I've got to get out of here before he has time to come back with help, Buchanan thought. He freed the lock, opened the door, checked the dim corridor, and was just about to leave when he noticed what seemed like rags on one of the shelves. The rags were actually a rumpled, soiled, cotton work-jacket and a battered, stained baseball cap from which the patch had been torn. He grabbed them. After using the jacket to wipe his fingerprints from everything he'd touched, he hurried along the corridor and up the staircase, seeing the wet trail he'd made.

The trail didn't matter now. All that did was getting away from the hotel before the worker came back with help. They'll probably call the police about a prowler. The police will be so frantic to arrest a suspect for the three killings that they might decide this incident is related. They'll focus their search in this area.

Buchanan swung toward where the shadowy beach would eventually take him near downtown Cancun. Heading north, he ran midway between the white-capped waves and the gleaming hotels. A fragrant sea breeze cooled the sweat on his brow and cleared the utility room's foul smell from his nostrils. The breeze had sufficient strength that it might even dry his wet clothes.

But abruptly he stumbled, losing his balance enough that he almost fell. It wouldn't have worried him so much if he had tripped over an unseen object. However, he had stumbled for the worst reason he could imagine. Because he was weaker. His wound pulsed, soaking the towel with blood. His skull throbbed from the sharpest headache of his life.

Wedged between his right arm and his side, he had the rumpled, cotton work-jacket and the stained, baseball cap. Gingerly, he set the cap on his head. The cap was battered enough that it might attract attention, but without it, the blood that it hid would certainly attract a lot more attention. Breathing with effort, he draped the soiled work-jacket over his right shoulder, hiding the blood-stained towel strapped over his wound. Now he could take the chance of showing himself in public. But as he pushed a button on his watch and looked at the digital time display, he discovered to his shock that almost an hour had passed since he'd phoned his case officer. That's impossible! I left the utility room just a little while ago.

You think.

Pal, you must be having blackouts.

Buchanan's thoughts became more urgent. He would have to veer between hotels and get a taxi on the throughway. Otherwise he'd never be able to reach the rendezvous site in time to meet his case officer. Unsteady, he left the beach.

He'd been right about one thing at least - the breeze from the sea had dried his clothes sufficiently that they didn't stick to him.

But the breeze no longer had any effect on the sweat that dripped from his brow.

4.

'Jesus,' Buchanan's case officer said,'that wound needs stitches. Take off your cap. Let me look at. Yeah, oh, man, that gash on your skull needs stitches, too.'

They were stopped at an abandoned gas station on Highway 180, thirty kilometers west of Cancun. After taking a taxi into the downtown part of the city, Buchanan had waited no more than half a minute at the rendezvous site before his case officer stopped a rented Ford Taurus in front of the busy cantina and Buchanan got in.

The case officer was in his fifties, slightly balding, slightly overweight. His clothes. sandals, a lemon-colored polo shirt, and lime-colored shorts... matched his cover as a tourist. He and Buchanan hadn't worked together before. Buchanan knew him only as Wade, which Buchanan assumed was neither his real name, nor his usual cover name.

After Buchanan explained, Wade exhaled. 'Shit. It's completely unsalvageable. Damn it to hell. God. Okay, let's think a minute.' He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. 'Let's make sure we. The police'll be watching the airport in town and probably the one on Cozumel. That leaves us the next closest option.'

'Merida,' Buchanan said.

Wade increased speed as he drove from Cancun. 'That's assuming our best move is to get you out of the country. Maybe you ought to hole up somewhere. Go to ground. Hey, all the police have is a description that fits a lot of Americans. It's not like they have a photograph. Or fingerprints. You said you took care of that.'

Buchanan nodded, feeling nauseous. 'Except for the glasses I drank from in the restaurant. I couldn't do anything about them. The odds are they were taken to the kitchen and washed before the police thought to check them.' Buchanan raised his uninjured left arm and wiped increasing sweat from his brow. 'The real problem is, everybody in the restaurant heard Bailey call me Crawford, and me insist that I was Ed Potter. So the police have a name that Mexican emigration officers can watch for at airports.'

'That doesn't bother me,' Wade said. 'I brought an alternate passport and tourist card for you. Another pseudonym.'

