David Morrell - Assumed Identity

by Assumed Identity(lit)

  Buchanan turned toward the ring, threw the ball with his forearms again, and this time the ball went through.

  'Tell him what he wants?' Buchanan glared harder. 'I'll tell him, bitch. Just enough to save my life. You're the threat to him, not me. You're the damned reporter! I'm a soldier! I can be trusted to keep my mouth shut!'

  Buchanan threw the ball yet again. It arced through the ring. 'And I'll win this fucking game.'

  'Just enough to save your life?' Holly turned paler than she already was. 'Hey, we're in this together!'

  'Wrong.'

  Buchanan threw the ball.

  And cursed when it struck the edge of the ring.

  'And you're wrong as well,' Raymond said unexpectedly.

  Buchanan turned to look behind him.

  Raymond had stood. Blood streamed from his mouth, dripping onto his leather armor. 'You're not going to win, after all.'

  Raymond scrambled toward the ball.

  Buchanan lunged after him.

  And slipped.

  He'd been standing too long in one place. The blood from the opened stitches in his side had seeped from beneath his armor. It had trickled down his leg and formed a slippery pool where he stood.

  Although he didn't fall, the strenuous effort of regaining his balance lost him sufficient time that Raymond was able to throw the ball through the ring.

  Without pause, Raymond darted toward it again. But as he scooped it up, Buchanan swept his right forearm beneath the ball, freeing it from Raymond's grip. Using his other forearm, Buchanan thrust the ball against Raymond's left shoulder. The ball's impact made Raymond groan. It rebounded, and as Raymond staggered back, Buchanan caught the ball with upraised forearms. Hurling it, seeing it touch the ring, he felt elated.

  Then his chest cramped. The ball did not go through. It bounced off the edge and fell back. Jesus. Running forward, Buchanan leapt. But he didn't get there soon enough. He didn't raise his arms quickly enough. In midair, he had to strike the ball with his padded left shoulder. It flew back toward the ring.

  And bounced yet again. But this time, Buchanan was ready. As he completed his leap and landed on the court, he raised his forearms, caught the ball, threw, and scored a point.

  'Bravo,' Drummond yelled. 'Yes, that's how the game is played! Shoulders! Angles! Rebounds!'

  'Bitch, watch me win!' Buchanan yelled at Holly. 'You're the one who's going to lose! You're the one who's going to die! You'll wish you'd never met me! You'll wish you'd never led me on!'

  At once Buchanan felt his breath taken away as hands slammed his back, propelling him against the side of the court. In a daze, Buchanan raised his padded forearms to cushion the impact against the stone wall. He spun and was slammed again, this time by Raymond's right padded shoulder, a full blow to the chest. Then Buchanan's back struck the wall, and a sharp pain made him fear that one of his ribs had been broken.

  'Argue with her later,' Raymond said. 'How do you contact your unit?'

  'Exactly,' Drummond said. He coughed again, violently. More smoke swirled over him. The construction equipment continued roaring. Increasing gunshots reverberated, closer.

  'Not until we have a deal!' Buchanan winced from the pain in his chest. Another pool of blood formed at his feet. He felt lightheaded and fought to concentrate. He had to keep Holly and him alive. Play your role, Holly. Play your role.

  'What kind of deal?' Drummond asked.

  'I tell you what you need, and I get to walk away,' Buchanan said. 'In exchange for calling off my unit, I stay alive. But this bitch gets what she deserves.'

  'You'd believe any bargain I made with you?' Drummond asked.

  'Hey, your problem hasn't changed! If anything happens to me, my unit comes after you!' Buchanan held his chest, the sharp pain restricting his breath.

  'And what about Juana Mendez? Do you expect me to believe you won't stop looking for her? Or maybe she no longer matters to you, either.'

  'No.' Buchanan sweated. 'She's the reason I'm in this. I'll keep looking. I'll convince her this is none of her business. I want her left alone. The same as me.'

  'She must be very special to you.'

  'Years ago, I should have married her.'

  'Buchanan, don't do this to me,' Holly said. 'Don't sell me out.'

  'Shut up. Anybody who uses me the way you did deserves to be sold out.'

  'All right,' Drummond said. 'Deal with the woman as you like. How do you contact your unit?'

  Buchanan told them a radio frequency. 'If you're using a telephone, the number is.' He told them that as well.

  'That's a lie,' Holly said.

  Good, Buchanan thought. Keep going, Holly. Take my cue. Play the role. Buy us time.

  'A lie?' Drummond asked.

  'I don't know about the radio frequency, but the telephone number isn't the one I saw him use several times when he reported in. That number was.' She gave a different one.

  'Ah,' Drummond said. 'It seems you haven't been perfectly honest,' he told Buchanan.

  'She's the one who's lying,' Buchanan said. 'I have to call my people by midnight. Let me use your radio and-'

  'This is bullshit,' Raymond said.

  He picked up the ball and hurled it through the ring.

  He did so again.

  And again.

