Assumed Identity

by David R. Morrell

“I’ll keep him company.” Holly gave Buchanan another sip of water.

  “As long as he rests. I don’t want him talking a lot. On the other hand, I don’t want him sleeping a lot, either. Not until I’m sure he’s out of danger.”

  “I understand. I’ll just be here to reassure him,” Holly said.

  “TLC never hurts.” The doctor started to leave, then looked back. “You’ve certainly been having your share of injuries, Mr. Buchanan. What caused the wound to your shoulder?”

  “. . . Uh. It . . .”

  “A boating accident,” Holly said. “The edge of a propeller.”

  “It’s a good thing you’ve got medical insurance,” the doctor said.

  3

  Tense. Buchanan waited for the doctor and the nurse to leave, then slowly turned his head and stared at Holly.

  She smiled engagingly. “You want more water?”

  “. . . What’s going on?”

  “You know, when I was a little girl, I couldn’t decide whether to be a nurse or a reporter. Now I’m getting to be both.”

  Buchanan breathed with effort, his voice a gravelly whisper. “What happened? How did . . . ?”

  “Save your strength. Last night, I followed you from the hotel.”

  “How did you know where I was staying?”

  “That’s confidential. Rest, I told you. I’ll do the talking. I figured you had to leave the hotel sometime, so I waited across the street. There’s no back exit, except for the service doors. But I didn’t think you’d draw attention to yourself by making the staff wonder why you’d use a service door, so it seemed to me the best bet was the front. Mind you, I did have Ted—you remember Ted, from the train—watching the back. He and I were linked by two-way radios. When you came out, I was just one of several people wearing costumes. Otherwise, this red hair would have been a giveaway. You didn’t notice when I followed you.”

  Buchanan breathed. “Ought to dye it.”

  “What?”

  “Your hair. For following people. Change the color to something bland.”

  “Never. But I guess you’ve changed the color of your hair often enough.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Holly gave him another sip of water. “By the way, was my answer right? When the doctor asked how you got the wound to your shoulder? A boating accident? When you were Victor Grant, isn’t that what you told the Mexican police?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure.”

  His eyelids felt heavy.

  Where does she get her information? he thought.

  “Confidential,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You asked where I got my information. That’s confidential.”

  I did? I asked her that out loud?

  He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  4

  The doctor pointed at the uneaten tuna sandwich. “Your lack of appetite worries me.”

  “Hospital food. I never liked it. I can smell all the other meals that were on the cart.”

  “Mr. Lang . . .”

  “Buchanan.”

  “Right. Mr. Buchanan. I just wanted to be sure. If you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to satisfy my slightest concern about your concussion. If I were you, I’d eat that meal, and then I’d ask the nurse to get me another.”

  Buchanan mustered the strength to reach for the sandwich.

  “Here, I’ll give you a hand,” Holly said.

  “I think the doctor wants to see if I can do it by myself.”

  “You’re a student of human nature,” the doctor said. “After you’ve enjoyed your meal, I want you out of bed and walking around a little. To the bathroom, for example. I need to be satisfied that your legs and the rest of you are all in working order.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a slave driver?”

  The black doctor raised his eyebrows. “You’re getting better if you can make jokes. I’ll be back to examine you after lunch.”

  The moment the doctor left, Buchanan set down the tuna sandwich. He glanced at Holly. “I don’t suppose you’d eat this for me. Or dump it somewhere and make it look as if I finished everything.”

  “Do the manly thing and eat it yourself if you want to get out of here.” Holly’s emerald eyes gleamed with mischievousness.

  “How do you get your eyes that color? Tinted contact lenses?”

  “French eye drops. A lot of movie stars use them. The drops emphasize the color of their eyes. It’s a trick I learned when I was working in Los Angeles. Come to think of it, you’d find the trick handy. For when you’re altering your appearance. You wouldn’t have to fool around with those tinted contact lenses you mentioned.”

  “Why would I want to alter my appearance?”

  She sounded exasperated. “You don’t give up.”

