Assumed Identity

by David R. Morrell

  The first twin leaned forward, his hand on his pistol. “Keep talking.”

  “Each of the characters I pretend to be has a particular style of clothes, a preference for different foods, an individual way about him. One might slouch. Another might stand rigidly straight, as if he used to be in the military. Another might have a slight stutter. Still another might comb his hair straight back. Or have spectacles. Or wear a baseball cap. There’s always something about the character that’s memorable. That way, if the police start asking questions about a man with a certain name and certain mannerisms, it’ll be difficult to find that man because the mannerisms are as false as the name. I mentioned after that drunken American confused me with someone else back at the restaurant—his mistake is a variation of an old saying that all foreigners look the same to Americans. Well, that saying can be turned around. Most Americans resemble one another as far as Mexicans are concerned. We weigh too much. We’re clumsy. We’ve got too much money, and we’re not very generous with it. We’re loud. We’re rude. So any American who has easy-to-describe individual characteristics will be remembered by my recruits, and if they’re forced to give that description—‘he has spectacles and always wears a baseball cap’—to an enemy, all I have to do is assume a different set of characteristics, blend with other Americans, and become invisible.”

  Buchanan watched the twins, wondering, Are they buying it?

  The first twin frowned. “Since you use so many false names, how do we know that Ed Potter is your true identity?”

  “What motive would I have for lying? I had to tell you my real name or else you wouldn’t be able to investigate my background and satisfy yourselves that I’m not a threat to you.”

  Buchanan waited, hoping that he’d overcome their misgivings. He’d followed a rule of deep-cover operations. If someone challenges you to the point that you’re about to be exposed, the best defense was the truth—or rather, a version of the truth, a special slant on it that doesn’t compromise the mission and yet sounds so authentic that it defeats skepticism. In this case, Buchanan had established a cover, as he’d explained to the twins, but then he had yet another cover, that of Ed Potter. The latter cover was intended to manipulate the twins into accepting him as a partner. But the false names he used as a time-share condominium salesman in various resorts, and the further false names that he used with his recruits, had not been intended as a way to impress the twins and demonstrate that he would be an asset to them. Rather, those false identities had been a way for Buchanan to protect himself against the Mexican government and, equally important, to prevent the Mexican authorities from tracing his illegal activities to a covert branch of the United States military. The last thing Buchanan’s controllers wanted was an international incident. Indeed, even if Buchanan was arrested while he was posing as Edward Potter, his activities could still not be traced to his controllers. Because he had yet another cover. He would deny to the authorities that he had ever belonged to the DEA, and in the meantime, his controllers would remove or erase all the supporting details for that assumed identity. Buchanan would claim that he had invented the DEA story in order to infiltrate the drug distribution system. He would insist—and there would be supporting details for this cover also—that he was a free-lance journalist who wanted to write an exposé about the Mexican drug connection. If the Mexican authorities tried to investigate beyond that cover, they would find nothing that linked Buchanan to U.S. Special Operations.

  “Perhaps,” the first twin said. “Perhaps we can work together.”

  “Perhaps?” Buchanan asked. “Madre de Dios, what do I have to do to convince you?”

  “First we will investigate your background.”

  “By all means,” Buchanan said.

  “Then we will determine if some of our associates have betrayed us as you claim.”

  “No problem.” Buchanan’s chest flooded with triumph. I’ve turned it around, he thought. Five minutes ago, they were ready to kill me, and I was trying to decide if I’d have to kill them. But I did the right thing. I kept my cool. I talked my way out of it. The mission hasn’t been jeopardized.

  “You will stay with us while we verify your credentials,” the second twin said.

  “Stay with you?”

  “Do you have a problem with that?” the first twin asked.

  “Not really,” Buchanan said. “Except that making me a prisoner is a poor way to begin a partnership.”

  “Did I say anything about making you a prisoner?” The second twin smiled. “You will be our guest. Every comfort will be given to you.”

