the time the launch had delivered Ellie back to the cruise ship, both the adrenaline rush that had sustained her through the incident outside José’s Cantina and its embarrassingly trembly aftermath had faded to a hazy memory. What was left was the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling, that sense of sheer disbelief that such events could be happening to her.
Had she, Rose Ellen Lanagan, really struck a man in the…um…in such an effective place? Had she really managed to disable two large—admittedly clumsy—male attackers? It didn’t seem possible. She’d always been such a nonviolent person, gentle and sunny-natured to a fault. Even in her animal-rights activist days her protests had been limited to peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, parades and picket lines. Even though, true to Ken Burnside’s promise, the government had seen to it that she was well trained in the necessary law-enforcement skills, including the use of firearms and basic martial arts techniques, it had never really occurred to her that she might one day be called upon to use that training. At heart she was still a nice Iowa farm girl who happened to have a doctorate in biology—and a badge.
A badge! Lord above—as Great-aunt Gwen might have said—if anyone had even suggested, back in her teenaged years and college days, that she, Ellie Lanagan, would one day be a special agent working undercover for the United States government, she would have fallen down and rolled on the floor with laughter. How had such a thing happened?
The only answer Ellie could come up with was that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d been so sickened by the carnage the traffickers in endangered species were inflicting on some of the earth’s rarest and most beautiful creatures…so enraged by their callous disregard for living things…. Okay, Ken had gotten to her in a weak moment, maybe, but she’d certainly had plenty of opportunities to change her mind since. The fact was, she’d truly believed in what she was doing. She still did.
But what was all this physical stuff? She was supposed to be the brains of this operation—the technical advisor, the wildlife expert. Ken Burnside, former cop and FBI agent, was supposed to provide the muscle—not that they’d expected to need much. Their purpose, after all, was simply to make contact with the smugglers, a band so elusive and cunning they’d managed for years to elude every attempt on the parts of both American and Mexican authorities to put an end to their operation. One reason for that, it was believed, was that the smugglers seemed to have no permanent camp, and always managed, like guerilla fighters, to slip away into the jungle one step ahead of a raid. It was hoped that Ellie and Ken, posing as eager American buyers with more money than sense, might manage to gain the confidence of the smugglers enough to work their way into their camp. If they were successful, their job was to record evidence and plant a tracking device that would enable government forces to locate them and put them out of commission once and for all. Their mission was nonviolent; the weapon of choice would be American dollars, not bullets. And so far, things had been moving slowly, but according to plan.
How was it, then, that in her first day on Mexican soil she’d already been involved in not one, but two incidents involving physical violence? And both times, if it hadn’t been for that American artist stepping in when he had….
Both times. She’d thought about that on the way back to the pier, thought about it as she walked beside the man—a stranger—through dark and empty streets, her adrenaline-charged brain worrying the notion like a starving wolf attacking a bone.
What is he doing there? Coming to my rescue—again? Can this be coincidence? Could he be one of them? Could he be the contact? If so, why doesn’t he say so? Why hasn’t he identified himself, or at least slipped me something with the meeting information on it?
All the way back to the pier, on the alert and aware of his body so close beside hers, remembering the wiry strength in his hands when they’d gripped her arms, she’d waited for him to make his move. He hadn’t. In the end she’d felt foolish, out of her depth, questioning her own judgment. Of course he wasn’t involved. He was exactly what he appeared to be—an American artist and social dropout trying to make a living hustling tourists. His being there to rescue her twice in one day was just coincidence. Those things happened.
Besides, according to all the information so far, the smugglers were Mexican—back-country Mexican, as Ken put it. Old-fashioned Macho Mexican Males who wouldn’t lower themselves to deal with a woman.
That was fine. But people in law enforcement are taught to distrust coincidence as a matter of principle. And there were those paintings. Parrots. Macaws. Tropical birds of all kinds, many of them the very same ones that so often turned up dead in customs inspections. Gaudy and Godawful Mr. McCall’s paintings might be, but there was no denying he had the details right.
Still the question remained: If the American was a member of the smuggling ring, why hadn’t he established contact with her?
She was still pondering those questions as she stood before the door to her stateroom, key in hand, frowning and gnawing on her lip as was her habit when deep in thought. Consequently she didn’t notice the white-uniformed ship’s steward hurrying toward her down the long passageway, not until he spoke to her with alarming and breathless urgency.
“Mrs. Burnside—Mrs. Burnside, thank God you’re back. We’ve been trying to reach you….”
A few tense and worried minutes later she was shown into a small cluttered office where two men were already engaged in grave consultation. They both straightened at Ellie’s entrance to murmur, “Come in, Mrs. Burnside.” One, a dark-skinned, salt-and-pepper-haired man with kind, liquid eyes, shook her hand and identified himself as the ship’s physician, Dr. Singh; the other, judging by his frown and the resplendence of his uniform, she took to be the captain.
The fear that had clutched Ellie’s stomach with the steward’s first breathless words outside her stateroom squeezed even tighter. Even though Burnside wasn’t really her husband, and there were times, in fact, when he annoyed her beyond bearing, he was still her partner, mentor and even, in an odd sort of way, a friend.
She gasped out, before anyone else could say a word, “Ken—my husband—is he all right? What’s happened? Is he—he’s not—”
The doctor’s tone was stern, even though his voice was limpid with the accent of his native India. “It is very fortunate that he called us when he did, Mrs. Burnside. If he had waited even one more hour…. You should have come to us when his symptoms first occurred. As it is—”
“He had an upset stomach,” Ellie cried, defensive in the face of the two men’s unspoken disapproval, though she wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to be guilty of. “He said—he insisted it was just a twenty-four-hour bug!” She carefully made no mention of food poisoning; apparently her stock with ship’s personnel was plummeting as it was. “I asked him—” She paused to draw a shaky breath, one hand pressed to her forehead. After a moment she said testily, fighting for calm, “So—what’s wrong with him? Where is he? I want to see him.”
“He has acute appendicitis,” the doctor said gravely. After a polite pause for Ellie’s horrified gasp, he continued, “At this moment he is on his way by helicoptor to the airport at Cozumel. From there he will be flown to Miami for immediate surgery.”
Ellie was groping for a chair. The captain unfolded his arms from across his chest long enough to guide her to one. “We will, of course, make arrangements for you to join him as soon as possible,” he said politely as she sank into the chair, limp with shock. Oh, what she would have given for a Hershey’s Kiss just then.
The censure in the captain’s voice and expression seemed to have softened somewhat at this evidence of appropriate wifely concern, but his opinion was no longer of any concern at all to Ellie. Having been reassured that her
