Assumed Identity

by David Morrell

  Weakness forced Buchanan to hobble in imitation. Several times, Drummond fell. So did Buchanan. But relentless, Buchanan persisted, passing hieroglyph-covered blocks of stone that stood next to fallen clumps of twisted girders.

  Drummond faltered from something before him. Turning, he tried to stand proudly, failing miserably, as Buchanan stumbled up to him.

  'I thought you died on the helicopter,' Buchanan said.

  'They wouldn't let me on.' Drummond's white hair had been singed by flames. His scalp had been seared. He was almost bald. 'Can you believe it?' Drummond's voice wavered. 'They were all so eager to escape that they wouldn't let me on.'

  'Tell me,' Buchanan said. 'What made you ever think you could get away with this?'

  'Think? I know. As old as I am, as powerful as I am, what can anybody do to punish me? Never forget I'm so very rich.'

  'What you are is a bastard.'

  Buchanan reached out and pushed him with his right index finger. The minuscule force was enough to throw the old man off balance. His gangly arms flailed. He listed. He screamed. He fell.

  What had stopped him from continuing to hobble away from Buchanan was a deep, wide pit above which the ancient Maya had built their stone pyramid to hide and control the god of darkness, the god of black water, the god that seeped from the earth. The steel pyramid with which Drummond had replaced the original pyramid had collapsed into the pit, and at the bottom, oil rippled thickly, its petroleum smell nauseating.

  Drummond struck the surface of the oil.

  And was swallowed.

  'He wanted that oil so damned bad. Now he's got it,' Buchanan said.

  He sank to the ground. His mind swirled.

  11

  Holly's blurred face hovered over him.

  The Mayan chieftain, who'd confronted him in the ball court, seemed to hover next to her, the colorful feathers of his headdress radiant in the crimson sunset. Other warriors appeared, gripping blood-covered spears and machetes. Holly seemed not to realize her danger.

  Buchanan tried to raise a hand to point and warn her. He couldn't move the hand. He tried to open his mouth and tell her. His mouth wouldn't move. The words wouldn't come. He felt as if the earth spun beneath him, tugging him into a vortex.

  The Mayan chieftain stooped, his broad, round face distorting the closer it came to Buchanan.

  In his delirium, Buchanan felt himself being lifted and placed upon a litter. He had a floating sensation. Although his eyelids were closed, he saw images. A towering pyramid. Statues that depicted gigantic snake heads. Evocative hieroglyphics. Magnificent palaces and temples.

  Then the jungle rose before him, and he was carried through a clearing in the trees and bushes, a clearing that went on and on, his litter bearers proceeding along a wide pathway made of gray stone, higher than the forest floor. It seemed to him that everywhere, except on the pathway, snakes made the ground ripple.

  Night settled over them. Nonetheless they continued, Holly staying close to his litter, the Mayan chieftain guided by moonlight, leading the way.

  This is how it was a thousand years ago, Buchanan thought.

  They came to a village, where through a gate, beyond a head-high wooden stockade, torches flickered, revealing huts. The walls of the huts were made from woven saplings, the roofs from palm fronds. Pigs and chickens, wakened by the procession, scattered noisily. Villagers waited, short, round-faced, dark-haired, almond-eyed, the women wearing ghostly, white dresses.

  Buchanan was taken into one of the huts. He was placed on a hammock - so the snakes can't get at me, he thought. Women undressed him. In the light from a fire, the chieftain peered at his wounds.

  Holly shrieked and tried to stop him, but the villagers restrained her, and after the chieftain sewed Buchanan's knife wound shut, after he applied a compress to Buchanan's almost-healed bullet wound, after he put salve on Buchanan's cuts and bruises, he examined Buchanan's bulging eyes, and used a knife to shave the hair from one side of Buchanan's head.

  And raised a pulley-driven wooden drill to Buchanan's aching skull.

  The sharp point was excruciating.

  As if a huge boil had been lanced, Buchanan fainted from the ecstasy of tremendous release.

  12

  'How long have I been unconscious?' Buchanan managed to ask. His mind was clouded. His body felt unrelated to him. Words were like stones in his mouth.

  'Two weeks.'

  That so surprised him his thoughts were jolted, forced to be less murky. He raised his right hand toward the bandage around his skull.

  'Don't touch it,' Holly said.

  'What happened to my-? How did-?'

  Holly didn't answer. She soaked a clean cloth in rain water that she'd collected in half a hollowed-out coconut shell. While Buchanan lay partially naked on a hammock outside a hut, the late afternoon sunlight comfortably warm against his wounds, she bathed him.

  'Tell me.' He licked his dry, swollen lips.

  'You almost died. You'd lost a lot of blood, but the medicine man was able to stop it.'

  'My head. What about my-?'

  'You were raving. Convulsing. Your eyes were so huge I was afraid they'd pop out of your head. Obviously there was pressure behind them. He operated.'

  'What?'

  'On your head. He drilled a hole in your skull. Blood spurted across the hut as if.'

  Buchanan's strength waned. His eyelids drooped. He licked again at his dry lips.

  Holly raised another hollowed-out half of a coconut and gave him rain water to drink.

  It dribbled down his chin, but he kept trying and was able to swallow most of it, luxuriating in its cool sweetness.

  'Drilled a hole in.' he murmured.

  'Primitive surgery. From a thousand years ago. It's like this place is suspended in time. No electricity. Everything they need they get from the forest. Their clothes are hand-made. Their soap is. They burn corncobs to boil water. Then they put the ashes from corncobs into the water and use it to scour dirty clothes. Then they take the clothes out and rinse the ashes from the clothes in other boiling pots. The clothes are incredibly clean. Then they pour the water on their crops so the corncob ashes can be a fertilizer.'

