Chapter Fourteen

"Who . . ." said a startled voice, and I knew it was Lou, somewhere in the direction of the couch.I clicked on the light switch and saw him lying on the floor, leaning against the couch, blood everywhere, his eyes in shock."My God! What happened?""I'm afraid to move. The phone was ringing and I figured it was you, but I didn't dare get up. Knowing you, you'd come over if I didn't answer." He was holding his side as he looked at me. "Morgy, she's gone."At first what he said didn't sink in as I bent over him. The right side of his shirt, just above his belt, was soaked in blood. Taking care, I unbuttoned it and saw an open cut that looked as though he'd been stabbed with a knife. It also appeared to be reasonably superficial, as though a thin blade had pierced through a couple of layers of tread on his ample spare tire. But it was bleeding still, enough to make it look worse than it probably was. However, if it'd happened to me, I'd doubtless be in shock too.I got up, went to the bathroom, and pulled two towels off the rack, then doused water over one and came back."Don't move. I'm going to pull your shirt away and try to clean you up, see how bad it is."He just groaned and stared at the ceiling.As I was swabbing his side, what he'd said finally regis­tered."Did you say . . .Sarah!"I dropped the towels and ran into the bedroom.It was empty, the bed rumpled and beige sheets on the floor."No." I turned and feeling a hit of nausea, hurried back to his side. "What happened? Did—?""Fat Hispanic guy. Spic bastard. He had a couple of young punks with him. Mrs. Reilly had just left and I went to the door, thinking it was probably you ringing my bell. He flashed a knife and they shoved their way in. Then one of his thugs went into the bedroom and carried her out. When I tried to stop them, the SOB knifed me. I guess I . . . swooned cause the next thing I remember is waking up here on the floor."It sounded garbled and probably didn't occur as quicklyas he thought. But I knew immediately what had happened Ramos—of course that's who it was—had come to take Sarah. It was his one sure way to stop me from mentioning Children of Light in my film. She was a hostage. My first instinct was to kill him."What else can you remember?" I was already dialing 911. Time to get an ambulance. And after that, the cops.After about ten rings I got somebody and, following an explanation that was longer than it needed to be, a woman with a southern accent told me the medics would be there in fifteen minutes. I took another look at Lou and ordered them to hurry, then hung up. I was going to call the police next, but first I needed to hear exactly what had happened before he got quarantined in some emergency room.His eyes were glazing over again, as shock and blood loss started to catch up with him. Clearly he would pull through, but right now, sitting there in a pool of blood, he could have been at death's door."Look . . . at that." He was pointing, his rationality be­ginning to fail. For a second I didn't realize what he meant, but then I saw a fax lying beside the phone. I picked it up. The time on it was 9:08 P.M. and it was from somebody named John Williams. Then I remembered. Wasn't that the FBI computer whiz he'd talked about the other day at the hospital, after we'd deconstructed Sarah's waterlogged pass­port?There was no message, just a sheet with a date—two years old—and a list of names accompanied by numbers and a capital letter. Then I noticed the letterhead of Aviateca, the Guatemalan national airline, and it dawned on me I was look­ing at a flight manifest.I scanned down the page, and then I saw it.Sarah Crenshaw, 3B.Williams found her, I thought. And she was traveling First Class.What caught my eye next was the name of the person sitting in 3A, the seat right next to hers. A. Godford. Probably a computer misprint. Or maybe it was the name he used when he traveled. So if it was him, which it surely was, the bastard didn't even try to hide it.I just stood there, thinking. Maybe you get one big-time coincidence in life, and if so, this must be mine. Sarah and I had both found Alex Goddard. Or he'd found us. Other women came and went through Quetzal Manor, but we were different. She'd escaped from him, half dead but now he'd sent Ramos to bring her back. It was the one way he could be sure to keep me under his control. But again, why? Was it just to stop my film, or was there more to the story?"Morgy," Lou groaned "that son of a bitch took her to­night. I just know it."That was my conclusion precisely, though I hadn't been planning to say it to him, at least not yet."How can you be so sure?""Something they said. I didn't quite catch it, but it sounded like, 'He wants you back.' Then some word. It sounded like 'Babylon' or something."I stared at him a second trying to remember where I'd heard that before. Then it clicked in. That was the last thing Sarah had said she'd whispered that word when I was putting her to bed. What could she have been talking about?He wheezed and I went back to him and pressed the towel against his side. The bleeding was about stemmed but he was definitely due for a hospital stay. A siren was sounding down the street. Probably the ambulance. Thank God I thought. Now it's time to call the police.Then I noticed he was crying. What was that about?"Morgy, they didn't actually kidnap her. You see, she—""What?" I guess I was trying to take it in. "What do you mean?""Know what she said? Sarah?" He choked for a second, then continued. "She said, 'Yes, I want to go back.' "Chapter FourteenBefore I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, the medics were ringing the doorbell. They strode in with a gurney, also rolling a portable plasma IV, young guys who looked like they'd be more at home at a Garden hockey game, followed immediately by two uniformed policemen, actually policewomen, one short and heavy, with reddish hair, the other a wiry young Hispanic. (I found out that ambulances called out for stabbing or gunshot wounds automatically get a cop escort.) In less than three minutes, Lou was in the blue-and-white ambulance and on his way to St. Vincent's emergency room.I rode in the backseat of the squad car as we followed them and tried to explain what little I knew of what had happened. It turned out to be an education in the mindless sticking points of the law.Long story short: The fact that I hadn't reported the bur­glary of my apartment that very same day immediately cast doubt on my seriousness as a truth-seeking citizen; I had no proof the unreported burglary of my apartment (if, indeed, such had actually occurred) was by some Guatemalan mili­tary attache named Jose Alvino Ramos; since Lou had never seen Colonel Ramos before tonight, he couldn't possibly identify him as that burglar either; accusing diplomats of a crime without ironclad proof was frowned on downtown; and when I stupidly repeated what Lou had said about Sarah's last words (well, he was going to tell them sooner or later, it would just come bubbling out at some point), the whole case that she was kidnapped went into revision mode.By the time we got to the hospital, I was getting questions that seemed to imply that maybe it was all a domestic af­fair—like most of their calls: some spaced-out chick who’d run away once and got brought back and then, still unstable and crazy, decided to knife her own dad and disappear again. Now he was understandably covering for her. Happened more than you’d think.I kept stressing that Lou was former FBI and not the sort to invent such a whopper, but this was listened to in skeptical silence. If it was a kidnapping, they then wondered aloud what was the motive and where were the demands of the perpetrators? I was ready to start yelling at them by the time we parked in the Seventh Avenue driveway of the emergency room at St. Vincent's.They next made me cool my heels in the waiting room while they went back to interrogate Lou. They were with him for almost an hour, then came back to where I was and asked me to read and sign the report they'd written.A troubled girl, who had emerged from a coma and ap­parently was suffering bouts of non-rationality, had disap­peared and her father had been stabbed but not seriously. He was the only witness to the incident and claimed she'd been kidnapped. However, the girl had run away once pre­viously, and there was no physical evidence she'd been taken against her will; in fact, her father admitted she had declared just the opposite. The whole incident would be investigated further after he came downtown and made a complete state­ment."I'm not going to sign this." I handed it back, fuming."Is there anything here that's not factually correct?" TheHispanic cop was looking me straight in the eye, her expres­sion cold as Alaska.The question made me seethe. Sarah was probably already on her way out of the country, and here I was trying to reason with two women who practically thought she was the crimi­nal. But I knew a lost cause when I saw one."Forget about it. I want to see Lou."An intern was coming out and I snagged him, announced I was next of kin to a patient, and demanded to be taken through the official door and into the back. At that moment, the stout cop's radio crackled. They were being summoned to a Christopher Street gay bar where somebody had just been knifed in a back room. She looked at me, as though to say, "This sounds like a real crime," and then they hurried out for their squad car. Christ!The intern, a young black guy, led me past a row of gurneys and into a private room at the rear of the huge space. Lou was bandaged all around his chest and hooked up to an IV and a monitor. He looked better, but I wasn't sure he'd be ready for what I was about to tell him."Hey, how're you feeling?" I asked as I walked in, trying to seem upbeat."Fucking cops." He was boiling, his face actually red. "Where do they get them these days? McDonald's rejects?""Easy, don't get your blood pressure up." I reached over and touched his brow. It felt like he had a mild temperature. "Let's all just calm down and try to think rationally.""Yeah, I'm thinking rationally. You saw that fax I got from Williams.""You think that was Alex Goddard seated next to her, right?""Who else? When she was in her moonbeam phase, she must have heard about him and gone up there and ended up in his clutches. But why did she let him take her down to—?""He told me he has a clinic