Assumed Identity

by David Morrell

  What am I going to do? she thought. The confidence she'd felt when escaping had drained from her. The rigors of her new life weighed upon her imagination. Damn it, I liked who I was. I want to be her again.

  How? To do that, you've got to beat Drummond, and he's too powerful to be beaten.

  Is he? Why did he hire me? Why did he want me to put on that performance? What's his secret? What's he hiding? If I can find that out, maybe he can be beaten.

  One thing's sure. Without money and resources, you need help.

  But who can I ask? I don't dare turn to my friends and family. They're a trap. Besides, they haven't the faintest idea of what to do, of what this involves.

  So what about the people you trained with?

  No, they're a matter of public record. Drummond can use his influence to learn who they are. They'll be watched in case I approach them - as much a liability as my family and friends.

  The drizzle increased to a downpour. Her soaked clothes drooped and clung to her. In the gloom, she felt every bit the spiritless bag lady she pretended to be.

  There's got to be someone.

  The cart she pushed kept squeaking.

  You can't be that alone! she wanted to scream.

  Face it. The only person you could trust to help you would have to be someone so anonymous, so chameleonlike, so invisible, without a trace or a record that it would be like he'd never existed. And he'd have to be damned good at staying alive.

  He? Why would it have to be a man?

  But she suddenly knew, and as she reached the entrance to the shelter for the homeless, a man in a black suit with a white, ministerial collar stepped out.

  'Come, sister. It's not a fit night to be out.'

  Playing her role, she resisted.

  'Please, sister. It's warm inside. There's food. A place to sleep.'

  She resisted less stubbornly.

  'You'll be safe, I promise. And I'll store your cart. I'll protect your goods.'

  That did it. Like a child, she allowed herself to be led, and as she left the gloom of the night, as she entered the brightly lit shelter, she smelled coffee, stale donuts, boiled potatoes, but it might as well have been a banquet. She'd found sanctuary, and as she shuffled toward a crowded, wooden bench, she mentally repeated the name of the man whom she had decided to ask for help. The name filled her mind like a mantra. The problem was that he probably no longer used that name. He was constantly in flux. Officially he didn't exist. So how on earth could she get in touch with a man as formless and shifting as the wind? Where in hell would he be?

  2

  Until 1967, Cancun was a small, sleepy town on the northeastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. That year, the Mexican government - seeking a way to boost the country's weak economy - decided to promote tourism more energetically than ever. But instead of improving an existing resort, the government chose to create a world-class holiday center where there was nothing. Various requirements such as suitable location and weather were programed into a computer, and the computer announced that the new resort would be built on a narrow sandbar in a remote area of the Mexican Caribbean. Construction began in 1968. A modern sewage-disposal system was installed as well as a dependable water-purification system and a reliable power plant. A four-lane highway was built down the middle of the sandbar. Palm trees were planted next to the highway. Hotels designed to resemble ancient Mayan pyramids were constructed along the ocean side of the island while night clubs and restaurants were built along the inner lagoon. Eventually, several million tourists came each year to what had once been nothing but a sandbar.

  Cancun's sandbar had the shape of the number seven. It was twelve miles long, a quarter mile wide, and linked to the mainland by a bridge at each end. Club Internacional - where Buchanan had shot the three Hispanics - was located at the middle of the top of the seven, and as Buchanan raced away from it through the darkness along the wave-lapped beach, he ignored the other hotels that glistened on his left and tried to decide what he would do when he reached the bridge at the northern end of the sandbar. The two policemen who'd arrived at the scene of the killings would use two-way radios to contact their counterparts on the mainland. Those other policemen would block the bridges and question all Americans who attempted to leave. No matter how much effort it took, the police would respond promptly and thoroughly. Cancun prided itself on appearing safe for tourists. A multiple murder demanded an absolute response. To reassure tourists, a quick arrest was mandatory.

  Under other circumstances, Buchanan would not have hesitated to veer from the beach, pass between hotels, reach the red-brick sidewalk along the highway, and stroll across the bridge, where he would agreeably answer the questions of the police. But he didn't dare show himself. With his wounded shoulder and his blood-drenched clothes, he'd attract so much attention that he'd be arrested at once. He had to find another way out of the area, and as the beach curved, angling to the left toward the looming shadow of the bridge, he stared toward the glimmer of hotels across the channel that separated the sandbar from the mainland, and he decided he would have to swim.

  Unexpectedly he felt lightheaded. Alarming him, his legs bent. His heart beat too fast, and he had trouble catching his breath. The effects of adrenaline, he tried to assure himself. It didn't help that he'd drunk four ounces of tequila before fighting for his life and then racing down the beach. But adrenaline and he were old friends, and it had never made him lightheaded. Similarly his profession was such that on several occasions he'd been forced into action after his deep-cover identity required him to gain a contact's trust by drinking with him. On none of those occasions, however, had the combination of exertion and alcohol made him lightheaded. A little sick to his stomach, yes, but never lightheaded. All the same, he definitely felt dizzy now, and sick to his stomach as well, and he had to admit the truth - although his shoulder wound was superficial, he must be losing more blood than he'd realized. If he didn't stop the bleeding, he risked fainting. Or worse.

