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“Not in a hundred years, my dear”

“Back to your original question, the reason I hesitated was my surprise This is the first tiiven us the iouts Rereat our little putt-putt inflatable was? I was sniffing around one day and found a shed holding an airboat”

She leaned up on one elbow “An airboat! Why didn’t he say so?”

“I think it’s obvious He didn’t want anybody to know I think our friend Ramirez is more complicated than he appears”

“I have the sa us scientific geeks off on a potentially dangerous n river dolphins I think he wants NUMA brought into this thing”

“Looks like we’ve played right into his hands, but I’m not sure why he’d be so Machiavellian”

“I’ve got an idea,” Ga about the scientists fro as bio police He is a scientist from a university He sort of side-slipped the implication”

“I noticed” Paul stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes “So you think he’s actually a bio cop disguised as a botanist?”

“It would ht “I ate was in those bags we found with the Chulo I’h-tech toys, aren’t you?”

There was no sound fro Paul was exercising his fa off to sleep on command Gamay shook her head, pulled the sheets over her shoulders, and did the same They would be up with the sun, and she expected the next day to be a long one

6

THE MEXICAN CUSTOMS AGENT leaned from hisand checked out the twobeat-up shorts and T-shirts, Foster Grant sunglasses, and baseball caps with bait shop logos on them

“Purpose of your visit?” the agent asked the husky man behind the wheel The driver jerked his thu rods and tackle boxes in back “Going fishing”

“Wish I could join you,” the agent said with a smile, and waved them on into Tijuana

As they pulled away, Zavala, as sitting in the passenger seat, said, “What’s with the Spies Like Us routine? All we had to do was flash our NUMA IDs”