“What you’re trying not to say is if I’m questioned, I can’t give away your next move.”
Buchanan swallowed a piece of bread and stared at her. “The men watching you have nothing to do with what happened to Juana. But if they see us together, they'll assume you’re back on the story about them, and they’ll do everything they can to protect themselves.”
“Now you’ve done it.” Holly shuddered.
“What?”
“Scared me again. Just when I get to feeling normal, you remind me . . .”
“Nothing is ever normal.”
“Right. I keep forgetting.”
11
Buchanan went with her down the fire stairs to the third-floor landing. Her instructions were to take the elevator from that floor down to the lobby. That way, to anyone watching the numbers above the elevator in the lobby, it would seem that Holly had been in Mike Hamilton’s third-floor room all evening. “If anybody stops you, tell them to leave you alone or you’ll call a cop. But if it gets serious, tell them a version of the truth. You’re doing a story on the Maria Tomez disappearance and whether there’s some connection between Tomez and Drummond. If they pressure you about Mike Hamilton, tell them he’s a confidential source who works for Drummond. Tell them the man contacted you, using a false name. He’s a disgruntled employee. He wants to make trouble for Drummond, but he doesn’t want the trouble to be traced to him. So far, he hasn’t been much use.”
At the third-floor fire stairs, Buchanan motioned for Holly to wait while he checked that the corridor was safe. After peering cautiously out the door, he stepped back, his expression concerned enough to make Holly frown.
He motioned for her to follow. “We have to hurry. Two men are outside Mike Hamilton’s room.”
Before leaving 512, Buchanan had packed, made sure that the books and research files were in his travel bag, and filled out an early checkout form, putting it on the bed. A note explained that Mike Hamilton was checking out, too, but that as agreed all expenses were to be on Charles Duffy’s credit card. “I don’t want any more people looking for me than necessary. Quickly. Let’s go.”
He hurried with Holly down the fire stairs to the exit for the lobby. “Wait until some people get off the elevator. Go out behind them. Where do you live?”
She told him.
“I’ll leave a minute after you. I’ll take a taxi, and if I’m not followed, I’ll have the driver go past your place. By then, your own taxi should have brought you home. Leave a light on behind an open window in front. If I see that a window’s open, I’ll know you’re okay.”
“Taxi? I brought my car.”
“Then you’ll get home faster. The elevator’s opening. Now.”
She touched his cheek. “. . . Be careful.”
Buchanan felt the impression of her fingers for quite a while after she was gone.
12
“Buchanan!”
It must have been the result of fatigue.
“Buchanan!”
Or else it resulted from his conversation with Holly. Although he’d come to Washington thinking of himself as Peter Lang impersonating Charles Duffy and Mike Hamilton, he’d been distracted into talking to Holly as the core identity he’d been trying to avoid.
“Buchanan!”
So when he heard a man call his name as he walked along the rain-misted street away from the hotel, Buchanan almost turned reflexively to see who wanted him.
It was a mistake, he instantly realized, and he caught himself before he fully turned, but he did twist his head partially, and that was all the indication his hunter needed.
“Yeah, you! Buchanan!”
Buchanan kept walking, not changing his pace, not appearing to feel pressured, although he did feel pressured. A lot. Nerves quickening, he heard rapid footsteps behind him on the wet sidewalk. One person, it sounded like, but Buchanan didn’t dare look to see if he was right.
The time was nearly ten-thirty. Traffic was sparse, sporadic headlights gleaming through the beads of moisture in the gloomy air. Buchanan had glanced casually from side to side when he’d left the hotel, a natural thing to do, one that allowed him to check for any sign that Holly had been detained or that anyone was outside watching him. Seeing no problem, he had turned off Massachusetts Avenue, heading south on Twenty-first Street.
Now, heart pounding, he realized that Twenty-first was a one-way street and that the traffic headed in a southern direction just as he did, which meant that all the cars approached from behind him. Unless he looked over his shoulder, he had no way to tell if a vehicle would be veering toward him. But if he did look, he would reinforce his pursuer’s suspicion. Plural. Other urgent footsteps had joined the first.
