"That's all it takes," Garcia said. "If it makes you feel any better, the sonofabitch leaked pretty good. He's got to be hurting."

Hurt or not, it was unimaginable that Jesus Bernal would turn up at a hospital; he was probably out in the Glades drinking Tommy Tigertail's home-brewed medicines. Which meant he was probably going to recover.

Brian Keyes figured Jesus Bernal probably could make a career out of getting revenge.

"Al, they've got to call off the parade."

"Not in a billion years," Garcia said.

"But this clinches it—it proves these idiots are serious about taking Kara Lynn. After yesterday they're going to try twice as hard."

"We'll be ready." Garcia slugged down the coffee; he figured he'd need a gallon of caffeine to brave the waiting shitstorm.

"How's the queen holding up?" he asked.

"Mildly terrified. All of a sudden she's not sure who's more dangerous, Las Nochesor me. She wants to call the whole thing off but Daddy's leaning hard. It's been a very lively morning."

Garcia asked, "Did you call your Shriner pals up North?"

"Yeah. They're on board."

"Excellent! Remember, chico,not a word to a soul."

"You got it."

"The dudes in the orange blazers, they'd have a stroke."

"Not to mention your badge," Keyes said.

Jesus Bernal lay shirtless on a blue shag carpet remnant. His eyes were shut and his breath whistled through raw gums. His throat shone purple and swollen. Every once in a while his hands tremored and drew into bony fists. Macho dreaming, Viceroy Wilson thought. Intermittently he checked on Bernal, then went ahead hammering and sawing and drilling as if he were alone in the warehouse, which was no bigger than a garage.

Time was running out. The Indian had sent lumber and palmetto trimmings, but no manpower. Wilson had been working like hell, living on wheat germ milkshakes; he'd dropped five pounds in two days.

The sound of an automobile outside startled him. It wasn't the Seville, either; Wilson knew the hum of the Caddy like he knew his own mother's voice. Stealthily he set down the tools and picked up a sawed-off shotgun. He heard footsteps at the warehouse door. The lock rattled. Wilson brought the gun to his shoulder.

The door opened and Skip Wiley stalked in.

"A little jumpy, aren't we?" he said.

Tommy Tigertail stood behind him.

They stared at Viceroy Wilson until he lowered the sawed-off. Wiley came up and gave him a hug. "You're doing damn fine," he said. "Damn fine."

Viceroy Wilson was not wild about hugs; a handshake would have sufficed. "So you're back from the tropics," he said to Wiley, "looking tan and tough."

"Horseshit. I look like hell." But he didn't. Wiley's face was bronze and his beard was golden-red from the sun. He was wearing a brightly striped soccer jersey with the words "Cap Harden" printed across the front pocket.

"D'you join a fucking spa?" Wilson said.

"Hardly." Wiley stooped over the snoring, sawdust-sprinkled form of Jesus Bernal. "Looks meaner with no teeth, doesn't he?"

"Sorry sack of shit," Wilson said.

"I know, I know. That's Item One on the agenda."

Skip Wiley removed his panama hat and prowled the small warehouse, examining Viceroy Wilson's creation in the bleak light of the bare sixty-watt bulb. Tommy Tigertail stood in a corner, his features unreadable in the shadow. Viceroy Wilson popped a can of Heineken and waited for the fun to begin; he needed a breather, anyway.

Wiley sat down on a sawhorse and folded his arms. "Wake him up," he told the Indian.

Tommy prodded Jesus Bernal with the hard toe of his boot. The Cuban moaned and rolled over, burying his face in the crook of an elbow. Tommy poked him again, decisively. Jesus sat up snuffling and rubbing his eyes. His fractured nose was the shape of a question mark and the rest of his face was a grid: the perfect imprint of a Spalding tennis racket.

"How you feeling?" Skip Wiley asked.

"Thiddy," the Cuban said. "Damn thiddy."

"I'll get you some new teeth," Wiley promised.

"Manks a mot." Jesus sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of marbles.

Wiley clasped his hands evangelically. "Well," he said, "I'm delighted we're all here. The rainbow coalition, together again. And only four days left!"

"Mank God," muttered Jesus Bernal. "Idth aah turding dub thid." It's all turning to shit,is what Jesus was trying to say.

Skip Wiley took a loud breath and stared down at the dusty floor. All at once the cheeriness seemed to drain from his expression; his mouth, always on the verge of smiling, suddenly turned thin and severe; the merry brown eyes shrank and turned dull. The transformation was so palpable and so volcanic that even Jesus Bernal was moved to silence.

"The reason I came back," Wiley said somberly, "is to prevent disaster. To save us from international ridicule."

As he looked up, the pale light snared his chin, the ridge of his long nose, the blond crest of his forehead. The others were struck by Wiley's flickering visage. He reminded Jesus Bernal of a priest in the confessional, and Viceroy Wilson of a Basin Street scat singer. And when Tommy Tigertail looked at Wiley, he was reminded of an animal spirit he had once encountered at the sacred Green Corn dance.

"Our moment is at hand," Wiley told them. "And this is no time to be losing ground or getting careless. We've had a rotten week. First we're booted out of the Bahamas—humiliating, but not calamitous—and then yesterday we nearly blow it for good. Yesterday"—he glanced down at the Cuban—"we had extreme major fuckage."

"Unngh," Bernal remarked defensively.

"The whole idea," Wiley said, his voice building, "of surveilling Kara Lynn Shivers was to determine if she was under police protection. I assumed we all understood that it was vitally important to remain invisible."

The word invisibleseemed to snake through the warehouse and wrap around the Cuban's neck.

"Now, Jesus," Wiley went on, "since your teeth got knocked out and your larynx looks like an avocado, I'm not going to make you tell me precisely what happened. Not now, anyway. Today I want you to rest, and I want you to stay here until I tell you to leave. Because, as we speak, every police officer in Dade County is out looking for you. If you were captured—and I realize that might appeal to your grandiose appetite for martyrdom—but ifyou were captured, there's no telling what they'd do to make you talk."

"Nomucking way," Bernal said.

"Let's not take the chance. You stay put," Wiley said. "Gentlemen, we've had a major setback: we've lost the element of stealth."

"But Keyes already knew the plan," Tommy Tigertail said.

"Of course, of course—but look ... " Wiley was trying to come up with a good Seminole-type metaphor. 'Tommy, it's the difference between knowing there's a panther hiding in the swamp, and seeing that panther with your own eyes. What's more frightening: wondering where it is, or finding it?"

The Indian didn't need it spelled out for him. Neither did Viceroy Wilson. They knew the magnitude of Bernal's transgression.

"Judging by the paper this morning, yesterday's clumsy episode has taken some of the luster from our mission," Wiley said sardonically. "In all my life I've never heard of a professional terrorist being subdued by a putz with a tennis racket."

"Eaaamy," replied Jesus Bernal, probably in Spanish.

"Lucky he didn't kill you," Viceroy Wilson said.

"Lucky's the right word," Wiley added. "Lucky all we lost is a car."

"What?" Wilson cried.

"I'm sorry, old man, but the cops put a BOLO out on the Caddy so I had Tommy get rid of the darn thing."

"No!"

"I dumped it in a rockpit," the Indian said.

With the roar of a wounded grizzly, Viceroy Wilson hurled himself upon Jesus Bernal and began pummeling him ferociously in the ribs and kidneys.