, she threw the lid open. Shirts, trousers, jockey shorts, sweaters, she dug them all out. Without the slightest compunction, she rooted through them, examining everything, checking the pockets of a strange man's clothes, looking for anything with a full name on it, anything to identify the man outside. She found it--a slim, brown folder of legal papers. With a feeling close to dread, she opened a deed to property for a dam. The name on it was Marko Garcia, an attorney in San Kristobal.

Not Mikel.

Relieved, she let her breath out slowly, unaware she'd been holding it. Just as she was putting everything back, she felt a large manila envelope under a sweater. She pulled it out and shook it onto her lap. Clippings, a photograph of a beautiful dark-haired woman, service medals, bits and pieces of a man's life lay spread across her white skirt. She smoothed a yellowed newspaper article dated June 1988 over her knee. A photograph smiled up at her, a jubilant, smooth-faced man in a suit and tie, being carried on the shoulders of a crowd--Marko Garcia, the night he won the senate race. She read the article twice.

Tight-lipped, she replaced the clipping, slid the loose bits back into the envelope and set about stacking the shirts and trousers inside the chest as she'd found them. She closed the lid and leaned back against the side of the bed. Arms folded, she stared up at the alcove window.

The scar and the beard had thrown her off.

Heat slid down her neck.

That bastard outside was Mikel.

Chapter 3

Long purple shadows fell into the room, pooling in the corners to deepest, darkest aubergine. Outside, the mountains shimmered in an eerie lavender glow, that amethyst twilight peculiar to high altitudes.

Maggie leaned her forehead against the dirty windowpane, worried and waiting, her self-confidence shaken to the core. Until today, she'd always believed that things worked out for the best. This time, she wasn't so sure.

Mikel. Dear God, what should she say to him?

Nothing. Keep quiet. He hadn't recognized her either. With any luck, he wouldn't.

Footsteps on the porch, a key in the lock.

She spun around, her eyes riveted on the door.

Garcia strode in, big, dark, grim, a rifle hanging from one shoulder. Even knowing who he was, it was hard to recognize him. As he passed, he swooped her handbag up, then folded his long frame into a chair at the table. Without a word, he lit a propane lantern and sat down at the table, a dark, dangerous man, black hair, black beard, black eyes, black hair curling in the throat of his shirt.

Her eyes flew to his cheek. And, for a moment, the fury she felt at him almost gave way to sympathy. Almost. What in God's name had done that to him? The scar, glassy-white in the lamplight, slanted out of the hair above his temple. It missed the edge of an eyebrow, deepened over the cheekbone, then vanished into the close black beard he wore, the hair as short and sleek as a Doberman's. That he wore one at all meant he was sensitive about the scar. He'd told her once he disliked beards, but she suspected now he'd wear one for the rest of his life.

He was darker than she remembered, the olive skin deeply tanned. He was still lean and hard and wide-shouldered, but not as slim as he used to be. He'd matured into a full-blown male of thirty-eight, fit, and in his prime. The Mikel she'd known was a young officer and proud of it. This one led an army and didn't look happy about it.

In a studied, casual gesture, Maggie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and waited for him to speak. All afternoon she'd rehearsed what she'd say to him, but now that he was here, her mind chased in circles. She refused to let him frighten her and yanked her thoughts into line, knowing she needed her wits about her. Grimly, she forced herself to concentrate.

She drew in a long, slow, calming breath and studied him. To her relief, he didn't recognize her, and she wasn't about to enlighten him.

"Habla español?" Black eyes studied her face.

"No," she said quickly and looked away. No question about it, the voice was his, hoarse, rough-edged.

"Que habla?"

"English."

"Pero sí comprende español. Sí?" He leaned forward with an expectant look.

Keeping her face blank, Maggie shook her head that she didn't understand it either. When he frowned, a small feeling of victory spread through her. Good...good...good! He would never make the connection.

The lights winked out in his eyes, turning them a flat, raisin brown.

Marko swore under his breath. She was lying. She'd answered every question in English he'd asked in Spanish. Slowly, he rolled his shirt cuffs back, exposing a pair of deeply tanned forearms. He'd let it slide. This time.

"Very well, we will speak in your language," he said in English, a new note of caution in his voice.

"Why did y'all bring me here?"

Dammit, she was American. How the hell many more things could go wrong? "And I ask the questions."

Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing.

"We are the Party of Justice," he said, hiding his frustration. "I am Marko Garcia. I run the camp. More to the point, señorita, who are you?" He dumped her pocketbook out and fanned her belongings across the table, pawing through her things, poking them around with his finger.

"That's not necessary. Ask your questions, and I'll answer you," she said calmly.

He ignored her, two deep furrows pulling his eyebrows together. One by one, he picked objects off the table--mascara, an emery board, lipstick, a comb. He considered each carefully, then dropped it back into the purse. He turned a compact of Ortho-Novum over in his fingers and clicked the little dial around, amused by the drift of pink in her cheeks when he glanced at the engagement ring on her left hand. She wore a rock of a diamond, but no wedding band.

Whoever the boyfriend was, he could rest easy. Tomorrow Pablo would fly her back to the city.

But what was going through her mind? Her hands were clasped in front of her, as serene as a little nun. No bigger than a minute, yet she looked cool, almost unconcerned, as if being taken hostage were an everyday occurrence in her life.

Two green eyes were fastened on him with an expression of intense dislike. Under the circumstance, he could understand that, but why wasn't she afraid of him? He'd expected a half-hysterical woman. Instead, this lady looked more pissed than frightened. And yet, the pulse at the base of her throat was beating so hard he could see it.

It was a good act--gutsy and smart--and the last thing he expected. A gleam of admiration came and went in his eyes. She had--he searched for the Anglo word--class.

She smoothed the pleats of her skirt down the front of her thighs. The skirt was wrinkled, his dirty boot print clearly visible on the side. He'd surprised himself when he'd stepped on it, but it worked. Shut her up and sent a clear signal to the others: Hands off.

For a gringa, she was pretty, if you liked blondes, which he didn't. He tossed the container of birth control pills back into the pocketbook, opened her wallet, and thumbed her driver's license out. "Margarita St. Clair, Eagle Canyon Farms, Hudspeth, Texas. What are you doing in Spain?"

"I teach."

"You are not a prisoner of war, Miss St. Clair. Kindly drop the name-rank-and-serial-number-routine. It annoys me."

He wasn't the only one annoyed, he noted, with a small twinge of pleasure. Pinpoints of anger glittered in the back of her eyes, but the protest he saw on her lips never came.

"What are you doing in Spain--specifically?" he repeated, disturbed by the lady's control. He picked up a pencil, tapping it, slipping it between his fingers, rotating it.

"Specifically, I'm with the Institute for Latin Research," she said evenly, watching him toy with the pencil. "We're an agency like the Peace Corps. We work with Spanish-speaking people in poor--"

"I know what they do. I asked what you do. Why are you in Spain?" His eyes narrowed.

Tap. Tap. The pencil slid smoothly through his fingers.

Maggie lifted both hands in an exasperated movement. "I'm an assistant professor of psychology at a small university in Texas you never heard of. I know nothing of your politics, and I don't want to. I want to go home."

A psychologist. Cristo, no wonder she was so calm. He laid the pencil aside and told himself not to touch it again. God only knew what she thought his fiddling with it meant--probably something phallic and Freudian. He'd never felt completely comfortable around psychologists. They were always analyzing, had a meaning for everything you said or did.

"How long have you been in Kristobal?" he demanded, sharper than was necessary.

"Three months."

He continued the interrogation, a rapid-fire exchange of questions and answers, until he was convinced she was exactly what she said she was. A teacher, setting up ghetto recreation centers as part of an academic exchange program. No, she wasn't staying, she said. Yes, she was going back to the States in September when she finished the research for her doctorate.

"My dissertation is on urban trauma and gang pressure among Latin youth. Her lips thinned. "Apparently I'm a generation off."

"So it would seem," he snapped, irritated at her. Prissy little thing. He leaned back again. "How did you get up on the seventh floor today? I had that hall cleared."

Which explained the empty corridor outside the chambers, Maggie thought. "We took the stairs. The elevators weren't working."

"Of course they weren't."

The faint smile she saw set her teeth on edge.

"And who is 'we'?"

"My fiancé--Dr. Luis Alazar. Luis is a--"

Garcia leaped to his feet, knocking the chair aside with his hand. It banged to the floor. "Alazar--you are engaged to Luis Alazar? I do not believe this! Jesu--and you say you're not mixed up in my politics!" He smacked his forehead with his palm and started around the table.

Alarmed, Maggie took two quick steps back from him. "You don't even know Luis," she said warily.

"The hell I don't. Try kickbacks, money-laundering, corruption. Try murder!" His face was carved stone. "What the hell kind of man is he? He laid on the floor while I dragged you down the hall!"

"What did you expect? You were shooting at them," she sputtered.

"And whose fault was that? You weren't supposed to be up there! I went to deliver a warning, nothing more." He jutted a finger at her accusingly. "Don't you realize a man's dead because of you?"

"Me? You shot him!"

"Because he was about to put thirty rounds through you to get me! And where was Luis? Saving his own hide. All I saw of your little doctor was his ass and his elbows." Garcia turned back to the table, stooping, picking up the chair. He slammed it down. "He didn't know if he'd ever see you alive again, and he didn't lift a finger to help you. Or didn't you notice?"

Maggie looked away. She'd only thought about that a hundred times these last few hours. "You'd have killed him if he did," she said hesitantly.

Marko snapped his head up. "I have reason to."

The wallet's plastic sleeves leafed over, exposing another license, this one with an address in Quail Hollow, Virginia. He sat back down and pulled the license out.

"Quail Hollow, Virginia...I thought you lived in Texas," Garcia said slowly.

"I do." She wet her lips.

"Why the Virginia license?"

"...my family lives there."

He shot her a hard look and held the license closer to the lantern. Repeatedly, he flicked the top corner with his thumbnail. "This license says you're single. The other says you're married. Which is it?"

"I'm divorced." She clenched her hands together so tight they hurt.

"Quail Hollow--in McLean, Virginia. Across the river from Washington, is it not?"

She felt suddenly lightheaded. The air in the cabin had become oppressive and hard to breathe. Surely...surely he didn't remember the address after all these years.

As he slipped the license back into her wallet, a newspaper clipping fell out onto the table.

Maggie almost groaned out loud. The clipping was a picture of two slightly overweight men in shorts and baseball caps jogging down Pennsylvania Avenue. Daddy and a friend. Her father was huffing along gamely to keep up, but his big, flat-footed friend was grinning and waving at the camera.

The clipping lay beside Garcia's elbow. She let out a quiet hiss of relief. He'd missed it.

Her stomach turned to air. No, he hadn't.

Garcia unfolded the clipping. For long, dragging seconds he stared at the picture. When he finally looked up at her, she read it in his face. He knew! All her plans not to tell him who she was, who her father was, rose and scattered like the pigeons at the Plaza.

The other man in the picture was....

Bill Clinton!

Everything inside Marko went as still and quiet as death. He stared at the picture of the American president and Senator Thaddeus E. Dixon of Texas out on their morning run.

With a low, inarticulate sound, Marko scraped his chair back. In three long strides he was over at the window, feeling as if he'd been kicked in the gut by a horse. He fumbled cigarettes from a shirt pocket and snagged one out with his teeth. Cigarette dangling from his lips, he stared at the blonde's reflection.

Jesu, she's Maggie Dixon.

The Virginia address, the Texas accent, she spoke Spanish. And in all his life, he'd met only one girl with hair that color, a pale, milky beige, like coffee with too much cream.

How the hell did I miss it?

Shaken, he studied the image of the pretty blonde behind him and dragged on the cigarette, hissing the smoke in. Disjointed thoughts whipped in and out of his mind. He snatched at them, trying to make sense out of what was happening.

Shoulders tensed, he watched her in the glass and waited to be recognized. Nothing. Not a flicker of recognition. But then, he'd changed also...he was older, heavier, had a beard now. And a scar.

She doesn't know me!

Not even my name registered. He was half-relieved, half-annoyed. How the hell many Marko Garcia-Atxagas could she know?

He frowned, a sudden recollection bringing him up short. She never knew me as Marko. She knew me by my middle name, Mikel.

If she even remembers it.

If she even remembers me.

One time. He'd seen her one time, one night for a few hours. The peppy teenager was long gone...so was the pigtail. Little Maggie Dixon was all grown up now, married, divorced, a professor, no less.

His jaw set.

And the lying little bitch says I raped her.

Chapter 4

Quail Hollow, Virginia

Country-western music, cranked up as high as it would go, had blasted from the terrace of the stately stone mansion. Under a fringed yellow canopy by the pool, the Eagle Mountain Boys, in string ties and Stetsons, twanged a fast hoe-down. It was a down-home, boot-stomping Texas blowout, hosted by Senator Thaddeus "the Duke" Dixon and his pretty Mexican wife Consuelo.

Wearing the dove-gray of Spain's elite Regimental Guards, Raul Soreno and Marko cut across the park-like grounds from the embassy property next door. They swung onto the flagstone path and headed for the party on Dixon's terrace.

At the gate to the terrace and the party, a thick-necked man with a crew cut discreetly blocked the entrance and asked their names. To Marko's annoyance, Captain Raul Soreno's name was quickly found, checked off, and Raul was waved through.

Not so with Marko. His name frequently caused trouble. "Marko Garcia-Atxaga. A-Shaw-Ga," Marko said, and then spelled it as well. Basque names were unpronounceable to Americans. As the agent thumbed through the guest list for the second time, Marko shook his head. "See if it's listed as 'Mikel.'"

It was.

He'd long since given up trying to straighten it out. Mikel was the first of three middle names his mother had hung on him after both grandfathers and her brother, the ambassador. Uncle Mike blithely ignored every one of his nephew's names, except the one for him.

"Enjoy the party, Captain," the guard said.

Not very likely, Marko thought, and stepped through the gate. He had a date, and she wasn't there.

Less than two hours earlier, he and Raul had finished a NATO course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They'd hopped a flight to Washington for a quick visit with Marko's uncle, Ambassador Mikel Atxaga-Guerre. On the way up, the two of them had flirted with the pretty dark-haired stewardess as she led them to their seats. Raul, whose English was flawless, had lorded it over Marko, showing off how well he spoke her language.

Marko, with his heavily accented English, took another tack. He'd squeezed to one side, pretending not to understand and waved Raul to slide across to the window seat. Too late, Raul realized what Marko had done and tried to switch places with him. Marko stuck out a quick foot and sent Raul sprawling into the seat.

"Sorry," Marko said, and slid into the aisle seat beside him, where he had easy to their stewardess. A smile, a "gracias" or two, and Marko had a date for dinner that night almost before the wheels were up. Raul stared disgustedly out the window.

Clouds of pink cayenne steam hissed from a barbecue pit and watered their eyes. A big, burly man in jeans and boots, with burnished gray hair that had once been very blond, stood next to a side of beef turning on a spit. From time to time, he slathered it with an incendiary Texas red sauce. Marko recognized him at once--Texas Senator Thad Dixon.

"Cristo, I can smell the money," Raul said softly. The handsome, swarthy face creased with an appreciative grin. "I like this."

When he thought back on it later, Marko wondered why there were no warnings in life when a man was heading for certain destruction. Sirens, bells, Klaxons--something should have sounded that night.

The bandleader chinned his fiddle and called out, "Yeee-HAW! Grab your pard-ners, here we go. Take your ladies and dosie-doh!"

A shout of laughter rose from the guests. Dixon set his bucket of sauce aside, grabbed the waist of the small, dark-haired woman beside him and hurried her over to where the other guests were circling up.

The two captains smirked at each other, eyebrows raised. The movers and shakers of American government--Kennedys, Kissingers, Bushes, Doles, famous faces from the newspapers--were jigging in place and clapping hands like children. In Spain, a party at this level would be much more dignified.

Marko checked his watch, wondering how long before he could decently leave.

Raul saw her first--one quick glimpse of a blonde in red and white, standing on a stool to light a Hawaiian torch that had gone out. Like a wolf sensing something new on the wind, he stretched taller and craned his neck after her when she hopped down and then disappeared into the crowd.

"I like that, too," Raul said, and pulled a quarter out of his pocket. He flipped the coin into the air and covered it on the back of his hand. "Call it."

"Heads."

"Tails--she's mine!"

A minute later, the girl turned up in front of them, a green-eyed gamin in rolled-up painter pants, a baggy red Rugby shirt, and a waist-length braid as thick as a man's wrist.

Grinning, she flipped the heavy braid over her shoulder and stuck her hand out to Marko. "Hi there, I'm Maggie Dixon."

Right then, sirens should have blown.

Raul's head snapped around, his eyes bugging at the name, but the dimpled white smile was directed at Marko.

Marko looked down at her while she rattled off in Spanish, a mile a minute, that his uncle had pointed him out and sent her over, and wasn't it a nice night, and she hoped he liked country-western music because she sure did, and "Don't you speak any English at all?"

"Sí, if I ever get a chance," he growled.

"What's the matter with your voice--you got a cold or something?"

He shook his head and forced a smile, a little annoyed.

Maggie turned to Raul and stuck her hand out politely. "And you must be Captain Soreno."

Raul, gypsy-dark face beaming, bowed and all but clicked his heels. "Good evening, señorita" Deliberately, he made his voice strong and a little loud.

Marko turned away. Skinny little blondes weren't his type anyway. He went for willowy, tall brunettes with obvious curves. Like his stewardess. If this peanut had any of those, they were well hidden under that tent of a shirt she wore. She looked like a rag-picker. Raul won her, and he could have her.

Maggie smiled up at Marko, ignoring Raul. She nodded her head toward the dance floor. "Quiere bailar? Or you just gonna stand there and sulk all night?"

"Sorry, I don't dance," he lied, "however Captain Soreno here--" He turned to hand her over to Raul. But Raul was already heading for the bar, his back stiff.

"Well?" Maggie said.

Trapped, and by his host's daughter. Marko tossed his cap onto a nearby table and followed Maggie out to the dance floor. Quickly, he ran his eyes down the seat of those baggy pants. No curves in there either.

"Yeeeeeee-haw!" The band leader thumbed his hat up.

"Wa-hooo!" Maggie cupped her hands and hollered back.

Marko's mouth fell open when the blonde in the painter pants spun him around, grabbed his waist, and away they went. Feeling like a fool, he stumbled over his feet with her, whirling her around, switching partners--and losing her. Twice in one dance he lost her, stood in the middle of the floor, looking for her, while ladies in cowboy hats snatched his hands, hooked his elbow and pulled him around. Frustrated and embarrassed--Raul was laughing out loud--Marko watched Maggie, pigtail swinging, promenade by on the vice-president's arm.

"I do not think I care to do that again," Marko said stiffly to Maggie. They were in the buffet line getting food.

She drizzled more red sauce over two plates of barbecued ribs, then led him to a table off to the side. "Actually, you're kind of good at it. This may seem a little nutty to you, Captain, but it's a happy, friendly dance."

Happy. Friendly. A little nutty...summed up Maggie Dixon rather neatly.

Her eyes gleamed. "Square-dancing kind of de-starches people, you might say."

"Like me, you mean? You think I'm--how you say--stuffy?"

"A teeny bit perhaps." She grinned as he tried to cut the meat off the ribs with a plastic knife. "Fingers work better," she said, and pulled a piece of meat off the bone. Leaning forward, she popped the spicy wet chunk into his mouth.

Smiling, he chewed and swallowed. Usually, her kind turned him off, spoiled, pretty, vain little rich girls. But this one had something about her. Spoiled?--probably. Rich? Definitely. Vain? He doubted it. Not dressed the way she was.

And she was pretty.

"LADIES ON THE INSIDE, gents on the right, swing her now, boys, and kiss her goodnight!" came the call.

"They're playing our song." She took his food away and hauled him to his feet. All bubble and fizz, the exact opposite of him.

It was a mystery to him how she did it. Half an hour later, tie loosened, jacket over the back of a chair, Captain Marko Mikel Kemen Garcia-Atxaga was trading partners and clicking his feet, "yee-hawing" just like a Yank. And laughing--really laughing--for the first time in weeks. All of that good humor, he realized, stemmed from one source. Maggie Dixon. The loveliest little brat in all America.

Later, as the three of them sat at a table, Marko turned a glass round and round with his hand and studied her, trying to decide if that charming air of innocence really was genuine or just a cute come-on, as Raul maintained. Twice, Raul followed him into the house and the men's room and pointed that out. From the day they'd met at the Academy, the two men had been rivals. They'd competed for marks, for class office, for each other's girlfriends, their lives a private contest, one on one. They were evenly matched. Sometimes Raul won; sometimes, Marko.

Maggie swung her chair around and watched the dancers. Marko watched her. In the torchlight alongside, brassy lights flickered across her hair, turning it gold, then bronze. Gazing at the heavy braid hanging down her back, Marko found himself wondering what it would feel like in his hands--what she would feel like in his hands.

When the band struck up a slow, dreamy love song, Raul slid his cuff back and tapped his watch at Marko. "Don't you have a date?"

"Not any more." Marko reached for Maggie's hand, led her out to the dance floor. In time to the music, he drew her into his arms. "What college do you go to?" he asked, fishing to find out how old she was.

"I'm a junior at George Washington." She smiled and moved closer against him.

Neatly, he turned her, avoiding a collision with the bushy-haired senator from Massachusetts. A junior at G. W. University made her twenty or twenty-one, at least. Older than she looked.

He smiled down at her with renewed interest.

Across the patio, Thad Dixon also noted that interest. Swirling the ice cubes in his drink, he carried his glass up to the balcony overlooking the terrace, where he'd have an unobstructed view of the dancers.

Up there, he leaned on the banister and studied the Spanish officer dancing with his daughter. The man had what Consuelo called duende, a dark magnetism that set off his parental alarm signals. The instant Marko appeared at the gate, Dixon had known who he was--the Spanish ambassador's nephew.

Arm tight around her waist, the captain twirled Maggie down the side of the pool, her thigh trapped between his. Dixon looked around for his wife to ask her to find some pretext to break them up. But Consuelo Dixon was chatting with her friend, Bianca Atxaga, wife of the ambassador. Dixon sighed. Mike Atxaga, neighbor and good friend for years. Why'd he bring his damned nephew anyway?

Dixon frowned.

"You can't keep her locked up forever, Thad," said a familiar voice at his elbow. Mike Atxaga, a tall, aristocratic man with a luxuriant black mustache, gestured his cigar at the couple dancing beside the pool.

"How old is your nephew, Mike?" Dixon asked curtly.

"Twenty-seven in August."

"Maggie's seventeen."

Mike chuckled. "And still an innocent. You can stop worrying. My sister raised a gentleman."

Dixon grunted. "Yeah? Well, back home, I raise Thoroughbreds. You telling me I don't know a stallion when I see one?"

"Not this time. Mikel can't stay...." He broke off as Dixon glowered at the patio.

In a corner away from the others, the couple were dancing, smiling at each other, their bodies barely moving to the music. Dixon smacked his glass down, his face a deep, dark red. "If he touches her, Mike, so help me, I'll kill him!"

"Relax. They're only dancing. And he won't. If I even suspected he might, I'd throw him out of here myself. I've invested too many years in that young man's career to let him risk it." Mike leaned on the banister, eyes proudly on his nephew. "My friend, we are looking at a future senator. In ten years, he's going to be one of the most powerful men in Spain."

"Don't bet the ranch. Politics can fool you," Dixon said.

"Not this time." The ambassador lowered his voice. "Edorta just elected four new senators to the Cortes in Madrid. One of them is a friend of ours. We put him in for one reason--to hold the seat until Mikel gets out of the army. The day he does, our friend resigns, and Mikel is appointed to finish the term. It's all set." Mike puffed on his cigar. Lips pursed, he sent two perfect smoke rings curling out over the balcony.

"You need some more lessons, Ambassador," Dixon said dryly. "Democracy doesn't work that way."

Mike shrugged. "The transition from Franco to democracy has not been easy. Three of our four Basque provinces want to break away. That must not happen." His face hardened. "ETA is a nightmare. They killed seven people in Madrid yesterday with another car bomb."

"I heard, and I'm sorry."

"It's sickening. Spain needs men in government with the guts to stop ETA and hold the country together. Mikel will. He'll send the army in and clean them out. Like that." He snapped his fingers.

"A young hardliner, eh?" By the minute, Dixon was liking Mike's nephew less and less.

"No, just a Basque who believes in democracy at any cost." He squeezed Dixon's arm. "Sometimes democracy needs a little help."

Thad's face suddenly creased into a broad grin, Spanish politics the last thing on his mind. Tall and erect, Captain Marko Garcia was striding purposefully toward the entrance to the terrace. Dixon let out a breath of relief when the gray uniform disappeared out the gate.

Perfect!

"See, I told you he wasn't staying." Mike Atxaga laughed and threw an arm around Thad's shoulder. "How about a quick game of pool, my friend--and a good, stiff drink. I think we both could use one."

Chuckling, they went inside

Chapter 5

He was leaving.

Maggie stared. The most exciting man she'd ever met was walking out without even a good-bye. Her throat tightened, watching him cross the dance floor, putting his cap on, heading purposefully for the terrace gate. Somehow, he'd guessed how old she was. Or how old she wasn't. She swallowed past the lump in her throat.

A woman's trill of laugher rose above the conversation. Everyone except dumb old Margarita Dixon was having a great time. Until a minute ago, she'd thought Mikel was, too. But obviously, the man couldn't wait to get away. And neither could she, now.

With a resigned sigh, she turned around and threaded her way through the dancers. "Excuse me, Doctor," she said, dodging around a gravel-voiced Henry Kissinger doing a Texas Two-Step with the utmost concentration.

Consuelo Dixon, relaxing in a beach chair with a group of women guests, waved gaily when she saw her daughter approaching. With a bright smile hiding the hurt, Maggie announced she was going out for pizza with a girlfriend.

"Senator Kennedy brought his nephew. Why don't you--"

"No thanks."

Her mother cocked her sleek, dark head at her daughter. Except for the hair--which Maggie got from her father--the resemblance between mother and daughter was striking. Both had the same small features, the high cheekbones, the upturned nose. They were friends, allies, horseback buddies. Connie Dixon, for all her diminutive, dark Mexican beauty, sat a horse like Geronimo. And so did her daughter. To Thad Dixon's dismay, his wife had sat their baby daughter in the saddle in front of her before Maggie could walk. Connie allowed Maggie to poise like a butterfly on the tip of a finger; Thad clutched her in his fist.

Connie rose from the chair and walked Maggie off to one side. "What happened to your friend?"

"He's not my friend," Maggie answered.

"From the way you two were dancing, you could have fooled me," Connie said, laughing. "Frankly, I'm relieved, after what his aunt just told me. Gorgeous, he may be, but he's too old for you."

"Oh, Mom!"

"Besides he has a date with some woman he picked up on the plane today."

Lips trembling, Maggie forced a smile and then almost ran to the house, desperate to get away before she started to cry and made a fool of herself.

A few minutes later, car keys in hand, she hurried out of her bedroom and through the long upstairs hall, taking the servants' stairs down to the back of the house to avoid being seen. At the crack of pool balls and her father's hearty laugh, she tiptoed past the game room door, then ducked into the library, and crossed the room in the dark. Quietly, she slipped out through the French doors and broke into a run across the side lawn for the garage. A dark figure stepped out of the shrubbery alongside.

"Going somewhere?"

Maggie gasped and dropped the keys. "Mikel, you scared me to death." She flipped the thick blonde braid back over her shoulder. "What are you doing out here? I thought you had a red-hot date," she said crossly.

He picked the keys up from the grass and handed them to her. "I came back to call and break it, but there must be fifty people inside your house. Since my 'red-hot date' is going to give me hell for standing her up, I thought I'd find someplace a little more private to tell her." He nodded his head toward the garage. "I assume there's a phone in there?" He rubbed the back of his neck hard, as if he were angry.

Maggie nodded, puzzled. This man, who'd been so confident all night, suddenly looked unsure of himself.

Her feminine antenna started humming, picking up signals that nearly took her breath away. She'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to miss what they were telling her.

"Why'd you change your mind?" she blurted.

"You're not going to make this easy, are you?" A slow, white smile curved up the handsome face. "I decided I'd rather stay here with you."

Maggie's heart tap-danced across her ribs. This grown man, this army officer, was as attracted to her as she was to him. She couldn't stop grinning.

Marko nodded toward the garage and asked, "Mind if I use that phone now?"

The idea sneaked around a corner in her mind.

"Ah...um...I was going up to the stable for my watch--if it wasn't in my car, I mean. That's what I came to the garage for...to see if it was...but I don't think it is," she stammered, cursing her tongue and slow wits for not coming up with something more plausible. "There's a phone in the stable, very private up there, I mean...unless you'd rather..."

Her face warmed, and she felt like an idiot. From the slight smile playing in the corner of his mouth, he knew exactly what she meant.

His hand closed firmly around hers. "C'mon, Brat. The stable sounds fine."

Hand in hand, they took a path behind the cabana for the stable on the hillside, a rambling building inside a white-fenced paddock in the distance. It was a rich man's stable, hosed and clean and smelling of hay and wet concrete. But over everything, impossible to hide, hung the heavy odor of horse.

She led him down a dimly lit passageway lined with horse stalls. At the sound of voices, her horse Star nickered, and iron hoofs clattered. A big, reddish-brown head thrust over the top half of a double door. With a low, rolling snort, Star sawed his head up and down.

She patted the big head with a fond smile. "Go back to bed, nosy," she said, and closed the top door.

She continued down the hall to a paneled room hung with racks of bridles and leather harnesses and a counter stacked with blue and gold horse blankets and sheets. A monogrammed felt banner in the Dixon barn colors stretched across one wall. A desk with a telephone stood in front of a glassed-in bookcase holding Maggie and Connie Dixon's trophies.

While Mikel sat on the edge of the desk, telephoning his stewardess, Maggie pretended to hunt for the watch she said she'd left up there earlier in the afternoon. She hadn't. She knew exactly where it was--on the dresser in her bedroom.

When his date hung up on him, Mikel grinned, pushed off the desk, and joined Maggie in the search for the watch. "What's it look like?"

"Gold with a stretchy band."

"We'll find it."

His voice intrigued her, a husky, ribbed tone, as though there were two of him inside talking at once. And, Lord, he was good-looking in that dress gray uniform, his cap tipped back on the curly dark hair.

Ten minutes later, Mikel leaned against the door frame, arms folded. "Are you certain you left it up here?"

"Perhaps I didn't." Maggie drew a deep breath. The smile twitching the corners of his mouth told her he knew she was lying. Feeling like a fool, she plucked at the hem of the Rugby shirt, then shoved her restless hands in her pockets. "We might as well go back down," she said. After a long, awkward silence, she switched off the light and started past him. As she did, Marko caught her, shifted her to face him, and drew her up onto her toes. His face lowered to hers. He kissed her, a gentle, tasting kiss, first one side of her mouth and then the other, his thumbs all while teasing the little hollows beneath her ears.

Her breath left her on a long, sweet sigh. She'd kissed boys before--safe, soft, groping kisses--but never a man. Her arms wound around his neck, as his mouth covered hers again.

His tongue touched her lips. Stopped. Then touched again. An invitation. The tip of his tongue delved the corner, lifting, separating, caressing the tiny fold, an erotic promise to other tiny folds. Not a word was said, yet somehow she knew that what was happening was only the prelude to what was coming. A dark excitement curled through her. Winding her arms around his neck, she kissed him back as hard as she could.

"Open your mouth, querida," he murmured. Darling.

Even as she told herself not to, she did as he asked. His tongue swept in greedily, wickedly, a warm, wet mouth coupling that made her breasts tingle and jolted her with strange, new feelings. Yesterday, she wouldn't have believed it possible she could feel so strongly, so quickly for any man. Yet, the moment he'd stepped through the terrace gate, she'd felt a little flash of something, and a voice inside her heart had whispered he was the one.

"Have breakfast with me tomorrow," Marko said softly.

"You mean dinner, don't you?"

"Sí, breakfast, lunch, and dinner." His hands glided up and down her bare arms, leaving a warmth that lingered on her skin.

Soft music floated up from the hillside below, the brush of drums, the sliding whine of a steel guitar. "Maybe...maybe we should go back down to the party," she stammered.

"Why--you don't feel safe with me?"

"Am I?"

A chuckle. "No."

"Thanks for the warning."

He smiled. "It's the only one you're going to get."

He crooked her chin up and made her look at him, his eyes dark and penetrating. He pulled her arms from around his neck and sank to the floor of the tack room with her. Leaning back against a weighted tack rack holding several jumping saddles, he settled her firmly between his knees. "All night I have wanted to do this." He unraveled the thick blonde braid and shook it loose, spreading it about her shoulders like a cape. Fingers widespread, he played with her hair, sifting the pale, heavy weight of it. Winding his hands in her hair, he slowly drew her face to his again. This time there was a dreamy intimacy to his kiss.

Outside the tack room window, a twig snapped. The branches of a lilac bush trembled and moved apart. A face, eyes shielded, pressed against the glass.

Mikel's hands moved under her shirt to cover her breasts. She arched, welcoming them. And then--Oh Lord!--a warm mouth went where his hands had been, a queer tingling feeling she'd never known before. With a small moan, she drove her hands into the dark hair, blind to everything except him and what he was doing to her. The Rugby shirt was up around her neck, her nipples wet from his kisses.

Twice her hands flew to his face to push him away. Instead, both times she pulled him closer, not knowing what she wanted. She only knew she'd die if he didn't stop. Or die if he did.

"Make love to me," she whispered.

A dozen kisses later, the painter pants were off, her breath coming in rushes. Hair wild, falling across her chest, Maggie writhed in his arms.

Slipping an arm behind her knees, he shoved to his feet with her. "Where can we go, querida?" Darling. His voice was sweet and rough at the same time, like honey and rum.

She pointed to the row of bolted stalls. She hid her face in his neck as he carried her down the dimly lit passageway, shivering at the sharp chuck-k'chuck of his boot heels rapping the bricks. Kissing her, he shouldered his way into an empty stall.

Raul dove from the bushes and ran around to the back of the stable. There were no windows on that side, only stall clean-out doors set at the floor. Stooping, he crept along, checking one after another. Each was locked from the inside. As he stood up to go, he snapped his head toward a small noise at the next stall, the opening scrape of metal on wood. Silently, he moved toward it. He spent the rest of the evening on his hands and knees, face pressed close to the opened door, watching the couple inside.

Inside the stables, Star whinnied and slung his head--a soft jingle of brass and leather. From the other side of the wall had come quiet moans and deep-voiced whispers and the yielding, rhythmic rustle of straw.

Spanish Embassy Retreat

McLean, Virginia

Three o'clock in the morning, and no sign of him yet. In his robe and slippers, Mike Atxaga-Guerre, Ambassador of Spain, stood on the darkened balcony outside his study. He turned to the young army officer standing stiffly at his side.

"Captain Soreno, what do you know about this mess with my nephew and Dixon's daughter?"

"Only that Marko changed his mind and said he was staying at the party, asked me to send his date some flowers, and apologize for him."

"And that didn't strike you as unusual?"

"No, señor. He never could keep his women straight. He does this all the time."

Mike dragged a hand down his face. He was getting too old for this nonsense. Half an hour earlier, he'd been flabbergasted by a telephone call from a deputy undersecretary at the American State Department, followed in minutes by another from the Virginia State Police. Both had demanded to know where his nephew was.

Thunder rumbled. Out over the Potomac River, a tree of lightning stood in the sky. A breeze, in advance of the approaching rain, tumbled a section of newspaper across the terrace. Mike Atxaga stiffened and stepped closer to the railing. On one of the chaises below, a cigarette glowed in the darkness.

"Mikel," he hissed, "get up here, al instante!"

The cigarette arced into the dark, and the figure on the chaise stood up, crossed the terrace, and took the stairs to the balcony two at a time. Buttoning his jacket, Marko hurried into his uncle's study. "What's wrong, Mike?"

"I'll be upstairs if you need me." Hastily, Raul backed out of the door and clicked it shut.

Atxaga wheeled on his namesake the instant they were alone. "Did you or did you not rape Maggie Dixon tonight?"

Midstride, Marko stopped short. "Good God, no!"

"According to the U.S. State Department, my nephew raped Senator Dixon's daughter

tonight."

"Not true."

"You were with her at the party."

"But of course. She was our host's daughter--I danced with her a few times."

"More like all night, I'd say."

Marko threw his hands up, a rush of angry red mottling his cheeks. "And half of Washington--including you--saw me. But Cristo, that doesn't mean...who said I raped her? Did Maggie say that?"

"Does she have reason to?"

"She does not!"

"Keep your voice down!" Both of them were shouting in Spanish. Ambassador Atxaga went to the balcony, slid the doors closed, and drew the heavy draperies across the glass. On his way back, he motioned Marko to a burgundy leather wing-back chair. Relief coursed through him, the feeling so strong his legs felt weak. Marko was his only sister's only child, and he couldn't have loved this jut-jawed young captain more if he'd been his own son. "Obviously, the police have their facts wrong. I'll straighten them out right now." He settled himself behind a massive mahogany desk and reached for the telephone.

Marko sank into the chair. With an unreadable expression, he fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. A lighter clicked and flared briefly against the olive skin. Silently, he fingered an ashtray on the chair side table, then blew out a fast stream of smoke. He leaned forward, his hand extended. "Give me the number. I'll call them myself after I've talked to Maggie."

After he talked to Maggie?

Warning bells went off in Mike's head.

Uneasily, he remembered the party, his nephew shaking hands, posing for pictures, charming everyone. And, smiling at his side, never out of reach, was little Maggie Dixon, like a puppy on a leash.

"It's all a mistake, then," Atxaga said hesitantly. "You didn't have sex with her?"

Marko stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles. For a moment, he squinted at the glowing, hot tip of the cigarette. Dark eyes raised and met Mike's. "I...didn't say that," he said softly.

Ambassador Atxaga surged to his feet behind the desk. "Don't you know how old she is?" he choked.

"Twenty, twenty-one. She's a junior at George Washington."

"George Washington High School--not the university! She rides the school bus every day. She's seventeen years old, a minor!"

Marko sat up straight. "Seventeen?--she can't be."

"She is! I've known her since she was eight years old." Atxaga shook his head. "I can't believe you did this!"

Across the desk, his nephew brushed his fingers back and forth across his mouth. "I did not rape her," Marko said doggedly.

"If Senator Dixon's daughter says you did, guess who the police are going to believe."

"She wouldn't say that."

"Somebody did."

Marko leaned forward in the chair. A level gaze met his uncle's, unflinching. "Sí, we had sex, and Maggie wanted it as much as I did."

"Willing or not, sex with a minor is against the law. This country puts men in jail for that."

Marko winced.

Atxaga studied the serious man across from him. Like father, like son, he thought. Both had the same keen, deep-set eyes and blue-black hair, the same brooding Basque features, but Marko's were stronger, bonier, and without gloomy scowl. From the way Maggie Dixon reacted to him tonight, his son had also inherited his father's appeal to women.

Atxaga rose and crossed the room to a small recessed cabinet in a wall of bookshelves. He poured himself a brandy. Thoughtfully, he swirled the amber liquid around the glass. Potentially, far more had been lost tonight than Maggie Dixon's virginity.

Mike tossed his drink back and poured another.

Spain needed bright young men in government in Edorta, Basques who could forget the past, forget Franco.

It had been Mike's idea that Marko come along to Dixon's party. Being seen and photographed with Dixon and his friends would showcase him as a new breed, a Basque army officer who was pro-Spain. It had worked. Too well, perhaps, Mike thought glumly. The photographers had flocked around Marko like birds after a worm. God only knew how many pictures they had of him and Dixon's daughter together.

Atxaga smacked his glass down and spun around from the bookshelves. "Thad Dixon is a powerful man in this country. Maggie's a schoolgirl. You're a foreigner, an army officer. The Americans will throw everything they've got at you--rape, corrupting a juvenile, assault."

" Assault?!" Marko drove to his feet, his face a deep, dark red.

"Sit down and listen! It doesn't matter if you did or not. The accusation alone will destroy you. The press back home will crucify you when they get hold of this. You are facing arrest, trial, prison even. Guilty or innocent, you can kiss your political career good-bye."

Marko sank into the chair, his face bleak. Viciously, he stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray. "I'll clear this up in the morning."

"Morning is too late. You're forgetting this house is a retreat, not the embassy. Under international law, the Virginia police can come in here after you. I want you out of the country and gone when they do."

There was a soft knock at the door. Raul entered, a khaki duffel bag under each arm, suitcases in his hands. He set the luggage down and straightened up. "You ready?" he asked Marko.

"For what?"

"We're going home."

A gust of rain and a jarring thunderclap shook the glass doors to the balcony, announcing the arrival of the storm.

"No." Marko paced the length of the study, pacing and stopping, plowing his hands through his hair. At the far end of the room, he turned and pointed at the balcony and the property next door. "Maggie lost her watch, thought she left it in the stable. She asked me to help her find it."

"Did she also ask you to fuck her?" Raul sneered.

Marko narrowed his eyes at him. "Why would you say that?"

"A joke...a joke...forget it."

Marko wheeled around and started across the room for the sliding glass doors.

"Where do you think you're going?" Atxaga said sharply.

"To Dixon's for some answers."

"At three o'clock in the morning? You are loco. With that attitude, they'll haul you off in irons. Get your bags and get out of here. Captain Soreno has already booked you both on a six-thirty to Madrid this morning."

"I am not running!" Marko's lips barely moved with the words."

"Yes you are. We're going if I have to drag you out of here!" Raul snarled, his face twisted.

"Not till I find out who did this to me!" Marko slid the glass door open.

Raul kicked a duffel bag aside, bolted across the room, and grabbed Marko's arm, holding him. Fist balled, Marko turned and swung. Raul ducked.

"What the hell are you afraid of? I'm the one who's in trouble," Marko yelled.

"What is this--a sudden attack of honor?" Atxaga shouted.

"You're damned right, Uncle! My honor!"

The light on the ambassador's private telephone winked. Mike answered. An instant later, he held his hand up, signaling Marko to wait. "Gracias, he said to the caller and slammed the receiver down. He rose, pulled his robe tight. "Something's happening next door."

The three men hurried onto the balcony, passing porch furniture and patio umbrellas, formless dark shapes in rainy shadows. Almost at a run, they took the corner to the east side facing the Dixon property.

"Jesucristo," Marko whispered.

Five police cars, lights flashing, were pulled under the portico of Dixon's house. Silent bursts of red light stained the front of the pillared white mansion. Men in black slickers streamed in and out of the house. Out front on the road, sirens screamed. Careening down Quail Hollow Road, two more sets of headlights cut the rain. They sped through the gate and up the tree-lined drive to the house, red lights sweeping the branches, bleeding the leaves.

Dixon, out front with the police, gestured toward the hillside behind the house. Searchlights bobbed in the woods. Higher up the slope, the brick stable was lit like an airport, policemen cordoning it off with yellow ribbon.

Mike Atxaga watched in silence. After a long moment, he asked, "Is that where you took her?"

"Where she took me," Marko said quietly.

"Who else knew you were up there?" Mike asked.

"Nobody."

A black embassy limousine rolled up fast and jerked to a halt in the driveway below. The driver slammed out the door and ran toward the stairs to the balcony.

"Capitán...Capitán," the chauffeur shouted, pounding up the steps. He threw a wild, sweeping gesture at the activity next door. "Get in the car quick. La policia are coming!"

Rain spattered the balcony around Marko's feet, big, hard drops wetting his hair, his uniform, the back of his hands on the banister. Across the lawn, his political future--his whole life--was crumbling in flashing red lights. Lightning lit the sky again, shimmering his face a ghostly silver, like a fallen saint.

"I didn't do it, Raul," he whispered.

"So what if you did? She asked for it." Raul threw an arm around Marko's shoulder. "Come on, amigo, I'm taking you home."

They ran for the car.

Chapter 6

Marko stared at Maggie Dixon's reflection in his cabin window, a slow burn curling inside. His first impulse was to get her away from him, put her on the chopper, and send her home. Now. Before he strangled her.

But several layers deep in his mind, an idea was forming.

Unknowingly, he'd kidnapped a U.S. senator's daughter. Keeping her presented all sorts of interesting possibilities--like swapping her for an investigation into the Land Control Commission. Negotiations to get the senator's daughter back would expose the corruption, the murders, the ministers on the take. Most important, it would blow the lid off GAL and expose Spain for what she was--a democracy backsliding toward dictatorship. A week or two out of a little rich girl's life was nothing compared to ending that.

Time was running out, and every thing he'd done to call an inquiry and stop it had failed.

He raked a hand through his hair. But kidnapping wasn't his style. That was lunacy. ETA pulled stunts like that, not POJ. Until today, he'd have thrown the first man out of camp who'd even suggested taking a hostage. But at the Parliament this morning, he'd had to do something fast before Maggie got herself killed and him along with her.

Thoughtfully, he toed the cigarette out with his boot and met his own eyes in the window.

For reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with Spain, Maggie Dixon was very much his enemy.

And she owes you.

Damn right, she does.

Turning, he sat down heavily at the table, the corners of his mouth dug in deeply. Hands behind his head, Marko kicked back in the chair and looked across at Maggie. She had no reason to suspect who he was. Uncle Mike had been reassigned shortly after that mess with her in the States, so she'd have heard nothing about him the last ten years. Marko was tempted to tell her who he was, throw it in her face, tell her exactly what he thought of her. No...no...not yet. If she knew, the plan wouldn't work. But she'd know before she left there. That, he promised himself.

"I assume you will release me at once," Maggie said calmly.

A smooth black eyebrow lifted. "You assume wrong. You are staying here."

"I'm American. Y'all didn't know that when you took me."

The soft Texas accent he'd once found so charming jangled his nerves now. He flicked his hand, irritated with her. "I didn't care who you were. My only concern was getting my men out. What happened today, frankly, was as much a surprise to me as it was to you. As they say, señora, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"But surely you know--" Maggie's voice rose, filled with disbelief. She pointed to the pile of law books in the corner behind him. "You were a senator yourself! Think of the politics involved. Your country and mine are allies. You can't do this!"

Marko swept his arm at the room and smirked at her. "I'd say I've already done it."

"Senator Garcia, let me go, please--and I'll forget I ever saw you."

The chair legs came down with a thump. That, she did ten years ago. "No."

"I am an American citizen. I demand you release me."

"I make the demands here, not you." Her calling him senator was a dash of ice water in the face. She'd done her damnedest to ruin his chances for that.

Maggie stepped forward and gripped the edge of the table. Her knuckles were white. "What do you want--money? How much am I worth--half a million, a million?"

He draped an arm over the back of his chair and looked at her, sleepy-eyed. The yellow mouse had grown teeth. Interesting--angry as she was, she seemed to have complete control of her emotions. He wished to hell he did.

"You are worth nothing to me, but your father is. He's going to pressure your government to pressure my government to deal with me."

Lip curled, she looked at him as if he'd just slithered out of a sewer, but he saw tension in the lines around her mouth, saw her lips quiver ever so slightly. She was no fool. She was frightened and determined not to show it. With a little squirming sensation, he stared back in impassive silence. Normally, treating a woman like this would make him feel like slime. But not her. If she was afraid of him--good. For the plan to work, she had to be.

As objectively as if she were a piece of furniture, he appraised the woman in the trim white suit, the red silk blouse, buttoned primly at the throat, and what was obviously a two-hundred dollar handbag. Understated. Expensive. He took in the perfect cameo face, the soft, feminine curves. He looked away. She'd grown a few more of those than he remembered.

In a camp with thirty men, that could mean trouble. He'd have to watch her like a hawk. He glanced at his watch, wishing he'd dealt with her earlier, instead of putting it off. In half an hour, he was taking a training group out and would be gone most of the night. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Already, she was giving him a headache.

Take her along?

Ridiculous. Skirt, high heels--she couldn't climb hills in those. And by now, every man in camp wanted a peek at that blue lace underwear. Hell, he'd wind up having to carry her himself just to keep it on her.

He rose from the table and walked to the door, his shadow elongated and dark against the rough board wall. Kidnapping--fifteen to twenty years, when they caught him.

If they caught him.

He threw the door open and let out a piercing whistle through his teeth. A boy about ten years old ran out of the shadows, up the porch steps, and into the room. He was a wiry, quick-eyed youth in a khaki tee shirt and baggy camouflage pants. Frizzy brown hair stuck out in all directions. Taking a new padlock and keys from the table drawer, Marko spoke slowly in Basque and twisted off the wire holding the keys. One, he slipped into his pants pocket; the lock and the other key he gave to the boy.

Like a robot, the youngster nodded, all the time casting sidelong glances at Maggie.

Marko slipped the rifle off his shoulder, a CETME, a short-barreled, short-stocked assault version of the same 5.56 mm the Spanish army used. He tossed it to the boy, who laughed and snatched it out of the air.

"His name is Manny. Go with him," Marko said to Maggie.

"Why should I?"

"He'll protect you."

"From what?"

"Go, I said!"

"Not till I know where's he's taking me and how long I have to stay in this hole." She glared at the boy, and then back at Marko. "I want some answers."

"You're not getting any."

Her eyes flickered. She took a step toward him. Expecting another scolding tirade, Marko braced himself, then nearly fell out of his chair in surprise when the blonde hellcat veered and made a dash for the door. She'd have made it, too, except for the boy.

Not boxed in by the table, Manny leaped into the open doorway in one lightning-fast movement. He crouched, pointing the barrel of the CETME at her chest with an evil little grin.

Maggie stood rooted to the floor, lips parted, transfixed by the round black hole at the end of the gun.

"Geldi ezazu--utzi joaten!" Put the gun down--now! Marko snapped to Manny. The gun barrel slid away.

"Lady, you get your ass out that door and keep your mouth shut. I just told Manny to shoot you if you try that again," he lied.

She swallowed, the color returning to her face. "You bastard," she whispered.

"Excellent, we finally understand each other."

Her eyes hardened with icy contempt. Chin up, with as much dignity as she could muster, Maggie turned and walked out the door.

Silhouetted by the light in the room behind him, Marko leaned against the doorjamb of the cabin and watched Maggie march up the path ahead of Manny. Poor little mouse. A half grin kicked up one side of his mouth. The gun wasn't loaded.

Walking in the beam of the boy's flashlight, Maggie spoke rapidly over her shoulder to the boy. "Manny--your name's Manny isn't it?--don't listen to him. Please help me get out of here. He's a bad man, and he's going to get you into trouble. Please!"

"No spik ingles," Manny said with a grin.

But he spoke Spanish, the little snot. Maggie clenched her teeth and bit back a flood of angry words in Spanish.

They stopped before a small wooden shack in the trees. As he opened the door, the dank smell of earth and mildew nearly gagged her. The flashlight beam swept inside, spotlighting board walls, a dirt floor, boxes, tools, broken furniture. The boy booted a piece of stovepipe away. Unseen, it clattered into the dark. Maggie shuddered. At the edge of the circle of light, she saw the tail of something scurry into the dark.

Manny gave her a little shove toward a pile of mattresses stacked in the corner, then snapped the light off, and backed out the door. She heard him fussing with the padlock.

Maggie beat on the door. "You little sadist, let me out of here! Let me out of here!" There was no answer.

For several minutes she stood there, pressing her forehead against the scratchy wood. For the first time since she was a little girl, she was afraid of the pitch-blackness behind her. Trembling, she forced herself to turn around. The dark couldn't hurt her; men could.

Faintly terrified, she slid her feet out, one ahead of the other, a few inches at a time. Arms outstretched, she felt the empty air in the direction of the mattresses. Her knee bumped something soft. The mattresses. Turning, she eased herself down on top of the pile. A thick, musty smell rose under her weight.

The minutes dragged.

A rustling ran along the walls.

She jerked her feet up and sat on them, her hands shaking so violently she balled them into fists and pressed them between her knees.

A tickle, light as threads, whiskered her arm. With a shriek, she shot her hand out. Something plopped to the floor. Twelve straight hours of terror exploded from fear to wild fury. She snatched her shoes off and climbed to her knees. Holding the shoes like weapons, she twisted this way and that, hammering the heels blindly across the top of the mattress.

Whap, whap, whap! Her chest heaved.

How could he do this to her? He knew who she was. She'd seen it in his face the instant it registered. He hadn't forgotten.

He didn't care.

He'd never cared.

It had all been a lie.

She'd been a silly teenager with a crush on an older man. For a few fabulous hours, she'd been naive enough to believe he loved her, too. The walls of the shed rattled with vibration as his helicopter thundered low overhead. She looked up, trembling with anger, and vowed she would never admit she knew who he was. And no matter what he did or said to her, she would not cry or demean herself. Mikel--or Marko or whatever he called himself now--had humiliated Maggie Dixon for the last damned time.

The throb of engines grew fainter, the sound fading in and out of the canyons like distant party drums.

"You bastard, I hope you crash!" she yelled.

Hanging black silence fell again.

Chapter 7

Shoulders squared, back straight, Manny Azaña stepped up the path to the barracks, his strides a little longer that night, confident, bouncy. The heavy swing of the CETME in his right hand felt solid and important. A real soldier's gun. In the three years he'd lived up there, he couldn't remember Marko letting anybody even touch his gun. Until tonight. His small chest swelled. But he'd asked him, Manuel Azaña, eleven-going-on-twelve, to protect the lady while he was gone. A man's job.

He slung the strap over his shoulder and let it hang loose, the way Marko did. Only on Manny, the stock thumped the side of his calf. He was sensitive about his small stature, didn't understand it. Neither of his parents had been small. He remembered Mama as being tall and slim, almost as tall as Papa. Marko told him not to worry, said that he grew six more inches after he was eighteen.

Over and over, he made Marko tell the story of when he was in the army and his pants were halfway up his legs. Marko said he limped like an old bull because his feet had grown and his boots were too short. Manny laughed and laughed and held his sides, and Marko would pretend to get mad and chase him. Manny hoped the story was true. But even if it wasn't, Marko said size didn't count, that manhood wasn't measured by the length of leg bones.

"It's what's in here and here" --he'd tapped Manny's forehead and then the small chest-- "that's what makes a man."

Just outside the barracks, Manny paused. Low voices and wheezing snorts of laughter came from behind the building. Grinning, he cut off into the woods, his footsteps silent on the pine needles. He dropped to his stomach and squirmed forward into a tangle of vines and brush.

Five men, faces animated, were squatting around a lantern, taking turns rolling dice into the circle of light. A muffled shout exploded from the silhouette of a husky man in a cap he knew only as Gil. "See that--eleven!" the man crowed, grinning at the others. "I fuck her after Julio."

Manny gaped at the men in the lamplight, his mouth open in disbelief. He knew Julio Murrillo and Alberto Nuñez and the man named Gil; the other two were strangers from the new group Marko was training.

