Assumed Identity

by David R. Morrell

  “Then why must I remind you that Captain Buchanan is absent without permission? A deserter. Our operatives can’t just decide to quit and go off on their own, especially when they know as much as Buchanan does. We’d have chaos, a security nightmare. I can see I haven’t been supervising you closely enough. What this assignment requires is more discipline, more—”

  It was Alan’s turn to interrupt. “No, what this assignment needs is for everybody to remember who’s an officer in the United States Army.” He set down his coffee cup with such force that liquid splashed over the side. “That’s where this assignment went wrong in the first place, with military personnel doing work that’s supposed to be done by civilians. You’ve been impersonating civilians so long you don’t know the difference.”

  “By ‘civilians,’ you mean the Agency. ”

  “Obviously.”

  “Well, if the Agency had been doing its job, it wouldn’t have needed to call on us, would it?” the colonel said. “During the eighties, your people got so stuck on gadgets and satellites, you forgot it took operatives on-site to get the truly useful information. So after you screwed up enough times—Iran, Iraq, the old USSR—even the Soviet collapse caught you by surprise—you decided you needed a team of on-line, can-do personnel to pull your asses out of the fire. Us.”

  “Not my ass,” Alan said. “I’ve never been a fan of gadgets. It wasn’t my fault that—”

  “The truth is,” the colonel said, “when the Cold War ended, your people realized you’d be out of a job if you didn’t find something else to do. But the trouble is, all the jobs that needed to be done, like stomping out Third World drug lords, required more risks than you wanted to take. So you asked us to take the risk. After all, the reason there hasn’t been more success against the drug lords is you’ve been using the top men as informants in exchange for giving them immunity. It’s kind of tough to go after people you’ve been chummy with. So you ask us to go after them and do it in such a way that they don’t realize you’re the ones who turned against them.”

  “Hey,” Alan said, “it’s not one of my people who suddenly thinks he’s a free spirit and drops out of sight.”

  “Captain Buchanan wouldn’t have been able to drop out of sight,” the colonel said, “if your people had kept proper surveillance on the hotel.”

  “It wasn’t my people who were put in charge of watching that hotel,” Alan said. “If this had been turned over to me . . . This is a military screw up all the way. Soldiers don’t have any business doing—”

  “That’s enough,” the colonel said. “Your opinion is no longer required.”

  “But—”

  “That is all.” The colonel swung toward the major and the captain, who looked shocked by the sudden argument they’d witnessed. “What do we do about Buchanan?”

  Captain Weller cleared her throat. “I phoned his credit-card company and claimed that he was my husband, that his card had been stolen. I expected that maybe he’d have bought a plane ticket. I was wrong. The credit-card company told me someone using his name had rented a car in New Orleans.”

  “And?” the colonel demanded.

  “The next thing, someone using his card rented a motel room in Beaumont, Texas.”

  “I’m impressed, Captain. I assume our people are in Beaumont now.”

  “Yes. But Buchanan isn’t there.”

  “Isn’t . . .?”

  “It turns out he only stayed a couple of hours. He left at noon.”

  “What?”

  “Obviously, he wants to keep on the move,” Captain Weller said.

  “To where?”

  She shook her head. “He seems to be heading west. The credit-card company promised to keep me informed.”

  “There’s only one problem,” Alan said.

  They looked at him.

  “The next time Buchanan surfaces with that card, the company won’t only shut off his credit. It’ll send the police after him. That’ll be dandy, won’t it? To have the police involved.”

  “Shit,” Captain Weller said.

  “And if you get your hands on him first,” Alan said, “what are you going to do with him? Put him in solitary confinement? Don’t you see how out of control this could get? Why don’t you just let the man alone to disappear as he promised?”

  Rain pelted against the window.

  “Last night, you reported that he was convinced we were trying to assassinate him,” the colonel said.

  “Correct.”

