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“Why?” Maggie broke in.
“Well, now, Van Zandt didn’t confide in me. You know Van Zandt, Maggie. He tells you just what he wants you to know, and then expects you to kiss his ass for it. All’s I know is that he wanted you two out of Tegucigalpa and down here. So I sent word to my man there, he passed the stuff along, and here you are.”
“And where’s Van Zandt?” Mack asked.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Willis said cheerfully. “He’s been the mystery man the last few months. Maybe he’ll show up tonight, maybe he won’t. He’s gonna have to find us soon, ’cause we’re out of here in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Where are you going?” Maggie asked.
“None of your damned business. I know where your sympathies would lie, Ms. Bleeding Heart Liberal,” he sneered. “And they don’t lie the same place as my paycheck.”
“You’re going over the border into Nicaragua,” she guessed.
“Hey, that’s the name of the game, lady,” Willis said. “We train here, and then we go in and zap the shit out of them. Makes no nevermind to me—a greaser is a greaser, I always say.”
“Christ,” Mack muttered under his breath.
“Shit, another bleeding heart,” Willis said. “Well, if you two can swallow your principles, I’ve got my woman cooking a meal for us. I figured you’d get here by dinner, and Consuela’s a damned good cook. Good in bed too.”
“How fortunate for you,” Maggie said acidly.
Willis grinned. “What can I say? I’m a man who likes the finer things in life.” He headed up the street, not even bothering to see if they were following. “Better lock your car,” he called back over his shoulder. “These greasers’ll pick it clean before you can pick your nose.”
“Helluva charming guy, Maggie,” Mack observed. “Where did you two happen to meet?”
“Shut up, Mack,” she muttered under her breath, starting after their host. “I never said I liked the bastard. But you’ve got to admit, we’re closer to Van Zandt than we’ve ever been.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. We only have his word for it that Van Zandt’s going to show up, and I don’t think his word is worth pigshit. You going to tell me how you happen to know a piece of garbage like Willis?”
She considered it for a moment. Willis was way ahead of them, but she knew him well enough to know that he could hear every word. His senses were fine-tuned after years in jungles around the world, ducking from snipers and doing some sniping of his own. But she had nothing to lose by telling him the truth. “I used to work for the CIA,” she admitted.
“You what?”
She really had horrified him this time, she thought with grim amusement. “I said I used to work for the CIA, back when Willis still ostensibly worked for our government. Don’t worry, I didn’t get past the first training mission. I didn’t have the right temperament for it. My killer instincts weren’t finely honed enough for them.”
“Thank God for that.” There was a long pause. “You want to talk about it?”
“What’s to talk about? A change in careers?”
“There’s more to it than that, Maggie May. I keep telling you I know you very well, and you never believe me. You can’t hide anything from me.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said, and realized how defensive she sounded.
“Okay, Maggie. I get the message.”
Willis had disappeared into one of the larger adobe buildings at the head of the small square, and they followed him into the warmth and light of a sparsely furnished house.
Who knew whether or not Willis’s Consuela was good in bed, but there was no question that she was a great cook. All through the spicy meal of beans and sausage, tortillas, chicken and raisins in bitter chocolate, Maggie kept looking toward the door, listening for telltale noise upstairs, waiting, waiting. She could feel Mack’s matching tension as if it were her own, and even the delicious food began to pall as they sat there in the barren little room watching Consuela move like a timid rabbit around the kitchen, her wary eyes always on Willis.
Finally Willis shoved his empty plate away, belched loudly, and announced, “Fucking Mex food. I can’t wait for …” He let the sentence trail off.
“For what, Willis? What nasty little war are you going to next?” Maggie questioned sweetly.
Willis laughed. “Almost caught me that time, Maggie. You’re good, kid. I gotta admit it. It’s a crying shame you didn’t have the balls to make it in the Company. You could have been one of the best.”
“Thanks,” she said. “But I found better things to do.”
“I’ll bet you did. How long you been shacking up with Mr. Laryngitis over there?”