"Like hell," Julio snickered, and snatched the dice away. "You cheated. For that, you go last." He leaned over and pulled Gil's hat off, pummeling him on the shoulder, sending him sprawling backwards in the dirt, laughing helplessly. "Shhh, keep it down," Julio warned. "You want Manny to hear?"

Manny's ears perked.

"I nearly swallowed my teeth when he came up here, waving Marko's gun around, saying he was guarding her." Julio looked around the kneeling men and shook the dice loosely in his fist. "Anyone got any ideas why Marko gave him his gun tonight?"

Alberto stood up. "Don't like it. Ever since Manny killed that hombre, I don't trust--"

"Who'd he kill?" Gil pushed himself off the ground and sat up quickly.

"The GAL agent who killed his father."

"GAL? That little kid?"

Julio grunted. "That little kid can shoot the toenails off a squirrel, if he wants to. All he does up here is hunt. Goes off in the woods and kills anything that moves. Those rabbits we ate at dinner--Manny brought them in. Marko says to leave him alone, that the hunting helps him."

"The way he hangs around Marko, I figured he was Marko's kid."

Alberto shook his head. "The boy's got no family anymore. Summers, he lives with us; the rest of the time, he lives with the pilot's sister."

Gil looked back and forth between Alberto and Julio, who'd both stopped talking. "There's more to it than that, isn't there?"

Julio nodded. "His folks lived in Carmargo, where the Segre dam was going in. Manny's father was one of us--a part of POJ for years. Of course he wouldn't sell. So GAL paid him a visit one day, killed him and his wife. Manny came home from school and found his mother on the kitchen table and his father--what was left of him--in the hog pen. Freaked the kid out."

"Es boja." Alberto screwed his index finger against his temple.

"Who wouldn't be?" Gil said quietly.

"Marko says he isn't, says he just needs time to forget," Julio said.

From under the bush, Manny stared at the men around the lantern. Forget? He would never forget. He wanted to yell at Julio to shut up, not to say any more. Hands clapped over his ears, he hid his face in the dirt and tried to block out the shrill squeals of the hogs when he'd come home from school that day.

He'd been with the guerrillas the day they caught one of the men who did it. It was a warm summer day and Marko wouldn't leave him alone at camp, so he saddled one of the ponies for Manny and took him along.

Ten men and Manny had taken one of the old smuggler trails that crisscrossed the Pyrenees, heading for a nearby village. They'd come down off the sierra from a thick woods to a farm below. As they came around the side of a barn and headed down the grassy slope for the road, Pablo, the pilot, waved them to a stop. There was a jeep parked in the driveway, and from inside the house came the sound of dishes breaking.

"Hey!" Marko yelled.

Two men in green burst out of the barn, running for the house and shouting. Shots came from both kitchen windows. One of the guerrilla's horses screamed and went down, sending the others into a neighing, rearing frenzy. The guerrillas scattered.

"That gray devil Marko rides bucked him off and broke his wrist," Julio said to Gil. He nodded to the circle of men. "Everybody was looking for cover. Alberto hauled Manny's pony back behind the barn. Me--I got bucked off and I got my nose in the dirt, behind a water barrel squirting from bullet holes. Pablo and Marko ran down the hill after the two men from the barn. Marko tackled one, just put his head down and butted, but he couldn't hold him with only one good hand. Pablo, fat as he is, doesn't run too good ever, and his man outran him and made it to the jeep. They took off, leaving Marko's man chasing down the road after them."

Gil grinned. "Must have been funny."

"It wasn't. They weren't about to stop for him but they weren't about to leave him for us, either. Their commander leans out the jeep window and shoots his own soldier. Big mistake. He not only didn't kill him, but we all got a good look at him. Raul Soreno, Marko's old buddy. They went to school together.

"We took the wounded man to a doctor we know. Back at camp, Marko treated him like a long-lost friend, drinking, playing cards with him. He detested him, but the guy didn't know it, almost thought he was one of us. He talked to Marko, admitted he was the one who kneecapped Juan and threw him to the hogs. But our GAL friend swore he didn't touch señora Azaña because she was out to here." Julio rounded his arms like a ball in front of his stomach. "All the others did, though, after Colonel Soreno finished with her."

"Soreno did that?" Gil asked, his eyes wide.

Julio nodded. "He's sick and he's mean. What he did to that family was the work of a psychopath. He runs a GAL unit out of the Guards, but they keep that real quiet. Madrid knows and looks the other way."

A new man, sitting by the lantern and who had been quiet until now, cut in. "Three years later, we're still up here. So what happened to your witness and his confession?"

"Manny killed him," Julio said disgustedly. "He'd overheard everything. Hid in the grass up here with a rifle the day we were taking him in. The guy was standing between me and Marko, and Manny dropped him with one shot. Didn't even ruffle my hair."

"Told you he was good," Alberto said.

Gil jumped up in alarm and looked around the group. "Count me out. You can have your blonde gringa. That little assassin's not shooting my butt off because of her."

Manny's mouth twisted in a grotesque, silent cry. He wouldn't hurt Gil.

"Sit down, Gil," Julio said, "I just got an idea."

Chin on the ground, as still as a log, the way Marko had taught him, Manny lay under the bushes and listened to them plan how to get his gun away. When he'd heard enough, he elbowed himself back into the shadows and crept down the hill.

Chapter 8

ON...off...ON...off...ON...off.

Signal lights winked on the ground. The chopper hovered, rotors thrashing in the dark. Sitting beside the pilot, Marko slid his window open. In the field below, five men with flashlights stood eight meters apart, spread out in the shape of a T, the universal military landing signal.

A few hours earlier, Marko had taken a new group to the Mollo River, to an isolated group of high-voltage transmission lines upstream. Pablo had flown them in as close as he dared. They'd hiked the rest of the way, wallowing in and out of the shallows for nearly a mile to get to the towers.

By flashlight, Marko had demonstrated how and where to set the charges on the main brace, climbing every tower with every man, holding the light while they did it. He'd detonated them simultaneously, a spectacular, roaring, triple blast that crumpled the steel towers like blackened toys, the 138,000-volt lines whipping and sparking like fireworks as they fell through the air, reddening the sky for miles. That one, he told them, would black out San Kristobal for days.

He wanted to drive home to the Council that POJ was through talking. Let them think about that while they ate in the dark.

And, strangely, the whole time he was doing it, Maggie Dixon had been in the way. The night he met her had hooked into his mind and wouldn't let go.

The instant the chopper touched down at camp, he pulled his headset off, ducked from his seat, and was out the side door, looking for Manny.

Julio, who'd been one of the signalmen, hurried up, a flashlight in each hand. He pulled Marko aside. "Manny ran off and hid somewhere. And for good reason--the girl's gone."

"Gone--what do you mean, she's gone?" Marko said, disbelieving. "How could she get away from thirty men?"

"She didn't get away from thirty men. She got away from one little boy," Julio said pointedly. In bright moonlight, they walked across the clearing and into the trees. "Five of us went down, just to check on her, make sure she was all right. The shack door was wide open. Manny, the dumb shit, forgot to lock it. As soon as it gets light, we'll take the chopper up and--"

"And what? She'll hear you coming. The woman's a college professor. You think she's dumb enough to stand out in the open and let you see her?" Marko snapped a downward, disgusted wave and strode toward his cabin. From the air, anything under a tree was invisible, even if you knew where to look. Wearily, he climbed the steps to his cabin and fished through his pockets for the key, wondering if he should go look for her himself right then. But at night in the mountains, he could pass within a foot of her and never know it.

And he did not remember padlocking this damned door!

He let himself in, pocketed the key, then swore softly. His flashlight was still out on the porch. Hell with it. He was too tired to go get it. Muscles aching with fatigue, he took the few steps to the alcove in the dark.

First thing in the morning, he'd go after her. She wouldn't go far at night. She couldn't see the drop-offs or the ravines. Still wearing his boots, he fell onto the bed, asleep almost as soon as his eyes closed.

Dim rays of moonlight fell across the bed. That night, for the first time in a more than a year, he dreamed about his wife and a rambling stone house sixty miles south. In his sleep, he reached for her. From down the hallway of time, he heard her sweet, long-ago voice.

"It's snowing, darling. Shut the window and come back to bed. You'll catch cold over there."

He'd climbed under the covers with her, thrown the feather tick over their heads, and cuddled her against him. The high old poster bed creaked. From under the covers had come the sound of giggles, of muffled feminine laughter. In the tented darkness, his beautiful, dark-eyed wife had sprawled on top of him, solid and warm and real. Kissing him, she tongued the ear of the dark-haired man beneath her.

"Stop worrying. Resigning was the right thing to do. It'll all work out, I know it will."

It wouldn't. But she'd never know that.

An enticing wiggle. "Are you cold?"

Deep laughter. "Only my feet, love." His arms folded around her, and Senator Marko Garcia's mouth had opened fully under his wife's.

From the lip of a hole in a pine tree alongside the cabin, a tawny owl quavered and launched itself soundlessly into the dark. Some sixth sense of danger warned Marko awake. Motionless, he listened.

Breathing. Not his. Right behind him.

Who was it--GAL again?

With thirty men in camp, no assassin would risk a shot. They'd use a blade. Goose flesh crawled between his shoulders. He was facing the wall.

In the dark, his fingers crept to his thigh, slid down to the sheath on his leg. He had the strangest feeling he'd been split in two, as if part of him were standing off to one side. Not until his hand closed around the hilt of his own knife did he feel whole again.

Easy...easy.

By fractions, he inched it out, running on raw instinct. Adrenaline surged. He coiled.

Now!

Spinning, ducking, he shot up, whipped an arm around the intruder's neck, slammed the back of the head against his chest. He pressed the point of his blade against the throat up under the jaw.

"One move--and I'll sink it," he snarled. "Who sent you?" Cruelly, he tightened his elbow around the throat. "Answer me!"

She did.

In all his life he'd never heard screams like that--high-pitched, warbling shrieks that split the night apart. He jumped back. The knife clattered to the floor.

Por Dios, it's Maggie! He reached for her, and things went very wrong, very fast.

He stumbled over a pair of high heels and pitched forward. Arms flailing, he grabbed her on the way down--a reflex. His legs got wound around hers. Tangled together, they crashed to the floor in the dark, him grunting, Maggie screaming like a siren stuck on one note.

"Help! Help! Help!"

He dived on her. Palm over her mouth, he pinned her head to the floor before she woke up the whole camp. He knew exactly what they'd think.

But Maggie was fighting for her life, heaving against the brutal grip of his hands, writhing, arching, bare legs thrashing the floor. She twisted her face free and screamed at the top of her lungs again. A hand the size of a dinner plate clamped her mouth again. In the moonlight, he could see the whites of her eyes rolling.

She jerked her head; his thumb popped inside her mouth. She bit it.

Marko snatched it out and reared back.

That was all Maggie needed. As hard as she could, she drove her knee up into the mound of soft flesh between his thighs. Pain exploded behind his eyes. He ground his teeth against it, sucking air in, gagging on the curses that rose in his throat. He threw himself on top of her, pinning her under his weight.

She let loose another shriek and tried to roll out from under him.

Seizing her wrists, he flung her arms wide and sprang his body against hers. "Shut up! Stop that racket!" he yelled in her face. "I'm not going to hurt you. I thought you were trying to kill me!"

The screams cut off as if he'd pushed a button, and a twitchy Texas voice blistered out a stream of Spanish curses that could peel paint.

"Aha! Tu hablas español!" he said.

"As well as you do--now get off me!"

Marko climbed to his knees, his heart threatening to leap right out of his rib cage. His guts were solid ice. He felt around on the floor for the knife he'd dropped in the commotion, but couldn't find it. His hand closed on a high-heeled sandal, which he hurled against the wall. He limped into the other room and came back with the lantern.

When he set it on the floor and turned around, Maggie made a little strangled sound. His face and hands were blackened with camo. paint. She snatched her legs up and shrank against the wall, as far away from him as she could get. Her hair was wild, and the white skirt was twisted up her thighs.

"Don't you ever sneak up on me like that again," Marko said, bending, sweeping up the knife. "How did you get in here anyway?"

Gulping as if she'd just run a mile, she pressed both hands over her heart. "That...that boy brought--brought--brought me back."

"Wonderful." Marko plowed both hands through his hair. "Why?"

"You...you didn't tell him to?"

"I did not. His instructions were to lock you in the shed."

"There are rats in there!"

"Mice." He took a deep, calming breath, shaken by how close he'd come to killing her. "Why were you standing behind me in the dark anyway? Considering where you are, that was a damn dumb--"

"I was...was checking to see if you were asleep" --her voice hitched-- "I thought maybe you left the door open, and I--"

"You thought wrong."

Hands on his hips, Marko stared at her. Her face was gray. Bunching the lapels of her jacket closed at her throat, Maggie shivered as if she were freezing. Her eyelids closed in a long, slow blink, then fluttered open. The last thing he needed was for her to pass out on him.

"Calm down, señora. Tomorrow, I'll find out why Manny put you in here. In the meantime, you're not hurt, so why don't you just cover up and go back to sleep?" he said gruffly.

Teeth chattering, she huddled against the wall.

He leaned down to throw a blanket around her shoulders. Instantly, she recoiled, eyes wild, and slapped his hand away. "Don't you touch me, you monster!"

His hand froze in the air. A muscle ticked in the scarred cheek. He slung the blanket at her and stalked into the other room. At the table, he uncorked a bottle of rum, poured two fingers worth into a glass, and tossed it down neat, grimacing as the alcohol hit the back of his throat and burned all the way down.

God, how he hated this woman.

He pulled a yellow pad in front of him. In precise legal terms, he drafted the Party of Justice's demands for the release of Margarita Dixon-St. Clair.

When he got out of the army, he'd refused the senate appointment from Uncle Mike's people and made a run for election on his own. He had no political base, no money, and wound up at the bottom of the list of candidates for four senate seats. The United Democratic party, of course, washed their hands of him. His chances were so dismal every poll in Edorta predicted his defeat.

He won, partly because of his name.

As customary in Spain, Marko used a hyphenated surname: "Garcia," his father's surname, and "Atxaga," his mother's maiden name. Her father, Kemen Atxaga, had been a Basque resistance hero in the civil war.

The night the election returns came in, Marko's modest little headquarters on the outskirts of Kristobal was jammed with hill people. Cheering, the crowd hoisted their new senator-elect onto their shoulders and carried him four blocks into town to the old Civil Guards' prison. It was the same prison where Colonel Kemen Atxaga had been executed. At the end of the civil war, Atxaga was one of hundreds of returning Basque and Catalan officers who faced firing squads, machine-gunned en masse at the prison because they'd fought for the other side.

Marko's new constituents pelted eggs and rotten vegetables at the gray stone walls around the building. As if by magic, an Ikurriña appeared, the crowd shouting "Euskadi--Euskadi! La Raza! La Raza!"

A few months later Spain started building the new hydroelectric dams. The Civil Guards, the Spain's paramilitary police force in the rural areas, became bolder than ever, above the law. Any one with river property in the way of the new dams was singled out and harassed. When the Basques retaliated by refusing to sell, the killings began. The Guards denied any connection.

Twice Marko took them to court, and both times, the Guards blamed it on the Basques' own ETA. But a couple of secret visits with ETA leaders convinced Marko the Guards were lying. When a patrol of Civil Guards was caught red-handed torching a ranch--and they still got off--he realized he'd wasted two years trying to go the legal route. Someone higher up was calling the shots. From the floor of the Cortes, he called for an investigation of the Civil Guards, of the Land Control Commission.

The next day, someone tried to kill him.

Marko resigned, walked down the wide marble steps of the Cortes in Madrid, convinced his country had gone mad.

Marko yawned and pushed the yellow pad aside. He glanced up at a rustling of bedclothes coming from the alcove. He rose from the table and stood in the darkened doorway.

Asleep, an arm folded back on the pillow beside her face, Maggie lay in the faint moonlight seeping through the window. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching her. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow, her face relaxed, like a girl's.

Still beautiful....

Hands cupped, he lit a cigarette. Guilt for what he was doing with her rose in his mind. Adamantly, he shook it off. She was the only chance he had to keep his crumbling country together. Sucking a cheekful of smoke in hard, he turned away.

He had an army to get ready.

Chapter 9

Parliament Office Building

San Kristobal

The power was still out. The emergency lights at the ceiling were beginning to dim. In a few minutes they, too, would shut down, their batteries dead.

Senator Fidel Diego stood at the window of his office in St. James Plaza and stared glumly at the gold-domed Capitol building across the way. Like the gloomy morning outside, he was a study in gray--gray eyes, gray hair, gray suit. The color matched his mood.

A manual typewriter clacked in the outer office, turning out his carefully worded statement about the Party of Justice attack on the parliament the day before. His secretary's voice, high and shrill, ordered someone else to leave. Another reporter, no doubt. The press had heard rumors and was demanding answers.

Within minutes of learning the identity of Garcia's hostage, Diego had clamped a media blackout on Margarita Dixon's abduction. As far as the rest of the world knew, the attack was brief and ugly. And over. There was no mention of a hostage.

Two phone calls from cabinet ministers in Madrid had alerted Diego that the government blamed the Land Control Commission and was furious with its chairman. Edorta's hydroelectric project was one of Spain's highest priorities. The dams meant a soaring economy in the twenty-first century. And in the balance, hung Diego's own personal political future, as well. The prospect of hundreds of millions in power export revenues had catapulted him into a national figure. His name was frequently mentioned as a candidate for the next prime minister of Spain.

Until yesterday.

Grim-faced, Diego ran a hand through his hair. He had to do something and do it quick. Garcia's bold, daylight raid on the legislature had shocked everyone. Madrid was reeling at the depth of anti-Spanish feeling in Edorta. The wealthy Basque province, a hub of banking and transportation, had always been solidly behind Spain. But recently a demand for Basque books and music and video tapes had spread like wildfire across the province, and those damned Marko dolls were everywhere. The ticket office at the one small Basque theater in Kristobal had lines a block long.

Nationalism and all this nonsense about the loss of Basque culture and their dying language was a holdover from the past. Outdated, Diego thought. Hell, he was Basque and he couldn't speak it either. "Euskera is for talking to cows," he told his daughter Inez, and refused to let her take it in school.

Surprisingly, flags were all sold out. You couldn't buy an Ikurriña at any price. That should have told us something.

He turned from the window. Overflowing ashtrays and empty cups sat on his desk and on the bookshelves. Papers and file folders lay strewn the length of a conference table in the center of the room. Against the wall, a large-screen television sat silent and dark. There had been a series of loud meetings in Diego's office with legislators, police, officials from Madrid. Even a Spanish general had come, poised to bring his tanks in.

"I came as soon as I could get away," a voice said from the doorway.

Diego glanced up and nodded. His son-in-law, Colonel Raul Soreno, provincial commander of the Civil Guards in Edorta, came in, sweeping his hat off.

"Sit down, Raul," Diego said morosely, and gestured to a chair.

He'd changed little over the years. In a natty green uniform, the black boots so polished they looked wet, Raul was a handsome, blade-faced man with wavy dark hair. No wonder his daughter adored him. Of course, she didn't know exactly what he did for a living. It was better that way. Raul was good to her, spoiled her even, and was a good father to his three boys, especially when the media was around. And he was a born politician, like his wife's father, Diego thought approvingly. Many times after a trip, a picture appeared in the papers of the unsmiling colonel, scooping up his sons at the airport, a radiant Inez in the background.

In the outer office, another telephone rang.

"Shut that door!" Diego called.

An aide leaped to obey, leaving them alone.

As an Academy graduate, Raul's smooth, polished manner and commanding presence had taken him far. He now also ran a "black operation" out of the Guards, an operation so secret Diego himself didn't know whom Raul reported to.

Raul lit a cigarette. "You're jumpy," he said, hissing the smoke through his teeth.

Diego rose, walked to the window, and pointed to the parliament building. "Until Garcia showed up, that was the most secure building in San Kristobal."

Raul's face darkened at the mention of Marko's name. "That bastard killed one of my best men."

"Thank God he did. It would have caused a terrible flap if that agent had deliberately shot a hostage--"

"He didn't know who she was."

"He didn't care who she was. Mistake, Raul."

Fidel turned from the window and pinned his son-in-law with a hard look. "You went to school with Garcia. Why didn't you expect this?"

Raul's eyebrows dug together, a bushy black line across his forehead. "Expect him to walk into the lion's den like he did--and warn us? Never. Guerrilla warfare has rules, too, and he broke a big one."

"He's a brilliant military strategist," Diego muttered.

"Bull!" Raul snapped. "Planning is Marko's secret. His philosophy is that most plans go wrong. Like this one did. So he's always got another one up his sleeve, the devious son-of-a-bitch."

Diego shook his head in disbelief. "He sent a letter this morning to Madrid, offering to negotiate the Dixon woman's release in exchange for an inquiry, said it was in the national interest to come to the bargaining table. Spain won't listen to him."

"She must. POJ is a guerrilla army, but it's Spanish and still an army. After Franco, Madrid doesn't trust any army, especially her own. We have a long history of overthrowing governments we don't like. She'll listen all right, and that's bad for us," he finished quietly.

"Then how do we head this thing off?"

Raul leaned over a coffee table and stubbed his cigarette out in a crystal ashtray, patting the ashes into a fine gray powder. "We snatch his prisoner away from him, fast. He can't negotiate with what he hasn't got. Otherwise, he swaps her for that investigation." Raul frowned and looked up, his eyes hard. "With an American senator's daughter as bait, Spain has no choice. As a U.S. ally, Spain must find her and give her back."

Diego went cold just thinking of it. He sank into a high-backed velvet chair. Unsteadily, he lifted the lid off a brass humidor on the end table. Rows of fragrant black Havanas were lined up in cellophane jackets, like glassy dark torpedoes. He unwrapped one and lit it, squinting through the flame at Raul.

"The Dixon woman was almost killed at the legislature," Raul said slowly. "Suppose when we rescue her, she gets in the way of another bullet."

Diego snatched the cigar from his mouth. "Mother of God, no! Spain would have a hemorrhage if something happened to her."

"You want to take the chance on what happens to us if something doesn't happen to her? If Marko gets that investigation, he blows the lid. Everything comes out--the Guardia Civil, GAL, ETA, you, me. Not even the prime minister is safe."

Diego stiffened at. "The prime minister has kept out of it, denies any knowledge of GAL, says it doesn't exist."

"And Aravalo is lying," Soreno said. "If he didn't set it up himself, he knows who did. And somehow Marko knows that. If he can prove Aravalo is lying, he can bring the government down--and he will. One Yankee life is not worth that."

Diego stared across the desk at his son-in-law. A ruthless bastard when he had to be, but Raul was good at what he did. Powerful, as well as feared, he had dirt on everybody. As a result, he was nearly untouchable. Several times Raul had been called to account for his department. Even Diego had heard the rumors about torture, about why so many of Raul's prisoners died "resisting arrest", about a disfigured young prostitute in Madrid, about a dead family in Carmargo.

His ability to kill in cold blood lay in deeply held convictions of what was right and what was wrong for Spain. If the Dixon woman didn't die, Garcia would use her to ruin the country.

Diego lifted a hand slightly. "Do what you have to, but keep us both out of it. Be discreet. Use your best men this time, not those Cuban animals of yours. Kill the woman, but nothing else." He paused, running his mind back to Carmargo and what he'd heard. "The Americans will do an autopsy of their own. There must be no marks on her that can embarrass Spain, so keep your men away from her. Don't turn this into another Carmargo."

Raul sat up. "Cristo, that was three years ago! What happened up there was tactical and necessary."

"Was it?"

"My men had orders," he said coldly.

"Your orders, Raul. How do you explain gang-raping a pregnant woman?"

"I never touched her," Raul said, his eyes taking on a sleepy, shuttered look that said otherwise. "Both the man and his wife belonged to POJ and they wouldn't sell. Like ETA, POJ has made a lot of people in Madrid very nervous. I also had orders."

"To slaughter those people?"

Raul stretched his legs out, crossed one heavy black boot over the other. "Terror is a weapon," he said flatly. "The military uses it like any other. Whether by politics or force, civilians must be controlled. In every uprising, it's the people--not the army--who decide the outcome. The people feed the rebels, hide them, finance them. Stop that, you can stop any rebellion anywhere in the world." Raul stared across at his father-in-law, a muscle ticking along one cheekbone. "If Carmargo had blamed those deaths on the Party of Justice, the Hill people would've kicked POJ out and come over to our side."

"But they didn't. Garcia won again."

"For the last time," Raul said. "When this hostage of his dies, Marko himself will be blamed for killing her. And everyone will believe it." Raul leaned forward, his voice deadly quiet. "There's something you don't know about señora Dixon and Marko. And me." Arms folded, he described in detail his visit to Virginia ten years before.

Diego listened, smiling in amazement. For a full minute after Raul finished, he puffed his cigar in silence. Two smoke rings curled lazily toward the ceiling. "Beautiful...beautiful."

Soreno put his hat on, squared it over his eyes, and stood up to leave. He opened the office door.

"Raul--"

He turned.

"Did the Dixon woman really turn him in?"

"He thinks she did."

Diego chuckled. "But she didn't. You did!"

Raul looked back, his face hard. "He had it coming."

Marko sat before the short-wave radio, an array of electronics--UHF, VHF, tactical high frequency communications equipment they'd "liberated" from a Guards' outpost. The digital readouts changed. Tapping the keys, he pulled in the voice of a Civil Guards lieutenant somewhere to the west, giving new checkpoints and roadblocks. Marko frowned. Roadblocks for what? And why no mention of Maggie Dixon?

He switched to Send and the frequency POJ's Radio Rebelde used and relayed the new checkpoints to his men. He had a network of small bases strung across the Pyrenees, manned by backwoodsmen who knew every deer run and mule track over the mountains. They'd be at those new roadblocks, hidden and watching, before the Guards got there.

Marko leaned back from the radio and yawned with a long, grunting stretch. In the sunlight slanting through the window, his hair looked wet. It was. Minutes before, he'd stuck his head into a bucket of cold water outside. It hadn't helped. He still looked like hell. Felt like it, too.

For nearly five minutes, he'd sat out on the porch steps and knifed the mud from his boots, telling himself he was tracking up the cabin. But the time he spent in front of the mirror combing his hair and shaving the whiskers off his neck, he had no answer for.

Maggie watched from the alcove doorway behind him. He wasn't in uniform this time, she noticed. Instead, he wore a plaid, short sleeved sport shirt and soft tan corduroy pants. A corner of a blue beret stuck out from his hip pocket.

"Kaixo, egun on," Marko said, not turning around.

She stared blankly at the back of the dark head.

He swung around, adding in Spanish, "That's 'good morning' in Basque."

"I don't speak Euskera, as you know." Maggie answered in flawless Chicano Spanish, rewarded to see his smug expression change to a grudging respect.

"After last night, I decided I'd better make sure. By the way, your Spanish is...fairly good."

Her eyebrows arched. "So is yours," she answered acidly.

He chuckled. "Mexican, isn't it?"

He knew damned well it was. The night she met him, he'd danced with her mother several times. He was so positive, so sure of himself, she fumed. She'd take him down a peg or two. "And how did you know I was Mexican-American?"

"A lucky guess." He shot her an amused look that set her teeth on edge. He pointed to the small camp stove on the shelf and a blue enameled coffee pot, wisps of steam curling from the spout. "There's coffee there, bread and cheese on the table. And I brought you some calamares."

Her nostrils flared. Her stomach was so jumpy that morning, dry toast would've been pushing it. As for the calamares, her expression said it all. She ab-so-lute-ly detested squid.

"Better eat something," he said.

Not on your life!

Odd. Yesterday his English had been so good she'd hardly noticed his accent. Now it was so thick she had to listen to understand him. From experience, she knew her Spanish became colored with American inflections the minute she got the least bit rattled. He looked beat. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. It was obvious he hadn't slept after that business with the knife last night. So what? The bastard could hang for all she cared. She'd even knot the rope.

"At least have some coffee," he said.

Wavering between suspicion and apprehension, she was tempted to refuse, rebelling against making small talk with this man. She'd rather have her fingernails pulled out.

The aroma of the coffee filled her nostrils, bracing and steaming hot. Her mouth watered. Silently, she walked to the stove and poured herself a cup from the pot. She sipped, eyes half closed, almost shuddering as the hot, bitter liquid slid down her throat. Sipping, she took her cup to the window and looked out.

A group of men of all ages and sizes lounged in the spread of shade under the pines. Dressed like hikers, they had their trouser legs tucked into the tops of thick, calf-high socks. Like many Basque men, they wore arbarketas, dark canvas shoes with thick, rope soles to cushion the rocky terrain, and which they laced on their feet like espadrilles.

Not the same men who'd been at the legislature. Those had been in uniform and had looked like soldiers. This motley group of retirees and teenagers looked like soldiers from Valley Forge. Trainees, she bet.

She recognized the big pilot standing in the trees, hands in his pockets, stomach pushing over his belt. He seemed different from the others, his hair straighter, a duller, sooty black. His Spanish was different, too--not the classic Castilian Garcia spoke, but something closer to her Mexican dialect. He was talking to a redheaded man, the one they called Ricardo. She remembered both of them from the helicopter yesterday. As they talked, both men kept glancing at the cabin.

Her eyes narrowed. They were waiting for Garcia--which meant they were all going off together. Maggie stared at the window, seeing not the men beyond, but the single pane of dirty glass separating her from freedom. As soon as they left, she'd break it. And run. A calm, steadying strength bloomed inside her and she willed the man behind her out of the cabin. Leave, leave!

"I apologize for last night. That was an error in judgment on my part," he said quietly.

She tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and turned around from the window, coffee in hand. "I call nearly slitting my throat slightly more than an 'error in judgment.'"

He scowled.

She scowled back. He didn't like her answer? Tough.

"Have you notified my father yet?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Protocol requires Spain to do that."

She set the cup down, hard. "Damn the protocol. I don't care who tells them. My family and my country have a right to know what happened to me. And the sooner they do, the sooner they can get me out of here." Away from you.

"Your situation is political, Marko said stiffly. "You are only a tool in all this. My argument is with Spain, not with the U.S. And my country--Spain--will notify yours. That's how it's done."

She sniffed. "Oh, I forgot, Senator. You were in politics, too. Apparently, some of it rubbed off."

Garcia turned away, his eyes hooded, like a hawk's. "Watch it, Miss Dixon, you are becoming a real pain in the ass. For your information, I threw five men out of camp this morning because of you. That's why Manny put you in here last night--to keep them away from you. You owe the boy a big thank-you, if the word is even in your vocabulary."

He stood up, indicating that the conversation was over. "Come on, I'm putting you in the shed now."

"For how long?"

"Until I get what I want, so get used to it!"

Dumb--dumb! Deliberately antagonizing him had been a mistake, and she knew better. That was the wrong way to handle this man. He infuriated her, and her temper had simply boiled over the top. Her glance shot to the window. The shed had no windows. If he sent her back there, she'd never get out.

In desperation, she cast about for something to say to calm him down and let her stay, a chance to at least try to get of there alive. "I'm sorry, I'm upset. I apologize for that crack I made about politics. If you let me stay here, I promise I won't be any trouble. Please don't send me back there. I'm afraid."

Arms folded, Marko studied her. He didn't like the crafty look she was giving him one bit. Damn it, she was analyzing him again. And she was up to something, he knew it. A minute ago, those eyes had scorched him. Now she was batting them at him like some helpless female and expecting him to buy it. His jaw set. She'd pulled that on him once before.

"All right, stay here, but a word of advice: there are no houses on this mountain, no passes, no roads through the chain. But there are bears and there are wolves. So try cooperating for a change." He turned toward the door.

"When are you coming back?"

"Late."

"Could you at least leave me a light?"

He pulled a small penlight from his pocket and tossed it onto the table. With a mocking laugh, he turned toward the door. "Don't wait up for me, querida. I'll wake you when I want you."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Maggie blurted.

Marko spun around. He'd meant it as a joke, an attempt at humor, anything to lighten the hostility between them. He shot his hand out, grabbed her waist, yanked her to him. "You're the professor. You figure it out." In the sunlight spilling through the window, he saw a thick fringe of sandy lashes and green eyes refusing to meet his. His temper flared. Grasping her chin, he forced her to look at him. Her lips parted in surprise. "Try that on someone else, lady," he sneered. "It doesn't work with me anymore."

She jerked her face away from his hand.

He jerked it back. Under his fingers, her jaws were clenched. Two spots of color flared like pink neon in her cheeks and brought a hot flush of anger to his own. "You want to stay here?--you do it on my terms."

Eyes blazing, Maggie whipped her hand back and cracked the scarred cheek as hard as she could.

He blinked, stunned for a moment, then shoved her away from him. Without a word, he slammed out the door.

Rounding the cabin toward the group of waiting men, he shouted, "Let's go!" As he did, he caught the streak of a blonde head ducking into the shadows at the side of the window. Far off in the back of his mind, apprehension flashed like heat lightning. She was going to try to escape. After that bull elk performance he'd just pulled on her, she had no choice. Ashamed of himself, he stopped mid-stride and considered going back. He felt a sudden, ridiculous urge to tell her was sorry, that he didn't mean it.

Hell, no, not after she slapped him.

You asked for it.

So did she.

Feeling like the animal she thought he was, he pulled on his beret and waved the men to follow him down the hill to the helicopter. But with every step he took, an increasing restlessness niggled at him, a vague stirring inside almost too faint to register. Up there, he'd learned to trust his instincts. His gut was warning him, and his gut was never wrong.

He stopped on the trail, legs planted. "Jaime, Paul, Roberto!" he bellowed, singling out three men--all of them married. He jerked his head toward the cabin. A steady stream of instructions poured from his mouth. Under a mottled-red hand print, his cheek throbbed with unaccustomed heat.

"I thought you needed us at the picnic," Roberto Mendariz, a burly, young blond commando said as he approached.

"I do, but everyone in camp knows who I kicked out this morning and why. Some of the ones staying behind are friends of theirs. I'm afraid if she gets out or if they get in...." He shook his head. "She's too important to risk."

"Let me stay. I'll look after her for you," Manny piped up at his side. "I like her. She speaks Spanish, too." Manny pointed his finger at the three men Marko had selected, all of them bearded and menacing-looking. "They're just gonna scare her silly with those guns."

"I don't care."

"You did last night."

"Get in the chopper, Manny!"

Manny squinted up at Marko. "What'd you do to make her smack you?"

Jaime Arestegi, an aircraft mechanic from Kristobal and the best shot in the unit, turned his back, choking down a laugh. Behind Marko, a dozen men were looking at the sky, the trees, their shoes.

Marko squirmed inside. "Get in the chopper, Manny. Now!" At the boy's crestfallen look, he reached down and rumpled his hair. "Think you can take over for Jaime today--show the people at the picnic how to clean a rifle?"

"Me?" Manny crowed. "You mean it--me?"

"Sí, we'll go over it on the way."

Chapter 10

St. Marti, Edorta, Spain

The cars and pickups began to arrive around noon, turning in through the gate and jouncing up the tree-lined lane to the picnic at the mayor's house. Out on the river, the drone of a power boat cut off as it plowed into a turn, then edged into the little dock across the road from the house.

POJ's pilot, Pablo Basterra, looking like a genial Pavarotti in mirrored sunglasses and red-flowered Hawaiian shirt, stood just inside the gate, directing traffic. As each vehicle stopped, he leaned his big barreling frame into the window to tell the driver where to park--and to take a quick inventory of who all was in the car.

"Pull well up into the woods, and keep those bumpers out of the sun," he instructed the drivers. He was taking no chances on a glint of chrome attracting some nosy pilot's attention.

The grounds around the yellow stone house on the Bidaso river were decorated as if for a fair or a carnival. A loudspeaker on the side of the barn blared out salsa. Bunches of balloons floated above tables of free coffee, cookies, and soft drinks. The police chief's daughter and the mayor's wife, both wearing aprons, deep-fried txuros on hot plates and smiled uncertainly at the line of waiting men. Spicy chicken sizzled on nearby grills. Children chased by, their voices raised in shrill laughter. From behind the barn, a thin haze rose again, as another string of firecrackers split the air.

Pablo nodded his approval. The people of St. Marti had done things right. To a casual observer, it was simply a town picnic. Although there wasn't a man to be seen wearing a uniform, a closer look revealed DEMOCRACY, PEACE, JUSTICE printed on the balloons, and any Basque who'd read a newspaper in the last three years would know instantly why the balloons and streamers of crepe paper were all pale blue.

"Anyone with river property--over here, please!" a man in a blue beret called out. Behind him, two men in shorts, tee shirts, and blue berets had a blackboard propped up on a flatbed truck in the driveway, drawing the roads into and out of St. Marti, chalking big Xs where there might be trouble.

An old black van turned in through the gate. Pablo stepped out into the driveway, arms up. It stopped. The driver, a young punk-type in earrings and with a rooster tail haircut stuck his head out. Pablo leaned down and looked beyond the driver to the other man in the front seat. A slender, light-haired man in a black leather jacket slouched against the passenger door with a bored look on his face.

The pilot's eyebrows lifted. "You're a long way from home, aren't you, Ximon?"

"Just happened to be in the neighborhood, as they say," Ximon Ojeda, number three in the hierarchy of the ETA, replied. Cool brown eyes fixed on the big pilot filling the van window.

Pablo stared back. "Marko know you're here?"

"Not yet."

Pablo hesitated. There was no easy way he could refuse entrance to the van without tipping off who the occupants were. The last thing St. Marti needed to hear was that ETA had come calling. "Don't fuck with these people, Ximon. This little town is scared enough," he hissed.

"Back off, Basterra, I came to talk to Marko, not you. Where is he?"

"In the barn and he's busy."

Another carload of young St. Marti men pulled in and stopped behind the van. Pablo waved Ojeda's driver toward the trees. As it drove up the lane, he watched it and wondered who else was in the back of the van and why ETA had shown up there today.

Marko wasn't going to like this.

For three years, Ojeda had tried to get Marko and the Party of Justice to come in with ETA. Though smaller than POJ in numbers, ETA was far more powerful, its agenda political, sometimes Marxist, and always violent. Over the years, ETA commandos had assassinated hundreds of high-ranking Spanish officials, military officers, and innocent Spaniards. GAL had been formed to stop that.

What goes around, goes around, Pablo thought.

"Stop that!"

Pablo turned, recognizing Manny's voice.

At a picnic table under a tree, Manny was demonstrating to a crowd of teenagers how to field strip a CETME assault rifle. One of the boys had apparently picked it up to examine it, something not allowed. Manny yanked the gun away from an older boy, motioned him back from the table, then resumed his demonstration in an imperious, childish voice.

'CETME', he told them, stood for the initials of the company that made it--Compañia de Estudios Téchnicos de Materiales Especiales. Tongue tucked in the corner of his mouth, he slid the cleaning tools out of the guide tube, laid them on the table, then unscrewed the bolt, took out the locking piece, the firing pin, the spring, rattling off as he did what each piece was for.

"Hey, squirt, how you know 'bout this stuff?" the lanky teenager who'd handled the gun asked, obviously still smarting from Manny's rebuke.

"He taught me." It wasn't necessary to explain who he was.

"He your father or your uncle?"

"Neither, he's my friend."

A snicker "Sure he is."

"He is so, you ugly pig!"

"Oh, Christ!" Pablo muttered, and beckoned another man to take over for him. With a table of his own, Manny was feeling ten feet tall, and the kid with hair in his eyes wanted to punch him out. Not that he blamed him. Pablo broke into a loping run across the grass to join the boys.

"How far can that thing shoot?" the teenager demanded, as Pablo came up.

"I don't know. Ask Manny," Pablo said.

"Two hundred fifty yards is a good range," Manny piped up. Small, brown fingers began reassembling the pile of steel.

"Is that a fact? Next thing, I suppose you'll tell us you can shoot it, too."

Manny flushed.

"Well, can you or can't you?" All four boys smirked at him.

"You gonna join POJ today or not?" Manny asked.

The older boy shrugged. "No me importa, not if they got little squirts like you in it."

"Can you shoot off something besides your mouth?" Pablo growled.

"And so what if I can't?"

"Because he can." Pablo inclined his head toward a group of men shooting at paper targets in a field. "Show them, Manny."

Manny picked up a training magazine, a small box magazine holding five rounds. With a flourish, he smacked it in place with his palm, and then stepped over to where the men were shooting. Pablo followed. The four teenagers trailed after, taunting.

On his stomach on the ground, legs spread, Manny sighted down the barrel, pressing his cheek closer until the hard outlines of the stock molded with the side of his face. His first shot missed the center, striking out near the outer circle of the target. Pablo dragged a hand down his face.

"I'm a little rusty," Manny mumbled, his face red.

"You sure are, squirt."

Arms folded, the big pilot stood back. He'd never known anyone so young to take to weapons the way Manny did. The kid read about them, talked about them, and could shoot every make and model they had in camp. Some days, he'd disappear for hours hunting squirrels and rabbits, him and his gun. Although it couldn't be helped, the boy had lived too long with men. He'd forgotten how to act with other kids. Manny didn't need this hassle. What he needed was friends. "Easy, easy, amigo," he muttered.

Manny squeezed the trigger ever so gently. The small shoulder bucked. Four times in quick succession.

The lanky boy made a small, choking sound.

Pablo grinned. All four shots had dug into the center of the bull's eye on top of each other. More pleased than if he'd done it himself, he reached down and hauled Manny to his feet. Pablo slung the CETME over his shoulder, threw an arm around his little friend, and led him away.

"Atención! Atención!" the loudspeakers called.

"Come on, the program's starting," Pablo said.

"Aw, do I hafta? Marko's gonna talk all day!"

"Sí, you have to, and sí, he probably will." Pablo grinned.

"Can I sit on the stage with him?"

"You can not."

Following a few steps behind, the four older boys exchanged glances and grins. The skinny boy sniffed and rubbed his nose. Two quick steps and he was walking alongside Manny. "Want to stand with us, squirt?" he said, in a bored voice.

People hurried from every direction, filing into the barn, campesinos--farm workers from the outlying areas in rough work clothes and big hats--and well-dressed, middle-class Basques, professional people. Inside, the barn was huge and airy with straw spread over the earthen floor. A rough-beamed hay loft projected over a makeshift platform for the speakers at one end. And over everything, impossible to hide, hung the faint, heavy odor of animals.

A tall, slender man in a black turtleneck mounted the steps to the platform and raised his arms for order. Ander Trevino, mayor of St. Marti, was the high school principal and ran the business of the town after work and on weekends. In a row of chairs behind him sat a priest, the bank president, the police chief, and Marko. POJ was quietly taking control of the countryside. In threatened towns, Marko organized small war councils made up of himself, village administrators, and the local police. Including the police chief today was a master stroke, Pablo thought. It neatly eliminated any fears St. Marti had that POJ might take over for themselves.

"Kaixo," the mayor said, greeting them in Basque, but then switching to Spanish for the city people in attendance who didn't speak Euskera. "You know why we're here. For two years, we've rejected the Party of Justice, hoping to avoid trouble by avoiding them. We didn't. At the funeral of Manolo Arranz and Juan Idoeta, several of us decided it was time to talk to POJ."

Heads nodded. A low undertone of voices rippled through the crowd in Euskera. Speaking the language was a sore point with many in the town, who either would not or could not speak it, a political and ethnic dividing line.

Like most of the rural areas in Basque Country, St. Marti was conservative and strongly nationalist. Everyone in the room had been devastated by the recent murders of two of their own ranchers. And everyone in the room blamed Spain.

Trevino's voice hardened. "I had my old father in the car the other day, and as we passed a field, he said he felt like he'd traveled back in time, that the civil war had never ended. Every field was protected by a man with a gun, just like back then. So, last week the chief and I went looking for Garcia."

Hands in his pockets, the mayor rocked back and forth on his heels and smiled for the first time since coming up on the stage. "And if you think it's easy getting to a man with a price on his head, try running around these mountains asking for him. As a matter of fact, I never did find him. He found me. I woke up one night last week to find three men with rifles in my bedroom, demanding to know what the blazes I wanted him for."

A bookish-looking man, Trevino nudged his glasses in place and turned to Marko, who was laughing in his chair. "Let's listen to him and then make up our minds. If you have questions later, Garcia will be outside in the tent." He beckoned to Marko. "Come on up here, Commander. Tell us what we have to do."

Marko strode to the edge of the platform. "Kaixo," he called and then thanked everyone in Basque for inviting them to St. Marti. Then, as Trevino had done, he switched immediately to Spanish. "There's something Madrid hasn't learned yet. Scratch an Edorti and you get Basque blood. A Basque is a Basque is a Basque. What difference does it make what he speaks?"

There was a moment of silence before the audience broke into laughter. A burst of shouts in both Spanish and Basque agreed with him.

"Jakina!"

"Sí, sí, sí!"

Pablo edged away from Manny and his new friends and found a space alongside an empty horse stall. Never would he understand Spain. Unlike his own Panama, Spain was a country divided, split into Galicians, Catalans, Asturians, Navaronnes, Basques, and a dozen others, seventeen separate provinces in all, each with limited independence granted by Spain. But some of them wanted more--total independence--the whole pie, not just a slice of it. And every one of them was anarchistic, not just the Basques. Oddly, they never came together to fight for something; only to fight something off.

But this time might be different.

The townspeople had herded together in the open area. The farmers, their faces expressionless, lined the walls alongside. From the way they stood apart, distancing themselves from the others, it was obvious the town was divided by occupation and culture as well as language. Marko looked out at them solemnly. "These are dangerous times. We need each other. We must think as a united people, not as nationalists and non-nationalists; not as city people or country people. And not as who speaks Euskera and who does not. But as Basques!" He threw his arms out wide. "Por Dios, if we can die together, we can live together!"

Pablo nodded. He'd seen it before, the easy way Marko handled a crowd. Already, the mood in the barn was changing. The distance between the two groups slowly shrinking. Individually, the men along the walls sauntered out into the center with the townspeople, standing shoulder to shoulder, overalls next to suits. And the townspeople made room.

Marko paced up and down the platform, a tall, big-shouldered man in a sport shirt and tan corduroys. Speaking sometimes in Basque, sometimes in Spanish, hands shoved deep into his pockets, he stuck to the issues about what was happening with the dams and the stepped-up violence against landowners who refused to sell. He stopped at one end of the platform. "We--the Party of Justice--come here as friends, as fellow Basques. We have one purpose and that is to make it possible for you to defend yourselves. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido," he said somberly in Spanish. A people united cannot lose.

The crowd hung on the irony of his words, the same familiar civil war slogan that had moved their fathers to fight for Spain and lose.

Marko shook a fist in the air. "Estan conmigo?" Are you with me?

Grinning faces looked back. "Estamos, estamos, estamos!" Even the women joined in. They were.

He spoke for nearly an hour, making it clear what St. Marti would face. The townspeople would be coached on what to watch for--signs that their town or their citizens were being targeted--and POJ would be there to help. POJ would train the men and women of St. Marti, supply weapons as needed, and St. Marti would respond if called to defend another town. In return, from that day on, St. Marti had the protection of the Party of Justice and every town belonging to it.

Feet shuffled. In the barn, people looked at one another. The fear in their faces before had changed to relief and set determination. Joining POJ meant they were no longer alone. Help was on the way.

Marko's gaze settled on a group of young men in their late teens and early twenties standing close to the platform. "Let me give you the other side of it. What you are considering this morning can get you killed. That is fact."

There was nothing glamorous about guerrilla warfare, he said quietly. More guerrillas were killed than wounded, the opposite of conventional armies. It was the most punishing kind of combat there was, he told them.

"We never have enough of anything, not food, not medicine, not even weapons."

Catching Pablo's eye, Marko held out his hand. "Give me your rifle, amigo." Pablo pushed off the horse stall and handed the rifle up to Marko on the platform.

Marko held it high over his head, turning for all to see. "This is a CETME, the same model the Spanish Army uses--and that's not by accident. All guerrilla armies use the same weapon as their enemy so they can steal their ammunition. The black market price for cartridges this week is fifty centavos each. That's right--per shot! The reason POJ guerrillas are renowned as marksmen is because we can't afford to miss."

He looked up with a boyish white grin. "Remember, most of us are unemployed."

Loud guffaws came from the audience, breaking the tension. Faces began to relax. Marko let the laughter spend itself, then fended questions about the types of guns used, and could they bring their own if they had plenty of ammunition?

"Please do!" More laughter.

"We're with you, Marko!" a man from the back of the barn called out.

Arms folded, Marko looked directly at the men and women he hoped to recruit and spoke feelingly of democracy and good government and dreams.

"Self-defense is not revolt, but it may come to that. We do what we must to protect our families and ourselves." He spun around and pointed to the red, white, and green Ikurriña on the far wall of the barn. Like a fire burning with a brighter glow, passion rang in his voice. "Independence is long overdue!"

An emotional hush charged the air, the crowd caught up in his words, spellbound by his conviction. A most unusual man had landed in their midst.

"Senador...senador!" a red-faced man in work clothes shouted from the back of the barn. "We all voted for you a few years back. If you headed this rotten government, we wouldn't be in this mess. You ever want to do that, you got my vote."

Marko let out a whoop of laughter. "Gracias, señor, but there's no chance of that. Madrid would lock me up if I got within ten blocks of her precious Cortes." Still grinning, he walked down the steps from the platform. He threw a wide wave at everyone and walked out of the barn.

He's done it again, Pablo thought. Shaking his head, he couldn't help wondering what would happen to the movement if something happened to him.

POJ had pitched a tent in a group of pines behind the barn. People came and went as they pleased.

"You want to see Garcia? Get in line."

Despite Marko's easy accessibility, an armed guerrilla sat on a chair just outside the tent-flap. Men went freely in and out of the tent, shoulders brushing, as they edged past each other. Wives and girlfriends waited outside and flung their arms around their husbands and sweethearts when they came out.

Inside the tent Marko sat at a card table, two opened crates of rifles beside him. He spoke with each man, answering questions at length, assigning new recruits a number, and recording next to it the serial number of the rifle.

Ander Trevino, the mayor, and the last man waiting outside, came in. He slung his new rifle over his shoulder, his back to the closed tent flap. "Sometimes I think what Spain needs is another dictator. Franco was a fascist, but he built this country. I can't say the same for democracy. Like Russia, we're falling apart."

Marko studied the backs of his hands before answering. His dream had always been for a referendum, an election in Edorta to vote whether to stay in the Spanish federation or go their own way. He swallowed a rise of frustration, knowing it wasn't going to happen. He looked across at Ander and spoke quietly. "Dictatorship isn't the answer. Forty years of that was enough. If Spain is coming apart, it's not because she's democratic. It's because she's dishonest. That's what has to change."

"You don't sound too hopeful."

"I'm not, and neither are you. Which is why we're both here today, isn't it? Sooner or later, we're going to have to fight. You should prepare your people." Marko smiled to soften his next words. "You know, you wouldn't be mayor under another Franco."

"Your father wouldn't be governor, either," Ander shot back.

Marko looked away, the corners of his mouth digging in, always uncomfortable when anyone mentioned his father.

"True, but at least he's honest. And he'd give you an argument about Franco. He couldn't stomach the man. He simply doesn't see that the violence up here is a throwback to the old regime. Those days are over, but the hard-liners in Madrid don't know it yet. The army still has too much power." Marko reached across and squeezed Rivera's arm. "Democracy's not to blame. Greed is. And the Civil Guards. It's the same enemy, my friend, not a new one."

Ander nodded. As he rose to leave, he shot his hand out, and shook Marko's warmly. "We're having a party afterwards for those who signed up today. I'd be honored if you could stay."

A hateful little blonde with mean green eyes flashed in Marko's mind. "Gracias, we'd like that." He was in no rush to get back to camp.

As soon as Ander left the tent, a man in a black leather jacket ducked through the flap. Marko half-rose in surprise. "How did you get in here?" A line of muscle pulsed along his jaw.

With a faint smile, Ximon Ojeda sat down and crossed his legs. He was a lean, hungry-looking man with hollow cheeks and a blond hairline mustache. "Better work on your security, Garcia. Your guard with the gun outside doesn't know me. I just waited in line like the rest, and he waved me right in. For all he knows, I could shoot you."

"You still could, but you won't."

"Cocky bastard." Ojeda looked around the tent, his eyes shifting restlessly, taking in the two empty crates the CETMEs had come in, the open notebook on the table. "How'd you do today?"

"Well enough. I take it you didn't come alone," Marko said softly.

"That's right."

"What's on your mind?"

"The usual."

Marko sighed and shook his head. "St. Marti's a nice little town. Leave them alone, Ximon. They're not ready for your group."

"Yet. By the way, quite a show you put on at the parliament. I thought only we did that sort of thing," Ojeda drawled in Basque. "I understand the prime minister himself flew in this morning, all upset. Seems Edorta bit Spain in the ass and jumped out of her pocket."

Marko glanced at the tent flap. "This isn't the place to talk," he muttered.

"Then name one!"

The air crackled back and forth across the table. Until yesterday, the two groups had different goals: POJ wanted political reform, an end to the Land Commission, an end to the violence. ETA's demands centered around one thing--independence from Spain. As soon as POJ added independence to its agenda, the game changed. And Marko knew it. But ETA's indiscriminate killing in the name of freedom sickened him and had turned many Basques against them. Rumors now said ETA was running drugs to raise money for their operations. He wanted nothing to do with it or with Ojeda.

"There still is nothing to talk about," Marko said, taking pains to keep his voice

neutral.

Ojeda leaned forward, interested. "But we might have something to talk about in the future--is that what I'm hearing?"

"I can't answer that yet," Marko said slowly. "Everything depends on what Edorta does now, on what Madrid does."

Ojeda snorted. "They'll send GAL after you, like they do us. They killed two of our men in France last month, crossed international borders to do it." His face darkened. "That's illegal."

Marko dug the corners of his mouth in. "ETA is illegal."

"And POJ isn't?"

"Sí," Marko admitted, "but on different levels. ETA uses violence to advance their cause. POJ does not, but I realize that can change," he added slowly.

"I'd say it changed yesterday when you killed that guard." Ojeda leaned back in the chair. Lips pursed, he studied Marko. "The only difference between ETA and POJ is that ETA wants out of Spain. You--and POJ--want to run it." With an evil smile, he added, "And you don't want to get your hands dirty playing with us."

Better not answer that.

Ojeda sat up straight, his shoulders stiff. The light brown eyes burned across at Marko. "Understand you took a hostage to get out of the Parliament, an American senator's daughter, no less."

"So?"

"So I'm here for a favor. Give her to me."

"What?!"

"You got her by accident. If you'd planned to take her, I wouldn't ask." Ojeda's voice dropped, his voice low. "Think about it. You're going to need us sooner than you think. Men, equipment, money--name it, it's yours. A friend of mine got picked up in Madrid last week--"

"Jakome Pasquale. I heard."

"We could get him back with that girl. Give her to me, and I owe you a big one." Ojeda rubbed his mouth. Legs crossed, he jiggled his foot nervously.

