“Qué pasa?” he asked.

“This area is off-limits, señor.”

“I’m Jed Prentiss, a good friend of General Sanchez.”

The guard shifted the machine gun in his grasp, as if he were unsure about aiming the gun at a good friend of El Jefe. Yet he obviously had his orders. “You’d better go back to the party.”

Jed stood his ground.

The sentry, who’d probably never had his authority questioned before, looked uncomfortable.

The stalemate lasted less than a minute until the rest of the armed contingent returned. The soldiers were escorting a man in civilian clothes who had a firm hold on a woman’s arm.

It was Marissa.

Until Jed actually saw her being frog-marched down the hall, he realized he’d been hoping against hope that some other crisis had prompted the summoning of the guards.

Her face was paper white. It went a shade paler when she spotted him with the sentry, and he knew in that instant that she was thinking he was the one who’d turned her in.

“What’s he doing here?” the civilian snapped.

“He says he’s a good friend of El Jefe, sir.”

“Go back where you belong,” the man in charge said in clipped tones.

All at once the perfumed air of the tropical night was suffocating. This wasn’t the good old U.S. of A. where you were presumed innocent until proven guilty. This was the sovereign republic of San Marcos where a two-bit official could slap you in jail and throw away the key on the word of an underworld informant.

Hands resting easily at his sides, Jed summoned up his most guiltless look. “My name’s Jed Prentiss. I helped the general set up his training program at Conquista Fuerte.”

“So you say.”

“You can check it out easily enough.” Jed risked shifting his gaze from the man to Marissa. Her body was rigid, her breath shallow. He suspected that if she unstiffened her knees, she’d topple to the ground. His green eyes locked with her blue ones, and he saw how hard she was struggling not to fall apart. He could feel her terror. It cut through his vital organs like a machete blade. And he knew that until a few moments ago she hadn’t dreamed how much trouble she could get into in the nominally democratic republic of San Marcos.

He wanted to tell her she’d been a damn fool to raid the office of a general who wielded power with the zeal of a medieval king. At the same time he wanted to wrest her from her captor, fold her into his arms and spirit her out of danger like the hero of an action-adventure film. It was an exceedingly fleeting fantasy. Even with the element of surprise, all he’d get for the grand gesture was a bullet in the back.

“If she’s a spy, I’m a Saudi Arabian sheikh,” he said. “I was talking to her a few minutes ago at the party. She’s a scared-stiff travel agent who wandered into the wrong part of the house.”

“Perhaps.” The undercover man didn’t sound as if he gave the explanation much credence.

“Please. I didn’t do anything. Please let me go,” Marissa implored.

Jed’s mind scrambled for any sort of leverage he could use. If he claimed Marissa was a friend of his, he’d probably get himself detained for questioning. But maybe he still had enough influence with Sanchez to save her. “Let me speak to the general.”

“He’s in a meeting.”

“I’ll wait.”

“No. You will stop poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“The general will want—”

“I will arrest you along with this female spy if you’re not out of here in five seconds.”

Marissa’s eyes were bleak. “You’d better leave,” she murmured to Jed.

“Silencio! You will not speak to each other.”

Jed hated to abandon her like this. But he’d run out of options. The only thing he could do was offer her a word of comfort. “Everything will be all right. I’ll tell the American embassy what’s happened.”

She acknowledged the help with the barest of nods, but her expression was starting to glaze over.

The man holding her arm jerked her sharply. She winced as he led her toward a door on the far side of the patio. The last view of her he had was of her rigid back and the blond curls he’d first spotted across the crowded reception.

* * *

AS THE GUARDS TROTTED Marissa away, one of the guests from the party pressed back into the foliage of the bird of paradise tree where he was standing. Eyes narrowed, he’d been watching the scene on the patio with acute interest.

He’d seen Prentiss slip out of the reception room minutes after Devereaux had also disappeared. And he’d made a silent bet with himself that the two events were no coincidence. It was gratifying to confirm that he was right. Also a bit unsettling.

Devereaux had told everybody who would listen that she was a travel agent. Prentiss was supposed to be on a fact-finding mission for the Global Bank. But it appeared the two of them had more compelling reasons to be in San Marcos. Also, it seemed they knew each other, although neither one had admitted as much. Probably they were working together. And it looked as if Devereaux had gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.

His lips thinned. Had she discovered anything incriminating before they’d bagged her? He’d have to find out quickly. And make sure she didn’t get a chance to talk.

For several seconds he enjoyed watching Prentiss stand with his hands clenched at his sides. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing the bastard was sweating. But the man in the bushes didn’t let the pleasure show on his face.

Deep in thought, he left his hiding place and strode toward the mansion. He’d never met Prentiss, although he’d heard of him. He was a once-top agent who was now washed up in the intelligence business. The rumor was he’d lost his nerve. But he’d toughed it out just fine with Sanchez’s man.

Too bad. Prentiss and Devereaux were another problem he’d have to solve before he made any final decisions about Sanchez. But right now he’d better get in touch with his man in Junipero Province to make sure nothing out of the ordinary was happening out there.

* * *

JED STUDIED C ASSANDRA Devereaux, noting the strain etched into her profile. She looked so much like Marissa so much that it was painful.

“Would you tell the others what you told me?” she asked in a strangled voice.

It had been three days since Marissa was taken away by Sanchez’s guards. Jed had arrived at Cassie’s renovated East Baltimore row house at five in the afternoon, given her a summary of her sister’s predicament and collapsed into bed for a few hours of badly needed sleep. While he’d been conked out, she’d made half a dozen phone calls, and he was damn impressed with the group of people she’d so quickly assembled.

He looked around the living room at the circle of faces.

He knew Jason Zacharias, of course. They’d worked together on a number of undercover assignments, including the time he’d come to rescue Jason and his wife Noel from a Scottish megalomaniac and Jason had ended up saving him. The other women of 43 Light Street and their husbands were strangers. But he knew they were Marissa’s friends. He’d always thought of her as so cold. But he could see from the faces around him that they were all deeply concerned about the turn of events in San Marcos. And they’d do anything they could to get her out of this mess.

He was especially struck by the couple sitting close together on the couch. She was Jo O’Malley, who’d been introduced as a private detective. He was Cameron Randolph, an electronics genius. Jo was expecting their first child, and it was obvious how happy they were about the pregnancy. Still, Jo had cancelled a prenatal appointment to attend this meeting.

“Start at the party,” Cassie requested.

Jed did, skipping over his personal reactions to Marissa and sticking with the facts, “I went straight from Sanchez’s to the American embassy, but they couldn’t do anything until nine the next morning. By then it was already too late to complain that an American citizen named Marissa Devereaux was being held incommunicado by General Miguel Sanchez.” He shifted in his chair.