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He clearly saw Linda blasting away, but Smith’s outline was blurred in his memory

Juan blamed his headache Usually he could recall every detail and nuance, but not now Besides which, cold was leaching up through the concrete and settling into his bones He stood, feeling dizzy enough to need to place a hand on the wall Without his artificial leg, there really wasn’t anything he could do He waited until the dizziness passed, but didn’t trust his balance enough to hop around the cell On a lark, he ht It elve by twelve He did the onal would be a touch under seventeen feet He tested his calculation, knowing that his boot was thirteen inches long His arithmetic was spot-on

“The brain’s still working,” he said to the cockroach, which wasabout in the scattered stalks of hay “Okay, think! What the hell is bothering me?”

There was so of confusion, that there was an ite There were certain things a woht with her, and they were things that men had absolutely no reason to steal Soleil Croissard’s pack had been in the tent, and emptied There hadn’t been any face cream, or lip balm, or feminine products of any kind

Had the body he’d almost recovered been a woman’s? He hadn’t seen her face, but the build and hair color had been Soleil’s It had to be her And whatever female luxuries she’d packed into Myan he’d recovered and handed off to Se its true weight and thus no way to guess at its contents, but that had to be it She and her companion, ah, Paul Bissonette—hey, the memory ain’t so bad after all—rabbed up her le and eventually to the ruined Buddhist temple

Then asn’t he satisfied? Had he seen her face, there would be no doubt, but he hadn’t He couldn’t make a positive identification, and that left a loose end, so he professionally and personally hated Of course, he had bigger things to worry about than the past

Cabrillo hoped against hope that their Burmese captors would leave MacD alone It was obvious froes that Juan was the senior man here, so they should concentrate all of their attention on hi to happen He had an idea of what Lawless was h and resourceful, but did he have the kind of h what Juan had just experienced and not break? Cabrillo hadn’t known that about himself, so he had no idea if the kid could take it

In the end, Juan thought, what did it really matter if MacD broke? What did he know, really? The client’s na the Buron? He knew her name but had no idea of her real capabilities Juan’s identity? Who the hell would care? He’d been out of the CIA long enough that he couldn’t be considered an intelligence asset

No, he thought, MacD could spill his guts out and it wouldn’t really change a thing He now hoped that Lawless was bright enough to see this and spare himself any pain

Soan to dull his own aches and he felt hi toward sleep, he suspected that MacD would keep quiet if only to prove hi the Corporation

Cabrillo had no idea how much time had passed—he’d come to on the waterboard without his watch—when he ith a start He was bathed in sweat and panting

“Son of a bitch,” he shouted aloud

It had co at the cable He had intentionally shot the thing to pieces Rage boiled in Juan’s veins

Smith had set them up No Roland Croissard had set them up That hadn’t been a woman’s body in the river; it had been a slenderdidn’t contain fe they had plundered fro hidden beneath the dais where the Buddha statue had once sat, and Juan had handed it to Smith pretty as you please

This had never been about rescuing any daughter Croissard had sent his own teale and they’d failed to recover some item, so he’d hired the Corporation to finish their mission