Bad signs were adding up fast. Marko stood behind the table and kept his voice quiet and calm. Choosing his words carefully, he said, "Gracias, but it's too late. Negotiations for her have already started." Which wasn't quite true. He'd sent the letter off only this morning. "Because of who she is, we moved fast with this. POJ's already accepted responsibility. Spain knows we have her, not you."

"Shit!" Ojeda jerked to his feet. "We should be working together--you know that. We did with the Olympics in '92. We set off two little car bombs thirty miles from Barcelona, and you go into orbit, show up the next day at our headquarters and tell us to lay off. We're reasonable. We listened."

"It was in your own interests not to destroy the Olympics and embarrass Spain. That would have turned world opinion against everything Basque--ETA and POJ. You'd have lost, and so would we."

Ojeda shook his head in disgust. "Think about this girl switch. I really need her."

Marko started around the table. "I'm sorry about Jakome, I really am, but Maggie Dixon is not up for discussion."

The ETA leader rose, started to say something, then snapped his mouth shut, staring at Marko in furious silence. He strode toward the tent flap, slung the canvas aside, and stalked out.

Marko sat back down, going over the conversation with Ximon again in his head. He frowned. ETA badly wanted POJ as an ally. They wouldn't try anything against him personally, and that should extend to anything else that was his--like his prisoner.

Should.

He wouldn't risk it. No matter what she'd done, the little witch didn't deserve that.

He left the tent and started collecting his men. He waved, caught Pablo's eye across the driveway and gave him the thumbs-up signal. "Let's go."

Chapter 11

Dawn, August 26, 1995

Nearby, a bird was singing its heart out. Comfortable, waking-up sounds came from the other room, slow footsteps, soft thumps, the squeak of a hinge. Maggie opened her eyes and squinted into a glare of sunlight pouring through the grimy window, disoriented for a minute, unable to remember where she was.

"Come out here, Yanqui!"

She sat bolt upright, realizing instantly where she was. Only one man in the world sounded like he gargled with rocks. Quickly, she crawled from under the covers and found her shoes, slipped them on, stuffed the wrinkled blouse inside the wrinkled skirt. Her hair was tangled, her face sticky, and at that moment, she would have killed for a toothbrush. No one, but no one, was seeing her like this, not even that...that thug out there.

Quickly, she dug a comb from her pocketbook, pulled it through her hair, working out most of the snarls. As she dropped the comb back into the purse, her fingers closed around a lipstick from force of habit. She let it drop, snapped the bag closed, and started for the other room. She didn't care that much.

This morning, she felt different, still wary, but the terror that had deadened her thinking was gone. Her mind was clicking along today, instead of feeling packed in pillows. She drew aside the blanket in the doorway. His back to her, Garcia stood before the map on the wall.

He was in battle fatigues again, the ever-present pistol hanging on his hip. A rifle lay on the table beside a can of cleaning oil and rags. Alongside were four brown metal objects whose distinctive pineapple shape she recognized.

He removed a blue-headed pin from the map and pushed a black one into its place. Turning, he waved her to a chair. "Sit down, I want to get something straight with you before I leave."

"Where are you off to now?"

"Do you really think I'd tell you?" He filled two cups with coffee from the pot on the stove and sat down at the table and pushed a mug toward her. "Sorry, up here you drink it black."

"That's how I take it, anyway." She picked up the cup and took a sip.

Over the rim, she saw his eyes traveling down the length of her. "Funny--you look like cream and sugar to me," he said softly.

Her fingers tightened around the cup at the innuendo, if that's what it was. She lowered her lids to hide the flare of embarrassment his words caused and answered mildly. "I used to take it that way, but I switched when I was in college."

"And how long ago might that be--three years, five years, as many as ten, perhaps?" he asked. For the first time, she saw a glint of humor in his eyes. He was baiting her and trying not to laugh, thinking she didn't know.

His moods swung like a pendulum around her. Nice one minute; nasty the next, as if he couldn't make up his mind to hate her or not. Yet, he seemed so stable in every other way, calm, unflappable, Mr. Laid-Back Cool himself. A thought surfaced from her subconscious and hung there. Was it possible he was fighting some kind of attraction to her? That was over and done with for both of them. Still...she'd better watch him closely.

She cleared her throat. "If I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?"

"Probably not." He scowled at her. Tiny lines crinkled at the edge of his eyes.

Mr. Nice was gone; Mr. Mean was back. He was doing it again. "Are you part of the ETA?"

"No. Next question."

"Yesterday, you said you threw some men out of camp because of me--"

"Five, to be exact."

"Since you've appointed yourself my protector, I'd like to know what happens to me if something happens to you."

"My, my, you're just full of questions this morning. What brings this up?"

She pointed to the grenades on the table. "Those can go off and take you with them."

Garcia slid the offensive objects into a canvas pouch and set them aside, then raised his cup in a small toast to her. "I am touched by your concern."

"Don't be," she drawled.

A corner of his mouth kicked up in a tight little smile. "Drink your coffee. Nothing's going to happen to me."

"It almost did outside the Council."

The smiled faded. "The agent in the hall, you mean?"

"You shot him without blinking an eye." The revulsion she felt leaked into her voice.

"The man I shot was a GAL agent, part of a death squad. The only reason you're standing there alive is because he isn't." Marko hung an arm over the back of his chair and appraised her from across the table. A muscle flicked at his jaw. "I shot a man to save your life. Frankly, you don't sound too grateful."

Maggie set her cup down firmly and drew herself professor-straight. "Why should I be? I want to go home, and I want to go home now. I've been kidnapped, caged like an animal, and terrorized by you and your men. Up here, it's D-Day and Death Row all rolled into one." To her dismay, her shame-on-you teacher's voice unexpectedly cracked wide open. Tears blinded her. Helpless to stop them, she jerked around in her chair so he wouldn't see.

For several moments, the man across the table didn't move. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him lift his cup. There was a loud slurp, and he said, "Want to play checkers?"

For a moment, Maggie sat motionless, her hand shielding her eyes. She raised her head and looked up, her mouth slightly agape. "Do I want to what?"

"How about rummy then? You don't look like you play poker." Opening a drawer at his end of the table, he pulled out a filthy deck of playing cards held with a rubber band and tossed them on the table. "Deal," he said, in a bored voice. "If it will ease your mind, I can hang around an hour or so and amuse you."

She made a small, strangled sound. "You like making fun of me, don't you?"

He gazed at her steadily for a moment, then said, "Why don't you calm down and relax? Nobody's laid a hand on you, and nobody's going to, so stop thinking the worst of us. In a week or so, I'll send you home."

"A week or so!" She shot him a look full of knives and took her cup to the window. The men were out there again, not a crowd as before, but only half a dozen this time: the pilot, the boy Manuel, the redhead, and three others she didn't recognize. The boy was holding the reins of a big gray stallion with a blaze face. The horse stamped and pulled against the reins, and Manny struggled to hold him.

"Cut it out, Drummer," he shouted, jerking the reins.

She watched the boy and the clumsy way he handled the animal. He couldn't control it. She looked back at Garcia. It was his horse.

Evidently, he took the kid everywhere with him. As before, the smooth-skinned youngster was wearing a uniform that was too big for him. From under the blue wool beret, the fringe of wiry brown hair stuck out like a clown's.

"Is Manuel your son?" she asked, frowning slightly at the boy playing soldier.

"No, he just lives with us."

Unaware that Marko had crossed the room and was looking over her shoulder, Maggie turned around--and bumped into him. She staggered. He grabbed her elbows, steadied her. Startled, her eyes slammed into his, and she jumped away as if he'd touched her with a match. Her face heated. Once upon a time, he'd held a lot more than her elbows.

Two black eyebrows lifted in amusement, and she knew he was remembering the same thing. "You were saying?" he asked, his lips twitching.

"I...I was going to ask what a kid is doing up here with you and your group?"

"Because he has no family. His parents got in the way of the Land Commission and were killed on orders from Senator Diego.

"I don't believe that for a minute."

"If you want to stay alive, you'd better start. A percentage of every contract goes straight into his pocket, thanks to enforcement from GAL and Colonel Soreno. A lot of money finds its way into a lot of pockets, including Dr. Luis Alazar's. Whether you believe it or not, your own fiancé is--"

A shot sounded outside, followed by shouts and a burst of small-arms fire. The deep boom of a grenade blowing rocked him to his feet. Maggie whirled around to the window again.

A shoulder throw sent her crashing to the floor. "Stay away from the window!" Straddling her, he yanked her up into a sitting position and forced her shoulders against the wall. "Maggie, look at me! Dammit, look at me!" He shook her. "Someone's coming. If you see green uniforms, you run like hell because they'll be Raul's men, and they'll kill you."

Gunfire rattled again. He grabbed the rifle off the table. Slapping in a fresh magazine, he ran out, leaped off the porch, and into a hard run down the hillside for the shooting.

Heart pounding, Maggie leaned against the wall, disoriented by what was happening. Fast...things were happening too fast. The door was wide open. He'd left it open deliberately, and suddenly that terrified her more than if he'd locked it. He was afraid of who was coming.

And he'd slipped and called her Maggie, not Miss Dixon.

A machine gun stuttering down the hill drove her up, off the wall and running. She bolted out the door and clacked down the porch steps in her high heels, racing across the few feet of clearing for the woods as fast as she could run.

The horses stood alone in the trees, tied up when their riders went running off with Garcia. Most of the animals were large ponies, potbellied and spindly-legged, except Drummer, the big gray stallion.

As Maggie approached him, the horse arched his neck and stamped backwards until the reins tautened. He was a high-strung, stubborn animal that no one but Marko could ride. Quickly, she untied him.

"Pretty boy...pretty boy," she crooned. The horse swiveled its ears, then stood still and let her stroke the hairy swell of his jaw. He jerked his head and shook it, as if perplexed by the small hands, the silky voice, and the no-nonsense manner.

"Easy...easy." Grabbing the pommel, Maggie shoved her foot into the stirrup and strained up, but he was so big her knee landed in the saddle, instead of across it. Obstinately, Drummer swung his hind quarters around, backing his rear in a circle with Maggie squirming up his side. He'd never had a woman on his back in his life.

"Whoaaaa!"

He stopped. Maggie kneed herself fully into the saddle and reined his head up.

"Let's go!"

He didn't budge.

"Move!"

Head down, he was stone, a gray statue.

Viciously, a pair of spike-heeled sandals jabbed into his ribs. "Vamos!"

Drummer exploded into a gallop. She let him run, a huge, powerfully muscled animal pounding through the woods like a lunatic. Flattened over his back, Maggie kept her head level with his neck. Tree limbs whipped by, snagging her blouse. The stirrups, too long for her shorter legs, slapped the horse's sides. He ran hard in one direction, veered sideways, zigzagging back and forth like a steer at a rodeo. The woman on his back hung on doggedly, leaning and rocking with each new shift of direction, as the beast tried to knock her off, shake her off.

A yellow butterfly alighted in a bush beside the trail and fanned its wings. The stallion slid to a stop and reared on his hind legs with a snorting scream of terror. Neighing and bucking, he did his best to unseat her. Maggie gripped her knees hard and nearly yanked his ears out, but she stayed in the saddle like glue. Evidently deciding she could ride, Drummer stood still. Great sides heaving, he swung his head around and stared balefully at her through his lashes.

"Didn't work, did it, horse?" she said, and jabbed her heels into his ribs again.

Five minutes became ten, then fifteen. Time and again she glanced nervously over her shoulder, but saw no one coming through the trees after her. Trembling with both fear and a growing exhilaration, she pushed the horse into a thundering run across a plateau, bucketing across a mountain meadow and up a rocky incline so steep he lunged like a mountain goat. Not until she'd tired him out and he had settled down did she rein him in, walking him out of a dense woods onto a mesa the size of a football field, a high peninsula of tableland jutting from the mountainside.

Dead end.

Maggie turned in the saddle and shaded her eyes against the glare. Behind her, in front of her--mountains--soaring mountains with wild, forbidding summits. Tangled crests and snow-capped peaks pushed through the clouds. Far below, wound miles of empty canyons with solid granite walls. She stared out at the savage, weighted beauty, shaken by the silence and the wind and the eerie feeling she was standing on the edge of the world.

"Quit it," she whispered. "You got yourself out here, you can get yourself back."

The sun warmed her shoulders through the thin red silk of her blouse, trapping the heat inside next to her skin; yet at that altitude, a constant breeze blew, rippling the horse's mane. Overhead, three specks wheeled and circled, coasting toward them on the wind. They drifted lower. Without flapping a wing, three griffin vultures planed in and hunched themselves in a tree. Huge, wary, dark-plumaged birds. With their naked-looking heads and rubbery necks, they were the ugliest wild things she'd ever seen.

Maggie tugged the reins and headed back for the woods the way they came. Just into the trees, Drummer shied and gave a low, rolling snort. He stopped and shook his head.

Mean as he was, she trusted his instincts over her own and made no move to urge him on.

"Easy, boy, what's wrong?" she murmured, steadying him, patting his neck.

In stages, she turned her head and scanned the trail ahead. She lifted her chin and sniffed the air, trying to separate the scents. Coasting along with the smell of baking earth and hot pine woods, she caught a whiff of something else--the same thing the horse had smelled. A faint ammoniac odor of animal lay on the wind. Slowly, she walked the horse forward.

One minute it wasn't there; the next, it was.

Leaden-colored, larger than a German Shepherd, the wolf slipped out of a thicket and stopped on the trail. The long, heavy jaw held a mouth that sliced back to its ears, its neck ringed with a thick shag of fur. Silently, he padded toward them. Fear raced out of her stomach. Four more gray ghosts glided from the underbrush, falling in beside the first, all of them loping easily, unhurried, their carriage deliberate and deadly. Three huge ones appeared farther back up the trail. They paused, then bounded to catch up, ears pinned flat.

Panic coursed through her. The horse wouldn't charge through a pack of wolves, and he could never outrun them in the trees. With a holler, she jerked him around and ran him back out onto the mesa, gripping the reins, keeping him in a slow canter, running him in large circles, staying well away from the wolves.

The pack moved as one, seeming to anticipate every move she made. Each time Drummer came around, the ring had grown smaller, the horse and rider driven closer to the end of the mesa. Hackles raised, four wolves stopped, sealing off any escape to the trees. Stiff-legged, they stood and waited for the others to drive her around again. When they did, all eight of them moved in and closed the circle, their pale eyes full of their own kind of rage.

Trapped.

Drummer whinnied and stamped his feet. Automatically, Maggie gripped her knees against the horse. Saliva pooled in her mouth, brassy with fear. Hardly breathing, she counted again.

Eight of them....

A scream rose in her throat.

In front of her, a big gray form crouched and gathered its legs.

Chapter 12

Marko took the steps of the cabin two at a time. The gunfire had been nothing. Instead of the squad of Civil Guards he'd expected, he found several of his own men laughing and playing the fool around the carcass of a large wolf they'd just shot. For the second time in two days, he threw a man out of camp. This time, it was the idiot who tossed the grenade. Gray wolves had made a comeback, and the isolated Spanish Pyrenees was home to the largest wolf population in Western Europe. Marko frowned, uneasy. They didn't usually come this close.

The minute he entered the cabin, he knew she was gone. He went back outside and stood in the center of the clearing, his hands jammed in his pockets. It had been a mistake to bring her there. Once he'd realized who she was, common sense told him to get her as far away from him as possible. He was glad to be rid of her. Jaw tight, he started for the house. Maybe she'd get lucky and find her way out.

Drummer's gone!

Marko bolted for the stable shed, bellowing like a gored bull for his men. None of the saddled ponies were big enough for him, not the way he was going to ride. Heaving a saddle onto the back of a chestnut gelding, he crawled under the belly, cinching the leather tight, yanking on the stirrups, all the time bawling out orders and cursing about God's green shit and kinky little hairs around the anus of Abraham. And gringas--goddamned gringas! His men gaped at him. Until the day he brought Maggie Dixon there, most of them had never heard him raise his voice before.

"If something happens to her, they'll swear we killed her. Find her!" he barked, and five guerrillas jumped on horses and raced out of camp in five different directions. Squatting, he jerked a stirrup in place. A creak of saddle leather and he was up and driving for the pines.

His mind conjured up the image of a small blonde in red and white lying on the trail. It wouldn't be the first time Drummer brushed a rider. Marko dug his heels in and forced the big chestnut on.

It wasn't hard to track her. Fifteen hundred pounds of horseflesh left prints in all but the hardest dirt. Quickly, he rode through the trees, following her trail, racing across the same rocky plateau she had, searching the ground around the perimeter for signs where she'd entered the woods again. Horse droppings. He plunged in after her.

Two miles farther on, he stopped, listening. Snarls. The wolves had something. A high-pitched whinny carried downwind and lifted the hair on his arms. His blood froze. They were after them. And if they brought the horse down, they'd tear its rider to pieces.

"Yaahh--yaahh--yaahh!"

He slashed the reins in a stinging arc across the chestnut's shoulders, driving him like he'd never driven a horse in his life before. The chestnut plunged down the steep slope to the mesa, hoofs slipping, Marko leaning back in the saddle, braced against the incline, feet locked in the stirrups.

Horse and rider broke from the trees and pounded out across the mesa. At the far end, Maggie on his back, Drummer was trampling a wolf on the ground. Head lowered, he stamped backwards toward the edge away from the others closing in. Long strings of saliva drooled from his mouth. Eyes rolling, he faced the rest of the pack. A big female lunged. Drummer snorted and frogged sideways, his shoulder spurting blood.

Marko fought his own horse to a stop, the pistol out and up and in his hand. In a stiff-armed, two-fisted aim, he targeted a wolf and fired. Midair, it twisted, a burst of red flushing its side. The pack scattered, raced for the trees. Again he fired. Gray fur somersaulted along the ground. Yelping, dragging its hind legs, the wolf disappeared into the underbrush.

The sound of the shots threw Drummer into a frenzy. Whinnying, he reared to his full height, and flailed the air with his hoofs. Maggie gripped her knees against his sides and grabbed a fistful of mane, but the horse's violent lurching tore it from her hands. She hurtled backwards out of the saddle, arms and legs outspread, and slammed into the ground. Straight up, Drummer reared again, neighing and snorting, his hoofs slashing down only inches away. Maggie rolled to the side and scrambled onto her hands and knees. He reared again. Yelling to the terrified horse, her eyes riveted on those hoofs, she backpedaled as fast as she could.

Marko slid from his saddle, running to Drummer, snatching in the air for the reins as the horse went up on his back legs again. A thin, high scream spun Marko around. In her desperate scramble away from the horse, Maggie had backed off the mesa. All he saw was her head and arms, a stunned face looking at him, like a child's over the edge of a table. Her hands scraped backwards along the top. He dove for them, but she was gone.

In a plume of dust, Maggie slid down the incline, a steep, tilted, rocky slope of fallen timber, logs, and upturned roots, the ruins of a bygone forest. Once she grabbed a dead sapling, but the dry, brittle trunk leaned like a broomstick and snapped off at the ground. She started to roll, a blur of red and white and arms and legs.

She was still rolling when Marko did a hand-leap over the edge and dropped. The instant his feet touched ground, he lost his balance and sat down hard, sliding on his behind. Bushes, trees, stumps flew by. He snatched at them, trying to slow his own fall. Ahead of him, Maggie spun into the space between two stumps and got hung up.

Marko dug his heels in, steering himself like a sled toward the stumps. There! He rammed his boot into one and jerked to a stop, then hauled himself over to her. She lay deathly still. Hanging onto his stump with one hand, he felt for a pulse, then ran his hand over the parts of her he could reach, checking for broken bones. Both knees and arms were skinned and there was a knot the size of an egg on the back of her skull where she'd cracked her head. Sitting, he inched himself across the dirt until he could pull her up and into the spread of his legs. Absently, he picked a leaf from her hair, wondering if she was going to die and how he could live with himself if she did.

Maggie moaned. As her eyelids fluttered open, he saw recognition accompanied by an instant flash of fear. The guilt nearly flattened him.

"I came to help you," he said quietly.

"How...how did you get down here?"

"Same way you did." He shifted her away from him, holding her so he could see her face. "Can you sit up?"

She tried, but couldn't. Weakly, she collapsed against him. "My arms are numb."

He hoped not. "Squeeze my hand."

Seconds passed. Two of her fingers curled slightly. Big-eyed, she looked at him. "They're broken, aren't they?"

Struggling to keep his face blank, Marko said, "I don't know. Relax a minute, and let me think this thing through."

He looked up the dizzying heights in disbelief. They were at least a third of the way down the side of the mesa, about two hundred feet down from the top. It would be tough getting just himself out of there, and he was going to have to carry her. He shook his head. He'd gone off that ledge up there like he thought he was Superman.

How ironic. He was the one with a reputation for being a planner, a man who did nothing without weighing the odds. Not this time. When Maggie went over that cliff, he panicked. No other word for it. The coil of rope he needed was hanging on Drummer's saddle.

His eyes followed the pitch of the incline down, his gaze suddenly caught by the wings of a hawk below, coasting on the updrafts along the cliffline. His heart jerked. Jesu, Mary and Joseph, he was looking down on a flying bird.

A few yards away, the patch of rocky ground they were on ended like the roof of a house, in a sheer drop to the green of the valley floor below. Heaped around the base of the mesa lay huge, jagged boulders, some as big as cars. He squinted at the landscape, assessing the odds. That expanse of green he saw below wasn't the valley floor. It was treetops. If they fell, at least it would be quick.

He'd couldn't get her out of there, but he wouldn't leave her, either.

A sense of impending doom, unlike anything he'd ever felt before, stole through him. He cursed himself and the sadistic fates that had brought the two of them together again.

"How do we get back up?" Maggie whispered.

They weren't going to, but he wouldn't tell her that.

His eyes fixed on a dead tree forty or fifty feet to his right, little more than a leaning, sun-bleached stump with stubby branches. But the terrain above it was dotted with the remains of the old woods running up to the top. It looked decidedly more friendly than the rocks where he and Maggie were. If he could get them over there, he had at least a chance to get them up.

A washed-out rain gully and a slanting incline so steep he doubted he could stand upright lay between him and the tree. He looked from the tree to the gully and back again, planning the moves in his head. On the other side of the washout, a large milky white boulder jutted from the face of the mountain.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I'm all right."

She wasn't. Her face was chalky, her eyelids traced with fine blue veins. Any minute he expected her to start crying, go into hysterics the way some women would. She didn't. But then, he remembered, she never had acted the way he expected.

Strong woman. He drew in a deep breath, held it, and picked her up.

"Oh-h-h-h," she squealed, as he jackknifed her across his shoulder and stood up, his left arm clamped around her knees. Hanging on to the stump that had broken her fall, he turned his hips slightly for a longer reach. Repeatedly, he swung his foot at the hillside, kicking out a toehold.

With a driven concentration, he took his first step, tested his footing, then another step. And another. With agonizing slowness, they inched toward the little gully, toward the tree on the other side. Stones shifted under his feet like loose marbles. He stretched across the ditch and searched for a right handhold. Blindly, he felt along a hairline split running up and over the bulge of white rock on the other side. Sometimes...sometimes.... The crack widened. He worked his fingers inside, then made a fist, wedged it in, got a good, solid grip.

"Don't move," he grunted, and swung out over the gully. The toe of his boot touched the other side. For a moment, he stood motionless, his legs straddling the gully, the wind eerily cold inside his thighs. Biceps bulging, burning, brute strength hauled them across. Gingerly, he crept his toes along a windowsill in space.

The tree was directly overhead.

Maggie was dead weight. His calves ached with heaviness and his shoulder was numb. He lowered her to the ground to rest his arms and pasted himself against her to hold her in place. Mouth open, he sucked in great lungfuls of air.

"Why did you come after me?" Her breaths were small, warm puffs on his neck.

He tried to muffle a sigh and lost. "Because this is my fault, not yours. Why did you run away?" he asked.

"Because I'm afraid of you now."

His eyebrows pulled together. "Now?"

"Mikel, stop pretending. I know who you are."

His jaw dropped. She couldn't! Astonished, he stared down at her, and the clear, unwavering look he saw told him she did. "And just when did you figure all this out?"

"About an hour after you took me."

"An hour! Jesu, why didn't you say something?"

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't recognize you till I saw your father's picture and connected the names. But I never meant to hurt you, either, not at the legislature and not at camp."

"How about ten years ago? Did you mean to hurt me then?"

"I've got a few questions about that myself," he growled. "Start talking!"

"Now?" Maggie looked up at him, her eyes huge. "You don't think we're going to make it, do you?"

"If we don't, by God I'm going to know why you accused me of raping you. Why, Maggie?" She stiffened and drew away. Marko pressed himself harder against her. "What are you afraid of--me or telling me the truth?"

"Don't be so thick! What I'm afraid of is falling." Her voice cracked. "And I never said you raped me."

With an effort, Maggie swallowed and looked at him. "You don't believe me," she whispered. "I tried to protect you."

"Sure you did."

"My mom and dad were waiting for me when I got back. I thought you knew and were afraid to face them. Raul had phoned them and told them you'd raped me."

"Raul? No way. We were friends then."

"Did you know your friend followed us up to the stable and watched everything we did? He hates you. He called me on the phone and said you'd cheated him for the last time, then laughed and said all kinds of dirty things to me, said he heard me ask you to make love to me."

"You did."

"There was no way I could have stopped you!"

Marko scowled down at her. "As I recall, you didn't want me to stop."

"So he knew you didn't rape me, but he changed everything around, told my folks a different story. I said it wasn't true, that nothing happened with us. I was so scared. I lied to everyone--my folks, the police. I even lied to the FBI. Try that sometime for a lesson in stupidity. But I was so sure you'd back me up, get us out of the mess Raul made. Instead, you ran off. I'll never forgive you for that--never!"

Marko shook his head. Ten years later, and she was still lying. He folded Maggie over his shoulder again and reached for the tree limb sticking out.

Eyes screwed tight shut, Maggie whispered, "Don't drop me, please don't drop me."

His fingertips touched the branch.

Smooth. Hard. Dead.

And if it broke under their weight, they would be, too.

He braced the shoulder with Maggie against the wall and stretched upward, managing to curl his hand around the branch.

"Hold, Goddamn it," he muttered.

They swung in the air. The panorama below yoyo-ed sickeningly. And then his knee touched solid ground beside the stump. One leg dangling, he squirmed his body higher until he could press Maggie against the trunk and wrap his arm fully around it and her. He let out an explosive sigh and hugged the tree trunk, both of them a heartbeat from falling to their deaths. The fear melted away, replaced by a deep sense of exhilaration, of having stood toe to toe with death and beating it. As soon as he caught his breath, he began to climb again.

Neither spoke. Slowly, the edge of the mesa moved toward them. Stump to stump, rock to rock, Marko worked them up the mountainside. Finally, he lifted her in front of him, pushed her over the top, and crawled up after her. Face running with sweat, he collapsed alongside her.

"You all right?" he panted, when he could talk a little.

Maggie shuddered and closed her eyes. "It didn't mean a thing to you, did it?" she burst out. "You handed a silly little kid a line and she fell for it."

"God damn it," he wheezed. "I don't want to talk about it now."

"Well I do! What kind of man does that to a girl?"

"You're the psychologist, you tell me. And while you're at it, tell me what kind of girl comes on like you did to me and then cries rape when I gave you what you wanted? You were like a cat in heat." He slapped both hands against the dirt beside him and sat up. "When you signed that arrest warrant, I had two choices--run or let you ruin my life." He glared out at the wild mountains around them, relieved that his breathing was finally normal now.

"I signed nothing," she said quietly.

Marko gave a small, disbelieving snort, remembering the police cars in her driveway that night.

"Did she also ask you to fuck her?"

Crude bastard. But there was no way he could have known that unless...unless....

His mind replayed bits and pieces of that night, fast forwarding, rewinding, forwarding again. He stopped the picture in his head at the scene in his uncle's study and Raul, packed and ready to leave. He'd already made a reservation to get himself out before Marko even knew there was a problem...and he was determined that Marko not talk to Maggie before they left.

Everything added up. Now.

Marko looked down at Maggie's pale, dirty little face. All these years he'd lived with the anger and the hurt of betrayal. He'd been betrayed all right, by a friend, not by her. Raul had lied, to her parents, his uncle, and to him.

Marko climbed to his feet. "Forget it. That was ten years ago. We're two different people now. The attraction is long gone," he lashed out.

"I'm surprised you admit there was any. You act like it was all my fault. A cat in heat? I hate you for that!"

"Let's just say we both made a mistake."

An angry response died in her throat, the words floating away. His voice sounded distant and hollow. Wondering how hard she'd hit her head when she fell, Maggie squinted and tried to bring him into focus. The top of his head had vanished, his nose and eyes, too, leaving only a pair of dusky lips talking in a dark beard.

Marko whistled for the horses. Warily, the two animals approached, then stood calmly while he tied the reins of the gray stallion to the chestnut. He lifted Maggie into the saddle and held her in place as he swung up behind her.

They hadn't gone ten feet when the ground in front of her lurched into a slow, lazy spin.

She was on a carousel...happy growling organ music...oom-PAH-PAH oom-PAH-PAH and her ebony-painted horse with its stary glary eyes gliding up...up...up again...sliding smoothly down again...she heard her own squeals of girlish laughter as she held tight around his neck...oomPAHPAH oomPAHPAH oomPAhPAH...faster and faster the black pony went...up again and down again...round and round and round again...dizzy dizzy she held on to him while the black pony laughed and laughed and raced her far far into the night up behind the back of the stars into a galaxy of diamonds bursting into a zillion million pieces of sun...

"You're going to fall," Marko said, lifting her clear of the saddle. The black pony turned her around, facing him, her thighs riding up over his. "You okay? No, you're not okay. Hold on to me."

"I can't--I can't move my arms," she mumbled, tears welling in her eyes.

Marko thumbed the tears off her cheeks. His other hand moved aimlessly in the air behind her, as if he didn't quite know where to put it. Finally, he palmed the back of the blonde head and pulled it against him. She hid her face in the front of his shirt.

Fending away leafy underbrush, Marko guided the horses down a rocky embankment and splashed across a shallow stream. The arm around her waist tightened.

"Hyah! Hola! Hola!" Hoofs slipping, the horses scrambled up the bank on the other side, pitching her into him.

She sniffed and licked the salty remnants of a tear from the corner of her mouth. "Where are we going?"

"Back to camp."

"Oh, God..."

The monotonous rocking of the horse soothed her. For the first time in three days, she felt safe. Wearily, she rested her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes. Both of them had changed. She wasn't seventeen any more, and he was a stranger now.

A guerrilla leader, a killer.

Any sane woman would be afraid of him.

Any sane man would be afraid of him.

Why wasn't she?

Chapter 13

Despite her protests that she could walk, Marko carried her up the steps of the cabin and booted the door open. Inside, he set her down on her bed, went into the big room, got the propane stove going, and put water on to heat. He stayed in there, leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette, stalling until his hands stopped shaking and he had himself under control again.

Back in the alcove, he stooped and slipped a white high-heeled sandal off. She'd lost the other one when she fell.

"Here, let me look at you," he said, his voice rising unexpectedly on the last word. He reached for her arm. She winced as he picked it up, but didn't pull away, her eyes fastened on his, sea-green eyes that seemed to look right into his mind. A small ripple of shock arrowed through him at what he saw in her face--suspicion and deep dislike. He couldn't remember any woman ever looking at him like that. The words to reassure her dried up in his throat.

Down on his knees beside her, Marko felt her flesh, feeling the bones beneath, checking from her fingertips to the sharp peak of her shoulder and back again, keeping his touch as impersonal as a doctor's.

"Move your wrists," he commanded, concentrating on her hands. Relief coursed through him. Nothing appeared to be broken. "That hurt?" he asked when she winced again.

"A little."

More than a little. She tensed every time he touched her.

He sat back on his haunches. "You sprained your wrists when you hit those stumps, but they broke your fall. We'll know for sure tomorrow." He frowned at her pained expression. "Something else is wrong?"

"My knee hurts."

He gave a soft whistle of surprise. Her knee was the size of a softball, an alarming dusky red, and swelling even as he watched.

"None of this would have happened if you'd left me alone," she blurted. " I'd forgotten all about you. I never wanted to see you again. I was an innocent bystander in a public building, damn you. I wasn't mixed up in your politics!"

"You got mixed up in my politics, the day you got mixed up with Alazar," Marko clipped, shaking his finger at her. "None of this would've happened if you'd stayed here in the cabin. I told you to run if they were Raul's men. These mountains are dangerous."

Maggie looked up into the face of a man who might have stepped right out of The Godfather. "I've been shot at, attacked by wolves, and kidnapped by a man who seduced me ten years ago. I'll tell what's dangerous--anywhere you are. And don't you shake your finger at me!" Her voice rose, trembling with pain and outrage, "Mikel, I want to go home!"

He stood, the scar down his cheek as taut as a rubber band. He wheeled around and marched into the other room, tipping hot water out of the kettle into a basin. Back ramrod stiff, he strode into the alcove and thumped the basin down on the floor between the beds, sloshing water everywhere in the process.

"First of all, let's get something straight. My name is Marko. There is no more Mikel. And I did not seduce you. I was a man and you were a woman--"

"A girl--a seventeen-year-old girl!"

"Who wanted it as much as I did, so stop pretending it was the love story of the century." His eyes raked down her. "We had sex, Margarita---s-e-x. Not love. Don't mix them up."

She inhaled sharply. "I was a kid. You were a grown man."

"Bull." He began unbuttoning her blouse.

Eyes flashing, she twisted away. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to wash the dirt off you." Though he said it mildly enough, the way he bunched a handful of red silk warned he was ready to rip it right off her. He punched another red pearl button through its buttonhole and spread the front of the blouse open. One sleeve had split at the cap of the armhole, exposing a creamy upper arm and a smooth, rounded shoulder. Her bra hung loose, the hooks torn out by the fall. Unsupported, her breasts rolled in soft, loose movements against his bare knuckles.

Maggie's gaze collided with his. Not a flicker of acknowledgment crossed that cold, bearded face. He was an ice man now. He hadn't even noticed. Not even naked breasts got through that frosty reserve any more.

Abruptly, he rose, and went into the other room. He returned a few minutes later, wiping his mouth and carrying a bottle of rum. Without looking at her, he poured a chipped white mug half full and thrust it at her. "Drink this," he ordered.

"Isn't that rather a lot?" Maggie looked suspiciously at the mug of dark amber liquid in his hand.

"Drink it, I said. It'll take the edge off the pain."

"I don't drink."

"Today you do." He urged the cup against her mouth.

She sputtered on the first sip, as the dark, neat rum scalded the back of her throat. Shuddering, she gulped the rest. It went down as smooth as satin and spread a cozy, warm feeling all through her chest. Without a word, Marko tippled more rum into the cup and held it out.

It was then she noticed his hand. The entire back of it was black and blue and his knuckles oozed like raw meat. He'd hurt it when he forced it into that crack in the rock and he'd never said a word.

"Drink up."

Definitely, the rum helped. She felt better already. The pain subsided, chased away by a marvelous feeling of lassitude. She yawned and watched him through heavy lids, wondering why he was smiling. "You're so handsome when you smile."

He laughed out loud at that. "You're drunk," he said, and poked her shoulder with a finger. Limp and boneless, she sagged back onto the mattress.

Cool air rushing across her chest told her the blouse was off, and so was her brassiere. Some still-reasoning part of her brain warned that she should watch him. She sighed, unable to pry her eyes open. She didn't care. It felt so good not to hurt any more.

Time and again, she heard water trickle into the basin, as he wrung out a rag. She dozed, drifting in and out of a golden rum fog, while a thumbnail carefully scraped at bits of gravel embedded in her skin.

Gentleness--why was she surprised?

Raising her eyebrows, Maggie slitted her eyelids open. "I'm sorry you hurt your hand."

"...it'll heal."

A cloth wound tightly around her knee. From far away, she heard the metal rasp of a zipper. Dimly, she was aware of her skirt being eased over her hips. A ruler whacked for attention on a blackboard in her brain. "You leave my panties on," she said, her eyes still closed.

"I should have done that ten years ago." He slung the skirt into the corner.

She let out a long sigh. "I'm...sorry you don't believe me about Raul."

Marko tucked the blanket carefully around her shoulders. He straightened, then stood, hands on his hips, looking down at her for several minutes. "Good night, Brat," he said softly.

False dawn. The stars were still out. Despite the faint arch of twilight vaulting the sky, the end of night was at least an hour away. At the window of his darkened study outside San Kristobal, Governor Ernesto Garcia waited for the sunrise.

He hadn't slept well, if he'd slept at all, but none of the servants knew that. Tiredly, he rubbed at the stubble on his face.

He was younger than he looked on television, an aristocratic-looking man with a head full of curly white hair. But at that moment, every day of his sixty-two years was etched in the grooves around his mouth. The flesh beneath his jaws sagged with indecision.

He would have to resign. Marko's attack on the legislature was the last straw. The embarrassment of having a son opposed to all he stood for was almost more than he could bear.

For almost four decades, he'd been mystified by his son, first by the boy, then by the man. Marko had been a big, noisy baby, headstrong and stubborn, just like his mother, just like his grandfather. Physically, Marko was the image of Ernesto. Except for the eyes. Sometimes it seemed to Ernesto, it was his late father-in-law Kemen Axaga who looked out of the boy's head.

Which guaranteed trouble.

Like Ernesto's birds. The image focused in his mind again. Ernesto was fond of canaries and parakeets, found their chattering and bursts of song pleasant and amusing. But it was impossible to keep a caged bird in his house. It was a mystery how they always got loose. One day he caught the culprit--four-year-old Marko, a bird in each little fist, releasing all of them out a casement window. In a solemn babyish voice, he said Papa's birds weren't singing; they were crying. They wanted to be free.

Kemen would have done the same.

When his wife Yera died--Kemen's daughter--Ernesto took full command of his son, to break that devilish will. Good fathers were supposed to do that, weren't they?

But Marko was a hopeless case. He swore and drank and smoked and discovered girls when he was twelve years old. At thirteen, he ran away from home. It was months before Ernesto found him again, living with a band of gypsies in Bilbao, ragged and dirty.

"You came after me?" Marko said, grinning.

"Of course I did, you idiot. Get in the car!"

He sent him to military school to learn some discipline. Two of them expelled him the first year for fighting.

"Cristo, what is wrong with you?" Ernesto yelled.

Somehow, both of them survived Marko's adolescence. When he was old enough, the Academy at Zaragoza accepted him. Exactly what they wanted, they said, a born leader, bright, brash, and with just a hint of defiance in his walk.

More than a hint, Ernesto thought.

But Zaragoza brought a different set of problems. Marko was popular, captain of the soccer team, president of his class. At any hour of the day or night, his car might come screeching into the driveway with Raul Soreno and one or two other cadets in tow, big young men in uniform Ernesto found in the beds the next day, soldiers who ate at his table and drank his wine and strutted about his house, talking brusquely about things Ernesto considered no business of the military's--things like democracy and good government. Even then, the signs were there.

Ernesto turned from the window and sank into his desk chair to wait for the dawn.

At half past four Maggie's eyes flew open. Marko, on his hands and knees, loomed over her, shining the lantern into her face. He was bare-chested, but wearing sweat pants, in deference to her.

"Dear God in heaven, you scared me to death!" She threw an arm up to shield her eyes and gave a sharp hiss of pain. Both arms were heavy, splinted with small wooden slats, and wrapped from her fingertips to her elbows. The thin, sickly smell of adhesive tape filled her nostrils. She worked herself to a sitting position, surprised to see she was wearing one of his khaki army shirts with the sleeves rolled up. She had no recollection how that got on her. "Take that thing out of my eyes. What's wrong with you?"

Swinging the lantern aside, he climbed to his feet, striking a long, dark shadow on the wall. In the harsh glare of lamplight, the slashed cheekbone stood out like a chalk line on slate. "You screamed in your sleep. That's a hell of a way to wake a man up." Bending, he gingerly massaged his foot.

His hair was wild and mussed, his face flushed with sleep, like a boy's. But there, any similarity to youth came to a screeching halt. Even in her groggy, half-awake state, her brain was registering a mature, muscled torso, and a lot of curly black chest hair.

"I was dreaming," she said, a little breathless. "Go on back to bed--what's the matter with your foot?"

"I stubbed my toe getting over here. Jesu, you sounded like someone was slitting your throat."

"You should know!"

He swore under his breath and turned back to his bed.

"Please...leave the light on."

"Why?"

She felt silly telling him she'd dreamed of the wolves. He'd laugh at her. A man like him wouldn't understand. She doubted he'd ever been afraid of anything in his life. She clamped her teeth and looked away. "Just...just leave it on, that's all."

He raised the lantern over her again and looked at her silently. "Move over." It was an order.

Her mouth fell open in astonishment as he slid in beside her, sitting with his back propped against the wall.

This is insane. She sat primly upright, saying nothing. The slightest protest from her would get her a sarcastic remark and send him back to his own bed. And for a little while, she wanted--needed--the nearness of another human being. He pulled the rough blanket up over their legs. In the cave of warmth under the covers, the image of the wolves retreated, driven away by a long, hard leg alongside hers. He picked up the book by Plato and began to read.

"I don't bite, you know," he said a few minutes later, turning a page, not looking at her.

"You don't smile, either."

"And I suppose you do?"

"Until I met you again, I did." Her voice wobbled.

"Jesu, will you relax!" He tossed the book aside and hauled her into the curve of his shoulder. "Some kidnaper, I make," he muttered.

Maggie rested her face against the hard, deep chest. Her nose twitched against the springy mat of hair. As she slid her hand under her cheek as a barrier against it, the edge of the splint dug him in the ribs.

"Now what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I was just wondering when you grew all this fur. You're like a damned monkey now."

Wearily, Marko leaned his head back against the wall. "Margarita, at four o'clock in the morning, I am not up to trading insults with you. I did not come to bed till an hour ago. You slept all day, in a drunken stupor, I might add." Yawning, he reached over and thumbed the lantern down to a dull glow.

A minute later--"Where did you learn to read Greek?" she asked.

"My wife taught me. Go to sleep."

"I didn't know you were married."

There was a pause, and then, "She died three years ago," he said quietly.

And he'd loved her very much, Maggie thought. A twinge of emotion surfaced in her thoughts, then sank so quickly she couldn't identify it. "What happened to her?"

"Some other time." He closed his eyes.

In other words, none of your business. Feeling slightly hurt, she decided this whole situation was absurd. Marko Garcia was the last man in the world she wanted in her bed anyway. Cuddled up with him like this, who knew what kind of ideas he was getting? "I'm all right now. You can go back to your own--"

A soft snore rumbled in the back of his throat. His head slumped sideways against the wall. Maggie debated a full minute whether or not to wake him up. She decided not to, heartened by the combination of warmth, the soft lantern light, and the reassurance of a big, sleeping male.

Besides, she was cold and he was asleep.

She eased closer and snuggled up to him. Mmmmmmmm...the man was a furnace, even smelled warm. Contentedly, she wriggled her toes under the blanket and rested her cheek on his chest. As if it had a mind of its own, her splinted arm settled itself clumsily around his waist. Lulled by the quiet thud of a heartbeat under her ear, she drifted off peacefully, unaware that above her head, his eyes were wide open.

"Your coffee, señor." Ernesto's housekeeper, a tall, middle-aged woman, her hair skinned back in a bun, set the tray on the desk. Nervously, she ran her palms down the front of her apron. Already, she was backing toward the door, he noticed, to tell the others how he looked, no doubt.

The servants were all exchanging tidbits of information about Marko. And pulling for him. Marko had always been their pet. But Ernesto paid their salaries, so they were playing it safe and staying out of the way, disappearing like ghosts whenever he walked into a room.

Ernesto took his coffee to the window. The horizon was aglow, as if red-hot coals lay raked behind it. The night-darkened shapes of the mountains stood like cardboard cutouts against the purple sky. Soon, it would be light enough to ride.

He went out to the barn, sipping his coffee as he crossed the corral. In the early dawn light, he saw the dark figure of the groom scuttle up the outside ladder to hide in the loft. Ernesto saddled the horse himself. It was faster than chasing after the man.

Striking off across an open, mowed field, Ernesto gave the big animal his head. Ears back, neck stretching, the big spotted gray galloped smoothly, effortlessly, but the once powerful chest labored a little on the upgrades. Flecks of saliva wetted the steel bit in its mouth and pooled in the corners of the lips. The governor smiled, his own face flushed with exertion. The old boy loved dashing around like a young stallion. But they were both getting old, and he never let him run for long, just enough to get his blood singing and limber up his legs.

Ernesto eased back on the reins. The horse slowed. Prancing, it tossed its head, as if to tell his rider that he could go on forever. They turned through a wood gate into a narrow dirt lane, where the dew glistened like ice crystals on the bushes alongside. At the end of the lane, the hills looked blurred and indistinct in the shifting fog. Tendrils of mist coiled sinuously along the ground, as if the rocks were steaming. Ernesto stopped the horse before an iron fence around a small graveyard. Roses climbed along the rails, their scent sweet and heady in the damp.

The headstone with the marble angel was his Yera's; the three smaller ones along the fence were their daughters', who'd all died in infancy, the last one, taking Yera with her. There was space for two more: him beside Yera; Marko beside his own wife Leda.

Leda Styros Garcia, 12/12/62--9/26/92.

Too young to die...a tall, beautiful, intensely feminine girl. If she'd come to dinner the night he and Marko argued, things might have turned out differently. But Marko refused to bring her that night. Later, Ernesto understood why. The night was burned into his memory. That same afternoon, Marko had called from his senate office in Madrid and invited himself to dinner, the last time, as it turned out, that they would ever eat together.

About halfway through the meal, it began to rain, with rumbles of thunder and the jagged forks of lightning that the Pyrenees seemed to attract.

Inside the dining room, the table sparkled with crystal and silver and the soft glow of candles. There, the storm had yet to break.

"I need your support, Papa," Marko started off.

Earlier that day, he said he'd been summoned to a meeting with the Minister of the Interior, Pelli Benat, who had reprimanded him for the statements he'd made on the floor of the Cortes about the Land Commission, about the Civil Guards, about the widespread corruption that reached the Cabinet itself.

"Dangerous, señor Garcia, reckless, irresponsible accusations," Benat had said. "The violence up there comes from outsiders. GAL does not exist except in your imagination. Madrid is not--repeat not--involved." A small man, Benat drew himself up and shook a finger at Marko as though talking to an oversized schoolboy. "Prime Minister Hector Arevalo expects a public apology from the floor to Senator Diego and to the entire cabinet tomorrow morning."

Ernesto's jaws clamped tight together, remembering. Of course he didn't get it. Instead, a typed resignation from the junior senator from Edorta was on the Arevalo's desk when he arrived the next day. Marko had already cleaned out his office and left Madrid.

"What's happening in Spain scares me to death," Marko said quietly to Ernesto. "The only time in my life I ever got singing, falling-down drunk was the night Franco died. I remember you raising your glass and we all drank to our new democracy. And then they form GAL--to eliminate the enemies of our new freedom. That's not how it works!"

Marko had looked at him with eyes like steel. "Doesn't State murder bother you? Don't you see that it's a wedge? GAL can go after anybody for any reason, and there's not a damn thing we can do, because Madrid denies GAL even exists."

The greed and corruption stretched to the Spanish Parliament itself, to the Cortes in Madrid, corruption involving not only Fidel Diego, but two cabinet ministers, as well, he said. "And National Security is nuzzled up with the Guardia Civil. Your friend Pelli Benat is part of the conspiracy."

"Not for one minute do I believe that."

"Papa, open your eyes. Know where Pelli talked to me today? On the fire escape outside of his office. As soon as I mentioned GAL, our Minister of the Interior invited me out there to talk, afraid he might be bugged by his own people."

"Benat is not mixed up with GAL."

"Sí, he is, and it goes higher than him."

"If you mean the prime minister, you better shut up."

Marko paced around the table, gripping a glass of wine. "Go look at the bullet hole in the side of my car," he said. "Someone tried to kill me tonight. No one knew I was coming here except you, which means that either your office or my office or both are bugged, and that means someone very high up is behind it. Like the chief of National Security--who just happens to work for Benat."

"You are paranoid," his father answered coldly, setting his own glass down on the tablecloth.

"No, I'm a realist. Spain will let nothing stand in the way of those dams," Marko said, "and that includes me. And you. Maybe ETA is right. Maybe it's time Edorta broke away, too."

Ernesto leaped to his feet. "What's happened to you? You're the one who always preached moderation--to give Spain a chance. Stop talking crazy."

"I'm talking self-government, Papa," Marko said quietly. "Either Spain lets us go peaceably, or we fight out way out. I don't want to see Edorta dragged into more conflict. Let the people decide. I want a referendum on whether we stay or leave. Will you help me get it?"

Ernesto looked at him, stunned. "Seceding is specifically forbidden by the constitution. You know that!"

"And specifically backed up by the military in Article Two. And you know that! Madrid has the right to turn tanks and guns on any province wanting independence. What kind of perverted democracy writes that into law?" He spun around and pointed to the window, his face pale with anger. "The world has changed out there. This country has grown up. She won't take this crap from government any more. If you send death squads after Basques, Spaniards will throw you out at the polls, not the Basques. And if that doesn't work, Spaniards will take to the streets. Like Edorta's going to do."

"You are a dangerous man. Get out of my house!"

He'd seen Marko only once in the last three years--at Leda's funeral, just two weeks after that dinner. Marko had looked at him over the bronze casket containing his wife, his eyes filled with a strange, savage light. The horrendous cut down the side of his face had still been swollen, crosshatched with sutures.

Ernesto's horse shifted sideways and blew its lips. Close by, the clear, bright warble of a lark pierced the morning silence. Ernesto reined the horse around and urged him into a sedate gallop back to the house.

Politics was a lightning rod for the bizarre, he thought. Today's terrorist was so often tomorrow's statesman--Stalin, Castro, Franco, Arafat--and democracies weren't immune, either. By anyone's definition, Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin had been a terrorist. As head of the militant group Irgun, fighting for a free Jewish state, God only knew how many people he'd killed in the name of freedom. Ernesto shook his head. And thirty years later, they gave him the Peace Prize.

Riding east into the sun, Ernesto shaded his eyes. Ahead of him, the early morning sun was a blood-red ball of fire.

God help me if Marko is right.

God help Spain.

Chapter 14

Sixty miles south, the sky beyond the cabin's little window had lightened.

The short-wave crackling in the other room woke her up. Wincing, Maggie rolled to her side, feeling as if she'd been beaten with a club. A deep ache throbbed up her splinted arms. Garcia been right to splint them. She held them and looked at them, surprised that she was adjusting to the situation so readily.

Conflicting emotions played with her mind, relief at learning why he'd left the way he had and a sour bitterness that he'd believed she lied about him. Still believed it. And yet, underneath it all, ran a rippling excitement at seeing him again after all these years.

Which made no sense at all. He certainly wasn't excited. He'd known who she was for three days, and it hadn't made one whit of difference to him. According to what he said, that is.

Knees raised, tenting the blanket, Maggie rested her arms straight out and sifted snatches of conversation from the night before through a mental filter. So often males said one thing and meant something else. The trick for women was to figure out what they were really saying.

But this man was unpredictable. Every time she had him figured out, Garcia kicked her conclusions into outer space and did the last thing she expected.

The blanket in the sleeping alcove pushed aside. Marko stuck his head in. "Kaixo."

"Hi, yourself." Maggie smiled at him. "Thanks for getting me up that mountain yesterday. I know you saved my life."

He leaned against the door jamb and gave her an appealing, boyish-looking grin. "I owed you," he said.

For what--kidnapping her, or for what he did ten years ago? His face gave her no clues.

"You want something--what is it?"

She made a face at him. "Is there a ladies' room around here?"

"One ladies' room coming up." He disappeared into the main room and came back carrying a black-handled, white enameled pot. He set it in the middle of the floor and started to lift her.

"Oh no you don't!" She waved her arms clumsily in the air. "I absolutely draw the line there. I'll do this myself, thank you."

"How? You can't put weight on that knee, and you can't get your pants down with those arms splinted. It's either me or one of my men. Take your choice. It isn't like we're strangers, you know."

"The hell we aren't," she burst out. "Until three days ago, I never saw you in daylight."

Some things weren't worth arguing about. In one swoop, he had her off the bed and on the pot, her underwear whisked down around her ankles.

"Get out of here!" she shrieked, jerking the shirt tails over her knees. But he'd already disappeared through the doorway.

"Sit up, I have to talk to you," Marko ordered, stuffing a pillow behind her back. "Is your old man coming or not?" He threw himself on the bed across from her. It had been three days and he'd heard nothing from Madrid or Dixon.

"If I know him, he's in San Kristobal right now after your scalp. It's just a matter of hours before my dad busts through that door and nails Commander Marko Garcia's hide to the wall," she said smugly.

"Good, I'm counting on it."

"But I thought...I thought after yesterday you'd take me home."

"You thought wrong."

She stared at him soberly. "What's happened to you? When did you become so rough? You're nothing like the man I used to know. You've changed."

"So have you."

"You were a senator--something you'd dreamed all of your life about. Why did you give it up? Why did you turn against Spain and join the POJ?"

Arms crossed behind his head, Marko leaned against the wall and considered how to answer. For the last three years, he'd explained himself to no man. No woman. No exceptions. "Some other time."

"No, now, Garcia. I want to go home, and you won't take me. You owe me an explanation. No matter what you call it, I am still a hostage, and I have a right to know why." Her chin tipped up.

Marko smiled inwardly at her maneuvering. He would have had any other girl sized up and pigeonholed in his mind long ago. This one, however, didn't fit anywhere he tried to put her. But then, she never had. Which was what had attracted him to her ten years ago, he admitted.

For reasons he couldn't fathom, he suddenly found himself wanting to tell her, to make her understand.

"I didn't join POJ," he said, "I started it. Started it because I believe in law and order, and that's breaking down in this country."

"And you are part of the problem," she said tightly.

He shook his head. "No, Madrid is the problem, not me. It's no secret I opposed building the dams here. I came out publicly against them because I knew there'd be trouble. Unfortunately, I was right. When Basques who wouldn't sell to the Land Commission started disappearing, I called for an inquiry on the floor of the Cortes. Instead of coming in and cleaning house, they branded me a hothead and a separatist. The hell of it is, I'm pro-Spain--or was. I stopped that the day Diego's Land Commission came out and told me my property on the Perico River was selected as a site for a new hydroelectric dam."

"And you wouldn't sell."

"They never intended to put a dam there. For a dam, you need fast-moving water with the velocity to turn turbines, something with force behind it. My little Perico is maybe three feet deep after a week's hard rain and flat as a mill pond. Yet they offered me three million dollars for it."

"To keep your mouth shut."

He nodded. "I knew what they were doing, so I gave it to them, deeded over everything they needed on both sides of the river for the dam and all the access roads--after I had an engineering firm come in and do a feasibility study. Then, for a lawyer, I did a dumb thing. I walked into Diego's office and threw everything on his desk, told him the Land Commission was a fraud, and I intended to expose it. I didn't know I'd just made myself a walking target. As I left that day, I passed our old friend, Colonel Raul Soreno, waiting outside Diego's office. And I still didn't make the connection." Marko's voice rumbled, undershot with disbelief. He shook his head. "They came after me--Raul came after me."