in Central America. He called it 'a place of miracles.' And then Colonel Ramos shows up, part of the Guatemalan diplomatic corps. Put two and two together. That's got to be where they're taking her.""Who knows, but I'm going to get the boys downtown to put out a missing-persons APB nationwide. Gerry'll do it for me if I ask. Fuck New York's Finest. They ain't gonna do crap anyway."I listened wondering how to impress my bright idea upon him. The chances were Ramos was taking Sarah back to Guatemala. Probably right this minute. For some kind of un­finished business. Or just to hold her there as an insurance policy that Children of Light would never be mentioned in my picture."I seriously doubt a missing-persons alert is going to do any good Lou, because I seriously doubt she's going to be walking the streets of this country. That bastard Ramos is taking her where he knows he can hide her.""You mean . . . Jesus." He stared at me as though the idea had never crossed his mind. I think he'd just repressed it. "What are we going to—?""The only thing we can do. I'm going down there. I'm going to go straight down there and locate Alex Goddard.""That's an exceptionally lousy thought process." His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance."Why? Give me one good reason why. You think the police down there are going to bring charges against a colonel?" I really could have used some encouragement. "It's the only way—""Morgan, you've always been high-strung." He sighed and then winced. "Ever since you were a kid. I worried about you then and I'm worried about you now. I don't want you to go down there and get into trouble. Because believe me, that's a seriously wrong place to get crossways with the pricks who make the rules. You don't know your way around that Third World craphole. Wouldn't be that hard to end up a statistic. We can alert the embassy. Have them start looking for her.""Listen, there's a lot more going on between Alex God­dard and me than you know." This was definitely not the time to tell him about the babies, or about Carly and the threats. "Trust me. I'm going down there. In the morning, if I can. Who knows? Sarah and Ramos might even be on the same plane."As I was finishing that pronouncement, two nurses came in rolling a gurney and announced that his room was ready. Then they gave him a sedative.Was I being irrational? The thing was, though, what would you do? I was absolutely sure Ramos had taken her. So it was obvious that was where he would go next. He was a "diplomat," apparently, so he could easily fudge the passport formalities.As the nurses were helping Lou onto the gurney, I stood there holding his hand and thinking about what lay ahead. Steve was in Belize and maybe not even reachable, but I decided to start by giving him a call the minute I got home.Then a middle-aged WASP, with dark hair, slightly bal­ding, strode in the room. The photo ID on his chest read "Dr. M. Summers.""So, how's the patient?" he enquired cheerily, ignoring me as he immediately began checking the chart at the foot of Lou's bed."Felt better," Lou said, not being taken in by his pro forma cheer."Well, we're going to make sure you get a good night's rest." Dr. Summers finished with the chart and started taking his pulse. "What's left of it.""How long am I going to be in here, Doc?" Lou asked, flinching as the nurses removed the IV stuck in his arm."A couple of days. For observation. To make sure there're no complications." He smiled again. "You're a lucky man, Mr. . . . Crenshaw. Just a superficial cut. But we don't want you out playing handball for a few days." He turned and gave me a conspiratorial wink, then glanced back. "Okay, up we go.""Can I come with him?" I asked, not optimistic but hop­ing.The doctor looked genuinely contrite. "I'm really sorry, but he's going to be fine and visiting hours are long past. You can call in the morning. And you can come up anytime after two P.M. tomorrow. Let's let him get some rest now."I walked around and took Lou's hand, hot and fevered, feeling so agitated."Don't think about anything tonight, okay? Worrying won't help. Just get some sleep. I'm going to find her, I promise you.""Don't—" He mumbled some words, but I think the seda­tive the nurses had given him was seriously starting to kick"Look, you can call down to 26 Federal Plaza tomorrow. See what they can do. In the meantime, let me follow my nose."He tried to answer, but he was too far gone. I then watched wistfully as he disappeared down the sterile alley of beds.After I stopped by the desk and helped them fill out the insurance forms, I caught a cab downtown to retrieve my Toyota. The time was now two-fifteen in the morning, but I still had plenty to do. When I got home, the first thing I did after I walked in the door was grab a phone book and call American Airlines. They had a flight, in the morning at nine-thirty. I gave them my credit card specifics and made a res­ervation.I no longer thought that Alex Goddard's Children of Light and its Guatemalan accomplices were merely doing some­thing shady. My hunch now was that it was completely ille­gal. They were getting hundreds of white babies in some way that couldn't bear the light of day, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to prevent me from highlighting them in my film. And with the Army involved, and now Sarah taken, their game was beginning to feel more and more like kidnapping. They certainly knew how.Sarah had become a pawn, and all because of me. I almost wondered if I'd been unconsciously led to him by her, though that was impossible. Whatever had happened, the remorse I now felt was overpowering. It was, in fact, an intensified version of the guilt that had dogged me for the past fifteen years, the horrible feeling I'd somehow let her down, not done enough for her. I could have flown back for her high school graduation, but I was cramming for grad school finals and didn't take the time. Things like that, which, looking back, seemed terribly selfish. And now I'd brought this on her. God.Okay, I thought, glancing at the clock, time to start making it up to her. Screw up your courage and wake Steve.The problem was, Lou had been right about one thing. It'd been years since I'd been to Guatemala, and I wasn't sure I knew beans about how things operated down there these days. I was high on motivation and only so-so in the area of modus operandi. I needed Steve's help in plying the tricky waters of that part of the planet. He was busy, but this was definitely "us against the world" time, so maybe he could drive over to Guatemala City and help.I picked up the phone again and punched in the number of his hotel in Belize City, which seemed to be embedded permanently in my brain. That wonderful accent at the desk mon, and then they were ringing his room. I had no reason on earth to assume he would be there, but . . .The click, the voice, it was him."Sorry to call so late, love. You said you missed me, so I've decided to find out if it's true. Your coming attraction is about to arrive."I guess I was trying to keep it flip. After our talk that morning, I wasn't entirely sure where we stood anymore."Who . . . Morgy, is that you? God it's two . . . Are you okay?" Then he started coming around, processing what I said. "You're coming . . . Honey, that's great."As I noted before, he always knew how to give a good reading, sound sincere, no matter what the occasion."Actually, I've just made a plane reservation, and I'm going to be in Guatemala City tomorrow, just after noon." I hesitated then thought, why beat around the bush? "Care to meet me there?""That's terrific," he declared coming fully awake. "But why don't you just come to Belize City? Can't you get flight? It's actually not nearly as wild here as the travel books—""Well, I've . . . Look, I'd rather not talk about this on the phone. But do you think you could get free and drive over I really could use your help. I've got a situation.""Well . . ." He paused. "I could be there by late tomorrow assuming my rented Jeep still operates after last week and the roads haven't totally disintegrated. Where're you going to be staying?""I don't know. Got any suggestions? I want to keep out of the limelight.""Then try the Camino Real. It's like a Holiday Inn with plastic palm trees. Definitely low maintenance and low profile. Hang on, I'll get you the number."Which he did, though I could hear him stumbling around the room in the dark. Then he continued."But listen, here's the bad news. I've got to be back here day after tomorrow. I just got a special permit to do some night shooting in the jaguar preserve down by Victoria Peak—you remember the rain forest I told you about?—but it's only good for one night, and I hear rumors there's an off-season hurricane forming in the Caribbean, which means I've got to stick to schedule. After that, though, I'm free again.""We'll work it out." I was thrilled he would just drop everything and come. Maybe we were over the rough spot about the baby.He didn't bring that up and I didn't either. Instead we killed a few minutes, and then I let him go back to sleep. I wanted to say I love you, but I didn't want to push my luck.After that I called the hotel he'd recommended. The ex­change was more Spanish than English, but they had a room. Apparently lots of rooms.Next I rang Paula Marks, even though it was terribly late. She must have had the phones off, but I left a message telling her to be careful, with a postscript that I'd explain everything later. Just stick close to home.Finally I called David's voice mail up at Applecore. I told him I had a personal crisis and was going to Guatemala City. I'd try to be back by the end of the week, hell or high water, but no guarantees. And if he touched so much as a frame of my work print while I was gone, I'd personally strangle him.I don't remember much of what happened next. I basically went on autopilot. It's as though I dropped into a trance, totally focused. I packed my passport, a good business suit, the tailored blue one, and also a set of mix-and-match sepa­rates, easy to roll and cram in. Finally a couple of pairs of good (clean) jeans, a few toiletries, and then, thinking ahead, I also threw in my yellow plastic flashlight. I almost always over pack, but not this time.Oh, and one other thing. For airplane reading I grabbed a Lonely Planet guide to Central America that Steve had left behind—I guess he figured he was