Assumed Identity

by David Morrell

  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.

  It didn't work. Raymond shoved both of them, nearly knocking them down before their momentum jerked them upright and forward. They were being herded toward a wide log building that was partially obscured by smoke.

  But what captured Buchanan's attention was the welter of activity around him, workmen rushing, bulldozers and trucks laboring past, cranes lifting girders and pipes. Amid the din of machinery, Buchanan thought he heard a shot, and then he saw stone blocks scattered before him, hieroglyphs on them, obviously from ruins. Here and there, he saw the stunted remains of ancient temples. At once, as the smoke cleared temporarily, he had a brief view of a pyramid. But the pyramid wasn't ancient, and it wasn't composed of stone blocks.

  This one, tall and wide, was built of steel. Buchanan had never seen anything like it. The structure was like a gigantic tripod, its legs splayed, unfamiliar reinforcements linking them. Though he'd never seen anything like it, he knew intuitively what it was, what it resembled. An oil derrick. Is that what Drummond wants down here? he wondered. But why does the derrick have such an unusual design?

  At the smoke-hazed, log building, Raymond shoved the door, then thrust Buchanan and Holly through the opening.

  Buchanan almost fell into the shadowy, musty interior, his eyes needing time to adjust to the dim, generator-powered, overhead light bulbs. He staggered to a halt, straightened, felt Holly stumble next to him, and found himself blinking upward at Alistair Drummond.

  6

  None of the photographs in the biography and the newspaper stories Buchanan had read communicated how fiercely Drummond dominated a room. Behind thick spectacles, the old man's eyes were deep in their sockets and radiated an unnerving, penetrating gaze. Even the age in his voice worked to his advantage, powerful despite its brittleness.

  'Mr Buchanan,' Drummond said.

  The reference was startling. How did he find out my name? Buchanan thought.

  Drummond squinted, then turned his attention to Holly. 'Ms McCoy, I trust that Raymond made you comfortable on the flight. Se¤or Delgado, I'm pleased that you could join me.'

  'The way it was put to me, I didn't feel I had a choice.'

  'Of course, you have a choice,' Drummond said. 'You can go to jail or become the next president of Mexico. Which would you prefer?'

  Raymond had shut the door after they entered. Now it was bumped open, the cacophony of the construction equipment intruding. A woman in dusty jeans and a sweaty work shirt came in, holding long tubes of thick paper that Buchanan thought might have been charts.

  'Not now, God damn it,' Drummond said.

  The woman looked startled. Smoke drifted behind her as she backed awkwardly from the building and shut the door.

  Drummond returned his attention to Delgado. 'We're much farther along than I anticipated. By tomorrow morning, we ought to be able to start pumping. When you get back to Mexico City, I want you to make the necessary arrangements. Tell your people that everything's in place. I don't want any trouble. The payments have been made. I expect everyone to cooperate.'

  'You brought me here to tell me what I already knew?'

  'I brought you here to see what you sold your soul for,' Drummond said. 'It's not good to keep a distance from the price of your sins. Otherwise you might be tempted to forget the bargain you made. To remind you, I want you to see what happens to my two guests.' With a fluid motion amazing for his age, he turned toward Buchanan and Holly. 'How much do you know?'

  'I found this in their camera bag,' Raymond said. He placed a video tape on a table.

  'My, my,' Drummond said.

  'I played it at Delgado's.'

  'And?'

  'The copy's a little grainy, but Delgado's performance is as enthralling as ever. It holds my attention every time,' Raymond said.

  'Then you know more than you should,' Drummond told Buchanan and Holly.

  'Look, this isn't any of our business,' Buchanan said.

  'You're right about that.'

  'I'm not interested in oil, and I don't care about whatever you're doing to punish Delgado,' Buchanan said. 'All I'm trying to do is find Juana Mendez.'

  Drummond raised his dense, white eyebrows. 'Well, in that you're not alone.'

  They stared at each other, and Buchanan suddenly realized what must have happened. Juana had agreed to work for Drummond and impersonate Maria Tomez. But after several months, Juana had felt either trapped or threatened, or possibly she'd just been disgusted by Drummond. Whatever her motive, she'd broken her agreement and fled. Along the way, unable to risk a phone call to Buchanan's superiors, needing to contact Buchanan but without allowing any outsider to understand her message, she'd mailed the cryptic postcard that only Buchanan could decipher. Meanwhile, Drummond's people had frantically searched for her, staking out her home and her parents' home and anywhere else they suspected she might go. They had to guarantee her silence. If the truth about Maria Tomez were revealed, Drummond would no longer have control of Delgado. Without Delgado, Drummond wouldn't have the political means to sustain this project. The oil industry in Mexico had been nationalized back in the thirties. Foreigners weren't allowed to have the influence in it that Drummond evidently wanted. That this was an archaeological site made the political problem all the more enormous, although from the looks of things, Drummond had solved the archaeological problem simply and obscenely by destroying the ruins. When Delgado became president of Mexico, he could use his power with appropriate politicians. A back-door arrangement could be made with Drummond. For discovering and developing the site, Drummond would secretly be paid the huge profits that foreign oil companies used to earn before the days of nationalization. But that wasn't all of it, Buchanan sensed. There was something more, a further implication, although he was too preoccupied with saving his life to analyze what it was.