"What happened? You used to be friends."

"That ended years ago when he went into the Civil Guards. Being Spanish and not Basque, he didn't carry the baggage I did about them. To me, they're still Franco's Nazis. Raul sold out for a few quick promotions. He didn't like hearing that. One thing led to another and before it was over, I got a list of gripes and grudges going back for years. Even you were on it."

"Me?"

"He said I stole you from him." Marko sighed. "And Leda, my wife. I didn't know she even knew Raul. I came home on leave one time and there she was, back from college, all grown up and beautiful. Raul thought they were engaged. Leda did not. Another ugly scene, but I was in love with her and not about to back out."

He dug in the crate between their beds and pulled out a brown folder. "I was running an experimental sheep ranch up here long before I ever went into politics."

He'd run his ranch as a "station band," moving his flock of fifteen hundred with the seasons, up to mountain pastures in summer, down to the valley before the snows came. He was crossbreeding Spanish Merinos, a white-woolen sheep with hair as fine as silk with the sturdier French and New Zealand Merinos he'd imported, trying to breed in heavier fleeces.

"Aw, Maggie, you should have seen them. I got fleeces that crimped like that." He looked at his bunched fist, as if seeing again the twelve-pound wool clips at shearing time that had made him shout with pride. About a week after the argument in Diego's office, he said, the telephone woke him early one morning.

"Get down here, boss," his foreman had yelled. "The sheep are dying!"

It was a rancher's nightmare. Dead sheep lay everywhere. Others staggered around the feedlot, tripping and fainting, their woolly faces twitching. He and Leda had watched helplessly as their prized ewes went into convulsions and jerked themselves to death.

"What do you know about anthrax?" he asked Maggie.

"Only that Daddy worries about it. Cattle get it, too. He says it's worse than nuclear fallout."

He nodded. "Can be. The spores can lie dormant in the ground for a hundred years, then suddenly come to life and wipe out a flock or a herd in a day. That's what they tried to say it was. It would have finished me as a rancher, which is what they meant to do."

"It wasn't anthrax?"

"Leda thought so because of the symptoms. Our crew had just moved the flock down for the winter, and she thought they'd grazed infected ground on the way down. I said no, because even our imported ewes were dying, and they'd been vaccinated against it." Not looking at her, he got to his feet and paced back and forth. Deep grooves dug into the corners of his mouth.

He and Leda put food and water samples and three sick ewes into his pickup and raced into town to the vet. Leda insisted on riding in the back with them, he said, his voice a pained whisper. Halfway down the mountain, the road became a series of steep, winding S-curves. He swallowed. "I braked for a curve."

And the pedal flopped to the floor.

He was still pumping when they took out the guardrail, airborne for long, terrifying seconds. Buckled in, he rode it down, rolling end over end over end, until they hit a tree.

"I went through the windshield. Leda was already dead, but I didn't know it."

He stood in front of the little window, head slumped, hands braced on either side of the frame. A siren wailed in his mind. Images blurred by.

Him, in an emergency room, soaked in blood, his face split to the bone. A doctor in a white coat..."Sorry, senador, so very sorry. There was nothing we could do. Señora Garcia was dead on arrival."

And him, bent over a table in a green-curtained cubicle, holding her, weeping as Leda grew cold in his arms. They'd been trying to kill him, but they'd got her instead.

"Marko, it was an accident, a terrible accident, but it wasn't your fault."

"It was no accident," he said dully. "And, in a way, it was my fault. The brake lines had been cut on the truck. It was me they were after, not her."

The words shoved from his throat, bitter, angry. "They poisoned the sheep with a rodenticide that's been outlawed in Spain for years. It's as bad as cyanide, but without the almond smell, and it works like that!" There was a sharp smack of flesh meeting flesh as he struck his fist in his open palm. "Someone knew exactly what to use--sodium fluoroacetate, odorless, tasteless. Sheep aren't stupid. If they'd smelled anything at all, they wouldn't have touched it."

Maggie picked the folder up, her heart aching. He suddenly looked ten years older.

"Read it and note the dates," he said. "Diego ordered it from a supplier in Paris the same day I deeded the land over. The confirmation is in there. So is a warning tag and a copy of the Material Safety Data Sheet. A friend of mine at the airport pulled them off when someone else picked them up for Diego."

Maggie fumbled through the papers in her lap--a copy of the deed, the engineering report on the dam, autopsies on the sheep, food and water analyses, and a black and yellow receipt tag. As she turned the cardboard ticket over in her hand, the color drained from her face.

Luis had signed for it.

Marko walked to the doorway. "Now maybe you understand why I loathe your boyfriend."

"Luis wouldn't do something like that," she whispered, sounding sick. "He's a doctor. He just couldn't." She stared at the ticket, hollow-eyed, her hands shaking so badly the folder fell and scattered the papers across the bed. Clumsily, she stacked them together and put them back.

Marko scrubbed his face with both palms. "Maggie, I need that investigation. I'm asking you to stay willingly until your father comes for you. A week or two, that's all I'm asking. I'll do anything you want in exchange for that. Please, Maggie." Naked hope shone in his eyes.

God, it was tempting to help him. He'd tried to do something honorable and right, and it had destroyed his life. No wonder he was bitter. She hadn't understood before because she didn't know. Now she did. If she refused him, he'd never forgive her.

If it was true.

A fist of doubt hit her in the chest so hard she winced. Her mind reeled. She'd known him--really known him--only four days. All she knew was what he'd told her. Could she believe him? Was he right?

"Don't ask me that...please don't ask me that. I'm so sorry for what happened to you, for what happened to your wife, but I can't."

"Why?" One hoarse word that tore at her heart.

"Because I must not take sides with you against Spain. It would embarrass my country, embarrass my father. We're an ally."

"You shouldn't be."

"What if...what if you're wrong?"

"About what--about GAL, about twenty-three murders, about my wife?" He looked across at her, incredulous. The hope she'd seen a moment before was gone.

"I'm sorry, Marko, I'm so sorry." Tears poised on her eyelids. "And I'm sorry I called you a bastard. You're not."

He rose to his feet. "You're wrong. Because a bastard is exactly what I am." In the doorway, he paused, lit a cigarette, and waved the match out slowly. Amazing. After all these years, he could still be taken in by a woman. She didn't believe him.

"You stay, whether you want to or not," he rasped. "With or without your help, I will get that investigation."

Maggie plucked at the sleeve of the army shirt she wore. "And turn me over wrapped in a blanket like an Indian?" Her voice scaled up angrily. "I have one shoe, a broken brassiere, and a torn skirt to wear."

Marko snatched the cigarette from his lips. "Grow up, Miss Dixon! This is a revolution, not a dinner party."

And he walked out.

Maggie fell back on the pillow and turned her face to the wall.

Damn you, Luis!

She met Luis two days after she'd begun her new job in Spain. At the first Board of Directors meeting at the Institute for Latin Research, she submitted a complaint about a rat problem at the building leased by the Institute for the youth center. Not surprising, Luis told her that evening over dinner. The building was an old shipping terminal on the wharf and had stood empty for seven years. Luis, a Board member and physician for the Center, had donated the men and materials to renovate it for the youth center. He promised he'd take care of the rats.

He did. Compound 1080 was what he used, and he guaranteed results. He was right. In the three months since, she hadn't seen a rat or a mouse or so much as a roach at the Center. Not even an ant.

Maggie pushed herself up in the bed in Marko's cabin and reached for his brown folder again. Lips tight, she took out the black and yellow ticket and read what Luis had signed for.

Sodium Fluoroacetate. Relief flooded through her.

The Material Safety Data Sheet, filled with two columns of warnings in fine print, slid off her lap and fell to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, two words jumped out of the middle of the page.

Compound 1080.

Numbed, she read the warnings.

They were the same thing.

Chapter 15

Sunday, August 27, 1995

A handful of stars glimmered in the breaks of a milky overcast. At a small farm outside Montserrat, twenty miles northeast of San Kristobal, the high-pitched whine of turboshaft engines rolled along the Rio Llobregat, the sound gliding along the smooth, lead-colored water. At treetop level, running lights out, a helicopter clattered in low and fast.

It hovered, rotors chopping, tail turning. Briefly, the searchlight under its nose stabbed on and swept the ground beneath as the chopper landed. The light cut off. The pilot and a passenger climbed out in the darkness. Walking fast, the two men headed toward a lighted cottage in the distance.

Halfway to the house, a small, slender man let out his breath and lowered his rifle. He called softly and stepped from behind a tree, clapping both arms around them, hugging them. Smiling, he answered the commander's question.

"Sí, sí. But of course," he said. They followed him to a long, low shed and pushed open the doors. Minutes later, the farmer watched the tail lights of his Volkswagen bouncing down the dirt road for the highway to San Kristobal. He turned and went inside.

Under a lamppost, Marko checked the address again: Padre Damian 23, second floor. Maggie's apartment was on the outskirts of San Kristobal, a three-story, pink stucco building at the end of a brick street barely wide enough for a small car to travel. Flagstones or slate--it was so dark he couldn't tell which--ran down one side as a walkway between the street and the high walls that surrounded the houses. Here and there, a street lamp flickered, throwing a pale yellow circle of light onto uneven bricks, plunging the areas between the lamps into darkness. Slowly, he moved up the street, into and out of the islands of light, his shadow stretching behind. Not a policeman in sight.

Using the key he'd found in Maggie's handbag, he unlocked the wooden gate. It swung open soundlessly. He slipped through into a jungly Moorish courtyard with a small trickling fountain and blended into the shadows along the wall. Minutes before, he'd used a pay phone at the corner and called her apartment, letting it ring and ring until he was convinced no one was home. Motionless, he stayed in the shadows, studying the darkened windows of her apartment. It looked easier than he'd hoped.

Each apartment opened onto a balcony. Jutting out at right angles from the back of the building, black iron trellises ascended on both sides, arching over the balcony in a domed canopy. A rampant vine, white flowers folded against the night, covered the grillwork.

It was late, the soft night air warm and languid and heavy with the perfume of jasmine. The chirruping trill of a cricket sawed monotonously, cutting off when Marko moved out into the open courtyard. Near the house, Marko broke into a short run. With a jump and a catlike twist, he caught the trellis. Leaves rustled, shook. Five arm-lifts later he was up and swinging his legs over the railing. With two slight scraping sounds, he dropped onto her little gallery. A penlight glimmered. He slipped a credit card between the door and the frame, then probed a small steel pick in the lock. Half a minute later he pushed inside, closed the draperies tight, and felt for the light switch.

It was typical of apartments in Kristobal: three airy, high-ceilinged rooms with ceiling fans and plants everywhere. The decor was not at all what he'd expected. It was bank-vault modern. He didn't know why, but that surprised him. If he'd had to guess, he would have said Maggie Dixon liked ruffles and Early American, or heavy, colonial Spanish. Not this.

Standing in a stark, no-nonsense living room, he ran his hand along the back of a marshmallow-soft black leather sofa. Brightly colored cushions knotted with black fringe were tossed along its length. Across from it, an eye-popping orange and blue striped chair faced a chrome and glass coffee table.

He felt no sense of her presence, nothing that said who lived here, and it hit him how little he really knew about her. The apartment belonged to a Maggie Dixon he'd never known. Absently, he squatted on his haunches in front of her stereo, flipping through a stack of tapes and compact disks, reading the titles. A minute later, he stood up, hands on his hips.

Classics. Strings, piano, violin, guitar. No country music. She had changed.

Three walls in the living room were stark white and bare, but one was a clutter of bric-a-brac and wall hangings and a weird abstract painting of a fluorescent blue, one-eyed fish. He picked up a silver frame from a group of photographs on the end table, a picture of the Dixon family at a horse show when Maggie was about twelve or thirteen. She was wearing a riding habit, knee-high boots, and a jaunty little red derby. In her arms, she held a trophy cup and was grinning at a chestnut stallion.

Star.

His instant recall of the horse's name startled him. He hadn't thought of that animal in ten years.

And there was Duke Dixon, looking at him. The senator beamed at the camera, huskier than Marko remembered, his arms draped across the shoulders of his daughter and his pretty, dark-haired wife. Marko recalled dancing with Connie Dixon at the party, a talented, gracious lady. He'd liked her, but not her husband. Dixon, he'd disliked from the minute he laid eyes on him. From what Maggie said, the feeling was mutual.

Marko set the frame down and jerked away, his jaw tightening.

In the bedroom, a queen-sized water bed stood between two windows, a tangle of sheets and pillows, unmade. Over the bed, a white ceiling fan paddled slowly, barely stirring the air. Marko frowned up at it, then found the switch and turned it off.

He began opening dresser drawers and grabbing out clothes. Sweaters, jeans, tee shirts went into the burlap sack he'd brought with him. Socks. He'd almost forgotten socks. A thick red sweatshirt sailed into the bag. It was cold up there at night.

Another drawer, this one full of lingerie. He pinched the straps of a filmy flesh-colored brassiere and dangled it out in front of him as if it were wet. He could see right through the thing. It coiled into the bag.

Down on his knees, he fished through lace and silk, examining skimpy bikini briefs, tiny triangles of fabric no bigger than his palm. He scooped a handful out, threw them into the bag, and opened the closet's louvered doors.

Neat and tidy, just like Maggie Dixon's life. He flipped the hangers back, unaccountably annoyed that everything was arranged by size and color, blouses, then skirts, then dresses. On a whim, he snatched a lacy black eyelet dress off a hanger and dropped it in with the other clothes. For a moment, he looked at it, lying in a heap on top. He picked it up again. Leda would have worn a slip under that. He waggled his fingers through the eyelet. A faint perfume fragrance stilled his hands. This was the first time in three years he'd held a woman's clothes. Slowly, he folded the dress and laid it in the bag.

Hunting through more drawers, he found what he was looking for--a slip. Red satin. Good enough.

It was then that he saw the men's clothes, a shorter man's clothes. Jeans, expensive brown slacks, a designer sport shirt. Marko swore softly.

And not Dixon's either. Dixon was as big as he was.

On his haunches, he batted the hems of her dresses away from his head and picked up a pair of men's running shoes. Spotless white Reeboks, size eight. The little doctor's, no doubt. Alazar didn't have feet; he had hoofs. Marko looked down at his size fourteens and straightened up.

He turned out the light, staring at the bed as he passed, wondering how often Luis slept in it. And if he was any good in it.

Next, he went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He grabbed a toothbrush, a handful of cosmetics--bottles and boxes and tubes--and pink nail polish. He liked pink nail polish. On the top shelf were two more disks of birth control pills. Without a second's hesitation, he pitched them into the bag.

Back in the living room, he sank onto the couch. Feet up on her coffee table he toyed with the photograph of Maggie and her parents again. It was her father's clothes he'd hoped to find there, some sign that Dixon was in Spain. He rubbed his jaw. Why the hell wasn't Dixon there yet? His daughter had been kidnapped four days ago.

And in those four days no one been to her apartment, not even Luis. If he had, he would have turned the fan off and stopped the paper.

It didn't fit. Something was wrong.

Marko's gaze jumped to the carpet inside the front door and the pile of newspapers that had been pushed through the slot.

He went over and gathered them up, then spread them all out on the coffee table. Thursday's, he pitched aside. The story had missed that edition.

Page by page, he leafed through the Friday, Saturday, and today's editions of "El Mundo." The paper was full of the raid on the legislature, complete with a photograph of the chopper flying over downtown, taken by an excited pedestrian on the ground. Even the governor had been interviewed about his radical son in another lurid half-page article. But not one mention of the POJ taking a hostage. Not one word about Maggie St. Clair's disappearance--and dozens of men, including her own fiancé, had seen him take her.

Marko's head snapped up at a noise in the hallway, more sensed than heard. He grabbed the bag of clothes and snapped off the light, then slipped out the sliding door to the balcony. Back flattened against the wall of the house, he tensed, listening, his automatic out and in his hand.

Three men entered the apartment, talking in undertones. Marko inched closer to the glass door. The table lamp was on. Through the slit where the draperies met, he caught a glimpse of three forms moving around the living room. One, a dark-skinned man in uniform, he recognized immediately. Raul. Another in plainclothes was probably one of his hoods. The third man stood by the couch's end table, his back to the sliding door and Marko. When he turned to hand something to Soreno, Marko ducked back. Luis! Scarcely breathing, he waited.

They didn't stay long. Whatever it was they wanted, they found it.

When he heard a car leave on the street out front, he slipped back inside and shined his penlight around the living room. Everything was as he'd left it, even to the papers scattered around the floor. They'd been in such a hurry, they'd missed that. Curious, he examined the end table where he'd seen Luis take something. A full minute went by before it registered what was gone--the photograph of Maggie and her parents. He shook his head, puzzled.

In the back of his mind, suspicion jelled into fact: Spain was concealing Maggie's abduction.

Dixon wasn't there because Dixon didn't know.

Using the penlight, he checked his watch, running the six-hour time difference over in his head. Ten p.m. in Spain; four in the afternoon in Virginia. In the faint glimmer of the penlight, he punched in a number.

Poised on a diving board in Quail Hollow, Virginia, Connie Dixon straightened at the insistent jangle of the patio phone. She called to her husband, climbing out of the other end of the pool. "Thad, honey, can you get that?"

Dixon heaved himself out of the water and grabbed up a towel. "Dixon, here," he drawled, drying his face. As he listened to the caller, his mouth went slack, a gray looseness under the jowls. He sank onto a chaise at the side of the pool, gripping the receiver, a ten-year-old nightmare playing in his mind.

In an alley three blocks from Maggie's apartment, Pablo Basterra slouched in the seat of the Volkswagen, his hat over his face. But under the brim, his eyes moved constantly, checking the rearview and side mirrors and watching the headlights of cars passing the end of the alley.

He shifted uneasily. For the third time in as many minutes, he pressed the illuminating button on his watch and got a quick red readout--10:07. Marko had been gone twenty minutes. Too long. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Tonight made no sense to him. Marko was the most cautious, deliberate man he'd ever known. Strike fast, get in, get out, no heroics....

Jesu, he'd hammered that stuff into them until they could recite it in their sleep. And one thing he never did was take risks. More than once, he'd scrubbed an operation at the last minute simply because it didn't feel right.

10:08.

And tonight sure as hell didn't feel right, Pablo thought. He'd been listening for sirens for twenty minutes, the hair standing on his neck, and wondering what he'd do if he heard them. And for a bunch of clothes! A week ago, the Marko Garcia he knew would've ripped someone up both sides for suggesting a scheme like this. And touchy...he'd never known him to be so touchy about a girl.

10:09.

Orders or no orders, five more minutes and he was going after him.

He and Marko had met at a counterinsurgency course for U.S. allies at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Guerrilla movements--how to recognize them, how to stop them--was taught by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces to the cream of the world's fighting men. Marko was a captain in Spanish Army Intelligence; Pablo had been the personal pilot of Panama president General Omar Torrijos. Drawn together by culture and language, he and Marko became friends and stayed in touch. When Torrijos was killed in a suspicious jungle plane crash, Pablo saw the handwriting on the wall--a spray of bullets one evening as he bent into the refrigerator.

A fast phone call to Marko in Edorta, and Pablo and his sister were on their way to Spain. Marko met them at the airport and hid them at his ranch. Later, when POJ had needed a pilot, they had one of the best.

A dark figure carrying a bundle turned off the sidewalk into the alley, walking fast toward the car. Pablo sat up straight and reached for the Volkswagen's ignition switch. "About time, lover boy," he muttered.

The passenger door opened. Marko tossed the sack of clothes into the back and slid in. "Let's go."

"You're loco." Pablo threaded the car through the narrow alley and out onto the Boulevard of the Saints. Carefully, he merged into the heavy traffic. Sleepy Spain was a myth. Kristobal came alive at night, jumping with street bands and discos and runaway guitars. Tourism was at an all-time high. Everyone took VISA and MasterCard and American Express. And the nightlife was...Pablo grinned in the dark...ripe.

He eased up to a traffic light, not wanting to attract attention. Alongside, the blinking neon sign on the corner bar flickered reddish reflections across their faces, giving both men a sinister look.

"This is the craziest thing you've ever done," Pablo said quietly, his eyes riveted on a police car speeding through the intersection, blue lights flashing. "What if they were watching her place? You could have been picked up."

"They weren't and I wasn't. I had to get inside her apartment, and it's exactly as I thought. No one knows we have her. Spain's ducking it."

"Why?"

"I wish I knew."

Pablo leaned forward and punched on the Volkswagen's radio. For ten minutes, they listened as they threaded out of the city and picked up the road back to the farm and their helicopter. At eleven o'clock, the station came on with the news and then switched to a live interview with Governor Garcia. Pablo reached to turn it off.

"Leave it on," Marko said.

It started off mildly enough with a recounting of the attack on the legislature chambers.

"And when was the last time you spoke with your son, Governor?" the announcer asked, steering the conversation around to Ernesto's soured relationship with Marko.

"I have no son," Ernesto Garcia said flatly.

In a Volkswagen, driving a winding country road, Pablo watched the son Ernesto didn't have look straight ahead, jaws tight, listening to his father denounce him as a traitor and a mad man. Ernesto finished the interview with, "May his sainted mother and the good people of Spain forgive me for having sired him."

Pablo swore softly. "Your old man is a real bastard."

"Forget it. He doesn't mean it."

Resting his elbow on the open window frame, Marko turned to the cool night air spilling in on his side and rubbed his fingers back and forth across his mouth.

It was miles before he spoke again.

Maggie sat up in bed as Marko lit the lantern and set it on the chest between their beds. Eyes gleaming, he opened the bag and handed her a little portable radio--her own. He dropped a pair of jeans and a red and black sweatshirt stamped RIO GRANDE UNIVERSITY into her lap.

"Is that where you teach?" he asked.

She let out an indignant shriek. "You rat--these are mine! You broke into my apartment! Why didn't you take me back?"

He squatted on his heels and bent over the sack again. He was dressed all in black--black trousers, black shirt, sneakers. With the white toothpaste grin and curly dark hair, he looked like a happy gangster. He set her running shoes on the floor and dangled a pair of socks ceremoniously in the air. She snatched the bag away from him and looked inside. A sweater, underwear, her toothbrush. She groaned aloud. And her pills.

"You're upset, Margarita."

"Of course I'm upset. You were into everything!" She felt exposed, violated, at the thought of this man nosing through her drawers, snooping in her closet, satisfying his own morbid, male curiosity. She glared at the bikinis and wanted to smack him. They were no accident either. She shook her head, distracted by a handful of cosmetics he'd just dumped on the bed: lip balm, suntan lotion, toothpaste, nail polish. She pitched the compacts of birth control pills aside. "I don't need these."

Marko's smile faded. He slapped his thighs and straightened up. "Don't be too sure about that," he said softly.

She sucked her breath in, startled at the subtle male undertone she heard. "Is that some kind of threat?"

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, then glanced at the pill container in her hand. "Your call, professor. Just remember, I'm not the only man up here."

"You're the only one I'm ever with, and you don't worry me one bit."

Slowly, he blinked at her. "If you're half as smart as you think you are, you'll take the damned pills." He turned and strode into the other room without once looking back.

All her alarm signals went off at once, her knowledge of male behavior warning her to watch out for this one. Most men couldn't have resisted a glance over the shoulder for a woman's reaction to that last statement. The fact that he didn't spoke volumes about his control. He did it deliberately, knowing exactly how she'd read it.

Maggie stared at the empty space in the doorway, puzzled by the heated look she'd just seen in his eyes. How long had that been there? Only yesterday he said the attraction was gone.

It wasn't--for either of them.

A small sinking feeling dug at the pit of her stomach. She'd thought she was over him. Completely. Yet, the idea of his interest both excited and disturbed her because her feelings for him now had nothing to do with the Mikel he used to be. They had everything to do with Marko Garcia, the dangerous man he had become.

Shakily, she covered her face with her hands.

She didn't want to want him.

Chapter 16

Head down, hands shoved in his pockets, Marko strode up the dirt path to the barracks and his men, the only place in the whole camp he could get away from Maggie Dixon. For the first time in a long time, he intended to get blind drunk.

Ungrateful little witch. He swore softly and booted a rock out of his way. The underbrush alongside rustled, as some startled animal fled at his approach. He peered after it, chasing the sound into the trees, but with only starlight to see by, he couldn't tell what it was.

From the low building ahead of him, he heard voices, laughter, a radio newscast.

He went inside, into a big, crowded room with thirty cots and tables along one end. Some of the men were asleep. Two played chess, while a group lolled on the floor in the space between the beds, kibitzing. At a table against the far wall, four men were playing brisca, a Spanish canasta, the radio he'd heard from outside within arm's reach.

The instant Marko stepped through the door, the conversation broke off mid-sentence. Glances interchanged and the men darted looks at the six empty cots of the men he'd kicked out. A red-bearded man reached across the table and snapped off the news program coming over. He wasn't fast enough.

Marko raised a hand and shrugged nonchalantly. "Gracias, Ricardo, but I heard it earlier. That's nothing new for the old man. Just talk--he doesn't mean it."

He grabbed a porrón off the table--a spouted glass bottle of wine--and held it up in a mock toast. "To my dear Papa." Throwing his head back, he jetted a stream of wine into his mouth, drinking in the Spanish manner, without touching his lips to the bottle. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and, in a swaggering display of machismo, spun a chair around on its leg and straddled it. He rubbed his hands together.

"Deal me in," he said.

"Sure." Ricardo Ortiz peeled off the cards and flipped them across the table toward Marko.

Five minutes later, Marko stared at a good hand, trying to forget the mouthy blonde he'd left in his cabin. Nothing he did was right with her. Under the circumstances, why did he bother? She wasn't his type. Never had been. Brooding, he unintentionally discarded an ace. Three other hands slapped for it.

It was a noisy game, high-spirited, accompanied by rolls of laughter. The men drank and called out in disgust when their opponents fanned their cards on the table and called out points.

"Come on, deal again, and this time, don't cheat! You're as bad as my kids." Roberto Mendariz, a young, thickset blond man, and the father of twin daughters, scowled around at everyone in general.

At first, Marko's voice was as loud as theirs, liking the warmth, the camaraderie, the discipline of men. It was Sunday night. Most of those who'd checked in for the explosives demonstration at the towers had left that afternoon to return to their families and jobs. The rest would leave in the morning, and the group would be back to just the regulars.

Except for the brief years of his marriage, most of his life had been spent in the company of males--boys' schools, team sports, the Academy, the military. And these men. Men, he'd always felt, looked after each other in ways women never did. With a man, you always knew where you stood. A cameo face with angry green eyes floated in front of him. Men, at least, were predictable.

"Isn't that right, Marko?" Eduardo Guridi, a pink-cheeked man in his thirties and already going gray, drew another card and laughed.

Marko reeled his attention back in. "What's that?"

"I said our little Anglo's a looker, all right. Why, her hair's prettier than Roberto's here." He leaned over and mussed Mendariz's taffy-colored hair, laughing when Roberto batted his hand away. "But she's got bird bones...not enough there to get a hold of. Me?--I like a good handful of tit myself."

Marko didn't respond, but his hunched shoulders and sudden dark expression signaled his answer.

"Why so touchy? All I said was it looks to me like her little--"

"Discard!"

"Shut up, Eddie," Roberto muttered, and the others exchanged knowing looks.

Nothing went right. Normally a good player, Marko lost one hand after another. A bottle was passed around. Then another. As the evening wore on, he grew quieter, drawing himself in. He didn't often let things get to him like tonight.

Why did you say that, Papa?

A shot of sympathy tore through him for a dark-haired little boy with hair in his eyes, prowling the estate for someone to play with, of long summers with a housekeeper who spoke no Spanish. Ernesto was always gone, off to a dinner, banquet, fund-raiser, or whatever. An upbringing like that would warp any kid.

Marko thumbed the cards apart in a morose silence, playing his hand indifferently. His father had always been unapproachable, cool, aloof, and his son had taken his cues from him. Still, he'd never expected his father to say that, nor the hard lump of emotion stuck in his throat like a peach pit. Time and again, he reached for the bottle and drank deeply. Guridi, Ortiz, and Mendariz talked and kidded him, trying to include him in the conversation, trying to pull him out of his mood. All they got were grunts. Finally, they gave up and played their own hands in silence.

Sometime after two, Marko realized the pips on the cards were running together, and he couldn't tell a jack from a queen any more. Head whirling, he pitched them into the center of the table and stood up. "Count me out. I'm going to bed."

Everyone sighed with relief.

He headed down the trail to his cabin, concentrating on walking. Just the placement of one foot in front of the other required thought. The world had not begun to spin yet, but he sensed it had loosened around the edges, was beginning to wobble a bit out beyond the curve. He tripped over a root. Arms pin-wheeling, he chuckled and got his heels under him.

He tiptoed up the steps to the cabin. Humming under his breath, he undressed in the dark, stumbling into things quietly, trying not to rouse Maggie. She wasn't asleep. She had the pillow over her face trying not to make a sound. The leader of the Basque rebels was pie-eyed! A muffled snicker escaped.

"Wha's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, and rolled over, her back to him.

"Sí, something is wrong. You crying?" Unsteadily, he crawled on his hands and knees across the small space between the beds. "Oops!" His shoulder collided with her bed.

Coordination gone, Marko lurched across her bed with an explosive grunt, sprawling half on top of her. Laughing helplessly, he threw his arm over her.

Maggie struggled to move away, pushing at him, but he was too heavy, too big. She turned her face away. "Phew, you're drunk."

"I...know."

"Go on now, you don't know what you're doing," she said kindly.

"Cristo, don't you say that, too." He laid his head on the pillow next to hers. "Mmmmm, you smell nice."

"You don't."

He smiled against her cheek and tunneled a hand into her hair.

She twisted her face away. "Get in your own bed, Marko."

"You let Luis sleep in your bed?"

She hesitated.

"How often?"

She shoved him again, pushing against big bare shoulders. "Go a-way."

The resolve he heard in her voice parted the mists in his brain. Trying to push himself off her, his elbow buckled. He pitched face down again, his nose flattened against her pillow. The room started into a slow, lazy spin. Por Dios, his head hurt. His eyes closed. In seconds, he was either asleep or passed out.

Maggie shoved him but he didn't budge. Not an inch. For all the good it did, she might have been pushing a bus. Pinned under an arm, a hip, and a long, heavy leg, she squirmed, but it was useless. She finally fell sleep.

Her eyes flew open. Ears straining, Maggie listened for the noise that awakened her. Footsteps, deep whispers, boots creeping onto the porch. Her heart thumped so hard, she could hear it. The front door squeaked open, long and slow.

"Marko, wake up," she said, her voice low, urgent in his ear. She shook him. "Someone's breaking in!"

The blanket in the alcove glowed eerily. From the other side, the beam of a flashlight played back and forth across it.

The curtain jerked aside. She gasped. A flashlight beam swept across her bed, blinding her.

"Perdón, señorita," a voice said. "A thousand pardons--I did not know."

Maggie frowned. Didn't know what? "Who's there?" she demanded.

A pause, a man's voice again. "It's Pablo--Pablo Basterra, the pilot...excuse me, excuse me. Marko, wake up! Al instante!"

There was a shuffling of feet and ripples of choked laughter. A voice in the dark spoke in Basque, and someone snickered.

"Shut up, you fools!" the pilot said.

A match scratched, glass clinked metal, the lantern flooded the room with light. Watching from the doorway stood a small gang of tough-looking men. Maggie looked out from under Marko's shoulder and said, "This is not what it looks like! Get him off me."

Pablo dropped to one knee grabbed Marko by the shoulder, and rolled him over. Marko flopped onto his back, out cold, spread-eagled like a fighter down for the count.

"In the name of God, I do not believe this," the pilot said, turning to Maggie. In heavy, accented English, he ordered, "Get up, Miss Dixon. Soldiers coming."

"Whose soldiers?"

"Not sure." Silently, he nibbled the gum to the front of his mouth. He grabbed up a pair of pants and a shirt off the floor and underhanded them to one of the men. "Sober our Romeo up fast. They'll be here by daylight."

"Is she coming?" asked Jaime Arestegi, the young airplane mechanic who'd been one of her guards the day before.

A man she couldn't see, José Borunda, cut in angrily in Spanish. "Leave her here. It's her they want anyway."

"There's nothing in the papers about us taking her," Pablo answered, in Spanish. After Soreno and Alazar showed up at her apartment tonight, Marko called her father, told him we have her and why. Dixon was shocked, said the U.S. knew nothing about it, said he knew nothing about it. Marko says that's a bad sign, that Diego will kill her now to stop an investigation. No, we take her, unless Marko wants to dump her."

In a few minutes, they had him dressed and sitting at the table in the big room. Cold sweat beaded his forehead and his brain was wool. Chin in his hands, Marko sulked over a mug of black coffee, staring down at it, breathing in the bitter fumes. He struggled to listen, more aware of the hard table under his elbows than what Pablo was saying to him.

Guerrilla intelligence in San Kristobal, they told him, had sent a rider to warn them. They'd monitored a broadcast between two passing cars in town. Someone knew the location of the guerrilla base. An attack was planned for 0600.

"They tracked us tonight...coming back from her place, didn't they?" he mumbled.

Pablo nodded. "Didn't think so, but they must have."

Marko pinched the bridge of his nose and swore quietly. "What time is it?"

"Three-fifteen. We got two hours, tops. Maybe less. You want to stay and fight?"

Marko shook his head. "If they're waiting for daylight, Soreno's coming, not the army. His pilots are Cubans. Even with radar, they won't risk these canyons at night. They'll flatten this place with rockets." He drained the coffee and slid the mug away from him. Without a word, Pablo filled it again and pushed it back.

He raised his eyes and looked up at Pablo. "Our chopper ready?" he asked, his words thick.

"Whenever you are."

Marko leaned heavily on the table and pushed himself to his feet. "Let's go."

"The woman?"

"Comes with us."

Lips icy white at the corners, Maggie stood stock-still, numbed by what she'd heard. No one knew she was gone. Luis had never called her father! And why would Diego's men bomb the camp if they knew she was there? It made no sense.

Everyone else thought it did.

Outside the cabin it was chaos. Shouts, muffled curses, and running footsteps sounded in the night as men rushed everywhere, breaking camp in the dark. Flashlights winked among the trees as the guerrillas loaded the helicopter.

A little fumble-fingered, Marko was down on one knee tying her shoes. The determined set to his mouth, the way he yanked the laces tight, jolted her. He was worried. A surreal nightmare of exploding missiles and bombs crowded everything else out of her mind. Stomach knotting, Maggie looked down at the crown of the curly dark head bent over her shoes.

Bad as he was, he was all she had.

Up at the stables, a lantern hissed from an iron bracket. She saw silhouettes of a dozen men loading mules with crates of weapons and ammunition. José Borunda and Roberto Mendariz and half a dozen others on horseback held several more animals by long ropes attached to their halters. With a chorus of shouts and yells, they led them off into the mountains.

Marko started outside for one last sweep around the camp. She hobbled to the door after him. "Aren't you afraid I'll run off?" she called, uneasy that he was leaving her.

Bleary-eyed, he turned on the steps and looked up at her standing on the porch. "You better not go anywhere. I'm the only hope you've got to stay alive. Frankly, I don't give a damn what you do. You run off tonight, lady, I am not looking for you."

Without a backward glance, he went on down the steps and strode up the trail, surrounded by a group of men. A minute later a big Sumo- wrestler type dragged a chair into the open doorway of the cabin and sat down. He folded his arms and glared.

Maggie fumed. They were all mad at her, and she hadn't done a thing. Kicking and screaming--a bag over her head if need be--the bastard was taking her with him.

They were the last ones out. When all the men had gone, the redhead, Ricardo Ortiz, piggybacked her down through the woods to the helicopter.

"You're choking me!" he snarled, loping down the hillside with her.

Maggie eased her grip on his neck. Eyes closed, she prayed the man knew where he was going. It was pitch black outside, and all she could think of were the land mines buried on the trail. He dumped her unceremoniously into a seat next to one of the side doors and tossed her bag of clothes into her lap.

From floor to ceiling, the cabin was jammed with crates and boxes lashed in place. The seats along the sides had been folded up, the space now piled with weapons, boxes, sleeping bags--anything too bulky or heavy to pack over the mountains. Even the bag of clothes she was holding had more bags piled on top.

Pablo climbed up into the cockpit and levered himself into the seat. Ricardo came in a side door carrying an American M60 machine gun. Doubled over, he hunched his way forward with it, climbing over bags and bundles in the dark. He squeezed down in a seat facing her. Marko and Manuel followed, swinging a washtub of lanterns and loose ammunition. They set it down inside. Like a cat, Manny scampered over and around the equipment in the center to sit up front with the pilot. With a screech of metal, Marko slid the door shut.

Pablo pulled on his headset, threw the pump switch on, pressed the cranking starter, and opened the throttle, all the time talking nonstop over his shoulder. The instrument panel was an array of red and green lights and digital screens. Maggie set her teeth together. She hated this thing.

A gliding whistle came out of nowhere.

Maggie shivered with nervousness, the air so thick with fumes she could taste them. Overhead, the turbojets were spooling up, a high-pitched, spinning whine. Vibrations flowed through her feet, up her legs, her spine.

In the cockpit, Pablo squinted through the windscreen into the night, waiting for his vision to adjust. As soon as he could distinguish one dark shape from another, he pulled on the stick. The wheels lifted. The Puma rose through a hole in the treetops.

Marko's voice by her ear startled her. "Qué pasa?"

"Nothing. I'm scared, that's all," she admitted, and gave a hopeless shrug.

Swaying with the motion of the ship, he held on to an overhead strap. The smell of fuel was fainter as the dual engines overhead sucked it in.

The dim amber light in the cabin threw eerie shadows in his face. Maggie looked up at him. "Go ahead, say it. It's because of me they're coming, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure they are coming, but I'm not waiting around to find out."

"You should have left me back there. Senator Diego is a friend of Luis's. They're coming to get me away from you, that's all."

"Perhaps."

She looked at him steadily. "But you don't think so?"

"No. I don't." He shifted uneasily, as if uncertain how to continue. "For your own protection, you need to know, but no matter what I say, you won't believe it."

"Try me."

"Right now, you're more of a threat to Diego than I am."

"Impossible. I've never even met the man."

"Have it your way. Officially, Madrid is trying to stay out of this. France and Portugal have hundreds of millions invested in those dams. If they get sucked into an investigation of GAL murders and corruption, it can turn into an international stink bomb. Right now, I count three countries that might want you dead."

"Great, just what I needed to hear."

Caught in a downdraft, the chopper dipped, then climbed higher. Maggie sat up straight. "Where are we going?"

"A place on the Rio Lima about forty miles from here."

She recognized the name. Luis's company had built the power plant for the Lima River Project. One Saturday, he'd driven her up to see it--a thin, graceful arch dam, a white crescent of concrete wedged into the Boumort gorge in the eastern Pyrenees. It was nearly completed, and the lake it would create upstream would back up for miles, filling valleys, and covering farmland and houses. No turbines hummed in the power plant at the base of the dam. Inside, only gleaming steel silence. Everything was shut off, the river shunted around the dam, instead of over it. According to Luis, there was no alternative until every acre of affected property had been acquired. Which wasn't going to be anytime soon, he'd said bitterly. Some of those ranchers weren't selling.

Marko sat down in the seat beside her and leaned back against the fuselage. Wearily, he rubbed his face with both hands. He'd made a royal fool of himself, passing out in her bed like that. Worse, he had a spearing headache, his mouth tasted like he'd been sucking rocks, and from all the coffee they'd poured into him, he had to pee again.

"I don't suppose you brought the aspirin," he said.

"Sorry."

He swore softly.

Up front, Pablo called out something in Basque and hooted with laughter. Then, for Maggie's benefit, he repeated it in Spanish, cackling over his shoulder to Marko, "In Panama, we have a saying that the consequence of great pleasure is often great pain."

Maggie stiffened and turned to Marko. "You rat, he thinks you're sleeping with me."

Marko closed his eyes. "I don't care what he thinks."

"Well, I do!" She rammed her elbow into the small canvas bag in her lap for emphasis.

Marko slitted his eyes, watching her punch the sack again. Just for spite, she rammed it again. Under her elbow, the contents yielded like softened butter.

"Stop beating on that bag!"

"Maybe I will, and maybe I won't." It was just an old brown sack with a zipper. "What's in here anyway?"

He smiled evilly. "C-4."

"What's that?"

"Plastique explosive, sixteen bars of it. Half of one of those little sticks you're mashing into a pillow could blow us all to hell and back."

With a little strangled sound, Maggie eased her elbows up.

In the glow of the amber light overhead, she sat very still and very straight in her seat, hardly breathing, her face the color of boiled rice. Eyes huge, she turned to him.

"You want me to hold it?"

She bobbed her head.

"Relax," he said, picking the bag off her lap and setting it under his seat. "It won't go off. It needs a detonator."

"Of course it needs a detonator. I'm not...not stupid."

He smirked. Stupid, the lady certainly wasn't, but she hadn't a clue how a detonator worked, either. "Sometimes I scare the shit out of you, don't I?"

She clenched her hands together in her lap and glared at him. "On purpose, I think."

"You hate me for that?"

"Of course I do."

"Kill the lights, Pablo," Marko called.

The amber light went out. In the dark, Marko reached over and pried her twisted fingers loose and held her hand in his large, rough one. He drew in a quick breath of surprise when she spread her fingers and wound them tightly with his.

Maggie shuddered and closed her eyes, saying nothing for the rest of the trip. She didn't move her hand and neither did he.

Ten minutes later, the ghostly outlines of a farmhouse and outbuildings took shape in the first light of day below. They clung to a hillside and that sloped down to the Rio Lima. Behind the house, a patchwork of terraced fields climbed the mountain to the tree line and were swallowed up. Through the gloomy center of it all, faintly reflective and lighter than the land, ran a lead-colored ribbon that was the Rio Lima.

The landing lights swept on. As the Puma descended to the hillside, a man came out of the house. Pablo slid the window open and waved. Marko pulled Maggie up and out of the helicopter with him. Ducking the rotors, Ricardo, Manuel, Marko, and Maggie moved aside and waited for the figure running toward them. Pablo stayed in the cockpit.

Marko grabbed the man and hugged him hard, then looked up at a shout.

"Marko, Marko!"

Hands outstretched, smiling, he walked toward a woman sprinting across the field, her long skirt bunched in her hands. Rapidly, he spoke to the couple in Basque. Switching to Spanish, he introduced Maggie to Dani and Amaya Estrada, the owners of the farm. Dani picked up Maggie's bag of clothes. Marko led Maggie aside.

"These people are friends of mine. Diego is trying to force Dani out, but he won't sell. Not at their price. Leaving our stuff here is too risky for him. Dani is willing, but I am not. We're going to take the chopper off and unload. I'll come back for you."

"You're not going to leave me here!" Maggie's voice wavered between apprehension and disbelief. He nodded. She grabbed his arm. "I don't want to stay without you. Take me along...please. I won't be any trouble, I promise. Please!"

"That's a switch," he said. "A few hours ago I was a rat, a thief, and a bastard. What changed your mind?"

"I haven't changed it," she flared. "You're still every one of those, but at least I know you."

Marko hesitated. In the blue jeans and red sweat-shirt he'd dressed her in, she looked small and vulnerable and very frightened. An indefinable sense that she was right nagged at him. He shook it off. Only fools followed hunches.

"Do what you're told to do," he said, scowling for the benefit of the others, who were watching them with interest. He lowered his voice. "Dani and Amaya are good people. They have three little kids inside. You stay here, eat something decent for a change. I'll be back for you." He frowned again for his audience's benefit. "I don't know how long I'll be gone, but I will be back. That's a promise."

Maggie opened her mouth.

"No." He turned her around, whispering in her ear as he did. "They don't know about Luis, so keep your mouth shut." He gave her a small push in Dani's direction. Then he climbed into the helicopter and sat beside Pablo.

The Puma's wheels lifted. Nose depressed, gaining forward speed, it climbed above the fence, the road, the trees. Marko glanced down at the figures below. It was daylight now. Head down, Maggie plodded along between Dani and Amaya, her sweatshirt a red speck growing smaller and smaller. She looked like a teenager, and he suddenly felt so old.

"Want to go back and get her?" Pablo asked.

Marko shook his head and slouched in his seat. He'd done enough stupid things for one night.

Chapter 17

With something close to panic rising in her throat, Maggie watched the helicopter beat its way across the sky. She felt like a child who'd been tagging along with the big kids, and they'd run off and left her. Amaya Estrada shyly touched her arm and nodded toward the house.

It was a typical Basque farmhouse, three stories tall, with a second-floor balcony running across the front. Fortress-walled, it was built of whitewashed stone and painted wood beams. The arched carriage door beneath the balcony opened into a tiled passageway, a corridor used to drive oxen through to a stable in the back of the house. The oxen, the carts, the stable, Amaya said, had been gone for years. A second-hand army jeep and a pickup truck for hauling sheep to nearby Organya had taken their place.

Though it was still August, man-tall stacks of cordwood were piled by the front door. At that mile-high elevation, it was cold at night.

Beyond the house lay corrals and outbuildings--sheep pens, long, low barns, a silo. Off to the right lay a large cornfield. Beyond it, the terrain rose steeply, terraced with vegetable gardens stairstepping up the hillside.

Amaya clucked her tongue at her guest's bleak expression. Placid, dark eyes looked out from a face more Spanish than Basque.

"Relax, you're safe here," she said in Spanish. Taking the bag of Maggie's clothes from her husband, she led her past a young, dark-haired boy working a pump under the oak tree in the side yard. Maggie hobbled after her, into the house and upstairs to a small room off a railed wooden gallery that overlooked the kitchen.

The sloping walls and ceiling were papered with honeysuckle blooms climbing up one side and down the other. A white wooden dresser and an iron single bed covered with a quilt were the only furniture. At one time it must have served as a storage area for foodstuffs, for the room still held a faint fruity odor. This was her new cell. Maggie sank onto the side of the bed and clenched her hands between her knees. She didn't know these people, and despite what Marko had said about the Estradas, they worried her. The wife was talkative and friendly, but her husband Dani had hardly said a word. It might be a trick.

On her way out of the room, Amaya paused in the doorway. "The bathroom's next door. Marko said you'd probably want a bath first thing. Breakfast will be ready when you are." Her eyes danced. "My instructions are to feed you. Marko says a woman is like good bacon. To be tasty, she needs a little fat." She went out and started downstairs to the kitchen.

Maggie stared sullenly at the open door. She couldn't care less about Marko Garcia's preference in women. "Isn't he afraid I'll run away again?" she called from the bed.

A soft laugh carried back to her. "He knows you will."

It was a old-fashioned porcelain tub with claw-feet and chrome faucets. Turning the water on hard, Maggie shucked off her clothes, stepping out of them as they fell in a heap around her feet. She unwound the gauze from her arms, and a moment later, slid into soothing, wonderful hot water. With a shudder of gratitude, she submerged herself into the pore-warming heat.

Eyes closed, she gave herself up to it, aware of her heart pounding, of a deep-seated quivering in her muscles, as if she'd just run a mile. She willed herself to relax, forced the tension from her muscles until her arms and legs lifted, borne up by the water. Limp, silent, she let the water wash over her.

The warmth, the quiet, the seeming normalcy of life at that minute chased the numbing fears away. In a near stupor, she languished until the water cooled. Reluctantly, she scrubbed herself pink and shampooed her hair, rinsing it by sinking under the surface.

She climbed out and dried off, worked the jeans on over her bad leg. She stuck her good leg out and turned it this way and that, examining it critically. Bony foot, small calf, slender thigh--not a spare ounce of fat anywhere. What kind of women does he like? Not one like her with hipbones he could hang his hat on, that's for sure. He was a Basque, and they went for big, bosomed women with boobs that bounced when they walked. Maggie glanced down at her own breasts. Like everything else about her, they were undersized. Firm, white, smooth though they were, they were definitely too small. She hooked her bra, pulled on a floppy blue sweatshirt, and stood up. She was lousy bacon.

"Miss Dixon!"

Warily, she stepped into the corridor and looked over the railing into the kitchen below.

"Come eat," Amaya said, smiling up at her.

Maggie's stomach made a hopeful noise. Steaming in a skillet on the table was a fat egg and potato and onion omelet, thick enough and stiff enough to eat with her fingers. She got herself downstairs quickly.

The kitchen was spotless and as big as a barn inside. Striped spider plants spilled from a window over a triple sink of hard yellow stone. In one corner stood a white gas stove and beside it, sunk into a counter and rarely used anymore, were the old, traditional charcoal grates for cooking.

Amaya watched her eat, spatula poised to shovel more onto Maggie's plate, all the time keeping up a running chatter about clothes and children and husbands. When she learned Maggie was a teacher, the conversation flowed more easily. She'd taught third grade before she married Dani and quit when their Eduardo was born. And, no, she didn't miss her job. She did miss the money, though, but with meat prices rising out of sight, Dani was getting more and more for his lambs.

"And you?--how do you manage those street kids in town?" Amaya asked.

Halfway through the second cup of coffee, Maggie could feel the tension draining away. It was fun to talk about work again, fun to talk with another woman. She loved her job back home, missed teaching, missed the classes and giving lectures, even missed the bad lunches in the faculty dining room. Best of all, was the satisfaction of knowing she made a difference to young Chicanos like herself, who were getting degrees and going out into the world as professionals.

For the first time in days, she began to feel like her old self, began to think about the fall and the new semester starting soon. As the last of the omelet disappeared into her mouth, Amaya leaned across, pan in hand.

"Another piece?"

Mouth full, Maggie held up her hand and shook her head. "I've had enough, thanks."

"It would please him."

Her guest looked at her silently.

"Forget I said that. It would please me."

Maggie smiled and held out the plate. While she continued to eat, Amaya began beating up dough at the other end of the table, making her version of txurros, the fried crullers Luis had introduced her to when they first met, three months ago. A lifetime ago.

Amaya hustled around the kitchen, bounding from stove to sink to cupboard, boiling water, butter, flour, beating in eggs. Strong, competent hands dumped the creamy mass onto a marble slab.

"How well do you know him, our leader, I mean?"

Maggie hid a smile at the "our leader," at the respect she heard in the woman's voice. She hesitated, wondering what exactly Marko had told them outside. Within minutes, she'd sized up his relationship with this family and realized they wouldn't help her. Of course, Mr. Wonderful had lied to them.

Amaya chuckled. "Everyone knows he took you last Thursday in town--"

"He didn't 'take' me--he kidnapped me. There's a difference," Maggie said tightly.

Amaya frowned at Maggie. "They say he did it to save your life."

"And his own!"

Amaya drew the corners of her lips in. "Ah me, there are very few angels in this part of the world." Amaya picked up a sieve and snowed flour across the sticky dough. With a thoughtful expression, she cut the dough into short strips, instead of forcing it through a tube. Setting them aside, she looked up at Maggie. "Most of us up here don't know how to defend ourselves. Marko does, so we listen to him. But I never thought I'd live like this, scared all the time. If I go to a neighbor's house after dark, I don't get out of the car without honking because I know a gun is aimed at me behind the curtains. Up here, everyone belongs to the POJ."

Which explained why there was no water in Luis's dam, Maggie thought grimly. "You...like the POJ?" she asked.

"What's to like or not like? They're the closest thing we have to law and order up here. Two POJ soldiers have stayed with us around the clock ever since the Land Commission came out. To protect us from the Guards--or whoever's behind the killing."

"The papers say other Basques are doing it, the ETA even."

Amaya walked to the stove and dropped the soft strings of dough into the iron txurrontzi of frying oil. "That's what they'd like us to think. We know different." Holding a long-handled spoon, she turned around from the kettle. Her voice lowered. "You know ETA and POJ are on the same side, don't you?"

"No," Maggie said, chilled by that casual tidbit of information.

"Never would ETA bother us. They want us to join them and fight Spain together. Ximon Ojeda, an ETA leader, sat right there in your chair and told Marko that."

Maggie swallowed hard. Something else she rather not know.

"Nice, quiet-looking man, Ojeda. You'd never guess how high up he is, but Marko doesn't trust him. Neither does Dani. Ojeda has big plans after we link up. But Marko says no. He doesn't like ETA's tactics, says they're terrorists."

Maggie snorted. "That's funny. And what does he think he is?"

"Not that. He's a good man, just like his grandfather." Amaya crossed herself, leaving a white smudge of flour on her forehead.

"Who is his grandfather?"

"Was--they executed him. Colonel Kemen Atxaga--a hero, a saint, like his grandson."

Maggie stared at her.

"My two uncles served with Kemen in the civil war." Amaya dunked the spoon into the hot oil, turning the floating dough sticks. "My mother keeps a picture of him in our house. It was so sad. All Edorta wept when he died. Before they shot him, he asked to take his shoes off, said he wanted to die with his feet on Basque soil." She cleared the huskiness from her throat. "Blood and Basques go together. Colonel Kemen Atxaga...you never heard of him?" Amaya asked, with some surprise.

Maggie started to shake her head, then realized the name did sound familiar. "He isn't the one who burned two hundred churches one weekend, is he?"

"A hundred and eighty-three."

Maggie fought a wild, crazy urge to burst out laughing or crying or both. Maybe Marko couldn't help it. Revolution ran in his family, like blue eyes. Or insanity.

"And the ETA intends to blow up every--"

"Marko says the Land Commission wants to buy your farm," Maggie broke in hastily to get Amaya off the subject of the ETA. She already knew more about them than was healthy for a girl.

"Steal it, you mean," Amaya said. "But not ours. Dani won't allow it. They know that now, and they don't like it. Señor Diego himself came up and talked to us. Diego worries me. He's like Ojeda, all smiles and polite words, but there's something rotten inside Diego, too. And the same with that doctor friend of his. The two of them strutted around our river like they owned it. My Dani told them to--"

"What doctor friend?"

"The rich one from Kristobal, the baby doctor. Diego takes him everywhere."

Maggie's knuckles whitened around the coffee mug. Amaya didn't know she was engaged to Luis. Marko hadn't lied to them, but he hadn't told them the truth, either. A deep, central anger at Luis flared inside. Why had he been up here frightening these people? And when? "How many times have they been--"

Behind her, the screen door slammed.

Maggie spun around, her face tight.

Marko filled the doorway, standing between two young, dark-haired boys. Sitting on his shoulders in a pink sunsuit was a pudgy little girl about three wearing his blue beret and hanging on to his hair. Sucking her thumb, the child stared down at Maggie. The beret, too big for her, had slid over one eye.

"I thought you'd gone," Maggie said, relief flooding through her to see him there. In the rumpled khaki uniform, he seemed taller than she remembered. "I didn't hear you come back."

"You were running the tub. Pablo set down just long enough to put me out. I had to talk to Dani about something." His hands gripped the child's ankles when she let go of his hair to push the hat back.

