Assumed Identity

by David Morrell

  Buchanan opened his third beer. He was going to close his eyes soon and pretend that the alcohol had put him to sleep.

  'Pay attention,' Holly repeated.

  'I am. I am.'

  'You're going to like this part. The Special Operations Division discovered it had a problem. How was it going to keep all these secret units truly secret, even from the Pentagon, which has never been fond of unconventional tactics? The answer was to establish a security unit that itself was secret. Its code name was Yellow Fruit. Again military personnel used civilian cover. They dressed as civilians. They pretended to operate civilian businesses. But in reality they were providing security for Seaspray, the ISA, and several other covert military units. It was Yellow Fruit's job to make sure that everything stayed hidden.'

  Holly studied him, waiting for a reaction.

  Buchanan set down his beer bottle. He assumed his most judicious expression. 'Fascinating.'

  'Is that all you've got to say?'

  'Well, the operation certainly must have succeeded,' Buchanan said, 'assuming that what you just told me isn't a fantasy. The reason I know it succeeded is I've never heard of Yellow Fruit. Or the Intelligence Support Activity. Or Seaspray. Or Task Force One Hundred and Sixty.'

  'You know, for the first time I think you might be telling the truth.'

  'You're suggesting I'd lie to you?'

  'In this case, maybe not. Those units were compartmentalized. Often members of one group didn't know about the other groups. For that matter, the ISA was compartmentalized within itself. Some members didn't know who their fellow members were. Plus, Seaspray and Yellow Fruit were eventually exposed and disbanded. They don't exist anymore. By those names, at least. I know that Seaspray was later temporarily reformed, using the code name Quasar Talent.'

  'Then if they don't exist.'

  'Some of them,' Holly said. 'Others are still doing business as usual. And others have been newly created, much more secret, much more compartmentalized, much more ambitious. Scotch and Soda, for example.'

  8

  'Scotch and.?' Buchanan felt the back of his neck turn cold.

  'That's a code name for yet another undercover military group,' Holly said. 'It works with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the CIA to infiltrate the Central and South American drug networks and destroy them from within. But since those foreign governments haven't sanctioned the presence of plainclothed American soldiers, armed soldiers, using false names, on their soil, the operation is very much against the law.'

  'Either you've got one hell of an imagination, or your sources must be in a mental ward,' Buchanan said. 'Whatever, it doesn't concern me. I don't know anything about this stuff, so why.?'

  'You used to work for the ISA, but six months ago you were transferred to Scotch and Soda.'

  Buchanan stopped breathing.

  'You're one of numerous Special Operations soldiers assigned to covert duty, wearing civilian clothes but armed and carrying forged identities who are in effect functioning as a military branch of the DEA and the CIA in foreign countries.'

  Buchanan slowly straightened. 'All right, now I've had enough. That's it. What you're telling me. what you're accusing me of. is preposterous. If you said that kind of nonsense in front of the wrong people, some fool. a politician, for example. might actually believe you. And then I'd be in crap to my eyebrows. I'd be answering questions for the rest of my career. Because of a damned fantasy.'

  'Is it a fantasy?' Holly reached in her camera bag and brought out a copy of the Cancun police sketch of him as well as copies of the photographs that Big Bob Bailey had shown Buchanan in Fort Lauderdale. 'These don't look like a fantasy.'

  Buchanan's chest ached as he examined the police sketch and the pictures of him getting off a plane in Frankfurt, accompanied by Bailey, and of him in front of the jail in Merida, accompanied by Garson Woodfield from the U.S. embassy. Some of the pictures were unfamiliar. They showed him on a power boat in the channel near Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, stopped next to another boat, talking to Bailey. The latter photograph had been taken from shore (Buchanan recalled turning and seeing Holly lower her camera), and the angle had been chosen so that it included a Fort Lauderdale sign in the background.

  For God's sake, Buchanan thought, these photographs were supposed to have been destroyed. What happened in Fort Lauderdale after I left? Didn't the team do its job?

  'So?' he asked, fighting not to reveal his tension. 'What are these supposed to mean?'

  'You're really amazing.'

  'What?'

  'You sit there with a straight face and. You'd deny anything, no matter how strong the evidence was,' Holly said.

  'These aren't evidence of anything. What are you talking about?'

  'Come on. They show you posing as three different people.'

  'They show three men who look a bit like me, and whatever they're doing, it certainly doesn't look like any secret agent stuff.'

  'Jim Crawford. Ed Potter. Victor Grant.'

  'Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Curly, Larry, and Moe. I don't know what you're talking about. And speaking of questions - which you're awfully good at coming up with but you don't seem to like to answer - I'll ask you again. How did you know my name? How did you know I'm a soldier? How the hell did you know I'd be on this train?'

  Holly shook her head. 'Confidential.'