  Buchanan forced himself to return the smile. “Sounds fine with me. I could use a taste of the lifestyle I want to become accustomed to.”

  “But there is one other matter,” the first twin said.

  “Oh? What’s that?” Buchanan inwardly tensed.

  The second twin turned on his penlight and flicked its glare past Buchanan’s right eye. “The drunken American in the restaurant. You will need to prove to our satisfaction that you were not in Kuwait and Iraq at the time he claims he spent time with you there.”

  “For Christ sake, are you still fixated on that drunk? I don’t understand how I’m supposed to—”

  12

  “Crawford!” a man’s voice boomed from the darkness near the hotel’s bar. The voice was deep, crusty from cigarettes, thick from alcohol.

  “What’s that?” the first twin quickly asked.

  Oh no, Buchanan thought. Oh, Jesus, no. Not when I’ve almost undone the damage from the first time.

  “Crawford!” Big Bob Bailey yelled again. “Is that you flashin’ that light over there?” A hulking silhouette lurched from the hotel’s gardens, a beefy man who’d had too much to drink and now had trouble walking in the sand. “Yes, you, damn it! I mean you, Crawford! You and them spics you’re talkin’ with under that fancy beach umbrella or whatever the hell it is.” He stumbled closer, breathing heavily. “You son of a bitch, I want a straight answer! I want to know why you’re lyin’ to me! ’Cause you and me both know your name’s Jim Crawford! We both know we was prisoners in Kuwait and Iraq! So why won’t you admit it? How come you made a fool of me? You think I’m not good enough to drink with you and your spic pals or somethin’?”

  “I don’t like the feel of this,” the first twin said.

  “Something’s wrong,” the second twin said.

  “Very wrong.” The first twin snapped his gaze away from Big Bob Bailey’s awkwardly approaching shadow and riveted it upon Buchanan. “You’re trouble. You Americans have an expression. ‘Better safe than sorry.’ ”

  “Come on, he’s just a drunk!” Buchanan said.

  “Crawford!” Big Bob Bailey yelled.

  I don’t have another choice, Buchanan thought.

  “Shoot him,” the first twin told the bodyguard.

  (I’ve got to—!)

  “I’m talkin’ to you!” Big Bob Bailey stumbled. “Crawford! By Jesus, answer me!”

  “Shoot them both,” the second twin told the bodyguard. But Buchanan was already in motion, lunging from the plastic chair, diving toward the left, toward the first twin and the Browning pistol he’d set on the table, his hand spread over it.

  Behind Buchanan, the bodyguard fired. With the sound suppressor on the barrel, the guard’s Beretta made a muffled pop. The bullet missed the back of Buchanan’s head.

  However, it didn’t miss Buchanan entirely. As he rose and lunged, his right shoulder appeared where his head had been, and the bullet sliced, burning, through the muscle at the side of that shoulder. Before the bodyguard could shoot a second time, Buchanan had collided with the first twin, toppling him over his chair, simultaneously grabbing for the first twin’s weapon. But the first twin would not let go of it.

  “Shoot!” the second twin told the bodyguard.

  “I can’t! I might hit your brother!”

  “Crawford, what the hell’s goin’ on?” Big Bob Bailey yelled.

  Rol
ling in the sand, Buchanan strained to keep the first twin close to him as he fought for a grip on the pistol.

  “Move closer!” the second twin told the bodyguard. “I’ll shine my light!”