Garcia in a kitchen with a baby--it didn't fit. On the other hand, maybe that's what this war was all about. Maggie blinked at him, trying to force this new piece into the mental picture she held of him. This tough man had a soft side she'd never suspected.

The boy on his left, holding a soccer ball, grinned up admiringly at him.

Why...he's been playing with those kids!

With a sense of something out of sync, Maggie stared at the man in the doorway as if she'd never seen him before.

The little girl squirmed and patted his cheek relentlessly to get his attention. He leaned his head away, laugh lines crinkling around his eyes. "All right, Miss Nosy, don't pat me to death." He swung her down to the floor and stood her in front of Maggie. "This is the lady I told you about. Her name is señora St. Clair. Eduardo...Juan...mind your manners and say hello."

The boys looked at their shoes as Marko introduced them. Both were thin and dark, blue-eyed like Dani. The little girl, like her brothers, turned suddenly shy and hid her face against Marko's leg. He tipped the beret forward on her head, teasing her. With a squeal, she snatched it off and smiled up at him, hugging his thigh.

"And this very dignified young lady will be three next month," he said fondly.

The child's face was browned with freckles like her mother's. Her legs and sturdy little body were a carbon copy of Amaya's. Maggie leaned down and pulled the child into her lap. Twining a skinny brown pigtail around her finger, she asked, "What's your name, honey?"

"Maw-go."

Maggie looked at Amaya, not understanding.

"Margo--we named her after him."

"I see," Maggie murmured, in a tone that clearly said she didn't.

Marko turned quickly and went to the stove, the back of his neck reddening. Lifting a txurro from the oil with the spoon, he raised an eyebrow in Amaya's direction.

"Help yourself. I made them for you, anyway," Amaya said. She shot a look at Maggie and added in Basque, "I knew you'd be back."

"I hope you kept that to yourself," he answered, also in Basque.

"This time I did."

He sprinkled a plate of crullers with sugar and cinnamon, gave them to the children, then shooed them out of the kitchen. "Go on, kids, all of you. Outside. Let the grownups talk. Hot, Margo!" he called, as the screen door banged behind them.

"They mind him better than they do me. He should have a bunch of his own," Amaya said to Maggie.

"Then he better get on with it," Maggie answered airily. "In his business, he won't be around too long."

"You applying for the job?" he snapped.

"Don't you wish!"

"No way." Marko came up alongside, towering over her in the chair, and thumped a plate of crullers down. "You have one lousy disposition."

"There's not a thing wrong with my disposition that taking me home won't cure," she said, and broke a txurro in half, then lifted her fingers away as a burst of hot, sweet steam curled out.

Amaya winked. "Like Marko, eh? Inside, they say he also steams. From the talk I hear, you already know that."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "He lied."

"Did not."

Amaya swiveled her head from Maggie to Marko as they spoke, obviously enjoying the exchange between the two. "Pablo said it, not him. That pilot's got a big mouth."

"And a radio," Marko cut in, with a broad grin. "Too bad, Maggie, by now the whole country knows about us. Today, Spain; tomorrow, the world. What will your fancy friends back in Texas think?"

"It's not funny, Garcia. And it's not true, either, Amaya. Your friend here passed out in my bed because he was so drunk he couldn't stand up."

Amaya's gaze jumped to Marko. "When did you start drinking like that?"

"About an hour after I met her."

Maggie couldn't tell whether he meant a few days ago or ten years ago.

Txurro in hand, he started outside. In the doorway, he paused and turned around, powdered sugar dusting his lips. "I was drunk and I was in her bed, but Pablo read it wrong. Nothing happened. She hates my guts, don't you, Maggie?"

"For a whole long list of reasons, including a few Amaya doesn't know about."

Marko pushed the screen door open and jerked his head toward the yard. "Come on. Get off your ass, querida, and I'll show you the river that's causing all the trouble up here."

Slate-green, tossed with foam, the Lima River thundered out of the gloom between two great mountains and boiled into the sunlight. The nearby pines stretched skyward, as tall and straight as telephone poles. Across the river, climbing the hillside, stood an abundant cork oak forest, their trunks striped with creamy-nude bands where the spongy bark had been harvested that summer.

Maggie stood on a rocky shelf jutting from the river bank and gazed out at the wild beauty.

"Enjoy it," Marko said, coming up to stand behind her. "In a year or so, it won't be here. All this will be on the bottom of a lake."

"Their house, too?"

He nodded.

Maggie looked up the sloping meadow on her left to the red and white stone house. Not a pretty house, but one with character and substance, like the people who lived there. With its thick stone walls, it seemed as solid as the mountains around it. But it wasn't. A few miles downstream waited an empty dam and an idle power plant. Luis's power plant.

She leaned against a tree trunk on the river bank, ankle deep in ferns. Amaya said Luis had walked here with Diego, and Maggie suspected it was true. Two weeks ago, Diego had called him at the office, and Luis had left a waiting room full of patients and flown off somewhere with him. Not even his nurse knew where he went. That wasn't like him, Maggie thought.

She pushed herself away from the tree and turned to Marko. "Amaya said Luis was up here. Was he?"

"Sí."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Marko stooped and picked up a handful of stones. "Would you have believed me?"

"Probably not."

"I didn't think so." He winged a stone out over the water, skipping it across the surface. Quietly, he said, "GAL is as illegal as hell."

"But so is ETA."

He nodded. "And my group also. But it's all part of democracy and the messiness that goes with freedom for everyone. Killing your hostile citizens is not the answer. That road leads back to fascism."

Maggie closed her eyes. How could two men be so different?

"What does Luis specialize in?"

She blinked, taken aback by the question. "Pediatric cardiology."

"So he's not exactly stupid then. How do you square that with what he's mixed up in?"

"If he is mixed up in this, I don't have any explanation, but I don't think he's capable of poisoning your--"

"Wake up, Maggie--he did!" Marko hurled a rock across the river and struck an oak on the other side with a sharp, hollow crack. A moment later, he turned around, his face clearing. "That happened long before you came. I'm sorry I brought it up again." With a faint smile, he gestured toward the house. "Let's go up to the barn and see what Dani's doing."

If Dani was in the barn, he was working with the sheep, and that was the last thing she wanted to see right now with Marko Garcia. She shook her head.

Beneath the tan, a flush of red colored his cheeks. "I said I was sorry, Maggie."

And proud, too. Every now and then she caught glimpses of an inner personality, of a private man she'd never known.

She hung back and followed him up the lane, past the house, past a small windmill clicking on its platform. In a fenced corral holding a shed, tan, dark-faced sheep grazed placidly. He stopped and waited for her.

"What kind are they?" Maggie asked.

"Suffolks. I raised Merinos."

She chuckled. "From your tone, I guess there's a difference."

"Money. Wool's worth more than meat. I've been trying to tell him that for years." He led her into a low windowless building that smelled like a wet dog.

"Mind if we watch?" she called to Dani.

"Don't mind." Clear blue eyes met hers.

Typically Basque. Few words, a lesson of eyes, particularly the men. They guarded their thoughts. From one minute to the next, she never knew what Marko was thinking. Like now.

Twenty-five ewes milled around inside, eating from two cribs filled with hay.

"What's he doing?" she asked, as Dani fitted a plastic tube into what looked like a caulking gun.

"Trimming their feet, medicating, getting them ready to breed. He'll turn him in when he's done."

At the far end of the shed, a huge three-hundred-pound ram ran up and down the length of his pen. Sexually aroused, he poked his long face in and out of the railings, his upper lip pushed out stiff as a shingle. His large sack of testicles hung nearly to the ground.

"Can he...a...service all of them?" she asked.

"Easily," Marko said, grinning.

For an hour, they stayed up there, the two men working together, Maggie perched on the side of a pen, her good leg hooked over a railing. Dani kept his flock on his own land and penned them up at night. Doing it all himself was a lot of work, he told her, and said he was looking forward to the day he could buy into the olha, the sheep syndicate in town. The syndicate ran a combination of many ranchers' sheep and grazed them in huge flocks in the mountains, watched over by many men. But that had to wait until his boys were older and strong enough to work as shepherds or else run the farm while he did. That was a condition to joining the syndicate: everyone who belonged took turns watching the sheep.

Dani pulled a ewe over to a table by the door where the light was better and upended her on her haunches. He lifted her hoofs and trimmed them, a painless procedure, yet the ewe was frozen like a statue, her bulging walleyes fixed on Dani in abject terror.

"What's wrong with her?" Maggie asked. The ewe's eyes had rolled back in her head.

"She's petrified. Sheep have no defenses against anything, which is why they need shepherds."

Marko pushed away from the side of the pen into the milling animals. Ewes scattered in all directions, bleating, hoofs kicking up straw. He grabbed for one, missed her, then wheeled and caught another as she dodged by.

Maggie watched, admiring the strength of him. Thighs straining, he dug his boots in and hauled a ewe that weighed as much as he did over to Dani. Making little clucking noises, Marko sat the ewe on her haunches and rubbed the nappy head between its ears. And, for the first time in days, Maggie saw him smile--really smile. He loved those silly animals.

Marko grabbed another ewe and straddled her with his knees. From across the dimness of the barn, his black eyes held Maggie's.

And doubts about Luis crashed down like a spike.

Sternly, she reminded herself who Marko Garcia really was and why he hated Luis. Filled with a sudden apprehension about the future and what she might learn about Luis, she slid off the railing and hurried out of the barn.

Halfway across the corral, Marko caught up with her. Silently, he walked alongside, a thoughtful expression on his face. They were nearing the house when the chudder of rotors sounded from beyond the mountains. Marko squinted up, his eyes chasing across the empty sky. "That'll be Pablo. You all right now?"

"You didn't come back this morning to talk to Dani, did you?" she said, not looking at him.

"No."

"You came because I was scared, didn't you?"

"When I left this morning, you looked a little bit like that ewe back there. Does it surprise you that I did something decent?" He looked down at her, his expression unreadable.

"Nothing you do surprises me any more," she said, and continued stiffly toward the house.

His eyes flickered. His hand shot out, seized her wrist, and yanked her to him. Thumb and fingers splayed under her jaw, he lifted her chin. His breath fanned her face. "We'll see," he said.

His mouth came down hard on hers, bearded lips tasting of sugar and cinnamon. And anger. Luis's face blurred briefly in front of her, then faded under the onslaught of this man's mouth. She liked tenderness in a man, but there was nothing tender about Marko's kiss. She shoved at him, trying to push him away, but her arms were pinned tight against his chest. His hand wound in her hair, immobilizing her head, turning her face back and forth against his. And then, between one breath and the next, the fingers in her hair loosened, spread apart, and gently cradled the back of her head. The punishing pressure of his mouth softened. She stopped struggling.

The world shuddered to a stop. Maggie closed her eyes. Feeling caught in some strange loop of destiny, she kissed him back.

Wind buffeted them, whipping their pant legs, their shirts. Nearby, the Puma settled to the ground in a pounding racket of noise. She hardly heard it. Her arms were around his neck, and his breath was warm in her mouth, his tongue deepening the kiss. When the kiss was over, he lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes full of questions.

Without a word, he set her firmly away from him and stepped back.

"...Marko."

He threw up a hand, as if to stop the words, wheeled around and ran across the field to the waiting helicopter. As he climbed inside, he jerked his thumb at Pablo. Up!

Bewildered, she stood in the wind and watched it take off.

Supper that night was at the round oak table in the kitchen. The plates and cups were turned upside-down in the country style until after grace was said.

"Bendice estos alimentos, Señor, bendice estos regalos...." Bless us, O Lord, for these thy gifts.... Dani's voice droned quietly in Spanish.

Head bowed, Maggie didn't hear a word. Marko had left without even a goodbye. Why did he kiss her? Stupid...stupid...she shouldn't have kissed him back.

She ate indifferently, pretending an interest for Amaya's sake. Amaya had taken special pains to fix a nice dinner: a succulent lamb roast, tomatoes stewed with onions and peppers and with a bit of a bite. Tiny red potatoes, still in their skins, and sprinkled with a coarse salt, were split in half and fried crispy in olive oil. Delicious as the meal was, to Maggie, it might have been sawdust. Her thoughts churned, centered on a man in a helicopter.

After the children went to bed, she flopped into a chair in front of the fireplace. Night in the Pyrenees drew in with a sweep of shadows. The moment the sun's rim slid below the peaks, daylight fled. A swift polar penumbra rushed down the mountainsides and smothered the valleys in cold darkness.

Chilly, Maggie pulled an afghan over her legs and traced its colorful bands. Four thousand miles away, in another white stone house, a similar zigzag-patterned afghan lay folded on a couch in the den. She swallowed past a lump in her throat and wondered how her parents were holding up. Over the years, they'd had their disagreements, and, ironically, the biggest fight ever had been over one Marko Mikel Garcia. Thad Dixon had hated him, and she'd nearly left home because of his meddling.

Dani Estrada, down on one knee, poked more wood into the fire. Flames licked at a piece of pine. With a glance at Maggie, Dani pulled a high-backed rocker close to the fire and disappeared behind a newspaper, reading, rocking, his heel rising with each backthrust. A log burned through and slumped softly to the hearth. The clock on the mantelpiece whirred and struck nine o'clock.

When was Marko coming back?

Was he coming back?

In a chair alongside, Amaya was busy on another afghan, her face serene, knitting needles clicking. She smiled over at Maggie. "More coffee?"

"Gracias, no." Face it, Maggie thought, however nice these people were, she was still a prisoner. Theirs or his, it was all the same. Marko's behavior this morning had underlined that in big black letters.

Lightly, she drew her tongue across her lips, triggering memories of a beard, of the bruising initial pressure of his mouth, and how much she'd liked it. Dismay swam through her. After all these years, he could still affect her.

She threw the afghan back, stood up, and told her hosts good-night. Head down, she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. One way or another, she had to get away from him. He'd hurt her once. She wasn't hanging around for a second dose.

"Miss Dixon?" Dani looked up from his newspaper.

Hand on the banister, Maggie paused.

"He said maybe tomorrow. Day after, for sure."

"Gracias." With any luck, she'd be gone by then.

Chapter 18

Monday, August 28, 1995

In his walnut-paneled office in the suburbs of San Kristobal, Luis picked the telephone up on the first ring. A minute later, he palmed the receiver and looked over at the gray-haired man in rimless glasses standing beside his desk, sipping coffee.

"It's her father. He knows. You better take it." Luis held the phone out.

Diego shook his head. "You talk to him. He doesn't know me."

Diego had stopped by Luis's office to placate him and brief him on the road blocks and the progress in finding Maggie. There was none, of course, and there wouldn't be. And when Raul finally did find her, Luis wouldn't like it. "Tell him the provincial authorities are handling it. Tell him anything, but keep Madrid out of it." With an impatient, rolling gesture for Luis to continue, Diego clicked on the speaker phone.

"I saw it happen," Luis told Dixon. "ETA came in, shot up the place, and on the way out, they grabbed Maggie."

"What are you talking about? Garcia's not ETA."

Luis, reddening, ran a finger around his shirt collar. "Then you know more than I do, senador. ETA or POJ, it's a local Basque affair."

After a short pause, Dixon said carefully, "The abduction of an American citizen in a friendly country is not a local affair. That news has been suppressed from the United States. I want to know why. So does my government. Pass that along."

Diego frowned. Dixon, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee had somehow subtly taken control. The conversation had taken an unexpected turn. He scribbled a few words on a pad and shoved it at Luis.

"The Party of Justice has not claimed responsibility," Luis hurried on, reading Diego's note. "Until that happens, it's a provincial matter. You don't understand--Edorta is a limited autonomous community. Spain should not interfere."

"What I do understand is that Commander Marko Garcia, a Basque and a Spanish citizen, called and informed me he has taken my daughter hostage--"

"Surely you don't believe him!"

"Frankly, I don't know what to believe. He said he sent a formal claim of responsibility to Madrid two days ago. He also said no one has been to Maggie's apartment since he took her."

"How would he know that?"

"Because he phoned me from the living room of her apartment."

Luis blinked and glanced across the desk at Diego, who rolled his eyes and threw his hands up.

"He finds that strange, and so do I," Dixon said. "And by the way, I never mentioned the Party of Justice. You did and so did Garcia."

"He'll demand ransom for her. They always do."

"No, I asked him. He doesn't want money." Dixon answered in slow, measured tones. "He wants one thing--an investigation of the international dam project in the Eastern Pyrenees."

Diego swore softly and wondered what else Garcia had told Dixon.

"What does France and Portugal say about this? Do they even know?" Dixon demanded.

Diego shook his head firmly at Luis.

"I don't know. You'll have to take that up with Madrid."

"And Lisbon and Paris and which I intend to do, Doctor, as soon as I hang up. In the meantime, besides not telling her family or her country that she's a hostage, what is Spain doing to get my daughter back?"

"I'm not at liberty to answer that."

] Diego nodded, approving the answer.

In his Washington office, Dixon leaped to his feet, gripping the phone. "My God, man, help me--this is Maggie we're talking about! She's your fiancée, and you won't tell her own father?"

"I'm sorry, senador, I--"

Thad slammed the receiver down.

Chapter 19

Tuesday, August 29, 1995

Maggie worked the pump handle up and down, gushing water into a bucket for the chickens. She carried the water across to the fenced chicken yard at the side of the house and poured it into the long tin trough on the ground. In her mind, she went over her plans again for running away. This time she wouldn't get lost; she knew the way out.

"Stop that, silly." She shooed a wet brown hen away that seemed bent on drowning itself, poking its head in and out of the stream of water as she filled the trough.

If she followed the river downstream, eventually it would come to a town and people. Maggie headed back to the pump for another bucket of water. As she worked the heavy handle, she smiled, confidence building inside. She looked around quickly. Amaya was inside making beds, Dani had gone up to his sheep, and Marko would be gone for a couple of days. All she had to do this time was to--

She looked up. Her hand stilled on the handle.

A white pickup truck approached slowly up the lane to the house, the driver keeping the tires in the ruts. In the two days she'd been there, no one had visited the Estradas, something she was certain was no accident. Bucket in hand, Maggie watched the truck approach. With a gleeful shout, she dropped the bucket and started running.

On the door was a familiar logo--a blue and yellow triangle with the letters ACI--and below it, the words ALAZAR CONSTRUCION y INGENIRIA. Luis had found her!

But it was a stranger, not Luis, who climbed out, a slender, older man in boots and coveralls and a white hard hat. Standing beside the driver's door, he removed the small torpedo-shaped cigar from his mouth.

"Well, well," he said, "Margarita Dixon St. Clair, what are you doing here?"

"You know me?"

"I do. I've seen your picture--and I seem to remember that you broke a lunch date with me. I'm Senator Diego, my dear." Beaming, he clenched the cigar between his teeth and held his hands out to her.

She grabbed them, clutched them, as if she were drowning. Words tumbled out. "I'm so glad...so glad to see you. So glad....." Tears ran down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth, and through them, she smiled and smiled.

Diego put his arm around her shoulders. "It's finished, Miss Dixon. It's over. You're going home." Behind the rimless glasses, his eyes shifted around the empty yard. His voice lowered. "Where's Garcia?"

"He's not here. He left yesterday." She stopped short, remembering Marko's warnings about Diego and Soreno. Ridiculous--not this man. Garcia was wrong. About everything.

"Maggie," Amaya's voice called from inside the house. "Is Margo out there with you?"

"Will they try to stop us?" Diego asked.

"I don't know. They're his friends."

Diego shoved her toward the truck. "Let's get out of here."

Maggie needed no urging. She ran around the front of the truck and jerked the door open, scrambled inside. Diego, starting the engine, slammed his door shut as Amaya came out onto the little porch.

"Maggie--no, no! Don't go with him!" She ran down the steps, waving her arms.

Diego floored the accelerator. Near the end of the lane, a sharp bang, like a thrown rock, sounded against the tailgate. Behind them, rifle against his shoulder and running hard, Dani was shooting at the back tires.

Maggie hunched in the front seat, the knees of the yellow slacks she wore squeezed tight together, as she waited for the tires to blow, to be captured again. Diego skidded out onto the road by the Lima river and sped out of range. It took a moment for it to register.

She drew a deep, shaky breath and looked back over her shoulder.

"Relax, Miss Dixon," Diego said kindly. "You're safe now." He removed the hard hat and laid it on the seat between them. The iron-gray hair was thinning. Despite the coveralls, he was an impressive-looking man with a Roman nose in a face sunken a bit at the temples. Patrician-looking, Maggie thought. He had a certain presence about him, an unmistakable aura of power and importance. This suave Spanish senator would fit into her father's crowd on Capitol Hill without making a ripple.

She shook her head. Marko was either paranoid or a liar. Probably both. Anyone could see that the man beside her was a gentleman--and as long as she lived, she'd be grateful to him. She beamed across the seat at Senator Diego.

"That's better, he said, leaning over and patting her hand. "This last week has been rough for us all, a political circus...a lot of finger-pointing at me and my commission by people wanting to negotiate with terrorists, including the governor himself. His son is a terrible embarrassment for him. Half the country is looking for you--and I found you myself. What beautiful irony."

"How are Luis and my parents holding up?"

Diego chuckled. "The dignified doctor is playing Sir Galahad in his red Maserati, tearing all over the hills, full of hare-brained schemes to get you back. As for your father, he is in fine form, upset with Spain and the rest of the world, so it appears. This morning he told reporters at the airport that--"

"This morning...he didn't come till this morning?"

"When he returned from a meeting in Madrid," Diego added smoothly. "He's been here for days, of course."

Days? Maggie blinked. Marko lied about that, too. He'd said her father didn't know, that there was nothing in the papers. And she'd almost believed him.

"Was there anything in the papers about this?" she asked quietly, tensing for the answer.

"They are full of little else. You've made the front pages every day. How does it feel to be a celebrity, my dear?"

Her lips tightened.

The truck rattled across a wooden plank bridge over a creek, following the steep, twisty back road that wound down through a gully in the Boumort range with its Technicolor granite to the little river town of Organya, where Dani Estrada sold his sheep. At the traffic light, they turned right at the canning factory onto C-1313 and headed south, the main route south from the French border and the tiny country of Andorra.

C-1313 ran along the west bank of the fast-moving Rio Segre, tumbling out of the Pyrenees, carrying tree branches, logs, and floating debris in its dash to join the Ebro river farther south.

The road down from France was choked with campers, cars, busses, trucks, motorcycles, everybody going somewhere, fast.

"How long before we get to San Kristobal?" she asked.

"Two or three hours, depending on traffic, which is a mess, as usual. Damn French tourists. I wish they'd stay home. They never spend any money."

In spite of herself, Maggie smiled at the tart look on his face. The French still irritated Spain. Napoleon had once looked down his regal nose at his southern neighbor and declared that "civilized Europe ends at the Pyrenees." Beyond the mountains lay Spain, tribal, backward, and downright xenophobic. But not any more, she thought, as they passed a group of oriental-looking cyclists. Tourism was where it was at, and the red carpet was out. Foreigners and their money were welcomed with open arms.

Diego jockeyed in and out of the traffic, obviously familiar with the road. Accelerating, he pulled out, and overtook a truck loaded with cantaloupes. Instead of passing and cutting back, he stayed out in the passing lane, chatting amiably to Maggie, cruising alongside the slower melon truck with its high board sides.

She never saw the cluster of signs pointing east to the bridge over the Rio Segre and the highway to San Kristobal. A few miles farther on, in the village of Coll de Nargo, Diego turned onto a road heading west, away from the Segre River, away from San Kristobal, a hundred miles in the opposite direction, and falling ever farther behind.

Maggie stretched her arms over her head and smiled across at him. She felt so good, so alive! "What brought you out to the Estradas today?"

"Luis. I finally got him out to the dam this morning to check on the Lima River Project. I had no idea the Estradas knew Garcia. I decided to talk to them alone, see what I could do to 'sweeten the pot,' see how much more it would take to get those people out of there."

The sun washed a blinding glare across his glasses, hiding his eyes from her. And just for an instant, he reminded her of Dani's ram. "But they'll sell now, though, or go to prison," he said. "They're accessories to kidnapping and possibly treason." A tight smile narrowed his lips.

Amaya and Dani had been kind to her. And for that, they would pay. Pay for the txurros, the omelets, the hot baths. "Senator, that's not right. The Estradas are good people. They tried to help me, and they don't deserve prison for that. Can you do something to help them?"

"Your sympathy is admirable, but misplaced, my dear," Diego answered. "They deserve the stiffest sentences the law allows. They collaborated with the guerrillas."

"Technically, that's right, but they did it out of kindness to me, not politics. They have three little children."

"That's not your problem."

It was now, Maggie thought, and looked at him worriedly. "Senator, what's going on up here?"

Moments passed, the silence unbroken except for the clicking whine of the truck tires. Jagged rock rimmed both sides of the road.

"You are an outsider, an American. This is a Spanish matter. Leave it at that." Though he said it pleasantly enough, the gray eyes were as cold as enamel.

Her jaw set. She had no intention of "leaving it at that." She'd go to the authorities herself on the Estradas' behalf. And if they tried to stop her or said Spanish law wouldn't allow it, she'd ask her father. He'd know how to get around it, and he would--whether Senator Fidel Diego liked it or not. Carefully, she kept her face blank. A week with Marko had taught her a thing or two. He always deadpanned when he was hiding something.

"Luis is worried," Diego continued. "Do you know how much he's got tied up in that dam--personally?"

"A million, I guess," she said, disinterested. At that moment, she couldn't care less about Luis's money. Or his dam. Or Spain. All she wanted was out of there.

"More than that. The main contractor slapped a non-performance penalty on him this morning. He's already over-budget, months behind schedule, and the longer the Estradas stay, the more it's going to cost him." Diego chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Losing a hundred thousand dollars this morning spoiled his whole day. He was, to put it mildly, upset. I sent him back to the city and decided to talk to the Estradas without him this time."

This time. Maggie looked straight ahead through the windshield. One more thing for Luis to explain.

"I noticed you limping back there," Diego said, a few minutes later. "Did Garcia hurt you?"

She shook her head. "I fell off a horse trying to run away." Because Marko thought your men were coming to kill me. In slow-motion dreamtime, images of men yelling at mules, snatching maps off walls, rushing to break camp in the middle of the night played through her mind. More lies. She shifted in her seat, trying to square her relief at being rescued with a growing disappointment with Marko.

A dark shadow skimmed overhead, a gray helicopter clattering low above the road. Climbing, it swung its tail in a tight swath and approached them head-on. In the glass nose bubble, Pablo was leaning forward, staring down at Luis's white truck. He was alone in the cockpit and so close she could see him talking on the radio as he went over. The helicopter shot upwards and away. Maggie twisted around, watching it out the rear window, flying back the way it came.

"That's their helicopter!" she gasped.

"Mierda!" Diego braked and cranked the wheel, turning onto a rough tar and gravel road. Pavement broken in spots, the road zigzagged and switched back, running a tortured spiral to a scenic overlook farther up the mountain. Diego jounced along for miles, slowing at times to almost a crawl. At a bend, he pulled off, grabbed a pair of binoculars from the shelf, and jumped out. Part way up the hillside, he zoomed them in on the road in the distance they'd turned off, focusing them on a line of traffic.

Dani Estrada's blue jeep was passing everything in sight. And just as Diego had, it skidded left onto the tar road to the overlook, speeding in the straight-aways, bullying the curves. Counting the bends in the road, the twisting "S" curves, Fidel estimated the jeep was four--perhaps five--driving miles away. At two minutes a mile....

He ran back to the truck. "Garcia is coming. The chopper was spotting us for him."

"He's coming after me, to take me back!"

"Not if I can help it." Diego pulled back onto the road, driving as fast as he dared, craning his neck. When he found a section of road cut through the mountain, instead of around it, he jerked the truck to a stop. "Come on!"

Maggie piled out and ran around to the back after him. Diego dropped the tailgate, climbed up, and scrabbled around in the clutter of equipment. A shovel clanged over the side; next, a large duffel bag with web straps. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"We're going to block the road. Bring that roll of wire in the back." He grabbed up the shovel and the bag. For two or three hundred feet, he ran back the way they'd come, then cut up the forty-five-degree, rock-strewn slope. Part way up, he sited his position with the road and kicked the shovel into the ground. Panting, working fast, he wrenched the dirt out until he had a hole a foot deep.

Behind him, climbing as fast as she could with her bad knee, Maggie was carrying a spool of wire stenciled "CANADIAN COMMO" up to him.

Diego spread the bag open and pulled out three olive-drab blocks about eight inches long. "TNT...two-pound blocks...military issue." He set them on the ground.

"How did you know that was back there?"

"Because I put it there. If you don't want to go back with Garcia, stop asking questions and help me."

Anxiously, Maggie looked at the explosives, remembering the ride in on the helicopter. "Where's the detonator?"

Diego's hand stilled midair. "You know about explosives?"

"Just plastics...C-4 mainly."

Diego stared at her and cleared his throat. "Really? Then hand me those blasting caps. Please."

Maggie peered into the duffel bag. "What do they look like?"

"Shiny copper things with wires. Give me two--no, three of them. I'm taking no chances it won't blow. And just to make sure--" He reached into the bag and pulled out three more blocks of TNT and stacked all six blocks together. "He won't know what hit him." He crammed the blasting caps into the brown blocks, mashing them in with his fingers.

Quickly, Diego twisted the caps' lead wires to the end of the black Commo wire, packed the charges into the hole, then stood and tamped dirt in over them. Reeling off several lengths of wire, he shoved the spool at her.

"Unwind it. Take it behind those rocks up there. Hurry!"

Backwards, Maggie stepped up the hillside, holding the spool like a rolling pin and letting the wire spin off. Twice she lost her footing and sat down hard. Crablike, Diego spiked his boots sideways into the hillside, following her up the incline, flattening the wire onto the ground.

"Bring me the bag, Miss Dixon."

Maggie slid down the hill on the seat of her pants and dragged the bag up by its straps. Kneeling, she watched him snip the wire and attach the leads to a small wooden detonator box he'd removed from the bag. As soon as he spun the wing nuts tight, he sat back on his haunches. "Now, we just wait."

She pointed to the wooden box with the wires running downhill. "Nothing happened. Why didn't it go off?"

"It won't until I push this." He indicated a shiny metal T-shaped plunger sticking up on top the box. "The battery sends a charge down the wire and sets the caps off. As soon as Garcia comes around the curve, half this mountain blows into the road, and our friend goes nowhere."

"Push it now, and let's go." She didn't like what she'd heard.

Diego threw his head back and laughed, a long warbling in his throat. "Not yet. This I intend to watch."

A warning signal went off in the back of her brain. "He won't be hurt, will he?"

"Why do you care?"

Why? She'd asked herself that question a dozen times in the last five minutes. She shrugged. "I just want to stop him, get away from him. I don't want him hurt."

On the gravely hillside, only a few scrubby bushes offered any cover. Diego pointed to several large boulders beyond the blast zone. "Get over there behind one of those and stay down. We're out in the open here. He'll spot you the instant you show yourself."

Feet slipping, using her hands to steady herself, Maggie duck-walked across the steep slope and hid behind the boulder. Heart thumping, she watched the road. A few feet away, behind another rock, Diego squatted with the detonator box.

A mile in the distance, she saw the blue jeep crest the hill, speeding up the mountain and around the near curve, drifting perilously close to the far edge of the road. The four-wheel drive slipped, slid, bucked its way up the mountain. Watching it, she felt tension building, a waiting, a conviction that something bad was about to happen. Marko was coming too fast.

Her eyes darted from the box on Diego's knees to the dark-haired driver in the jeep. A few more seconds and he'd be caught in the explosion.

"Now--push it now!"

Diego gripped the plunger, eyes riveted on the approaching jeep, waiting. Maggie gaped in stunned disbelief. He intended to kill Marko--and she'd helped him. Emotion, not reason, drove her to her feet. Denial rammed into her.

"No!"

"Get down!"

She sprang out from behind the rock. Like unleashed hell, she raced down the hillside for the road and the approaching jeep, a blonde woman in daffodil slacks, crisscrossing her arms wildly in the air, praying that he'd see her.

"Stop! Stop!"

Marko spiked the brakes. The jeep skidded. The back tires lost their grip, fishtailing in the road. Spinning the wheel, he fought for control. And then, the hillside blew up, earth and rock hurling skyward--a blackened spew of rock and debris. A long, low rumble...a dozen freight trains coming at him...a river of dirt plunging across the road.

He jumped.

The concussion hurled Maggie to the ground on her stomach. Dazed, clutching at rocks, she slid backwards, feet first, down the hill.

Marko saw her and started running along the roadside below, looking up like an outfielder after a fly ball. A pair of legs in yellow slacks shot over the top. He dove. Arms outstretched, he caught her, and fell flat.

Bruised and sore, but all in one piece, Maggie spit out a mouthful of dirt and sat up. An iron fist locked her wrist. She turned and looked down into a scowling bearded face and the blackest, meanest, maddest eyes she'd ever seen in her life.

Marko drove silently, his lips compressed into a thin, white line. Maggie edged closer to her door and brushed her pant legs off. She tossed another rock over the side. The seat and the floor of the jeep were covered with dirt and stones.

"I don't know why you're so mad," she said.

A sullen, red flush crept under his beard. He didn't dare answer.

"It's your own fault, you know," she said, the Texas drawl rising shrilly. She flounced around in the seat, her eyes flashing. "Senator Diego was taking me home. Home, do you hear? Which is more than I can say for you. If you hadn't come after me, none of this would have happened. I know it's difficult, Garcia, but if just for once you'd pocketed that stupid Spanish machismo and minded your own business, I'd be on my way to--"

Tires squealed. The jeep swerved to the side of the road. Marko slammed the gears into reverse. Arm stretched along the seat behind her, glaring over his shoulder, he backed up rapidly and jerked to a stop.

"He was going to kill you," he gritted at her between his teeth. "My camp is a wasteland, flattened--not a building, not a tree standing. Even the dirt's burning. Three years' work blown to hell because of you!"

Stiff-armed, he pointed to the sign for the bridge over the Segre river and the road east to the capital. "Can you read, Miss Dixon? San Kristobal is that way. Diego was not taking you home, and if you weren't a bubble short of a bottle, you'd have known that!"

Maggie spun on him. Nobody--but nobody talked to her like that. "You bastard!"

"Yes, Miss Dixon," he snarled. "Grade A, Number One, Prime. If I weren't, you'd be dead this afternoon."

"And if it weren't for me, you'd be dead. Right now!"

"Gracias!"

He pulled back into the flow of traffic, gunning the engine, snapping her head with each shift of the gears. His stomach was in knots again. Gingerly, he massaged the tender, burning area above his belt. This woman was giving him an ulcer.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, winding up the mountain, back across the plank bridge over the Lima River again. They turned into the lane leading to the Estradas. Amaya came out of the house and stood silently by the pump, twisting her apron, her eyes accusing.

Dani hurried down from the barn and took one look at his mangled jeep and Marko's face. "Por Dios," what happened?"

"She tried to kill me."

"I did not!"

Marko reached inside the jeep and dragged Maggie across the front seat and out his side.

"Ouch!" she cried, and socked him in the chest.

With one fast move, he locked her wrists behind her back and frog-marched her past Amaya and Dani into the house, and up the stairs. Without a word, he locked her into the little room over the kitchen.

"Let me out of here!" She pounded her fists against the other side of the door.

Gathered around the Estradas' big oak table, Marko and Dani spoke in undertones. Amaya and the children picked at their lunch. Amaya filled Marko's coffee cup, then her husband's, saying, "She couldn't look at us when you brought her in. You told her, I told her, we all told her about Diego. Why did she leave with him?"

There was the dull smack of flesh meeting flesh as Marko struck his fist into his palm. "Because she is the most stubborn gringa in the world, and I hope to God I never meet another one like her!"

He pushed against the table and scraped his chair back. "I'm taking all of you out of here this afternoon." As Amaya started to protest, Marko shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's not safe for you to stay. Diego knows where she is now, and he'll be back. I can't leave you here for that." He suddenly looked tired. "I'm going after Pablo now. Drive your sheep into the mountains and turn them loose, Dani. They'll take care of themselves. You lose any, I'll pay for them." He turned to Amaya. "Can you be out of here in two hours?"

Dani glanced up at the bedroom door over the kitchen. It was quiet up there. "What about her?"

"Keep her locked up. She can howl her head off for all I care. I'll get her when I come back, if I don't decide to leave her for Diego--which I just might."

He strode across the yard, climbed in the jeep, and started it. For a minute, he sat motionless, gripping the wheel with both hands. Then, tires squealing, he ripped off down the lane toward the river and the road.

Amaya twisted her apron. "Ene...ene...ene, he likes that little mule."

Chapter 20

Twenty-two miles northeast of San Kristobal, a sleek, snub-nosed Italian Agusta helicopter lifted off a mountain meadow alongside a fieldstone barn.

Standing in the aisle, Raul Soreno buttoned the green denim shirt quickly, shoved it into the green denim trousers he wore, and zipped himself closed. He thrust out a hand for the holster and pistol held by a swarthy, dark-skinned man and buckled it in place, then slipped his wedding ring and his watch off and put them into the pocket of the Guards jacket on the seat alongside.

Within minutes of his father-in-law's frantic phone call from Organya telling him where the Dixon woman was, Raul had driven into San Kristobal and picked up three of his special agents, a group of hand-picked men who weren't squeamish about what they did and who kept their mouths shut after they did it. And who were becoming rich because of it. Less than an hour later, the four of them were at the farm, had the chopper out of the barn, and ready to go. In minutes, they were airborne.

He, three men from GAL, and the pilot were dressed alike. Not a seam, not a pocket, not a mark of insignia identified who they were. Even the weapons they carried were identical--Soviet Makarov pistols and AK-47 rifles. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact, Russian arms were scattered from one end of Europe to the other. Untraceable.

Raul was very good at what he did, and obsessive about details. "How long?" he called to the pilot.

"Forty-two minutes, Colonel," came the answer.

Raul smoothed a hand across his patent leather hair and gathered his agents close to the cockpit so the pilot could also hear. Painstakingly, he went over the operation again and reiterated where to rendezvous with the pilot if they had to separate. When he finished, he took a seat by the window and stared at the mountains slipping by below.

With a faint smile, he wondered if Maggie would recognize him after all this time. He shifted in his seat and looked down at the solid stretch of treetops moving under them.

The last time he talked to her, ten years ago, she called him a liar and said he was sick. Then she hung up on him. Pay back time.

Now where was he going? Fists balled, Maggie flung herself on the bed when she heard the jeep leave. Garcia was like a damned hornet, buzzing, stinging, flitting off again. She hurled her shoes at the door, cursing the day she'd ever come to this wretched country. She yanked the pillow over her head. A pawn. She was nothing but a pawn in a chess game, and Garcia was the black king.

Her sleep was fitful, tormented by dreams of swimming at Corpus Christi, of being sucked out into the Gulf by the Texas undertow, while a black-bearded man watched from the dunes and did nothing. In the dream a helicopter came. Somewhere, a door slammed in the sky. She heard angry voices--the man on the beach and a woman arguing about her. Lingering in a drifting half-life between sleep and waking, she suddenly jerked to a sitting position, throat dry, heart pounding.

Out in the hall, someone was rattling the doorknob. Before she could call out, there was a wall-rocking jolt as something heavy hit the door on the other side. A green sleeve and shoulder splintered the panel at the same instant a scream and a gunshot came from the kitchen. Whoever was on the gallery ran downstairs. Maggie crept across the room and flattened her back against the wall by the door, listening. Holding her breath, she turned the doorknob. The door swung open without a sound.

"She's not up here either," a strange voice called from the stairs. "All the bedrooms are empty. Only thing left is a locked storeroom. I'll go back up."

"Forget it. Garcia has her." A drawer slammed.

They were looking for her! Maggie clasped her hands tight in front of her and closed her eyes, reeling with indecision. Yesterday she would have run out in an instant, smiling, waving. Now she shrank back into the room, her body rigid with fear. She'd thought Diego was her friend, too. Instead, he'd tried to kill both Marko and her.

"How did he get her out so fast, Colonel?" a deep voice asked downstairs. "We were here within an hour."

Think! Think! Her eyes snapped open. Colonel. They must be the army looking for her. That would explain it.

She swallowed.

Maybe.

Quickly, she scanned the wood floor in front of her for anything that might make noise. In her sock feet, she tiptoed into the hall and peeped over the railing.

Four men in green uniforms moved about the room. Holding a pistol, one of them rooted through the drawers in a sideboard, his back to her.

Maggie's breath trapped in her chest. Her hands fluttered to her face.

Amaya lay on the kitchen floor in a lake of blood, eyes open, vacant, her head at an odd angle against the stove. The wet, red stain that soaked her apron dripped onto the floor.

Maggie's vision fogged. A wave of dizziness rose on a scream. "Am-a-ya!"

The man at the sideboard spun around and looked up. And she recognized a face she'd long forgotten.

Raul made a show of holstering the gun. "Hello there, Maggie," he answered easily in English. I'm Colonel Soreno--Raul. It's been a long time. Remember me?" Her head jerked in assent. "These men with me are Civil Guards," he went on smoothly. "Senator Diego thought you'd be more comfortable with someone you knew, someone you trusted. He sent me to bring you home."

"You killed her!"

A quick shadow of annoyance came and went in his face. "Believe me, I wanted no trouble. I came here for one reason--to bring an old friend back safely. I had no choice. Señora Estrada shot at me when I told her we were taking you home." Imperceptibly, his voice hardened. "Come down, Maggie."

She gripped the railing, sickened by the taste of death in her mouth and shuddered as she looked at Raul--an elemental physical response to him. Below, four men stared up at her, a green wall of silence. The heavy-set soldier by the stove turned away. As he did, his hand slid to the butt of his pistol. She gripped the railing tighter. If they'd come to rescue her, why would he--?

Like a bird flying into a wall, the truth hit her in the face.

Raul hadn't come to take her home.

He'd come to kill her.

Instinct told her to run back to her room and hide. Her brain said not to. Upstairs she was trapped. Four of them, one of her. They'd shoot her like a dog cowering in a corner. She stood rooted to the floor, stunned that this was happening.

"Maggie, come down!"

"Okay." Stalling for time, she put her shoes on. Eyes darting around the kitchen below, she bent and tied the laces.

In the stillness of the kitchen, she heard a boot scuff the tile, a tiny display of tension by one of them. An urging, inner voice warned her to do as he said. Forces beyond her conscious will took over. Woodenly, she set one weighted foot in front of the other and began to descend the stairs.

Only seconds left.

Do something!

Halfway down the staircase, she saw the branches of the oak tree through the screen door. The numbness fled, replaced with a trembling sensation in her stomach. Three steps from the bottom, she sprang, hit the door open with both hands, and broke into a run, passed the oak tree, the pump, the fence around the chicken yard. Feet racing, mind racing, she pounded past the little windmill.

Raul slammed out the back door after her.

Putting on a burst of speed, she dashed headlong into the corn field, knocking the yellowed stalks apart, crashing through them in a high-kneed gallop. Well inside, she dropped into a crouch. Mouth open, panting for air, she waddled deeper into the field and stopped. She peered between the stalks. And listened. A fly crawled up her cheek. She let it. From behind her came a soft rustling.

Dear God. They were in the field with her.

She screwed her eyes shut, picturing the landscape. At the end of the field were terraces up the mountainside. Above them lay the safety of a deep woods and heavy underbrush--if she could reach them before the men came out of the field.

A gun cracked. A ripping tore through the dry stalks alongside. Caution seemed pointless. She bolted through the field and burst into the open in a dash for the terraces. She jumped onto a low stone retaining wall and zigzagged up a sloping tobacco field. The soft earth held her back, caving under her weight. Her knee throbbed and her lungs burned like fire. Eyes riveted on the line of trees ahead, she ran faster. The wall of the second terrace rushed at her.

She scissored a long leap, landed clumsily, and fell on top of the wall. She threw a desperate glance behind her. Raul had stopped chasing her. Legs spread, he stood, the gun against his cheek.

Bullets snapped dirt. A few feet away, ragged bursts of mud chased toward her, coming...coming...coming.

With a stricken look, she grabbed fistfuls of the plants and drove with her knees, pulling herself into a stooping, stumbling, uphill run.

And then she heard it.

Rotors.

In a hellish rattle of steel and screaming wind, the dark underbelly of the Puma thundered over the top of the mountain, skimming the treetops, hugging the contours down the hillside like the front car of a roller coaster. Dust and dirt and sticks gusted up. Maggie's hair swirled, blew into her eyes, her mouth. She rushed across the potato patch, its leaves flattened in the downblast of the chopper circling over her.

She waved her arms frantically over her head.

Marko slid his window open and shouted at her to stay down, not one word of which she could hear.

Furious at what he saw, he wound a leg around the seat to steady himself. He'd recognized Raul instantly and guessed what had happened. But how the devil did he get there so fast? And why was Maggie alone...why wasn't Dani or Amaya helping her? White-knuckled, he gripped his rifle, dreading what he'd find when they landed.

Manny and Ricardo, braced in the doorway, yelled to Marko. Soreno's men were caught outside the cornfield. All three agents shot at the chopper. He heard half a dozen of bullets hit. They'd have to stay high...it was suicide to come in low, but death for Maggie if they didn't.

"Get them!" Marko yelled, knowing the men would go after Maggie next. He leaned out the window and got two with one long burst; Ricardo got the third, the sound of their shots swallowed by the engines.

The Puma roared back, rocking from side to side, a slipping, sliding difficult target. Carefully, Raul aimed at Marko in the copilot's seat. The side window exploded, glass everywhere. Raul squeezed off another shot, missed, dove to the ground. The Puma flew past, only feet over his back.

Raul rolled to his knees and aimed for Maggie again. This time he drew the blonde head fully into his sights.

Marko, on the wrong side of the Puma to help her, looked around wild-eyed. "Jesus God, back, back, back!" he yelled to Pablo.

Like an armored bird of prey, the Puma swung a tight turn and screamed in low again, her nose guns blazing this time. Cursing, Raul rolled out of range, jumped to his feet, ran for the house.

He leaped down the hillside, jumping off the terraces. At the bottom, he sprinted into the cornfield and disappeared.

"You better kill that one before he kills you," Pablo said over the noise, scanning the ground for a place to put down close to the house.

Marko nodded, his jaw set, his eyes cold and hard. For three years he'd fought up there--fought Raul--but killing him had never once entered his mind. But now it was either Raul or him. When he saw Maggie running and falling, running and falling, and Raul shooting at her, for the first time in his life, he actually wanted to kill a man. Shaken, Marko sank back against the seat. He didn't like knowing he could kill so easily. The urge had risen from somewhere inside him with terrifying swiftness. He took a couple of deep breaths to get himself under control.

"I won't kill him unless I have to," he said shakily to Pablo, but reloading his gun just in case. "Raul isn't sane. Spain needs him alive to show how crazy he is at a trial. We have to show the rest of the world this shit died with Franco. Spain doesn't do these things anymore."

"She did today," Pablo said.

In the compartment behind him, Manny hissed air in through his teeth and nearly choked on disappointment. Colonel Soreno would never pay for what he did. He had too many politician friends, and he'd get away, just like before. Rage and a hopeless, bitter grief boiled up, flowing from the core of him like lava.

Teeth clenched, he looked around quickly. Ricardo had moved up to the cockpit and was talking in to Marko and Pablo, his back to Manny. Watching him, Manny loaded a full clip into his rifle as quietly as he could, coughing to cover the loud click it made as he snapped it in place. Slowly, he edged toward the open door. When he was close enough to see out, he thumbed the selector lever on the rifle over to the last setting, locking it on automatic fire. Hardly breathing, he tracked the rippling cornstalks. Eyes riveted on the field below, he emptied his mind of everything, except his mother's face.

His throat was so tight it hurt, and his eyes burned, tears a swallow away. He shook his head and blinked hard.

Here he comes!

Small hands tightened around the CETME.

Three seconds.

He darted a quick glance at the men in the cockpit.

Two seconds.

Raul dashed out of the field for the safety of the house.

Manny jammed the rifle into his shoulder, held the trigger back, and emptied the clip.

Colonel Raul Soreno was racing past the pump when the bullets struck, spattering him in a burst of blood and bone against it, draping him grotesquely over the handle.

Unsure how many men had come with Raul, Marko waved Pablo and Ricardo behind him. With his rifle barrel, he eased the door open. Once inside the dim passageway that divided the house down the center, the three of them crept along the hall, hugging the stone walls, guns up. At the end of the corridor at the door that led to the kitchen, he stiffened, shot a hand back and gripped Pablo's arm. They moved closer.

"Go!" He mouthed the word to Pablo.

They jumped into the room, Marko sweeping left, Pablo right, Ricardo braced in the doorway.

The kitchen was silent and empty, except for Amaya.

Marko lowered his rifle and sank to his knees alongside her. A chill iced through him. Gently, he touched her cheek, her hair, the bloody front of her dress, and knew his worst fears were realized. He looked up with sick eyes. "Find the kids," he said, in a hoarse whisper.

Minutes later, Pablo came out of the barn and waved Marko away as he approached, shaking his head sadly as he drew closer.

Marko broke into a run. As he tried to push past him, Pablo grabbed him and pinned his arms. Marko struggled, flailing and resisting, as his big friend wrestled him away from the door, keeping him from going inside and finding Margo, Juan, and Eduardo piled in a corner, their little throats slit.

Across the corral, Ricardo staggered out of the sheep shed, retching. Inside, dead sheep lay everywhere, machine-gunned as they'd run for the corners. The straw underfoot was slippery with pulp, the shed walls spattered with wet entrails.

Head slumped, Dani was hung from a crossbeam, naked, his thighs crimson with blood. The signs of torture were obvious.

The three men cut him down and laid him on the floor. So much pain. So much death. Chalk-white, Marko covered his face with his hands and turned away from his friend, helpless with rage.

"Why did they do this?" A hesitant, childish voice picked at the silence. Manny stood in the doorway, dark eyes wide, gaping at the carnage.

Marko wiped his sleeve across his eyes. Silently, he stepped across the dead sheep to the boy. One part of him deeply regretted that Manny killed Raul; another was glad he did.

There was the law, and then there was justice. Marko held his arms open.

Manny threw himself into them and pressed against him. Patting the thin shoulders, Marko commanded in a choked voice, "Look at it, Manny...look at it! The man you shot was evil, the same man who killed your mother, your father, Dani and this whole family. He was a monster."

Firmly, he turned Manny around and made him look at the slaughter. Remember this for the rest of your life, and don't you ever have one minute's guilt about what you did today."

Marko found Maggie on her knees at the edge of the woods, looking as bruised and lost as a hurt bird. Her hair was a wild tangle, her face streaked with dirt and tears. Without a word he dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms, his chest so tight with emotion he felt weak.

Maggie clutched the front of his shirt, her forehead pressed against his throat. A long moaning sound came from deep inside her. "Amaya's dead," she sobbed.

"They all are, even the kids." His voice broke.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry," she sobbed.

He leaned against a tree trunk and held her while she cried. His own eyes swam with tears as he stroked the back of her head. He had no words to comfort her. He had no words to comfort himself. He'd loved those kids, loved the whole family. Tears ran down his cheeks.

Goddamn you, Raul.

He was thirty-eight years old, and the whole of his life had come down to this--sitting on a hillside with a fucking rifle, mourning another death. He felt Maggie's hair in his mouth and screwed his eyes shut. It could have been worse.

Over her head, he stared at the farmhouse with pots of flowers on the porch, gay splashes of red and white in brilliant sunshine. It was unreal. Except for a thin blue haze of smoke in the air, everything seemed normal.

Farther down the hill, the truck tire he'd hung in the oak tree for Margo hung motionless.

He gave Maggie a quick hug, then loosened his arms around her. "I'm taking you home. I want you out of Spain till this is over."

Maggie pulled back and drew a deep, shuddering breath. "And how long will that be?"

His shoulders lifted slightly. "It doesn't matter any more. Nothing is worth this. Maybe what I want to do here is impossible. Maybe it always was. Maybe it's time I face that and get out."

"Don't say that. These people look up to you. You're a hero to them."

"I'm no hero," he cut in savagely. "I did what I had to do, but I'm not proud of it."

"Luis knows about the killings, doesn't he?" She twisted her engagement ring around her finger and looked at Marko.

Marko looked back and said nothing.

"Don't try to protect me. You know he did," she whispered.

He nodded. "Knew about the others, probably. But not about today."

"But he did nothing to stop the others because of his dam contracts. The money was more important." A flake of sun glittered in the diamond and stabbed a shard of light across her cheek. She worked the ring off and tossed it aside.

Marko picked it out of the grass and looked at it, lying in his open palm. He moved his hand slightly, watching the diamond sparkle. Dr. Luis Alazar was history. And, just for an instant, the black depression he felt inside lightened. He slipped the ring into his shirt pocket. "I'll give it back to Luis, if you don't."

"I don't care what you do with it. I never want to see it again."

"The radio says your father came in this morning with a team of negotiators from the State Department," Marko said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.

"That's what you wanted--they've come to talk to you, to get me back."

"They can have you."

"What about the investigation?"

"It can come later."

"Suppose it doesn't?"

Marko drew his legs up, resting his arms on his knees, his hands locked loosely between them. "My problem, not yours."

She turned away, unable to look at him. There was a terrible sadness in his face. That concept of honor and freedom he held bordered on suicidal. There were no half-measures with this man, no rationalizing a safer way. If she didn't help him, he'd get himself killed, and she couldn't bear that.

More than anything in the world, she wanted to leave this place, this mountain in Spain no one ever heard of, but she couldn't. A whole family had died down there. She had to stay. For them. For herself.

For him.

A little dazed, she looked at Marko, leaning against the tree, his eyes closed. Other men she knew had professed patriotism. This big, dark-haired man said little about such feelings. He lived them. He loved his Spain, and he was ashamed that she had seen his country this way.

"I'm not leaving yet," she said, her voice firming. "I'm staying. You're going to trade me for that investigation like you planned from the beginning."

He opened his eyes. "You don't hear very well, do you? I said I'm taking you back tonight. Then I'm going off somewhere and think long and hard about calling it quits." He dragged a hand down his face. "I don't know how much more of this I can stomach," he said, and clamped his mouth shut.

Neither did she. Gloomily, her thoughts gathered around a hard, brittle kernel of truth: it would be easy to leave, to forget. But whether she stayed or not, Maggie Dixon St. Clair would never be the same. A simmering anger began to build inside. At herself, at life, at a world gone ugly. Before she knew it, she was up on her knees, seizing his shoulders, shaking him with all her strength.

"Listen to me--listen to me--listen to me!" Her fingers dug into him. "You can't quit--people depend on you! You are the last decent thing left up here. You walk out now and what happens to them? And how about Dani, Amaya, the kids, and all those others you talked about? Did they die for nothing?"

Stone-faced, Marko shoved her away. "Are you all through?"