  'You're stalling,' Raymond said. 'The two of you are pretending to fight with each other until you hope we're so confused that we'll keep you alive a little longer.'

  Raymond threw the ball and scored another point. 'That's nine.' He stared at Buchanan. 'I don't believe either of you. One more point, and you're dead.'

  As Raymond prepared to throw the ball a final time, Buchanan lunged. He felt a tremor. The court seemed to ripple. His legs became wobbly.

  Nonetheless he kept charging. When Raymond threw, the ball struck the side of the rim. Buchanan intercepted it in midair, bounced it off his padded forearms, and knocked it through the ring.

  But as he landed, his legs buckled. He was suddenly aware that the roar of the construction equipment had stopped. By contrast, the crackle of flames and the rattle of gunshots became louder. Men screamed.

  He wavered.

  'One more,' Raymond said.

  He picked up the ball. 'One more.'

  He glared at Buchanan. 'And the loser pays the penalty.'

  He threw the ball.

  Buchanan didn't even bother to see if it went through the ring. He was too busy struggling to remain upright, preparing to defend himself.

  Above him, he heard a commotion. Scuffling. A shout. Someone falling.

  'Buchanan!' Holly screamed. 'Behind you!'

  Risking the distraction, he glanced quickly backward and saw that the guard had fallen from the terrace.

  No! he realized. He was wrong. The guard hadn't fallen. He'd been pushed! By Holly.

  The fifteen-foot drop had dazed the man. He lay, holding his leg as if it might be broken. The man had lost his grip on his automatic weapon.

  Buchanan scurried off balance toward it and was knocked to the side by the startling, heavy impact of the ball against his back.

  My head! It almost hit my head! I'll die if it hits my head!

  Buchanan heard more gunshots, more screams, but all he cared about was Raymond stalking toward him.

  'You lost,' Raymond said. His blue eyes glinted with anticipation. His boyish smile was stiff and cruel. It made him look devoid of all sanity. 'I'm going to kill you with this.' He picked up the weighty ball. 'It's going to take a long time. Finally I'm going to use the ball to smash your head like an eggshell.'

  Dizzy, Buchanan stumbled unwillingly back. He slipped on his blood. His brain felt swollen, his skull in terrible pain. He feinted toward the right, then dove toward the left, grabbing the fallen guard's automatic weapon.

  Raymond stood over him, swaying, the ball raised over his head, preparing to hurl it down with all his strength.

  Buchanan aimed the Uzi and pulled the trigger.

  But nothin
g happened.

  The weapon had jammed.

  Buchanan's bowels felt as if they were suddenly filled with boiling water.

  With a laugh, Raymond compacted his muscles to propel the ball down toward Buchanan's face.

  10

  And froze, his body eerily motionless. His blue eyes seemed more empty than ever, glassy. His grotesque smile seemed even more rigid.

  At once the ball fell from his hands, dropping behind him, thunking on the court.

  But his arms remained upstretched.

  Blood trickled from his mouth.

  He toppled forward, Buchanan scrambling to get out of the way.

  As Raymond's face struck the court, Buchanan saw a mass of arrows embedded in Raymond's back.

  He stared forward, in the direction from which the arrows must have come, but all he saw was smoke. Hearing a noise to his right, he spun. The guard, having adjusted to the shock of his fall from the terrace, was drawing a pistol. Buchanan pulled back the arming lever on his Uzi, freed the shell that had jammed, chambered a fresh round, and pulled the trigger, hitting the guard with a short, controlled burst that jolted him backward and down, blood flying.

  'Holly!' Buchanan yelled. The terrace above him was deserted. 'Holly! Where-?'

  'Up here!'

  He still couldn't see her.

  'On my stomach!'

  'Are you all right?'

  'Scared!'

  'Can you climb down? Where are Drummond and-?'

  'Ran!' She raised her head. 'When they saw. My God.' She pointed past Buchanan.

  Whirling, crouching, aiming the Uzi, Buchanan squinted toward the smoke at the end of the court. Any moment, he feared that more arrows would be launched.

  He saw movement.

  He tightened his finger on the trigger.

  Shadows, then figures, emerged from the smoke.

  Buchanan felt a chill surge through him. Earlier, when Raymond had arrived with his leather armor and his feathered helmet, Buchanan had experienced an uncanny sense that Raymond was stepping not only through smoke but time.

  Now Buchanan had that skin-prickling sensation again, but in this case, the figures striding toward him from the smoke were indeed Maya, short and thin, with straight black hair, dark brown skin, round heads, wide faces, and almond-shaped eyes. Like Raymond, they wore leather armor and feathered helmets, and for a dismaying instant, his mind swirling, Buchanan felt as if he'd been sucked back a thousand years.

  The Maya carried spears, machetes, bows and arrows. A dozen men. Their leader kept his stern gaze on Buchanan all the while he approached, and Buchanan slowly lowered the Uzi, holding it with his left hand parallel to his leg, pointing the weapon down toward the ball court.

