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cordon that still peppered the area wouldn’t be too hard—not when you had the back alley knowledge my escort did.
    In the dim, soft light of the back room of the building where Pedro and Maria lived, I had been delivered to this lovely little chaperone with no ceremony, just quick, explicit instructions. The small dark-haired wench had a lithe, cuddly look, but when you touched her, there was no softness there at all.
    She could have passed for one of those sudden-blooming Latin women who are mature at fifteen, at least until the light caught her face just right and illuminated her expression as she passed judgment on me, bringing her years into view.
    She was thirty, easy.
    Her eyes were black and challenging, framed under rounded V’s of brows that seemed like birds in startled flight. There was a natural high rise to her cheekbones and a mouth barren of lipstick, yet lush and blushed with a sensual red, courtesy of God, not Max Factor.
    The clothes she wore were loose-fitting with a gypsy swirl to them, pastel greens and browns, though she was born to wear red. And those loose threads couldn’t hide the pert tiltof full breasts nor the tight, nipped-in waist that flared into miniature Madonna hips.
    They called her Gaita, but I knew that wasn’t her name— kitten, it meant. But this was a sex kitten grown into fullscale cat, with the claws and purring intact—I hoped she had most of her nine lives left, for what lay ahead.
    I was in greasy coveralls that had Farango Car Wash stitched across the back. I wore makeup and a spirit-gummedon gaucho mustache that wouldn’t work on Broadway but should do just fine in dark byways.
    I had said to Pedro, “It’s not the local police I’m worried about. They’ve got no stake in this. By now, they’ll be pulled back to their normal duties.”
    Pedro nodded. “It has been explained, my friend. This one, Gaita, knows where the local militia are posted. And we have spotted the outsiders who hunt you as well.”
    “Good.”
    “If necessary, others will help, too. Remember, we are all too familiar with authority’s perros de caza . They are true hunters. At nothing will they stop.” His brief smile was reassuring. “Nor will we.”
    Under my breath I said, “This girl, she knows the drill? And understands the danger?”
    “Oh yes. You may trust Gaita.”
    But now, barely half an hour later, I was wondering just how far I could trust her, or how far she could trust me....
    Six feet away two feds—their accents said Miami office— held the beams of flashlights on us, crossing like swords and piercing the darkness of our cover. In the side glow ofthe guy at right, I could make out a gun in his other hand.
    And me still unarmed.
    Every muscle in my body went hard except the part of me that should have been hard—Gaita and I had our clothes halfway off and lay entwined in what looked like a wild little sex party behind the packing crates only twenty feet away from the opening of an alley leading out of the area. And if that light hit me where I remained suspiciously limp, the flashlight guys might see I wasn’t laying her, we were playing them ....
    It hadn’t been my idea. Playing slightly inebriated lovers, we had flitted past the others stationed at strategic intervals; but these two held critical posts. I was all for charging them, knocking them over like bowling pins and taking a chance on the chase.
    But Gaita had held me back.
    “No,” she whispered, insistent, “they will have guns.”
    “They won’t get a chance to use them,” I told her.
    “Perhaps not. But if one discharged accidentally, the other militia, they would be alerted. And if they got to their feet while our backs were in view, then—”
    “So I make sure they’re taking a nice nap, after I lay ’em out on the pavement.”
    She shook her head, and dark curls bounced. “No, señor, two men with guns? No. If you fail, the game would be over.”
    My fists unbunched slowly. “Okay,