Stolen Identity
“This book is terrific. Well plotted, all the elements of a classic thriller with a fresh take on the characters, especially the hero. It paid off every promise and more.” —S.G. Redling, best-selling author of Flowertown and Trigger
“Love it!” —Timothy Hallinan, author of Street Music
Praise for the Blake Sanders Series:
Night Drop
“Looking for an adrenaline rush? You'll find that and more in Night Drop. Blake Sanders is back, and that means the action is nonstop!”
—Alan Russell, author of Multiple Wounds and Burning Man
“I LOVED this story. Night Drop is a fast-paced, tension-filled thriller that will grab you by the throat until the very last page. Blake Sanders is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read in years. This is definitely Sherer at his best.”
—KT Bryan, author of Team EDGE
Night Tide
“A great, great read! Even better than Night Blind, and that’s not easy.”
—Timothy Hallinan, author of The Fame Thief
“A cracking good story and a first-rate thriller.”
—J. Carson Black, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Survivors Club
“A tight, well-constructed story and characters that leap from the page. I’ll definitely be back for more.”
—Robert Gregory Browne, author of Trial Junkies 2: Negligence
Night Blind
“An appealing, empathetic lead.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“This is an exciting, well-crafted thriller and most certainly a satisfying one.”
—Mysterious Reviews
“Thriller writer Sherer renders a sympathetic lead character and an engaging . . . story line in his latest.”
—Allison Block, Booklist
“Loved every page of it.”
—Brett Battles
“A tightly paced page-turner that's impossible to put down. Terrific!"
—Allison Brennan
“Pay attention. You won’t want to miss a word."
—J.T. Ellison
“Rich, complex, and deeply satisfying.”
—Bill Cameron
Praise for the Tess Barrett Series:
Blind Instinct
“Sherer delivers tenfold on style…and the pace is fast and exciting.” —Robert Walker, author of Dead Ship Down and the Jessica Coran Instinct series
Blind Rage
"Tremendous book. Flat out loved it." —Ken Bruen, Shamus, Macavity and Barry Award-winning author of Green Hell
“Blind Rage has a bit of everything for almost everyone. There are military secrets, technology, a couple of resourceful teenagers on the run—one blind, some rather nasty, bullying teenagers, unseen bad guys, and a stalwart hero who trades the evils of the Mideast for the evils of Seattle. The book is a definite page turner.” —Polly Iyer, bestselling author of Indiscretion
“Entirely engrossing and unusual clandestine operations fare. It’s well worth the read.” Douglas Wolfe, critic for the TVFanatic website.
Stolen Identity
Also by Michael W. Sherer
Blake Sanders Series
Night Strike
Night Drop
Night Tide
Night Blind
Tess Barrett Series
Blind Instinct
Blind Rage
Emerson Ward Mysteries
Death on a Budget
Death Is No Bargain
A Forever Death
Death Came Dressed in White
Little Use for Death
An Option on Death
Suspense
Island Life
Stolen Identity
Michael W. Sherer
Copyright © 2019 by Michael W. Sherer
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 US Copyright Act without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Cutter Press, Seattle.
Cover Design: Anne Kaye-Jewett, AKJ Design
For Dave,
and all the men and women
who have served,
many thanks.
Stolen
Identity
Michael W. Sherer
1
Armed men in black clothing silently approached my house in the hours before dawn. Two of them stood on the dark porch about to break down my front door. So much for the rules…
I spent my life doing the right thing—at least I’d always tried my level best—but after more than sixty years everything went to shit anyway. That’s just the way life goes sometimes.
* * * * *
One day earlier…
The hawk-faced man unknotted his limbs and climbed wearily from the small car that he’d worn like a turtle’s shell for the past several days. Dents and rust decorated the faded paint, and at times the gray smoke belching from the car’s exhaust nearly convinced the man the car would never make it. Despite his body’s fatigue from the nonstop noise and pounding of driving, the man’s mind was sharp and alert as his driver, squat and stocky, shut off the engine and slid from behind the wheel. The man sniffed the scents borne on the desert breeze, felt the cool night air caress his cheek, saw stars twinkle above the dark horizon. A long, low building stretched out in front of them, its few small windows spilling yellow lamplight from inside. A narrow vertical slit of light appeared in the building’s black face, widened to a rectangle, and momentarily dimmed as a man stepped through the opening onto the two concrete steps leading to the desert floor.
“As-salaam ’alaykum,” the man said softly.
The hawk-faced man returned the formal greeting with the traditional response. “Wa ’alaykum salaam.”
“Welcome to Mexico,” his host said, stepping into the beam of the small car’s headlights. Though not as tall, in general appearance his host’s coloring and features looked remarkably similar to his own.