  “Neither do you. Last night. What happened? You didn’t finish telling me.”

  “I followed you through the French Quarter and over to Café du Monde. By then, it was eleven o’clock. You seemed to be looking for somebody. In fact, you were looking pretty hard.”

  “An old friend I’d arranged to meet. The only reason I didn’t want you following me was that I was getting tired of your questions.”

  “And here you are, listening to more of them.”

  “Café du Monde.”

  “I was watching from across the street, so I didn’t see everything perfectly. You came out of the restaurant. There was a commotion, a group of costumed people going by. They acted as if they’d been drinking. Then one of them, a man dressed as a pirate, bumped into you. All of a sudden you grabbed your side and spun. A woman screamed. People were scrambling to get out of your way. You tripped over somebody. You hit your head on an iron railing. I ran toward you, but not before I noticed the guy in the pirate costume shove a knife back into his belt as he disappeared into the crowd down the street. I stayed with you, trying to stop the blood while one of the waiters in the restaurant phoned for an ambulance. ”

  “Blood doesn’t make you squeamish?”

  “Hey, I can’t write the end of my story if you die on me.”

  “And all along, I thought it was my personality that attracted you.”

  “Which one?”

  “What?”

  “Which personality? You’ve had so many.”

  Buchanan set down a remnant of the tuna sandwich. “I give up. I can’t think of any way to convince you that . . .”

  “You’re right. There isn’t any way to convince me. And last night made me more sure than ever. The man in the pirate costume didn’t try to mug you. I just told that to the police so they wouldn’t wonder about you. No, that wasn’t an attempted mugging. That was an attempted murder.” She sat straighter. “Why? Who were you meeting? What’s—?”

  “Holly.”

  “—going on that—?”

  “I’ve got a question of my own,” Buchanan said. “I had something with me. If anyone found it, I’m sure the police would have—”

  “Sure,” Holly said.

  “—given it back or—”

  “Wanted to have a very deep heart-to-heart with you about it.” Holly opened her purse. “Is this what you lost?”

  Inside the purse, Buchanan saw his Beretta 9-mm semiautomatic pistol. His eyes narrowed.

  “You didn’t drop it,” Holly said. “I felt it while I was trying to stop you from bleeding. Before the police and the ambulance arrived, I managed to get it off you without being noticed.”

  “No big deal. I carry it for protection.”

  “Sure. Like when you’re meeting an old friend. I don’t know what the gun-concealment laws are in this state, but it’s my guess you need a permit to carry this. And for certain, if you’re legitimate, I know the Army wouldn’t approve of you walking around armed while you’re on furlough.”

  “Hey, a lot of people carry guns these days,” Buchanan said. “That attempted mugging last night proves why.”

/>   “An attempted murder, not a mugging.”

  “That proves my point. Some nut gets drunk, maybe cranked up on drugs. He’s wearing a pirate costume. Suddenly he thinks he’s a real pirate. So he stabs somebody. The equivalent of a drive-by shooting. Only this is a walk-by stabbing.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Look, I have no idea why he stabbed me. It’s as good a theory as any,” Buchanan said.

  “But would the cops buy it if they’d also found the other thing you lost?”

  Other . . . ? Buchanan felt suddenly cold.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me about it.” After glancing at the door to make sure no one was looking in, Holly reached under the pistol and removed a passport from her purse. “The ambulance attendants had to get your jacket off so they could check the wound. I told them I was your girlfriend and hung on to the jacket. A good thing I did. For your sake.” She opened the passport. “Victor Grant. My, my.”

  Buchanan felt even more chilled.

  “Not a bad picture of you. Your hair was a little shorter. Yep, the gun along with a passport that didn’t match the ID in your wallet would definitely have made the police wonder what was going on,” Holly said. “For starters, they’d have suspected you were running drugs. Actually, that’s not so far from the truth, given your involvement with covert operations like Scotch and Soda.”

  Buchanan stopped breathing.

  “So?” Holly put the passport back under the gun in her purse. “You’ve always got so many reasonable explanations for your unusual behavior. What’s your story this time?”