Her anger ebbed away, leaving her feeling empty and light as a shell inside. "Don't you see? Neither of us can leave now. You have to stay; I have to stay. I'll do anything you ask. I'll go to court for you; I'll swear to what's happening up here, tell what I've seen with my own eyes." She covered his hand with hers. "Please, let me do this."

He shook her hand off. "What's got into you? Devil turning preacher? You've been yammering to go home ever since I brought you here."

"I have to try to make this right. I owe Dani and Amaya and you, for saving my life. But you owe me, too. If you'd left me alone, none of this would've happened."

It was so quiet up there in the trees, she heard the small click of his Adam's apple as he swallowed. "Don't you think I know that? Twice I've almost got you killed. I'm not about to go for three."

"Is that an apology?"

"A little late maybe."

Marko stared at her. Her face was as white as the day he grabbed her in the Parliament. She was that desperate to stay. And, if she did, it would be up to him to protect her, to keep her safe, something he hadn't done the best job of so far.

He steeled himself to say no, but inside he felt his resolve crumbling. He clasped and unclasped his hands. "Do you know--I mean do you really know--what you're saying? This time tomorrow you could be back in Virginia, sleeping in your own bed. You don't have to do this."

"To live with myself--yes, I do."

His mind plotted like a chess player, three, four, five jumps ahead. She'd offered to testify--an American senator's daughter. Of course, they'd listen to her. But that meant lawyers, court appearances, a trial that could drag on for months. Too risky for her. Diego also had friends. "You'll be a walking target," he said slowly.

"I already am." Maggie's eyes gleamed.

Overwhelmed by her offer to stay, Marko realized he was saying yes.

"It will get worse. With Raul dead, the army will take these hills apart looking for you. You've seen too much. Diego must silence you now."

She leaned forward with an intense expression. "Then hide me somewhere until you get the negotiations in place. They'll never find us, and once you swap me, it's over. You get everything you ever wanted for Spain and can go back into politics, which is where you belong. Let me help you do it!"

He blinked at her, nonplused at how she made the most difficult problems seem manageable. Once he swapped her, he had to immediately disappear. His dangerous political future would become more complicated, not less. She didn't know it yet, but the negotiations would topple his government. And he had real mixed feelings about that. "You sure you want to do this?"

"Positive." She thrust her hand out. "Deal?"

He closed his hand firmly around hers. Despite her bravado, the small hand in his was a chunk of ice. "Deal," he said gruffly, before he changed his mind. His gaze snagged hers. The question strode out of his mind and demanded an answer. Who was he doing this for--himself or for her?

He didn't know.

Climbing to his feet, Marko pulled her up with him, then waited while she stooped to tie her sneaker.

Looking down at the blonde head, he realized with a start that he couldn't quite call Leda's face into focus any more. The mental picture he held of his wife had blurred like an old photograph too long in a box. When he closed his eyes at night, it was Maggie's face he saw now. Doubts and feelings he couldn't get a handle on swam through him.

Pulling on the laces, Maggie glanced up at him, her green eyes clear and direct. The small dirty face, streaked with dried tears, was undeniably beautiful. He held his hand out . "Let's go play hide and seek."

He led them across the potato patch, knee-deep in leathery green leaves. Neither spoke as they worked their way down the hillside, jumping from one terrace to the next.

Clickety-clickety-clickety.

The windmill's wooden vanes spun in the breeze, the only sound in the sunny stillness. Marko swung her off a wall and set her down beside him. How would all this turn out--which way would it go?

For the first time in his life, he didn't want to know. He spread his fingers and laced them tight with hers.

"Maggie?"

She looked up. "What?"

"...thanks."

Chapter21

One hour later....

Maggie leaned back against the fuselage and crossed her arms determinedly. "I am not parachuting out of this thing, and that's final. There is no way--"

"Forget it, it was a bad idea," Marko said.

"I'll say."

Inside the Estradas, she'd changed clothes in one minute flat, with Marko in the hall outside the bathroom yelling at her to hurry. When she came out, he was bent over, lacing his boots up. The look on his face said it all: they had to get out of there--fast!

Maggie frowned at the three heavily armed men huddled over a map on the floor of the chopper. Pablo pulled a small, sharp knife from the side of his boot and delicately dug the point under his thumbnail. She shook her head in disbelief and looked away. She was part of a SWAT team in Spain that made the Mafia look like sissies.

Daddy would just die.

She wound her fingers together in her lap, feeling jumpy and helpless, certain that something else bad was going to happen, that Diego would come back before they got out of there, that Pablo would crash the helicopter. Something. Anxiety knotted her insides. At that moment, if someone had touched her with a feather, she would've screamed.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to get a grip on the panic she felt. Marko, Pablo, Ricardo--they were as upset as she was, sickened by what had happened, yet unable or unwilling to talk about it. All of them had clammed up, herself included.

Pablo, his small, circular eyes glittering with concern, popped a stick of gum into his mouth. Worriedly, he peered at the remote spot in the Pyrenees where Marko was pointing. "Monte Perdido in the Maladeta Range? That's in Huesca Province. Why are we taking her out of Edorta?"

"Because Diego has got to find her now. We have to take her someplace he can't." Marko tapped the map impatiently. "Can you get us in?"

The center of the chain of mountains where Marko pointed was an isolated national park, unpopular with tourists, a jumble of tortured, thrusting, colliding great peaks with few passes. The narrow winding road that led from one cross-compartment to the other was impassable in winter, dangerous in summer. He traced a finger around a starburst of U-shaped canyons in a wilderness area near the French border and nodded, a satisfied look on his face. "Ordessa--the last of the world's great places--nothing but mule tracks over the mountains."

"They don't call it the Lost Mountain for nothing," Pablo grumbled. "Those canyons are boxed in. Risky getting in and getting out."

"For them also," Marko shot back, with a half-hearted attempt to smile. "And you're a better pilot than any they've got."

"Not at night, not without radar," Pablo said doggedly. "Those valley walls are a thousand feet high."

Maggie had a sudden impulse to throw her arms around the big pilot's neck and hug him to pieces, glad that at least one of them had common sense, even if he did smell like peppermint.

"Can't use radar," Marko said, unaware of a sudden, stricken look that came over Maggie's face at his words. "The minute you turn it on, they'll know where we are. And I'm talking about right now, not tonight. I want her out of here."

Paper rustled. The four men crowded over the map again. Finally, Marko sat back on his haunches and lit another cigarette from the burning butt in his hand. He turned his head and blew a quick stream of smoke from the side of his mouth. "How about it?"

Pablo grunted and stood up. Hunched over, he went forward to the flight deck and swung himself into the seat. "By now, Madrid's coordinating with the Yanks at Zaragoza," he said, sliding his canopy window closed and raising his voice above the sound of the engines spooling up.

"Sí," Marko said. "The American 406th fighter wing is there, but even their scopes will lose us in the mountains." Face serious, he reached in and rested his hand on the pilot's shoulder. "I want you to set us down someplace where we can hike into Garralda, then you get back up fast, and they'll never know we got out. You won't be off their screens more than a minute. When Zaragoza picks you up again, let them track you awhile, then shake them again. You three go on to Navarra Province and stay with your sister in Pamplona till I call you. They won't know where we took her or where we went."

Pablo nibbled at his gum, popped a few quiet little bubbles in the front of his mouth. "Might work."

"Let's go then." Marko got up, grabbed the handle to the side door. He was smoking, talking, moving nervously, and Maggie understood why. He was the type of man who used activity to get past the pain and shock of what he'd just been through. He stood for a moment in the doorway of the Puma, looking at the farmhouse and the empty swing in the tree.

Slowly, he slid the door shut and threw the bar to lock it. When he turned around, he looked defeated, his eyes dull, as if all the life had been sucked out of them.

Long before the drop-off point, Pablo began hop-scotching in and around mountain peaks, dipping low into valleys, deliberately shaking the radar tracking them, then picking it up again. Twice, when he thought Zaragoza might have lost him he turned on their own radar mounted in the Puma's nose. Both Spanish and American operators at the air base immediately picked it up and kept a firm fix on them.

Half an hour later, Pablo turned to Marko and Maggie. "We're over the park now," Pablo shouted back. "How close to Garralda you want me to get you?"

"Six--eight miles, no more. We'll hike in like tourists."

The Puma flew behind a mountain and began a slow, controlled, descent, finally hovering a few feet over a rocky slope. Marko pitched their gear out through the open door. Gripping the edge of the cabin floor, he did a hand leap to the ground, then turned to Maggie. "Come on!" he shouted.

The rotors pounded, deafening her with the noise, pulsing through her with her in cadence with her own heartbeat. Marko stood in a blanket of cloud, his arms spread for her. Through a break in the mist churning behind him, she caught a glimpse of the snowy summits of the Maladetas in the sky beyond. Far below, like a toy village under a Christmas tree, lay a green valley veined with a tinsel stream. Maggie stooped in the doorway of the helicopter, the wind whipping her sleeves, her pant legs.

Feeling as if she were jumping into space after all, she pushed with her toes and reached for him.

Marko caught her, his hands firm around her waist, his eyes holding hers while he slid her down the length of him. By the time he set her down, Maggie was aware of every solid inch of him and her heart was pounding. But, from the bland look on his face, his heart was just fine. He was simply doing what he had to do.

"Don't look down," Marko said, and stood her in the spread of his legs.

Bracing her against him, he jerked his thumb to Pablo, and the swaying mass of machinery coasted aside. Marko set her away from him and took a step back.

"Here--" he stripped the bandanna from around his neck. "Stuff your hair under this."

He collected their gear from the hillside and worked his backpack on. When he bent to pick up the blue nylon pack that contained her things, Maggie grabbed it out of his hands. "I'm not helpless."

"Never said you were. I thought your knee--"

"It's fine," she cut in, and shoved her arms through the straps. "Let's go. I'll follow you." She was annoyed with him, annoyed with herself, and imagined that her whole front tingled every place it had touched him. It didn't make sense. Hurriedly, she adjusted the weight of her pack, relieved that he couldn't read her mind.

The path was a strand of flattened dirt no wider than a rabbit run snaking down the mountain. A little farther on, her eyes widened as Marko headed out over a slanting dome of ruddy-gray limestone. He'd grown up in these mountains and moved with the animal grace of a big cat, confident, sure-footed.

Listing to the left, feeling clumsy, as if she were walking on a glassy cloud, Maggie shuffled across the sky after him. She imitated his every move, planting her sneakers firmly where his feet had been. In steep, tight zigzags, they traversed yet another boulder slope. They came out onto a high balcony of stone overlooking a sun-baked valley punched into a wildly colored mountain, a cirque of glowing orange rock, a giant amphitheater from which there was no exit.

"No wonder Pablo wouldn't fly back here," she muttered.

The trail divided. With no hesitation, Marko swung left.

They went down again, harder because the landscape was so steep. As they descended, the mountains rose higher behind them. Colors began to appear in the monotonous, leaden landscape. Boulders with rusty-looking stripes lay flung about, instead of hemming them in on all sides. In the rubble, shoots of wavy hair grass appeared, and stiff little primroses poked through crevices.

Here, the pines grew greener, straighter, taller. The slopes alongside the trail fell away into breathtaking meadows ablaze with fuchsia and orange poppies--whole hillsides smothered in wildflowers. The clear, thin air was sweet with perfume. Bees droned. Butterflies were everywhere.

It didn't seem possible that someone was trying to kill her.

The Spanish sun was awesome. Farther up the mountain, Maggie had shivered in the chill and the mist. Now, as they descended the long, rocky slope toward the valley floor, the molten rays burned through her shirt. The countryside took on a hazy, golden hue, a tawny color produced by eons of broiling sun. Hidden under the scarf, her hair was damp and plastered to her neck. Sweat trickled between her breasts. She wasn't alone in her discomfort. Ahead, Marko mopped a handkerchief across his face and around his neck. The gray plaid shirt he wore was soaked between his shoulders, but he wasn't complaining. Neither would she.

The terrain leveled more gently. Marko struck off into an easy pace. Gritting her teeth, Maggie hobbled along and kept up, but her knee was throbbing, the joint grating with every step she took. By now, even her good knee was starting to hurt.

"Want to stop awhile?" Nonchalantly, she puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes and tried to smile.

Marko looked around. "How's the knee?"

"Fine." Oh, God, it hurt.

"Good. Just a few more miles and we're there."

Maggie nearly groaned out loud. A few more feet was what she wanted to hear. "Give me a minute to catch my breath, okay?" Ever so slightly, her voice wavered.

She caught a quick, questioning look from him before he headed for the edge of a beech woods and a little shade. Shrugging his pack off, he sat on the grass and leaned against the smooth gray trunk. Maggie eased down next to him and propped her bad leg out to rest it. She drew in a deep breath. The air was exhilarating up there, clear and crisp and buoyant. High above, in a sky so bright, so blue, it hurt her eyes, a contrail floated. Ahead of it streaked a speck of an airplane. A sonic boom cracked, the concussion jolting like faraway thunder over the mountains.

Marko tugged his pant leg out of his boot and worked it up to his knee. His calf bulged as he shifted position. Following the plane with his eyes, he scratched his leg, knuckles flexing in the dark hair. Unaware she was watching him, he brushed the pant leg down.

He had the upper body strength of a weight lifter or a swimmer. But those weren't swimmer's legs. Maggie picked a beech leaf off the ground beside her and twirled the small stem. "Didn't you use to play soccer?"

"Sí, in school--broke my leg in a match my senior year. Or rather, Raul broke it in a scrimmage...always said it was an accident. It wasn't, I realize now. I graduated on crutches." He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "I told you about that at the party, and you said you'd broken yours the year before. A horse fell on you."

She wondered what else he remembered, and looked off in the distance. "Will they come after us?" she said.

He made a small sound in his throat and nodded. "But they won't find us. Garralda is a little village. The only way in or out--unless you come in as we did--is one narrow dirt road. It's miles to the nearest highway. A few tourists looking for miracle cures may have come up after running the bulls at Pamplona last month, but most people never heard of it." He shifted the holster on his hip aside and stretched his legs out.

"I hope you brought ammunition for that thing." She gestured to the Beretta.

He looked amused. "It's not much good without it. Stop worrying. Nothing is going to happen. Until this is over, you go nowhere without me. I'm passing you off as my wife, so you're stuck with me, day and night."

She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Relax, Maggie. I've got more important things on my mind." In the sudden, awkward silence, he gestured toward the town and the monastery rising above. "That's Garralda Abbey. The monks run a wing for tourists up there. Nothing fancy, but you'll be safe, with them. And with me," he added.

Shielding her eyes, she gazed at the monastery. It looked like a Walt Disney castle, a compound of buildings with thin Gothic spires, atop a granite cliff that mushroomed from the valley floor. A stone wall fortified with battlements and storybook towers seemed to grow out of the rock itself to surround the monastery. Dominating the end overlooking the town below stood an ancient bell tower.

"How do we get up there?"

"Walk. There's a shrine and a set of stairs cut into the other side."

"Oh, that's rich! You're going to hide me out in a shrine, Garcia? Sleep in my bedroom and lie to an abbey full of priests?" Maggie leaned her head against the tree trunk and dissolved into a burst of giggles.

Marko smiled. He was learning to read her. A week ago, that laughter would have fooled him. Psychologists dealt with their feelings better than most, and she was an expert at hiding hers. Emotionally, as well as physically, she was hurting and too proud to admit it to him. He pulled out his canteen, drank deeply, then passed it over to her, watching her throat work as she swallowed. Her body was used to sea level, not hiking at seven thousand plus feet elevation. Her bloodstream couldn't carry the oxygen she needed for strenuous activity. That's why she was out of breath and tired.

Climbing to his feet, he stretched his arms wide and gave an exaggerated yawn. "I've had enough for one day. We'll go into Garralda tomorrow. Let's find a place up here and make camp." The relief that poured across her face was almost comical. He pulled her to her feet.

"You lie better than I do, Maggie Dixon."

In answer, a deep dimple winked in her right cheek.

Looking for a flat spot to pitch a tent, they followed the banks of a fast-running stream, runoff from mountain snowmelt a mile above. A mossy cliff rose alongside, the wet rock face glistening with dozens of trickling little waterfalls that spattered into the stream. Passing beneath a dripping limestone ledge, Marko suddenly seized Maggie's arm and stopped short. His nostrils flared at the sudden whiff of wood smoke in the air. Keeping Maggie behind him, they slowly walked out from beneath the ledge.

Ahead, the landscape fell off to a lunar strangeness. Low sandstone hills stretched along both sides of a wide ravine, the soft, tan cliffs riddled with openings--a ghetto of cave dwellings carved into the mountain. Along the top of the ridge, like bull rushes, stovepipes stuck out at odd angles. Wisps of smoke from cook fires inside drifted over the encampment.

"Gitanos," Marko said. Gypsies.

The trail plunged through the center of the camp. Dilapidated gypsy wagons, rusted trailers, and a van up on cinder blocks littered the clearing. The men loafed in the doorways of the cave houses watching a band of children pestering each other, playing and fighting among themselves. Gossip hissed from one doorway to the other as they approached. A small black dog ran out, stiff-legged, barking. Like a flock of ragged sparrows, the children rushed around them, wheedling for money, pawing at their sleeves, pulling at the backpacks.

One sure-footed girl about twelve darted in and snatched the scarf off Maggie's head. The blonde hair fell loose around her face. Marko grabbed for the scarf and missed. Shrieking with laughter, the children ran off.

In a makeshift corral next to the trail, a man was penning half a dozen superb Arabian horses, calling to the animals with clicks and hisses. He appeared to be in his late twenties, a swaggering, haughty man with a headful of glossy black hair. With a hardening expression, he held a prancing black horse by its halter as the couple approached him.

"Buenas tardes, señor," Maggie called. "That's a fine-looking animal you have there." Before Marko could stop her, she'd veered over to the horse and was running her hand down its shoulder. "Oh my, you are a beauty."

Instantly, the gypsy's liquid black eyes lost some of their glare. He stepped forward with a smile, the white of his eyes and teeth a dazzling contrast to his dark skin.

"Buenas tardes, I am Emilio. Our children, they mean you no harm."

With a nonchalant attitude mixed with a curious Old World formality, he inclined his head to Maggie. "You are limping, señora. Are you hurt?"

"No," Marko cut in before she could answer. "My wife sprained her knee, that's all. Come on, Maggie."

As he pulled her into a fast walk beside him, he heard the steady drone of an airplane approaching, low and slow and on a course right for the gypsy camp.

Marko's backpack thudded to the ground. He yanked his gray plaid shirt out of his pants, fumbled it open, and whipped it off as if it were on fire, his eyes all the time glued on the approaching plane. He threw the shirt over Maggie's head and held her against him.

The gypsy's eyes narrowed at the tall, black-chested, man clutching a woman with her head wrapped up. When the plane passed over, he said, guardedly, "It is nothing unusual. Every day the police check on us. You can let her out now."

Nodding, Marko stepped aside and pulled the shirt away from her head. No sooner had he done that than the sun glinted on the plane's wings, banking around. The pilot, curious why any man was stripped to the waist at that altitude, circled back for another look.

"Quick, señora, inside," the gypsy pointed to a cave doorway across the clearing.

Maggie hesitated, looked at Marko.

"Run!" he shouted.

She threw the shirt over her head and dashed for the cave, disappearing through the door just as the plane drifted back into the ravine, lower this time, slower this time.

The gypsy dropped the halter, and the horse galloped away. Watching the plane, the man peeled his own shirt over his head, threw it aside, then wheeled around and slammed his fist into Marko's stomach as hard as he could.

Chapter 22

Gasping, Marko came up blind-mad and swinging. A left hook connected and sprawled the gypsy backwards on the ground. Marko dove on him. Grunting, arms and legs thrashing, the two men rolled in the dirt, punching each other.

The plane buzzed over the clearing and pulled up into a climb.

Marko outweighed Emilio by a good fifty pounds and easily pinned his opponent on his back. Straddling him, fists clenched, he was ready to pound him into the dust if the man so much as moved a muscle.

Emilio threw his arms over his face and mumbled. "You can get off me now, señor. The pilot thinks we're only two gypsies fighting again. He's gone. He won't be back."

It took a moment for the meaning of his words to register. Sheepishly, Marko climbed off the man. He reached down and pulled the gypsy to his feet. "That was fast thinking. I'm sorry, I read it wrong. Thank you, but why did you do that for us?"

Emilio touched the corner of his mouth gingerly and looked at the trace of blood on his fingers. "You did not want her seen. Like you, Comandante, we have no love for the Guards or the army. Or that devil Diego."

"You know who I am?"

"Sí. They're looking everywhere for you and a woman. I read the papers."

"Then I owe you an apology," Marko said.

"Why have you never talked to us?" Emilio asked. "We could be useful. We have ways of learning things. Not even priests pay attention to Gitanos." He spat contemptuously. "Our allegiance is to nothing and no one--not even your Party of Justice. But we might listen to you, if you wanted to talk, that is."

Marko looked at him. If things went well in the next week or so, he wouldn't need gypsies, ever. But if things went wrong, Gitanos could indeed be useful. They were clever and quick and had a talent for digging out tidbits of information that others missed. Of course he'd talk to them.

Emilio read his face and clapped him on the shoulder. Together they headed for the cave house.

Pushing past a curtain hanging in the doorway, Emilio clapped his hands sharply, signaling everyone in the back rooms that he was coming in and was not alone. He ushered Marko down a whitewashed passage, the rock walls hung with cheap paintings and religious objects, dried up fronds from Palm Sunday, and braided tails of garlic. It was remarkably airy and cool inside. In a low-ceilinged room off the corridor, Maggie sat on a wicker stool, gnawing on a small purple onion. A young woman with a baby on her hip stirred a pot on a makeshift stove in the corner and smiled in welcome.

"Gracias," Marko said, nodding to her. In English, he explained to Maggie what had happened outside. "We've been invited to stay the night. They know who we are. After what he did for us, I think we should. We have to sleep somewhere anyway."

Maggie stuck her leg out. "Fine with me. Frankly, my knee's about had it. I don't know how much longer I could've lasted. And whatever she's cooking over there smells wonderful."

Marko hesitated, remembering his boyhood experience with gypsies. "Sometimes they all sleep together in one room."

"Catch." Maggie lobbed a purple onion through the air to him. He caught it, a puzzled look on his face.

"Better have one of those yourself then," she said, biting happily into the onion again. "Because this is my third."

Emilio, his wife Freda, their three children, and Marko and Maggie, crowded together around a card table in the tiny kitchen. Supper was a cocido--a chickpea stew floating with chunks of sausage and lard and whatever vegetables Freda had found in the corner, and a flat, salty corn cake. They washed everything down with a wild-tasting goat milk. Marko grinned across at Maggie. For a few hours at least, life had returned to normal.

As soon as the meal was over, Freda hurried them out of the house, following them down the passageway, dragging chairs and stools and cushions with her. Outside, she arranged them in a semicircle around the opening.

"Sit here," she said to Marko, touching his arm shyly and flicking a rag across the only high-backed chair in front of the house. Then, cracking jokes and waggling her eyebrows at them, she dashed a broom back and forth, and sat down herself, leaving the chair next to Marko vacant for her husband. She slipped a pair of gold hoops through her ears, arranged the high combs in her hair, and smoothed the full, flowered skirt she wore over her knees. Like a peacock, she sat back and waited for the arrival of the others.

Before long, they came--vital, attractive, dark-skinned men with their wives and children. The word was out: El Comandante was there. Their usual suspicion of foreigners and strangers overcome, at least for the moment, they came to see for themselves what kind of man he was.

A hero, Emilio showed off his bruised mouth as if it were a decoration. His friends laughed and feinted jabs at him, joking about the police plane and the government and Marko punching him in the mouth. And then the questions started flying, about the Party of Justice, about the revolution. For more than an hour Marko answered them, patiently and in detail. Once, he stopped in the middle of an explanation of guerrilla tactics--the men were especially interested in that--and grabbed up a stick. Squatting on the ground in a circle of gypsies, he drew diagrams in the dirt.

Maggie listened to his husky voice dipping, swelling, funny at times, angry at times, as he explained how GAL was now hunting down and killing anyone who belonged to the Party of Justice. With expressive shrugs and gestures, he spoke about bad government, about what was happening in Edorta, about why they had to stop it.

"Why?"

"So my children and your children won't ask us why we didn't."

Sitting behind him with the women, Maggie saw something in him she hadn't seen before, something that looked suspiciously like integrity to her. There was an intensity about him, a personal voltage most men lacked, that Luis didn't have. The man was a pro. Senator Marko Garcia must have been very, very good. No matter what he said, he belonged in government, not fighting it.

From off to the side, came shouting and laughter. Bottles of dark sherry, dry and heavy-bodied, appeared and disappeared. Marko wandered away, talking with small groups of men by the campfire. Firelight gave his face a brassy glow and shone against the clipped, black beard.

She'd never liked mustaches, and beards had always turned her off. Until recently. She smiled. Luis was clean-shaven, and his chest was as smooth as a baby's. For some reason, that lack of hair struck her now as...unfinished. Marko caught her eye and winked. She grinned back at him. But that one was complete, wrapped up, and tied with a bow.

And you, old girl, have had too much wine.

Guitars struck. Stopped. Struck again. The staccato clicking of castanets began, and the pulsing beat of flamenco charged the air with excitement. The thrumming undercurrent of the guitars--slow and clear at first--grew faster, louder, raspier. Hand-clapping started in time to the music.

A mahogany-skinned young man with a brooding face and slick black hair jumped to his feet and strutted to the fire. He spun and froze in an insolent posture, head thrown back, his torso arched. The fire flared upwards. Dark eyes glinting, he stood immobile, rapping out the sexy, staccato rhythm with one foot.

"Eeeee-yah!" he yelled, and drummed both feet in a furious explosion of heel-stamping.

"Viva! Viva!" a woman called out.

Everyone kept time, clapping their hands, stomping their own feet in the dirt in a frenzy of enjoyment, beating out a vibrant, hard-driving rhythm that countered the dancer's fierce heel and toe taps. Spinning turns and sudden stops cut through the action like a knife.

"Ole! Ole!" The crowd shouted praise to the dancer for his moody dance of passion and virility and male arrogance.

On and on it went--singing, drinking, dancing, laughing. Sharp voices, like jets of blood, called out in a rocketing, bucketing rhythm, wailing an accompaniment to the stomping of feet. Castanets clicked relentlessly, intense, wild, primal. For the first time in her life, Maggie understood why many people feared gypsies. Gitanos lived life defiantly, down where it burned.

A sultry girl with sharp, fine features and hair to her waist swayed up to Marko and invited him to dance. She had a fringed shawl tied around her waist, accenting her hips. To Maggie, there was something feline and predatory in the way she brushed up against him, her brilliant, colored skirt swinging. He evidently didn't think so. Marko bent toward her, laughing, attentive.

Maggie flounced around in her chair. The cow was throwing herself at him, and the stupid man was just eating it up. She thrust her empty glass at Freda for more wine. It was rough and strong, yet she drained it as if it were water.

At first Marko refused to dance flamenco, shaking his head and smiling. He felt uneasy, self-conscious, with Maggie there. The dance, with its phallic significance, was too macho, too sexy, and many times wound up being a seduction session. A gringa wouldn't understand. Some Basques considered flamenco obscene and anti-Basque.

The dark-haired girl at his side stuck her hands on her hips. "You're like all the others--we're good enough to fight for you, but not good enough to dance with you. You too good to dance flamenco, eh? Bah!"

Marko caught her wrist as she turned away. Nodding to the guitar players, he led her into the clearing and surprised them all by dancing the male counterpart with her. Though his footwork was not so agile as the young man's--too heavy in the boots he wore and he was a much bigger man--he knew the steps and all the sensual pelvic moves. Snapping his fingers in front of him, he turned and hammered his feet. Hand slapped hand, slapped thigh, slapped heel.

"Ole, Rubber Hips!" an impudent Texas voice called out. Marko threw his head back and laughed out loud, completely spoiling a sexy move. She had no idea how much he'd toned it down for her.

He finished to laughter and back-slapping. Eyes bright, the gypsy girl pressed a drink into his hand. No one had dreamed El Comandante knew flamenco.

Smiling, Marko watched a gypsy man pull Maggie to her feet and lead her out into the circle. Not to be outdone, she good-naturedly made an attempt to dance flamenco in her pink sneakers and with her gimpy knee. It came out more like a Dixie soft-shoe, and she dissolved into gales of laughter. Arms high in the air, Maggie clapped her hands together and frogged up and down in time to the music. He chuckled. It didn't matter a bit to her that she didn't know what she was doing.

Dark faces grinned at her. The blonde gringa was having a good time and it showed. They were pleased and so was Marko.

Someone filled her glass again. Sleepy, a little woozy, Maggie slid down against the wall outside the entrance to the cave and leaned against the cool stone, sipping the wine and watching the dancing. At that altitude, the night air was clear and cool against her skin. The inky sky glittered with more stars than she'd ever seen in her life. The Big Dipper, a necklace of diamonds, seemed close enough to touch.

Guitars throbbed, deep music from the heart, seeping into her bones. Little by little, the music grew fainter, faded, seemed to die. A great weariness dragged at her eyelids. She had a marvelous sensation of floating and then sinking into soft oblivion.

The oil lamp flickered in the cave bedroom, throwing the shadow of a man undressing a woman against the wall. Marko pulled off her shoes and socks, jeans and shirt. She was exhausted. Knowing she had no tolerance for alcohol, he'd watched her sip the strong gypsy wine and said nothing. She'd been to hell and back that day, and he wanted no bad dreams for her that night.

Almost out on his feet himself, he peeled his shoes and shirt off and slipped in beside her. In seconds, he was asleep. Maggie snuggled closer to his warmth. Spoon fashion, she pillowed herself around his hips, nesting her body intimately against his big frame. For twenty-three minutes he slept like a baby. Then....

A limp hand fell somewhere below his navel.

His eyes snapped open.

The room was black as pitch, close, and smelly. A few feet away Emilio, Freda, and the three children were fast asleep, huddled together like puppies. Acutely, Marko was aware of two soft breasts squashed against his back, rising and falling against him as she breathed. His stomach pulled tight, and his mind whispered to him to ignore it. But his body had gone deaf. And rock-hard. He set his teeth together. After all these years, she could still do this to him. Covering her hand with his, he moved it up to his waist. At seventeen, she'd nearly driven him crazy.

He rolled over, facing her, and put his arms around her. Blue bikinis, that's what she had on...and that little scrap of a brassiere he'd found in her apartment. For a long time he lay there, eyes closed, his arms wrapped loosely around her shoulders.

"Maggie, you awake?" A sigh was his answer and a soft squirm closer against him.

Right there...her mouth was right there, only inches from his. He angled his head and grazed his lips across hers, feather-light. Her lips were relaxed and soft and fragrant with wine.

Roughly, he gathered her in his arms, and then he really kissed her, sinking into her mouth, unable to stop himself. Cristo, he felt out of control and weird.

He hooked a finger under her bra strap, eased it off her shoulder. In the dark, his palm took the full weight of her breast. A woman's breast, now. Not a girl's.

Alert for the slightest reaction from her, he brushed the ball of his thumb back and forth across the nipple, giving a quiet hiss of surprise as the nipple peaked in response. The thought crept into the back of his mind that he could make love to her right now, and she'd never even know it.

Maggie stirred, dreaming about bears. Dancing bears...teddy bears...kissing bears. With a soft sigh, she buried her nose in curly black fur.

The next morning, Marko woke up early and itchy and in the foulest mood Maggie had ever seen him. Right after breakfast, he came outside and shouted, "Come on. Let's get out of here!"

For some reason, he seemed anxious to put the camp behind them and get started for Garralda. Making their good-byes outside Emilio's cave house, Marko threw his own pack over his shoulder, then reached down and snatched Maggie's from her as she started to slip her arms through the web straps.

"Give me that and don't argue with me," he snarled. Lugging both packs, he started off at a brisk walk down the trail. He stopped and turned around. "You coming or not?"

Maggie hurried after him and caught up with him. "My, you're cranky this morning. What's the matter? Didn't you sleep well last night?"

He looked at her without answering. It had been hours before he got back to sleep. A normal, healthy male, he'd spent most of the night cuddling a woman he badly wanted.

And nothing had happened.

Shaking his head, he struck off through the gypsy camp for the trail to Garralda and didn't turn around once to see if she was coming.

She was, right behind him. Her knee seemed definitely better that morning. Maggie almost skipped along, her face serene and composed. From time to time when he wasn't looking, she gazed softly at him, but not a trace of a smile gave her away.

She hadn't slept so well last night, either.

Chapter 23

Garralda Abbey

Wednesday, August 30, 1995

The spring bell jangled.

Marko pushed open the massive front door with a large single cross hewn from the center and brushed Maggie into the lobby ahead of him. Inside, they crossed a cavernous, vaulted room with a jumble of hallways leading off like tunnels. There was an air of moldering antiquity about the place, a five-century gloominess of clammy granite, overlaid with the faint aroma of floor wax and incense. Pale sunlight, swimming with dust motes, slanted through fanlights near the ceiling.

Behind a hotel-type counter at the far end of the room, a Benedictine monk sat at an old-fashioned switchboard with plugs and jacks and metal-tipped cords. A buzzer sounded. He pulled two cords from their sockets on the PBX board and rose from his stool. Hand outstretched, he came around the edge of the counter to meet them. The black ankle-length robe he wore was belted at the waist. Though he looked young, he wore his hair the old way, with a saucer of scalp shaved bare on the crown of his head.

"For today," Brother Juan said, "it appears you are our only guests." He smiled and straightened a pile of prayer cards on the counter. "You're hikers, I see. Where are you from?" he asked amiably, sliding a ledger and a ball-point pen across the counter top to Marko.

"Segovia," Marko lied, with a congenial smile at the man.

Before the monk finished the first sentence, Maggie was heading for the courtyard she could see beyond the lobby, wanting to avoid a conversation and questions about her less than perfect vowels. Like Marko, the man behind the desk spoke the cultivated Castilian of Spain. Spaniards were such snobs about their language, as if what they spoke in Spain was the only correct one, and everyone else had learned theirs from the Indians. Her Chicano inflections might be different from Marko's la-di-da Castilian, but they were just as cultured, just as educated. Nevertheless, she knew they'd be noted and commented on.

Outside, she ducked through the colonnade of marble pillars and into the shade of a cloister running around the quadrangle formed by the buildings. Here and there, statues and carved ornaments were recessed into the walls. The abbey church, set into the north wall, glowed a soft, pinkish gray in the sunlight, its stained glass windows sparkling like jewels. The high tower they'd seen from a distance dominated the end of the wall overlooking the valley. On all four sides of the tower, bells hung in tall window-like openings.

In the center of the grassy courtyard, lay a formal rose garden. Black-robed men with halos of hair knelt between the bushes, pulling weeds. Most nodded pleasantly, but didn't speak. Only one, a short, plump monk named Gregory, stopped and introduced himself. Every Benedictine monk has an appointed job, he told her. "Today, it is my turn to be the official welcomer."

Smiling, chatting, he led her to a concrete bench running the length of the building inside the cloister. On a placard attached to the wall, he pointed out the hot springs and the pool, the library, the dining room. Then he patted her hand and left, hurrying toward the church.

To Maggie's relief, he hadn't mentioned her accent.

As soon as Marko finished registering, he came looking for her. Just outside the doors from the lobby, he stopped and looked up. Across the courtyard, the bell tower pealed the call to sext--noon prayers--a loud, sonorous clanging, somber and sad, like an execution. He stared up at the swinging bells, seeing in his mind the ropes, rising and falling. And Dani.

Bringing Maggie to the Benedictines was his best hope to hide her, not because seventy miles was too far for Diego to come, but because not even Diego would touch a monastery. Still, that didn't mean she was safe.

The tolling of the bells stopped, the air quivering with the last iron notes.

Damn! Marko stiffened and shot a startled look at the back of a monk who'd come up behind him, running toward the church, black robe churning at his heels. Though he'd passed Marko only inches away, one soft scuff of a shoe was all he'd heard before the man was alongside and then past him.

Maybe he was wrong to wave off Pablo's suggestion of bodyguards. Yet, deep down, Marko knew he was right. Three men and one woman would have made them all suspect. Bodyguards always acted like what they were.

The sound of chanting floated from the abbey church, deep, male voices singing psalms. Marko stopped by a pillar. For several minutes, he stood in the shadows of the covered gallery and let the sweetness and the gravity of the music wash over him.

Up ahead, on a bench in the same gallery, Maggie sat quietly, also listening to the chanting.

Marko came up behind her and squeezed her shoulder lightly. She whirled around, eyes wide, a tight-drawn quality to her face.

"Relax. You're as jumpy as I am," he said softly. Taking her elbow, he drew her up. "We have a room with a television. Your father called a press conference for tomorrow morning."

Their room was on the second floor at the end of a long hallway in the guest wing. Marko had selected a corner room with an unobstructed view of the courtyard and a ten-story drop to the valley floor below. Conveniently located near a landing and a double set of stairs, it gave them two exits of escape, if needed.

"The Sheraton, it isn't," Maggie said, closing the door behind them and dropping her backpack to the floor. "This is one ugly room."

The carpet was a worn gray nylon; the walls, covered with gray-striped wallpaper. Gray lace curtains hung at casement windows. A matching dresser with a wavy mirror bowed into the room. There was an armchair, a table, and floor lamp in a corner near the door. One double bed stood between the windows, a high, turn-of-the-century monstrosity with a red mahogany headboard that reached halfway to the ceiling.

Jade-green eyes drilled into him.

Marko dropped his backpack down next to hers and stepped over to a window overlooking the valley. "This is how it came--one bed," he said hastily. "Since we're supposed to be married, I let it go. I brought a sleeping bag. I'll sleep on the floor." Shoving his hands in his pockets, he rocked slightly back and forth on his heels. He hid a smile, thinking about the gypsy camp and what all she didn't know.

Maggie shrugged. "Good. Besides, as you so nicely put it yesterday, you have other things on your mind."

He angled his head slightly and smiled. "Did I say that?"

"You most certainly did."

"Well, the only thing I have on my mind right now is food. Let's go eat."

He watched her go back and zip open her pack. "Give me five minutes for a quick shower."

The water was still running when someone pounded on the door.

Marko snatched the Beretta up and racked the slide back, loading it. "Who's there?" he called.

"Brother Gregory, señor."

Marko frowned, not recognizing the name. Carefully, he laid the Beretta in an empty top dresser drawer and left it ajar.

"Come in." He lounged against the dresser, fingers resting lightly on the gun.

Brother Gregory, the monk Maggie had spoken with in the courtyard, bowed and smiled his way inside. Robe swinging, hand outstretched in greeting, he crossed the room, a short, solid-looking man with a donut of brown hair.

"Señor Garcia," he boomed, in a voice like a rusty cannon, "your wife tells me you are a Greek scholar."

The tension gripping Marko's shoulders relaxed its grip a fraction. "I speak it a little," he said, hearing the strain in his own voice. He eased the drawer closed.

Brother Gregory clasped his hands together under his chin and smiled. "You are too modest. Your wife says you speak it perfectly."

"Uh, not really. I only--"

"And your mother was Greek, I understand. That is wonderful."

Marko frowned. His mother wasn't Greek--she was Basque, born and raised in Edorta. His wife--his real wife--had been Greek. "What can I do for you, Brother?"

"Father Andrew--he's our abbot--was delighted when I told him about you. We have a rare old book in the library in the original Greek, of course. A jewel. A treasure. He would be honored to show it to you after supper over coffee. He also speaks Greek, you see," the monk said proudly. "Andrew says it will be a blessed relief to talk about something besides bullfighting for a change."

With a vacant smile, Marko managed to edge the monk, still talking at the top of his lungs, toward the door and into the hall. When he turned around, he saw Maggie's head peeking around the bathroom door. "Did you hear what he said?"

She nodded. "I couldn't tell him the truth, so I told him you were a Greek translator for the United Nations--"

His jaw dropped. "A what! I speak Greek like a peasant! And now that nosy priest wants me to--"

"He's not a priest, he's a brother."

"Jesu, I know that! I used to be an altar boy."

She turned around, toothbrush in hand. "You, an altar boy--candles, curtseys, a little white dress? I don't believe it."

"Believe it. As a boy, I wanted to be a priest when I grew up," he answered. He saw no reason to tell her that he'd changed his mind about the priesthood when he was twelve. A fourteen-year-old neighbor girl, whose family had been invited to dinner, took him out behind the barn one Sunday after mass, hiked her skirt up and her underwear down, and lay back on the grass. The events that transpired that afternoon had vaporized forever any serious interest in the priesthood.

Dinner that night was in a dark-paneled dining room with heavy beams like ship timbers bridged overhead. They sat at a maroon-clothed table with gray linen napkins beside a bank of windows overlooking the rose garden. Supper was leisurely, served by monks with aprons over their black robes.

In the soft lighting of the dining room, the pink cashmere sweater she wore, one he'd brought from her apartment, cast a pretty blush into her cheeks. She'd clasped her pale hair back on one side with a wide silver barrette he'd found on the dresser in her apartment. A few wisps escaped the clip and curled in front of one ear, giving her a soft, distracted, feminine look.

Marko ordered lamb chops for them both and handed his menu back to the monk. "And a bottle of Murrieta Rioja, 1983, if you have it."

Maggie's eyebrows winged up. Luis liked that, too. To her mind, that particular red wine fitted Luis with his tailor-made suits and alligator shoes better than it did the bearded ex-lawyer carrying a gun across the table. He was through with politics, he said, and probably with law, as well. She looked down at the tablecloth, saddened at the direction in which his life was going. What a waste.

Later, as they ate, he seemed subdued, preoccupied. He hacked his lamb into slivers and stabbed his fork at the green beans, a man at war with his dinner. She watched him fill his glass with the purple-red Rioja, then study her as he drank it.

As always, when they were alone, Maggie slipped into English. "Why so quiet--you bothered about something?"

"Only how to get around this mess with the abbot you got us into. He'll know in thirty seconds I'm no Greek translator." With a loud pop, he yanked the cork from the wine bottle and filled his glass again.

"You said your wife was Greek. Did she teach you?"

He nodded. "Her mother was our housekeeper when I was growing up. They both taught me. When they came to Spain, neither one spoke Spanish, and since my father was never around, I learned Greek so I had someone to talk to, someone to play with." His mouth puckered disapprovingly. "If Father Andrew speaks halfway decent Greek, you and I are in big trouble. I read it better than I speak it, and I can't write it at all."

"You knew your wife a long time then?"

"Grew up together, a strictly brother-sister relationship for years."

Maggie was torn with curiosity about the kind of woman he'd married. "What was she like?"

"Tall, serious, intelligent. Nothing like you."

"Thanks."

"A United Nations translator, Margarita, remember?" he said, with an evil grin. "I married her a few years after I--after I came back from the States," he finished lamely.

After that business with me, you mean.

Perhaps because she sensed a crack in that iron control of his, or perhaps it was the faint trace of humor gleaming in his eyes, she asked, "Did you ever tell her about us?"

"I did not." He looked up, one corner of his mouth digging in. "And you never told your husband."

"Yes, I did--before we were married. But I shouldn't have."

Marko leaned back, his arm draped over the chair alongside. "How did he take it?"

"Blew up, called you some ugly names, said he'd kill you if he ever got his hands on you. It was just what I needed to hear, I guess, because I went to bed with him that night for the first time."

Marko stiffened.

"You see, I never knew why you left till two weeks ago," she said, with a quiet gravity. "As it turned out, it was all a sham. Everything Trevor did or said was a sham, strictly for effect, part of his carefully calculated plan to marry Senator Dixon's daughter."

"Who is Trevor St. Clair?" Marko asked quietly.

Maggie glanced around the dining room and waited until the monk who had waited on them returned to the kitchen, leaving them alone. "Trev was my anthropology professor. He's at Harvard now. Hate to say it, but he's brilliant, the world's foremost authority on South American Indian cultures. When I met him, he rode a Harley to class and taught in jeans and shades." She looked up, her face sober. "All the girls had a crush on him, he was so cool. He used me, like he used everybody. He had feelers out to all the Ivy League schools, told me he was too good for Texas State. He probably was."

"And you loved him."

She shrugged. "What can I say? I have lousy judgment in men."

Marko's eyes held hers, as he filled her wine glass.

"He needed backing for a gene project on the Mapuche tribe in the Andes," she continued softly. He thought daddy would come up with the money to back an expedition for his son-in-law. And he did, as a wedding gift."

Maggie creased her napkin, flattening it into neat little folds. "You'll get a laugh out of this--we had to elope. Daddy hated him on sight."

"Hated me on sight, too, I seem to remember."

"Nothing personal. He hated all my boyfriends." She caught her lower lip between her teeth and smiled. "Can you guess where we honeymooned."

"In the Andes, where else?"

"Bingo." The pretty smile hardened. "For six months and eight days, I traipsed around the mountains with Trevor, dirt under my fingernails, stars in my eyes, and sappy-silly in love with a genius whose brains were all down in his shorts. I found that out the morning I ducked under an overhang out of a rainstorm and found him with a Mapuche girl. We were still on our honeymoon, and she wasn't even the first, I found out later."

Marko's eyes darkened. He reached across and covered her hand with his. "He was a fool, Maggie. You left him, of course?"

"Fled is more like it, as fast as I could run." Just like you did me.

"And good old Trev?" Marko asked.

She shrugged. "Will get the Nobel Prize one of these days."

* * *

After dinner, they went looking for the library, taking the corridor outside the dining room toward an archway and the narrow wooden stairs beyond that their waiter directed them to. On the second floor, they found themselves talking in hushed voices and tiptoeing through a labyrinth of tunnel-like hallways lined with heavy medieval doors.

"Why are we whispering?" Marko asked.

"I didn't notice you were," she whispered back, grinning. "You sound like that all the time."

"And remind me to cut your wine off tomorrow at one glass," he said, pretending to scowl. He pointed down the hall. "There's our man."

Father Andrew Sebastian, the abbot, alerted by a telephone call from the depths below, stood in an open doorway, a gaunt, black-garbed figure, beckoning. Tall, ascetic-looking, the elderly priest peered over silver wire spectacles and spread his arms in welcome as they approached. In his left hand, he held a book written in Greek.

Marko's eyes widened at the title. "My apologies, Father. I know nothing of the itinerary of St. Paul," he said, and darted a barbed look at his blonde companion. Maggie, after a polite greeting, slipped through the door and settled herself comfortably into an armchair by a long window. Eyes gleaming, she ducked behind a horticulture magazine.

Surprisingly strong for a man his age, Andrew threw a black-draped arm around Marko's shoulder and propelled them toward a long table across the room. "I thought you might enjoy seeing this old book with me. I hope Gregory didn't exaggerate my facility with your language," he said, opening the book on the table. "I hardly speak Greek at all, I'm afraid. The little I learned in seminary is long gone."

Marko beamed.

As they talked, Maggie separated the voices, listening closely to Marko's furred baritone discussing the differing translations of individual words. Engrossed in the conversation, caught up on a word neither understood, the two men had forgotten her.

The library was ablaze with light, a gleaming golden oak room of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with a tall rolling ladder. As Marko ran his finger under a line of print and read the passages aloud, Father Andrew turned a large world globe resting in a floor stand. Together, they traced cities and ports the apostle was known to have visited.

"And how many times to Corinth, señor?" the old priest asked excitedly.

"Two, it says here, Father." Marko looked up from the book at Maggie, his dark eyes holding hers.

Hesitantly, Maggie smiled back, slightly dislocated by her surroundings, out of sync with reality. Commander Marko Garcia, discussing a book of ancient Scripture with a monk? Courteous, soft-spoken, he easily passed for the U.N. translator she'd claimed he was. In fact, he might have been the college professor, instead of her, or a banker, anything except what he really was--a revolutionary, a man who'd killed a man who'd tried to kill her. And who would do so again without hesitation. Imperceptibly, she shook her head. They were partners now, her life inextricably tangled with his. His cause was now her cause.

She leafed through the pages in the magazine, looking at full-page, full-color photographs of roses, yet not seeing them, her thoughts still on the dinner they'd had downstairs. She turned the page. Funny, she'd told Marko about Trevor, but she'd never told Luis. She looked over the magazine at the two men bent over the table, hardly seeing the priest in his cassock. Her eyes were on the wide shoulders of the brutally handsome man in a blue sweatshirt and tan trousers.

Somehow, she'd come full circle, from hating him to respecting him to liking him.

Maybe more than just like?

Instant denial rose, and she glanced up at the man in question. The book open in his hand, Marko looked over the old priest's shoulder at her and winked.

And her insides melted.

Blindly, Maggie looked down at the page of roses in her lap, the truth rocking through her like a charge of dynamite set off a mile deep.

I'm still in love with him.

Marko looked up from his newspaper when Maggie came out of the bathroom, her face scrubbed and ready for bed. Barefooted, she padded across the rug, the thick blonde hair pinned up in a sexy tumble. Damp tendrils clung to her cheeks. She wore one of his white tee shirts for a nightgown. Too big, it flapped around her knees. Marko looked away quickly, wondering how any woman could look so damned alluring in a baggy tee shirt.

She yawned. "You can sit there and read all night, if you want to. I am beat." Unselfconsciously, she walked to the bed. One knee on the mattress, Maggie stretched across to pull the covers down. As she did, the tee shirt worked up over her behind, giving him an unobstructed view of pink bikini underpants--a little pink triangle with tiny red hearts, caught in the cleft of two small buttocks. He ducked behind the paper again.

In bed, Maggie pulled the sheet up to her chin and turned her back to the light. "See you in the morning."

Marko grunted and didn't look up.

Sitting in the easy chair in the corner, his sneakers off, one long leg draped comfortably over the arm of the chair, Marko absorbed himself in the paper. Only his toes, curling and uncurling inside his socks, revealed his true state of mind. He flipped through the newspaper for the third time and snapped it open.

Absolutely, there would be no repeat of last night.

He put off going to bed until he was certain she was asleep. Not until her breathing was even and steady did he toss the paper aside, unroll his sleeping bag, and turn out the light.

In the dark, he took off his shirt, unbuckled the leather holster from his armpit, and laid the Beretta on the dresser. At the window, he lifted the curtain aside and stood looking down into the courtyard. Bright moonlight flooded the grounds, the white stone statues and pillars glowing faintly in the dark. He stiffened. Near the rose garden, a shadow moved, black moving in black. Quickly, he reached behind him and had the gun in his hand when a small shadow darted out into the light and trotted up the path. Unaware that he'd been holding his breath, he let it out slowly.

Behind him, bedclothes rustled. A moment later, he caught the faint scent of shampoo and soap. A fingernail skimmed lightly between his bare shoulder blades.

"What are you looking at?" Maggie asked softly.

"A cat," he said, with an embarrassed smile, and let the curtain fall back into place. "I'm jumpy. Habit, I guess. Sorry if I make you nervous."

"I'm getting used to it." She hesitated. "We're friends now, aren't we?"

"I guess you could call it that."

"...I have to tell you something."

"Sí?"

"I wasn't asleep last night."

For long, dragging seconds he didn't move, reeling with the aftershock of her words. Finally, he shrugged. "I'm sorry. What else can I say? I am not a saint. I'm a man, and you're a beautiful woman. I wanted to make love to you."

"To me? Or to little Maggie Dixon?"

"I'm not sure," he said slowly. "To you, I think. They are both mixed up together in my head."

"But you didn't make love to me. Why not?"

He made a small, derisive sound. "Because I didn't know what to say if I woke you up. Maybe I had too much wine. Maybe I'm going nuts. Whatever, I'm sorry, Maggie. It won't happen again."

"That wasn't very nice, you know, taking advantage of me in my sleep."

"God, if you don't sound just like a teacher! You said you weren't asleep, and I said I'm sorry. If you didn't like it, you should have stopped me."

There was a pause. In the silence of the room, so softly the words were barely audible, she said, "I didn't say I didn't like it."

He heard, and steeled himself not to answer, not to turn around. Because if he did, as sure as he was standing there they'd both regret it in the morning. Getting involved with her physically again would be a mistake. A big mistake. Last night he'd wanted her, and for a dozen different reasons, he didn't take her. He still wanted her. He wouldn't stop a second time. Inside, his stomach pulled tight. Willpower fought with desire.

Maggie looked at the broad back and shoulders of the man at the window, standing in the moonlight. Again, he'd drawn away from her, remote, unapproachable. "I shouldn't have said that." She turned to go.

"You're right, you shouldn't have." Roughly, he pulled her into his arms, pressing her against the length of him, the metal butt of the Beretta cold against her waist. His mouth took hers, a bruising kiss, a wet, open, eating kiss. His face worked back and forth against hers, kissing her the way he did ten years ago. With a small moan, Maggie drove her fingers into his hair and gripped there. Slowly they sank to their knees by the window. He shoved the gun aside.

When the kiss ended, the pink bikinis were off, her tee shirt, his chinos and shorts thrown aside. They rolled naked on the floor together, bare hands on bare skin, eager, rushing, groping hands, getting in each other's way, hers as fast as his. Whispering, murmuring, as though a night full of priests were listening, they touched each other's body in the dark.

And then the warm, clinging slide of her belly over his. Between them, Marko felt her palm cupping the heavy weight of him. Her hand closed in a sultry caress around his rigid erection. His fingers clenched the soft flesh of her hips, slid over them, and down into warm wetness.

He groaned.

She groaned.

Blindly, he reached for her breasts, covered them with his hands. A thick sound moved in his throat. Maggie answered, incoherent fragments of words.

Like two oncoming trains, their lives had been rushing inexorably toward this moment, this act, this room. There was no stopping it now, no slowing it down, not for him, not for her.

Breath sawing in and out, Marko dragged her under him, desperate to be inside her. With one thrust of his hips, he sank to his length. Her legs curled tight around him. Powerful haunch muscles flexed in a frenzy of pumping. Thrust for thrust, Maggie arched to meet him, their bodies jolting together. His mouth slammed down on hers again. Kissing her, he drove deeper.

Again...and again...and again.

In that last split second of sanity, he tore his lips away, coming and groaning her name.

"Marko...."

"Thank God, you didn't call me 'Mikel.'"

He rolled off her, gathered her up, and carried her, limp and boneless, to the bed. He slid in beside her, holding her, stroking her hair, her neck, the long, silky line of her back. "You all right?"

Maggie nodded. She lay sprawled half on top of him, her knee between his thighs. She hadn't the strength to answer him. She felt dizzy and weak, floating in the space between then and now. She might never come back. Her hand curved around the thick column of his neck.

"Say something," he whispered.

"I knew better than to make love with you again. I feel like I've been hit by a truck." Smiling, she moved deeper into his arms. "Do you always do it like that now?"

He chuckled. "No." His hands found her breasts again.

Her thoughts tumbled drowsily, awed by the intimacy she felt with him, had always felt with him. With a touch of wonder at what she was doing, Maggie buried her nose in the warm crease of his neck, drawing in his musky scent. She smiled. No Chanel for this man.