“I’ve already been here three days,” the man replied. “That’s three days too many.”
His host’s smile disappeared as he gestured toward the building. “Come in. You must be tired and hungry after your long journey.”
He waved a hand. “The journey only steeled my resolve. All I hunger for is the chance to fulfill Allah’s will.”
“We sing his praises,” the host intoned.
The hawk-faced man considered the man’s blind devotion. Maktub—“it is written”—was what so many believed. He, himself, believed only that his will, not Allah’s, would accomplish the goal. Others had boasted of someday executing what he had set in motion. Others who did not think it possible considered his mission must be the will of Allah. But it was he who had planned the operation from beginning to end in meticulous detail. No magical voices had spoken to him in the night, no burning bush. Either his plan worked or it didn’t, but not because he believed maktub. His success or failure came down to his ability to anticipate, to foresee the pitfalls and have alternative plans in place.
“Is everything ready?” he said.
His host’s head bobbed quickly. “All according to plan. I brought the documents across the other day so U.S. Customs has a record of you entering Mexico. You’ll simply return to ‘your’ country with the same identification.”
“Show me,” he said.
His host quickly turned and strode back into the house. He followed more leisurely, keen senses alert to movement
and sounds in the darkness. Except for the hoot of an owl and a distant coyote’s bark, the desert lay still and silent under the stars. The man’s driver fell in behind him as he stepped through the doorway into the light. His host stood next a rickety table, its surface covered with items the man would need on his trip north—passport, driver’s license, about five thousand in US currency in various denominations, credit cards, and more.
The man picked up the passport and examined it carefully, noting the recent photo of himself, yet not him, full but neatly trimmed beard salted with gray, and brown hair worn long over the ears also graying at the temples, a sheaf falling over his forehead, cheeks rounder and fuller than his own. The face looked professorial, like so many he’d known during his undergraduate years at the most Ivy League of schools. He set the passport down and looked closely at the driver’s license next. Satisfied, he fingered an auto club membership card and nodded. They’d done well. Anyone, it seemed, could get a fake driver’s license in America. How else could eleven million illegal immigrants function? But the little things like the auto club card would establish the veracity of his new identification.
He allowed contentment to turn up the corners of his mouth. As soon as he’d discovered the fluke, he’d researched and plotted how best to take advantage of the most common crime in this new cyber-age: identity theft. But he still appreciated the irony—the false identity created for him was simply the Americanization of his own adopted name—Zayn al-Qadir.
2
The recently renovated façade of Ann Arbor’s VA hospital hides a multitude of sins. Discount the ten vets murdered there in the ’70s by a pair of Filipina nurses; VA auditors named it one of three VA facilities in Michigan under investigation for mistreating vets in ways large and small. Understaffed and short of necessary resources, the hospital served 65,000 vets in the area. Auditors found the least of its problems was that five percent of vets it served had to wait 30 days or more to see a doctor. A local paper said that on the day of the audit, the hospital had more than 50,000 appointments scheduled. The 900 providers on staff would have had to see about 54 patients each that day, or about one patient every 8.8 minutes. Doable, but auditors questioned the quality of care offered.
The hospital was the last place I wanted to be, but on my budget I couldn’t even afford ObamaCare. As a vet of my country’s most “unpopular” war—as if wars were contestants in some grandiose beauty pageant—I was well acquainted with the deficiencies of the VA health system. But I’d put off the daily exhaustion and the lumpiness under my arms far too long. Which is how I found myself in front of an indifferent nurse in an anteroom of D127, indelicately shrugging out of the tissue-thin cotton robe that had left my saggy, old-guy butt hanging out for all the world to see for the past hour and forty-seven minutes. That cut the amount of time each of those providers could spend with other patients by nearly a minute apiece. I’d been poked, prodded, probed, punctured, photographed and peered at by no less than four physicians, five nurses, a radiologist, an orderly and a curious visitor, a woman of a certain age who happened to pass by in the hall. I caught a glimpse of my skinny, wrinkled ass in the mirror above the hand sink. It wasn’t pretty, and served as a reminder of how well I lied about my age to the face that stared back at me.
The nurse stood by the door while I finished dressing, then led me down the hall to a small empty office. She gestured to the lone chair as she leaned her ample bosom over and placed my chart on the desk.
“Doctor will see you shortly,” she said on her way out.
I let my gaze roam over the sparse furnishings. Whatever the VA spent its budget on didn’t include homey surroundings. Ambience had nothing to do with why I’d come anyway, but even a high school dropout like me could guess my prognosis.