  Buchanan’s shoulder throbbed. Blood streamed from the wound, slicking the first twin and himself, making it hard for Buchanan to keep a grasp on the twin and use him as a shield. As he rolled, sand scraped into his wound. If he’d been standing, the blood would have streaked down his arm to his hand, causing it to become so slippery that his fingers wouldn’t be able to wrench the pistol from the first twin’s hand. But he was prone, and his hand stayed dry as he struggled in the sand. He sensed the bodyguard and the second twin rushing toward him. He heard Big Bob Bailey again yell, “Crawford!” And all at once, the first twin fired his pistol. Unlike the bodyguard’s weapon, the twin’s Browning did not have a sound suppressor. Its report was shockingly loud. The bodyguard and the second twin cursed, scrambling to get out of the line of fire. Buchanan’s ears—already ringing from when the bodyguard had slammed his hands against the sides of Buchanan’s head—now rang louder from the proximity of the shot. Buchanan’s right eye still retained a harsh afterimage from the glare of the penlight that the second twin had aimed at the eye. Relying more on touch than on sight, Buchanan rolled and struggled with the first twin to get control of the pistol. His shoulder ached and began to stiffen.

  The first twin fired the pistol again. As much as Buchanan could tell, the bullet went straight up, bursting through the palm fronds at the top of the shelter. But Buchanan’s already compromised vision was assaulted by the pistol’s muzzle flash. “Jesus!” he heard Big Bob Bailey yell. Despite the ringing in his ears, he also heard distant exclamations from the hotel’s outside bar. He sensed the bodyguard and the second twin surging toward him once more, and suddenly he managed to grab the first twin’s right thumb, twisting it, yanking it backward.

  The thumb snapped at the middle joint with a sound that was soft, gristly, not so much a crack as a crunch. The first twin screamed and reflexively loosened his hold on the pistol, needing to relax his hand, to reduce the stress on his thumb. In that instant, Buchanan wrested the pistol away and rolled, sand sticking to his bloody shoulder. The bodyguard fired. As Buchanan kept rolling, the bullet struck next to him, and Buchanan shot four times in rapid succession. His vision was still sufficiently impaired that he had to rely on other senses—the touch of sand that the bodyguard scattered while he rushed closer to Buchanan, the sound of the muffled pop from the bodyguard’s sound-suppressed Beretta—to help him estimate the bodyguard’s position. Three of Buchanan’s bullets struck the bodyguard, knocking him backward. Buchanan immediately twisted, aiming to his left, firing twice, hitting the second twin in the stomach and the chest. Blood spurting from between his unbuttoned silk shirt, the target doubled over and fell.

  But the bodyguard was still on his feet, Buchanan realized. The man had been hit three times and yet seemed only dazed. Buchanan abruptly understood that all three bullets had struck the bodyguard’s chest and that the Hispanic had seemed so unusually large-boned because the bodyguard was wearing a concealed bullet-resistant vest. As the bodyguard straightened and aimed yet again, Buchanan shot him in the throat, the left eye, and the forehead. Even then, he feared that the bodyguard might spastically squeeze off a shot. Buchanan tensed, desperate to squirm backward. But instead of firing, the bodyguard rose as if trying to balance on his tiptoes, leaned back as if balancing now on his heels, and toppled across the table. At the same time, Buchanan felt thrashing to his right, twisted onto his side, and shot the first twin through his left temple. Blood, bone, and brain—hot and sticky—spattered over Buchanan’s face.

  The first twin shuddered, dying.

  Buchanan, in turn, inhaled deeply and trembled, overwhelmed by adrenaline. The repeated shots from the unsilenced Browning had intensified the agony of the ringing in his head. Due to years of habit, he’d mentally counted each shot as he’d pulled the trigger. Four toward the bodyguard. Two toward the second twin. Three more toward the bodyguard. One toward the first twin. Earlier, the first twin had fired twice. That made twelve all told. Buchanan hadn’t worried about using all his ammunition because he knew that the Browning was capable of holding thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Normally, he wouldn’t have needed to shoot so many times, but in the darkness, he couldn’t guarantee precision. But now his remaining bullets would not be enough if the shots had attracted the twins’ other bodyguards. In a rush, Buchanan crouched behind the table, aiming toward the gloom of the beach, the glow of the lights at the outdoor bar, and the gleam of the lights at the hotel. A loud, nervous crowd had gathered on the sidewalk that flanked the beach. Several men were pointing in Buchanan’s direction. He didn’t see any armed men rushing toward him. Quickly he made sure that the bodyguard and the first twin were dead. While stopped at the first twin, he searched the body, retrieving his belt, his keys, and his pen. He didn’t want anything associated with him to remain on the scene. In a greater rush, he checked the second twin, groped inside his suit coat, and pulled out the list of names—Buchanan’s pseudonyms—that the second twin had read to him. He left the other list, the names of supposedly disloyal associates that he’d given the twins. The authorities would investigate those names and try to implicate them in these killings.