  'And the junk you're accusing me of isn't? Look, there's a good way to prove that you're wrong about me. A simple way. It's very easy. You know my name is Buchanan. To prove I've got nothing to hide, I even showed you my driver's license. You know I'm stationed at Fort Bragg. So check on me. All you'll find is that I'm a captain whose specialty is field training. That's all. Nothing else. Nothing dark and mysterious. No cloak-and-dagger stuff.'

  'I did check,' Holly said. 'And you're right about one thing. All I found out was what you just told me. There's plenty of paper work about you. But you travel around so much on these mythical training exercises that I couldn't find anyone who'd actually ever met you.'

  'You asked the wrong people.'

  'Who? Tell me who to ask. Not that it would make a difference. I take for granted that anyone you told me to ask would by definition be part of the conspiracy.'

  'Lady, do you know what you sound like? The next thing you'll probably tell me I had something to do with the two Kennedy assassinations, not to mention Martin Luther King's.'

  'Don't be condescending.'

  'What I am is pissed off.'

  'Or pretending to be. I've got a feeling you're all smoke and mirrors, layers within layers. Your name. Your ID. How can I be sure that "Buchanan" isn't just another pseudonym?'

  'For God's sake.'

  'Let's consider Delta Force, which is classified but everybody knows about it. It isn't nearly as covert and shadowy as ISA or Scotch and Soda. The members of Delta live off base. They have average, civilian apartments. They drive average, civilian cars. When they get up in the morning and go to work, it's just like they're going to any other job, except that their job is practicing how to blast their way into hijacked planes and rescue hostages. They wear civilian clothes. They carry civilian ID. Fake ID. Bogus names and backgrounds. No one who lives around them has any idea of who they really are or what they really do. In fact, most people at Fort Bragg don't have any idea, either. If members of Delta use that kind of cover, how deep would the cover be for someone who belonged to much more secret operations like ISA or Scotch and Soda?'

  'You can't have it both ways, Holly. You say you want the truth, but apparently you don't intend to trust a single thing I say. What if I said I did belong to this Scotch and Soda thing? You'd probably say I was lying and actually belonged to something else.'

  'You're very skilled. Honestly. My compliments.'

  'Suppose you were right?' Buchanan asked. 'Isn't it foolish of you to accuse me of being some kind of spy? What if I felt threatened? I might have tried to keep you quiet.'

  'I hardly think so,' Holly said. 'You wo
uldn't try to do anything to me unless you knew you could get away with it. I made sure I was protected.'

  'You sound awfully confident.' Buchanan rubbed his aching forehead. 'Did you honestly think that I'd look at those photographs, lose control, and confess? Even if I did, I could deny it later. Your word against mine. Unless.'

  Buchanan reached for her camera bag.

  'Hey,' she said.

  He tugged it away from where it hung on her shoulder. She tried to stop him, but he held her wrists together with his left hand while he used his right hand to open the bag. Inside there was a small tape recorder, a red light glowing, a slight hum as the recorder's wheels turned.

  'My, my,' he said. 'I'm on candid camera. Only in this case it's candid audio. Naughty, naughty. It isn't nice to be deceptive.'

  'Right. Coming from you.'

  Buchanan pulled the machine out and traced a wire from it to a small microphone concealed in the latch on the outside of the bag. 'What were you using? An extra slow speed on the tape so you wouldn't have to worry about turning it over? And if you did have to turn it, you could always pretend to have to go to the bathroom?'

  'You can't blame me for trying.'

  Buchanan shut off the machine. 'For all the good it did you. I told you I've got nothing to do with this stuff you're talking about. That's all you have on the tape - my denial.'

  Holly shrugged, looking less confident.

  'No more games.' Buchanan stepped closer. 'Take off your clothes.'

  She looked up sharply. 'What?'

  'Take off your clothes, or I'll take them off for you.'

  'You can't be serious!'

  'Lady, when you pick up men on trains, you have to expect they might want something more than conversation. Take off your clothes.' Buchanan banged his fist on the table.

  'Get away from me!'

  Outside the compartment, someone pounded on the door.

  'Impressive,' Buchanan said. 'Quicker than I expected.'

  Holly's expression was a combination of fright, relief, and bewilderment. 'What do you-? Quicker than-?'

  Buchanan opened the door. A tall man in his thirties. square-jawed, broad-shouldered, heavy-chested, an ex-football-player type. was about to ram his shoulder against the door. He blinked in surprise at Buchanan's sudden appearance.

  'And who are you?' Buchanan asked. 'The husband?'

  The surly man looked past Buchanan to make sure that Holly was all right.

  'Or the boyfriend? Come on,' Buchanan said. 'I'm running out of categories.'

  'An interested party.'

  'Then you might as well join the party.' Buchanan opened the door wider and gestured for the man to enter. 'There's no point in standing in the hall and waking the neighbors. I just hope we all fit in this tiny compartment.'

  His rugged features contorted with suspicion, the man slowly entered.

  Buchanan felt the man's wide shoulders press against him. He managed to close the door. 'It's a good thing you didn't bring company. We might run out of oxygen.'