  “Well, his suspicions are absurd. He’s paranoid if he thinks we’ve turned against him. What does that say about his ability to disappear as he promised? Maybe he’ll keep coming back to haunt us. And what about the reporter? She surrendered her research. But did she keep copies? Will she kill the story as she promised?”

  “Whatever we decide, let’s do it fast,” the major said. “I’ve got two dozen undercover personnel in Latin America who expect me to make sure they have backup. Every minute I spend worrying about Buchanan, I run the risk that something else will go wrong. If only Buchanan had cooperated. All he had to do was stick to his cover story and become a trainer. What’s wrong with being a trainer?”

  “Because that isn’t what he is,” Alan said.

  They stared at him.

  “And I’m not sure Buchanan is who he is, either,” Alan said.

  9

  The man following Buchanan became less conspicuous as they drove toward downtown San Antonio. When they reached better-lit streets, Buchanan was able to see that the man used a Jeep Cherokee, gray, a good unobtrusive color for a surveillance vehicle, especially at night. The man took care to stay back among other cars when he had the chance. It was only the first two minutes that had given him away.

  It had been enough.

  Buchanan pulled into a gas station, filled the tank, and went into the office to pay. When he came out, he noticed that the Jeep Cherokee was parked down the street from the gas station.

  A little farther along the road, Buchanan stopped at a minimall and went into a Tex-Mex quick-service restaurant, where he ate a beef-and-bean burrito and drank a Coke while he carefully glanced out the window toward where the Jeep Cherokee was parked in the shadows at the edge of the mall. Behind the steering wheel, the driver was talking to a car phone.

  The spices in the burrito made Buchanan’s face warm. Or maybe he was feverish from fatigue. He didn’t know. His injured side ached. I’ve got to get some rest, he thought, and swallowed three more Tylenol caplets.

  The restaurant had an exit near the rest rooms in back. Buchanan stepped out behind the minimall and hurried along a shadowy alley in the direction of where the Jeep Cherokee was parked.

  The man behind the steering wheel was too busy talking on the phone and watching the entrance to the restaurant to notice when Buchanan came up behind him on the passenger side. The moment the man—in his late twenties, wearing a Houston Oilers jacket—set down the phone, Buchanan opened the passenger door, got in, and rammed his pistol into the man’s beefy ribs.

  The man groaned, his surprise aggravating his pain.

  “What’s your name?” Buchanan asked.

  The man was too afraid to answer.

  Buchanan pressed the gun harder against the man’s ribs. “Your name.”

  “Frank. . . . Frank Tucker.”

  “Well, let’s take a drive, Frank.”

  The man seemed paralyzed with shock.

  “Drive, Frank, or I’ll kill you.” The threat was starkly matter-of-fact.

  The man obeyed.

  “That’s right,” Buchanan said. “Nice and easy into traffic. Keep both hands on the steering wheel.”

  They passed Buchanan’s car. He’d parked it along with several other cars in front of the Tex-Mex restaurant, where it wouldn’t be conspicuous until the lot was otherwise empty at closing time.

  “What do you want?” The man’s voice trembled.

  “Well, for starters . . .” Buchanan used his free hand
to grope beneath Frank’s windbreaker. He found a holster but no weapon. “Where’s the piece, Frank?”

  The man’s nervous gaze indicated the glove compartment.

  Buchanan opened it and found a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver. “So where are the others?”

  “I don’t have any others.”

  “Maybe, Frank. I’ll soon find out. But if you’re lying, I’ll blow off your right kneecap. You’ll be a cripple for the rest of your life, which might be a whole lot shorter than you’d hoped. Turn into this convenience store. Swing around. Go back the way we came.”

  “Listen, I don’t know what this is about, but I’ll give you all the money I have, and—”

  “Spare me the line, Frank. Careful. I told you, both hands on the steering wheel.” Buchanan cocked his pistol and shoved it harder against Frank’s ribs.

  “Come on, man! If I hit a bump, that thing might go off.”

  “Then don’t hit a bump,” Buchanan said. “What are you? Official or private?”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “I don’t work for anybody.”