at the stage of life to start writing them, not reading them—that turned out to be very helpful, particularly the map of Guatemala City and the northern Peten rain forest. I then collapsed and—images of Sarah's emaciated face haunting my consciousness—caught a couple of hours' sleep.The next thing I knew, it was 9:20 A.M. and I was settling into window seat 29F on American Airlines Flight 377—next to a two-hundred-pound executive busy ripping articles out of the business section ofEl Diario—headed for Guatemala City.Chapter FifteenFor once in my life, I took my time getting off an airplane. But the instant I felt that first burst of humid tropical air against my face, like a gush from a sauna, I found myself wondering what Sarah had felt the moment her feet first touched the ground of Guatemala. In fact, I'd decided to try to think like her, to better understand why she might want to come back. Truthfully I didn't have a clue.But first things first. Not knowing whether I was being stalked by Ramos or his proxies, I decided the idea was to see and not be seen—which actually was easier than I'd ex­pected, at least during the initial pell-mell stages. Turned out the self-centeredness of Homo sapiens blossoms under those circumstances. Ignore thy neighbor, goes the credo. I just buried myself in the crush.When I got to "Inmigracion," I labored through the "for­malities" (as all countries love to call the suspicious looks you get from their airport bureaucrats) along with all the other gringo passengers on AA Flight 377, paranoid I might be arrested on the spot for some spurious reason. The pur­pose of my visit, I declared, was tourism. Just a nod at my passport and a stamp, which looked exactly like the one in Sarah's. I stared at it and felt a renewed sense of purpose. In fact, the photo in my passport looked more than a little like her. Maybe, I thought, I'm getting carried away with the identity issue, but there it was.As I emerged through the wide glass doors of the arrival area, which fronted out onto the steps leading down to the parking lots and the humidity, I spotted a black Land Rover with tinted windows right in front. Uh-oh. That was, Steve once told me, a vehicle much favored by the notorious Guatemalan G-2 military secret police, who had retired the cup for murderous human-rights abuses over the past two decades.Then two middle-aged men with Latin mustaches and nondescript brown shirts began getting out through the door on the far side. They next walked around to the terminal side of the car and glanced up the steps in my direction, as though looking for somebody. It was a quick survey, after which they turned back and nodded to the vehicle before it sped away.What's that about? Am I imagining things already?By the time I reached the bottom of the steps, I was being besieged by clamoring cabbies, so it was difficult to keep an eye on the two men, who were now walking off to the side of the main commotion, toward a shady grove of palms at the end of the arrival drive, lighting cigarettes.Get out of here. Whether you're fantasizing or not, the thing to do is grab an unsuspecting cab and get going.I strolled toward the other end of the long row of concrete steps till I reached an area where cabs were parked, more drivers lurking in wait. They all looked the same way most cabbies in Third World lands look: shabby clothes, with beat-up cars, an expression in their eyes somewhere between ag­gression and desperation.Just pick one whose car looks like it might actually make it to downtown.I spotted a dark blue Chevy that seemed clean and well maintained, its driver young and full of male hormones as he beckoned me to his vehicle, all the while undressing me with his eyes. Yep, he was definitely my guy.I ambled by his car, acting as though I was ignoring the innuendos of his pitch. Then I bolted for the back door, opened it myself since he was too startled to help, threw in my carry-ons, piled in behind them, and yelled, "Let's go. Rapido."As we sped away, I realized his greatest surprise was that I hadn't raised the subject of price. At that point, it was the last thing on my mind. I looked back to see the two guys from the black Land Rover, together with two others, heading for a car that had been double-parked right in front.Had I been right after all?We made a high-speed turn onto the highway, and I immediately ordered the driver to take a service road that led off toward a cluster of gas stations and parking lots with falling-down barbed-wire fences. I figured I had about half a minute of lead time, whatever was going on.We dodged massive potholes and the loose gravel flew, but then we reached a ramshackle gas station and I ordered him to pull in. Then I watched the line of traffic speeding by on the main highway for several minutes. Nobody pulled off. Good.My driver finally got around to asking where I wanted to go, and as calmly as I could, I told him."The Palacio Nacional.""Si."With that he gunned his engine and spun out. Jesus!"Mas despacio, por favor.""Okay," he said, showing off his English as he donned his sunglasses. "I go more slow. No problem."The initial destination was part of my new plan, hatched while I was on the plane. When I was reading my guidebook and filling out my entry card I'd had a bright idea. I knew exactly how I wanted to begin.Heading into town, the time now the middle of the after­noon, I leaned back in the seat and tried to absorb the view, to get a feeling for where I was. We first traveled through the suburban fringes, the heavily guarded luxurious man­sions of the landholding and military elite, the one percent of Guatemala who own ninety-nine percent of the country. Iron fences and wide expanses of lawn, protected by Uzi-toting security, guarded whimsical architectural con­ceits topped by silver satellite dishes. A twenty-foot wall shielded their delicate eyes from the city's largest shanty-town, makeshift hovels of bamboo and rusted tin, with no signs of water or drains or toilets. Guatemala City: as Steve had put it once, a million doomed citizens, the rich and the poor, trapped together side by side in the most "modern" capital in Central America.Why on earth had Sarah decided to come here? Even if she did travel with the mesmerizing Alex Goddard it was hard to imagine a place less spiritual. Couldn't she feel that this was all wrong? One of us had to be missing something major.Fifteen minutes later I was passing through the fetid atmosphere of downtown, which seemed to be another world, Guatemala City's twin soul. It was an urban hodgepodge of Burger King, McDonald's, discount electronics emporia, an eye-numbing profusion of plastic signs, filthy parking lots, rattletrap buses and taxis, stalled traffic. Exhaust fumes thickened the air, and everywhere you looked teenage "guards" in uniforms loitered in front of stores and banks with sawed-off shotguns, boys so green and scared-looking you'd think twice about letting one of them park your car. But there they were, weapons at the ready, nervously moni­toring passersby. Who were they defending all the wealth from? The ragged street children, with swollen bellies and skin disease, vending single cigarettes from open packs? Or the hordes of widows and orphans, beneficiaries of the Army's Mayan "pacification" program, who now begged for centavos or plaintively hawked half-rotten fruit from the safety of the shadows?My bright-idea destination was a government office in the Palacio Nacional, right in the center of town, where I hoped I could find Sarah's old landing card, the record of when tourists arrived and departed. When I'd filled mine out on the plane, I'd realized you were supposed to put down where you'd be staying in Guatemala. I figured the best way to locate her this time was to find out where she went last time. . . .As my cab pulled up in front, a black Land Rover was parked in a "Prohibido Estacionarse" zone by the front steps. To my eyes it looked like the same one I'd seen at the airport. Shit.But nobody was around, so I decided maybe I was just being paranoid again.The Palacio turned out to be a mixture of Moorish and faux Greek architecture, with a facade of light green imita­tion stone that gave off the impression of a large, rococo wedding cake. I took a long look, paid off the driver—who had turned out to be very nice—and headed in. It was, after all, a public building, open to tourist gringos.Nobody in the lobby appeared to take any particular notice of me, so after going through their very serious security, uniforms and guns everywhere, I checked the directory.It turned out the president, cabinet ministers, and high military officers all kept offices there, but it didn't take long to find the bureau I was looking for. Going down the mar­ble-floored hallway on the third floor, I passed by the Sala de Recepcion, a vast wood-paneled room of enormous chandeliers, stained-glass windows, and a massive coat of arms. Quite a place, but not my destination. At the far end of the hallway, I found the door I wanted, went in, and tried out the Spanish question I'd been practicing in the cab. Not neces­sary: English worked fine."Senora, the records for that time were only kept on pa­per," a Ladino woman declared shrugging, her nails colored a brash mauve, her hair a burst of red, "but you are welcome to look." She'd been on the phone, chatting in rapid-fire Spanish, but she quickly hung up and got out her glasses."Thanks."The welcome mat was obviously a little thin. The woman was trying to be friendly, but very quickly her nervousness began to come through. "We're always glad to accommodate Americans searching for friends or relatives," she went on, attempting a smile. "Some of your American press has been printing distortions, that the Guatemalan Army conspired with the CIA to cover up murders. It's a total lie."Right. Maybe you ought to see some of the photos Steve has of the "Army-pacified" Maya villages up in the moun­tains.The search took an hour and a half of leafing through dusty boxes, which chafed my hands raw, but then . . . voila.There it was. The crucial piece of information Lou had missed. A hastily scribbled-in landing card for an American, with the name Sarah Crenshaw. I stared at it a moment, feel­ing a glow of success. Was it an omen?It was definitely her. She'd even dotted an "i" with a smiley face, one of her personal trademarks.Then I looked down the form. What I wanted was the