Teresa shook her head. “I prefer to have Nancy Drew.”

The Secret Service men exchanged glances and shrugged. Together they went to the Hollins Gymnasium locker room, where Teresa’s belongings were searched. Then they drove back to the hotel, where her room was searched.

An agent found the book of poetry, in Spanish, with its Spanish inscription signed by Roberto. He put it down, looking bored.

“There could be a clue in that,” Nancy said to him quietly when Teresa could not hear.

“If there are any coded messages around, we’ll find them,” the agent said condescendingly. “It doesn’t look as though your South American friend needs you anymore. We want to have her take a look at some photographs at our office, and the lawyer her embassy’s sending over will be all the moral support she needs.”

Nancy bit back the retort she felt like making. She gave Teresa a last compassionate smile and went downstairs to her own suite. Bess and George were there waiting for her.

“Bess has been making time, as usual,” George said dryly after Nancy had told them what had happened and confessed how little she really knew.

Bess blushed. “I just told Dan how wonderful it must be to have a really significant job like the one he has and to know what’s really happening behind the headlines. Don’t laugh!” she said hastily, as the others grinned. “I’m not just leading him on. I really like him! Good looks and brains, for a change! But I thought I ought to use mine and do some detecting, too.”

“What did you find out?” Nancy asked.

Bess pulled off her sundress and carefully laid out a less casual outfit while she answered Nancy. “I got a lesson on South American politics. That president-for-life in San Carlos really is bad news. He’d probably arrest someone for looking at him cross-eyed, and so many people have simply disappeared that the place is on the edge of a real revolution. And our government’s going crazy because there’s no knowing which political group will take over! Meanwhile, back at the palace, the president’s bought himself some terrorists to eliminate the leaders of the opposition. And there are probably other terrorists trying to eliminate him.”

“You can’t tell the players without a score-card,” George murmured.

Bess nodded. “According to Dan, the players are switching sides all the time. He says that every time you blink, people change loyalties there.

“Well, I’m first for the shower,” Bess continued, heading for it. “You two had better get a move on. Dan’s picking us up for dinner in half an hour, and he’s bringing along two more bodyguards.”

“Who’s going to protect us from them-or them from Bess?” George wondered aloud.

Bess was right-Dan was good company. He was intelligent, shrewd, and funny, and so were his friends. They ate dinner in a Greek restaurant, and afterward there was music and dancing. It was a fun evening. Or it would have been, if Nancy could have gotten Teresa off her mind.

But she was still thinking about her when the young men returned the girls to their hotel. “Want us to see you into your rooms?” Dan asked.

“Thanks. I think we’ll be safer if you don’t,” Bess answered with a laugh.

The men walked the girls to their door anyway and waited until they were safely inside. George bolted the door.

“That was a nice evening. I think I’ll check with the front desk to see if there were any phone calls while we were out,” Nancy said, heading for her own bedroom.

She flipped on the light switch as she entered.

Then she screamed.

Chapter Eight

The scream brought Nancy’s friends running. They froze, appalled, their eyes following the direction of Nancy’s pointing finger.

There was a message, but it hadn’t come by phone and hadn’t been left with the front desk. It lay in the center of Nancy’s bed in the tightly locked suite.

It was a doll, an eight-inch redheaded doll with a teenage figure, dressed in an abbreviated blue bikini. The doll’s head lolled sickeningly to one side. A red cord was knotted around the broken neck.

A note was attached, written with a blood-red marker:

go home, señorita.

this could be you!

Nancy recovered quickly and approached the bed as Bess dove for the phone.

Bess frantically punched numbers, then spoke in a rush. “Dan! Get back up here fast!” She dropped the receiver with a clatter that made them all jump.

“So he just happened to give me his beeper number,” Bess said with a forced smile as Nancy eyed her. “It’s a good thing he did.” She reached out toward the broken doll.

“Don’t touch it!” Nancy jerked Bess’s hand away. “There may be fingerprints.”

Footsteps came pounding down the corridor. “They sure didn’t waste time waiting for the elevator,” George commented, opening the door carefully with her hand wrapped in a section of her skirt so she wouldn’t leave prints.

All at once the room was full of very stern plainclothes detectives. Dan borrowed Nancy’s small camera to take pictures as his friend Joe phoned for reinforcements. The girls weren’t allowed to touch anything in the room until a fingerprint expert had arrived. When he came, FBI agents were with him.

“Where are we supposed to go?” Nancy demanded when the fingerprint man refused even to let her sit on the edge of the bathtub.

“If you have any sense, you’ll go back home,” Dan told her flatly. “This is no mess for nice girls like you to be mixed up in.”

“Teresa’s mixed up in this mess,” Nancy replied with conviction. “I’m not leaving until she’s out of it. There has to be some way I can help her! And I’m not going home until Senator Kilpatrick has that hit list in her hands!”

She turned to her friends. “There’s no reason you have to stay here, though. Why don’t you phone home? I’m sure Dan can find someone to take you to the airport.”

“No way!” George said gruffly as Bess nodded loyally.

“All for one and one for all?” Nancy whispered. “Thanks, guys.”

“There’s one thing you are going to do, whether you like it or not,” Dan said, reaching for the phone as the fingerprint expert finished with it. “I’m under orders to protect you, so I’m moving you out of these rooms. I happen to know the government’s paid the hotel to keep the rooms on either side of Teresa’s empty,” he added as he punched the button for the hotel manager.

Nancy was about to protest, but she stopped abruptly. That location would be perfect! Within minutes, the three detectives were helping the girls carry overnight bags up the emergency stairs.

“No one will know you’re in here,” Dan said with satisfaction as soon as he’d checked out the new two-bedroom suite. “I told the manager we’re using these rooms for a stakeout. We’ll move the rest of your things up tomorrow. In the meantime, you can lie low.” He thumped the pillows on the living-room sofa. “And I’ll spend the night right here to make sure nobody bothers you.”

Nancy nodded silently. She had her own plans in mind-plans that would be blown if Dan spent the night on the sofa. He’d see her leaving the suite.

Then her brow cleared as a thought struck her. If this suite was set up like the one they’d just left…

“I’d really like to freshen up,” Nancy said demurely. “Did anyone bring a blow-dryer?”

“I think I brought mine,” said Bess, picking up her bag.

“Let’s get everything sorted out in here,” Nancy said, leading the way to the far bedroom and firmly closing the door.

“What was that all about?” George demanded suspiciously.

Nancy put her finger to her lips. “Turn on the dryer,” she whispered. “I don’t want Dan to hear us.” Then, followed by George and Bess, she tiptoed straight to the phone. She punched the number of Teresa’s room.