Assumed Identity

by David Morrell

  'Jack, he's supposed to be resting, not working,' Cindy said.

  Buchanan chewed and swallowed. 'Not to worry. Sure. My nap did a world of good. I'll drive along with you.'

  'Great.' Doyle finally started to eat, then paused, frowning toward Cindy. 'You'll be all right while we're gone?'

  'Why wouldn't I be?' Cindy's smile was forced.

  'The soup's excellent,' Doyle said.

  'So glad you like it.' Cindy's smile became even more forced.

  5

  'Something's wrong,' Buchanan said.

  Doyle didn't respond, just stared straight ahead and pretended to concentrate on traffic.

  Buchanan decided to push it. 'Your wife's so good-natured I get the sense she's working at it. Working hard. She doesn't ask questions, but she picks up overtones - about that phone call, for example. If her smile got any harder, her face would have cracked. She doesn't believe for a minute that you and I are friends. Oh, she tries to pretend, but the truth is I make her nervous, and at lunch, she finally wasn't able to hide it anymore. If she gets any more nervous, I might have to leave.'

  Doyle kept staring ahead, driving over bridges that spanned canals along which pleasure boats were moored next to palm trees and expensive homes. The sunlight was fierce. Doyle seemed to squint less from the sun and more from the topic, however, as he put on dark glasses.

  Buchanan let him alone then, eased the pressure, allowing Doyle to respond at his own pace. Even so, Doyle took so long to reply that Buchanan began to think that he never would unless Buchanan prompted him again.

  That wasn't necessary.

  'You're not the problem,' Doyle said, his voice tight. 'How I wish life could be that simple. Cindy's glad to have you at the house. Really. She wants you to stay as long as necessary. When it comes to the favors I do, her nerves are incredible. I remember once. I was stationed at Coronado, California. Cindy and I lived off base. I said goodbye to her in the morning, drove to work, and suddenly my team was put on alert. No communications to anyone off base. So naturally I couldn't tell her I was being airlifted out. I could imagine what she'd be feeling when I didn't come home that night. The confusion. The worry. No emotional preparation for what might be the last time we saw each other.' Doyle's voice hardened. He glanced toward Buchanan. 'I was away for six months.' Buchanan noted that Doyle didn't say where he'd been sent, and Buchanan would never have asked. He let Doyle continue.

  'I found out later that a reporter had managed to discover that I was a SEAL and Cindy was my wife,' Doyle said. 'The reporter showed up at our apartment and wanted her to tell him where I'd been sent. Well, at that point, Cindy still didn't know I was gone, let alone to where, which of course - the where part - she never would have known anyhow. But someone not as strong as Cindy couldn't have helped being surprised to find a reporter blurting questions at her and telling her I'd been sent on a mission. The natural response would have been for her to show her surprise, admit I was a SEAL, and ask him how much danger I was in. Not Cindy, though. She stonewalled him and claimed she didn't know what he was talking about. Other reporters showed up, and she stonewalled them as well. Her answer was always the same. "I don't know what you're talking about." Amazing. She never phoned the base, wanting to know what was happening to me. She just acted as if everything was normal, and Monday through Friday, she went to her job as a receptionist for an insurance company, and when I finally got back, she gave me a long, deep kiss and said she'd missed me. Not "Where were you?", just that she'd missed me. I left on plenty of missions, and I never for a second doubted that she was faithful to me, either.'

  Buchanan nodded, but he couldn't help wondering. If Cindy wasn't nervous because of his presence, what was the source of the tension he sensed?

  'Cindy has cancer,' Doyle said.

  Buchanan stared.

  'Leukemia.' Doyle's voice became more strained. 'That's why she wears that kerchief on her head. To hide her scalp. The chemotherapy has made her bald.'

  Buchanan's chest felt numb. He understood now why Cindy's cheeks seemed to glow, why her skin seemed translucent. The chemicals she was taking - combined with the attrition caused by the disease - gave her skin a non-corporeal, ethereal quality.