  'Do you know where Juana Mendez is?' Drummond asked.

  'For all I know, she's working on that oil rig out there.'

  Drummond chuckled. 'Such bravado. You're a credit to Special Forces.'

  The reference surprised Buchanan. Then it didn't. 'The car I rented in New Orleans and drove to San Antonio,'

  Drummond nodded'. 'You used your own credit card to rent it.'

  'I didn't have an alternative. It was the only card I had.'

  'But it gave me a slight advantage,' Drummond said. 'When my people saw you arrive at the Mendez house in San Antonio, they were able to use the car's license number to find out who had rented the car and then to research your identity.'

  Identity, Buchanan thought. After so many years of surviving as other people, I'm probably going to die because of my own identity. He felt totally exhausted. His wounds ached. His skull throbbed with greater ferocity. He didn't have any more resources.

  Then he looked at Holly, at the terror in her eyes, and the mantra again filled his mind. Have to survive to help Holly. Have to save
Holly.

  'You're an instructor in tactical maneuvers,' Drummond said.

  Buchanan tensed. Instructor? Then Drummond hadn't penetrated his cover.

  Drummond continued, 'Did you know Juana Mendez at Fort Bragg?'

  Desperate, Buchanan tried to find a role to play, an angle with which to defend himself. 'Yes.'

  'How? She was in Army Intelligence. What does that have to do with-?'

  Abruptly a role came to mind. Buchanan decided to play the most daring part of his life. Himself.

  'Look, I'm not a field instructor, and Juana's Army-Intelligence status was only a cover.'

  Drummond looked surprised.

  'I'm looking for Juana Mendez because she sent me a postcard, telling me in code that she was in trouble. It had to be in code because I'm not supposed to exist. Juana used to belong and I still do belong to a special-operations unit that's so covert it might as well be run by ghosts. We look after our own: past members as well as present. When I got the SOS, my unit sent me to find out what was going on. I've been reporting on a regular basis. My unit still has no idea where Juana Mendez is. But they know I was in Cuernavaca. They know I was headed toward Delgado, and after him, they know I was headed toward you. They won't be able to track me here, not right away, not without questioning Delgado. But they will question him, and they will come to you, and believe me, these men care only about sacrifice and loyalty. If they do not find me, they will destroy you. Take my word - at the moment, Holly McCoy and I are your most valuable assets.'

  Drummond sighed. From outside the building, amid the muffled roar of the construction equipment, Buchanan thought he heard another gunshot.

  'For something you invented on the spur of the moment, that's an excellent negotiating posture,' Drummond said. 'I'm a collector, did you know that? That's how I came to be here. Journalists' - he nodded toward Holly - 'have always wondered what motivates me. What do you think, Ms McCoy?'

  Despite her evident fear, Holly managed to say, 'Power.'

  'Partially correct. But only in a simplistic way. What keeps me going, what gives me drive, is the desire to be unique. To own unique things, to be in unique situations, to control unique people. I became interested in the Yucatan because of my collection. Three years ago, an individual came to me with an object of great price. The ancient Maya had their own version of books. They were long strips of thin bark that were folded again and again until they resembled small accordions. Historians call them codices. When the Spaniards invaded this area in the fifteen-hundreds, they were determined to destroy the native culture and replace it with their own. In their zeal, they set fire to the Mayan libraries. Only three authenticated codices are known to have survived. A fourth may be a forgery. But a fifth exists. It is authentic, and I own it. It is absolutely unique because unlike the others, which are lists, mine has substantial information. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. I bought it because I had the means to and because I didn't want anyone else to own it. Naturally I wanted to know what the hieroglyphs signified, so I hired the world's greatest experts in Mayan symbols. You might say I owned those experts. And I eventually discovered that the text described the presence of a massive oil field in this area. The Maya called it the god of darkness, the god of black water, the god that seeps from the ground. At first, I thought they were using metaphors. Then it came to me that they were being literally descriptive. The text emphasized that the god was held in control by temples and a great pyramid, but the location described in the text didn't match any known ruins. Early this year, these ruins were discovered thanks to photographs taken from a space shuttle. Because I controlled Delgado, I was able to control this site, to bring in my own people, to seal off the area, to search.'

