Speaking In Tongues

“Megan, listen to me,” he began in a soft voice, gazing into her blue eyes, which were so unlike Collier’s. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ve been through. But-”

The first bullet tugged at his side, near the knife wound, and he felt a rib snap. He was swinging his gun toward her when another shot struck his shoulder and arm.

Collier dropped to his knees, clear of the line of fire.

Megan stepped closer.

“Peter Matthews whispered, struggling to hold on to his pistol.

She pushed through the grass until she was only a few feet away.

Matthews squeezed the grip of the pistol. Then he looked up into her eyes.

Always the eyes…

Her gun fired again. And for an instant his vision was filled with a thousand suns. And in his ears was a chorus of noise-voices, perhaps.

Peter’s among them, perhaps.

And then there was blackness and silence.

32

The beach at San Cristo del Sol in Belize is one of the finest in Latin America.

Even now, in May, the air is torrid but the steady breezes soothe the hordes of tourists during their endless trips from the air-conditioned bars and seafood joints to the pools to the beach and back again. Windsurfing, paragliding, water-skiing and racing Jet Skis keep the surface of the turquoise water perpetually turbulent, and within the bay itself hundreds of snorkiers and resort-course scuba divers engage in their elegantly awkward amphibious ballets.

The town is also a well-known staging area for those who wish to see Mayan ruins; there are two beautifully preserved cities within five kilometers of the main drag in San Cristo.

The Caribe I

The man did, it turned out, and Tate explained that he had reservations, proffering passports and his American Express card.

“That’s a party of…?” the clerk queried.

“Party of two,”

“Ah,” the desk clerk responded. Tate filled out the registration card with ungainly strokes.

“So, you are from Virginia,” the clerk said. “Near Washington?”

“Si,” Tate responded self-consciously, ready for his pronunciation to throw the conversation off kilter if not insult the clerk personally.

“I have been there several times. I like the Smithsonian especially”

“Si,” Tate tried again, forgetting even the words that conveyed some meaningless pleasantry-words he’d practiced on the flight. For a man who’d made his way in the world by speaking, Tate’s command of foreign languages was abysmal.

He watched the clerk glance down at the reservation form with a momentarily perplexed frown on his dark, handsome face. Tate knew why. The clerk had taken a good look at the attractive woman who’d entered the hotel on Tate’s arm a moment before, and though surely, in this line of work, the clerk had seen just about everything, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why these two would want separate rooms.

A man is, after all, a man… And an age difference of twenty years… well, that’s nothing.

Megan came out of the lobby phone booth and walked to the desk just as the clerk was showing Tate a diagram of the available rooms. Tate pointed to two, first a smaller inside room, then a corner unit with a view of the beach. “I’ll take this one. My daughter’ll have the corner room.”

“No, Dad, you take the nice one.”

“Ah, this is your daughter?” the clerk said, his curiosity satisfied. “Of course, I should have known.”

“I’m sorry?” Tate asked him.

“I mean, the resemblance. The young lady takes after you.” The man’s suspicions crept back when he saw the two guests exchange fast glances and struggle to suppress laughter. Tate thought about pulling out driver’s licenses and proving the relationship but then decided: it’s none of this guy’s business.

Besides, mystery has an appeal that documented fact will always lack.

They settled on the rooms and after Tate’s card was imprinted they followed the bellhop through a veranda.

“Josh said his new physical therapist is great,” Megan told him.

“Glad to hear it.”

“But the way he put it was he said ‘she’s’ great. Think she’s old and fat?”

“We’ll be back in six days. You can find out for yourself. When do you say de nada again?”

“After somebody thanks you. It means, ‘It’s nothing.’”

“They say gracias and then I say de nada.” Tate repeated the words several times as if he were a walking Berlitz tape.

“Then I called Bett,” Megan continued. “She’s glad we got in okay. She said to take lots of pictures.”

“I’ll call her later.”

"She, urn, was going over to Brad’s tonight. But she said it in a fu

“I don’t have a clue.”

Megan shrugged. “She said she talked to Ko

The previous week Tate had made his first appearance in a criminal court in nearly five years-Ko

He had a novel defense pla

He and Megan arrived at their rooms.

“Gracias de nada,” Tate said, and slipped the confused bellhop an outrageously generous tip. A half hour later they’d showered and were in khaki shorts, T-shirts and wicker hats. Every inch los turistas. They walked down to the lobby and asked about how they might bicycle to the nearest Mayan ruin. The clerk arranged for the bike rental and gave them directions. It was just past the afternoon siesta and most of the guests were headed for the white sand beach. But Tate and Megan snagged two battered bicycles from the rack in front of the i

“Which way?” she called.

He pointed and they mounted up.

Despite the opposing foot traffic and the astonishing heat, they cycled fast along the cracked asphalt path straight into the dense, fragrant jungle, standing on the pedals, hollering and laughing, racing each other, as if every moment counted, as if they had many, many hours of missed exploration to make up for.