Learning the feel of him again, she searched her fingers up a pair of biceps and cupped his shoulders, then reached around a muscled back, firm but resilient. In the dark, he seemed bigger and stronger than she remembered. Her hands groped across the hard swell of his chest.

He tensed.

"Mmmmm, I like this," she said, and bunched her fist around a handful of springy chest hair.

A chuckle. "I thought you hated it."

"I lied."

"We both lied."

She smiled up at him. "What we're doing--is this very smart?"

"No." He kissed her, a long, soft kiss.

Deeply, he drew a nipple into his mouth, loving each in turn, first tender, then not so tender, a slow, sensual suckling that had her writhing on the bed, her hands climbing his back with pleasure. He smiled and moved lower, buried his face in the blonde curls between her thighs. Ducking his shoulders under her knees, he slid her bottom close to him. Fingers lacing hers, he spread her arms wide in the moonlight slanting across the bed.

He held her wrists loosely. "Remember the first time?"

"Yes." He caught a glint of a smile.

He smiled back. "You going to cry again?"

She shook her head.

Her eyes closed as a warm mouth covered her completely. A decade slipped away. In the dream space between two worlds, she was seventeen again, in the stable again, with him again.

"Come in my arms," he whispered.

Pleasure spiraled. Arms outspread, Maggie gripped his hands tighter...tighter.

When she started to climax, he slid up beside her and held her against him, absorbing her shudders with his body. Her arms slipped around his neck and clutched him as if she were drowning--just like the first time.

He tipped her chin up and smiled. "Kiss me, Brat."

Chapter 24

Thursday, August 31, 1995

In a radio and television interview in Madrid the next morning, Senator Thaddeus Dixon introduced a beribboned Brigadier General Maxwell "Buzz" Boyer. On behalf of the United States, Boyer would negotiate with the Party of Justice for his daughter's release, he said.

The marine general, tanned and trim in dress blues, bristling with medals, stepped up to the microphone.

From Vietnam, Buzz Boyer had come back a hard-eyed light colonel with a track record in military intelligence that some said bordered on the supernatural. He and his jungle fighters had known where the Cong were when nobody else did. Thad Dixon had accepted Boyer's assignment to negotiate Maggie's release with mixed emotions. In Washington, Boyer was known as a walking encyclopedia of the military power structure. He was ambitious and had kicked a lot of heads on his way up the ladder of command. He wore well the single star of Brigadier. He was bucking for two, and rumor had it that if he wrapped this up fast and got Dixon's daughter out, Star Number Two would be on his desk when he got back.

Boyer seized the microphone. "Commander Garcia and I are both officers. We understand each other." And then, looking sternly into the red eye of the television camera, Boyer addressed the guerrilla leader he knew was watching. "Commander, you pick the time and the place. I'll be there."

Senator Fidel Diego watched the same interview from his office, seated at his desk. Luis, legs crossed at the ankles, sat off to one side of the large color television. Morosely, he sipped from a mug of coffee and gestured toward the screen.

"Who is this Boyer anyway?" he asked.

"Ex-Depot Commander of Quantico--now, Naval Intelligence, a military spook. I did some digging on him and what our people turned up was very interesting. He was involved with the Iranian hostage crisis at the highest level, but of course the Pentagon denies it." Diego studied Boyer's face on the screen for a moment, then turned to Luis. "Better watch yourself with him."

"Me?" Luis's eyebrows flew up in surprise.

"Of course. You're going to the negotiations. Garcia told Kristobal if I so much as show up, the deal is off. And she is your intended. It's only natural that you would want to be there."

"No. I'm a doctor, not a politician. They shouldn't let me near those meetings."

"It's all arranged. I have to know what happens at those negotiations. And so do you--for obvious reasons."

Luis shook his head and stood up. Coffee in hand, he walked to the window and stood in the sunlight slanting through the Venetian blinds. He spun around, his face clouded. "At his camp...they found no signs of her?"

"They found nothing at the camp, and Raul and his men took it apart looking for her. It's as if she was never there."

"Then why did he abandon his base--just hand it over to us? I don't understand why Raul attacked the base with her there. They could have killed her," Luis said, his mouth a thin white line.

Diego read the warning signs--the doctor's clamped face, the heat of imminent anger. He inserted a soothing, placating tone into his voice. "There was no possibility of that. We knew they were gone," he lied.

"He was gone because he knew you were coming--doesn't that worry you?"

"He's got spies everywhere. He was tipped off."

Luis drained his coffee. "You said you could get her back if I played it your way. Well, I have--right down the line--and he's still got Maggie." He slammed the mug down in front of Diego, his eyes cold. "I wanted to go with Raul to the camp and you knew it. They went without me."

Fidel switched tactics, trying to humor him. "And the press would have loved that, wouldn't they? A baby doctor leading an army to save his girlfriend."

"Army?" Luis snorted. "They're no army? They're hired killers, and you know it."

"But they get the job done. They've also made you a very rich man, so sit down and let's figure our way out of this." He leaned forward and punched on the intercom to his secretary.

"Hold my calls--" He waved Luis to a chair.

Luis collapsed into a brown leather wing chair, the fight gone out of him, his face strained. "I don't even know if she's still alive," he said, in a low, parched voice.

"Day before yesterday, she was."

Luis's head came up. "How do you know that?"

"Someone saw her--"

"What else haven't you told me?" Luis asked dully.

"I just found out myself yesterday. I've kept nothing from you."

Luis swallowed, his face filled with suspicion. "These negotiations...what if Garcia suspects I had something to do with killing his sheep?"

"Suspects?" Diego laughed nastily and unwrapped the cellophane from a cigar. A gold lighter flicked. Puffing, he looked through the flame at Luis. "He knows you did. And now the big bad wolf is loose in your flock, Doctor. Can you guess or shall I draw you a picture of what he's doing to your little lamb right now?"

Luis jerked upright in the chair, his face flushing a deep, dark red. "I'll kill him," he whispered.

"Somebody has to," Diego said.

Marko punched up the bed pillows behind him, shook a cigarette loose from the pack on the night stand, and lit it. Settling back, he raised his knee, tenting the sheet. From the bathroom came the sound of water running--Maggie filling the tub. An arm folded under his head, Marko watched that same news conference on the television at the foot of the bed.

Senator Dixon appeared on the screen. Carefully, he polished his glasses, then smoothed the wires over his ears in a deliberate little motion that telegraphed his nervousness to the viewers. Face tense, voice cracking with strain, Thad Dixon looked into the camera and made an impassioned plea to the guerrilla leader holding his daughter not to harm her.

Marko frowned. He didn't want Thad Dixon at the meetings. There was no way he could sit across the table day after day and face the pain in that man's eyes, and he couldn't tell him the truth--that the negotiations were a sham, that the daughter he was so worried about was staying of her own accord--because that meant Dixon would have to lie to his own government, as well as to Spain's. He didn't like him, but Dixon wasn't that kind of man. He wouldn't ask him to do that. Not even for her.

Blankly, he looked at the bathroom door, hearing the small splashing sounds of a woman bathing. Ever since Leda died, love- making had been one-sided for him, little more than mechanical release with a willing female. Not once in these last three years had he felt affection for his partner, felt anything for that matter. Those feelings had died with Leda, or so he'd thought. After awhile, he stopped looking for them and simply took what he needed physically.

It was different with Maggie. This time, he wasn't taking; he was giving. The affection had been there from the beginning, for both of them, and that put a whole different spin on sex, raised it from just fucking to...to something else. Impatiently, he flicked the cigarette, dropping the ashes into the ashtray balanced on his stomach and swore softly. Of all the times in his life--why now?

A vague uneasiness settled around him, a feeling he'd had once before, crossing a frozen lake he'd thought rock hard and solid until spring. He'd been out in the middle before he realized it wasn't. With Maggie--just like then--he could hear the ice creaking. At any instant he could plunge through a hole and be in over his head with her.

If he wasn't already.

He let his breath out in a long, slow exhale. Either way, sure as hell was hot, he was going to get burned.

Marko kicked the covers back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. A phone...he had to find a pay phone, not the switchboard at the abbey. Thad Dixon had said his piece to the media; now it was his turn to dish the rhetoric. If Maggie would hurry up, they could be in the village in an hour.

Without knocking, he opened the bathroom door and stood in the doorway, looking at the woman in the bathtub. The blonde hair was wet, darker than usual, and skinned back, clinging to her head. The lines around his mouth softened. "You look like a drowned rat," he growled. Cristo, she was beautiful.

In a charming, feminine gesture, Maggie covered her breasts with the washcloth. A line of soapsuds trickled across her shoulder and ran down her arm and chest. Marko went down on one knee by the side of the tub and cupped a handful of water over her arm, rinsing the bubbles off, palming the sheen of water from her skin. He tugged the washcloth away and palmed both breasts, plumping them together wetly in his hands. Bending, he tongued the bubble trail between them, then caught each slippery nipple in turn, drawing it deeply into his mouth. His eyes closed.

Maggie sighed and raised into him, stroking her fingers along his jaw, wetting the dark beard. "After the negotiations-- after you give me up--are you going to be okay here?"

He abandoned the wet nipples and worked his fingers under the hair on the back of her neck. "Oh, I think I'll get out of this one, all right."

"Do I hear a 'but' in there?" She crooked her arm around his neck and pulled his face to hers. She kissed him, a long, slow kiss that set his heart to thumping and made him forget what he started to say.

"Finish it--but what?" she said.

Marko snorted a grim little laugh through his nose. "I also think the chances are good I won't die from old age, either."

"You expect to get caught, don't you?"

A wry smile was her answer.

She gazed into the dark, deep-set eyes, at the strong, straight nose. "I hope you're wrong." Idly, she traced her fingertip down the thin, white ridge on his cheek and along the tiny hairline part it made in his beard.

"Ugly, isn't it? Maybe I'll get it fixed some day." He averted his face, his eyes shuttered, unreadable.

She caught his chin and turned it back. "It's part of you, and it's not ugly. Actually, it looks rather dashing, like you won a sword fight. Don't ever change it...not for me." She kissed him again, softer this time, her lips clinging to his, reluctant to part. "After you give me up--will I ever see you again?"

"But of course you will."

Cold, hard truth squinting in the corners of his eyes said otherwise. God only knew when or if he'd ever see her again. Madrid might let the others off, but not him. Him, they'd make an example of. If he was lucky--very lucky--he was only looking at a long prison term. She wouldn't wait. He wouldn't ask her to.

A coldness settled around his heart.

There was no future for them. There was only now.

He groped underwater for her knees, her waist, and lifted her, dripping, from the tub. Kissing her, he carried her back to bed.

Chapter 25

For six days POJ, American, Basque, and Spanish negotiating teams haggled by telephone and intermediaries, unable to agree where and when they would meet to discuss Maggie's release.

Every morning after breakfast, she and Marko walked into Garralda. While Maggie sat on a bench in the town square, Marko leaned inside the telephone booth, chain-smoking and talking to Pablo in Pamplona. Pablo, in turn relayed the information to the government negotiators. Twice Pablo flew in POJ leaders from the outlying areas and they all met at the gypsy camp.

With Emilio and four gypsy men standing guard, Marko and POJ captains from the districts of Lerida, Gerona, Tarragona, and San Kristobal district met inside a cave house. Around a kitchen table, they drew up their demands for the investigation and set the terms for Maggie Dixon's release.

Once Marko and Maggie spent the night with the gypsies, while Emilio drove a carload of POJ leaders into nearby villages, waiting while the guerrillas conferred by telephone with people in their own districts. An air of excitement hung over the camp. Maggie had never seen so many smiling faces in one place in her life. For the gypsies, it was a lark and a well-deserved jab at a government they detested.

Gypsy sentries stationed themselves along the dirt road leading to the encampment, which was beginning to look more and more like a guerrilla base. Half a dozen men rimmed the surrounding mountain tops, signaling by whistles and shouts at the first sign of anything unusual. The Civil Guards plane made its usual daily pass, coming in over the camp, but spotted nothing unusual. The warnings had been sounded at the first distant sighting of the plane. By the time it flew in, anything and anyone suspicious was inside the caves.

Finally, both sides agreed on a meeting site--the builder's headquarters at an unfinished dam--a jumble of scaffolding and cranes, raising a wall of concrete in a river bed between two mountains. Isolated on the wild La Vansa River in the Cadi Range of the Pyrenees, the dam was nearly inaccessible. Pablo had flown over it the week before. Exactly what they wanted, he said.

The time and date were set: La Vansa Dam, 10:45 a.m., Wednesday, September 6th.

Wednesday, September 6, 1995

The green illuminated numbers on the clock beside the bed glowed a faint 4:22, their room, still deep in the night. The inky sky beyond the window held only the promise of lightening soon.

Marko lifted her knee over his hip. Naked and locked together, he rolled onto his side, carrying Maggie with him. Softly, he kissed her as she lay drowsing in his arms. Neither spoke, both of them aware that they'd just made love for the last time. Maggie slid her arms around him and held him close. He responded by pressing his hand against her hips and thrusting himself deeper into her. She sighed.

"Like that, do you?" His mouth curved a smile against her cheek.

"It's rather obvious I do, isn't it?"

"But do you know why?"

"Because you're so great in the sack, and I've had a crush on you for years."

"Both true," he said, laughing, "but maybe it's more than that. You're the psychologist; you decide. I'm the bad guy in this little drama. The rest of the world thinks that I control this relationship, that I decide if you live or die. A smart lady like you would do whatever it took to stay alive." He pulled back and looked down at her. "You know where I'm going with this, don't you?"

She sighed and nodded. "And I wish you wouldn't. You're talking Stockholm Syndrome--joining the kidnaper's cause to save your own life. It does not apply to us. You offered to take me home, remember? I refused. I'm in bed with you because I want to be."

"And no one knows that but us." Marko rumpled her hair. "Look," he said slowly, running his hands up and down her arms, "I'm giving you an excuse for when you get back home. Sooner or later, it's bound to come out that you've been more to me than just my hostage. When it does, say I forced you, dragged you up here. Say I raped you. I won't deny it."

She stiffened, chilled by the finality of the words. It was incomprehensible to her that he would support the same lie now that had ripped him apart ten years ago. Her eyes filled, recognizing it for what it was--a good-bye gift.

"It's the only way I can help you," he said quietly. Gently, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "From four thousand miles away, these weeks with me may look very different to you."

"If they do, it's because I am different with you. She stroked the taut hips of the man in her arms, caressing the hollows and swell of his naked buttocks. His skin was warm and slightly damp. She slid her hands over his behind and down the backs of his thighs. With a low growl of approval, Marko shifted his legs to make more of himself available to her.

He loved her hands on him, loved everything she did to him, and told her so. A wave of tenderness for him washed over her, and she hugged him so fiercely he laughed out loud.

For two weeks she'd spent nearly every hour of every day with him, had watched him eat and dress and shave and shower, and waited for him to do or say something stupid that would turn her off. But he never did. This sexy, serious, dangerous man was not only her lover, he was her friend.

At that moment, she almost told him she loved him. The words were right there, formed days ago, but she swallowed them again. He didn't love her, and she didn't want to remember him the rest of her life, embarrassed and trying to pretend he did.

Invitingly, Maggie undulated her pelvis against his, smiling against his throat at the low groan her movements drew from him. She swirled her tongue into his ear and sent gooseflesh crawling down his arm.

Marko ducked his head away and pulled her arms from around his neck. "If you're trying to seduce me again, woman, it won't work. You've wrung me out again. Let's think about getting breakfast," he said, and smacked her bottom affectionately. The lines around his mouth softened. "Sorry, you little minx, it's too soon. I can't."

She pushed him onto his back and slid between his legs.

A deep, pleased sound moved in his throat as her fingers closed around the base of him, raised him. He felt each separate fingertip, each tiny tickle of her nails. Marko propped himself up on his elbows. The mirror, floating in the shadows over the dresser, was faintly luminous, reflecting the first streaks of dawn and throwing enough light into the room for him to discern the pale slope of shoulders, the ivory oval of her face. He looked down his belly at the lightness of her hands moving in his groin.

"Won't work, querida. I don't think I...."

His stomach sucked in. Warm, wet softness slid over him as she took him into her mouth. Heaving a long sigh, he lay back flat and reveled in the sensations flowing up his spine. The slow thud of his heartbeat picked up. Other women had loved him like this. Too many, perhaps. But no one had ever made him feel like this, shake like this.

Candle...he was the candle, Maggie the flame. Lifting his hips, he thrust himself deeper into the sweet, sweet fire.

His chest rose and fell, deep, heavy exhales that filled the little room. Slow, wet, hot loving, the kind he liked. Deep moans pulled from his throat as the pleasure built.

His eyes closed.

Moments later, he drove his head back into the pillow and fisted the sheets.

Then, he reached down and lifted her shoulders, drew her up on top of him. He kissed her, a long, loving kiss, and tasted himself mixed in with her tears. Silently, he folded his arms around her.

How in God's name could he ever give her up?

10:45 a.m.

Right on time the Puma descended out of a drizzling overcast and settled onto the clearing that once was the La Vansa river bed at the base of the dam. Marko, Maggie, and a dozen armed POJ guerrillas climbed out. Six men surrounded the helicopter and took up positions as guards.

The other six--Eddie Guridi, José Borunda, Roberto Mendariz, Ricardo Ortiz, Paul Ugarte, and Jaime Arestegi--accompanied Marko and Maggie up a dirt road chiseled into the side wall of the river gorge, heading for a small cluster of buildings and equipment shacks in a clearing halfway up the mountainside. Every thirty feet along the road stood a uniformed Spanish soldier in camo khaki, all spit and polish, a CETME assault rifle by his side.

Marko stopped in front of a young corporal and pointed to the builder's headquarters, a flat-roofed, wooden building under a clump of trees a hundred yards away. "Tell the officer in charge I appreciate the honor guard," he said dryly, "but I want this road cleared. Tell him also that when we come out of the meeting, we will shoot anyone between us and our helicopter. Is that clear?"

Eyes straight ahead, the corporal nodded.

Inside the contractor's office, General Maxwell "Buzz" Boyer sat at a folding aluminum table. Idly, he thumbed the small star at the point of his collar and yawned. He and half a company of men had spent the night out there, rising well before dawn to get everyone in place, rehearsing the plans to snatch Maggie Dixon away from the POJ.

Time and again, he'd gone over it with them until, to a man, he was certain they had it down perfect.

Drumming his fingers on the table, General Boyer leaned back and draped an arm over the chair next to him. Fixedly, he watched the door. Two interpreters from the U.S. State Department had a sheaf of papers spread out at the end of the table, comparing the contents of two folders. In one corner of the room, the negotiator for Madrid, Felipe Caldas, a small, swarthy Deputy Minister of the Interior with a pencil-thin mustache, was talking with Dr. Luis Alazar.

A Spanish soldier swung the door open. "They're here, sir."

Six armed guerrillas, three in front, three behind, wearing battle dress and blue berets, entered with Garcia and his prisoner boxed in the middle. Boyer's jaw tightened as a jack-booted Garcia stepped through the door. His hostage had a wide strip of adhesive tape across her mouth and was handcuffed to his wrist.

Boyer swore softly, seeing his elaborate plans vanish into the ether. He frowned at the commandos. "Commander Garcia, weapons are unacceptable--a violation of terms."

Marko made no move to remove his gun. "I can say the same. I saw plenty outside."

Boyer stiffened. "Your men can wait out there, too."

"And so can I. I suggest we get started, General." A few rapid words in Basque to his men, and the guerrillas slung the straps of their weapons over their shoulders and stepped back against the wall. "Is that better?" he said to Boyer.

The two men locked eyes briefly. Boyer nodded, gesturing toward the empty chairs across from him.

Felipe Caldas, a member of Diego's inner circle on the Land Control Commission, strode stiffly over to Marko, hand outstretched. Marko recognized him as a deputy minister from Pelli Benat's office, the Interior Minister who conducted their meeting on the fire escape. Felipe Caldas was Benat's hatchet man. Marko turned away, refusing the gesture.

"We have business together, señor Caldas--nothing more," he said. Eyes hard, the deputy lowered his hand.

An interpreter from the U.S. State Department translated the exchange for Maggie and the general. The Marine nodded, his respect for the guerrilla commander notching up a fraction. He didn't like Caldas either.

Marko said, "Interpreters are unnecessary, General. From now on, I will speak in English." Maggie glanced at him sharply. The accent, thicker than she'd ever heard it, had brought the words out "speek in Ingles."

Luis rushed around the end of the table toward Maggie, his arms outstretched. "Maggie, darling, are you all right?"

"She is forbidden to speak, Alazar. She even tries a word, she goes back to the chopper. Isn't that right, Maggie, darling?" Marko emphasized the last word sarcastically, and insinuated his big frame between Luis and her. "You so much as touch her...." And then, not wanting the Americans to understand, he finished a long sentence in Basque.

Luis stiffened, his face white.

Boyer looked at the interpreter. "What did he say?"

Marko jerked his head toward a chair at the end of the table. "It's unimportant. Sit down, Doctor--over there--away from me."

Luis's mouth set stubbornly. "Has he hurt you, Maggie?"

She touched the tape with her fingers and shook her head quickly.

Luis snatched her hand away. "He stole your ring!"

Marko's fist slammed out of nowhere into Luis's stomach. With a grunt, Luis doubled over, then flew upright from the blinding uppercut that followed. Stunned, he sank to his knees. Marko stood beside a wide-eyed Maggie, his hands open, arms hanging loose. It was over.

Boyer and deputy Caldas were on their feet. Slowly, both eased back down into their chairs. The guerrillas' guns had come off their shoulders almost as fast as their commander's fist and were now aimed at the men around the room. A thick, uneasy silence hung in the room.

"Commander, this is not--" Boyer sputtered.

"He's lucky, General," Marko said. "I told him I'd kill him if he touched her. I also told him how. Next time, I'll do it. Shall we get on with the meeting?"

Buzz Boyer tapped his pencil, his glance jumping from Marko to Luis. What was going on with these two?

Luis got to his feet. Brushing off his trousers, he moved to his chair at the end of the table and sat. He glowered down the length of it at Marko. "You are an animal, Garcia. You should be chained up somewhere. Not her."

Marko ignored him. With his right hand, he slid two chairs away from the table, sat down, and pulled Maggie into the one beside him. The handcuffs rattled on the table top as he stretched his arm out next to hers.

With much scraping of chairs, the other men sat down, opening their briefcases, spreading out papers. Boyer pulled a yellow pad in front of him to make notes.

His eyes skimmed over the senator's daughter, checking for the indelible traces of torture--broken fingernails, a waver in her voice perhaps, a stiffness to the walk. But however carefully he looked for them, Boyer saw no signs of abuse. Garcia hadn't hurt her. There wasn't a mark on her. Maggie Dixon's eyes were clear and unafraid and met his directly--but they also met Garcia's. Frequently, which struck him as odd. The only time he saw what he read as confusion was when she looked at Dr. Alazar. And that made no sense at all.

"If you have no objections, Commander, I'd like to ask Miss Dixon a couple of questions. She can answer by nodding or shaking her head."

"No questions," Marko said flatly.

He should have expected that, Boyer fumed, and jotted a note on the yellow pad about her appearance. Her clothes were casual and expensive: Jordache jeans, cashmere sweater, Reeboks--and they fitted her as if they were her own. They couldn't be, because she'd been wearing a white suit and high heels when Garcia took her. The blonde hair was clean and fluffy and brushed till it shone. Strangest of all, she'd polished her fingernails--a frosted pink color that matched the sweater. General Boyer tried to fit the pieces together.

All morning, they talked. As he and Maggie had rehearsed, Marko stubbornly refused every single offer made for her release. Obstinately, he repeated one word over and over: "Unacceptable. Unacceptable."

Maggie's eyes met those of Roberto Mendariz, the stocky, blond guerrilla with twin baby daughters at home. Legs apart, arms behind his back, Mendariz returned her gaze, poker-faced.

Boyer listened impassively while Marko laid out his demands for an open investigation of the Land Control Commission. Specifically, Garcia demanded public hearings, open to all interested citizens, and that testimony be admitted to the record from those in the mountain districts.

Felipe Caldas shook his head. "There is no objection to a proper investigation--this government has nothing to hide. Indeed, we welcome it," he added pompously, and spread his hands. "But an open investigation with public hearings is out of the question. That violates the Code of Information Act. As an attorney, Commander. you should know that."

Marko nodded. "That law has been on the books since 1939 to protect Basques who supported Franco, a law he passed to protect the guilty. As of 1978, it is also unconstitutional. I believe you know that."

Caldas shrugged. "Until it is formally revoked by the Cortes, it must apply."

"Because it suits you," Marko said softly. "However, it doesn't suit me. Either open hearings so everyone in Edorta knows what's going on, or else we are wasting our time here. Open hearings or nothing. That point, Gentlemen, is not negotiable."

Boyer stopped writing, irritated. No one had told him the POJ leader was a lawyer. The man's quiet, dogged tone jarred him. Subtly--he wasn't quite sure how--Garcia was setting the terms. Squaring his shoulders, the general looked across the table and spoke slowly.

"Don't reject closed hearings, Commander. If that's all that stands between us, our State Departments can work it out," he said. "You let Miss Dixon go, we'll get the lawyers on it, bring observers in. I'll see to it personally that you get your investigation."

"Observers?" Caldas turned and murmured something to Luis, who shook his head.

Boyer turned. "Yes, that's right. Observers, señor Caldas. The U.S. is less than happy how this incident has been handled. Pass that along to your people. Remind them also of the foreign aid bill in the senate--four hundred and eleven million U.S. dollars earmarked for Spain. On reflection, señores, you may conclude that Commander Garcia can have as many observers as he wants."

"Really, General," Caldas said mildly.

Maggie squirmed in her chair, astounded at Boyer's harsh words and tone of voice. The man was insulting, which made no sense. Two hours into the hearing, and he was baiting the Spanish representatives, when he should have been baiting Marko. She glanced across the table at Boyer, reading his body language. The marine general's face was set, telegraphing anger. It was wrong. His face said one thing; his body, another. Arms relaxed, he leaned forward. Wrong postures. No tension. He wasn't angry at all.

Uneasy, she traced invisible patterns with her finger on the table top and listened to the words of the men. And Caldas, as a deeply offended deputy minister, should have walked out in a huff.

"Politically--for Edorta--it's getting late," she heard Marko saying. "By the time this thing plays out in the courts...."

Play... His words echoed in her mind. He meant that word for her. Marko knew what was going on, too. Like her, he sensed that this little charade was being staged for their benefit. Fear iced down her spine, unsure what it meant or what it could lead to. Under the table, she nudged her knee against Marko's. Let's get out of here.

"One last thing," Marko added in an offhand manner, as if he'd just thought of it, "There will be a moratorium on all dam construction until the investigation is completed."

Luis shot to his feet. "Absolutely not!"

Now that was genuine. Luis really was upset.

"Yes, Doctor. Beginning today," Marko answered.

"You can't be serious!"

"Of course he is," Boyer snapped, sounding irritated at the interruption. But Boyer was pretending again. He turned to Caldas. "What's his problem?" he said, jerking his head at Luis.

"Contracts...the construction companies have contracts, completion dates. The law says--"

"Change it."

"That takes time," Caldas cut in.

Boyer threw his hands out. "Can the findings of an investigation--the outcome at least--be made public with no violation of present law?"

"I would need to check that."

"Do it! Call Madrid right now, so I can give this man some assurance." He turned back to Marko.

"How about it, Commander? Assuming it is yes--and it will be--you'll get an immediate investigation, maybe not as open as you like, but the alleged corruption you and the Party of Justice claim would be exposed. Edorta has pledged to start legal criminal proceedings immediately, should any be necessary."

"Should any be necessary?" Marko repeated, shaking his head in amazement. "General, what do you think is going on up here?"

Boyer rushed on. "That way, everybody's happy. You get your investigation; we return Miss Dixon to her family. How about it? Give me an answer now."

Marko pushed his chair back. Maggie stood up with him. "We've made a beginning. This is enough for one day." On his way to the door, he spoke over his shoulder. "General, walk with us, please."

Marko, Maggie, General Boyer, and the guerrilla guards left the building and began walking down the road to the helicopter, waiting below on their left. The three of them stopped near a outcrop of red granite rock bulging from the mountainside. Above it was a low tangle of underbrush, beyond that, a pine woods. Marko waved his men to move back. "General, the negotiator for Madrid--"

"Felipe Caldas, the deputy minister?"

"He's also a member of the Land Control Commission."

"Nevertheless," Boyer said, "Spain is bargaining in good faith. In fact, Dr. Alazar himself has assured--"

"Dr. Alazar is here on orders from Fidel Diego." Marko said, glancing at Boyer as he unlocked Maggie's handcuffs.

Maggie pulled the tape off her mouth and rubbed her wrist. "It's true, General. Luis works with Senator Diego. He's spying on these meetings for him. Everything you say will go straight back to the Land Commission. She moved closer to Marko, brushing her shoulder against his arm, as if to reassure herself. The first meeting was over, and she was shaken, the sense of excitement and confidence she'd felt earlier had evaporated.

Boyer shook his head. "Whose side are you on, Miss Dixon?"

"Back off, General," Marko said. "She's in a tough position. She's trying to help, so come up with something fast, so I can turn her over. She doesn't belong up here. Get me an open investigation, and you can take her back."

A quick movement on the hillside behind the general caught Marko's a soldier ducking between the trees. Marko stiffened. Riding heavy on the man's shoulder was the long brown bazooka tube of a Redeye surface-to-air missile.

A double cross. They intended to grab Maggie and shoot the chopper down, if they managed to take off. They'd sight the SAM's heat seeker on the Puma's hot turbojets and release it. A wisp of smoke looping up from the ground, computer-directed, homing in on its target--Pablo would never even see it.

Marko wrestled with himself. They wanted Maggie back, but they wanted her safe. They wouldn't dare shoot with her on board.

He scanned the path to the helicopter, the trees, rocks, the blind bend in the road down to the dam. As he'd ordered earlier, the road had been cleared. Not a soldier in sight. Wondering how many rifles were trained on them at that minute, he took her elbow and drew her into a fast walk. Feeling like the bull's eye in a target, he whirled his finger in the air over his head at Pablo. Immediately, the Puma's rotors started turning. His men fell in alongside.

"Heads up! There's a Redeye gunner in the trees," Marko said to the men, keeping his voice low. Then, to Maggie, "Damn them, it's an ambush. They're going to grab you away from us and then shoot our chopper down as we leave."

"If I'm on board, they won't shoot, will they?"

"I can't be sure of that."

"They want her back," Ricardo said urgently. "The Americans won't let them kill her."

Maggie paled. "What do we do?"

"I'm trying to figure out what they're doing--and what to do with you when the shooting starts." Marko looked down at her, his expression troubled. "You've done enough. If you don't want to risk coming with us, I understand."

"What are your chances if I stay here?"

His jaw tightened. "Not good."

"Tell her--without her, they're zero," Ricardo gritted.

"Then I'm going with you." Just as Maggie grabbed Marko to run for the helicopter, a rifle cracked behind them.

Marko's back arched with the numbing jerk of the bullet strike. With a stunned expression, he fell forward. He'd been shot! He got his knees under him, his shoulders still on the ground. Hot--hot.... He tried to crawl away from the heat, but couldn't. A terrible burning seared his back, like flames. Pain caged the breath in his lungs. On her knees beside him, Maggie was yelling to him, but he couldn't hear. His lips moved. Sorry....sorry.... Wide open, unseeing, his eyes glazed. Behind them, a raging brown-eyed mind tumbled into darkness.

At the sound of the shot, Ricardo, Paul, and Jaime had spun into a half-crouch and begun firing into the trees. Boots, legs all around her. Guridi, Borunda, and Mendariz rushed in, grunting, knocking her aside.

"Christ!"

"Get him out of here!"

"Is he alive?"

"Get him OUT of here!"

The three men grabbed Marko up--two supporting his shoulders and arms, another his knees. His head dropped back, his chin pointing up. The men broke into a clumsy run for the helicopter, trailing a wavy red line on the road behind them.

Maggie whirled around. On the roof of the contractor's shed, a sniper with a high-powered rifle fired again. Ricardo screamed and grabbed his thigh. Paul Ugarte and Jaime Arestegi running alongside never broke stride. Hands flew out, grabbed his belt, his waist, and kept the skinny redhead upright between them.

Maggie raced back up the path, waving her arms. "Stop it! Stop shooting!"

Confused, the sniper hesitated, looking down at the woman he was trying to rescue screaming at him to stop. On the ground, Luis and Caldas and the general were yelling at him to shoot.

"Fire!" Boyer roared. "Fire!"

Spanish soldiers in the trees aimed at the knot of men running for the helicopter. Muttered curses, shouts to Boyer. "Get her out of there!"

Maggie was in the line of fire. Boyer ducked his head and charged, drove his shoulder into the small of her back, knocked her off her feet. The rattle of automatic weapons followed instantly as he rolled with her. Just as suddenly, they stopped.

Jacket open, necktie flying, Luis pounded down the road in his pinstriped suit and Italian sunglasses. He grabbed Maggie away from Boyer.

"We got him! We got him!" he shouted.

She jerked loose and struck him across the face with all her strength.

Behind her, the Puma's engines were building into a high-pitched shriek. Marko and Ricardo were being shoved through the door. Guerrilla guards were jumping inside. Without her, they'd be shot down.

"Pablo--wait! Wait!"

Headlong, she dashed down the road, tore around the blind curve, leaped a downed tree.

Luis bolted after her.

"Hold your fire!" Boyer crisscrossed his arms in the air. Helpless, he watched the scene unfolding before him.

"Cover her!" Jaime Arestegi and Paul Ugarte opened up with their guns again, murderously hosing the trees alongside the road, covering Maggie's race down to the dam.

At the bottom of the road, she headed across the clearing for the helicopter, Luis right behind her. He grabbed the back of her sweater and threw her to the ground. Struggling, kicking at him, she got to her feet.

"Let me go!"

"Hold her, Doctor!" Boyer shouted.

"Get her, Guridi!" Pablo yelled.

But Guridi was already out of the chopper, running. So was Mendariz.

"Are you crazy?" Hair gusting in all directions, Luis choked his arm around her neck, punching his free fist at Guridi and Mendariz. Maggie twisted loose, ran to the helicopter. Ducking under the whistling blades, she jumped inside. A moment later she reappeared in the doorway, yelling and pointing at Luis.

Boyer couldn't hear the words, but the doctor did. Luis spun around, running back the way he'd come as if the devil himself were after him. A minute later, he was down in the dirt, tackled by Guridi and Mendariz, and dragged to the helicopter.

Engines blasting, doors wide open, the Puma rose into the air and clattered over the dam.

The weather was clearing. The sun's rays broke through the roll of dirty gray clouds scudding eastward. High above La Vansa gorge arched the faintest of double rainbows, pink and violet and yellow.

Buzz Boyer watched the ship beating across the sky.

"Sweet Jesus, what a mess," he said.

Chapter 26

12:45 p.m.

Inside the chopper, it was chaos, men shoving, yelling at each other, crowding around Marko. Unconscious, bloodied from neck to knees, he lay on his back in the open space between the doors. His legs rocked gently with the vibrations of the cabin.

Maggie was down on her knees, holding his hand. Luis bent over and flattened his ear against Marko's chest.

Roberto, eyes worried, squatted on the other side of Marko. "Do you hear it--is it beating?" he asked Luis.

"Shut the damned door, I can't hear a thing!"

Paul Ugarte, the ex-rancher from Marko's district, leaned forward, both fists clenched. "Está muerto?"

"No, he's alive," Luis said, holding his reddened hands up for Paul to see. "And pumping blood everywhere."

"But that's not good."

"Better than not pumping at all."

Something cold and hard jarred Luis's skull just behind his ear. He turned. His eyes widened. On the other end of the gun barrel was a white-faced Ricardo Ortiz, chest heaving with the effort to stand up, to steady the gun. From the hip down, one pant leg was soaked in blood, the leg inside, shattered. He was hurt and angry and Luis knew it wouldn't take much for him to pull that trigger. These men loved each other.

Weakly, Ricardo leaned his shoulder against the fuselage. "Shut up and help him, Doctor, or I blow your fuckin' head off."

There was a scuffling. Everyone moved aside.

"Not in here, you fool, you'll bring us all down." Jaime Arestegi ducked out of the way.

Pablo wheeled in his seat, his mouth twisted. "Yes, in here! Point him toward the door, and do it, Ricardo!"

"No! Give him a chance!" Maggie yelled. Even over the engines, they heard her.

The gun wavered, slid down an inch or two. Ricardo pressed the muzzle into the flesh of Luis's neck. "You got three seconds to answer."

Luis swallowed and nodded. "I'll do what I can." The gun barrel eased away from his neck.

As if it heard him, the large exit wound in Marko's side seemed to calm itself. The running blood slowed, a glistening, red stillness. It caught again, spurted weakly, stopped. Luis thumbed Marko's eyelid open, then instantly dropped to his knees, straddling him. Hands together, he sprang Marko's breastbone repeatedly, driving a sternum against a heart that wanted to quit.

"C'mon, beat!" Not breathing. Not good.

Time, Luis felt, had just tapped him on the shoulder. Garcia was slipping away, and the minute he died, so did Luis Alazar. Every man on that ship blamed him for the shooting. They'd all heard him yelling to the sniper. Now, three of them blatantly aimed guns at him. And that redheaded fool who could hardly stand was blubbering like a baby and stroking his thumb along the trigger guard. Sadist bastards! Luis made a fist and hammered it onto Marko's chest. Finally! The wound pumped again, streaming blood over the back of Luis's hands.

Breathing? Yes. Bleeding to death? Yes.

He tried to probe a finger into the wound. "I need a knife!" Three knives appeared in three outstretched hands.

Two quick slits with a Swiss Army knife enlarged the wound enough. He worked two fingers into it, fishing in the warm ooze of flesh and muscle for the source of the bleeding. He found it--a severed artery the size of a soda straw. He pinched the slippery little tube between his thumb and finger and sealed it off. For the moment at least, he had him back.

Ricardo lowered his gun.

Tree tops rushed by the open door of the helicopter. A loud crack...a leafy branch sailed inside.

"Maggie, get up here!" Pablo called, and Roberto Mendariz took her place at Marko's head.

Visibility was poor, the windscreen splattered with rain. Dark clouds rolled over the mountaintops. The Puma's big wipers swept constantly. Maggie pointed over Pablo's shoulder to a dark opening on the right between two mountains. Pablo banked sharply into it--a neat piece of navigation at that low altitude, Luis thought. Heart in his throat, he grabbed a seat for balance.

The ground blurred by. They barreled into the valley at 170 miles an hour, close to maximum. In the cockpit, Pablo sat like a robot, the huge bulk of him rigid with concentration. Hands and feet moving, he worked the collective stick, the pedals, his eyes fixed on his flight path. Rotors pounding, the Puma shot up into a sudden climb above high stone walls on a pinnacle of granite, then made a rapid descent into a courtyard on top of it.

The engines cut off, and Maggie yanked the side door open.

Luis stared. Monks poured from every door of every building, running for the helicopter, black robes flapping in the wind, trampling the bushes around the Puma in their excitement. Somewhere out there in the empty sky, bells were bonging...bonging...bonging like Doomsday.

His face was gray.

Unconscious, Marko lay on his side in a narrow iron bed in the infirmary in the basement of the monastery. A sheet covered his hips and legs. Voices hushed, Maggie and Pablo, Brother Gregory, and the abbot gathered around the bed.

Brother Gregory, a long white apron over his robe worked silently, dabbing at the wound in Marko's stomach. Frowning behind Marko, Luis inched a stethoscope across his patient's back. In one corner, a portable electric heater glowed red-hot. The little room was stifling, yet Marko, in shock, was clammy cold.

"Why is he still bleeding?" Maggie asked.

"Because livers bleed like hell, that's why." Luis shrugged at Father Andrew. "Excuse the language, Father. It's slowing down, though." He moved around to Marko's chest. A minute later, he shook his head. "I don't care what he wants, he belongs in a hospital."

"No." Pablo's voice cut in like steel. Washing his hands at a sink, he slung the water off and straightened. "He's got a death sentence hanging over him. They'll treat him as military. The minute he enters a hospital, they'll arrest him, and the day he can stand, they'll put him against a wall. No. I'm damned if he'll be executed. If he dies, he dies here with us."

Marko roused and slitted his eyes open against the light. Slowly, he blinked at Maggie.

"Don't worry, you're going to be all right," she said, and squeezed his hand.

"Not this time," he whispered. Darkness flooded over him and swept away the light.

"There he goes again." Her voice broke.

Luis looked at her, puzzled. Her face was ashen, that same stricken look she'd worn on the helicopter coming in. She'd saved Garcia's life at the risk of her own, and then forced him, a doctor, to save the life of her enemy. At first, Luis had thought it was a simply a crisis reaction on her part, but it was too intense for that. Her response was more like grief.

Luis rolled his shirt sleeves above his elbows, his emotions warring inside. Garcia was supposed to be dead. One inch higher and he would have been. The sniper--hand-picked by the American general himself--had missed when Maggie grabbed Marko and started to run. Luis sighed and stared at the man on the bed. He had mixed emotions about saving this life. He hated Garcia for what he'd done to Maggie, for what he'd done to Spain. But the doctor in him hated death more.

"Next time you kidnap a doctor, Maggie, make sure he's got his bag, for Christ's sake. I don't have a damned thing to work with," Luis snapped. He turned to the abbot. "Father Andrew, what kind of medical supplies you got up here?"

The old priest folded his arms and slipped his hands inside the flowing sleeves to hide their trembling. "Emergency supplies only, I'm afraid," he answered Luis. "Fluids, antibiotics, some morphine, perhaps. Our doctor, Brother Joseph, died last year."

"Packed red cells? Blood, Father--you got any blood?"

Andrew shook his head.

Luis sighed. "Show me what you have."

The sharp tang of alcohol stung the air as Luis swabbed a spot on Marko's thigh. Plastic tubing ran from Marko's left arm to a bottle of saline hanging from an I-V stand by the bed.

Luis held a syringe up to the light and squeezed a bead of liquid onto the needle.

"What's that?" Marko asked, his tongue thick.

"Morphine," Luis said.

Pablo pushed himself off the wall and lumbered over, his gun cradled across one arm. He picked the bottle up and read the label. "It's morphine, Marko." He stared down at the man in bed, at the powerful chest laboring to breathe, and passed a hand quickly over his eyes. He nodded to Luis.

The skin on Marko's thigh dimpled as the point of the needle punched through. Marko hissed and turned his face away, as cold steel burned into muscle. Slowly, Luis depressed the plunger and then withdrew. Marko's chest rose and fell, short, shallow little gasps that began to grow deeper, smoother, as the magic of the narcotic found its way into his patient's system.

Used to babies--little arms, little bellies, little voices--Luis found this big silent man easier to work on. He'd never seen firsthand what a high-powered bullet could do to a man. Some things, the books don't tell you.

An hour later, he smoothed the last piece of tape into place. Loaded with morphine, his patient was asleep. Luis and Maggie were alone. Father Andrew had gone back upstairs, and Pablo and Brother Gregory were in the other room with Ricardo. Outside the infirmary door sat another guerrilla, a gun across his knees.

"It hurts him to breathe," Maggie said.

Luis nodded. "I probably cracked a rib with the CPR, but that won't kill him. His breathing's all right, considering. My guess is the bullet went under his lung and just nicked his liver. He's lucky. If he were a smaller man, he'd be dead from the amount of blood he's lost."

"Is he going to die?"

"Possibly...probably...."

"Which is it?"

"I don't know. It's not good."

The white silence from the bed filled the room.

Maggie rolled up a sheet and piled it in the corner with the other stained sheets. The smell of antiseptic still clung to the air. She gazed around the room at the dingy white walls, the cracked green linoleum, the tray of shiny steel instruments by the bed. Wearily, she washed her hands at the sink. She gripped the edge of the basin, watching red water swirl down the drain. That was Marko's.

Slowly, she turned around, her cheeks sunken, her mouth drawn. "You did this," she whispered, "you and Diego and the rest of your murdering friends. As long as I live, Luis, I'll remember you did this."

He took a step backwards as if she'd struck him. "What the hell has happened to you?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she picked up another white sheet from the stack of linen on a chair by the door and carried it to the bed. Shaking it loose, she spread it over the sleeping man, smoothed it over his chest, tucked it under his arms. Her hand cupped his bare shoulder.

"Why did you kill his sheep?" she asked.

Luis turned away, his shoulders rigid. When he said nothing, she lifted her arms, then let them drop heavily to her sides. "I saw the ticket you signed when you picked up the poison. That was dumb, Luis. You should have let Diego do it. That ties you right in with him now."

"I didn't kill his sheep--one of Garcia's own men did it, a Cuban we sent to him and Garcia hired him. I only told them what to get and how to use it."

Maggie felt an ominous sinking in the pit of her stomach. Down deep inside, a part of her had wanted desperately to believe it wasn't true. Shakily, she sucked in a deep breath.

"What about killing his wife--did you have anything to do with that?"

"Good God, Maggie, what do you think I am?"

"I'm not sure any more."

Luis sighed. "His wife wasn't supposed to be in that truck. That was a mistake. They were after him, not her."

"But you knew they were trying to kill him."

"Of course, I knew. Half of Spain was trying to kill him. He's a terrorist!"

"No, he was only a senator then. They went after him because they were afraid of him, afraid of what he knew."

"Why, Maggie? Why have you turned against me and sided with a total stranger, a man who kidnapped you?"

"He's not a stranger," she said dully. "I met him a long time ago...when he visited the States."

For a moment, Luis said nothing. Slowly, the handsome face darkened. "I asked you once who your first man was. You never would tell me his name...only that you were seventeen and that he was older than you." Luis looked at the still man in the bed, then at Maggie's hand resting on Marko's shoulder. "It was Garcia, wasn't it?"

She nodded.

"Goddamn him," Luis whispered.

"Why are you mixed up with Diego?" she demanded.

"Business. It's no secret he throws contracts my way. When he asked for my help, I gave it gladly. I thought I was helping my country. Soreno's men, I was told, were acting under orders from Madrid. When Fidel asked how to make it look like anthrax, I told him what to buy and how to use it. And I kept quiet. I could have lost my license for that." Luis worked the rubber gloves off and tossed them on the tray. "Still could if this gets out."

Brushing his sleeves down, he looked over at her, and then buttoned the cuffs. The whisky-brown eyes gazing at her were openly affectionate, but behind that affection were other emotions she'd never trust again.

The deep feelings she'd once had for Luis were gone. She could never marry him now. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the diamond, and dropped it on the metal tray next to the gloves. "You'd better get out of Spain while you can. Diego can't prevent an investigation, not after this. He'll drag you down with him."

Luis caught her chin and turned her face to his. "Come with me. Let's go away together and start over. You forget Diego, and I'll forget Garcia." He gave her a pathetic little smile. "Or try to."

"No."

"I'll be damned," he said softly. "You love him, don't you?"

Silently, she nodded her head.

"I love you. Does he?"

Maggie turned away and busied herself lining up the bottles on the tray, fussing with a pair of scissors. She glanced over at Marko. Did he love her? He'd never said so, but then she'd never told him either. "I don't know if he does or not."

Marko groaned, his face gray and mask-like.

Luis walked over to the bed and checked him. Coming back, he shook his head. "The shock isn't responding. He's lost too much blood. Sorry, Maggie...he's dying."

"Isn't there something you can do?" Her voice broke. "Please...do it for me."

Luis's mouth tightened. "Get out of here."

After she left, Luis opened the doors of a painted white cupboard above a counter along one side of the room and rooted through the shelves until he found what he was looking for--paper packets of needles, tubing, gauze. On the top shelf, he found sealed, empty blood bottles, ready for transfusions. Not bags--glass bottles. Christ, they hadn't used bottles in years. He ripped the cellophane off one, looked at it, and shook his head. It was as old as he was. Methodically, he tore open other wrappers and lined their contents out on the counter in front of him. He stood back and studied them. Should work.

Basques were an enigma. Little was known about them except they were living in the Pyrenees long before Christ, long before there ever was a Spain. They were a separate race with their own culture and a language like no other on earth. And, almost unheard of medically, Luis thought as he rolled his sleeve up, most of us are the same blood type--O-Negative.

He tied a rubber hose tight around his arm, and inserted the steel tip of a needle-and-tube assembly into the vein inside his elbow. He fed the end of the clear tubing into one of the two bottles he'd set on the floor.

He popped the rubber hose above his elbow and pumped his hand, watching his blood flow into the bottle, a cynical expression on his face. Clean, clear, and O-negative. How lucky could Garcia get? Minutes dragged by. It was taking forever.

What he was doing was damn poor medicine. With no facilities to cross-match, it was risky. With blood, Garcia had at best a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. Luis pinched the tube, moved it to the other bottle, and started the flow again. The wrong blood was better than no blood. For without it, his patient had a one hundred percent chance of dying.

Luis shut off the flow and withdrew the tube from the vein. Less than two units. Not enough, but that's all he was getting from him.

He carried both bottles over to the bed, kicking another I-V stand along as he did. He hung a bottle on it and attached the tubing. For several minutes, he tried unsuccessfully to locate the vein in Marko's arm. Marko's pulse was rapid, his breathing light and shallow, as if he'd been running hard. Bad sign.

"Nothing's ever easy with you, is it?" he said softly. He went back to the cupboard, laid out scalpels, clamps, sutures on a cloth-covered tray and carried them back to the bed.

Lightly, he walked his fingers down the side of his patient's neck. Below the hinge of the jaw, he saw the faint bluish cord of the external jugular vein under the skin. He pierced it carefully with the scalpel, fastened a catheter, and taped it in place. He pulled a chair over and attached the tubing to the catheter. Slowly...slowly he opened the stopcock. The blood in the overhead bottle slipped through the clear plastic tube--a narrow red ribbon in the air connected to Marko's throat.

The results were dramatic. Breath by breath, the shallow breathing slowed, becoming heavier, deeper. The sickly gray pallor faded, chased by a trace of color suffusing his body.

Marko stirred and opened his eyes. As he did, a hand clamped down hard on the side of his face.

"Don't move!"

Marko looked up and tried to speak. But his lips were caked and dry and the words wouldn't come. From all the morphine, his pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, giving his eyes a luminous, alien look. He lifted the fingers of one hand in a helpless gesture.

"You son-of-a-bitch," Luis said, "a dozen times today I could have let you die, and she never would have known."

Marko swallowed. Slowly, he closed his eyes, then opened them. "But you didn't...gracias...."

"Don't thank me yet." Luis spread the stethoscope and plugged it in his ears. "I still might."

"Did...did she say yes?"

Luis leaned forward to catch the words. "What are you talking about?"

Marko licked his lips. "When you asked her...asked her if she loved me...what did she say?"

"You're pushing your luck, Garcia," Luis said softly.

Chapter 27

Thursday, September 7, 1995

Father Andrew Xavier Sebastian, Order of St. Benedict, abbot of Garralda, nudged his wire-rimmed glasses back in place and reached across his desk for the coffee pot. He filled his cup again--the fourth time that morning. Another sign of his falling away, he thought guiltily.

Tall and close to seventy now, the former village priest was a frail, saintly-looking man with the beginning of a stoop. He'd been a Black Benedictine for fifty years.

As soon as he had recovered his composure at having his monastery invaded by armed revolutionaries, he set about getting right to the heart of the problem--the weapons. In his high, reedy voice, he told Pablo there would be none of those in his abbey.

"You and your men may stay until the brothers and I decide what must be done, but you will stay as gentlemen among gentlemen." With a finger pointed skyward and in a voice straight out of the Old Testament, Father Andrew intoned that attending mass might do them all a world of good.

A few hours later after Vespers, he noted with no small satisfaction three subdued guerrillas, berets in hand, shuffling out of the church. The pilot, eyes downcast, plodded along beside Andrew.

"I am delighted," Andrew said, his face lighting up. "What made them come?"

"We cut cards."

"Aha! And you won?"

Pablo kept his head down. "No, Father, we lost."

Andrew cleared his throat softly. "Señor Pablo, there is an old saying in this country that in Spain everybody follows the church, half of them with a candle, the other half with a club."

"I don't have much use for clubs, Father," came the mumbled answer.

Andrew gestured to the gray Puma. "Nor do I. Is it possible, my son, you might arrange to remove your machine from our rose bed? Unfortunately, you set it down right in the middle of my Don Juans and Queen Elizabeths."

As he recalled, Pablo hadn't looked too happy and mumbled something Andrew hadn't quite caught; nevertheless, the helicopter was gone an hour later, and the brothers had most of the bushes staked back up before dark.

That morning, Andrew gazed across his study at the worn blue velvet settee and shook his head. The cushions were heaped with Uzi and Star submachine guns, assault rifles, automatic pistols. Their barrels gleamed in the sunlight slanting through the blinds.

He added cream and two generous spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee. Picking up his cup and saucer, he took them to the window to watch the sunrise. Slowly he stirred. In the distance, the dark crests of the Maladetas broke the skyline. Behind Monte Perdido's 11,000 foot summit, the clouds glistened like ground glass. The eastern horizon was ablaze, a fiery furnace of corals and crimsons and torrid pinks vaulting overhead, blushing Perdido's snowcap.

Red sky at night, sailors' delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

Andrew made a quiet, ruminative sound and took a long swallow of his coffee. Bad weather coming.

The power and dignity of the clouds always amazed him. Some days they were somber and gray, long, sodden bats of woolpacks unrolling over the mountains.

Rain.

Other days, mares and mackerels frisked five miles up across high, blue heavens.

Change. Perhaps.

Over time he'd come to understand the meaning of their shapes, their changing hues. From their density, their height, and the welcome gift of sharpness to his old eyes, he could tell the barometer was falling and knew to take his umbrella. That was one of the few advantages of getting old, he supposed--experience--to be able to read the small signals of what lay ahead.

"'Oh ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?' Matthew 16:3," he murmured, and took another sip of his coffee.

This thing with Garcia, he suspected, would go badly for the government. Especially after what he knew now. Spread open on the desk behind him was the brown folder belonging to Marko. Maggie had brought it to him the night before. Sometime around midnight, he'd slipped into church for a few minutes' reflection and prayer. It had been a terrible day for him, disturbing and--yes--frightening.

It was dim and chilly inside the church. He'd gone up front, as usual, and was saying the rosary, working over his beads in the blaze of candlelight at the side of the altar. At first, he didn't see her kneeling alongside a pillar, but then he heard her crying softly and whispering to herself behind him. Certain that Garcia had died, Andrew rose to go to her. She saw him coming and slid out from the pew, hurrying up the aisle. At the door, she stopped and waited, as if she'd changed her mind.

"Can I talk to you, Father?" Her face glistened with tears.

They'd gone back to his study, and there Maggie told him the whole story. She'd brought the brown folder with her the night they broke camp, she said, stuffed it down inside her bag of clothes, intending to confront Luis with it. Andrew was glad she did.