  'Shut up with the jokes,' the man said. 'Take off her clothes? What did you think you were-?'

  'Inviting you,' Buchanan said.

  The big man opened his mouth.

  'That tape recorder's a little too obvious,' Buchanan said and turned to Holly. 'I figured you meant for me to find it. Then I'd feel safe to talk, nothing I couldn't deny later, your word against mine, but what I wouldn't know is that the good stuff would be transmitted by a microphone you were wearing to your partner in a nearby compartment. The only way I was going to find that microphone was by doing a strip search, so I thought I'd suggest the idea and see what happened.' He turned to the man. 'And here you are.'

  'You.' Holly didn't finish the curse.

  'Hey, I meant what I told you. I've got nothing to do with this secret agent stuff. But that doesn't mean I'm an idiot,' Buchanan said. 'Now is there anything else you want to ask me? Because it's late. I'm tired. I want to get some sleep.'

  'You.'

  'Yeah, I'm probably that, too,' Buchanan said.

  'Come on, Holly,' her companion said.

  Buchanan squeezed out of the way. With difficulty, he opened the door. 'Thanks for paying for the beer and sandwiches. You really know how to show a guy a good time.'

  Holly's eyes narrowed. 'I'm staying.'

  'Don't be crazy,' her companion said.

  'I know what I'm doing,' she said.

  'Look, this is all very interesting,' Buchanan said. 'But I mean it. I'm tired.'

  'And I mean it. I'm staying.'

  'Fine,' Buchanan said. 'Anything to convince you I'm telling the truth. You can satisfy yourself that I don't say anything incriminating in my sleep.'

  'Holly, think about it,' her companion said.

  'I'll be fine, Ted.'

  'Yeah, Ted,' Buchanan said. 'She'll be fine. I promise I won't take off her clothes. Good night, Ted.' Buchanan guided him out the door. 'Stay tuned. I hope my snoring won't keep you awake.'

  In the swaying corridor, a white-haired, elderly woman in a nightgown adjusted her spectacles and peered intensely at them from the compartment to the right.

  'Sorry if we woke you, ma'am,' Buchanan said. He watched Ted walk along the corridor and enter the last compartment on the right. With a wave to both him and the elderly woman, Buchanan stepped back into his compartment and closed the door.

  He locked it and studied Holly. 'So which position do you like? Top or bottom?'

  'Don't get the wrong idea because I stayed. Ted's really very tough. If he thinks I'm not safe with you, he'll-'

  'Bunks.'

  'What?'

  'I'm talking about bunks.' Buchanan reached up to grab a lever and pulled down the top one. He started to prepare the bottom one. 'I don't know what you expect to accomplish by this. But I suggest we flip a coin to see who uses the bathroom first.'

  'Oh.'

  'And if you don't happen to have a toothbrush, you can use mine.'

  'On second thoughts.'

  'You bet.' Buchanan unlocked and opened the door. 'Good night, Holly.'

  'Good night.'

  9

  'How did she know my real name? How did she know so many of my pseudonyms? How did she know where to find me? I asked her those questions several times.' Buchanan was in a phone booth on Loyola Avenue not far from Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans. The street was noisy. The October sky was hazy blue. The weather was warm and humid. But all Buchanan cared about was what he heard on the phone and whether he was being followed.

  'We'll find out,' his deep-voiced contact officer said. 'Do whatever you were going to do. Don't change your plans. We'll get back to you. But if anything new develops, call us immediately. Just remember, the evidence she claims to have - the photographs - they aren't conclusive.'

  'But she's not supposed to have those photographs at all. What happened in Fort Lauderdale after I left?' Buchanan demanded. 'This problem was supposed to have been taken care of.'

  'We thought the woman was merely a hired hand. Nobody guessed she'd be a reporter. When she didn't resurface, she didn't seem important.'

  'For all I know, Bailey's involved in this, too.'

  'No,' the voice said firmly. 'He isn't. Just stay calm. Enjoy your furlough. At the moment, the woman can't prove anything.'

  'Tell the colonel he was in one of the photographs she showed me.'

  'Don't worry. I'll be sure to tell him. Meanwhile, in case we need to get in touch with you, stick around your hotel room between six and eight tonight. After that, check the possible rendezvous sites we agreed on before you left.'

  Tense, Buchanan hung up the phone, picked up his travel bag, opened the booth's door, and stepped out.

  A redheaded woman and her male companion appeared from behind trees in a nearby park.

  God, Buchanan thought.

  He stalked toward them. 'Enough is enough. You're not going to ruin my furlough by following me.'

  Holly McCoy looked disappoin
ted that she'd been spotted. 'Who were you phoning? Your superior officers to tell them you'd been exposed?'

  'An old friend who moved down here. Not that it's any of your business.'

  'Prove it. Let's go visit him.'

  'His girlfriend told me he had to go to Houston for an emergency sales conference.'

  'Convenient.What's his name?'

  'Lady, I'm annoyed that I won't get to see him, and you're not making things any better by-'