address she'd put down as a destination in Guatemala.The answer: "Ninos del Mundo, Peten Department."My hopes sank. Great. That was like saying your addressis Children of the World, lost somewhere in the state of Mon­tana.The home address was equally vague. Just "New York." So much for the high level of curiosity at "Inmigracion."However, the carbon copy of the landing card, which you're supposed to surrender when you leave, was not sta­pled to it, the way it was on all the others in the box. Natu­rally, since she'd left in a medevac plane, half dead."What does this mean?" I got up and walked over to the woman's desk, carrying the card. Mainly I just wanted to get a rise out of her. "The carbon copy is missing. Does that mean she could still be here?"Red alert. She glanced at the arrival date a moment and her eyes froze. Then, doubtless with visions of another CIA scandal looming in her consciousness, she brusquely an­nounced that the office was getting ready to close for the day."You'll have to pursue any further inquiries through the American embassy, Mrs. James, which handles all matters concerning U.S. nationals.""Well, thanks for all your help." I was finally getting the police-state runaround I'd expected all along. I guess I needed her to care, and it was obvious she didn't.Okay . . . I'd planned to go to the embassy anyway. Maybe they could tell me about this place she'd put on her landing card. Could it be the local name for Alex Goddard's clinic?As I picked up my things, I thought again about the pros­pect of showing my face on the streets of Guatemala City. Would there be more loitering men in grungy brown shirts waiting to watch my every move? More black Land Rovers? As I marched back out through the ornate lobby, I decided not to let my imagination get too active. It was now late afternoon, but I was making progress. I also was thinking about Steve, wondering if he'd gotten into town yet. Probably not for another couple of hours, but just thinking about see­ing him again, and having him for support, was boosting my energy.A short cab ride later I arrived at the embassy of the all- powerful United States of America, a two-block-long con­crete fortress on Reforma Avenue guarded by Yank Marines with heavy automatic weapons. When I explained myself to the PR people manning the reception desk, including my brush with Guatemalan bureaucracy, they told me to check with the Internal Security section."In fact, if you're looking for an American national, this is where you should have come in the first place," said a very efficient-appearing young woman, with a business suit and dark, close-cropped hair. "A phone call from here works wonders at the Palacio Nacional."I had no proof Sarah was in Guatemala yet, and if she was, it would doubtless be under a different name. What's more, telling them my suspicion that she'd been kidnapped by a high official and brought here would definitely brand me as a conspiracy theorist. So for now, all I could really hope to get from them was an address for Alex Goddard's clinic, someplace to start. Where and what was "Ninos del Mundo"? Apparently the woman hadn't fully understood that.Moments later a thirtyish male attache showed up, looking very harried. He also could have been president of the local Young Republicans, with a cute haircut and preppie tie, knot­ted perfectly."Hi, I'm Mel Olberg. How can I . . .?"I told him I wanted to see someone who was responsible for the records of missing American tourists. I also sensed he was edgy and trying to get it over with fast; all the while he kept checking his watch, only half listening."Gee, I really wish you'd come earlier," he said. "Mondayafternoons are a little nuts around here, weekly reports due and all, and it's getting late." When he glanced at his watch again, making sure I noticed, I found myself wanting to yell at the guy. "I mean it's been two years since this woman you're looking for filled out a landing card. We might have something in the files, but. . . would it be possible for you to come back tomorrow?""No, it will not be possible," I lied. "I've got a plane back to New York tomorrow." I felt my frustration rising. I wanted to just grab him and shake him.My first thought was to tell him I make documentary films and maybe he'd like to end up in one about how my country's Guatemala City embassy didn't care about its citizens. But then I decided to go in a different, probably more productive, direction."Just for five minutes," I declared, reaching for feigned helplessness."Well, let me call upstairs," he muttered, realizing, I sup­pose, that the best way to get rid of me was to kick me up the chain of command, "and see if Mr. Morton can take a moment to meet with you."It worked. The next thing I knew, I was in the office of a good-looking diplomat named Barry Morton—gray temples, tailored suit, rugged face of a sixty-year-old soap-opera heartthrob who plays tennis and keeps a mistress. Chief In­formation Officer."Actually, I do remember her, vaguely," Morton declared, flashing me his professional smile. "The Crenshaw girl was an unfortunate case. To begin with, anybody who overstays their visa that long gets us in a lot of hot water with the locals. They always tend to blame us, Ms. . . .""James. My name's Morgan James.""Ms. James." Another of those smiles. "Frankly, I don't know what to tell you, though." He shrugged, exuding helplessness. "It's hard to keep track of every American tourist who comes and goes through this country. Some of the hippie types end up in a mountain village somewhere, gone native. In this instance, as I recall, we got her out on a medevac.""Her landing card gave her destination as someplace called 'Ninos del Mundo,' up to the Peten. That ring a bell? Any idea how I could find it?""Niiios del Mundo?" He glanced up quickly. "That's a new one on me." He'd been fiddling with a stack of papers on his desk, giving me only half his attention, but he abruptly stopped. "You try the phone book?""Like I said, it's in the Peten." I was getting the definite sense he wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. The whole scene was feeling tense and off. "My understanding is that's mostly rain forest. Do they even have phones up there?""Not many," he said, his tone starting to definitely acquire an "I have better things to do" edge.That was when he focused in on me, his look turning protective."Let me speak candidly, Ms. James, strictly off the record. Down here people have been known to 'disappear' just for asking too many questions. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that. Between us, this place is still a police state in many regards. You want my advice, let sleeping dogs lie. Just forget about this Crenshaw girl. She's out of the country now, so . . . Let me put it like this: People who go poking around here are just asking for trouble."I felt a ring of sincerity in his voice. Maybe a little too much sincerity. Why was he so worried for me?"That may be true, but I'm still going to see what I can find out. My heart is pure. Why should anybody care?""Do what you think best," he said with a sigh, "but I've told you everything we know. Which, I'm afraid, is actually very little.""By the way." Try one more thing on him, I thought, see what he'll say. "Since you're so concerned about Sarah, you'll be relieved to know she's regained consciousness and started to talk." There seemed no point in telling him any more. The rest was all still speculation.That stopped him cold. "What . . . what has she said?" His eyes appeared startled in the glaring light of the office fluorescents. At long last I had his undivided attention."You're busy." I smiled at him. "I don't want to bore you with details. But it's just going to be a matter of time before she remembers exactly what happened down here.""She hasn't talked about it yet?" He was fiddling with an ornate letter opener, an onyx jaguar head on the handle."She's getting there." I stared back at him, trying to read his mood. "We may soon find out who was behind whatever happened to her." Then I tried a long shot. "Maybe official­dom here had something to do with it.""Let me tell you something." He sighed again, seeming to regain his composure. "The sovereign state of Guatemala definitely plays by its own rules. Whenever foreigners down here meet with foul play, lower-level officials have developed a consensus over the years that sometimes it's better not be too industrious. Nobody's ever sure of what, or who, they might turn up."The meeting was definitely ending, and once again I had more questions than answers. Something about Barry Mor­ton felt wrong, but I couldn't quite get a grip on what it was. One thing I was certain of: He knew more than he was telling me. Why was that?As I was exiting through his outer office, headed for the swarming streets below, I waved good-bye to his secretary, a stout, fiftyish Ladino matron with defiantly black-dyed hair, a hard look mitigated somewhat by the Zircon trim on her thick glasses and a small silver pendant nestled on her ample, low-cut sweater. It was the pendant that caught my eye, being the silver face of a cat, most likely the local jaguar. Looked just like the ones I'd seen you-know-where. I was staring so hard I almost stumbled over a chair. Yes. It was definitely like those I remembered from Kevin and Rachel.The only difference was, when she bent over to reach for her stapler, the medallion twisted around and the back, I could see, flashed blank silver, no engraving of lines and dots.So where did she get it? I started to ask her, but decided I'd just get more BS runaround. Then I had another thought: Maybe she handled a lot of things that never made it to Barry Morton's desk, the "don't waste the boss's valuable time" kind of secretary. Maybe she s the one I really should have been talking to, the kind of woman who takes care of every­thing while the high-paid senior supervisor is at long lunches.She looked at me, and our eyes met and held for a second. Had she been listening in on my chat with Morton? Did she know something I ought to know?By then, however, thoughts of Steve were weighing in. I hadn't seen him in three and a half months and I was realizing that was about my limit. I wanted to recapture the lost time. Our being together was going to make everything turn out right.Clinging to that thought, I grabbed a cab and headed for my hotel and a much-overdue hot bath.

