'You can't be serious.'

'Do it again. I've got to be sure the wound's clean.''

Wade poured. The wound bubbled, its edges turning white, clots of blood welling out. Sweat slicked Buchanan's face.

'And some on the gash on my head,' Buchanan murmured.

This time, Wade surprised Buchanan by complying without objection. Good, Buchanan thought through his pain. You're tougher than I expected, Wade. You're going to need to be when you hear what you have to do next.

The hydrogen peroxide felt as if it ate through Buchanan's skull and into his brain.

He shuddered. 'Fine. Now you see that tube in the first-aid kit? That's a triple-antibiotic ointment. Squeeze some on the gash on my head and a lot more into my bullet wound.'

Wade's movements became more confident.

Buchanan felt the tourniquet digging into his right shoulder. Apart from the agony of the wound, the arm seemed swollen and had no sensation. 'Almost done,' Buchanan told Wade. 'There's only one more thing you have to do.'

'One more? What's that?'

'You were right. I need stitches.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I want you to sew me up.'

'Sew you-? Jesus Christ.'

'Listen to me. Without stitches, once that tourniquet's released, I'll hemorrhage. There's a sterile surgical needle and thread in that foil pouch. Wash your hands with rubbing alcohol, open the pouch, and sew me up.'

'But I've never done anything like-'

'It isn't complicated,' Buchanan said. 'I don't give a damn about neatness, and I'll tell you how to tie the knots. But it has to be done. If I could reach that far around my shoulder, I'd do it myself.'

'The pain,' Wade objected. 'I'll be so clumsy. You need anesthetic.'

'Even if we had some, I couldn't risk using it. I have to stay alert. There's so little time. While we drive to Merida, you have to coach me about the identity you're giving me to get out of the country.'

'Buchanan, you look as if you're ready to pass out as it is.'

'You son of a bitch, don't ever do that to me again.'

'Do what? What are you-?'

'You called me "Buchanan". I forgot about Buchanan. I don't know who Buchanan is. On this assignment, my name's Ed Potter. If I respond to the name "Buchanan," I could get myself killed. From now on. No, I'm wrong. I'm not Ed Potter anymore. I'm. Tell me who I am. What's my new identity? What's my background? What do I do for a living? Am I married? Talk to me, damn it, while you sew me up.'

Cursing, insulting, commanding, Buchanan forced Wade to use the curved surgical needle and stitch the bullet wound shut. With each thrust of the needle, Buchanan gritted his teeth harder until his jaw ached and he feared that his teeth would crack. The only thing that kept him from losing consciousness was his desperate need to acquire his new persona. He was Victor Grant, he learned. From Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He customized cabin cruisers and yachts, specializing in installing audio-visual electronics. He'd been in Cancun to speak with a client. If he had to, he could give the client's name and local address. The client, cooperating with Buchanan's employers, would vouch for Victor Grant.

'Okay,' Wade said. 'It looks like hell, but I think it'll hold.'

'Smear antibiotic cream on a thick gauze pad. Press the bandage onto the stitches. Secure the pad with a wraparound bandage, several layers, and wrap the bandage with tape.' Buchanan sweated from pain, his muscles rigid. 'Good,' he said. 'Now release the tourniquet.'

He felt a surge of blood into his arm. As the numbness lessened, his flesh prickling, the already severe pain became worse. But he didn't care about that. He could handle pain. Pain was temporary. But if the stitches didn't hold and he hemorrhaged, he didn't need to worry about remembering his new identity or about getting to the Merida airport before a police sketch of him was faxed there or about being questioned by an emigration officer at the airport. None of those worries would matter. Because by then he'd have bled to death.

For a long minute, he stared at the bandage. No blood seeped through it. 'Okay, let's move.'

'Just in time,' Wade said. 'I see headlights coming behind us.' He shut the first-aid kit, slammed Buchanan's door, ran around to get in the driver's side, and veered onto the road before the headlights came near.

Buchanan tilted his head back, breathing hoarsely. His mouth was terribly dry. 'Have you got any water?'

'Sorry. I didn't think to bring any.'

'Great.'

'Maybe there'll be a place open where we can buy some.'

'Sure.'

Buchanan stared ahead through the windshield, watching the glare of the car's headlights pierce the night. He kept repeating to himself that his name was Victor Grant. From Fort Lauderdale. A customizer of pleasure boats. Electronics. Divorced. No children. The tropical forest crowded each side of the narrow road. On occasion, he glimpsed machete-scarred trees from which chicle had been drained to make chewing gum. On occasion, too, he saw groups of thatched huts, aware that the inhabitants were Maya, with the broad features, high cheekbones, and folded eyelids of their ancestors who had built the great monuments at Chichen Itza and other ancient cities now turned to ruin in the Yucatan peninsula. Rarely, he saw a dim light through the open door of a hut and a family sleeping in various hammocks, the hammocks helping them to stay cool and to keep them safe from reptiles prowling in the night, for Yucatan meant 'place of snakes.' Mostly what he noticed was that every time the car approached a group of thatched huts, evidently a village, a sign at the side of the road said TOPE - slow down - and then, no matter how slowly Wade drove, the car lurched over a traffic bump in the road and jolted Buchanan enough that his head jerked off the back of the seat, brutally intensifying the pain in his skull and in his shoulder. His right hand again became spastic. Away from the sea, the humidity on the peninsula felt smothering. But the air was so still, so laden with bugs that the car's windows had to be closed. Victor Grant. Fort Lauderdale. Pleasure boats. Electronics. He passed out.

