Assumed Identity

by David R. Morrell

  Holly frowned at him. “And the CIA taught you how to do this?”

  Buchanan’s voice hardened. “Now you’re being a reporter again.”

  “Will you stop being so defensive? How many times do I have to tell you? I’m on your side. I’m not out to destroy you. I . . . ”

  “Let’s just say I had training along the line.” Buchanan clutched the steering wheel and continued to stare at the busy highway. “Being a deep-cover operative isn’t just having false documents and a believable cover story. To assume an identity, I have to transmit the absolute conviction that I am who I claim to be. That means believing it absolutely myself. When I spoke to that secretary, I was Ted Riley, and something in me went out to her. Went into her mind. Stroked her into believing in me. Remember we talked about elicitation? It isn’t merely asking subtle questions. It’s enveloping someone in an attitude and emotionally drawing them toward you.”

  “It sounds like hypnotism.”

  “That’s how I made my mistake with you.” Buchanan’s tone changed, becoming bitter.

  Holly tensed.

  “I stopped concentrating on controlling you,” Buchanan said.

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “I stopped acting,” Buchanan said. “For a while with you, I had an unusual experience. I stopped impersonating. Without realizing it, I became somebody I’d forgotten about. Myself. I related to you as . . . me.” He sounded more bitter.

  “Maybe that’s why I became attracted to you,” Holly said.

  Buchanan scoffed. “I’ve been plenty of people better than myself. In fact, I’m the only identity I don’t like.”

  “So now you’re avoiding yourself by being—who did you say you once were? Peter Lang? . . . searching for Juana?”

  “No,” Buchanan said. “Since I met you, Peter Lang has become less and less important. Juana matters to me because . . . In Key West, I told you I couldn’t decide anything about my future until I settled my past.” He finally looked at her. “I’m not a fool. I know I can’t go back six years and God knows how many identities and start up where I left off with her. It’s like . . . For a very long time I’ve been pretending, acting, switching from role to role, and I’ve known people I couldn’t allow myself to care about in those roles. A lot of those people needed help that I couldn’t go back and give them. A lot of those people died, but I couldn’t go back and mourn for them. Most of my life’s been a series of boxes unrelated to one another. I’ve got to connect them. I want to become . . .”

  Holly waited.

  “A human being,” Buchanan said. “That’s why I’m pissed at you. Because I let my guard down, and you betrayed me.”

  “No,” Holly said, touching his right hand on the steering wheel. “Not anymore. I swear to God—I’m not a threat.”

  4

  After the noise and pollution of Mexico City, Cuernavaca’s peace and clean air were especially welcome. The sky was clear, the sun bright, making the valley resplendent. In an exclusive subdivision, Buchanan followed the directions he’d been given and found the street he wanted, coming to a high stone wall within which a large iron gate provided a glimpse of gardens, shade trees, and a Spanish-style mansion. A roof of red tile glinted in the sun.

  Buchanan kept driving.

  “But isn’t that where we’re supposed to go?” Holly asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why . . . ?”

  “I haven’t decided about a couple of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Maybe it’s time to cut you loose.”

  Holly looked startled.

  “Anything might happen. I don’t want you involved,” Buchanan said.

  “I am involved.”

  “Don’t you think you’re going to extremes to get a story?”

  “The only extreme I care about is what I have to do to prove myself to you. Delgado’s expecting a female reporter. Without me, you won’t get in. Hey, you established a cover. You claim you’re my interpreter. Be consistent.”

  “Be consistent?” Buchanan tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah. For a change.”

  He turned the car around.

  An armed guard stood behind the bars of the gate.

  Buchanan got out of the car, approached the man, showed Holly’s press card, and explained in Spanish that he and Señorita McCoy were expected. With a scowl, the guard stepped into a wooden booth to the right of the gate and spoke into a telephone. Meanwhile, another armed guard watched Buchanan intently. The first guard returned, his expression as surly as before. Buchanan’s muscles compacted. He wondered if something had gone wrong. But the guard unlocked the gate, opened it, and motioned for Buchanan to get back in his car.