  Trained as a paramedic, Buchanan knew that the preferred way to stop bleeding was by using a pressure bandage. But he didn't have the necessary first-aid equipment. The alternative was to use a method that at one time had been recommended but had now fallen out of favor - applying a tourniquet. The disadvantage of a tourniquet was that it cut off the flow of blood not only to the wound but also to the rest of a limb, in this case Buchanan's right arm. If the tourniquet were applied too tightly or not relaxed at frequent, regular intervals, the victim risked damaging tissue to the point where gangrene resulted.

  But he didn't have another option. Sirens wailing, lights flashing, emergency vehicles stopped on the bridge. As Buchanan paused at the edge of the channel between the sandbar and the mainland, he glanced warily toward the darkness behind him and neither saw nor heard an indication that he was being pursued. He would be, though. Soon. Hurriedly, he reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the folded belt that the second twin had taken from him and that Buchanan had retrieved after shooting the man. The belt was made from woven strips of leather, so there wasn't any need for eyelets. The prong on the buckle could slide between strands of leather anywhere along the belt. Buchanan hitched the belt around his swollen right shoulder, above the wound, and cinched it securely, tugging at the free end with his left hand while he bent his right arm painfully upward and with sweating effort used his trembling right fingers to push the buckle's prong through the leather. His legs wobbled. His vision blackened. He feared that he would pass out. But at once, his vision returned to normal, and with tremendous effort, he compelled his legs to move. Already he sensed, without being able to see the effect clearly, that the flow of blood had lessened significantly. He didn't feel as lightheaded. The trade-off was that his right arm now felt disturbingly prickly and cold.

  Concerned that his blue canvas deck shoes would slip off his feet when filled with water, he removed them, tied their laces together, and wound the laces tightly around his right wrist. Then he took ou
t the list of his pseudonyms that he'd removed from the second twin's corpse. After tearing the sheet into tiny pieces, he quickly waded into the darkness of the channel, the surprisingly warm water soaking his knees, his thighs, and his abdomen. As white-capped waves struck his chest, he pushed his feet off the sandy bottom and surged outward. A strong current tugged at him. In small amounts, he released the bits of torn paper. Even if someone managed impossibly to find all the pieces, the water would have dissolved the ink.

  Relying on the kick of his muscular legs to give him momentum, he turned so his right side was below him, allowed his wounded right arm to rest, and used his left arm to stroke sideways through the water, adding to the power of his legs. The shoes attached to his right wrist created drag and held him back. Determined, he kicked harder.

  The mouth of the channel was a hundred yards wide. As Buchanan pulled with his left arm and thrust with his legs, the water soaked the belt around his right shoulder, stretched the leather, and caused the tourniquet to loosen, decreasing the pressure above his wound. His right arm - no longer cold and prickly - now felt warm and sensitive to the tug of the current. Salt in the water made his wound sting.

  Maybe the salt will disinfect it, he thought. But then he smelled the film of oil and gasoline on the water, left by the numerous power boats that used the channel, and he realized that the water would contaminate his wound, not disinfect it.

  He realized something else - the loose tourniquet meant that his wound would be bleeding again. Blood might attract.

  He swam with greater urgency, knowing that barracuda were often seen among the area's numerous reefs, knowing as well that sharks were sometimes reported to have swum up the channel and into the lagoon between the island and the shore. He had no idea how large the sharks had been or whether they were the type that attacked swimmers, but if there were predators in the water, the blood could attract them from quite a distance.

  He kicked. His foot touched something. A piece of wood perhaps. Or a clump of drifting seaweed. But it might be.

  He thrust himself faster, his foot again touching whatever was behind him.

  He was a quarter of the way across the channel, far enough into it that he felt small, swallowed by the night. Abruptly he heard the drone of a motor to his left and frowned in that direction. The drone became a roar. He saw the lights of a swiftly approaching power boat. It came from the lagoon, sped beneath the bridge, and hurried through the channel toward the ocean. A police boat? Buchanan wondered and strained to get out of its way. As he kicked, he again felt something behind him. He weakened from further loss of blood. Staring frantically toward the approaching boat, he suddenly recognized the silhouette revealed by its lights. The vessel didn't belong to the police. It was a cabin cruiser. Through its windows, he saw several men and women drinking and laughing.

  But the vessel was still a threat. It kept speeding toward him. Halfway across the channel, feeling the vibration of the cruiser's engines through the water, so close that within a few seconds he would either be seen by someone on board or else struck, Buchanan took a deep breath and submerged, veering downward, forced to use his injured arm to help him gain more speed, to avoid the passing hull and the spinning propellers.

  The rumble of the cruiser's powerful engines assaulted Buchanan's eardrums. As he dove farther, deeper, the shoes attached to his right wrist impeded the already awkward motion of his injured arm. He heard the cruiser's rumble pass over him.

