Buchanan drove along a shady, curved driveway, past trees, gardens, and fountains, toward the three-story mansion. Simultaneously, he glanced in his rearview mirror, noting that the guard had relocked the gate. He noted as well that other armed guards patrolled the interior of the wall.
“I feel a lot more nervous than when I went on Drummond’s yacht,” Holly said. “Don’t you ever feel-?”
“Each time.”
“Then why on earth do you keep doing it?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“In this case, maybe. But other times. .”
“No choice,” Buchanan repeated. “When you’re in the military, you follow orders.”
“Not now, you’re not. Besides, you didn’t have to join the military.”
“Wrong,” Buchanan said, thinking of the need he’d felt to punish himself for killing his brother. He urgently crushed the thought, disturbed that he’d allowed himself to be distracted. Juana. He had to pay attention. Instead of Tommy, he had to keep thinking of Juana.
“In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this nervous,” Holly said.
“Stage fright. Try to relax. This is just a walk-through,” Buchanan said. “I need to check Delgado’s security. Your performance shouldn’t be difficult. Just conduct an interview. You’re perfectly safe. Which is a hell of a lot more than Delgado will be when I figure out how to get to him.”
Concealing his intensity, Buchanan parked in front of the mansion. When he got out of the car, he noticed other guards, not to mention groundskeepers who seemed more interested in visitors than in their duties. There were closed-circuit television cameras, wires in the panes of the windows, metal boxes among the shrubbery-intrusion detectors.
I might have to find another place, Buchanan thought.
Subduing his emotions, he introduced Holly and himself to a servant who came out to greet them and escort them into a cool, shadowy, echoing marble vestibule. They passed a wide, curved staircase and proceeded along a hallway to a mahogany-paneled study that smelled of wax and polish. Furnished in leather, it was filled with hunting trophies as well as numerous rifles and shotguns in glinting glass cabinets.
Although Buchanan had never met him, Delgado was instantly recognizable as he stood from behind his desk, more hawk-nosed and more arrogant-looking than he appeared on the videotape and in photographs. But he also seemed pale and thinner, his cheeks gaunt, as if he might be ill.
“Welcome,” he said.
Buchanan vividly remembered the images that showed Delgado raping and murdering Maria Tomez. As soon as he had the information he needed, Buchanan planned to kill him.
Delgado came closer, his English impressive, although his syntax was somewhat stilted. “It is always a pleasure to speak with members of the American press, especially when they work for so distinguished a periodical as the Washington Post. Senorita. .? Forgive me. I have forgotten the name that my secretary. .”
“Holly McCoy. And this is my interpreter, Ted Riley.”
Delgado shook hands with them. “Good.” He ignored Buchanan and kept his attention on Holly, obviously intrigued by her beauty. “Since I speak English, we will not need your interpreter.”
“I’m also the photographer,” Buchanan said.
Delgado gestured dismissively. “There will be an opportunity for photographs later. Senorita McCoy, may I offer you a drink before lunch? Perhaps wine?”
“Thank you, but it’s a little too early for. .”
“Sure,” Buchanan said. “Wine would be nice.” There hadn’t been time to teach Holly not to turn down an offer to drink with a target. Refusing alcohol stifled the target’s urge to be companionable. It made the target suspect that you had a reason not to want to relax your inhibitions.
“On second thought, yes,” Holly said. “Since we’re having lunch.”
“White or red?”
“White, please.”
“Chardonnay?”
“Fine.”
“The same for me.” Buchanan said.
Delgado continued ignoring him and turned to the servant, who had remained at the door. “Lo haga, Carlos. Do it.”
“Si, Senor Delgado.”
The white-coated servant stepped back and disappeared along the hallway.
“Sit down, please.” Delgado led Holly toward one of the padded leather chairs.
Buchanan followed, noticing a man on a patio beyond the glass doors that led to the study. The man was an American in his middle thirties, well-dressed, fair-haired, pleasant-looking.
Noticing Buchanan’s interest in him, the man nodded and smiled, his expression boyish.
Delgado was saying, “I know Americans like to keep to a busy schedule, so if you have a few questions you would like to ask before lunch, by all means do so.”
The man came in from the patio.
“Ah, Raymond,” Delgado said. “Have you finished your stroll? Come in. I have some guests I would like you to meet. Senorita McCoy from the Washington Post.”
Raymond nodded with respect and went over to Holly. “My pleasure.” He shook hands with her.
Something about the handshake made her frown.
Raymond turned and approached Buchanan. “How do you do? Mr. .?”
“Riley. Ted.”
They shook hands.
At once Buchanan felt a stinging sensation in his right palm.
It burned.
His hand went numb.
Alarmed, he looked over at Holly, who was staring in dismay at her right palm.
“How long does it take?” Delgado asked.
“It’s what we call a two-stepper,” Raymond said. As he took off a ring and placed it in a small jeweler’s box, he smiled again, his blue eyes bottomless and cold.
Holly sank to her knees.
Buchanan’s right arm lost all sensation.
Holly toppled to the floor.
Buchanan’s chest felt tight. His heart pounded. He sprawled.
Desperate, he fought to stand up.
Couldn’t.
Couldn’t do anything.
His body felt numb. His limbs wouldn’t move. From head to foot, he was powerless.
Staring above him, frantic, helpless, he saw Delgado smirk.
The blue-eyed American peered down, his empty smile chilling. “The drug comes from the Yucatan Peninsula. It’s the Mayan equivalent of curare. Hundreds of years ago, the natives used it to paralyze their victims so they wouldn’t struggle when their hearts were cut out.”
Unable to turn his head, unable to get a glimpse of Holly. Buchanan heard her gasp, trying to breathe.
“Don’t you try to struggle,” Raymond said. “Your lungs might not bear the strain.”
5
The helicopter thundered across the sky. Its whump-whump-whumping roar vibrated through the fuselage. Not that Buchanan could feel the rumble. His body continued to have absolutely no sensation. The cabin’s presumably hard floor might as well have been a feathered mattress. Neither hard nor soft, hot nor cold, sharp nor blunt had any significance. All was the same: numb.
In compensation, his senses of hearing and sight intensified tremendously. Every sound in the cabin, especially Holly’s agonized wheezing, was amplified. Beyond a window of the cabin, the sky was an almost unbearably brilliant turquoise. He feared that he would have gone blind from the radiance if not for merciful flicks of his eyelids, which-like his heart and lungs-weren’t part of the system controlled by the drug.
Indeed his heart was nauseatingly stimulated, pounding wildly, no doubt at least in part from fear. But if he vomited (assuming that his stomach, too, wasn’t paralyzed), he would surely gag and die. He had to concentrate on controlling his fear. He didn’t dare lose his discipline. The faster his heart pounded, the more his lungs wanted air. But his chest muscles wouldn’t cooperate, and the panic of involuntary, smothering hyperventilation almost overcame him.