'Good. But the police also have Bailey himself. They'll insist he help one of their artists prepare a sketch, and once copies of that sketch are faxed to every airport and every emigration officer, anybody who resembles the sketch will be stopped when he turns in his tourist card and pays his exit fee. I have to get out of the country before that sketch is distributed. Plus.' Buchanan stared at the fingers of his right hand. They were twitching again, an unwilled motion as if they weren't a part of him. His wounded arm seemed on fire. Blood soaked the towel strapped to his arm. 'I need a doctor.'

Wade glanced in his rearview mirror. 'I don't see any headlights behind us.' He peered ahead along the narrow forest-lined highway. 'This deserted gas station is as good a place as any.' He pulled off the road, got out, took something from the back seat, and came around to Buchanan's side of the car.

But after he opened Buchanan's door, exposed Buchanan's injuries, and aimed a narrow-beamed flashlight at them, he muttered, 'No shit you need a doctor. You need stitches.'

'I can't depend on somebody local not to notify the police about a gunshot wound,' Buchanan said.

'No problem,' Wade replied. 'I have contact with an American doctor in the area. He's worked for us before. We can trust him.'

'But I can't waste time going to him.' Buchanan's voice was raspy, his mouth dry. 'The police will soon have that sketch ready. I have to reach Merida. I have to get on a plane out of Mexico. Hell, Florida's just a couple of hours away by jet. When I said I need a doctor, I meant stateside. The quicker I'm out of here, the quicker I can.'

'You'll bleed to death before then,' Wade said. 'Didn't you hear me? I said you need stitches. At the least. I don't know about the gash in your head, but the wound in your arm - it's hard to tell with so much blood - it looks infected.'

'The way it feels, it probably is.' Buchanan struggled to rouse himself. 'What's that you set on the ground?'

'A first-aid kit.'

'Why didn't you say so?'

'Hey, what you've got wrong with you is more than any first-aid kit's going to help.'

'I keep forgetting. You're a civilian. One of those guys from the Agency.'

Wade straightened, defensive. 'You don't expect me to reply to that, do you? Besides, what difference does it make?'

'Just open the kit,' Buchanan said. 'Let's see what you've got. Good. My people prepared it. Pay attention. Do what I tell you. We've got to get the bleeding stopped. We have to clean the wounds.'

'We? Come on I don't know anything about this. I haven't been trained to-'

'I have.' Buchanan tried to stop his mind from swirling. 'Take that rubber tube and tie it above the wound in my shoulder. For five minutes, a tourniquet won't do much damage. Meanwhile.'

Buchanan tore open a packet and dumped out several gauze sponges.

Wade finished tying the rubber tube around Buchanan's exposed shoulder. The bleeding lessened dramatically.

'That plastic container of rubbing alcohol,' Buchanan said. Tour some of it onto those gauze sponges and start wiping the blood away from the bullet wound.' It seemed to Buchanan that his voice came from far away. Fighting to remain alert, he pried a syringe from a slot in a block of protective styrofoam and squinted at the label, satisfying himself that the contents were an antibiotic. 'Use a clean sponge and wipe some of that alcohol on the upper muscle of my right arm.'

Wade did what he was told, then quickly resumed cleaning the bullet wound.

Buchanan injected the antibiotic into his right arm. As soon as he withdrew the needle, the fingers of his right hand starting jerking again. Clumsily he returned the syringe to the slot in the styrofoam block.

'There,' Wade said. 'I finished cleaning the edges of the wound.'

'Now pour that hydrogen peroxide into it,' Buchanan said.

'Pour?' Wade asked. 'That'll hurt like-'

'Nothing compared to dying from blood poisoning. The wound has to be disinfected. Do it.'

Wade unscrewed the top from the hydrogen peroxide, pursed his lips, and poured what amounted to several tablespoons of the clear liquid into the long slash of the wound.

In the glow from the flashlight propped on the seat, Buchanan saw the liquid enter the slash. He saw his flesh and blood begin to bubble, like boiling acid. The pain suddenly hit him, even worse than the pain he'd already been feeling. It gnawed. It stabbed. It burned.

His vision doubled. He wavered.

'Buchanan?' Wade sounded alarmed.

'Do it again,' Buchanan said.