Chapter 7

IN FRONT OF THE ANCIENT HOTEL, Bolo’s taxi nosed in and stopped. The puttering sound of the engine echoed off the close walls of the alley. Behind the wheel, he yawned elaborately and stretched, blinking his eyes. He had shaved less than an hour ago, and his square chin felt smooth and clean.

Ah, nothing like a fresh morning in the slums of Santa Isabel, he thought. He settled back behind the wheel, just waiting, biding his time. When plans were afoot, Bolo could have all the patience in the world. He figured Smith would be just about ready for the next stage of the process by now.

The tall door of the Hotel Grande de Lujo swung open, dangling on its broken hinges, and Smith exited, looking wide awake. He wore a new khaki safari suit that fit him well, and he carried the tan suitcase that Bolo had provided, as the two colonels had ordered.

Bolo marveled at the redhead’s appearance. Exactly like the renegade Pedrito Miraflores. Exactly as planned.

As Smith stopped on the porch, dazzled by the morning sunlight, the hotel’s heavy door snapped free of its remaining hinge and crashed backward into the foyer. From above, chunks of stucco pattered down like shrapnel. Small lizards scrambled for cover into the nearby alley, and the wild chickens fell upon them with hungry glee.

Ducking from the falling tiles, Smith ran down the steps to the sidewalk, but he didn’t seem to know where to go. He looked around and finally spotted the waiting taxicab. Bolo raised a hand in salute.

With a visible sigh of relief, Smith called, “Taxi! Taxi!” He ran down the street as if he wanted to get as far away from the hotel as he could.

Bolo leaned across the seat and opened the door without getting out. Smith tossed the mysterious tan suitcase inside, then dove into the cab, plopping down beside the driver in the front. “Whew! Something terrible has happened. Take me to the American Embassy. I’ll pay you when we get there.” Smith brushed a hand across his forehead, wiping his hair back into place. “What sort of currency does this country use, anyway?”

“Your credit is good in Santa Isabel, sir,” Bolo said mildly. Smith didn’t seem to recognize him at all. “You are an American, and that is good enough for me.” Wrestling the vehicle into gear, he drove away with a lurch that threw Smith back against the seat. Bolo turned a corner, then accelerated, his gaze fixed ahead through the windshield. He smiled happily, content with the situation.

In less than a mile, Bolo had taken them into a lovely quarter along a boulevard lined with splashing marble fountains and lush parks filled with hibiscus flowers and flamingos. Rose vendors sold gorgeous bouquets; women sold fried bananas from big black pans.

“You look very fine in those new clothes,” Bolo said. “By the way, didn’t you have a black suitcase when you arrived yesterday?”

“Don’t remind me,” Smith groaned, rubbing his still-sore head. “Do you have a high crime rate here in Colodor?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Bolo said. “Every country has a few bad apples.” As he spoke, the taxi passed a knot of sign-carrying protesters insisting on equality for mapmakers everywhere.

“You ought to do something about it,” Smith said, closing his eyes. “You might get more tourists. Your economy could probably use it.”

“Oh, we try, we try. We keep deporting the criminals, but then they just sneak back over the border.” Bolo turned away from the wide thoroughfares, down another two alleys, until he came to a sleepy street. He checked the addresses, locating the exact spot where he intended to abandon Smith.

In a place not at all close to anything important whatsoever, he coasted to a stop against the curb. He shifted into park.

“Why are we stopped?” Smith said, sitting up. He looked behind them, then out the side window. He saw only whitewashed apartments and houses with wrought-iron bars on the windows. Laundry hung on lines across the rooftops.

“We are very close to the American Embassy, if you would like to walk the rest of the way.” He grinned sincerely, flashing white teeth. “They have traffic restrictions in front of the main building. No taxis allowed.”

Smith rolled down the grimy passenger-side window and poked his head out. He looked up and down the quiet street. “I don’t see any embassy.”

Bolo pointed calmly toward a side alley. “Turn left. It’s up there about three blocks. You’ll see it. It’s got a chicken over the door.”

“A chicken? For an American embassy? Don’t you mean an eagle?”

“My mistake, sir. Here in Colodor, the chickens are fearsome birds, and one does not trifle with them.”

“Just like the United States,” Smith said proudly. He climbed out of the cab, retrieved the tan suitcase from the back and stood looking lost.

