The boom operator, a young man with a blank expression on his face; jumped slightly, making the mike bounce up and down, almost hitting Roddy Demhurst in the head.

"Bloody hell!" Syd grumbled, swiveling around in his chair and lowering it down back to ground level. He was shaking his head, Roddy was complaining about the heat and the insects, and he needed a miracle!

"Hey there Syd!" Came his good friend's voice from behind him. Rollie Tyler walked over to Syd, looking refreshed and smiling.

"'Bout time you fancied getting on the set!" Syd replied, running his hands through his hair and taking a puff on his cigar.

"Yeah, thought I might give it a go," Rollie replied, ignoring as usual, Syd's caustic comments, "Ah, well- Angie and I have the whole sequence down here. We will set it up now, if you like?"

"I was waiting for an excuse to stop this horrible scene," Syd said, grinning, looking back at Roddy who was smacking another insect off his bulging biceps. Rollie returned the grin and Syd could see that Angie was already marking off the vapor release cues. She was talking to electrical and they were both squatting near the jungle pathway that Roddy would run down in order to escape the wraith of Indian headhunters.

"You better not set those things too close. If I get burned…" Roddy began, looking down at Angie who acted like she didn't hear him. She continued her conversation with the electrical crewman as Rollie prick up his ears, waiting for any discourse. Syd could see how Rollie's attention had suddenly turned and he slapped him on the back;

"My boy, she can handle herself just fine. Come on over to my trailer here and let's get a little jungle punch to quench our thirst!"

"Syd! You're not drinking here already. It's only eight in the morning!" Rollie asked him, worrying about a repeat performance from Avila.

"Nah! Come on, it's some sort of jungle health juice- made of all sorts of fruits and weirdness…come on- you really haven't seen the new me, have you?" Syd asked him, chuckling and putting his arm around Rollie's shoulder.

"Now I'm worried. A new Syd?" Rollie commented, with one further look over his shoulder. Angie was standing up, not giving Roddy any lip. He smiled tentatively, catching her eye. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, waving him off.

"Oh, hi Roddy, didn't see you there!" Angie said, acting like this was the first she had taken notice of the muscle-bound teen hunk of the future.

He stammered for a moment, not sure what to say as he heard the cheerfulness in her voice and seeing the smile on her face, "just wanted to see where you were placing those vapor canisters," he said, his voice lowering.

She pointed to the tagged lines on either side of the pathway, "You should have no problem getting down to here and turning back to rescue Lucinda about here," Angie said, pacing it off and attaching a mark where Lucinda would stop.

Roddy could see that he was well out of the canisters range and opened his mouth slightly, "Okay, thanks." He walked off, puzzled by her cordial behavior and Angie smiled triumphantly behind him. Little did he know she planned something spectacular for the last day of filming- that last shot of the day 'the martini' would be one for the movie annals!

The rest of the revised shooting schedule for that day went off well. Roddy ran his course and hit his mark on the first take. The vapor canisters went off and added the mysterious creeping element for the shoot and Roddy looked exceedingly handsome and rugged as the hero guide/mercenary that would rescue the lady archeologist who was being chased by malevolent headhunters.

"What's the name of this film, Rol?" Angie asked him as he played with a schematic drawing he was working on that afternoon in their room. Angie was on her laptop, emailing her connections in L.A. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, legs crossed with the computer in her lap, typing at a fervent pace.

"Umm, Syd and Production are toying with "Tomb Raiders" or there is another one being bounced around, "Guanacaste"."

"Gwan-a-cast, who?" she asked, giggling, adding that name to her email and putting her laptop down for a moment, stretching back on the bed.

"Guanacaste", it is the archeological region that the tombs are in and Production likes the sound of it, but Syd says that no one will go see a movie where they don't understand the title. He says "Tomb Raiders" says it all and will pull the teenyboppers in to see Roddy," Rollie replied, yawning suddenly.

"You hungry?" she asked, looking up at the ceiling fan rotating above her.

"Always," he replied, grinning, "Where we going to get some dinner?"

"Well, we could try the Nicoya Room again. We never did get to eat dinner there."

"Okay, let's go…and forget about the dressing up stuff. I go as is…," he told her, standing up, in jeans and a tropical shirt.

Dinner in the Nicoya Room was a bit rowdy that evening as most of the film crew and cast were eating there this evening. There weren't too many other places to eat in this rain forest park area. The Lodge was one place and there was another small restaurant near the bay where the launch brought them in on arrival.