  “Right, Frank. You just decided to amuse yourself by following me.”

  “I wasn’t following you. I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Of course, Frank. We’re just two strangers who bumped into each other and happen to be carrying guns. A coincidence. A sign of the times.” Buchanan studied him. “You’re not a cop. If you were, you’d have been covered by a backup team. You could be with the mob, but an Oilers jacket and a Jeep Cherokee aren’t exactly their style. What are you?”

  No answer.

  “Frank, I’m getting bored talking to myself. If I find a PI license on you, I’ll shoot both your kneecaps.” Buchanan reached for the man’s wallet.

  “All right, all right.” Sweat beaded Frank’s trembling upper lip. “I’m a PI.”

  “Finally, we’re getting to know each other. Tell me, Frank. Where’d you get your training? Come on. Keep up the conversation. Your training. Where did you—?”

  “I learned on the job.”

  “That’s what it looks like. On the job and from movies. Here’s a tip. When there isn’t much traffic, follow your target from one block over. Stay parallel to him. If you keep the same speed, you’ll see him at every intersection. But the odds are, he won’t notice you. Only when you don’t see him do you go over to the street he’s on. That’s where you made your first mistake—by staying behind me. Your second mistake was failing to lock your doors. It should have been harder for me to get at you. Third mistake: I don’t care how uncomfortable it feels on a lengthy stakeout, keep your gun in your holster, where you can reach it in a hurry. It’s useless in the glove compartment if somebody’s climbing into your car and pointing a gun at you.”

  The phone rang.

  “No, Frank. Keep your hands on the steering wheel.”

  The phone rang a second time.

  “Whoever it is can wait to talk to you,” Buchanan said. “In fact, why don’t we talk to him in person? Let’s go back to Castle Hills.”

  10

  On his tilted mattress in the rear of the van, Duncan Bradley kept watch on the television screen that showed the magnified area in front of the Mendez house two blocks away. Simultaneously he listened to his earphones, although the audio transmissions from the target area had stopped thirty minutes ago, shortly after the man who called himself Jeff Walker had been forced from the Mendez house. The wife had argued with the husband about what he had done, about how the stranger might have been able to help find their daughter. The husband had told her to shut up, that the stranger was obviously no different from the other imposters who had asked about Juana. They’d gone to bed in sullen silence.

  While he listened, Duncan kept trying to telephone his partner. Twice now, he’d let the phone ring ten times before canceling the attempted call. Tucker’s failure to answer troubled him. Granted, there might be a reasonable, nonthreatening explanation. Tucker might have followed Jeff Walker into a hotel, for example. But Duncan’s unease prompted him to pick up the cellular phone yet again and press the button that would automatically dial Tucker’s number.

  He never had a chance to press the number, however, because movement attracted his gaze toward the second television and green-tinted night-vision images of what was going on behind the van. The movement he’d seen was Tucker’s Jeep Cherokee stopping behind him. The Jeep’s headlights went off. Duncan exhaled. Something must have gone wrong with Tucker’s car phone. That was why he’d come back to tell him in person what he’d learned about Jeff Walker.

  As the monitor showed Tucker getting out of his Jeep and approaching the rear door of the van, Duncan raised himself off the mattress, crawled on his hands and knees toward the back, heard Tucker’s knock, and opened the door.

  “What happened to your phone? I’ve been trying to—” Duncan’s throat clamped shut. His mouth hung open in stunned surprise as he saw a man next to Tucker. The man must have been hiding in the Jeep. The man was Jeff Walker.

  The man had a gun.

  Oh, shit, Duncan thought.

  11

  The persistent ringing of the doorbell made Pedro Mendez angry.

  For a lot of reasons. Worry about his daughter, confusion about Jeff Walker, and apprehension about the microphone in the bathroom’s light-switch socket had made him so restless that it seemed he would never get to sleep. What was Jeff Walker going to tell him when they met at the garage tomorrow morning? Tense, Pedro had squirmed beneath the covers until at last, impossibly, mercifully, he’d somehow managed to doze, and now somebody was pushing that damned doorbell.