Long, bony fingers tented like steeples, Andrew listened to her account of the assassination attempt at the dam and then read the autopsies of the dead sheep himself. The evidence was undeniable and dreadful and confirmed his own suspicions about the provincial government's ready answers to what it glibly labeled "terrorism by outside forces." Not much got past the mountain people, and it was an open secret that the government's own troops were behind it.

Eyes burning with fatigue--for she hadn't left the guerrilla leader's side for hours--Maggie St. Clair sat across the desk from him and figure-skated like a champion around the edges of her relationship with Commander Marko Garcia.

"Despite what you've heard, I am not his prisoner. I believe in what he's doing. We lied to you, Father. We're not married. After what happened at the Estradas, he wouldn't risk leaving me alone. He brought me here to protect me from Senator Diego. He is...was...my bodyguard."

Andrew gazed at her silently, remembering the many evenings he'd seen her and her "bodyguard" leaning on the parapet overlooking the valley, holding hands and counting the stars.

"He hated lying to you, Father," she said with a small, sad smile. "He used to be an altar boy when he was young."

"I am not surprised." Andrew clucked his tongue. "Under other circumstances, he might have made a very good priest."

Maggie didn't answer, but the clear, green gaze meeting his had reservations.

Andrew smiled to himself and toyed with a round Lucite paperweight on his desk as she talked, his face calm, composed. From time to time, he twirled the globe, watching the small blizzard of confetti inside the plastic. Only the increasingly hardened set of his jaw revealed the direction his mind was taking.

For two years he'd heard and read about the violence in Edorta, about the senator who had given up a life of ease to lead a revolution. He'd spoken with the man and liked him. Garcia was no hothead. And this pretty young American teacher--how in the world had she gotten involved with the Party of Justice?

Maggie told him.

When she finished, she looked up. "I want to see his father. I want him to know the truth before Marko...." She couldn't finish. "I'm new to your country. I don't know the roads or how to get there. Would you--will you come with me?"

Lips pursed, Father Andrew tossed the paperweight back and forth from hand to hand. After a minute, he set it down. "Let me think about it," he said gently.

After Maggie left his study, Father Andrew and Brother Gregory had spent half the night down in the cellars whose walls were blackened by centuries of torchlight. Together they pored over old journals and dug through dusty tomes of history about Garralda. Kings had died there. Wars had been won and lost on its battlements. In the journal of a former abbot who had lost his own life defending the abbey, Andrew learned that Garralda Abbey--his abbey--had been a refuge, a secret sanctuary for dissident noblemen in the 1500s. History, it appeared, was repeating itself.

By the light of one bare bulb, Andrew stood, reading, and turning the pages. His long slender fingers trembled.

"Oh my, five hundred years ago. Gregory, listen to what he wrote about us: 'The Black Monks of Garralda are the flaming individualists in the militia of the Church. Of all her orders, the Benedictines are the gladiators, unafraid--nay, willing--to raise the sword for the cause of Justice.'"

"Justice...Party of Justice? Oh, my." In the basement of the abbey, Father Andrew Sebastian, O.S.B., had sat down hard on an old trunk lid, the wind completely gone out of him. He blinked at the musty old book in his hands and wondered if that sword had just been passed to him.

In his office that morning, Andrew turned away from the sunrise and set his cup down solidly on the desk. He had no doubt that señora St. Clair was telling the truth. But was it possible Garcia had lied to her?

Behind the wire-rimmed glasses, the priest's eyes gleamed. There was a way to find out. He opened a side drawer of the desk and removed a white satin stole. He spread it on the polished top. Next, he took out a small, round gold container of anointing oil and set it on the stole, then his pyx holding the sacred hosts followed, and, finally, his ritual book. Reverently, he wrapped them all together and tucked them into his pocket.

"Ego te absolvo," he murmured, leaving his study.

He reached behind his neck and drew the peaked cowl of his robe up over his head against the drafts, then swept silently along the stone corridor, through an archway, and down the narrow steps to the infirmary.

Half an hour later, somber-faced, he came out and closed the door softly behind him, then went back upstairs to his office and replaced the stole and its contents in the desk drawer. In his own mind, he was convinced. Dying Catholics don't lie to priests.

Andrew picked up the brown folder and left the study again. This time as he swung down the corridor, he clapped his hands and called out cheerily, "Gregory! Brother Gregory. Bring the car!"

On both sides of the road, two army jeeps had angled themselves out from the shoulders to block traffic. For half a mile in either direction, Spanish soldiers in army uniforms stood by orange traffic cones, funneling the cars over into one lane.

Lieutenant Mikel Murga, clipboard in hand, observed a grim-faced sergeant questioning the young occupants of a stopped pickup truck. There was a marked change in the soldier's demeanor from yesterday. Crisply military, the sergeant stepped back and motioned the truck to move on. The driver and his red-haired girlfriend drove off, angry, but subdued. Murga nodded his approval.

Roadblocks were unusual in Spain. Lieutenant Murga couldn't remember a single one in all his years in the service. Yet, for the last week, he and his men had been politely stopping cars on back roads, looking for the American woman. Overnight, that courteous attitude had changed. This morning, Murga's men carried rifles. They no longer sought a hostage. After what happened at the dam, they now hunted a co-conspirator. He flipped the papers over on his clipboard to the photograph captioned "Margarita St. Clair--Have You Seen This Woman?" Stiffly, he walked toward the sergeant working the line of stopped cars. She wouldn't get past here. Not on his watch.

In the back seat of the abbey's white Nissan Micron--air conditioned, a rarity in Spain--Maggie watched the road ahead between the shoulders of Brother Gregory and Father Andrew. The voluble Gregory, silent for once, drove with a studied concentration. The narrow road with its dotted white line wound through the Pyrenees, a succession of curves and cutbacks spiraling around and around up to the top of the mountain and down the other side. High, sheered-off granite rose like the wall of a building on one side; the road, built as close as possible to the edge, had a guard rail so low she could step over it. Valleys fell away. Steep, grassy slopes rose and snapped shut again. Maggie's fingers tightened around the pocketbook in her lap. Going up didn't bother her; it was the coming down that made her nervous. Gregory pumped the brakes again. Tires screeched. Resolutely, she refused to look at the flimsy guard rail and the breathtaking fall of empty air beyond. All she could think of was the expression on Marko's face when he'd told her about driving over the edge. Not until they'd crossed the ridge and had come back down did she relax.

Twice detours forced them off the highway onto rural routes through the countryside. Everything in Spain, it seemed, was being torn down or rebuilt. Spain had embarked on a building boom, determined to catch up with the rest of Europe. Hotels and offices seemed to go up overnight.

And dams.

The detours took them through gently rolling hills and farmland that reminded her of Amish country in Pennsylvania. Neat white farms and silos slipped by, and mile after mile of low stone walls. Haystacks stood in the fields. This rich, loamy section, Andrew said, gesturing to the long valley of vineyards they were passing, was the supermarket to Europe. Orange, olive, and almond orchards, deep and waxy green, grew in boxy, straight patterns across the land. Alongside, the fields that had grown the sugary Spanish strawberries prized by Europeans lay dry and withered now, browning in the sun.

And nearly every field, she saw had rolling automatic irrigators, spraying into the air.

Water from the dams.

According to Marko, it wouldn't be long before hydroelectricity replaced oranges and olives as the biggest export. Her throat tightened. She almost couldn't bear to leave him this morning, but she had to. His father was her only hope to keep him alive. If he'd help him.

"Oh, my, what have we here?" Father Andrew said, as they rounded a curve and Gregory suddenly slowed the car. He leaned forward and peered through the windshield.

Just ahead, men in uniforms and rifles swarmed across the road. A Spanish soldier stepped out into the center of the highway, arms waving over his head, flagging down the white Nissan. Men from other agencies watched from both sides of the road--the National Police, Guardia Civil officers, and CESID, Spanish secret police. Andrew cast a look back at Maggie, the grizzled gray eyebrows knitted together. "A road block--and rather extensive from who all is here. This doesn't look good, my dear."

Maggie sucked her breath in and pressed into a corner of the back seat, cursing herself for not wearing a scarf to hide her hair. It was over. They'd found her. After yesterday, she'd be arrested. Nervously, she chewed at her lip, her eyes darting from one side of the road to the other. She needed to warn Pablo to get Marko away from the monastery, fast.

"I've got to find a telephone, Father," she said urgently. Within minutes of learning who she was, the army would storm the monastery and seize Marko. Gregory slowed the car. Maggie lurched for the door handle.

Long, bony fingers grabbed her wrist. "It's too late!" Andrew shoved her away from the door. "They'll shoot you if you try to run away."

The soldier in the center of the road beckoned the Micron to pull forward. White-faced, Gregory did as instructed. And guilt for involving these two gentle men who had shown her nothing but kindness burned in her chest.

Gregory rolled his window down. "Is something wrong, Sergeant?" he boomed. There was a tremor in the mighty voice.

The sergeant's eyes shot beyond the monk and the priest alongside him to Maggie behind them. Maggie pressed against the seat and held her breath. Weakness slid into her thighs. A dark, mustachioed face peered through the open window at her. Briefly, he glanced down at his clipboard, then stepped back. With an impatient gesture, he motioned them to move on.

Gregory gaped at him.

"You can go, I said!"

The monk fumbled with the gearshift and then slowly drove off.

Maggie sagged against the back seat with a gasp of relief. Turning, she looked out the rear window. The car behind them hadn't been so lucky. A short, dark-haired woman had been ordered out of her car and was surrounded by a group of soldiers. One of the men emptied out her purse, while another searched her for weapons. Two men from CESID hurried across the road to join the questioning.

In the front seat, Father Andrew shook his head and studied the clouds.

Now they were driving out again and up again. Maggie leaned forward and pointed at the road ahead. "Pablo said to watch for a driveway on your left. It's not marked, but there's a small stone pillar out front."

A few miles farther on, Gregory braked and turned into a road between a column nearly hidden by trees. For three more miles, the car twisted and climbed around weird rock formations, churning up dust as fine as flour. Around a bend and down a slight grade, the road became less wild, more of a formal driveway between white railed fences enclosing a few horses. They drove through an open wrought iron gate and stopped in a courtyard before a stately stone mansion.

Andrew patted Maggie's hand. "Go on inside. Gregory and I will give you a few minutes alone with him."

Maggie slipped out of the back seat and brushed her skirt, rearranging herself. Her hair was pulled back, held with clips behind her ears. Before she left the abbey, she'd tried to fuss a little with her appearance, but her heart wasn't in it. She'd spent the night before dozing in a chair beside Marko's bed. This morning, she felt stretched almost to the breaking point, pale, yet determined. Like an athlete psyching herself up for the performance of her life, she huffed a few quick breaths in and out and looked at the impressive house.

Pocketbook over her shoulder, she clicked across the brick courtyard and up the steps. Another breath. She pressed the bell.

"I am Margarita Dixon St. Clair," she said in Spanish to a gnarled-looking man in a sweater who opened the door. "Governor Garcia...is he in?"

"Is he expecting you?" he asked, polite, aloof, the craggy eyebrows raised. With his long, narrow face and casual clothes, he looked like a Picasso peasant. He could have been a valet or a butler. Or a bodyguard. She wasn't sure which.

"No, but it is urgent that I see him. Tell him I must speak with him about Marko."

The man hesitated.

"Marko is alive," she said quietly.

With a small bow, he ushered her into a bright, terra cotta entrance hall awash in sunlight and gestured to a high-backed chair in the foyer. Then, silently, he disappeared. The hall was furnished with gleaming ebony tables and leafy green plants. A white oriental runner flecked with red and green stretched over the tiles in a splash of color. Despite the sunlight, the stillness was overpowering, as if people spoke in whispers here. So this was where Marko grew up? Try as she might, she couldn't imagine him growing up in these surroundings. She felt disoriented by both the boy and the man he used to be.

But none of that mattered any more. She smoothed the black lace dress Marko had brought from her apartment over her knees. Her nose wrinkled. She looked like a chanteuse from the French Follies. Not only was the dress a size too small, the open black eyelet and the gold high-heels were all wrong. And whatever had possessed her to buy that tacky red slip in the first place--and for Marko to snatch it out of the drawer?

Ankles crossed primly, she waited. Tension built inside. What if the governor had guards? Of course, he had guards. What if he called the police, or tried to keep her from leaving, or--?

"You wanted to see me?" a deep voice at her elbow said.

She jumped. A very tanned, very tall man in riding clothes and boots stood before her. He was as big as his son, the same powerful shoulders, the same mass of curly hair--Ernesto's, white and coarsened by the years. Though the eyes were a lighter, paler brown and his skin a deeper olive, the resemblance was uncanny. It was Marko in thirty years.

"Governor Garcia, I am Maggie St. Clair. I've come--"

"Who did you say you are?"

"Margarita Dixon-St. Clair." This time she stated her full name.

"The woman Marko kidnapped?"

"Yes, but it's not what you think. Your son--"

"I have no son."

Garcia stepped back and shook his head, one eyebrow raised in mock appreciation of the woman in the tight dress. "I must say, you are a lovely one, aren't you? But then Marko always did have good taste in women. Your real name, please?"

She looked at him, puzzled. "St. Clair...Maggie St. Clair.

"You are not señora St. Clair," he said harshly. "Who are you really--one of his whores?"

Maggie reeled as if he'd slapped her. Of all the possible receptions, this one had never occurred to her.

Ernesto's lip curled. "If it's money he wants, tell him I'll see him in hell before--"

Maggie fought to keep her temper down. "Marko is alive, and there are things you need to know about what's happened to him, happened to me. And why."

"I'm not interested in lies--his or yours, Miss Whoever-you-are," he said coldly. Ernesto made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the door.

Her chin tipped up. "I am exactly who I say I am." She caught the anger heating her voice and swallowed it. "Marko doesn't know I'm here. Please let me explain--"

"Leave!"

For a long moment, she stared at him then, quickly, she crossed the tiles to the door. She was exhausted and disappointed and furious. And she'd failed. Ripping mad, Texas mad, she spun around, eyes blazing, powerless to stop the words.

"Good taste in women, perhaps, but piss-poor judgment in fathers, if that's what you call yourself. My father is in politics, but he still had a life. He made time for me. And if I'd come to him the way Marko came to you, he would have believed me!" She yanked the door open. She hadn't intended to say any of this, but while she was at it... "You are sick. And so is your son. Because in spite of everything you've done to him and to this country, he still loves you. Adios, Makera!"

The governor of Edorta stood in the doorway, gaping in astonishment, as the fiery blonde who'd just called him an uncastrated pig stamped down the steps in her spiky gold shoes and broke into a teetering run across the bricks toward a parked sedan and straight into the arms of two Benedictine monks.

"I apologize, Miss Dixon. Por Dios, forgive me. I am not myself today," Ernesto said, his face drawn with embarrassment. In his study, he sank on one knee next to her chair and took her hand in his. "I made a mistake...a terrible mistake. But you look nothing like your pictures, you see. Nothing at all."

Father Andrew crossed his legs and adjusted the folds of the black robe around his knees. He slipped his hands into his sleeves and fixed an accusing look on Ernesto. The governor shifted uncomfortably. Priests always made him nervous, especially the Black Monks with their muscular Catholicism.

The wreath of thin, white hair around the abbot's head caught the light from the window alongside. Ernesto's nostrils flared. Dignified old menace.

Ernesto pointed to the newspaper he held, at the photograph of a dark-haired older woman with Maggie's name below it. "Have you seen this?"

"But...that's my mother," Maggie said, puzzled.

"I have seen this picture a hundred times this week. It is the official photo distributed to the police and the armed forces." Slowly, Ernesto stood up and walked to the window. Plowing a hand through his hair, he spoke with his back to her. "All Edorta is looking for you--police at every airport, railway station, and border crossing. Even road blocks. No wonder we couldn't find you. We were looking for the wrong woman."

Maggie stared at her mother on the front page of the newspaper. "Marko always said Diego didn't want me found."

"What does Senator Diego have to do with this?"

"At the Estradas last Tuesday, he knew me the minute he got out of his truck, said he recognized me from my picture. How could he?" She pointed to her mother's picture.

Ernesto ran his mind back to the press conference in the auditorium of the Town Hall, to Fidel, chewing on his cigar and distributing Maggie's picture to the reporters. "This photograph--it is possible, I suppose, that someone else--"

"Made a mistake?" Father Andrew cut in, eyebrows raised, "and distributed the wrong photograph of an American senator's daughter taken hostage in Spain? In view of what's involved here, Governor--not only a life, but millions of dollars in U.S. aid--don't you think we'd get that right?"

Ernesto turned back to the window. Although he'd disagreed with Fidel's demand for secrecy, he'd had no choice but to go along with the Cortes. He'd correctly predicted the American reaction to the delayed announcement of the kidnapping and had personally warned Prime Minister Arevalo what could happen.

Ernesto lost. Bad judgment all around. He looked at Maggie. "There have been no murders in Edorta that are connected with the dams. What Marko says is happening is not true. The ranchers are well-paid for their land. From the beginning, I have insisted on no less. True, the new dams are vital to Spain's future, but we won't bankrupt our own people to do it. Unfortunately, that's a fact of life my son has yet to learn."

Maggie jumped up, her face flushing, temper straining at the end of its leash. "He knows that. He deeded them the rights to the Perico River dam on his own property."

"For three million dollars, he did!"

"He gave it to them! See for yourself. A sworn statement and a copy of the deed are in here." She snatched up the folder and shook it in his face.

Ernesto drew up straight, lips pursed, provoked by her lack of decorum. Hot-headed Mexicans--they were all alike. "I'm sorry, Miss St. Clair," he said stiffly. "I've seen the Land Commission's accounts myself. Three million dollars is what they paid him."

"Then you better find out who got the money, because Marko didn't." Maggie leaned over the desk and rapped her knuckles like a schoolteacher for his attention. The governor's eyes widened.

"Did it ever occur to you, Governor Garcia," she said tightly, "that the Land Commission is lying, that Senator Diego is lying. That perhaps your son is not?"

Quickly, Andrew rose from his chair, took the folder from Maggie and eased her behind him. He placed the folder in Ernesto's hands. "Señor, read this. Last Wednesday Commander Garcia brought Miss Dixon to my abbey to hide her after Diego's men killed the Estrada family."

Ernesto looked up. "Estradas? I was told the man killed his own family, shot Colonel Soreno and his men, and then hanged himself."

Andrew shook his head. "That isn't what happened. Your son, Miss Dixon, and three others were at the Estradas--"

Ernesto wheeled on Maggie. "What were you doing there?"

"The Estradas were hiding me, and Colonel Soreno killed them."

Andrew broke in, "Señor Estrada did not hang himself. He was tortured and then Soreno and his men hanged him."

As Ernesto listened to the details, he passed a hand over his face, sickened. He'd been told it was murder and suicide.

Looking out at the mountains beyond Ernesto's library, Maggie related Diego's coming to the Estrada's earlier in the day, blowing up the road, and the attack that followed.

As she spoke, Ernesto sat motionless, straightening a paper clip, twirling it, his eyes on Maggie's back. If she was telling the truth, Fidel Diego had seen Marko, had tried to kill him and this woman. Yet only last night, Fidel had sat across this same desk, drinking brandy with him.

Andrew rested his hand gently on Ernesto's shoulder. "Before I left the abbey this morning, I administered the Last Rites to Commander Garcia. If it's any consolation to you, he told me this same story. Miss Dixon is right, Governor. Someone is lying, but it's not your son."

Without a word, Ernesto rose and left the room. At a table in the hall, he made a few phone calls. He took a breath and called San Kristobal's Medical Examiner. Unexpectedly, he met a polite wall of resistance. With an uncharacteristic sharpness to his voice, Ernesto told him that "Someone is going to prison for this. Let us hope it is not you, Doctor, because I have just ordered another autopsy on señor Estrada to be performed not by you. On the chance that you erred in that first report, I will ask you one last time: how did Dani Estrada die?

In silence, he listened, sinking into a chair by the telephone table. He winced. "Barbaric."

Now, apparently, the coroner couldn't tell him fast enough. Ballistics showed, he rushed on, telling Ernesto that the bullet which killed señora Estrada came from Colonel Soreno's pistol. Soreno himself and all three of his men had been shot from a distance and from overhead.

With a soft jingling of spurs, Ernesto returned to his guests and sat down at his elegant rosewood desk. He opened the brown folder and read Marko's papers through.

Ernesto sifted through the papers again, fanning them apart, spreading them in front of him. The deed was there, registered and dated. He picked up the black and yellow ticket and turned it over clumsily. A numbed feeling made his fingers thick. The sodium fluoroacetate addressed to Fidel had been picked up by Maggie's fiancé, the same man visiting Fidel in the Council Chambers the day Marko attacked it. Diego and Maggie. Diego and Luis. Diego and Soreno.

By itself, of course, this ticket might meant nothing. Marko had always said the sheep were poisoned. But Ernesto had been told it was anthrax--by Diego, by Colonel Soreno, by the medical examiner, and by others. Experts. Who was he supposed to believe?

With silent, brutal efficiency, a segment of his own government--a counter-terrorist unit--was eliminating anyone who opposed the dams and who belonged to the Party of Justice. His jaw set. GAL would be stopped now, not for all the right ethical reasons, but for the same reason it was formed--for political revenge.

He dropped the ticket on top of the papers and slapped the folder closed. Swiveling his chair around, he turned his back on the monks across from him. For several minutes he sat still, tenting his fingers.

Finally, the chair creaked around. "How bad is he, Father?"

"He was alive when we left this morning."

Ernesto opened the folder and looked at the black and yellow ticket again.

"And your fiancé, Dr. Alazar?" he asked Maggie. "I understand you forced him to accompany you."

A pale, pretty, ivory face looked back directly. Despite the touch of sadness around her mouth, there was not a hint of apology in those cool green eyes. Yes, she'd done it, they said, and she'd do it again if she had to.

"If Marko lives, it's because of Luis. He saved his life on the helicopter," she said.

"With a gun at his head, no doubt."

"Um....yes, that was a factor."

Ernesto gave an embarrassed little cough. A faint smile, so much like his son's, pulled at the corner of his mouth. The woman had guts.

Ernesto stared at the backs of his hands spread flat across the folder. If these papers were genuine--and he suspected they were--Marko had been right all along. It was his father who was wrong, blind because he refused to see.

After a moment, he picked up the newspaper with the picture of Maggie and looked at it steadily. Cold, quiet fury burned inside his chest. Fury at his own stupidity. Fury, most of all, at Fidel Diego. For it had been Diego himself who had handed him the photograph of pretty, dark-haired Consuelo Dixon, saying, "She reminds me so much of your Yera."

Ernesto reached for the telephone and dialed a number.

"Put the senator on, please," he said, in English.

Chapter 28

Friday, September 8, 1995

Thad Dixon looked down from the window of his hotel room at Columbus Plaza across the street and swallowed a thick disappointment. Consuelo was in the adjoining bedroom with a sick headache. Dixon heaved a deep sigh and massaged his temples. They'd had such high hopes of getting Maggie back.

Behind him, sitting stiffly in a ladder-back chair, General Maxwell Boyer stared at the carpet. Dixon pushed the draperies aside and leaned his head against the window frame. From the window, he could see the dazzling white waterfront of San Kristobal's harbor and beyond, the wine-dark swells of the Mediterranean.

Outside, the city hummed with the news of the failed ambush at La Vansa. That day, in French, Spanish, and Basque, the media carried little else but news of what was being called "the treachery at La Vansa." Garcia's name was everywhere, sprayed on walls and buildings, headlines in all the newspapers. Every time Thad turned the television on, it was to another talk show, another interview. Pictures of Marko as a boy, as an officer, as a rancher, flooded the screen. Old school friends, teachers, neighbors--anyone who had even slightly known him--stepped forward with stories. But when a mayor and two village police chiefs added their glowing support of Commander Garcia and his POJ, Thad shut the TV off in disgust.

People talked openly of what had happened. The ambush had touched them all and wounded a fierce Spanish national pride. San Kristobal and other major cities throughout the province were furious at all three governments, Spanish, Edorti, and American.

In the park across the street, a man openly wearing the checkered blue neckerchief of the POJ, stood on the pedestal of a bronze horse, shouting and shaking his fist to a gathering mob. Each time he shook it, a roar answered him--

"Viva Garcia! Viva Garcia!"

Dixon shook his head. As long as he lived, he'd never understand these people. The man was an outlaw, a revolutionary, and the whole province was rallying behind him.

"You screwed up, General," Dixon said, his voice flat. "Your job was to negotiate my daughter's release, not turn it into an ambush. Whose bright idea was that?"

"Your future son-in-law's. Dr. Alazar and Senator Diego both agreed," Boyer said coldly. "But from the beginning, they lied to us. The deputy minister negotiating for Madrid, Felipe Caldas, is a member of the Land Control Commission."

"And up to his eyeballs in GAL."

"If I'd known that--"

"Tell me, General, what kind of rescue plan was it that tried to assassinate a man a foot from my daughter? With your war record, I would have thought you knew better. You could have killed her."

Shoulders squared, Boyer met his eyes boldly. "The soldier I selected was an Expert Marksman, Senator."

"Who for--a Boy Scout? Garcia is still alive, barely, but alive. And lucky for us he is. Don't expect Spain to be grateful. I just got off the phone with the prime minister. He says there was a lot they didn't know, that he didn't know. Over here Garcia is a national hero, and the good guys in the white hats--the United States of America--shoots a Spanish citizen in the back in his own country. Makes us look real good, doesn't it?"

General Boyer repeated, "We did what we had to."

"And triggered a revolution. Come over here, General." Dixon gestured to the street below. Police cars and fire trucks blocked the intersections around Columbus Plaza. Firemen in yellow rubber coats and hats were dragging hoses out of the trucks and snaking them along the curbs. A flatbed with a water-cannon jockeyed itself into position across from the entrance. A line of black-garbed riot police in red helmets carried plastic shields and clubs.

From a distance, growing louder, came the honk and blare of fire trucks, the wail of sirens closing in. Dixon suddenly stiffened, shook his head, as if he didn't believe it. Three dark-faced white sheep came skittering around the corner by the bank, then ten more, a hundred more. Suddenly, the whole street was a rush of white sheep and barking dogs, the sheep trotting down the center, jumping the curbs, clicking down the sidewalks. Pedestrians leaped into doorways. Brakes squealed, and drivers rolled their windows down in amazement.

According to shepherds with bullhorns walking alongside, they were from the Gerona District--"senador Marko Garcia's district," one shouted. They proceeded to drive the entire flock of five thousand jittery sheep in a baby stampede down Las Ramblas Boulevard.

Thad opened the hotel window and leaned out, watching the spectacle. Sheep filled two city blocks solid, with no end in sight. Tripping and hopping, they ran shoulder to shoulder past the parliament building, the stock exchange, and headed straight down into the heart of the financial district. Baa-ing and shitting all over the pretty-colored sidewalks, they knocked over kiosks and flower stands. Snarling riot police waded in, knee-deep in white wool, their red helmets and Plexiglas shields useless.

Cheering, pumping their fists, the mob surged out of the Plaza and into the middle of the sheep, stretching across Las Ramblas from curb to curb, marching, singing:

"Ven-cer-AY-mos! VencerAYmos! VencerAYmos!"

"What does 'venceremos' mean?" Boyer asked.

"It's Franco's old civil war anthem. It means 'we will overcome.' As I recall," Dixon added sarcastically, "they did, and that's partly responsible for the mess we're in today."

The telephone rang.

"For you, sir...it's Governor Garcia." An FBI agent held out the phone to the senator.

Thad Dixon took the receiver. Palming the mouthpiece, he looked at Boyer.

"Go home, General. I don't need you any more. Give my regards to the president--if you ever see him again." Dixon turned his back and spoke into the phone.

After a minute, "Buzz" Boyer shrugged and let himself out.

Maggie held a cup to Marko's mouth and coaxed him to drink. Exhausted, he took a sip, then pushed it away. As she stretched her arm to set the cup down on the bedside table, the door cracked open a few inches, then swung wide. No knock. Marko swallowed. Ashen, his eyes were fastened on someone over her shoulder. Maggie spun around, expecting the police, the Guards, the army, or Diego himself. The cup rattled to the floor.

"Daddy!" With a delighted squeal, she ran across the room.

Thad Dixon stood in the doorway, grinning, his arms outstretched. A tall, austere-looking man with a headful of curly white hair stood beside him, his eyes riveted on the man in bed.

"Thank you for coming," she said softly to Ernesto, and pulled her father out into the hall.

For Thad Dixon, just finding his daughter alive was all the Christmases and birthdays in his life rolled into that one happy moment. For too many dark hours, he'd thought he'd never see her again.

That afternoon, the two fathers walked together down the empty cloister. Ernesto, hands clasped behind his back, had his head bowed; Thad Dixon chain-smoked, worried.

"How long before they come after him?" Dixon asked.

Ernesto gave a bitter laugh. "Alazar will turn him in the minute he leaves here. Despite what he did for Marko, I don't like the little weasel. Never did. Be glad your daughter changed her mind about marrying him."

Thad nodded, but said nothing. Up in her room, Maggie had cried and hiccuped in Dixon's arms until she was sick. He'd knelt beside the commode in the bathroom and held her head while she bawled for Ernesto's son. He'd never seen her like that.

"I have the impression that something is going on between your daughter and my son," Ernesto said.

"Christ, I hope not." But Thad had come to the same unhappy conclusion in the bathroom upstairs.

Ernesto smiled thinly. "Under the circumstances, I didn't think you'd be too pleased."

"No offense, Governor, but he did kidnap her. I have a problem with that. A big problem."

Both men turned through the marble columns alongside and walked out into the courtyard and onto a white gravel path around the rose garden. As they did, the church bells began tolling the call to three o'clock prayers.

"You don't have to worry. Any relationship with them is doomed," Ernesto said, raising his voice over the clanging. "Once Marko is picked up, it doesn't matter what he's accused of. Too much will come out at his trial. They'll kill him before they get him back to Kristobal." He sighed and looked across at Dixon. "And the real loser in all of this is Spain. Marko would have been so good for this country. He sees something wrong, he wades in to fix it. Me--I talk it to death."

"Then get him out of here. Buy him some time, sneak him to a hospital in France. You can get away with that. He is your son!"

Ernesto nodded. "I offered that an hour ago. He refused, said he's not running away."

"Then we both have a problem." Thad sank down onto a nearby bench across from a row of frilly pink rose bushes. He couldn't believe Maggie had gotten herself into such a mess. He had to get her out of Spain fast. Otherwise, she could be arrested as a co-conspirator, along with Garcia.

Stretching his long legs out in front of him, Thad folded his arms and looked at Ernesto. "I'm taking Maggie home today. I just don't know if I can pull it off fast enough to do your son any good--not unless you help me."

Ernesto sat down carefully beside him. Eyes narrowed, he asked, "What do you need from me? And why?"

"I'll start with the why. As I said, one way or another, I'm getting Maggie out of here today."

"I understand completely."

Thad shook his head. "I don't think you do. You see, she won't leave without Marko, so whether your kidnapping son wants to come along or not, I am flying his ass out of here and back to the States with us."

Ernesto stared at him. "To a hospital?"

A curt nod from Dixon.

A wide grin broke across Ernesto's face. "What do you need from me?"

"Some of that Spanish political double-talk you people are so good at."

Ernesto threw an arm around Dixon's shoulder. "Let's go inside."

"You want us to take him where? U.S. Secretary of the Navy John A. Clemente tucked the phone under his arm and walked to the window, trailing the cord behind him. "Speak up, Thad. I can hardly hear you. Who is this man?"

Leaning over Father Andrew's desk in the library, Thad Dixon shouted down the receiver. "He's the guerrilla leader that jarhead of yours tried to kill, that's who. We've got us a real mess over here, John. We've got to get him out fast and to a hospital."

"I don't know, Thad. A guerrilla leader is not a political refugee. Spain will scream interference, say we're meddling in their affairs. Just like the Panamanians did. You can expect that."

Dixon turned to Governor Garcia. Both of them, as well as Andrew, were hunched over the telephone, heads together, listening, the receiver between them. Ernesto wigwagged his hands vehemently and shook his head in answer to Clemente's statement.

"I have assurance at the highest level that won't happen," Dixon said. "We want him out. Edorta wants him out. Spain wants him out. They're as embarrassed by this as we are. There'll be hell to pay if he dies. We'll be blamed for it. Can't we do this as a humanitarian gesture?"

Dixon stared at Maggie, who was fidgeting nervously with the blind at the window. He rolled his eyes and added, "He's a wonderful man."

A distinct snort came down the wire. "This the same wonderful man who kidnapped your daughter?"

"According to Maggie, it was all a mistake."

There was a silence on the other end. Then, "Is San Kristobal cooperating?"

Dixon darted a look at Ernesto, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"Privately," Dixon said. "Very privately, a lot going on behind the scenes. This administration is on the ropes, caught up in corruption, bribes, collusion, mistresses. Everyone's talking now, trying to save himself. That may mean a special election and a new government. Looks like Prime Minister Arevalo is out the door. Spaniards are livid."

The Secretary listened to Dixon explain about the attack at the dam, then interrupted when Dixon mentioned Garralda Abbey.

"A monastery?" Clemente groaned. "Aw, Jesus, Thad, the last thing we want is the Vatican coming down on our necks again. And after what we did to their embassy in Panama with the loudspeakers--"

Father Andrew shook his head made a beckoning motion with his hand. Come on...come on...come on!

"Panama was different. This time we have permission from the abbot himself to come in. These are Benedictines--tough monks. They'll assist any way they can."

"Obstructions...wires, poles. Can we get a chopper in there safely?"

"No problem. That's how they brought Garcia here."

"We're coming in at night--we'll need lights."

"You'll have them. I'll put the POJ pilot in charge who flew Garcia in. Our CIA trained him. He's first rate."

John Clemente brightened. "Excellent, he's one of ours then. Where's he from?"

Thad covered the mouthpiece and looked at Maggie. "Where's Pablo from, honey?"

"Panama," she whispered.

Dixon didn't miss a beat. Smoothly, he said, "Don't know, for sure, John, but he looks Mexican to me."

Clemente was silent a minute, as if weighing the problem. Then, "Stay put, Thad. Let me run it by the Boss."

It sounded like thunder in the distance, an American Sea Knight helicopter chugging up out of the southwest from the navy base at Rota, Spain. It came in over the ridge, low and slow, and made its approach.

Garralda Abbey was blacked out. Cowled monks stood by the parapets in the dark. When the first faint throb of rotors sounded in the sky, brothers in their ankle-length skirts ran along the stone wall surrounding the abbey. Quickly, they lit kettles filled with kerosene and rags. They pushed the burning pots into the crenates in the battlements, and a rectangle of signal fires flickered high above the valley floor.

The courtyard was a spaghetti of wires. Every extension cord in the abbey had been appropriated and connected together. Bedside lamps from the guest rooms, floor lamps, even Father Andrew's reading lamp, were all plugged in and arranged on the ground.

"Here they come!" a brother called, and threw the switch. The lamps flooded on.

"Well, will you look at that!" The copilot craned his neck in the helicopter and peered down into the darkness.

"Must be the place," the pilot said, laughing. The big Sea Knight turned in the sky and headed toward a blazing cross of light bulbs burning below.

Rotors driving like pistons, the big helicopter hovered above the courtyard. Slowly, ponderously, twelve tons of heavy machinery settled like a locomotive onto Father Andrew's Don Juans and Queen Elizabeths.

Instead of the two dozen troops it normally carried, on board that night were a medical team and a flight surgeon with orders to get the controversial guerrilla leader out of Spain, fast. The Sea Knight would be in and out and gone by the time Spain got a fix on them and sent planes or choppers to investigate. If necessary, the pilot told his passengers, they'd run like hell for France. Less than ten minutes away was French airspace, and then they were home free.

Carrying a stretcher, blankets, and medical bags, men in flight suits disappeared into the monastery, jogging along behind an old priest through the corridors and down a narrow stone stairway to the basement.

Men in blue burst into the infirmary.

"Who are you--?" Marko struggled to an elbow.

"Lieutenant Commander Eric Klein, surgeon, U.S. Navy," a young dark-haired man answered. "These gentlemen with me are experienced corpsmen. Lie back down, sir."

Marko looked at Maggie and tried to concentrate. "What's your Navy doing here?"

"Luis thought it would be a good idea to have someone experienced with gunshot wounds look at you--him being a pediatrician and all. It just so happens these men were in the area."

"Maggie," he said, speaking to her, but his eyes riveted on Klein, "I am not leaving here."

"Now who said anything about leaving?" Klein swung a black medical bag up and rested it on the sink. He popped the catch and took out a syringe. Filling it, he nodded reassuringly to the man in bed. "Relax, Commander, I'm only going to check you out."

The sheet snapped back. Cold, wet cotton touched his thigh...the pungent smell of alcohol again. Resigned to hurting, Marko turned his face away and winced as the needle went in.

For several moments, nothing changed. Everything seemed normal, except for Maggie bustling around, packing up like she was going somewhere. A crushing great weariness folded over him, weighing his eyelids, sinking him into softness.

Leaning against the wall by the side of the bed, Klein checked his watch. "How you feeling, sir?"

"What was...in that shot?" Marko asked in a faraway voice.

"Morphine."

He fought to hold his lids open. "What else?"

Klein grinned. "Nighty-night, sir," he said, as Marko's eyes fluttered closed. Klein pushed off the wall and nodded to the men with the stretcher. "We're out of here."

With a full-throttle, ripsaw roar, a snub-nosed, wide-bellied C-141B sped down the runway at the joint American-Spanish naval base at Rota, Spain. Quickly, it climbed out over the Atlantic. The Starlifter belonged to the old Military Air Transport Service and had been designed for cargo, not comfort. Riding in it had been likened to riding inside a tornado. Everyone wore earplugs against the roar of the engines.

Minutes before, the Sea Knight had set down alongside the flying warehouse waiting at the end of the runway. A hasty transfer of passengers was made in the dark almost under the noses of Spanish officials. Bound from Germany for the U.S. with a load of equipment, the big Starlifter had been diverted in the air over France for an unscheduled stop in Spain.

Inside its belly, Thad Dixon, Connie, Maggie, and Commander Klein sat on webbed nylon seats attached to the fuselage. Marko, asleep, was strapped into a litter attached to a bulkhead.

Sitting alone along one wall was a worried-looking Dr. Luis Alazar. He was taking no chances with his government, especially after Governor Garcia had made some pointed remarks to him at the monastery about being an accessory to murder, grand theft, arson, treason.

"Treason?" Luis cried.

"Well, possibly not treason, but I'm sure I can find something else." Ernesto replied.

A hurried conference with Thad Dixon, a quick assent from Maggie, and Luis had jumped into the Sea Knight unassisted.

Thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic, Marko awakened to find himself unable to move, wired to a monitor, and strangely--frighteningly--deaf.

Klein was rearranging the plastic tube attached to Marko's arm and watching a green dot hopping across a heart monitor.

Maggie loosened the belt across Marko's chest, then removed the earplug from his ear.

His hearing returned on a blast of noise.

"That better?" Maggie yelled over the engine noise.

Disoriented by the shuddering racket, the Navy doctor, the crates and boxes stamped U S ARMY shaking on the floor, and the medication, Marko looked at her, wide-eyed.

"What have you done?" Eyes wide, he craned his head around, bewildered. "Where am I?"

She bent closer, put her mouth by his ear, and shouted, "In an airplane."

He groaned and turned his head away. She lowered her ear to his mouth to hear him better.

"You knew I wanted to stay," he said, his voice tired and weaker than yesterday. "They need me."

"Right. They need you, not a headstone with your name on it. So get well and go back. If I'd let you stay, you would have died. Dr. Klein and Luis both say that."

"They're wrong. I'm getting better," he whispered. But he knew she was right.

She picked an ice cube from a paper cup of soda she was drinking and stroked it back and forth across his dry lips. "You've been on morphine for three days, had a blood transfusion, you're bleeding internally, and you've got a combat surgeon with his eyes glued on your heartbeat...to say nothing of receiving the Last Rites this morning. What does it take to convince you that you are not exactly tiptop?"

He wondered when she'd last slept. She looked tired, her face puffy, her eyes bloodshot. He'd lost all track of time, so out of it, he didn't know what day it was, but every time he'd opened his eyes, she'd been there. She'd made the right decision, he knew, one he still didn't have the guts to make.

"Where are you taking me? France--no farther than France." Her face gave him no clues. "Okay, England, then. But that's as far as I go."

Her fingers checked the buckles on the safety belts restraining his calves, his thighs, his arms and shoulders. She gave each one a quick tug. "How well are you strapped in?"

"Cristo, I can't move," he croaked. "Maggie. Where are you taking me?"

She tucked the blanket in around his neck. "Bethesda."

"Where's that?"

"Maryland." She stuffed his earplug back in.

He gave her a quietly murderous look.

Chapter 29

The big Sea Knight had barely lifted off from the monastery before Ernesto had Pablo fly him back to San Kristobal. There, he and a judge friend woke up the chief of police and the Council President. They had to move quickly. Under the new Spanish constitution, officials were immune from prosecution unless apprehended while actually committing an illegal act. Ernesto tore a page from Thad Dixon's book and tipped off the local television station in San Kristobal. A few hours later, Ernesto and friends paid an unexpected visit to Diego's office in the town hall and caught the senator and three aides shredding files and stuffing government documents into garbage bags. That made the morning newscasts.

On page one of the morning paper was a blowup of Senator Fidel Diego and Governor Ernesto Garcia rolling on the ground in front of the fountain in St. James Plaza. The spectacle of two dignified elder statesmen gouging and kicking each other tickled the whole country and did much to cool the tempers. One Spanish news commentator in Madrid called the governor a thug and said it was no wonder his son turned out the way he did.

The legislature was mortified. The rest of Edorta howled.

When the aristocratic, white-haired governor glared into the television cameras with one eye swollen shut and promised a lid-blowing investigation from the top down into the corruption and GAL, they believed him.

A roofing contractor, fed up with it all, called the papers and blew the whistle on the bribery necessary to get any sort of construction job at the new dams. That scandal made the front pages. At noon the next day, longshoremen and transit workers walked off their jobs in support of the construction unions. Ships rode anchor offshore, waiting to come in, stacked up like planes at a socked-in airport. Busses and subways stopped, and Basques scrambled to find ways into work. When the sanitation workers joined in the day after, San Kristobal ground to a halt.

Jaime Arestegi and Roberto Mendariz, hands and faces blackened, ducked in and out of the darkness around San Kristobal's RENFE railroad yards. By starlight, the two POJ guerrillas slipped along a siding of tank cars. Hidden by the night, they tied a checkered blue neckerchief to the rear ladder of each car and hurried on. Once, the glimmer of an oncoming locomotive sent them scrambling across the couplers between the cars for the shadows on the other side.

The ground shook. A freight train thundered by, sucking air. The moment it passed, the two men darted behind it across the expanse of tracks and vanished into the rows of boxcars.

In the narrow space between two idle trains, they whispered alongside a lone REPSOL REFINERY tanker coupled to flatcars.

Roberto, his blond hair covered with a bandanna, gypsy style, drew out from a pocket a chunk of C-4 the size of a pack of smokes. Quickly, he molded and shaped it around the blasting cap, then crawled beneath the car and wedged the Plastique firmly against the wheel trucks. A flashlight glimmered as he attached the detonator wires to a small timer and armed it. He rolled himself out on the far side.

"Done," he called softly.

The whole process, from start to finish, took less than two minutes. Marko had taught them well.

Half a mile away, they waited in a car.

With a ground-shaking BOOM! the night split open. A brilliant incandescent flash mushroomed instantly into a huge fireball of flaming gasoline hissing skyward, crackling, curling, burning, lighting the sky for miles. In the strange reddish-orange light, the whole freight yard jumped into view.

From a distance came the wail of sirens. The car on the hillside pulled back onto the highway and slowly drove away.

Eleven tracks over, in the oily black smoke, horrified officials found blue and black neckerchiefs tied to thirty-four more tank cars they hadn't blown up.

Bethesda Naval Hospital

Thursday, September 28, 1995

Holding the rubber grips of the wheelchair, Maggie rolled Marko through the plate glass doors onto a balcony on the seventh floor of the hospital. Beneath the blue pajamas and the blue cotton robe, he was bound with gauze from his ribs to his groin. Under the bandages, the wounds were healing, angry red scars that looked as if someone had stuck a crowbar through him.

The two weeks at Bethesda were a blur. For six hours, a team of navy doctors had stitched up his lung and liver, and tucked his insides back in place. Half-conscious, drugged against the pain, he drifted in and out of reality for nearly a week. They'd given him the VIP treatment, even posted a Marine guard outside his door. And no one got past that Marine or the blonde, five-foot she-bear who moved in across the hall.

Marko got out of the wheelchair and walked stiffly to the railing. He lit a cigarette and shook the match out. Shoulders hunched in a brooding silence, he looked down at the traffic on Wisconsin Avenue below. He was going home, but he hadn't told her yet.

Things were bad in Spain. His father immediately began an inquiry into the Land Control Commission and the murders. Diego, GAL, Soreno, the whole sordid mess was on live television. There was a ground swell of backing for Garcia that Spanish leaders couldn't ignore. The secrecy surrounding GAL was finally pierced when the head of the secret police was arrested. In jail, he implicated Hector Arevalo, saying it was the prime minister himself who gave the orders to set up GAL.

Other provinces joined Edorta and also demanded independence from Spain. From all over the country came calls for a new constitution, the latest--a real blow--coming from Catalonia, the jewel in the crown of Spain. Madrid needed to quell the trouble fast, Marko knew. The collapsing government and the unstable political climate left her wide open to another military takeover. Marko ran a nervous hand through his hair. God, that was the last thing he wanted!

At the railing, Maggie moved in close and slid her arm around his waist, smiling when he covered her hand with his and squeezed it.

That morning she wore flat-heeled straw sandals and a flowered silk dress that matched her eyes and swirled around her knees when she walked, an outfit he'd never seen before. Her hair, in a cute blunt cut, swung loose around her face. Once again, it struck him how pretty she was, how young she was, and how damned lucky he was that she loved him. And that depressed him even more because of what he had to tell her.

Marko blew out a hard stream of smoke and removed her hand from his waist. Eyes veiled, he sank into the wheelchair and looked at a future that was dark and uncertain. He let out a long, slow breath and said, "I'm going home, Maggie to stop what I started, I guess--no, wait, let me finish." He held up a hand to stop the protest he saw on her lips. "POJ bombed La Vansa dam last week. They said that had to go. Then ETA got in on it. They called Radio Nacional España and threatened to take other dams out, completed ones, lakes and all. POJ's gone on the offensive to get me back. Frankly, that scares the hell out of me. If they throw in with ETA, God knows what'll happen."

She paled and walked to the banister, overlooking the street below, rubbing her arms as if they were cold. "You're the opposition. They'll kill you as you get off the plane."

"No. Madrid needs me now. They called last night and offered amnesty if I come back, cooperate with the GAL investigation, and stop POJ. That's amnesty for all of us, me and all my men. But if I don't go back, nobody gets it."

Going back meant leaving her, and he wasn't sure he could deal with that, not with everything else going on right now. He needed her, needed her support, needed her love. And that, from a man who'd never needed anything or anyone in his whole life.

When it all started, he wasn't quite sure, but he suspected it went back to the party in Virginia, to the first night he met her, and things had been on hold ever since. He peered down at her intently, studying her features one by one, memorizing them for the long, lonely months ahead.

"Please don't go back," she said.

He rubbed his face with both hands. He was choosing Spain over her, and it was tearing him apart.

He looked at her a little hopelessly and shook his head. "Maybe some day when this is all over, there'll be time for us. Give me a year or two to clean up this mess, and then let's talk about getting married."

Maggie hadn't moved an inch, stood as still as a statue, her face unreadable. Her lips parted, the words forming.

"Don't answer now," he said, rushing to hold off what he didn't want to hear. "Just think about it. Tell me next year."

She smoothed the silky green skirt to her thighs and sat down gently onto his lap. Hand on the back of his neck, she bent and kissed him softly. His arms closed around her, pulling her closer. A moment later, lips clinging, she pulled back. "I don't have to think about it. The answer is no."

Friday, October 6, 1995

Coming in over the harbor of San Kristobal, the 747 turned into its final approach for Muntadas airport, the engine whine building and fading. As the landing gear shuddered into place, brilliant sunlight flooded the cabin. Through breaks in the clouds, Marko caught glimpses to the right of the old spired skyline he loved below. A minute later they were skimming in over the highway leading to the terminal, the runway rushing under them. A jar, a screech of rubber, and wheels kissed concrete. The engines roared, braking hard.

He was home.

Chimes sounded. Marko unbuckled his seat belt and took Maggie's hand. The gold band on her finger gleamed in the sunlight. They'd been married three days, a hasty wedding performed by a Supreme Court justice, a friend of Thad Dixon's. A small, elaborate reception followed at the exclusive St. George Hunt Club in Silver Spring, Maryland, where Thad had gone straight to the bar and immediately and silently gotten very drunk.

Maggie had lost no time getting Marko to the altar. Ten years was long enough to wait for any man, she said. Two more was out of the question. It was now or never. The truth was she was worried for him. Everyone's future was uncertain, she told him. His more than most, in view of what he faced when he got back to Spain."

"I love you. Marry me now," she said.

Luis had come to the wedding. For Marko, that had been the only shadow cast on that bright day, a reminder of the debt he owed him for his life.

He paid it on his wedding night, making a dozen transatlantic phone calls from their downtown Washington hotel room. Madrid finally agreed to amnesty for Luis, as well, after Marko persuaded them that Luis's personal knowledge of Raul's GAL agents would make him doubly valuable. Luis jumped at it.

Marko had no illusions about what Madrid and Kristobal expected from him. It was up to him to get the POJ to lay down their arms. But first, he had to take control again. How exactly he would do that, he wasn't quite sure.

On the plane, Maggie slipped her shoes back on. "Why so glum?" She twined her fingers through his. "Daddy was impressed with you, I can tell. I think he's starting to like you."

Marko tugged at his earlobe, remembering the wedding reception and Thad Dixon, staring at him and doggedly tossing one drink after another down his throat. "I'm not so sure. He told Senator Dole it was his lifelong dream that one day you'd marry a senator."

"I did."

Marko slumped back in his seat and laughed. "He meant one of yours."

The plane taxied to a stop.

Holding his wife's hand, Marko watched out the window by Maggie's seat, waiting until everyone else got off the plane, a precaution for the other passengers. When he saw the last few stragglers file into the terminal, he rose and stepped slowly into the aisle . He still moved carefully, a little stiff, but each day he felt stronger. He had flatly refused to come home in a wheelchair. Getting married in one was bad enough.

A large man in a dark blue suit ran up the steps and into the plane.

"Congratulations!" Pablo called. Hands outstretched, he pushed his way down the aisle and gave Maggie a bear-hug and a loud kiss on the cheek. Under the pilot's jacket, was the telltale bulge of a weapon. For the next two years, the big pilot would be her personal bodyguard. Marko was adamant about that.

In Virginia, Marko had argued for hours against bringing her in on the same plane with him, but Maggie had dug her heels in. At the exit doorway of the plane, she tightened her fingers on Marko's arm. Silently, they looked at each other.

"It'll be all right," she said.

Marko looked out over the airport. There were sharpshooters along the roofs of the buildings. Plainclothes men, jackets unbuttoned, stood around the plane, talking into radios. Just below, their backs to him, Spanish soldiers ringed the plane. Security was even tighter than they'd promised. They were treating him like royalty. And that unnerved him.

Waiting at the foot of the plane's metal stairway was an escort of Spanish secret service and Civil Guards. That would take some getting used to. When he and Maggie reached the bottom, the men closed around them, crossing the tarmac and into the terminal at a fast walk. At their approach, two men swung open the heavy glass entrance doors. Newsmen trotting alongside bolted for their cars. Marko followed Maggie into the back seat of a black limousine at the curb.

A motorcycle sounded a low whoop on its siren and the motorcade moved away from the terminal. At the end of the approach road to the airport, they turned left onto the parkway for the six-mile run to the city. Sirens wailing, blue lights flashing, they sped toward Kristobal.

No one was supposed to know he was coming, but the curbs and sidewalks were jammed with supporters, welcoming him home, cheering and throwing victory signs with their fingers.

The red and yellow flag of Spain flew from flagpoles and hung from windows alongside Basque Country's red, white and green. It seemed as if every hand waved not one, but two flags at the motorcade.

"Nice touch," Pablo said, pointing to the colorful sea of flags. "The whole country is behind you, not just the Basques. If you do decide to run for prime minister, every poll in Spain predicts you'll walk away with it."

Marko's jaw dropped in surprise.

Pablo laughed out loud. "How'd I know? It's in all the papers. You got two parties fighting over you--when's the last time that happened? The special election's on March 3rd. Arevalo is on his way out, and they say you're it for the next one."

Marko looked at his friend and then out the window of the limousine. His eyes darkened. "I don't want the job," he said quietly. "I'm through with politics."

Pablo gestured at the limousine they were riding in, at the secret service men in the front seat, the police escort ahead and behind. He threw his head back and laughed. "Through with politics? No one else thinks so."

Marko frowned and shook his head, ticking off on his fingers why he couldn't run for prime minister. "I'm too young, not ready for the job. There are others with more experience who can do it better than I."

"Those same 'others' who lied to them? The people don't trust them. They want you."

Marko looked at the crowds and the flags. Could he walk the line between leading a revolt and putting one down? He had to. Secession was not an option, he knew that now.

In front of the parliament building, a huge crowd waved and shouted, a carnival atmosphere. An impromptu conga line led by a small mariachi band snaked around the courtyard of St. James Plaza. People paraded in big, top-heavy papier-mâché heads, caricatures of him and his father. His father's had a bulging purple eye. Marko's head wore a huge, toothy smile, a beret, and a scar like a railroad track down the side of its face. There was even one of Maggie, looking like a bosomy Wonder Woman in a fright wig, waving the Stars and Stripes in one hand and a Tommy gun in the other.

They got out of the limousine to a racket of shouts and the blare of party horns. Somewhere, a bass drum thumped, adding to the din. Lining the walkway to the building, police held back a crowd of jubilant spectators pumping poles with blown-up pictures of Marko in time to the drumbeat.

"Viva, Garcia! Viva!"

"Welcome home!"

"Keep going--keep going." The secret service agent alongside seized his arm.

Marko shook the agent off and looked out over the yelling crowd--his crowd.

"Hola, Garcia, you gonna run for P.M.?" someone called.

"Sí, sí!" the crowd yelled.

He looked down at Maggie. "You with me if I do?"

"Every step of the way!" she said proudly.

Marko smoothed a hand down the front of his tie. Before anyone could stop him, he grabbed Maggie's elbow and ducked under the ropes with her. Together, they pushed into the throng of people, grabbing every outstretched hand they could reach.

And the crowd went wild.

End