  The moment it diminished, he arched fiercely upward, feeling lightheaded again, desperate to breathe. Beneath him, something brushed past his feet. Hurry, he told himself. The decreasing pressure against his ears alerted him that he was almost to the surface. His lungs seemed on fire. Any second now, he anticipated, his face would be exposed to the night. He'd be able to open his mouth and-

  Whack! His skull struck something large and solid. The impact was so unexpected, so painful, so stunning that Buchanan breathed reflexively, inhaling water, coughing, gagging. He might have briefly passed out. He didn't know. What he did know was that he inhaled more water, that he fought to reach the surface. He grazed past the object he'd struck, burst into the open, and greedily filled his lungs, all the while struggling not to vomit.

  What had-?

  His head felt squeezed by swelling pain. In agony, desperate to get his bearings, he found himself facing the receding stern of the brightly lit cabin cruiser. Ominous, a long low shadow stalked the cruiser. The object must have been what Buchanan had struck. But he didn't understand what-

  And then he did. A dinghy. The cruiser's towing it. I had no way of knowing about-

  Something brushed past his legs again. Startled into action, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and now in his skull, Buchanan twisted onto his stomach and swam without regard for his wounded shoulder, using both arms, kicking with both legs, striking whatever it was that bumped past his feet. The opposite shore, the gleaming hotels past the beach, grew rapidly closer. As Buchanan stroked deeply with his left hand, his fingers suddenly touched sand. He was into the shallows. Standing, he lunged toward the beach, his knees plunging through the waves. Behind him, something splashed, and as he reached the shore, he spun toward the gloom of the channel, seeing the phosphorescent wake that something in the water had made. Or perhaps it was only his imagination.

  Like hell.

  Breathing heavily from pain, he wanted to slump onto the sand, to rest, but he heard the blaring rise and fall of more police sirens, and he knew that he didn't dare remain in the open, even in the darkness, so he mustered discipline, drew from the depths of his resolve, and turned his back to the bridge, staggering away from the channel, proceeding along the curve of the beach, studying the glow at the rear of the various hotels.

  3

  Here, as at Club Internacional, the beach was deserted, tourists preferring to go to bed early or else to party at Cancun's many night spots. Buchanan chose a hotel that didn't have an outdoor bar behind it and trudged from the sand. Remaining in the shadows, he found a lounge chair beneath a palm tree and slumped. There were other chairs, but what had attracted him to this particular chair was that a guest had left a towel upon it.

  He slipped the belt from the top of his right shoulder, pressed the folded towel over his wound, and looped the belt several times over the towel, securing it tightly, attempting to make a pressure bandage. Although the towel became wet and dark in places, it seemed to reduce his loss of blood. For how long, he couldn't tell. Right now, all he wanted to do was rest.

  But there was too much to do.

  He unlooped the laces that attached his deck shoes to his right wrist. The canvas of his shoes was pliant because of the water. It shouldn't have been difficult putting them on his feet. But doing so and lacing them was among the hardest tasks he'd ever attempted.

  His skull throbbed from its impact against the dinghy. The sharp pain remained as severe. Gingerly raising his left hand to his wet hair, he touched a gash and felt a large area of swelling. The water in his hair prevented him from determining if the gash was bleeding and if so, how much.

  At the same time, the salt in the water had severely aggravated the pain in his wounded right shoulder. That injury, too, was swollen. It pulsed against the pressure bandage. In addition, disturbingly, the fingers of Buchanan's right hand trembled.

  He told himself that the trembling must be the result of the trauma to his shoulder or of the struggle with the first twin and his subsequent swim across the channel. Relief after stress. Something like that. Hey, when you exercise with weights, he reminded himself, your hands sometimes shake afterward. Sure.

  But only his right hand trembled, not both of them, and the fingers seemed to have a will of their own. He couldn't help worrying that something serious was wrong.

  Move. You're acting like you've never been in a firefight before.

  With effort, he stepped closer to the back of the hotel, leaving the shadows of the beach, moving warily onto concrete, passing
more palm trees, approaching muted lights around a small, oval swimming pool.

  The pool, surrounded by tropical bushes and patio furniture, was deserted. Staying close to the cover of shrubs, Buchanan reached the first, dim, overhead light, where he noticed that his wet shoes left prints on the concrete. He noticed as well that his shirt and pants still dripped water. What interested him most, though, was that the blood on his clothes had been rinsed away. A small blessing in a night of disasters. As soon as his shirt and pants dried, they wouldn't attract attention. But the blood on the towel strapped to his shoulder would certainly make people look twice.

  He needed something to loop over his shoulder and conceal the towel. A jacket would be ideal, but the only way he could think to get one was by breaking into a room, and that was out of the question. Oh, he could pick a lock with ease if he had the equipment, which in this case he didn't, but only amateurs smashed windows and caused a disruption, which in this case he'd be forced to do.