Eating a wonderful caramel drenched flan for dessert, Angie looked up to see Roddy and Lucinda eating dinner together. Lucinda looked animated as usual, dressed nicely as was Roddy. Now that she noticed, Roddy had that same smart aleck Rick appearance and attitude.

"They look good together," commented Rollie, seeing the direction of her gaze. Angie looked at him curiously, taking the last bite of flan and putting her fork down.

"So, what are you saying? That they make a nice couple or they will have good chemistry for the movie?" she asked as he played with his dessert and then pushed it away.

"Both, I guess. I wonder, has Michael told her yet? I doubt it. You said, he promised to tell her. She doesn't appear to be very upset so I take it- no."

"Maybe we should pay him a visit, see how he's doing…" Angie offered, smiling at him.

"Yeah!" Rollie replied, standing up and waving at Lucinda who had suddenly broken her trance with Roddy.

"Look, look- hardly can see it," she yelled across the dining area as other people stared as well, "the lump is almost gone. Syd's gonna shoot me from this angle. We are going to go ahead with the original first day shoot tomorrow. I can't wait! My first big love scene!" She turned her head to her unmarred profile as Angie laughed.

Roddy Demhurst was smiling at her or rather her chest as she bounced up and down and then sat back down. Rollie and Angie both waved back, knowing she would probably be there for hours still.

They walked back along the lower pathway that led to the bungalow where Lucinda and Michael as Ricardo, were staying. Rollie knocked on the door, watching as the curtain from the window moved slightly and then the door opened slowly.

Michael appeared, his face still swollen but the eye was starting to open again. He made a face that Rollie knew too well, a bothered expression that told him that Lucinda had not been told yet as they both expected by her demeanor at dinner.

"Can we come in?" Rollie finally asked, as Michael shrugged and let them inside. He had the room as dark as a cave and he walked over and opened the side window. The room was covered with suitcases, camera equipment, food, and various other boxes. The bed was stirred up as if he had been lying down when they knocked on the door.

"You haven't told her," Angie flatly said, sitting on the couch as Michael sat on the corner of the bed.

"No."

"I thought…" she started to say but he interrupted her.

"So, you got Guillarmo Montgreviejo checking into my status, huh?"

Angie raised her eyebrows as Rollie sat down beside her and pulled up on the edge of the seat; "Yeah, well- you know I don't trust you. We put that call in awhile ago. We haven't even heard back from him. It's uncanny how you spooks can find out who's who and all that. Must be quite a bit of anxiety to know that no one trusts you, not even you own spy community."

"Yeah, what's that they say, "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer…" Michael replied, grinning as he pulled out a cigarette from a package he had with him.

"So, why haven't you told her?" Angie asked him, persistently.

"Because, I didn't want to unnerve her with her first scene coming up in the morning. Believe it or not, I care about her enough to not want to damage her career," he replied, blowing smoke out of his nose and mouth as Angie coughed slightly, waving the smoke away from her face. Michael grinned and took another drag.

"You care about not blowing your cover or your hide getting exposed," Rollie said, point blank, "and I want to know something else, what is it that you will need from us?"

Michael stubbed his cigarette out in his hand as Angie winced, frowning. He grinned, chuckling slightly and stood up, running his hand through his hair.

"Did Mira ever tell you how we met?" he asked, looking out the window, his eyes vacant.

"No, just that you did, got married and boom, you disappeared," Angie replied, watching him carefully.

Michael smiled, putting his hands in his pockets and turned around to face them; "we grew up in the same neighborhood. A bad neighborhood, I might add. She was scamming kids on the corner and I was on the take at an early age for protection collections for some nice Mafia types. I first saw her when she was this high and just as arrogant and bossy as she is now." He put his hand to about his waist level and sat down. Rollie and Angie just listened as Michael seemed to want to bear some of his past with them.

"When we were teenagers, I dated her once. I tried to get in her pants, what can I say? She decked me with a right hook. After that, no way was I taking on Mira. While I was hustling and wheeling around for the Guarnizo family, she was off to the police academy. When I first saw her on the street as a beat cop, I was shocked but then, when she arrested me for a minor squabble, I got this idea. She was driving me crazy, you know. I had never known anyone like her. She had this kind of aggressive …" and he waved his hands in the air as Rollie, who couldn't help himself, nodded in understanding. Angie looked confused.

"Before I knew it, she had talked me into changing my act, going to the police academy and mending my bad-boy ways. It must have been done on pure love and hey, lust- cause I got out, did well on the beat, got my detective shield before her and well, we did finally get together." Michael shook his head, not sharing his thoughts at that moment but was smiling at the memory.

