"Sacatepequez!"

"Nebaj!"

Arriving and departing buses eased through the chaos of the narrow lanes, assistants walking a step ahead of the front bumpers to part the chaos of crowding people and other maneuvering buses. Assistants guided drivers into narrow spaces with slaps on the fender: two slaps to continue, three quick slaps to stop.

A few steps behind Merida and Lyons, Blancanales lifted his coat as if to glance into an interior pocket, and whispered into his concealed hand-radio.

"Political to Ironman and the Wizard. I'm getting traffic sounds from the colonel. Must be on his way with his hit team. Wizard, we're in the terminal. Zero this far. No shadows, no badguys. Zero."

"Nothing here," Gadgets answered. "But I'm cocked and unlocked."

His partners' voices whispered in his earphone as Lyons followed Merida. The officer glanced back to the North Americans from time to time as he led them through the crowds. He read the hand-lettered destination signs-of buses.

A teenaged assistant called out to Lyons in awkward English: "Okay, man. Where you want to go? We go. Cheap. Anywhere you..."

The teenager saw Merida. His voice stopped in mid-sentence. Looking from the Guatemalan officer to the North American, the teenager stepped back between two buses and disappeared.

Lyons saw other bus drivers and assistants spot Merida. Most of the men and teenagers carefully ignored the officer. Others went quiet as the Guatemalan in the expensive suit passed. Lyons, with his years as a uniformed police officer, then as a plain-clothes detective, knew the reactions: the people recognized Merida as a police officer, and they hated him.

But why would they hate Merida? Unlike the pimps and dealers and male prostitutes who had despised Lyons because he represented law and decency, these bus drivers and their teenage assistants worked for a living, they sweated long hours behind the steering wheels of their buses or under the hoods repairing the engines. In the United States, bus and truck drivers joined police officers at the same all-night hamburger stands and doughnuts shops, sharing stories and jokes, often exchanging information. Why would it be different here?