‘I’m looking for a man named Ocela.’

Eyes avert. ‘No man by that name here, señorita.’

She looks up as an Army jeep enters the Mayaland parking lot, its tires skidding across gravel as it comes to a stop, blocking Dominique’s rental car.

Captain Magierski scans the tables using a finger-size telescopic lens.

Dominique ducks behind a shelf stacked with wool Mexican blankets, her heart racing as she peeks out at the soldier. Something’s wrong, he’s definitely after me. Where the hell are those Homeland Security guys when you need them?

Magierski jumps down from the jeep, striding toward the marketplace.

‘Psst! Over here!’

Dominique turns. A curly-haired Mayan man motions at her from behind a fruit stand.

‘Come quickly!’

‘I know you, don’t I?’

‘Elias Forma, I’m a friend of Mick’s. You were at my home. Quickly—’

Magierski pushes through a throng of children, moving from table to table. ‘The American woman, where is she?’

Elias Forma shrugs. ‘No habla inglés.’

‘Maybe you habla this.’ Magierski raises his M-16, pushing the barrel of the gun into the Mayan’s face. ‘Now where’s the goddam girl?’

Elias says nothing, his dark eyes returning the soldier’s glare as the other Mayans crowd around them, whispering.

Magierski grabs Elias by his shirt collar and drags the vendor out from behind the fruit stand, tossing him to the ground. Cocking his weapon, he fires a circle of bullets around the terrified local. ‘Listen up, Dominique Vazquez, you either come out now or I’ll blow his fucking head off!’

‘Hold it!’ Dominique climbs down from the slanted roof of the fruit stand. She approaches the soldier, her hands out at her sides, her blouse unbuttoned to her navel. ‘All you had to do was ask.’

Magierski’s heart pounds faster as he stares at her tantalizing cleavage.

Dominique winks. ‘I’m into handcuffs. Do you have any?’

‘Definitely.’ He removes the shackles from his belt, snapping them around her offered wrists. ‘Looks like you and me are gonna spend a few hours alone together.’

‘Sounds like fun. Think maybe we can get a room at the hotel? I’m hot, and I want to get out of these sweaty clothes. If you’re good, I’ll let you handcuff me to the bed.’

Magierski smiles. ‘Tell you what, how about if I—’

Whomp! Dominique’s right foot snaps off the ground like a cobra, the tip of her shoe driving high into the man’s groin. As the soldier drops to his knees, the ball of her left foot smashes into Magierski’s face, snapping his head back.

The soldier collapses in a heap.

Elias searches Magierski’s belt for the handcuff keys. He tosses them at Dominique as three Mayan vendors drag the unconscious soldier’s body into the high grass.

A dozen more push the jeep off the side of the road and into a ditch.

Salt Lake City, Utah