  'And in the process, destroy the ruins,' Buchanan said.

  'An unavoidable necessity.' Drummond raised his shoulders. 'Besides, I'd seen the ruins. Why should I care if anyone else does? I didn't want to start drilling until I was certain. It turned out that the oil seepage was exactly where the text said it would be. Beneath the pyramid. The pyramid rested on it, capped it, kept the god in control. But the uniqueness doesn't end there. Oil in the Yucatan means nothing if you can't get to it. This area is so unstable that conventional equipment is useless here. That's why no one else took the trouble to explore for oil in this region. Periodic earthquakes would have destroyed their derricks. But my equipment is one of a kind. It's designed to be flexible, to withstand quakes. Because of it, from now on geologists can look for oil in areas that they previously ignored because there wasn't any way to develop the site. Of course, they'll have to pay a considerable amount to get permission to use my equipment. I doubt they'll ever find an oil field as immense as this one is, however. It's of Kuwaiti proportions, far beyond my expectations. And that's what finally makes this situation truly unique. When the field is fully developed, the oil will not be used.'

  Buchanan must have looked surprised, for in response, Drummond's eyes gleamed. 'Yes. It won't be used. To put so much oil on the market would cause the price of oil to plummet. It would be an economic disaster to the oil-producing nations. When Delgado becomes president, he'll allow me to negotiate with the other oil-producing nations for them to pay Mexico not to put its oil on the market. And there's no limit to what they will pay us. As a consequence, less oil will be used. In that sense, you could say I'm a humanitarian.' Drummond smirked.

  'Or maybe you just want to collect the world,' Buchanan said.

  'What we're discussing is whether your argument is persuasive enough to make me want to collect you.'' Drummond squinted toward Raymond. 'Find out if he's lying about this covert special-operations group.'

  7

  The sun was low, adding to the gloom of the acrid smoke that drifted across the area. Buchanan coughed again as he and Holly were shoved through the haze toward the only part of the ruins that Drummond had allowed to remain intact.

  'The ball court,' Drummond said.

  The haze lifted enough for Buchanan to see a flat, stone, playing surface one hundred feet long and twenty-five feet wide. On each side was a wall, fifteen feet high, the top of which was a terrace from which spectators could watch. Drummond climbed steps to the terrace, followed by Delgado, a guard and Holly. She looked sick from fear. Her handcuffs had been removed. She nervously rubbed her wrists.

  Another guard removed Buchanan's handcuffs, then followed the others to the terrace. Buchanan too rubbed his wrists, trying to increase the flow of blood to his numb hands. Anxiety surged through him as he studied the walls of the court, noting the hieroglyphs and the drawings engraved on the stone.

  'The acoustics of the ball court are amazing.' Drummond spoke from the terrace, peering down at Buchanan. 'I'm using a normal voice, and yet it sounds as if I have a microphone.'

  Despite the roar of construction equipment in the background, despite the closer crackle of flames and the occasional bark of a gunshot, Buchanan heard Drummond with remarkable clarity. The crusty voice seemed to echo from and be amplified by all points of the court.

  'The game was called pok-a-tok,' Drummond said. 'If you study the engravings on the stone wall below me, you can see images of the ancient Maya playing the game. They used a latex rubber ball roughly the size and weight of a medicine ball. The intention was to hurl the ball through the vertical stone circle projecting from the middle of this side of the court. A second stone circle projects from the other side of the court. Presumably that was the goal for the opposite team. The ancient Maya considered pok-a-tok more than mere recreation. To them, it had enormous political and religious significance. In their mythology, the two gods who founded their race did so by winning this game in a contest with other gods. There is evidence that commoners were never allowed to witness the game. Only nobles, priests, and royalty. There is further evidence that the game was a prelude to human sacrifice and that it was played most often with warriors captured from other tribes.'

  'The stakes were life and death.' Raymond's voi
ce came suddenly from behind Buchanan, making him whirl.

  8

  What Buchanan saw stunned him. Threw his mind off balance. Assaulted his sanity. For a moment, he told himself that he had to be hallucinating, that fatigue combined with his concussion had distorted his perceptions.

  But as Raymond stepped through the haze of smoke, tinted crimson by the lowering sun, Buchanan forced himself to accept that what confronted him, however grotesque, was definitely, dismayingly real.

  Raymond was partially naked. He wore thick, leather pads around his waist and groin. Similar armor was strapped to his shoulders, elbows, and knees. Otherwise his body was bare, his nipples showing. His exposed muscles displayed the strength and tone that could have come only from hours of daily exercise.