5.

Despite a ground-mist that obscured the illumination from the moon and stars, Balam-Acab had little difficulty moving through the rain forest at night. Part of his skill was due to his having been born in this region. After thirty years, he was thoroughly at home in the jungle. Nonetheless, the jungle was a living thing, ever shifting, and another reason that Balam-Acab knew his way so well through the crowding trees and drooping vines was the feel of stones beneath his thin sandals. After all, he had made this particular journey many times. Habit was in his favor.

In the dark, he let the flat, worn stones guide his footsteps. During the day, the pattern of the stones would not be evident to an inexperienced observer. Trees thrust up among them. Bushes concealed them. But Balam-Acab knew that a thousand years ago, the stones would have formed an uninterrupted path that the ancients had called a sacbe: 'white road.' The name was not strictly accurate inasmuch as the large, flat stones were more gray than white, but even in its dilapidated condition, the walkway was impressive.

How much more so would it have been during the time of the ancients, before the Spanish conquerors, when Balam-Acab's ancestors had ruled this land? There had been a time when Mayan roads had crisscrossed the Yucatan. Trees had been cut, swaths hacked through the jungle. In the cleared section, stones had been placed, forming a level that was two to four feet above the ground. Then rubble had been spread over the stones, to fill the gaps between them, and finally the stones and rubble had been covered with a concrete made from burned, powdered limestone mixed with gravel and water.

Indeed the path that Balam-Acab followed had once been a smooth road that was almost sixteen feet wide and sixty miles long. But since the extermination of so many of his ancestors, there had been no one to attend to the road, to care for and repair it. Centuries of rain had dissolved the concrete and washed away the rubble, exposing the stones, and the area's numerous earthquakes and the sprouting vegetation caused them to shift. Now only someone as aware of the old ways and as attuned to the spirit of the forest as Balam-Acab was could follow the path so skillfully in the misty darkness.

Stepping from stone to stone, veering around unseen trees, sensing and stooping to avoid vines, alert for the slightest unsteadiness underfoot, Balam-Acab maintained perfect balance. He had to, for if he fell, he couldn't use his arms to grab for support. His arms were already occupied, carrying a precious bowl wrapped in a soft, protective blanket. He hugged it to his chest. Given the circumstances, he didn't dare take the risk of packing the bowl in his knapsack along with his other important objects. Too often, the knapsack was squeezed against a branch or a tree. The objects within the knapsack were unbreakable. Not so the bowl.

The humidity in the underbrush added to the sweat that slicked Balam-Acab's face and stuck his cotton shirt and pants to his body. He wasn't tall - only five foot three, typical for the males of his tribe. Although sinewy, he was thin, partly from the exertions of living in the jungle, partly from the meager diet provided by his village's farms. His hair was straight and black, cut short to keep it free from insects and prevent it from being entangled in the jungle. Because of the isolation of this region and because the Spanish conquerors had disdained to have children with the Maya, Balam-Acab's facial features bore the same genetic traits as his ancestors when Mayan culture was at its zenith centuries before. His head was round, his face broad, his cheekbones pronounced. His thick, lower lip had a dramatic downward curve. His eyes were dark, with the shape of an almond. His eyelids had a Mongolian fold.

Balam-Acab knew that he resembled his ancestors because he had seen engravings of them. He knew how his ancestors had lived because his father had told him what his father had told him what his father had told him, as far back as the tribe had been in existence. He knew how to perform the ritual he intended because as the ruler and shaman of the village he had been taught by his predecessor, who revealed to him the sacred mysteries that had been passed on to him just as they'd been passed on to his predecessor and that dated back to 13.0.0.0.0. 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, the beginning of time.

The direction of the stones changed, curving toward the left. With perfect balance, Balam-Acab squeezed between more trees, stooped beneath more vines, and felt the pressure of the stones beneath his thin sandals, following the curve. He had nearly reached his destination. Although his progress had been almost silent, he now had to be even more silent. He had to creep with the soundless grace of a stalking jaguar, for he would soon reach the edge of the jungle, and beyond, in the newly created clearing, there would be guards.

Abruptly Balam-Acab smelled them, their tobacco smoke, their gun oil. Nostrils widening, he paused to study the darkness and judge distance as well as direction. In a moment, he proceeded, forced to leave the ancient, hidden pathway and veer farther left. Since the new conquerors had arrived to chop down the trees and dynamite the rocky surface, to smooth the land and build an airstrip, Balam-Acab had known that the disaster predicted by the ancients was about to occur. Just as the first conquerors had been predicted, these had as well, for time was circular, Balam-Acab knew. It turned and went around, and each period of time had a god in charge of it.

In this case, the thunder of the dynamite reminded him of the thunder of the fanged rain god, Chac. But it also reminded him of the rumble of the area's numerous earthquakes that always signified when the god of the Underworld, who was also the god of Darkness, was angry. And when that god was angry, he caused pain. What Balam-Acab had not yet been able to decide was whether the new conquerors would make the god of the Underworld and of Darkness furious, or whether the new conquerors were the result of that god's already excessive fury, a punishment for Balam-Acab and his people.

All he could be certain of was that placating rituals were demanded, prayers and sacrifices, lest the prediction in the ancient Chronicles of Chilam Balam again come true. One of the signs, the sickness that was killing the palm trees, had already come true.

On that day, dust claims the earth.

On that day, a blight covers the earth.