  'She just got out of the hospital yesterday after one of her three-day treatments,' Doyle said. 'All that fuss about the food at lunch today. Hell, it was all she could do to eat it. And the pie she was making. The chemotherapy does something to her sense of taste. She can't bear sweets. While you were napping, she threw up.'

  'Christ,' Buchanan said.

  'She's determined to make you feel at home,' Doyle said.

  'You've got trouble enough without. Why didn't you turn this assignment down? Surely my controllers could have found someone else to give me cover.'

  'Apparently they couldn't,' Doyle said. 'Otherwise, they wouldn't have asked me.'

  'Did you tell them about.?'

  'Yes,' Doyle said bitterly. 'That didn't stop them from asking me. No matter how much she suspects, Cindy can't ever be told that this is an assignment. All the same, she knows it is. I'm positive of that, just as I'm positive that she's determined to do this properly. It gives her something to think about besides.'

  'What do her doctors say?' Buchanan asked.

  Doyle steered onto a highway along a beach. He didn't answer.

  'Is her treatment doing what it's supposed to?' Buchanan persisted.

  Doyle spoke thickly, 'You mean, is she going to make it?'

  '. Yeah, I guess that's what I mean.'

  'I don't know.' Doyle exhaled. 'Her doctors are encouraging but non-committal. One week she's better. The next week she's worse. The next week. It's a roller coaster. But if I had to give a yes-or-no answer. Yes, I think she's dying. That's why I asked if what we're doing puts her in danger. I'm afraid she's got so little time left. I couldn't stand it if something else killed her even sooner. I'd go out of my mind.'

  6

  'Who do you think phoned your house? Who asked for Victor Grant?' Doyle - who'd been silent for the past five minutes, brooding, preoccupied about his wife - now turned toward Buchanan. 'I'll tell you who it wasn't. Your controllers. They told me they'd contact you by phoning either at eight in the morning, three in the afternoon, or ten at night. A man would ask to speak to me. He'd say that his name was Roger Winslow, and he'd suggest a time to meet at my office to talk about customizing a boat. That would mean you were supposed to go to a rendezvous an hour before the time they mentioned. A wholesale marine-parts supplier I use. It's always busy. No one would notice if you were given a message via brush contact from someone passing you.'

  Buchanan debated. 'So if it wasn't my controllers who phoned. The only other people who know I claim to be Victor Grant and work in Fort Lauderdale customizing pleasure boats are the Mexican police.'

  Doyle shook his head. 'The man I spoke to didn't have a Spanish accent.'

  'What about the man from the American embassy?' Buchanan asked.

  'Could be. He might be phoning to make sure you arrived safely. He'd have access to the same information - place of employment, et cetera - that you gave the Mexican police.'

  'Yeah, maybe it was him,' Buchanan said, hoping. But he couldn't avoid the suspicion that he wasn't safe, that things were about to get worse.

  'Since you're supposed to be working for me and living above my office,' Doyle said, 'you'd better see what the place looks like.'

  Doyle turned off the highway, taking a side street across from the beach. Past tourist shops, he parked beside a drab, two-story, cinder-block building in a row of similar buildings, all of which were built along a canal, the dock of which was lined with boats under repair.

  'I've got a machine shop in back,' Doyle said. 'Sometimes my clients bring their boats here. Mostly, though, I go to them.'

  'What about your secretary?' Buchanan asked, uneasy. 'She'll know I haven't been working for you.'

  'I don't have one. Until three months ago, Cindy did the office
work. But then she got too sick to. That's why she can make herself believe you came to work for me after she stayed home.'

  As Buchanan walked toward the building, he squinted from the sun and smelled a salt-laden breeze from the ocean. A young woman wearing a bikini drove by on a motorcycle and stared at his head.