"Who . . ." said a startled voice, and I knew it was Lou, somewhere in the direction of the couch.

I clicked on the light switch and saw him lying on the floor, leaning against the couch, blood everywhere, his eyes in shock.

"My God! What happened?"

"I'm afraid to move. The phone was ringing and I figured it was you, but I didn't dare get up. Knowing you, you'd come over if I didn't answer." He was holding his side as he looked at me. "Morgy, she's gone."

At first what he said didn't sink in as I bent over him. The right side of his shirt, just above his belt, was soaked in blood. Taking care, I unbuttoned it and saw an open cut that looked as though he'd been stabbed with a knife. It also appeared to be reasonably superficial, as though a thin blade had pierced through a couple of layers of tread on his ample spare tire. But it was bleeding still, enough to make it look worse than it probably was. However, if it'd happened to me, I'd doubtless be in shock too.

I got up, went to the bathroom, and pulled two towels off the rack, then doused water over one and came back.

"Don't move. I'm going to pull your shirt away and try to clean you up, see how bad it is."

He just groaned and stared at the ceiling.

As I was swabbing his side, what he'd said finally regis­tered.

"Did you say . . .Sarah!"

I dropped the towels and ran into the bedroom.

It was empty, the bed rumpled and beige sheets on the floor.

"No." I turned and feeling a hit of nausea, hurried back to his side. "What happened? Did—?"

"Fat Hispanic guy. Spic bastard. He had a couple of young punks with him. Mrs. Reilly had just left and I went to the door, thinking it was probably you ringing my bell. He flashed a knife and they shoved their way in. Then one of his thugs went into the bedroom and carried her out. When I tried to stop them, the SOB knifed me. I guess I . . . swooned cause the next thing I remember is waking up here on the floor."

It sounded garbled and probably didn't occur as quickly

as he thought. But I knew immediately what had happened Ramos—of course that's who it was—had come to take Sarah. It was his one sure way to stop me from mentioning Children of Light in my film. She was a hostage. My first instinct was to kill him.

"What else can you remember?" I was already dialing 911. Time to get an ambulance. And after that, the cops.

After about ten rings I got somebody and, following an explanation that was longer than it needed to be, a woman with a southern accent told me the medics would be there in fifteen minutes. I took another look at Lou and ordered them to hurry, then hung up. I was going to call the police next, but first I needed to hear exactly what had happened before he got quarantined in some emergency room.

His eyes were glazing over again, as shock and blood loss started to catch up with him. Clearly he would pull through, but right now, sitting there in a pool of blood, he could have been at death's door.

"Look . . . at that." He was pointing, his rationality be­ginning to fail. For a second I didn't realize what he meant, but then I saw a fax lying beside the phone. I picked it up. The time on it was 9:08 P.M. and it was from somebody named John Williams. Then I remembered. Wasn't that the FBI computer whiz he'd talked about the other day at the hospital, after we'd deconstructed Sarah's waterlogged pass­port?

There was no message, just a sheet with a date—two years old—and a list of names accompanied by numbers and a capital letter. Then I noticed the letterhead of Aviateca, the Guatemalan national airline, and it dawned on me I was look­ing at a flight manifest.

I scanned down the page, and then I saw it.

Sarah Crenshaw, 3B.

Williams found her, I thought. And she was traveling First Class.

What caught my eye next was the name of the person sitting in 3A, the seat right next to hers. A. Godford. Probably a computer misprint. Or maybe it was the name he used when he traveled. So if it was him, which it surely was, the bastard didn't even try to hide it.

I just stood there, thinking. Maybe you get one big-time coincidence in life, and if so, this must be mine. Sarah and I had both found Alex Goddard. Or he'd found us. Other women came and went through Quetzal Manor, but we were different. She'd escaped from him, half dead but now he'd sent Ramos to bring her back. It was the one way he could be sure to keep me under his control. But again, why? Was it just to stop my film, or was there more to the story?

"Morgy," Lou groaned "that son of a bitch took her to­night. I just know it."

That was my conclusion precisely, though I hadn't been planning to say it to him, at least not yet.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Something they said. I didn't quite catch it, but it sounded like, 'He wants you back.' Then some word. It sounded like 'Babylon' or something."

I stared at him a second trying to remember where I'd heard that before. Then it clicked in. That was the last thing Sarah had said she'd whispered that word when I was putting her to bed. What could she have been talking about?

He wheezed and I went back to him and pressed the towel against his side. The bleeding was about stemmed but he was definitely due for a hospital stay. A siren was sounding down the street. Probably the ambulance. Thank God I thought. Now it's time to call the police.

Then I noticed he was crying. What was that about?

"Morgy, they didn't actually kidnap her. You see, she—"

"What?" I guess I was trying to take it in. "What do you mean?"

"Know what she said? Sarah?" He choked for a second, then continued. "She said, 'Yes, I want to go back.' "

Before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, the medics were ringing the doorbell. They strode in with a gurney, also rolling a portable plasma IV, young guys who looked like they'd be more at home at a Garden hockey game, followed immediately by two uniformed policemen, actually policewomen, one short and heavy, with reddish hair, the other a wiry young Hispanic. (I found out that ambulances called out for stabbing or gunshot wounds automatically get a cop escort.) In less than three minutes, Lou was in the blue-and-white ambulance and on his way to St. Vincent's emergency room.

I rode in the backseat of the squad car as we followed them and tried to explain what little I knew of what had happened. It turned out to be an education in the mindless sticking points of the law.

Long story short: The fact that I hadn't reported the bur­glary of my apartment that very same day immediately cast doubt on my seriousness as a truth-seeking citizen; I had no proof the unreported burglary of my apartment (if, indeed, such had actually occurred) was by some Guatemalan mili­tary attache named Jose Alvino Ramos; since Lou had never seen Colonel Ramos before tonight, he couldn't possibly identify him as that burglar either; accusing diplomats of a crime without ironclad proof was frowned on downtown; and when I stupidly repeated what Lou had said about Sarah's last words (well, he was going to tell them sooner or later, it would just come bubbling out at some point), the whole case that she was kidnapped went into revision mode.

By the time we got to the hospital, I was getting questions that seemed to imply that maybe it was all a domestic af­fair—like most of their calls: some spaced-out chick who’d run away once and got brought back and then, still unstable and crazy, decided to knife her own dad and disappear again. Now he was understandably covering for her. Happened more than you’d think.

I kept stressing that Lou was former FBI and not the sort to invent such a whopper, but this was listened to in skeptical silence. If it was a kidnapping, they then wondered aloud what was the motive and where were the demands of the perpetrators? I was ready to start yelling at them by the time we parked in the Seventh Avenue driveway of the emergency room at St. Vincent's.

They next made me cool my heels in the waiting room while they went back to interrogate Lou. They were with him for almost an hour, then came back to where I was and asked me to read and sign the report they'd written.

A troubled girl, who had emerged from a coma and ap­parently was suffering bouts of non-rationality, had disap­peared and her father had been stabbed but not seriously. He was the only witness to the incident and claimed she'd been kidnapped. However, the girl had run away once pre­viously, and there was no physical evidence she'd been taken against her will; in fact, her father admitted she had declared just the opposite. The whole incident would be investigated further after he came downtown and made a complete state­ment.

"I'm not going to sign this." I handed it back, fuming.

"Is there anything here that's not factually correct?" The

Hispanic cop was looking me straight in the eye, her expres­sion cold as Alaska.

The question made me seethe. Sarah was probably already on her way out of the country, and here I was trying to reason with two women who practically thought she was the crimi­nal. But I knew a lost cause when I saw one.

"Forget about it. I want to see Lou."

An intern was coming out and I snagged him, announced I was next of kin to a patient, and demanded to be taken through the official door and into the back. At that moment, the stout cop's radio crackled. They were being summoned to a Christopher Street gay bar where somebody had just been knifed in a back room. She looked at me, as though to say, "This sounds like a real crime," and then they hurried out for their squad car. Christ!

The intern, a young black guy, led me past a row of gurneys and into a private room at the rear of the huge space. Lou was bandaged all around his chest and hooked up to an IV and a monitor. He looked better, but I wasn't sure he'd be ready for what I was about to tell him.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" I asked as I walked in, trying to seem upbeat.

"Fucking cops." He was boiling, his face actually red. "Where do they get them these days? McDonald's rejects?"

"Easy, don't get your blood pressure up." I reached over and touched his brow. It felt like he had a mild temperature. "Let's all just calm down and try to think rationally."

"Yeah, I'm thinking rationally. You saw that fax I got from Williams."

"You think that was Alex Goddard seated next to her, right?"

"Who else? When she was in her moonbeam phase, she must have heard about him and gone up there and ended up in his clutches. But why did she let him take her down to—?"

"He told me he has a clinic in Central America. He called it 'a place of miracles.' And then Colonel Ramos shows up, part of the Guatemalan diplomatic corps. Put two and two together. That's got to be where they're taking her."