“Doctor” turned out to be a guy named Sturgis who had seen me earlier. About the same age as my oldest kid Doug, Sturgis had either graduated with a degree in altruism or from med school in a Third World country. Why else would anyone work in a bureaucratic nightmare for a fraction of what they could make in private medical practice? The smile on his face as he came in looked like an accessory he put on in the morning after he showered and dressed.
“I know you’re anxious to hear what we found,” Sturgis said as he lowered himself into the chair behind the desk. “I’m hesitant to say anything until we get the results of your tests back.”
“C’mon, Doc,” I said, trying to replicate his smile. “It’s not like I don’t know the score. Fatigue, shortness of breath, abdominal tenderness, swollen lumps in my armpits, weight loss… I’m sitting in an office in the middle of the oncology department, for fuck’s sake.”
“You got me there,” he said, crinkling around the eyes changing the smile to something more real. “Okay, yes, it looks like cancer, smells like cancer—”
“Yeah, yeah, walks like a duck...”
He nodded vigorously. “The thing is, the tests will tell us what kind and how far it’s spread. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I don’t want you to go home and think you’re waiting for a death sentence. From all indications, my best guess is that it’s a treatable form of cancer in a fairly early stage. And yes, I’m being deliberately vague. Until I know more, I want to be Switzerland on this.”
“The Swiss have one of the best trained armed forces in the world.”
He blinked. “Really?”
“Sure. And their best troops guard the Pope. Poor shits. I wouldn’t be caught dead in those uniforms. But I sure as hell wouldn’t mess with any of them, either.”
I clamped my mouth shut, flushing at the sudden torrent of words. After ten years of living alone, I wasn’t used to talking so much. I knew the only reason my yap was running like a toddler’s nose was a bad case of nerves. It had been forty years since I’d felt fear like this. Memories I’d hidden away floated up toward the surface, still murky and indistinct.
“My point,” Sturgis said, easing me back from the edge, “is that I think you’ll have options. We can talk about them in a week or so when the results are in. That sound reasonable?”
I shrugged. “Better than being offered a last cigarette.”
Surprise widened his eyes. “You smoke?”
I laughed and stood. “Hell, no. But maybe I should start, huh?”
The accessory smile was back. “As your doctor—”
“You’d have to advise against it. I know. Just jerking your chain, Doc. Say, thanks for breaking the news to me gently.”
He rose and stuck out his hand. “You as tough as the Swiss? If you are, I think I’m going to enjoy working with you, Mr. Keator.”
I considered the question. Maybe in the end the cancer would get me. But, yes, I was one tough old bird, and the monstrosity that had invaded my body would choke on every grizzled, gristled cell before I let it take me down.
I matched his grip. “Call me Zane. And bring it on, Doc.”
3
After reading the same sentence in the brief in front of him for the fifth time, Douglas Keator looked for the source of his lack of focus. These days, it seemed whenever he needed to concentrate on work, he worried about his family, and whenever he need to pay attention to what was going on at home, the job pulled him away. He glanced out the window of his office on the twentieth floor, and saw a slice of the Detroit River glint in the autumn sunlight. He’d done okay for himself, for his family. And family—providing for Sally and the kids, protecting them—was what drove him. If money had been the only object, he could have picked some other career, but he wouldn’t have been happy. This was where he belonged, where what he did mattered. Here, he could change things, make life better not only for his family but other families—the whole community—as well.
A light rap on his open office door brought his attention back to the work at hand. He swiveled as Janice Foster stepped inside. Conservatively dressed in a gray pinstripe, wool suit, brown hair pulled into a neat bun, Janice was old enough to be his mother, but her w
ork ethic and keen intellect put a lot of the younger people on staff to shame, even deputy assistant U.S. attorneys like himself. He knew that some of his peers looked down on Janice, thought they were better than she because of their degrees, or job title, or salary. But Doug wouldn’t trade a dozen of them for Janice, despite the fact that she’d only had an associate’s degree when she’d been hired as an administrative assistant about the time he’d been in diapers, and had gone to school nights to get her bachelor’s degree.
Janice had been an invaluable staff member in the office as long as she’d been there. Before Doug had arrived, wet behind the ears from law school, the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Michigan had promoted Janice to intelligence research specialist due to two unique qualifications—she had an uncanny instinct for taking seemingly disparate small details and seeing them in the context of a bigger picture, and she spoke passable Arabic. Not surprising, considering Michigan had the second highest population of Arab-Americans in the country, from Egyptian Muslims to Iraqi Christians. Born Janice Boutros, she was the daughter of Syrian immigrants, so had learned both Arabic and English growing up. Doug knew she’d been married once, and had kept her former husband’s name. Divorced, he thought, but he’d never asked, even though she’d been a guest at his home many times. He didn’t like to pry into the private lives of people he worked with.
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