'Trouble?' Alan asked.

'Let's just say I didn't win the Publisher's Clearing-House Sweepstakes.'

Holly set down the phone.

Buchanan stepped out of the shadows. Despite a pre-dawn breeze off the ocean, the air was humid.

'I thought you were taking back the wetsuit gear,' Holly said.

'I was. I paid the motel clerk to return it for me when the dive shop opens.' Buchanan stopped before her. 'Who were you calling?'

She glanced away from him.

'At least, you're not trying to lie,' Buchanan said. 'And at least, you had brains enough not to make the call from the motel room where there'd be a record on the bill. Not that it matters. The area's so small that automatic tracing equipment will tell our hunters we're in Key West.'

'No,' Holly said. 'The number I called is private. Your people wouldn't know about it.'

'So you say. In my business, I don't take anything for granted unless I do it myself. All phones are suspect. It must have been really important for you to make the call.'

'I did it for us.'

'Oh?'

'I was trying to get us out of at least part of the mess we're in,' Holly said.

'What part is that? Right now, it seems we've got plenty of mess to go around.'

Holly bit her lip. 'Shouldn't we talk about this when we're back in our room?'

'And give you time to think up believable answers? No, I think we ought to keep talking.' Buchanan grasped her arm. 'Exactly what part of the mess were you trying to get us out of?'

He guided her along the lane. The sky was less gray. The breeze was stronger. Birds scattered into the sky.

'All right, I've been wanting to tell you since we were in New York,' Holly said. 'God, I'm so relieved to. At the start, the reason I knew you were in Cancun, the reason I was able to get to Club Internacional ahead of time and watch you talk to those two.' She almost said'drug distributors,' then looked around the shadowy lane and chose other language, wary of being too specific before she reached their room. '. businessmen. The reason I.'

'Someone in my unit set me up.' Buchanan opened the squeaky door to their room.

Holly spun in surprise. 'You knew that?'

'It was the only explanation that made sense. Someone on the inside. No one else could have known where I'd be. The same person who told you about Yellow Fruit, Seaspray, the Intelligence Support Activity, and Scotch and Soda. That information could have come only from one of my superiors.'

Still grasping Holly's arm, Buchanan led her into the room, turned on the light, closed the door, locked it, and guided her to the bed. He set her down firmly. 'Who?' he asked.

Holly fidgeted.

'Who?'

'What will you do? Beat it out of me?'

'No.' Buchanan studied her. 'Cut my losses.' He put his toilet kit into his travel bag, glanced around the room to make sure that he hadn't forgotten anything, and walked toward the door. 'There are buses that'll take you back to Miami.'

'Wait.'

Buchanan kept walking.

'Wait. I don't know his real name. I only know him as Alan.'

Buchanan paused. 'Medium height. Chubby face. Short, brown hair. Early forties.'

'Yes. That's him.'

'I know him. He was my controller a while ago. He's with the.'

The hesitation seemed to be a test for Holly. She decided to fill in the gap. 'The Agency.'

Buchanan seemed reassured by her candor. He walked toward the bed. 'Keep talking.'

'He was very straightforward about what he wanted. He doesn't approve of the military's involvement in civilian intelligence operations. American servicemen, armed, in civilian clothes, using false ID, conducting Agency operations in foreign countries. It's bad enough to have a civilian caught as a spy. But a member of Army Special Forces? On active duty? Pretending to be a civilian? On a strike team intended to topple unfriendly foreign governments or engage in an unsanctioned private war against major drug dealers? If the public realized how out of control the relationship between the CIA and the military had become, Congress would be forced into a major investigation of American intelligence tactics. The Agency is under enough pressure, as it is. One more controversy, and it might be replaced by an intelligence bureau with stricter limits. That's what Alan's afraid of. So he came to me and gave me certain information, insisting that he never be named, that he be cited only as a reliable government source. To make my story look less like a setup, he didn't tell me everything. He gave me just enough hints that my work in checking them out and linking them would provide me with evidence to maintain the fiction that I'd come up with the story on my own. Why are you looking at me like that?'

'It doesn't make sense. If Alan was afraid that exposing the Agency's use of unauthorized military action would threaten the Agency, why the hell would he give you the story? It's exactly what he doesn't want.'

'No.' Holly shook her head. 'He was very specific about that, and I agreed. You and only you were to be the object lesson.'

'Oh, Christ,' Buchanan said.

'The idea was that I'd expose you as a single example of the dangerous use of the military in civilian intelligence operations. The government wouldn't have any more information than what was in my story. I'd testify that I didn't know anything further. The congressional investigation would eventually end. But the message would be clear. If the CIA was using military strike teams, it had better stop, or else the Agency and certain Special Operations units would be severely limited, if not disbanded. Careers would be destroyed.'

'Sure.' Buchanan's voice was strained. 'And in the meantime, you'd be a journalist celebrity. And Alan would have the shop back in his control.'

'That was the idea,' Holly said.

'Politics.' Buchanan made the word sound like a curse.

'But it's not the idea any longer.'

'What are you talking about?'

'That's why I phoned Alan,' Holly said. 'To cancel my agreement with him. I told him I wanted out. I told him I wanted to talk to your superiors, to assure them that what we're doing isn't related to them, that you aren't a risk to them and neither am I.'

'You honestly expected he'd go along? No hard feelings? Nice try? We can't win 'em all? That sort of thing? Jesus.'

'Alan told me he was sorry things got out of hand.'

'I bet.'

'We're still being hunted. He suggested I distance myself from you while he figures out a way to bring me in.'

'Damned good advice.' Buchanan squinted. 'Distance yourself.'