  Or so Buchanan hoped. He wanted to accomplish at least some of what he’d been sent here to do, to inflict as much damage on the drug distribution network as he could. If only this mission hadn’t gone to hell, if only . . .

  Buchanan suddenly froze. Big Bob Bailey. Where was he? What had happened to—?

  “Crawford?” an unsteady voice murmured from the darkness.

  Buchanan strained his vision to study the night, his eyes now less impaired by the glare of the penlight and the strobelike flash of the shots.

  “Crawford?” Bailey’s voice sounded oddly muffled.

  Then Buchanan realized—Bailey had been stumbling toward this table the last time Buchanan had seen him. When the shooting started, Bailey must have dropped to the beach. His voice was muffled because he was pressed, facedown, against the sand.

  “Jesus Christ, man, are you all right?” Bailey murmured. “Who’s doin’ all the shootin’?”

  Buchanan saw him now, a dark shape hugging the beach. He shifted his gaze toward the crowd on the sidewalk near the hotel’s outdoor bar. The crowd was larger, louder, although still afraid to come anywhere near where guns had been fired. He didn’t see any bodyguards or policemen rushing in his direction. They will, though. Soon, he thought. I don’t have much time. I have to get out of here.

  The pain in his shoulder worsened. The wound swelled, throbbing more fiercely. Urgent, he used an unbloody section of his shirt to wipe his fingerprints from where he’d touched the top of the table and the sides of a chair. He couldn’t do anything about the prints he’d left on the glasses in the restaurant, but maybe the table would have been cleared by now, the glasses taken to the kitchen and washed.

  Hurry.

  As he started to swing toward the first twin, wipe fingerprints from the pistol, and leave it in the twin’s hand, he heard Bailey’s voice become stronger.

  “Crawford? Were you hit?”

  Shut up! Buchanan thought.

  Near the hotel’s bar, the crowd was becoming aggressive. The glow from the hotel was sufficient to reveal two uniformed policemen who sprinted off the sidewalk onto the sand. Buchanan finished wiping the pistol clean of fingerprints and forced it into the first twin’s fingers. He pivoted, stayed low, and ran, making sure he kept his right shoulder close to the splashing waves. That shoulder and, indeed, his entire right side were covered with blood. He wanted the blood to fall into the water so that the police couldn’t track him by following splotches of his blood in the sand.

  “Alto!” a man’s gruff voice ordered. “Halt!”

  Buchanan raced harder, staying low, charging parallel to the waves, hopi
ng the night would so envelop him that he’d make a poor target.

  “ALTO!” the gruff voice demanded with greater force. Buchanan sprinted as fast as he could. His back muscles rippled with chills as he tensed in dread of the bullet that would—

  “Hey, what do you think you’re—? What are you shovin’ me for? I didn’t do nothin’!” Big Bob Bailey objected with drunken indignation.

  The police had grabbed the first person they came to.

  Despite his pain and his desperation, Buchanan couldn’t help grinning. Bailey, you turned out not to be completely useless, after all.

  THREE

  1

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  Pushing a squeaky cart along a dark, drizzly downtown alley, the woman dressed as a bag lady felt exhausted. She hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours, and that period of time (as well as several days before it) had been filled with constant dread. Indeed, for months, since she’d first met Alistair Drummond and had agreed to his proposal, she’d never been free from apprehension.