"I got approached one day, you could call it recruited- by some people who shall remain nameless," he continued, as Rollie rested his chin in his hands, "and it was pretty good. I did small stuff at first in New York. I managed to handle it and my job at the same time. Mira didn't suspect anything but I was beginning to drag as the assignments grew longer and I had to leave the area for overnight stuff. She thought I was having an affair. We had some very spectacular fights over it. You have to realize that these people had a file on me that went back to when I first saw Mira…they had stuff on me that would have ruined my job with the department. I was starting to do as I was told or else. Finally, with a new carrot dangled in front of me, I left. Mira and I had been on the outs. I was careless with something that I had done for the Guarnizo family and it was brought up to haunt me by my employer as a safety net."

Angie was looking at the floor and Rollie was beginning to buy Michael's story hook, line and sinker. She shook her head and then taking the opportunity as Michael paused, "so when did you get to be such a bastard and have no feelings whatsoever for anyone?"

Rollie looked back at her, a little shocked, but said nothing. Michael grinned and lit another cigarette, "Oh, it was a progressive thing, Angie. The heart here took a while to grow completely into granite, you know. Still, I get a little feeling of sensation now and then, maybe a heartbeat or two."

"You have got to tell Lucinda. She is my good friend and doesn’t deserve this, Michael," Rollie told him, as Angie smiled, thankful that he wasn't going to let Michael waffle with this.

"I will tell her after the shoot tomorrow. Like I said yesterday, I am still awaiting contact but figure if it doesn't happen tomorrow, it's a bust here anyway," Michael replied, smoking the cigarette down to the filter, "and Rollie, like I said before, I don't need any help from you. Believe me, this is a simple operation that we are uncovering here. Once we get what we need, it's over."

"Fine by me," Rollie replied as Angie rolled her eyes. Rollie stood up, stretching his legs slightly, "we are going back to our room. I guess we are all going to be up early tomorrow." He went toward the door as Angie followed, with no comment. As Rollie went through the door, Michael caught hold of Angie's arm and stopped her suddenly;

"Angie, I love Mira. Always have! If I found a way to leave this employer, I would but there is no corner on this planet where they couldn't find me eventually."

He had his hands on both her shoulders as they faced each other, his face showing a muffled sincerity to her. She was inches from his face, his swollen, beaten face and she looked deeply into his brown eyes.

"Michael, it won't work with me, I just won't let you in, okay?" she told him, shaking her head, I want Luce back with us. Get her out of this espionage stuff! You can't understand what being used is like…"

"Can't I?" he reminded her, a spark in his eye now, as she noted she had struck an unchecked, sudden prickly nerve in him.

"I know first hand about prostitution. I am way beyond that, into the whore category," he said bitterly.

She took his hand from her shoulder, feeling uncomfortable with him so near her, his intensity alarming her.

"Gotta go, see you on the set tomorrow and hopefully, Rollie and I will get some news about Lucinda's take on your admission to her," Angie replied, tersely.

He nodded and shut the door behind her. Rollie grabbed her hand, pulling her down the pathway and started to take the course to the higher bungalows, to their own room. They passed a couple clenched in a tight embrace beside one of the bungalows in the shadows, hearing the sounds of passion interlaced with the sounds of the rain forest around them.

"Come on," Rollie told her, tugging on her hand, "lets finish up the rest of the gag scenes tonight. I have a feeling we are still going to get involved in this Michael assignment, no matter what he says."

The couple peered out from the shadows, the woman whispering and kissing the man again for the last time. They parted and she went down the course to her bungalow. The man walked slowly toward his own bungalow. As he entered, he smiled at the Indian that was sitting in his room, drinking his beer. He grabbed a beer himself, swallowing it in one giant gulp.

"It's in motion?" he asked the Indian.

"Yes…" replied the guide, smiling.

Lucinda walked into the bungalow and looked over at her sleeping husband. Good, she thought, he was asleep. She crept up, over to her makeup kit and unzipped it. She made a sudden, lunging motion as her hand went wildly back and forth in the pouch. Where the hell was it? she thought to herself in angst.

"Looking for this?" Michel said, rolling back over toward her and holding the small, golden, flying figure with a crown of small, mythical animals over its head.

Lucinda looked down at him, smiling, and relieved.

"So, I take it they buy this whole story now?" she asked him, and took a cigarette from him.

"Like candy to a baby!" he replied.

"Michael Sanchez, you are going to be rich!" Lucinda replied, taking his offered cigarette and inhaling deeply, "we both are!"