  Buchanan drove along a shady, curved driveway, past trees, gardens, and fountains, toward the three-story mansion. Simultaneously, he glanced in his rearview mirror, noting that the guard had relocked the gate. He noted as well that other armed guards patrolled the interior of the wall.

  “I feel a lot more nervous than when I went on Drummond’s yacht,” Holly said. “Don’t you ever feel—?”

  “Each time.”

  “Then why on earth do you keep doing it?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “In this case, maybe. But other times . . .”

  “No choice,” Buchanan repeated. “When you’re in the military, you follow orders.”

  “Not now, you’re not. Besides, you didn’t have to join the military.”

  “Wrong,” Buchanan said, thinking of the need he’d felt to punish himself for killing his brother. He urgently crushed the thought, disturbed that he’d allowed himself to be distracted. Juana. He had to pay attention. Instead of Tommy, he had to keep thinking of Juana.

  “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this nervous,” Holly said.

  “Stage fright. Try to relax. This is just a walk-through,” Buchanan said. “I need to check Delgado’s security. Your performance shouldn’t be difficult. Just conduct an interview. You’re perfectly safe. Which is a hell of a lot more than Delgado will be when I figure out how to get to him.”

  Concealing his intensity, Buchanan parked in front of the mansion. When he got out of the car, he noticed other guards, not to mention groundskeepers who seemed more interested in visitors than in their duties. There were closed-circuit television cameras, wires in the panes of the windows, metal boxes among the shrubbery—intrusion detectors.

  I might have to find another place, Buchanan thought.

  Subduing his emotions, he introduced Holly and himself to a servant who came out to greet them and escort them into a cool, shadowy, echoing marble vestibule. They passed a wide, curved staircase and proceeded along a hallway to a mahogany-paneled study that smelled of wax and polish. Furnished in leather, it was filled with hunting trophies as well as numerous rifles and shotguns in glinting glass cabinets.

  Although Buchanan had never met him, Delgado was instantly recognizable as he stood from behind his desk, more hawk-nosed and more arrogant-looking than he appeared on the videotape and in photographs. But he also seemed pale and thinner, his cheeks gaunt, as if he might be ill.

  “Welcome,” he said.

  Buchanan vividly remembered the images that showed Delgado raping and murdering Maria Tomez. As soon as he had the information he needed, Buchanan planned to kill him.

  Delgado came closer, his English impressive, although his syntax was somewhat stilted. “It is always a pleasure to speak with members of the American press, especially when they work for so distinguished a periodical as the Washington Post. Señorita . . . ? Forgive me. I have forgotten the name that my secretary . . .”

  “Holly McCoy. And this is my interpreter, Ted Riley.”

  Delgado shook hands with them. “Good.” He ignored Buchanan and kept his attention on Holly, obviously intrigued by her beauty. “Since I speak English, we will not need your interpreter.”

  “I’m also the photographer,” Buchanan
said.

  Delgado gestured dismissively. “There will be an opportunity for photographs later. Señorita McCoy, may I offer you a drink before lunch? Perhaps wine?”

  “Thank you, but it’s a little too early for . . .”

  “Sure,” Buchanan said. “Wine would be nice.” There hadn’t been time to teach Holly not to turn down an offer to drink with a target. Refusing alcohol stifled the target’s urge to be companionable. It made the target suspect that you had a reason not to want to relax your inhibitions.

  “On second thought, yes,” Holly said. “Since we’re having lunch.”

  “White or red?”

  “White, please.”

  “Chardonnay?”

  “Fine.”

  “The same for me.” Buchanan said.

  Delgado continued ignoring him and turned to the servant, who had remained at the door. “Lo haga, Carlos. Do it.”

  “Sí, Señor Delgado.”

  The white-coated servant stepped back and disappeared along the hallway.

  “Sit down, please.” Delgado led Holly toward one of the padded leather chairs.

  Buchanan followed, noticing a man on a patio beyond the glass doors that led to the study. The man was an American in his middle thirties, well-dressed, fair-haired, pleasant-looking.