Bolo leaned across the seat to smile reassuringly out the passenger window. “I’ll wait right here for you, sir.”

“How can I be certain of that?” Smith asked.

“For one thing, sir, you haven’t paid me yet,” Bolo said, deadpan. “Why would I leave now, when such a generous tip hinges upon me waiting here for you?”

Smith saw the logic and nodded. “I’ll have to see if I can get my ID and credit cards replaced at the embassy. My wallet was stolen yesterday.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

Smith walked up the street, whistling a tune that Bolo recognized as “Anchors Aweigh,” in search of the promised embassy. . . .

As soon as the lieutenant turned the corner out of sight, Bolo leaped from the cab like a shot, and raced in the opposite direction down the sidewalk, his feet slapping on the concrete. It was time to put Smith through a few more ordeals so that Bolo could test the man’s mettle. The two colonels were just trying to kill Smith, but Bolo had so much more in mind. . . .

He dodged fire hydrants, an old man on a bicycle, and a knot of giggling children tying strings around the pincers of a deadly black scorpion they had caught.

Once he reached the corner to the main street, Bolo knocked aside one of the protesters, tossing her hand-lettered sign — NO MORE UNOFFICIAL MAPS! — into a gutter. The stringy-haired woman hurled imaginative multilingual insults at him, but Bolo had eyes only for a brightly painted phone kiosk under a cast-iron street light.

Bolo dug his fingers into his pocket, snatched out a few oddly shaped coins and jammed them into the slot. He picked up the receiver and dialed a number he had memorized.

A woman answered at once. “United States Embassy,” she said in a drawling Alabama accent, as if reading from a cue card. “This line is for official business only. Would you care to be added to our mailing list?”

“Never mind that — give me your CIA man. Quick!” Bolo said. “This is a national emergency.”

* * *

In the embassy’s CIA office (which was located next to the kitchenette and the soda-pop machines), gleaming automatic rifles filled cherrywood racks that covered two entire walls. A sprawling chart marked potential covert assault plans, satellite photos showed close-up views of suspicious military bases and shopping malls throughout South America. A map of the world hung behind a large desk, studded with tiny flag pins. The location of Colodor and Santa Isabel had been crudely drawn in by hand.

A radio man hunched over his equipment in the far corner, nearest to the candy machine. His large padded headphones hid the fact that he was actually listening to a portable cassette player; the rock music blared loudly enough that the drumbeat trickled through the headphones.

The large desk dominating the room bore a meticulously painted CIA crest. A hulking brute of a man sat behind an engraved name plaque that said HI! MY NAME IS O’HALLORAN! A yellow smiley-face sticker grinned idiotically beside the nameplate.

O’Halloran read from a book, How to Come in from the Cold, and Still Feel Good about Yourself. His face was wide and rough, his eyes close set, his mouse-brown hair parted nearly down to his earlobe so that he could comb long strands up over his gleaming bald spot.

The phone rang loudly, drowning out the muffled beat of the radio man’s rock music. Growling at the interruption, O’Halloran folded the corner of a page to mark his place in the book. He reached over to grab the ringing phone as if it were a bug to be squashed. “Passport Control Officer O’Halloran — it’s my pleasure to serve you. What the hell do you want?”

He listened to Bolo’s reply, and his expression changed as if he had been struck with a thunderbolt. “Pedrito Miraflores? You must be joking! For six months now we’ve had orders to bring him in dead or alive!”

O’Halloran slammed down the phone and raced to the door. “This is our lucky day,” he called to the radio man, who simply drummed his fingers on the communications set to the beat of the music. . . .

In the U.S. Embassy foyer a tough Marine sergeant sat at the front reception desk, where a paperweight that promised “Service with a Smile” held down a stack of Wanted sheets and Shoot on Sight orders.

O’Halloran rushed up to him, and the sergeant snapped to attention. O’Halloran whispered frantically into the Marine’s ear, pointed toward the street, pointed at himself and gestured to a small observation closet near the reception area. He raced to the closet and dove inside, cramming himself in among the brooms, mops and cleaning chemicals. He slammed the door.

The Marine sergeant looked grimly out at the street, putting his hand on the pistol butt, out of view from the door. O’Halloran tensely stared out through a small peephole in the spy closet.

The vile revolutionary leader Pedrito Miraflores was headed this way.