Only not this time. Aeneas smiled bitterly. That had been one of his defeats. The miracle of Baja California was wrought by a power independent of the United States… or of Mexico, or anyone else.

It was hot on the runway. The airport, rebuilt when the expansion began, was still too small; and there was a bewildering variety of temporary sheds. MacKenzie felt heat rising from the runway to meet the hot sun from above; in August the trade winds do not blow in La Paz. He saw the high-rising buildings, but he remembered another Baja and another La Paz. It was all long ago, and the boy and girl who had struggled over rutted dirt roads, dove in the clean blue waters among crimson reefs and darting fish, camped under bright tropical stars-they were gone like the cobblestone streets.

"Senor? Senor MacKenzie?"

The man wore expensive clothing, and there was the bulge of a pistol beneath the embroidered shirt which hung loose below his belt. He displayed a badge: not the serpent and eagle of Mexico, but the design of Hansen Enterprises. Not far away were men in uniform and weapons belts, both the khaki of the Mexican police and the light blue of Hansen service. Aeneas smiled ruefully. Getting Mexican permission to have her own police on duty at La Paz airport must have taxed even Laurie Jo's ingenuity; but little she did surprised him now.

"The Dona Laura Hansen regrets that she could not meet your aircraft, and asks that you come with me," his guide said. "She is inside the terminal." He led the way through Customs so quickly that Aeneas wasn't sure they had passed them; and that was strange, because now that los turistas were not Baja's only source of income, Americans were none too popular here.