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elections to conclude, and he’d jumped at the chance to do something other than wait. Anyway, it had been his idea to come after her in the first place. All he had to do was make a few calls and someone else would be commissioned to take her on a wild-goose chase and he could have been free.
    He was a man who did his damnedest to avoid doing things he didn’t want to do, and yet he had no intention of leaving Magnolia Brown to anyone else’s tender mercies. Besides, he’d promised The Professor he’d take care of it. It was the least he could do.
    “Are we ever going to stop?” Her plaintive voice took him by surprise. So she hadn’t been asleep after all.
    He glanced over at her. “Why?”
    “I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count,” she shot back. “Besides, I’m starving.”
    He pulled off to the side of the road, no mean feat considering how narrow and rutted it was. “There you go, kid. And you thought I wasn’t amenable.”
    “You don’t want to know what I think of you,” she muttered, glancing toward the copse of trees. He waited for her to ask about a town, a bathroom, but she simply climbed out of the Jeep and headed toward the trees.
    He waited until she disappeared into the small grove, waited just long enough, and then called out, “Watch out for snakes.”
    He expected to see her back at the Jeep in a matter of moments, white-faced, breathless, her clothes hastily pulled together. To his surprise she emerged from the woods several minutes later, calmly strolling back to the Jeep as if she had all the time in the world.
    “Nice try,” she said when she reached him. “I had a pet snake when I was a child. They don’t scare me.”
    “There are some sandwiches in the back if you’re hungry,” he said, climbing out of the Jeep. “Some bottled water as well.”
    “Where are you going?”
    He grinned at her. “I’m not afraid of snakes, either.”
    * * *
    T HEY REACHED THE OUTSKIRTS of the capital city by nightfall, a neat trick considering it was only forty-three miles away from Las Cruces. The roads alone would have killed half the day, and his circuitous route took care of the rest of the time. He drove through the countryside around the city, planning to come in from the north for no other reason than to disorient her. Besides, the inn he had in mind was so disreputable he was pretty sure she’d refuse to go there if she thought there was any alternative. He didn’t intend to give her any.
    She was silent as they drove past the outskirts of the city, past the slums and the graffiti-bedecked buildings that were Generalissimo Cabral’s idea of affordable housing. She didn’t realize he was watching her, as her face grew still and her eyes grew wider.
    He pulled up outside Elena’s place. “I’ll get you settled first before I go out looking for information. Whether you like it or not I think we’d better share a room. This isn’t the safest part of town.”
    She glanced at the tumbled-down hotel. “Then why are we here?”
    “I told you, informers don’t hang out in the tourist sections. Besides, you’ve never experienced a country until you’ve seen where the real people live.”
    “I’m sure the ones who live in the mansions near the airport are just as real as these people are.”
    “They’re part of the military government. More robot than human,” he drawled, climbing out of the car and grabbing his suitcase. Deliberately making no effort to take hers. He wanted to see if she’d ask him to, or if she’d try to make it on her own.
    She slid out the other side, grabbed her suitcase without hesitation and started after him. “I’m sure I’ll be just fine in my own room,” she said calmly. “I have faith in the inherent goodness of people.”
    “Then you came to the wrong country. Poverty puts quite a dent in people’s sense of hospitality.”
    “Nevertheless…”
    “Nevertheless you’ll do as I say. That’s what you promised,