  Noticing Buchanan’s interest in him, the man nodded and smiled, his expression boyish.

  Delgado was saying, “I know Americans like to keep to a busy schedule, so if you have a few questions you would like to ask before lunch, by all means do so.”

  The man came in from the patio.

  “Ah, Raymond,” Delgado said. “Have you finished your stroll? Come in. I have some guests I would like you to meet. Señorita McCoy from the Washington Post.”

  Raymond nodded with respect and went over to Holly. “My pleasure.” He shook hands with her.

  Something about the handshake made her frown.

  Raymond turned and approached Buchanan. “How do you do? Mr . . . ?”

  “Riley. Ted.”

  They shook hands.

  At once Buchanan felt a stinging sensation in his right palm.

  It burned.

  His hand went numb.

  Alarmed, he looked over at Holly, who was staring in dismay at her right palm.

  “How long does it take?” Delgado asked.

  “It’s what we call a two-stepper,” Raymond said. As he took off a ring and placed it in a small jeweler’s box, he smiled again, his blue eyes bottomless and cold.

  Holly sank to her knees.

  Buchanan’s right arm lost all sensation.

  Holly toppled to the floor.

  Buchanan’s chest felt tight. His heart pounded. He sprawled.

  Desperate, he fought to stand up.

  Couldn’t.

  Couldn’t do anything.

  His body felt numb. His limbs wouldn’t move. From head to foot, he was powerless.

  Staring above him, frantic, helpless, he saw Delgado smirk.

  The blue-eyed American peered down, his empty smile chilling. “The drug comes from the Yucatán Peninsula. It’s the Mayan equivalent of curare. Hundreds of years ago, the natives used it to paralyze their victims so they wouldn’t struggle when their hearts were cut out.”

  Unable to turn his head, unable to get a glimpse of Holly. Buchanan heard her gasp, trying to breathe.

  “Don’t you try to struggle,” Raymond said. “Your lungs might not bear the strain.”

  5

  The helicopter thundered across the sky. Its whump-whump-whumping roar vibrated through the fuselage. Not that Buchanan could feel the rumble. His body continued to have absolutely no sensation. The cabin’s presumably hard floor might as well have been a feathered mattress. Neither hard nor soft, hot nor cold, sharp nor blunt had any significance. All was the same: numb.

  In compensation, his senses of hearing and sight intensified tremendously. Every sound in the cabin, especially Holly’s agonized wheezing, was amplified. Beyond a window of the cabin, the sky was an almost unbearably brilliant turquoise. He feared that he would have gone blind from the radiance if not for merciful flicks of his eyelids, which—like his heart and lungs—weren’t part of the system controlled by the drug.

  Indeed his heart was nauseatingly stimulated, pounding wildly, no doubt at least in part from fear. But if he vomited (assuming that his stomach, too, wasn’t paralyzed), he would surely gag and die. He had to concentrate on controlling his fear. He didn’t dare lose his discipline. The faster his heart pounded, the more his lungs wanted air. But his chest muscles wouldn’t cooperate, and the panic of involuntary, smothering hyperventilation almost overcame him.

  Concentrate, he thought. Concentrate.

  He struggled to fill his mind with a calming mantra. He strove for a single all-consuming thought that would give him purpose. Juana, he thought. Juana. Juana. Have to survive to help her. Have to survive to find her. Have to survive to save her. Have to . . .

  His frenzied heart kept speeding. His panicked lungs kept insisting. No. The mantra wasn’t working. Juana? She was a distant memory, years away—in Buchanan’s case, literally lifetimes away. He’d been so many people in the meanwhile. Searching for her, as determined as he’d been to find her, he’d really been searching for himself, and as a new all-consuming, all-purposeful thought filled his mind—

  —it was unwilled, spontaneous—

  —Holly—

  —listening to her struggle to breathe—

  —need to help Holly, need to save Holly—

  —he suddenly knew that he finally had a purpose. Not for Peter Lang. Not for any of his other assumed identities. But for Brendan Buchanan. And that realization gave him an urge to look forward rather than behind, something he hadn’t felt since he’d killed his brother so long ago. Brendan Buchanan had a purpose, and it had nothing to do with himself. It was simply, absolutely, to do everything in his power to make sure that Holly survived this. Not because he wanted her to be with him. But because he wanted her to live. Trapped in himself, he had found himself.