  “Anita, stay in bed,” he ordered as he fumbled to his feet, put on a bathrobe and slippers, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet, and stormed downstairs. Through the front door’s window, he saw the shadow of a man on the murky porch. By God, if this was someone else looking for his daughter, Pedro intended to make very sure that the man explained what was going on.

  But when Pedro turned on the porch light, his determination wavered when he saw that the man was Jeff Walker, who gestured impatiently for Pedro to unlock and open the door.

  Pedro obeyed to a certain extent, making sure that when he inched the door open, he didn’t release the security chain. “What do you—?”

  “Hurry. I have to show you something.” Jeff Walker pointed urgently toward the street.

  Staring past him toward the darkness, Pedro noticed a small van at the curb. “What are you doing here at—?”

  “Please,” Jeff Walker said. “It’s about Juana. It’s important.”

  Pedro hesitated—but only for a moment. There was something about Jeff Walker that insisted on being trusted. Compelled, Pedro stifled his misgivings and opened the door.

  Jeff Walker was already off the porch, moving quickly toward the van.

  Pedro ran to catch up to him. “What do you want to show me? Whose van is—?”

  For the third time, Pedro was interrupted, this time because Jeff Walker opened the back of the van and turned on a flashlight.

  Two men—naked, their hands tied behind them by their shirt sleeves, their ankles tied by their pant legs, their mouths stuffed with their underwear—lay on the floor of the van. They were lashed together by their belts. When the light revealed them, they squirmed.

  “I know it’s hard to be sure under these conditions,” Jeff Walker said, “but are these two of the men who came to your house and asked about Juana?”

  Pedro took the flashlight and stepped closer, aiming the beam from one face to the other. “Yes. How did—?”

  “They’ve been watching your house,” Jeff Walker said.

  Pedro aimed the flashlight beam toward shelves of electronic equipment along the right side of the van. A television monitor showed a green-tinted magnified image of the area in front of his house. Several tape recorders were linked to audio receivers. So it wasn’t only one micropho
ne that had been planted in the house, Pedro thought in dismay. The whole house must be . . . His knees felt weak. The pavement seemed to tilt.

  Jeff Walker removed the gag from one of the men. “Who else was working with you? Where do I find him?”

  The man had trouble speaking, his mouth dry from the absorbent cloth that had been taken from his mouth.

  Pedro flinched as Jeff Walker shoved a pistol against the man’s testicles and asked, “Who was the third man who came to Pedro’s house?”

  But as unnerved as Pedro felt, he leaned closer, desperate to learn everything he could.

  “Somebody . . . somebody working for us part-time. We only used him one day. He went back to . . .” The man seemed to realize he was saying too much and shut up.

  “Back to where?” Jeff Walker asked. When he didn’t get an answer, he sighed. “I don’t believe you are taking me seriously.” He shoved the underwear back into the man’s mouth, took a pair of pliers from an open tool case, and yanked out a clump of pubic hair.

  The man screamed silently, tears welling from his eyes.

  Pedro was shocked. At the same time, he was so afraid for Juana that a part of him wanted impatiently to grab the prisoner’s head and bang it against the van’s floor, anything to get answers.

  Jeff Walker pivoted toward the second man, removed the underwear that gagged him, and sounded very reasonable when he said, “Now I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen to you. After I plucked every inch of your hair, I’d use some of Pedro’s matches to singe the stubble. By the time I was through, your groin would look like the neck on a well-done turkey. But I’ve never liked the neck. I always . . .” He made a cutting motion as if he had a knife.

  The first man continued to thrash in pain.

  “Where did your part-time employee go back to?” Jeff Walker asked. “Your accent isn’t Texan. Where’s home base for you?”

  Jeff Walker brought the pliers toward the man’s groin.

  “Philadelphia,” the man blurted.

  “You’re watching this house to find Juana Mendez. Why?”