  Buchanan had trouble concentrating. His eyelids kept drooping.

  'Primitive surgery,' he said in muted dismay.

  That was two days later, the next time he wakened.

  Holly told him that she'd managed to get him to swallow liquids -water and chicken broth - while he was unconscious, but although he was hydrated, he'd lost an alarming amount of weight and would have to try to eat soon, regardless if his stomach might not feel up to it.

  'I'm ready,' Buchanan said.

  She dipped a wooden spoon into a clay bowl, tested the squash soup to make sure it wasn't too hot, and placed it into his mouth.

  'Delicious.'

  'Don't give me credit. I didn't make it. There's a woman who comes with food. She gestures to tell me what to do about you.'

  'And the medicine man?'

  'He comes twice a day to give you a spoonful of a thick, sweet-smelling syrup. It might be the reason you didn't get an infection. I wish I understood their language. I tried the little Spanish I know, but they don't seem to recognize it. We communicate with sign language.'

  'Why did they go to so much trouble?' Buchanan wondered. 'Why did they let us live?'

  'I don't know,' Holly said. 'They treat you as if you're a hero. I don't understand.'

  'Something to do with the game,' Buchanan said. 'Fighting against Raymond. Being obvious enemies with Drummond. The natives decided we're on their side.' Buchanan brooded. 'I lost the game, and yet. In the old days, it could be the Maya felt so sorry for the loser that they took care of him.'

  'Why would they feel sorry for him?'

  'Because the winner was sacrificed and got to be with the gods.'

  'Raymond isn't with the gods.'

  'No. Nor is Drummond. He's in hell where he deserves to be,' Buchanan said. 'He
reminds me of the colonel.'

  'The colonel?'

  Buchanan hesitated. 'What happened at the drilling site is yours. Write about it. Just leave me out of it. But what I'm going to tell you now is off the record.'

  'Hey, if you don't know enough to trust me by now.'

  Buchanan hesitated again, then made a decision. 'Maybe trust is another part of what it means to be human. I certainly trusted you back there in the ball court. You were convincing, and yet I believed you were acting when you said that you'd stayed with me just because of the story.'

  'And I trusted you, even when you told Drummond that you didn't care if I died. All I did was believe you were acting and follow your lead, but I didn't know where we were going. What did you hope to accomplish?'

  'Raymond had part of it right. I wanted them to be so confused that they'd have to keep us alive until they figured out which one of us was telling the truth. Eventually they'd have been tempted to try those telephone numbers we gave them, and the automatic trace would have led the colonel's hit team in this direction. With luck, we'd have still been alive.'

  'Chancy.'

  'No kidding. In that kind of situation, there aren't any long-term plans. But you and I sure made a good team.'

  'Well, I had a good teacher,' Holly said.

  'I was telling you about my commanding officer. The colonel and Drummond are very much alike. The colonel has a goal, and nothing matters except achieving it.'

  'But that's standard military discipline.'

  'No. The military has ethics. Politicians don't. It's politicians who give soldiers immoral goals. But sometimes a soldier like the colonel comes along and.' Buchanan's fragile strength waned. Only his angry thoughts kept him going. 'I'm beginning to think that it was the colonel who had Jack and Cindy Doyle killed. And Big Bob Bailey. Because of the photographs you took of me with the colonel. Because he was afraid he'd be identified as the director of Scotch and Soda, and his career would be ruined. Also, I think it was the colonel who arranged to have me knifed in New Orleans. So you wouldn't have anybody to question. So the story would die with me. He turned against his own to protect himself. Maybe he's getting kickbacks from the drug deals that Scotch and Soda is making in Latin America. Who the hell knows? But one day I'll find out. And one day the colonel will have to justify himself to me.'

  'What about Juana?'

  'Drummond's men will stop looking for her now that he's dead and they're not being paid. Knowing how skilled she became at disguising her appearance, I don't think I can ever find her.'

  'But do you intend to keep trying?'

  'You mean, does she still matter to me?'

  Holly nodded.

  'Yes,' Buchanan said.

  Holly lowered her eyes.

  'But not the way you matter,' Buchanan said.

  Holly looked up.

  'She's a friend who needed help, and for too long in my life, I wasn't able to help friends I'd known under other identities. I need to find out that she's safe. My guess is, once she learns that Drummond and Delgado are dead, she'll gradually come into the open. I look forward to seeing her again.' Buchanan touched her arm. 'But I swear to you. She's not your rival.'

  Holly felt overwhelmed by emotion. 'What happens to us now?'

  'One thing's certain. The colonel will never find us here.'

  'True. That's certainly looking on the bright side.'

  'Is it so bad here?'

  'With you. No,' Holly said. 'Strange. As beat up as you look, there's something about. Your eyes. Even though you're angry about the colonel, you seem at peace.'

  'I'm myself.'

  Holly frowned in confusion.

  'Something's missing from me,' Buchanan said. 'Maybe it's because of everything we've been through. Or maybe it's because of you. Or. When the medicine man drilled into my skull, I think he took out more than blood. I think he took out whatever was in my head that tortured me for so long. I've come to terms with the past. I want to move on. With you. What matters now isn't the past but the present.' Buchanan squeezed Holly's hand. 'And the future. No more trying to run from myself. No more assumed identities.'

  'It'll be a pleasure getting to know you,' Holly said.

  'I'm kind of curious about it myself.'

  'Yes.' Holly kissed him. 'It's what I've been waiting for.'

  The End