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the driver would hear her or notice her talking to her own reflection, seeing as he was engaged in a shouting match with a trio of youngsters on motor scooters who seemed to think they had some right to use the road, as well. Just to be authentic, however, she stabbed at her nose with the powdered sponge.
    Pressing the stone once again to shift the communications device in the compact’s lid into the receiver mode, Maggie waited impatiently for Doc to respond. His own device, an elegant gold cigarette case, would hum with an ultralow-frequency resonance only he could hear until he acknowledged her transmission. While she waited, she searched her mind, trying to remember just where he would be at this moment. He’d given her a detailed schedule to memorize, then destroy. She hoped he hadn’t yet left for the international symposium that was providing his cover.
    â€œDoc here,” he replied calmly a few moments later. “Go ahead, Chameleon.”
    Maggie threw a quick glance at the cab’s rearview mirror. The driver was still too engrossed in his vociferous argument with the teens on the scooters to notice her prolonged preoccupation with powdering her nose.
    â€œDoc, get hold of control, quick. Have Cyrene run a check through the IIN on a silver Rolls, 1991 or ’92 make, French tags, the first two digits of which are 74. ”
    â€œWill do.”
    That was Doc, Maggie thought with a surge of sheer relief. No questions, no panic. By the time she got back to the Carlton, he’d have all the information immediately available on the owner of the Rolls through the IIN, the International Intelligence Network. And probably have it synthesized into a list of possible connections with all known fiber optics firms in Europe and North America. What was more, Claire would have started a psychological profile on the possible target.
    â€œI’ll be back at home base in five minutes. Make that three,” Maggie gasped as the driver swung recklessly across two lanes of traffic, cutting ahead of the motorbikes and a rather large truck in the process. “Meet me in my suite.”
    â€œRoger.”
    â€œOh, and ask Cyrene to check out an American by the name of Lawrence. Paige Lawrence. I think our friends have just picked her up by mistake.”
    Maggie grabbed at the handgrip as the cab swerved around a corner. Righting herself with some effort, she pressed the stone again.
    â€œDoc?”
    There was no response. She pressed the transmit button again.
    â€œDoc, did you copy that last transmission?”
    â€œI copied it.”
    Frowning, Maggie stared down at the compact. She’d never heard quite that element of savage intensity in Doc’s voice before. It was clearly audible, even after being bounced off a communications satellite orbiting some two hundred miles overhead.
    â€œWhere are you?” he growled. “Right now.”
    Maggie glanced through the windshield. Just ahead, the distinctive twin cupolas of the Carlton rose above a wavy line of palm fronds. Supposedly modeled after the breasts of a gay French mistress of the Prince of Wales—before he became KingEdward VII—the conical domes crowned either end of the hotel’s fanciful facade.
    â€œI’m about a half mile from the hotel,” Maggie responded.
    â€œGet the hell up here. Fast! Out.”
    She blinked at the abrupt termination, then shrugged and tucked the compact in her bag again. She wasn’t any more pleased than Doc at this complication in their mission before it even got started. She only hoped she could extract Paige from this damnable mix-up before the players in this deadly game of industrial espionage discovered they had the wrong woman.
    Clenching both hands around her purse, she scooted to the edge of her seat and waited for the driver to sweep to a halt in front of her hotel.
    A preposterous, thoroughly marvelous wedding-cake structure, the Carlton had been built just