  Buchanan gingerly touched the bandage around his skull, realizing how conspicuous it made him. He felt vulnerable, his head aching from the glare of the sun, while Doyle unlocked the building's entrance, a door stenciled BON VOYAGE, INC. Inside, after Doyle shut off the time-delay switch on the intrusion detector, Buchanan surveyed the office. It was a long, narrow room with photographs of yachts and cabin cruisers on the walls, displays of nautical instruments on shelves, and miniaturized interiors of various pleasure craft on tables. The models showed the ways in which electronic instruments could be installed without taking up undue room on a crowded vessel.

  'You got a letter,' Doyle said as he sorted through the mail.

  Buchanan took it from him, careful not to break character by expressing surprise that anyone would have written to him under his new pseudonym. This office was a logical place for someone investigating him to conceal a bug, and unless Doyle assured him that it was safe to talk here, Buchanan didn't intend to say anything that Victor Grant wouldn't, just as he assumed that Doyle wouldn't say anything inconsistent with their cover story.

  The letter was addressed to him in scrawled handwriting. Its return address was in Providence, Rhode Island. Buchanan tore open the flap and read two pages of the same scrawled handwriting.

  'Who's it from?' Doyle asked.

  'My mother.' Buchanan shook his head with admiration. His efficient controllers had taken great care to give him supporting details for his new identity.

  'How is she?' Doyle asked.

  'Good. Except her arthritis is acting up again.'

  The phone rang.

  7

  Buchanan frowned.

  'Relax,' Doyle said. 'This is a business, remember. And to tell the truth, I could use some business.'

  The phone rang again. Doyle picked it up, said, 'Bon Voyage, Inc.,' then frowned as Buchanan had.

  He placed his hand across the mouthpiece and told Buchanan, 'I was wrong. It's that guy again asking to speak to you. What do you want me to say?'

  'Better let me say it. I'm curious who he is.' Uneasy, Buchanan took the phone. 'Victor Grant here.'

  The deep, crusty voice was instantly recognizable. 'Your name ain't Victor Grant.'

  Heart pounding, Buchanan repressed his alarm and tried to sound puzzled. 'What? Who is this? My boss said somebody wanted to speak to. Wait a minute. Is this.? Are you the guy in Mexico who.?'

  'Bailey. Big Bob Bailey. Damn it, Crawford, don't get on my nerves. You'd still be in jail if I hadn't called the American embassy. The least you can do is be grateful.'

  'Grateful? I wouldn't have been in jail if you hadn't misidentified me. How many times do I have to say it? My name isn't Crawford. It's Victor Grant.'

  'Sure, just like it was Ed Potter. I don't know what kind of scam you're runnin', but it looks to me like you got more names than the phone book, and if you want to keep usin' them, you're gonna have to pay a subscriber fee.'

  'Subscriber fee? What are you talking about?'

  'After what happened in Kuwait, I'm not crazy about workin' in the Mideast oil fields anymore,' Bailey said. 'Stateside, the big companies are shuttin' down wells instead of drillin'. I'm too old to be a wildcatter. So I guess I'll have to rely on my buddies. Like you, Crawford. For the sake of when we were prisoners together, can you spare a hundred thousand dollars?'

  'A hundred.? Have you been drinking?'

  'You betcha.'

  'You're out of your mind. One last time, and listen carefully. My name isn't Crawford. My name isn't Potter. My name's Victor Grant, and I don't know what you're talking about. Get lost.'

  Buchanan broke the connection.

  8

  Doyle stared at him. 'How bad?'

  Buchanan's cheek muscles hardened. 'I'm not sure. I'll know in a minute.' He kept his hand on the phone.

  But it took only ten seconds before the phone rang again.

  Buchanan scowled and let it ring three more times before he picked it up. 'Bon Voyage, Inc.'