"Who knows, but I'm going to get the boys downtown to put out a missing-persons APB nationwide. Gerry'll do it for me if I ask. Fuck New York's Finest. They ain't gonna do crap anyway."

I listened wondering how to impress my bright idea upon him. The chances were Ramos was taking Sarah back to Guatemala. Probably right this minute. For some kind of un­finished business. Or just to hold her there as an insurance policy that Children of Light would never be mentioned in my picture.

"I seriously doubt a missing-persons alert is going to do any good Lou, because I seriously doubt she's going to be walking the streets of this country. That bastard Ramos is taking her where he knows he can hide her."

"You mean . . . Jesus." He stared at me as though the idea had never crossed his mind. I think he'd just repressed it. "What are we going to—?"

"The only thing we can do. I'm going down there. I'm going to go straight down there and locate Alex Goddard."

"That's an exceptionally lousy thought process." His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance.

"Why? Give me one good reason why. You think the police down there are going to bring charges against a colonel?" I really could have used some encouragement. "It's the only way—"

"Morgan, you've always been high-strung." He sighed and then winced. "Ever since you were a kid. I worried about you then and I'm worried about you now. I don't want you to go down there and get into trouble. Because believe me, that's a seriously wrong place to get crossways with the pricks who make the rules. You don't know your way around that Third World craphole. Wouldn't be that hard to end up a statistic. We can alert the embassy. Have them start looking for her."

"Listen, there's a lot more going on between Alex God­dard and me than you know." This was definitely not the time to tell him about the babies, or about Carly and the threats. "Trust me. I'm going down there. In the morning, if I can. Who knows? Sarah and Ramos might even be on the same plane."

As I was finishing that pronouncement, two nurses came in rolling a gurney and announced that his room was ready. Then they gave him a sedative.

Was I being irrational? The thing was, though, what would you do? I was absolutely sure Ramos had taken her. So it was obvious that was where he would go next. He was a "diplomat," apparently, so he could easily fudge the passport formalities.

As the nurses were helping Lou onto the gurney, I stood there holding his hand and thinking about what lay ahead. Steve was in Belize and maybe not even reachable, but I decided to start by giving him a call the minute I got home.

Then a middle-aged WASP, with dark hair, slightly bal­ding, strode in the room. The photo ID on his chest read "Dr. M. Summers."

"So, how's the patient?" he enquired cheerily, ignoring me as he immediately began checking the chart at the foot of Lou's bed.

"Felt better," Lou said, not being taken in by his pro forma cheer.

"Well, we're going to make sure you get a good night's rest." Dr. Summers finished with the chart and started taking his pulse. "What's left of it."

"How long am I going to be in here, Doc?" Lou asked, flinching as the nurses removed the IV stuck in his arm.

"A couple of days. For observation. To make sure there're no complications." He smiled again. "You're a lucky man, Mr. . . . Crenshaw. Just a superficial cut. But we don't want you out playing handball for a few days." He turned and gave me a conspiratorial wink, then glanced back. "Okay, up we go."

"Can I come with him?" I asked, not optimistic but hop­ing.

The doctor looked genuinely contrite. "I'm really sorry, but he's going to be fine and visiting hours are long past. You can call in the morning. And you can come up anytime after two P.M. tomorrow. Let's let him get some rest now."

I walked around and took Lou's hand, hot and fevered, feeling so agitated.

"Don't think about anything tonight, okay? Worrying won't help. Just get some sleep. I'm going to find her, I promise you."

"Don't—" He mumbled some words, but I think the seda­tive the nurses had given him was seriously starting to kick

"Look, you can call down to 26 Federal Plaza tomorrow. See what they can do. In the meantime, let me follow my nose."

He tried to answer, but he was too far gone. I then watched wistfully as he disappeared down the sterile alley of beds.

After I stopped by the desk and helped them fill out the insurance forms, I caught a cab downtown to retrieve my Toyota. The time was now two-fifteen in the morning, but I still had plenty to do. When I got home, the first thing I did after I walked in the door was grab a phone book and call American Airlines. They had a flight, in the morning at nine-thirty. I gave them my credit card specifics and made a res­ervation.

I no longer thought that Alex Goddard's Children of Light and its Guatemalan accomplices were merely doing some­thing shady. My hunch now was that it was completely ille­gal. They were getting hundreds of white babies in some way that couldn't bear the light of day, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to prevent me from highlighting them in my film. And with the Army involved, and now Sarah taken, their game was beginning to feel more and more like kidnapping. They certainly knew how.

Sarah had become a pawn, and all because of me. I almost wondered if I'd been unconsciously led to him by her, though that was impossible. Whatever had happened, the remorse I now felt was overpowering. It was, in fact, an intensified version of the guilt that had dogged me for the past fifteen years, the horrible feeling I'd somehow let her down, not done enough for her. I could have flown back for her high school graduation, but I was cramming for grad school finals and didn't take the time. Things like that, which, looking back, seemed terribly selfish. And now I'd brought this on her. God.

Okay, I thought, glancing at the clock, time to start making it up to her. Screw up your courage and wake Steve.

The problem was, Lou had been right about one thing. It'd been years since I'd been to Guatemala, and I wasn't sure I knew beans about how things operated down there these days. I was high on motivation and only so-so in the area of modus operandi. I needed Steve's help in plying the tricky waters of that part of the planet. He was busy, but this was definitely "us against the world" time, so maybe he could drive over to Guatemala City and help.

I picked up the phone again and punched in the number of his hotel in Belize City, which seemed to be embedded permanently in my brain. That wonderful accent at the desk mon, and then they were ringing his room. I had no reason on earth to assume he would be there, but . . .

The click, the voice, it was him.

"Sorry to call so late, love. You said you missed me, so I've decided to find out if it's true. Your coming attraction is about to arrive."

I guess I was trying to keep it flip. After our talk that morning, I wasn't entirely sure where we stood anymore.

"Who . . . Morgy, is that you? God it's two . . . Are you okay?" Then he started coming around, processing what I said. "You're coming . . . Honey, that's great."

As I noted before, he always knew how to give a good reading, sound sincere, no matter what the occasion.

"Actually, I've just made a plane reservation, and I'm going to be in Guatemala City tomorrow, just after noon." I hesitated then thought, why beat around the bush? "Care to meet me there?"

"That's terrific," he declared coming fully awake. "But why don't you just come to Belize City? Can't you get flight? It's actually not nearly as wild here as the travel books—"

"Well, I've . . . Look, I'd rather not talk about this on the phone. But do you think you could get free and drive over I really could use your help. I've got a situation."

"Well . . ." He paused. "I could be there by late tomorrow assuming my rented Jeep still operates after last week and the roads haven't totally disintegrated. Where're you going to be staying?"

"I don't know. Got any suggestions? I want to keep out of the limelight."

"Then try the Camino Real. It's like a Holiday Inn with plastic palm trees. Definitely low maintenance and low profile. Hang on, I'll get you the number."

Which he did, though I could hear him stumbling around the room in the dark. Then he continued.

"But listen, here's the bad news. I've got to be back here day after tomorrow. I just got a special permit to do some night shooting in the jaguar preserve down by Victoria Peak—you remember the rain forest I told you about?—but it's only good for one night, and I hear rumors there's an off-season hurricane forming in the Caribbean, which means I've got to stick to schedule. After that, though, I'm free again."

"We'll work it out." I was thrilled he would just drop everything and come. Maybe we were over the rough spot about the baby.

He didn't bring that up and I didn't either. Instead we killed a few minutes, and then I let him go back to sleep. I wanted to say I love you, but I didn't want to push my luck.

After that I called the hotel he'd recommended. The ex­change was more Spanish than English, but they had a room. Apparently lots of rooms.

Next I rang Paula Marks, even though it was terribly late. She must have had the phones off, but I left a message telling her to be careful, with a postscript that I'd explain everything later. Just stick close to home.

Finally I called David's voice mail up at Applecore. I told him I had a personal crisis and was going to Guatemala City. I'd try to be back by the end of the week, hell or high water, but no guarantees. And if he touched so much as a frame of my work print while I was gone, I'd personally strangle him.

I don't remember much of what happened next. I basically went on autopilot. It's as though I dropped into a trance, totally focused. I packed my passport, a good business suit, the tailored blue one, and also a set of mix-and-match sepa­rates, easy to roll and cram in. Finally a couple of pairs of good (clean) jeans, a few toiletries, and then, thinking ahead, I also threw in my yellow plastic flashlight. I almost always over pack, but not this time.

Oh, and one other thing. For airplane reading I grabbed a Lonely Planet guide to Central America that Steve had left behind—I guess he figured he was at the stage of life to start writing them, not reading them—that turned out to be very helpful, particularly the map of Guatemala City and the northern Peten rain forest. I then collapsed and—images of Sarah's emaciated face haunting my consciousness—caught a couple of hours' sleep.

