"Silence, boy!" Senor Brillas glanced in both directions, saw no one out of the ordinary on the narrow street of shop fronts and apartments. He clutched at the youth and pulled him inside.

"What do you have for him?" The old man would not mouth the warlord's name.

"This." Jorge held up the can holding the roll of 35mm film. "Photos of North Americans. They went to a place where..."

Hands like bare bones clutched the film, then pushed him out the door. "It is not important I know. I will send the photos to him. You give him the information."

Leaning in on the door as the old man tried to close it, Jorge warned him: "No mistakes! This is life and death!"

Senor Brillas locked the door. He turned the small film canister in his hands. "Soldiers, cocaine, and death. Always."

From a nearby cafe's pay phone, Jorge called Zavala, lieutenant to El Negro. The chatter and laughter of four teenage girls forced Jorge to put his other hand over his free ear and speak closely into the mouthpiece.

"This is your friend with a camera. Can we speak?"

"Why did you not call this morning? What do you have to tell me?"

"They did not come until only an hour ago. I have photos of all of them."

"And names? What gang?"

"They were North Americans. Two of them. Perhaps the others. You will have the photos soon. You will see."

"Did they take the dead one with them?"

"No. They left him. And they laughed when they left."

"Did they look like DEA?"

"I don't know. They wore suits. Three of them looked like soldiers. What I say means nothing. You will have the photos. There is nothing else I know."

"Thank you, friend. You will have your money soon. And soon we will know who those Americans are."

Slamming down the telephone, Jorge laughed out loud, slapped his hands together. What did he want most? An Italian motor scooter? Or a new uniform? Then it occurred to him. If the Americans were agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency, perhaps El Negro would give him even more. He could have both the scooter and the uniform! Jorge would be the envy of the barracks.

* * *

Following the directions Blancanales gave through the intercom, Lyons eased through the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Whenever the other drivers saw the limousine, they eased away.

"Marvellous how a hundred-thousand-dollar car cuts through traffic jams," Lyons told the others through the intercom.

Gadgets smiled wearily. "We're going about five miles per hour."

"They're all making room for me. I feel like the king of the road."

Blancanales laughed. "It's not the car, it's who they think is inside it. Pull over in front of the hotel there."

As Lyons coasted to a stop in front of the doorman, two soldiers in combat gear saw the limo, snapped to attention. Once Blancanales and Gadgets appeared from within the limousine, the soldiers relaxed. Lyons started out of the driver's door. Blancanales leaned over the roof of the Mercedes.

"It's the custom here for the driver to stay in the car and keep the engine running. Things happen fast. Stand by while we go in and get our gangsters."

Lyons waited, switched on the radio. He watched the traffic pass. He glanced in the rearview mirror. He wanted to put the Uzi on the seat beside him, but he was uncertain how the soldiers or the local law enforcement would react to an automatic weapon in a civilian limousine. So he snapped open the briefcase latches, then kept his hand on the grip of the Uzi. On the radio, a man's voice ranted and shrieked. Lyons did not know enough Spanish to understand what was said, but when the raving went on for minutes, without other voices or commercials, he spun the dial. "Politics or religion," he muttered. "Got to be."

The voice blasted from all the other channels. Lyons turned off the radio. "Politics."

Then he saw Blancanales and Gadgets escorting a man and a woman toward the curb. They were the agents who were setting up the Caribbean connection. The man was middle-aged, paunchy, wearing a conservative gray suit. The woman, tall and lithe, young, wore red satin and a black mink. She looked like sin striding.

Lyons watched her strut to the limo, the satin of her gown flashing with each step as the shimmering fabric revealed the curves of her hips and thighs.

Texas could wait. Lyons turned in the seat, watched through the Plexiglas partition as she swept into the Mercedes, her lovely features framed in mink and flowing black hair. Diamond flashes punctuated her profile. She hit the intercom button, commanded: "To the airport!"

Through the ten-power optics of the binoculars, Lyons followed the lines of Flor's thighs to the flawless coffee-colored swells of her buttocks, then to the arch of the small of her back. Fifty feet from where he hung by a safety strap in the yacht's rigging, Flor Trujillo sunbathed nude on the forward-most deck. She turned. Lyons inched the binoculars over her body, from her thigh to the curve of her waist, to the lines of her ribs. She leaned on one elbow while he studied her breasts. They were oiled, perfect. The pattern of her towel was reflected in the shiny half-dome of one breast's underside. The nipple, coffee-berry red, rose from her flesh even as he watched, and stood erect.

He focused on her face. Her eyes startled him. They fixed him, returning his stare. Her lips mouthed words, slowly, distinctly, so that he could lip-read: "Fuck off, asshole."

Lyons laughed, waved, returned to scanning the horizon. The azure calm of the Caribbean extended to all the horizons. An hour before, he'd seen the smudge of diesel smoke to the east. The touch of gray had faded without the ship itself appearing. Now he scanned an utterly empty Caribbean, the expanse of ocean enormous, the horizon visibly curved, the far distance lifting like a breast to a thirsty blue sky.

He returned the binoculars to Flor. She lay on her back, sunglasses shielding her eyes, casually flicking water from a dish over her body to cool herself. The water beaded like blue jewels on the coffee of her skin.

Sweat ran from the cotton gloves that Lyons wore. During his first hour on watch, his hands had turned red from the sun. Now he wore the gloves, a long-sleeve shirt, cotton pants, a kerchief over the back of his neck, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Sweat dripped from his body, but not only from the tropical heat. His hand-radio buzzed:

"See anything?" Blancanales asked.

"Lots of ocean. Nothing on it except us."

"What do you think of Flor?"

"Torture. Can you see her?"

"She walked through in her robe. She doesn't need to be naked to make a heat wave."

"Speaking of heat waves, what the hell am I up here for? We got radar."

Gadgets' voice came on. "Stealth technology, man. These dope navies don't have to go to congress for the latest stuff. They got the cash, they get the equipment. That makes them potentially superior."

"So you come up here and get fried."

"Okay, take a break, Lyons," Blancanales said. "I'll take an hour with the glasses. Could be interesting..."

In thirty seconds, Lyons stepped into the air-conditioned semidarkness of the bridge. Gadgets sat at the radar console, glancing to the screen's phosphorescent green sweeps as he read an XM-174 instruction manual. The weapon itself lay in pieces on the console. A case of 40mm grenades sat on the floor. Someone had scrawled on the side of the crate: "Frag/W. P./Cone."

"You be careful with that stuff," Lyons cautioned. "You sink this boat, it's a long swim to shore. We don't even need the heavy weapons, right? Tonight's just a make-believe, I thought."

Blancanales took the binoculars. "Boy Scout motto..."

"...Be prepared, huh? See you in an hour, Pol. I'm going to hit that cold shower."