  'Crawford, don't kid yourself that you can get rid of me that easy,' Bailey said. 'I'm stubborn. You can fool the Mexican police, and you can fool the American embassy, but take my word, you can't fool me. I know your real name ain't Grant. I know your real name ain't Potter. And all of a sudden, I'm beginnin' to wonder if your real name is even Crawford. Who are you, buddy? It ought to be worth a lousy hundred-thousand to keep me from finding out.'

  'I've run out of patience,' Buchanan said. 'Stop bothering me.'

  'Hey, you don't know what being bothered is.'

  'I mean it. Leave me alone, or I'll call the police.'

  'Yeah, the police might be a good idea,' Bailey said. 'Maybe they can figure out what's goin' on and who you are. Go ahead. Prove you're an innocent, upstandin' citizen. Call the cops. I'd love to talk to them about those three Spic drug dealers you shot in Mexico and why you're usin' so many different names.'

  'What do I have to do to convince-?'

  'Buddy, you don't have to convince me of anything. All you have to do is pay me the hundred-thousand bucks. After that, you can call yourself Napoleon for all I care.'

  'You haven't listened to a word I've-'

  'The only words I want to hear are, "Here's your money". Crawford or whoever the hell you are, if you don't get with the program soon, I swear to God I'll phone the cops myself.'

  'Where are you?'

  'You don't really expect me to answer that. When you've got the hundred-thousand. and I want it by tomorrow. then I'll let you know where I am.'

  'We have to meet. I can prove you're wrong.'

  'And just how are you gonna do that, buddy? Cross your heart and hope to die?' Bailey laughed, and this time, it was he who slammed down the phone.

  9

  Buchanan's head throbbed. He turned to Doyle. 'Yeah, it's bad.'

  He had to keep reminding himself that Bailey or somebody else might have planted a microphone in the office. So far he hadn't said anything incriminating. Whatever explanation he gave Doyle, it had to be consistent with Victor Grant's innocent viewpoint. 'That jerk who caused me so much trouble in Mexico. He thinks I shot three drug dealers down there. Now he's trying to blackmail me. Otherwise he says he'll call the cops.'

  Doyle played his part. 'Let him try. I don't think the local cops care what happens in Mexico, and since you didn't do anything wrong, he'll look like a fool. Then you can have him charged with extortion.'

  'It's not that easy.'

  'Why?'

  Buchanan's wound cramped as he suddenly thought of something. The phone had rung just after Buchanan and Doyle entered the office. Was that merely a coincidence? Jesus.

  Buchanan hurried to the front door, yanked it open, and glanced tensely both ways along the street. A woman was carrying groceries toward a cabin cruiser. A car passed. A jogger went by. Two boat mechanics unloaded a crate from the back of a truck. A kid on a bicycle squinted at the bandage around Buchanan's head.

  Buchanan pulled it off and continued staring along the street. His pounded from the fierce sunlight. There! On the left. At the far end. Near the beach. A big man with strong shoulders and a brushcut - Bailey - was standing outside a phone booth, peering in Buchanan's direction.

  Bailey raised his muscular right arm in greeting when he saw Buchanan notice him. Then, as Buchanan started up the street toward him, Bailey grinned - even at a distance, his smile was obvious - got in a dusty car, and drove away.

  10

  'Cindy?' Doyle hurried into the house. The kitchen was deserted. 'Cindy?'

  No answer.

  Doyle turned to Buchanan. 'The door was locked. Her car's still here. Where would she go on foot? Why would-? Cindy?' Doyle hurrie
d deeper into the house.

  Buchanan stayed in the kitchen, frowning out a side window toward the driveway and the street.

  'Cindy?' he heard from a room down the hall.

  At once Doyle's voice softened. 'Are you.? I'm sorry I woke you, honey. I didn't know you were sleeping. When I found the door locked, I worried that something might have.'

  Doyle's voice softened even more, and Buchanan couldn't hear it. Uneasy, he waited, continuing to stare outside.

  When Doyle came back to the kitchen, he leaned against the refrigerator and rubbed his haggard cheeks.