  While his heart continued to speed, he sensed—from a change in pressure behind his ears—that the helicopter was descending. He couldn’t move his head to notice where Delgado sat next to Raymond, but he could hear them talking.

  “I don’t see why it was necessary for me to come along.”

  “It was an order that Mr. Drummond radioed to me as I was flying to Cuernavaca. He wants you to see the progress at the site.”

  “Risky,” Delgado said. “I might be associated with the project.”

  “I suspect that was Mr. Drummond’s idea. It’s time for you to pay off your debt.”

  “That ruthless son of a bitch.”

  “Mr. Drummond would consider it a compliment to be called ruthless. Look down there. You can see it now.”

  “My God.”

  The helicopter continued descending, the pressure behind Buchanan’s ears more painful.

  Painful? Buchanan suddenly realized that he was feeling something. He had never expected to welcome pain, but now he did—joyously. His feet tingled. His hands seemed pricked by needles. The stitches in his knife wound began to itch. His nearly healed bullet wound throbbed. His skull felt swollen, his excruciating headache returning. These sensations didn’t occur all at one time. They came separately, gradually. Each gave him hope. He knew that if he tried to move, he’d be able to, but he didn’t dare. He had to keep still. He had to make sure that his limbs were fully functional. He had to wait for the ideal moment to . . .

  “Just about now, the drug should be wearing off,” Raymond said.

  A strong grip seized Buchanan’s left wrist and snapped a handcuff onto it. Then the left wrist was tugged behind Buchanan’s back, and with force, a handcuff was snapped onto his right wrist.

  “Comfortable?” Raymond’s tone suggested that he might have been speaking to a lover.

  Buchanan didn’t answer, continuing to pretend that he couldn’t move
. Meanwhile the clink and scrape of metal told him that Holly was being handcuffed as well.

  The helicopter’s roar diminished, the pitch of its rotor blades changing, as it settled onto the ground. The pilot shut off the controls, the blades spinning with less velocity, the turbine’s roar turning into a whine.

  When the hatch was opened, Buchanan expected his eyes to be assaulted by a blaze of sunlight. Instead, a shadow blanketed him. A haze. He’d noticed that the sky had become less brilliantly blue as the helicopter descended, but with so much else to think about, he hadn’t paid the lack of clarity much attention. Now the haze swirled into the cabin, and the odor was so acrid that he coughed reflexively. Smoke! Nearby something was on fire.

  Buchanan kept coughing.

  “The drug temporarily stops your saliva glands from working,” Raymond said, dragging Buchanan from the cabin, dumping him onto the ground. “That makes your throat dry. In fact, your throat’ll feel irritated for quite some time.” Raymond’s tone suggested that he enjoyed the thought of Buchanan’s discomfort.

  Holly coughed as well, then groaned as Raymond dragged her from the cabin and dumped her next to Buchanan. Smoke drifted past them.

  “Why are you burning so many trees?” Delgado sounded alarmed.

  “To make as wide a perimeter as possible. To keep the natives away.”

  “But won’t the flames ignite the—?”

  “Mr. Drummond knows what he’s doing. Everything’s been calculated.”

  Raymond kicked Buchanan’s side.

  Buchanan gasped, making himself sound more in pain than he was, thankful that Raymond hadn’t kicked him in the side where he’d been stabbed.

  “Get up,” Raymond said. “Our men have better things to do than carry you. I know you can do it. If you don’t, I’ll kick you all the way to the office.”

  To prove his point, Raymond kicked Buchanan again, this time harder.

  Buchanan struggled to his knees, wavered, and managed to stand. His mind swirled, imitating the smoke that forced him to cough once more.

  Holly staggered upright, almost falling, then gaining her balance. She looked at Buchanan in terror. He tried to communicate an expression of reassurance.