“Goddamn it, Buchanan!” a different voice yelled.
The voice was directly behind him, close enough to attack.
With no other viable option, Buchanan whirled, seeing a well-built, short-haired man in his mid-twenties lurch to a sudden, defensive stop.
But not quickly enough. Buchanan struck the man’s chest with the palm of his right hand. The blow was hard but controlled, calculated to knock the man off balance but not to break his ribs.
The man was jolted backward. He exhaled forcefully, a practiced reaction that helped him absorb the impact. That reaction and the resistance the man’s solid chest provided told Buchanan that this wasn’t a civilian. The man was military: trim hips, broad shoulders for upper-body strength. While the man briefly lost his balance, Buchanan swung his right leg hard, twisting it so that his shinbone struck along the outside of the man’s left thigh. A major sensitive nerve ran down each leg in that area. If the nerve was traumatized, the victim suffered not only intense pain but temporary paralysis in the leg.
As Buchanan anticipated, before the man could retaliate from the blow to his chest, he grunted, grasped his leg, and toppled sharply. That left a second man rushing toward Buchanan, cursing, reaching beneath his windbreaker. Buchanan threw his travel bag toward him, forcing the man to zigzag while raising a hand to deflect the bag. Before the man could recover from this distraction and draw the handgun he was reaching for, Buchanan came in close, rammed the palm of his hand sharply against the bottom of the man’s nose, and felt cartilage snap. The man’s vision would blur. The pain would be intense. That gave Buchanan enough time to jab an elbow into the man’s solar plexus and yank his pistol away as he doubled over.
Immediately Buchanan whirled, grabbed the first man, who was struggling to stand, and walloped him against a lamppost. The man’s head made a whunking sound. Then Buchanan whirled yet again, back to the second man, who lay sprawled on the sidewalk, fighting to breathe through his broken nose, spewing blood.
If this had been combat, Buchanan would have killed them. As it was, he didn’t want to make the incident even more serious than it was. If he eliminated the colonel’s men, the next time their orders would be to do the same to him instead of to detain him. Or perhaps these men had been ordered to kill him. Otherwise, why would the second man have been drawing a weapon?
From where Buchanan had come, at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Twenty-first Street, a well-dressed elderly man and woman gaped in Buchanan’s direction. The woman pointed a trembling arm, her outcry shrill.
Buchanan grabbed his travel bag and ran. His reaction wasn’t caused only by fear that a police car would soon arrive. What sent adrenaline surging through him in even greater quantity, with greater urgency, were the two men who’d scurried around the corner in response to the woman’s cry. Seeing Buchanan, they charged, and their chests were as muscled, their shoulders as broad as the men on the sidewalk.
Buchanan ran harder, the stitches in his knife wound threatening to tear open. He didn’t care. He had to keep straining. Because when the second two men had seen him and raced toward him, both had reached beneath windbreakers, pulling out handguns, and there was no question now. This wasn’t just a surveillance team. It was a hit team.
What had the
y done to Holly?
But he couldn’t let himself think about that. He had to concentrate on staying alive. The first priority was to get off this damned one-way street, where the direction of traffic left him vulnerable from behind. Approaching P Street, he risked wasting time to look behind him on his left, saw an opening between two approaching cars, and darted between them, hoping that the cars would shield him, having noticed that the men were raising their weapons. A horn blared. Brakes squealed. He scrambled onto the opposite sidewalk and skidded on a slippery puddle but kept his balance, then bolted around the corner as the cars stopped shielding him and two gunshots roared, bullets shattering a window across from him.
Tightening his grip on the pistol he’d taken from the man whose nose he’d broken, Buchanan raced in a greater frenzy. The misty rain seemed thicker, the night darker. There wasn’t any traffic. The rain discouraged pedestrians. Ahead, opposite, on the right, a murky street light revealed a lane that headed south, bisecting the block between Twenty-first and Twentieth. Buchanan lunged toward it, his travel bag slowing his momentum, but he couldn’t ditch the bag. He couldn’t give up the books and files that were in it.