  The Maya stopped before him, their leader assessing Buchanan. In the background, only the crackle of flames could be heard. The gunshots had stopped, and Buchanan thought he knew why - this wasn't the only group of Maya who, outraged by the desecration of their ancestors' temples, had finally rebelled instead of allowing themselves to be hunted.

  The Mayan chieftain narrowed his gaze with fierce emotion and raised his machete.

  Buchanan didn't know if he was being tested. It took all his control not to raise the Uzi and fire.

  The chieftain whirled toward Raymond's body, striking with the machete, chopping off Raymond's head.

  With contempt, the chieftain raised the head by its hair.

  As blood drained from the neck, Buchanan couldn't help being reminded of the engraving on the wall of the ball court that Raymond had singled out at the start of the game.

  The chieftain pivoted and hurled the skull toward the stone ring. It whunked against the rim, spun, then hurtled through, and landed on the court, spattering blood, rolling, making the sound of an overripe pumpkin.

  Raymond, you were wrong, Buchanan thought. It wasn't the loser but the winner who got sacrificed.

  The chieftain scowled toward Buchanan and raised his machete a second time. Buchanan needed all of his discipline not to defend himself. He didn't flinch. He didn't blink. The chieftain nodded, made a forward gesture with the machete, and led his companions past Buchanan, as if he didn't exist, as if he and not they were a ghost.

  Buchanan felt paralyzed for a moment, watching them stride forward into the smoke, disappearing as if they had never been, and then his legs felt wobbly. He glanced down, appalled by the amount of blood at his feet, his blood, the blood from his reopened knife wound.

  'Holly!'

  'Next to you.'

  He spun. Her features strained with fright, she seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

  'Lie down,' she said.

  'No. Can't. Help me. This won't be over' - he swallowed, his mouth dry - 'until we find Drummond and Delgado.'

  Ahead, through the smoke, men shrieked.

  Dizzy, Buchanan put his arm around Holly and stumbled forward, ready with his Uzi. They entered the smoke. Briefly, nothing could be seen. Then they emerged into what seemed a different world. The ball court had been left behind. So had hundreds of years. They faced the obscene, pyramid-shaped oil rig that stood where a pyramid of stone, a temple, a holy place, had once stood, focusing the energy of the universe.

  Except for the crackle of flames, the place was unnervingly silent. The bodies of construction workers lay all around.

  'Dear God,' Holly murmured.

  Abruptly Buchanan heard a metallic whine. An increasing whump-whump-whump. An engine's roar.

  The helicopter, Buchanan realized. Drummond and Delgado had reached it. He strained to peer up, squinting in pain past the flames that whooshed up from trees ahead of him. There. He saw the blue helicopter rising.

  But something was wrong. It wobbled. It had trouble gaining altitude. As Buchanan struggled to clear his vision, he saw the cluster of men that clung to its landing skids, desperate to be carried away. Inside the crowded chopper, someone had opened a hatch, kicking at the men, trying to knock them off the struts.

  The helicopter wavered, fought for altitude.

  And plummeted into the blazing trees. An instant later, a walloping explosion burst from the flames, scattering bodies and wreckage in all directions. The blast reverberated across the site and into the jungle.

  Buchanan and Holly were jolted back, horrified, smoke drifting over them. Coughing, wiping sweat and grime from their faces, they surveyed the wreckage. The steel pyramid had been struck by a huge, spinning chunk from the helicopter. A support beam had been severed. The derrick listed, drooped, and toppled, metal screeching. Construction equipment was buried by twisted metal. Only the remnants of once great monuments, the ruins of the ruins that Drummond had allowed to remain, seemed permanent.

  A man groaned, 'Help.'

  Buchanan glanced around, hobbling, following the voice through the smoke.

  'Here. Oh, God, please help.'

  Buchanan recognized the voice before he saw him. Delgado. The man lay on his back, a spear projecting from his chest. His face was ashen.

  'Help.' He gestured weakly toward the spear. 'Can't move. Pull it out.'

  'Out? Are you sure?'

  'Yes.'

  'If that's what you want,' Buchanan said. Knowing what would happen, he gripped the spear and tugged.

  Delgado screamed. At once his scream became a gurgle as the force of the spear's removal caused him to hemorrhage internally. Blood erupted from his mouth.

  'For what you did to Maria Tomez,' Buchanan said, 'you deserve a whole lot worse.'

  Holly clung to him, just as he clung to Holly. The sun was setting. The crimson-tinted, smoke-obscured area seemed completely deserted.

  'Dear Christ,' Holly said,'did all of them die? Everybody?'

  'The Maya. I don't see them,' Buchanan said. 'Where are they?'

  The bump of a falling log disturbed the illusion. Buchanan stared toward the right.

  And bristled, finding another survivor.

  Alistair Drummond staggered from a leaning, smoking remnant of the lo
g building that had been the camp's office.

  At last he showed his age. Even more than his age. Stooped, shriveled, his cheeks gaunt, his eyes sunken, he seemed the oldest man Buchanan had ever seen.