It seemed like an eternity had passed when-no more fluttering eyelids, no moans, no twitches-Laura just opened her eyes and looked straight up at me. She was dead white but her eyes were focused. She was back again. She smiled at me. Tom gave her more Dr Pepper.

"You're doing great, Laura," he said. "Just hang in there. Breathe slowly and lightly. Yes, that's it. Don't let yourself go under again. Okay?"

"Okay." It was her voice, frail and paper thin, but she was back.

"I can hear the helicopter," I said. "Don't leave me now, Laura. No more going back into the ether. It would really piss me off. I think Tom would freak out. Just smile at me every couple of minutes while you concentrate on breathing. I need reassurance. Okay?"

"I'm all right," she whispered. "It just hurts really bad, Mac, but I can deal with this. How's this for a smile?"

"It's the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. I'm sorry, but I don't have any more pain pills. Just squeeze my hand when it gets really bad."

When the helicopter landed some twenty yards away from us down the beach, I was nearly a basket case. Two men, each with a gurney slung over his back, and one woman carrying a black bag ran to us. For the first time, I began to really believe that Laura would make it. I wanted to cry with relief.

When the helicopter lifted off, I was holding Laura's hand and waving to Dr. Tom and all the men and women vacationers who'd helped us out. One of the medics was sticking an IV into her arm, saying as he did so, his English beautifully deep and soothing, "It's just sugar and salt water. Nothing to worry about. The doctor said she's been drinking soda. This is even better."

"She's dehydrated," another medic said, a young woman wearing a Mets baseball cap backward on her head. She fit a plastic oxygen mask over Laura's nose and mouth. "Is she allergic to anything?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

The woman said nothing, just nodded. "I'm going to give her an intravenous antibiotic called cefotetan. It's very rare that anyone's allergic to it." She added, slanting a look at me, "She your wife?"

"Not yet," I said. Another of the medics was checking Sherlock. The helicopter rose well above the treetops and we got a panoramic view of the rain forest. Dense, forbidding, so green you felt like you were growing mold just looking at it. Low, thick fog was hanging over parts of it, like a wispy gray veil. It looked mysterious, otherworldly. It didn't look like a place where human beings belonged. Far off to the southeast must have been where we ran into it to escape the helicopters shooting at us. The town of Dos Brazos was over there, I guessed, somewhere, and a few miles southwest was the compound and Molinas, the bastard, and his men who had balls but no discipline.

We'd survived. Odd to think that trams ran tourists through the rain forest, all snug and safe, hands holding cameras and soft drinks.

It was too difficult to be heard over all the noise of the rotors, so we just sat there, looking down at the huge stretch of rain forest that had been both prison and haven.

The woman paramedic lightly touched her hand to my shoulder. I leaned close. "We're going directly to San Jose," she said. "The senorita needs the best facility."

"How much longer?"

She shrugged. "Maybe an hour."

I took Laura's hand. She was still mumbling, still out of it. It was a very long hour.

I'd always wanted to visit Costa Rica, but not like this. Another five minutes and the helicopter set down in the parking lot of the Hospital San Juan de Dios.

There were medics with a gurney waiting. The last I saw of Laura was her long hair hanging off the side of the gurney-tangled and damp from the cold wet towels they'd kept on her forehead-beautiful hair, I thought. Hell, I was in love. She could have been bald and I'd have admired the shine.

The woman medic turned, smiled, and said, "Go to the third floor as soon as they've checked you all out. She'll be in surgery there."

Sherlock took my arm and led me toward the emergency room. "We made it," she whispered. "Don't worry, Mac. Laura will be fine."

An hour later we'd been examined, cleaned up somewhat, but Savich and I still looked like wild men, with stubble on our faces, torn fatigues, and swollen insect bites covering our necks and the backs of our hands. As for Sherlock, she looked like Little Orphan Annie before she hit the big time, her red hair a wild nimbus around her head, her face pale, her clothes stiff with dried mud. I leaned down and kissed her cheek. She tasted like insect repellent.