Throwing the truck into neutral and jerking the parking brake, Captain Merida stepped out. They saw him wave his identification in the old man's face. When the old man talked back, Merida slapped him down, then kicked him. People crowded around as the young man in the expensive suit dragged the old man off the asphalt and threw him against the hand cart. A young laborer stepped forward to defend the old peddler. The captain's identification stopped him. The laborer helped the old man push his cart away.
Meanwhile, Blancanales had leaned forward to Lyons. Motioning Gadgets to listen also, Blancanales whispered: "At the hangar, I put a microtransmitter in Colonel Morales's front coat pocket. He's spent the last half hour on the phone arranging for us to be kidnapped and murdered. It'll happen here."
Captain Merida returned to park the truck. He smiled to the North Americans. "Come, my friends. We will go learn of Unomundo."
4
A thousand odors struck them. The perfumes of flowers and citrus. The stink of caged chickens and tethered pigs. The rot of vegetables and fruits mashed under thousands of sandals. Diesel soot from the buses. All mixed and fermented under a sun that blazed on a land only fifteen degrees north of the Equator.
Watching for the men who would kill them, Lyons and Blancanales followed Captain Merida through the market stalls. The narrow passages were claustrophobic with crowding Indians and Ladinos, with overhanging awnings and piled goods.
Lyons and Blancanales scanned the faces and hands of the people, watching for weapons or sudden movement. The confusion of colors and faces and objects threatened to overwhelm their danger-heightened perception.
Voices called out to them in Spanish. Women talked to one another in guttural Indian languages. Children whistled and pointed at the North Americans, chattering to them in languages Lyons had never heard before. Animals squealed. Cassette players and radios blared a cacophony of music and songs.