Behind him, he heard curses, strident breathing, rapid footsteps. The sign for the lane read HOPKINS. Sprinting from P Street onto it, he flinched as bullets struck the corner he passed. At once, he whirled, crouched, and aimed one-handed with his elbow propped on his bent knee, controlling his trembling arm. Sweat merged with beads of mist on his brow. Leaning out from the corner, he wasn’t able to see clearly enough to line up the front and rear sights of the pistol. But if he couldn’t, his pursuers couldn’t aim clearly, either. Judging as best as he could, he squeezed the trigger rapidly, firing three times, the shots echoing in the narrow street, assaulting his eardrums.
Nonetheless, he heard the clink of ejected cartridges striking the pavement and a groan as if he’d hit one of the men, although he had no way of knowing if any of his bullets had connected because both men dove flat on the pavement and shot in his direction, their gun muzzles flashing. A bullet blew a chunk off the corner of the building, nearly hitting Buchanan’s eyes. He flinched and shot three more times toward the men, who now rolled in opposite directions, seeking cover behind parked cars.
Buchanan wasn’t about to get caught outnumbered in a stationary gun battle. The moment he lost sight of the men, he ducked backward, rose, and charged toward the end of the narrow street. The gunshots had caused lights to come on in upstairs apartments. People foolishly showed their silhouettes at windows. Buchanan kept racing. He heard a distant siren grow louder. He heard a window open. He heard a shout above him. But the rapid, echoing footsteps behind him were the only sounds he cared about.
Spinning, seeing the two men appear at the entrance to the narrow street, Buchanan fired twice more. The men separated and lunged into doorways.
Buchanan zigzagged, trying to confuse their aim. A bullet tugged at his left sleeve; another forced tickling air past his right ear. But this time, he didn’t hear gunshots, only eerie muffled sounds, as if hands were striking pillows. The men had put sound suppressors on their weapons, making the noise of Buchanan’s own weapon seem even more explosive when he spun again and fired. More lights came on in upper apartment windows. The siren sped closer, louder. Another joined it.
Buchanan sprinted from the narrow street, racing through the misty rain across O Street, charging to the left toward Twentieth Street. Relieved to be temporarily out of the line of fire, he suddenly tensed as headlights blazed behind him. In the middle of the street, not knowing which way to dive, he had to spin, and the headlights streaked directly toward him. Brakes squealed. But the car wouldn’t be able to stop soon enough. Buchanan had to leap forward, onto the hood of the car, sliding along it to absorb the impact, his face pressing against the windshield, stunned to see the unmistakable red hair of Holly McCoy behind the steering wheel.
Holly’s face was contorted in a shocked, silent scream. Then a flapping windshield wiper struck the side of Buchanan’s face and he snapped his head up, peering over the top of the skidding car, seeing the two gunmen appear at the exit from the narrow street. Breathing rapidly, Buchanan raised his weapon and fired along the roof of the car, unable to aim effectively but shooting four times, often enough to send the men scurrying back into the cover of the narrow street.
“Drive, Holly! Don’t stop! Drive!”
The car quit skidding and increased speed. Sliding, Buchanan banged his face against the windshield. He glanced frantically over his shoulder, seeing that they’d reached Twentieth Street. A one-way heading north, it forced Holly to veer left into a break in sparse traffic. But the momentum caused Buchanan to slide sideways on his stomach, to his left, across the car’s wet hood. With a travel bag in his left hand and a pistol in his right, he couldn’t grab for anything. But even if his hands had been free, there wasn’t anything on the slick hood to grab.