The next thing I knew, it was 9:20 A.M. and I was settling into window seat 29F on American Airlines Flight 377—next to a two-hundred-pound executive busy ripping articles out of the business section ofEl Diario—headed for Guatemala City.

For once in my life, I took my time getting off an airplane. But the instant I felt that first burst of humid tropical air against my face, like a gush from a sauna, I found myself wondering what Sarah had felt the moment her feet first touched the ground of Guatemala. In fact, I'd decided to try to think like her, to better understand why she might want to come back. Truthfully I didn't have a clue.

But first things first. Not knowing whether I was being stalked by Ramos or his proxies, I decided the idea was to see and not be seen—which actually was easier than I'd ex­pected, at least during the initial pell-mell stages. Turned out the self-centeredness of Homo sapiens blossoms under those circumstances. Ignore thy neighbor, goes the credo. I just buried myself in the crush.

When I got to "Inmigracion," I labored through the "for­malities" (as all countries love to call the suspicious looks you get from their airport bureaucrats) along with all the other gringo passengers on AA Flight 377, paranoid I might be arrested on the spot for some spurious reason. The pur­pose of my visit, I declared, was tourism. Just a nod at my passport and a stamp, which looked exactly like the one in Sarah's. I stared at it and felt a renewed sense of purpose. In fact, the photo in my passport looked more than a little like her. Maybe, I thought, I'm getting carried away with the identity issue, but there it was.

As I emerged through the wide glass doors of the arrival area, which fronted out onto the steps leading down to the parking lots and the humidity, I spotted a black Land Rover with tinted windows right in front. Uh-oh. That was, Steve once told me, a vehicle much favored by the notorious Guatemalan G-2 military secret police, who had retired the cup for murderous human-rights abuses over the past two decades.

Then two middle-aged men with Latin mustaches and nondescript brown shirts began getting out through the door on the far side. They next walked around to the terminal side of the car and glanced up the steps in my direction, as though looking for somebody. It was a quick survey, after which they turned back and nodded to the vehicle before it sped away.

What's that about? Am I imagining things already?

By the time I reached the bottom of the steps, I was being besieged by clamoring cabbies, so it was difficult to keep an eye on the two men, who were now walking off to the side of the main commotion, toward a shady grove of palms at the end of the arrival drive, lighting cigarettes.

Get out of here. Whether you're fantasizing or not, the thing to do is grab an unsuspecting cab and get going.

I strolled toward the other end of the long row of concrete steps till I reached an area where cabs were parked, more drivers lurking in wait. They all looked the same way most cabbies in Third World lands look: shabby clothes, with beat-up cars, an expression in their eyes somewhere between ag­gression and desperation.

Just pick one whose car looks like it might actually make it to downtown.

I spotted a dark blue Chevy that seemed clean and well maintained, its driver young and full of male hormones as he beckoned me to his vehicle, all the while undressing me with his eyes. Yep, he was definitely my guy.

I ambled by his car, acting as though I was ignoring the innuendos of his pitch. Then I bolted for the back door, opened it myself since he was too startled to help, threw in my carry-ons, piled in behind them, and yelled, "Let's go. Rapido."

As we sped away, I realized his greatest surprise was that I hadn't raised the subject of price. At that point, it was the last thing on my mind. I looked back to see the two guys from the black Land Rover, together with two others, heading for a car that had been double-parked right in front.

Had I been right after all?

We made a high-speed turn onto the highway, and I immediately ordered the driver to take a service road that led off toward a cluster of gas stations and parking lots with falling-down barbed-wire fences. I figured I had about half a minute of lead time, whatever was going on.

We dodged massive potholes and the loose gravel flew, but then we reached a ramshackle gas station and I ordered him to pull in. Then I watched the line of traffic speeding by on the main highway for several minutes. Nobody pulled off. Good.

My driver finally got around to asking where I wanted to go, and as calmly as I could, I told him.

"The Palacio Nacional."

"Si."

With that he gunned his engine and spun out. Jesus!

"Mas despacio, por favor."

"Okay," he said, showing off his English as he donned his sunglasses. "I go more slow. No problem."

The initial destination was part of my new plan, hatched while I was on the plane. When I was reading my guidebook and filling out my entry card I'd had a bright idea. I knew exactly how I wanted to begin.

Heading into town, the time now the middle of the after­noon, I leaned back in the seat and tried to absorb the view, to get a feeling for where I was. We first traveled through the suburban fringes, the heavily guarded luxurious man­sions of the landholding and military elite, the one percent of Guatemala who own ninety-nine percent of the country. Iron fences and wide expanses of lawn, protected by Uzi-toting security, guarded whimsical architectural con­ceits topped by silver satellite dishes. A twenty-foot wall shielded their delicate eyes from the city's largest shanty-town, makeshift hovels of bamboo and rusted tin, with no signs of water or drains or toilets. Guatemala City: as Steve had put it once, a million doomed citizens, the rich and the poor, trapped together side by side in the most "modern" capital in Central America.

Why on earth had Sarah decided to come here? Even if she did travel with the mesmerizing Alex Goddard it was hard to imagine a place less spiritual. Couldn't she feel that this was all wrong? One of us had to be missing something major.

Fifteen minutes later I was passing through the fetid atmosphere of downtown, which seemed to be another world, Guatemala City's twin soul. It was an urban hodgepodge of Burger King, McDonald's, discount electronics emporia, an eye-numbing profusion of plastic signs, filthy parking lots, rattletrap buses and taxis, stalled traffic. Exhaust fumes thickened the air, and everywhere you looked teenage "guards" in uniforms loitered in front of stores and banks with sawed-off shotguns, boys so green and scared-looking you'd think twice about letting one of them park your car. But there they were, weapons at the ready, nervously moni­toring passersby. Who were they defending all the wealth from? The ragged street children, with swollen bellies and skin disease, vending single cigarettes from open packs? Or the hordes of widows and orphans, beneficiaries of the Army's Mayan "pacification" program, who now begged for centavos or plaintively hawked half-rotten fruit from the safety of the shadows?

My bright-idea destination was a government office in the Palacio Nacional, right in the center of town, where I hoped I could find Sarah's old landing card, the record of when tourists arrived and departed. When I'd filled mine out on the plane, I'd realized you were supposed to put down where you'd be staying in Guatemala. I figured the best way to locate her this time was to find out where she went last time. . . .

As my cab pulled up in front, a black Land Rover was parked in a "Prohibido Estacionarse" zone by the front steps. To my eyes it looked like the same one I'd seen at the airport. Shit.

But nobody was around, so I decided maybe I was just being paranoid again.

The Palacio turned out to be a mixture of Moorish and faux Greek architecture, with a facade of light green imita­tion stone that gave off the impression of a large, rococo wedding cake. I took a long look, paid off the driver—who had turned out to be very nice—and headed in. It was, after all, a public building, open to tourist gringos.

Nobody in the lobby appeared to take any particular notice of me, so after going through their very serious security, uniforms and guns everywhere, I checked the directory.

It turned out the president, cabinet ministers, and high military officers all kept offices there, but it didn't take long to find the bureau I was looking for. Going down the mar­ble-floored hallway on the third floor, I passed by the Sala de Recepcion, a vast wood-paneled room of enormous chandeliers, stained-glass windows, and a massive coat of arms. Quite a place, but not my destination. At the far end of the hallway, I found the door I wanted, went in, and tried out the Spanish question I'd been practicing in the cab. Not neces­sary: English worked fine.

"Senora, the records for that time were only kept on pa­per," a Ladino woman declared shrugging, her nails colored a brash mauve, her hair a burst of red, "but you are welcome to look." She'd been on the phone, chatting in rapid-fire Spanish, but she quickly hung up and got out her glasses.

"Thanks."

The welcome mat was obviously a little thin. The woman was trying to be friendly, but very quickly her nervousness began to come through. "We're always glad to accommodate Americans searching for friends or relatives," she went on, attempting a smile. "Some of your American press has been printing distortions, that the Guatemalan Army conspired with the CIA to cover up murders. It's a total lie."

Right. Maybe you ought to see some of the photos Steve has of the "Army-pacified" Maya villages up in the moun­tains.

The search took an hour and a half of leafing through dusty boxes, which chafed my hands raw, but then . . . voila.

There it was. The crucial piece of information Lou had missed. A hastily scribbled-in landing card for an American, with the name Sarah Crenshaw. I stared at it a moment, feel­ing a glow of success. Was it an omen?

It was definitely her. She'd even dotted an "i" with a smiley face, one of her personal trademarks.

