“She must be very special to you.”
“Years ago, I should have married her.”
“Buchanan, don’t do this to me,” Holly said. “Don’t sell me out.”
“Shut up. Anybody who uses me the way you did
“All right,” Drummond said. “Deal with the woman as you like. How do you contact your unit?”
Buchanan told them a radio frequency. “If you’re using a telephone, the number is. .” He told them that as well.
“That’s a lie,” Holly said.
Good, Buchanan thought. Keep going, Holly. Take my cue. Play the role. Buy us time.
“A lie?” Drummond asked.
“I don’t know about the radio frequency, but the telephone number isn’t the one I saw him use several times when he reported in.
“Ah,” Drummond said. “It seems you haven’t been perfectly honest,” he told Buchanan.
“
“This is bullshit,” Raymond said.
He picked up the ball and hurled it through the ring.
He did so again.
And again.
“You’re stalling,” Raymond said. “The two of you are pretending to fight with each other until you hope we’re so confused that we’ll keep you alive a little longer.”
Raymond threw the ball and scored another point. “That’s nine.” He stared at Buchanan. “I don’t believe either of you. One more point, and you’re dead.”
As Raymond prepared to throw the ball a final time, Buchanan lunged. He felt a tremor. The court seemed to ripple. His legs became wobbly.
Nonetheless, he kept charging. When Raymond threw, the ball struck the side of the rim. Buchanan intercepted it in midair, bounced it off his padded forearms, and knocked it through the ring.
But as he landed, his legs buckled. He was suddenly aware that the roar of the construction equipment had stopped. By contrast, the crackle of flames and the rattle of gunshots became louder. Men screamed.
He wavered.
“One more,” Raymond said.
He picked up the ball. “One more.”
He glared at Buchanan. “And the loser pays the penalty.”
He threw the ball.
Buchanan didn’t even bother to see if it went through the ring. He was too busy struggling to remain upright, preparing to defend himself.
Above him, he heard a commotion. Scuffling. A shout. Someone falling.
“Buchanan!” Holly screamed. “Behind you!”
Risking the distraction, he glanced quickly backward and saw that the guard had fallen from the terrace.
No! he realized. He was wrong. The guard hadn’t fallen. He’d been pushed! By Holly.
The fifteen-foot drop had dazed the man. He lay, holding his leg as if it might be broken. The man had lost his grip on his automatic weapon.
Buchanan scurried off balance toward it and was knocked to the side by the startling heavy impact of the ball against his back.
My head! It almost hit my head! I’ll die if it hits my head!
Buchanan heard more gunshots, more screams, but all he cared about was Raymond stalking toward him.
“You lost,” Raymond said. His blue eyes glinted with anticipation. His boyish smile was stiff and cruel. It made him look devoid of all sanity. “I’m going to kill you with this.” He picked up the weighty ball. “It’s going to take a long time. Finally, I’m going to use the ball to smash your head like an eggshell.”
Dizzy, Buchanan stumbled unwillingly back. He slipped on his blood. His brain felt swollen, his skull in terrible pain. He feinted toward the right, then dove toward the left, grabbing the fallen guard’s automatic weapon.
Raymond stood over him, swaying, the ball raised over his head, preparing to hurl it down with all his strength.
Buchanan aimed the Uzi and pulled the trigger.
But nothing happened.
The weapon had jammed.
Buchanan’s bowels felt as if they were suddenly filled with boiling water.
With a laugh, Raymond compacted his muscles to propel the ball down toward Buchanan’s face.
10
And froze, his body eerily motionless. His blue eyes seemed more empty than ever, glassy. His grotesque smile seemed even more rigid.
At once the ball fell from his hands, dropping behind him, thunking on the court.
But his arms remained upstretched.
Blood trickled from his mouth.
He toppled forward, Buchanan scrambling to get out of the way.
As Raymond’s face struck the court, Buchanan saw a mass of arrows embedded in Raymond’s back.
He stared forward, in the direction from which the arrows must have come, but all he saw was smoke. Hearing a noise to his right, he spun. The guard, having adjusted to the shock of his fall from the terrace, was drawing a pistol. Buchanan pulled back the arming lever on his Uzi, freed the shell that had jammed, chambered a fresh round, and pulled the trigger, hitting the guard with a short, controlled burst that jolted him backward and down, blood flying.
“Holly!” Buchanan yelled. The terrace above him was deserted. “Holly! Where-?”
“Up here!”
He still couldn’t see her.
“On my stomach!”
“Are you all right?”
“Scared!”
“
“Ran!” She raised her head. “When they saw. . My God.” She pointed past Buchanan.
Whirling, crouching, aiming the Uzi, Buchanan squinted toward the smoke at the end of the court. Any moment, he feared that more arrows would be launched.
He saw movement.
He tightened his finger on the trigger.
Shadows, then figures, emerged from the smoke.
Buchanan felt a chill surge through him. Earlier, when Raymond had arrived with his leather armor and his feathered helmet, Buchanan had experienced an uncanny sense that Raymond was stepping not only through smoke but time.
Now Buchanan had that skin-prickling sensation again, but in this case, the figures striding toward him from the smoke were indeed Maya, short and thin, with straight black hair, dark brown skin, round heads, wide faces, and almond-shaped eyes. Like Raymond, they wore leather armor and feathered helmets, and for a dismaying instant, his mind swirling, Buchanan felt as if he’d been sucked back a thousand years.
The Maya carried spears, machetes, and bows and arrows. A dozen men. Their leader kept his stern gaze on Buchanan all the while he approached, and Buchanan slowly lowered the Uzi, holding it with his left hand parallel to his leg, pointing the weapon down toward the ball court.
