Thomas Hoover - Life blood

"Fine with me." Steve didn't even blink, and I loved him all over again, right on the spot. Though the truth was, I knew he'd never planned on seeing a penny of the money again anyway.

"And you think this place is Ninos del Mundo?" I was trying not to get my hopes up too much, but still…

Dupre lit his new cigarette. "You didn't hear this from me, okay? You heard it from the embassy or some other damned place. But that's one name for it. Another is 'Jungle Disneyland.' Actually, I think the local name is Baalum, the old Maya word for jaguar. But everybody acts like it's a state secret, so all you get are rumors."

"Well, assuming we find it, then how could I get in? I mean actually in." I was squinting at him, feeling my body tense. What was it Lou had said about a word he'd heard when they were taking Sarah? It sounded like "Babylon"? I also thought that was what she'd whispered to me. Could it be the word was actually Baalum? The gloomy morning skies abruptly flooded with the brilliant white light of hope. I glanced back at Steve, and our eyes locked for a long moment.

"Morgy, for chrissake, what are you saying?" Steve took my hand. "Don't you realize this is Guatemala? Don't even think about it."

"We're just talking now, okay?" I squeezed his hand then looked back at Dupre. "I was just wondering. Once we've found it, could I get a sneak look-see? Assuming I wanted to?"

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Miss Morgan James." Dupre was fingering his new cigarette, oblivious to my reaction. "Give no serious thought to just driving up. The Army'd be all over your butt in the time it takes to cock an AK-47." He glanced up at the sky again, though now a dense bank of dark clouds had swallowed what remained of the sun. A pre-rain gloom was enveloping the park, which was starting to empty out, the hawkers and loiterers headed home to wait out the weather. "But if we do find it, then as long as we're there, I might be able to drop you off for a quick glance somehow, say, if we did it around twilight time… that is, if that's what you want. But it's ten minutes tops, and that's my final offer. Frankly, I think you'd be ill-advised in the extreme to do it, but… in any case, it's got to be a low-profile enterprise all the way. We screw this up and we could easily swell the ranks of the 'disappeared.' "

"But you think you could actually locate it?"

"What I hear, the place is on a tributary of the Usumacinta River, a latrine they call the Rio Tigre. Way up in the northwest. Low-level Army types, you meet them in bars from time to time, like to BS about it. I've got a rough idea where it might be, though you don't know whether to believe a bunch of kid recruits after half-a-dozen beers."

Then my mind clicked. The Rio Tigre? Didn't that have something to do with where Lou said Sarah was found? That was definitely where I wanted to go.

"Morgy, have you lost your senses?" Steve had placed his hand on my shoulder. "If the Army's involved in something down here, you don't want to know about it. Don't lose sight of the fact those goons knocked off two hundred thousand villagers since the freedom-loving days of the Gipper, for fear they might be Commies, with the CIA practically flying in the ammo. This whole damned country's just one big mass grave. Yet another unclaimed corpse or two won't make a hell of a lot of difference."

"Steve, I'll bet you anything that's where she is." Saying it, I had a vision of all the things that had happened to me, and to Sarah, because of Alex Goddard. I couldn't wait to confront the bastard. "He's brought her back."

Steve just glared at me for a long moment, despairing.

"Christ, you make me nuts. Okay, look, how about this? At least let me come with you. That way we'll face the unknown together."

Though I had a lump-in-the-throat moment, I didn't say anything, just stood there glorying in the feeling of being together. It was so wonderful to have him with me and so difficult to think about pressing on without him.

There was a long, awkward pause, and then he glanced at his watch. "Blast, I've got to hit the road if I'm going to get back in time to set up for tonight's shoot. I just pray I can beat the rain." Then he pulled me around and circled me fully in his arms. "Please, Morgy, I really don't like the sound of this. I'll move heaven and earth to get back here by Friday night, and if you still want to check out this 'Baalum' place, then we'll figure out a way to do it together."

"Just you stay safe." I hugged him back. "Nothing I do is going to mean much if I don't have you. Don't worry. I'll be okay."

Alan Dupre had abruptly taken an even deeper interest in the darkening sky. I got the feeling he was uncomfortable being around two people capable of caring.

"It's only for a couple of days," Steve went on. "We'll both be okay if we just stick together."

"Right," I said, and kissed him harder than I ever had.

Five minutes later, my heart and my head still at war with each other, I was alone in the virtually empty park with my brand-new best friend. Watching Steve's Jeep blend into the smoggy haze of the avenue made me feel like half of me had just disappeared into another dimension.

"So that's that," I declared finally, turning back and taking a deep breath. I had to find Sarah before something else truly horrible happened to her. And the one thing I was determined to do was keep Steve as safely distant from my search as I could, even though it meant I was going to be terribly lonely for the next few days. "When can we leave?"

"Hey, get real." Dupre choked, whirling around. "We can't go today. Case you hadn't noticed, there's a storm coming. If you really want to go… and I mean really want to, then maybe in a day or so. Preferably when Steve-"

"I don't want to drag him into this," I said evenly. Truthfully, I was sounding braver than I felt. But then I remembered once going down into the four-hundred-year-old subterranean harem quarters of the Red Fort in Agra, seemingly miles underground and pitch black, with nothing but a flashlight, surrounded by screaming bats and knee-deep in guano, for no better reason than I was determined to see how the women there once lived. So how much scarier could this be?

"Well, I say no way," Dupre told me. "Not today. Correction, make that no fucking way." He had removed his aviator shades and was cleaning them with a dirty hanky. "Besides, I don't think you have any business going up there in the first place. If you're not scared shitless, you ought to be."

"Alan, I think you 're the one who's afraid to go."

He almost reached for another cigarette, but then stopped himself. "I will definitely plead guilty to a deep-seated disquiet about the people who rule this placid paradise. But if it'll square things with Steve, then I'll take you up to have a quick look, for my sins. But it's got to be after the weather clears."

I finally realized he was already thinking about his next loan. Steve, beware.

"Tomorrow then?" I wasn't going to blink, because the Peten was where Sarah had ended up the first time and I was sure that was where Ramos had taken her now. Baalum.

Dupre stared at the sky a moment longer, then caved. "Maybe we can shoot for tomorrow late. If I can convince myself this storm has done its worst." He looked back at me. "But I gotta tell you one thing, Ms. Morgan James. We blunder in up there and end up getting ourselves 'disappeared,' we won't even get our pictures in the papers. You'd better tell your immediate loved ones where you're going, and it wouldn't be the worst time in the world to think about making a will."

The way he said it, I was sure for once he meant every word.

When I got back to the Camino Real, the time was early afternoon and the bed was freshly made, with all signs and scents of my and Steve's torrid reunion long gone. I tried to push aside thoughts of how much I was already missing him and focus on what I was getting myself into. I must admit I was having serious qualms about going up to the Peten, the part of Guatemala where Sarah had been left for dead, with my brand-new tour director, the flaky Alan Dupre. I'd never been in a helicopter before, much less one flying over a stormy rain forest. On the other hand, if that was where they'd taken Sarah, the sooner I got there, the better.