Then I looked down the form. What I wanted was the address she'd put down as a destination in Guatemala.

The answer: "Ninos del Mundo, Peten Department."

My hopes sank. Great. That was like saying your address

is Children of the World, lost somewhere in the state of Mon­tana.

The home address was equally vague. Just "New York." So much for the high level of curiosity at "Inmigracion."

However, the carbon copy of the landing card, which you're supposed to surrender when you leave, was not sta­pled to it, the way it was on all the others in the box. Natu­rally, since she'd left in a medevac plane, half dead.

"What does this mean?" I got up and walked over to the woman's desk, carrying the card. Mainly I just wanted to get a rise out of her. "The carbon copy is missing. Does that mean she could still be here?"

Red alert. She glanced at the arrival date a moment and her eyes froze. Then, doubtless with visions of another CIA scandal looming in her consciousness, she brusquely an­nounced that the office was getting ready to close for the day.

"You'll have to pursue any further inquiries through the American embassy, Mrs. James, which handles all matters concerning U.S. nationals."

"Well, thanks for all your help." I was finally getting the police-state runaround I'd expected all along. I guess I needed her to care, and it was obvious she didn't.

Okay . . . I'd planned to go to the embassy anyway. Maybe they could tell me about this place she'd put on her landing card. Could it be the local name for Alex Goddard's clinic?

As I picked up my things, I thought again about the pros­pect of showing my face on the streets of Guatemala City. Would there be more loitering men in grungy brown shirts waiting to watch my every move? More black Land Rovers? As I marched back out through the ornate lobby, I decided not to let my imagination get too active. It was now late afternoon, but I was making progress. I also was thinking about Steve, wondering if he'd gotten into town yet. Probably not for another couple of hours, but just thinking about see­ing him again, and having him for support, was boosting my energy.

A short cab ride later I arrived at the embassy of the all- powerful United States of America, a two-block-long con­crete fortress on Reforma Avenue guarded by Yank Marines with heavy automatic weapons. When I explained myself to the PR people manning the reception desk, including my brush with Guatemalan bureaucracy, they told me to check with the Internal Security section.

"In fact, if you're looking for an American national, this is where you should have come in the first place," said a very efficient-appearing young woman, with a business suit and dark, close-cropped hair. "A phone call from here works wonders at the Palacio Nacional."

I had no proof Sarah was in Guatemala yet, and if she was, it would doubtless be under a different name. What's more, telling them my suspicion that she'd been kidnapped by a high official and brought here would definitely brand me as a conspiracy theorist. So for now, all I could really hope to get from them was an address for Alex Goddard's clinic, someplace to start. Where and what was "Ninos del Mundo"? Apparently the woman hadn't fully understood that.

Moments later a thirtyish male attache showed up, looking very harried. He also could have been president of the local Young Republicans, with a cute haircut and preppie tie, knot­ted perfectly.

"Hi, I'm Mel Olberg. How can I . . .?"

I told him I wanted to see someone who was responsible for the records of missing American tourists. I also sensed he was edgy and trying to get it over with fast; all the while he kept checking his watch, only half listening.

"Gee, I really wish you'd come earlier," he said. "Monday

afternoons are a little nuts around here, weekly reports due and all, and it's getting late." When he glanced at his watch again, making sure I noticed, I found myself wanting to yell at the guy. "I mean it's been two years since this woman you're looking for filled out a landing card. We might have something in the files, but. . . would it be possible for you to come back tomorrow?"

"No, it will not be possible," I lied. "I've got a plane back to New York tomorrow." I felt my frustration rising. I wanted to just grab him and shake him.

My first thought was to tell him I make documentary films and maybe he'd like to end up in one about how my country's Guatemala City embassy didn't care about its citizens. But then I decided to go in a different, probably more productive, direction.

"Just for five minutes," I declared, reaching for feigned helplessness.

"Well, let me call upstairs," he muttered, realizing, I sup­pose, that the best way to get rid of me was to kick me up the chain of command, "and see if Mr. Morton can take a moment to meet with you."

It worked. The next thing I knew, I was in the office of a good-looking diplomat named Barry Morton—gray temples, tailored suit, rugged face of a sixty-year-old soap-opera heartthrob who plays tennis and keeps a mistress. Chief In­formation Officer.

"Actually, I do remember her, vaguely," Morton declared, flashing me his professional smile. "The Crenshaw girl was an unfortunate case. To begin with, anybody who overstays their visa that long gets us in a lot of hot water with the locals. They always tend to blame us, Ms. . . ."

"James. My name's Morgan James."

"Ms. James." Another of those smiles. "Frankly, I don't know what to tell you, though." He shrugged, exuding helplessness. "It's hard to keep track of every American tourist who comes and goes through this country. Some of the hippie types end up in a mountain village somewhere, gone native. In this instance, as I recall, we got her out on a medevac."

"Her landing card gave her destination as someplace called 'Ninos del Mundo,' up to the Peten. That ring a bell? Any idea how I could find it?"

"Niiios del Mundo?" He glanced up quickly. "That's a new one on me." He'd been fiddling with a stack of papers on his desk, giving me only half his attention, but he abruptly stopped. "You try the phone book?"

"Like I said, it's in the Peten." I was getting the definite sense he wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. The whole scene was feeling tense and off. "My understanding is that's mostly rain forest. Do they even have phones up there?"

"Not many," he said, his tone starting to definitely acquire an "I have better things to do" edge.

That was when he focused in on me, his look turning protective.

"Let me speak candidly, Ms. James, strictly off the record. Down here people have been known to 'disappear' just for asking too many questions. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that. Between us, this place is still a police state in many regards. You want my advice, let sleeping dogs lie. Just forget about this Crenshaw girl. She's out of the country now, so . . . Let me put it like this: People who go poking around here are just asking for trouble."

I felt a ring of sincerity in his voice. Maybe a little too much sincerity. Why was he so worried for me?

"That may be true, but I'm still going to see what I can find out. My heart is pure. Why should anybody care?"

"Do what you think best," he said with a sigh, "but I've told you everything we know. Which, I'm afraid, is actually very little."

"By the way." Try one more thing on him, I thought, see what he'll say. "Since you're so concerned about Sarah, you'll be relieved to know she's regained consciousness and started to talk." There seemed no point in telling him any more. The rest was all still speculation.

That stopped him cold. "What . . . what has she said?" His eyes appeared startled in the glaring light of the office fluorescents. At long last I had his undivided attention.

"You're busy." I smiled at him. "I don't want to bore you with details. But it's just going to be a matter of time before she remembers exactly what happened down here."

"She hasn't talked about it yet?" He was fiddling with an ornate letter opener, an onyx jaguar head on the handle.

"She's getting there." I stared back at him, trying to read his mood. "We may soon find out who was behind whatever happened to her." Then I tried a long shot. "Maybe official­dom here had something to do with it."

"Let me tell you something." He sighed again, seeming to regain his composure. "The sovereign state of Guatemala definitely plays by its own rules. Whenever foreigners down here meet with foul play, lower-level officials have developed a consensus over the years that sometimes it's better not be too industrious. Nobody's ever sure of what, or who, they might turn up."

The meeting was definitely ending, and once again I had more questions than answers. Something about Barry Mor­ton felt wrong, but I couldn't quite get a grip on what it was. One thing I was certain of: He knew more than he was telling me. Why was that?

As I was exiting through his outer office, headed for the swarming streets below, I waved good-bye to his secretary, a stout, fiftyish Ladino matron with defiantly black-dyed hair, a hard look mitigated somewhat by the Zircon trim on her thick glasses and a small silver pendant nestled on her ample, low-cut sweater. It was the pendant that caught my eye, being the silver face of a cat, most likely the local jaguar. Looked just like the ones I'd seen you-know-where. I was staring so hard I almost stumbled over a chair. Yes. It was definitely like those I remembered from Kevin and Rachel.

The only difference was, when she bent over to reach for her stapler, the medallion twisted around and the back, I could see, flashed blank silver, no engraving of lines and dots.

So where did she get it? I started to ask her, but decided I'd just get more BS runaround. Then I had another thought: Maybe she handled a lot of things that never made it to Barry Morton's desk, the "don't waste the boss's valuable time" kind of secretary. Maybe she s the one I really should have been talking to, the kind of woman who takes care of every­thing while the high-paid senior supervisor is at long lunches.

She looked at me, and our eyes met and held for a second. Had she been listening in on my chat with Morton? Did she know something I ought to know?

By then, however, thoughts of Steve were weighing in. I hadn't seen him in three and a half months and I was realizing that was about my limit. I wanted to recapture the lost time. Our being together was going to make everything turn out right.

Clinging to that thought, I grabbed a cab and headed for my hotel and a much-overdue hot bath.

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