The car kept veering. He kept sliding. He anticipated his impact on the pavement. Tuck in your elbows. Roll. Keep your head up, he mentally shouted to himself. He couldn’t afford another trauma to his head. And then he was slipping off the right side of the hood. Heart pounding, seeing the sideview mirror, he hooked his right elbow around it, bent his legs up under him, felt a jolt, and dangled. The sideview mirror sagged from his weight. He kept his elbow crooked around it, dangling lower, his shoes inches above the pavement. The car skidded. His shoes touched the pavement. The car slowed. When the sideview mirror snapped off, Buchanan landed hard, rolling in a puddle, the wind knocked out of him, but not before the car had stopped, its momentum throwing him forward.
He lurched to his feet. More headlights blazed toward him. He heard sirens. He thought he heard racing footsteps. Then he definitely heard Holly shout from inside the car. She pressed a button that unlocked the doors.
But instead of opening the passenger door in front, Buchanan yanked open the door in back and dove in, slamming the door behind him. Sprawling out of sight, he yelled, “Go, Holly! Move!”
13
She obeyed, squinting ahead past the flapping windshield wipers, darting her gaze toward her rearview mirror, straining to see if the sirens belonged to police cars chasing her. But the headlights behind her remained steady, and no men appeared on the sidewalk to shoot at her, and the sirens came from farther away, less intimidating.
“What happened?” she asked in dismay.
As she turned right onto Massachusetts Avenue, steered a quarter of the way around Dupont Circle, and then headed south on Connecticut Avenue, Buchanan quickly explained, all the while remaining low on the backseat, out of sight. Even though their hunters knew what type of car Holly drove, they’d be looking for a man and a woman, not a woman alone.
Holly’s hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. “Are you hurt?”
“I pulled some stitches.” His voice was taut. “If that’s the worst, I’ll be fine.”
“Until the next time.”
“Thank God you just happened to be driving along that street.”
“There was nothing ‘just happened’ about it.”
“What do you—?”
“When you started down Twenty-first Street and they chased you, you ran from the sidewalk and darted between two passing cars.”
“Right, but how did you know about—?”
“The second car, the one that beeped at you, was mine. After the hotel’s parking attendant brought it to me, I decided to drive around the block to see if I was being followed.”
“Sounds like you’re learning.”
“And I also wanted to see if you got out of the hotel okay. I was driving toward you when I saw the fight, but you ran in front of me before I could get your attention. Then you disappeared along P Street. I was past that intersection, so I figured if I turned left onto O, I might get a glimpse of you coming from Hopkins or Twentieth Street.”
“But what if I’d stayed on P Street?”
“You don’t strike me as
the type to run in a straight line.”
“You really are learning,” Buchanan said.
“Evasion and escape.” Holly exhaled. “I missed that course when I was in journalism school.”
“I didn’t mean to get you involved. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I’m sorry, Holly.”
“It’s done. But I helped make it happen. I didn’t need to agree to meet you. I could have kept my distance. I’m a big girl. I stopped letting people control me a long time ago. Do you want the truth? I thought you wanted to meet me to tell me something that would put me back on the story. I got foolish and greedy. Now I’m paying the price.”
“Then you understand.” Staying low in the backseat, Buchanan spoke reluctantly. “You realize that because they caught us together, they think we’re both a threat to them. It was a possibility before, but now your life really is in danger.”
Holly tried to control her breathing. “I had another reason for agreeing to meet you. An even more foolish reason. It had nothing to do with the story. Deep down, I wanted to see you again. Dumb, huh?”
Except for the flapping of the windshield wipers and the drone of the engine, the car became quiet.
Holly waited.
She finally said, “Don’t respond. Just let what I said hang there. Make me feel like a jerk.”
“No. I . . .”
“What?”
“I’m flattered.”
“You’d better say something more positive than that, or so help me, I’ll stop this car and . . .”
“What I’m trying to explain is, I’m not very good at this. I’m not used to anybody caring about me.” Buchanan’s disembodied voice came from the darkness of the backseat. “I’ve never been in one place long enough to establish a relationship.”
“Once.”
“Yes. With Juana. That’s right. Once.”
“And now I’m risking my life to help you find another woman. Wonderful. Great.”
Assumed Identity Page 45