  Buchanan pulled his salad toward him.

  “Suddenly hungry? Trying to fill the time while you come up with a reason for the fake passport?”

  “Holly, I . . .”

  He picked up his fork.

  “Can’t think of one, can you?” she asked.

  He put down his fork and sighed. “You don’t want to mess around with this. Do yourself a favor and bow out quietly. Forget you ever saw that passport.”

  “Can’t. I’ve always wanted a Pulitzer. I think this’ll get me one.”

  “Pay attention. Let’s assume for the moment that you’re right.” Buchanan held up a hand. “I’m not admitting anything, but let’s assume. The people you’d be up against don’t play by any rules you know about or can imagine. What you might get instead of a Pulitzer is a coffin.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a hypothetical, well-intentioned warning.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve protected myself? I’ve made copies of my research. They’re with five different people I trust.”

  “Sure. Like your lawyer. Your editor. Your best friend.”

  “You’ve got the idea.”

  “All predictable,” Buchanan said. “A good black-bag man could find where the research was hidden. But it’s probable that no one would even bother looking. If your research was so wonderful, the story would have been published by now. You’ve got nothing but suspicions. All deniable. But if anybody feels threatened by that research, they might not know or care that you’ve left copies of the research with other people. They might just decide to get rid of you.”

  “What about you?” Holly asked.

  “You mean, would I think about getting rid of you? Don’t be absurd. I’ve got nothing to do with any of this. I was only giving advice.”

  “No. What about you? Don’t you feel threatened?”

  “Why on earth would I . . . ?”

  “If you were on a sanctioned mission, you wouldn’t be traveling under your own identity, not while you carried a passport under someone else’s name. Your controllers won’t like that. After what happened to you in Mexico and Florida, they’ll think they’ve got a loose cannon. They’ll wonder what in God’s name you were doing with a gun and a passport that you weren’t supposed to have. You’ve got other problems besides me. You and your controllers must have established a schedule for staying in touch. If you’ve missed any part of that schedule, they’ll be very nervous. You’d better call them.”

  “If I’m who you say I am, do you honestly think I’d call them in front of you? On an unsecured phone?”

  “You’d better do something. They’ll be getting impatient. And don’t forget this—the longer you’re out of touch with them, the more suspicious they’ll be about your ability to do your work.”

  Buchanan felt pressure behind his ears.

  “I see your appetite improved,” the doctor said, coming back into the room.

  “Yeah, I’m almost done with my salad.”

  “Well, finish your Jell-O, Mr. Lang.”

  “Buchanan.”

  “Then take your walk to the bathroom. After that, I might be encouraged enough to think about releasing you.”

  5

  Wearing sneakers, jeans, and a short-sleeved blue shirt that he’d asked Holly to buy for him to replace his bloodstained shoes and clothing, Buchanan felt trapped in the wheelchair that a nurse insisted he keep sitting in while she wheeled him from the elevator and through the hospital’s crowded lobby to the main doors.

  “I told you I can walk,” Buchanan said.

  “Until you trip and fall and sue the hospital. Once you’re out those doors, you’re on your own. Meanwhile, you’re my responsibility.”

  Through the doors, amid the din of street noises, Buchanan was forced to raise a hand to his eyes, the bright sun making him squint painfully.

  The nurse helped him out of the wheelchair. “You said somebody was going to meet you?”

  “Right,” Buchanan lied. He hadn’t seen Holly for quite a while and had no idea what had happened to her. Normally, he would have felt reprieved from being pestered by her questions, but at the moment, he felt nervous. Worried. The gun and the passport. He had to get them back. “I’ll just sit over on that bench. My friend ought to be here any minute.”

  “Enjoy your day, Mr. Buchanan.”

  “Lang.”

  The nurse looked strangely at him as she took the chair away.

  He wondered why.

  Then he realized.

  His skin prickled.

  What’s happening to me?

  The moment the nurse disappeared into the hospital, he stood. The reason he hadn’t wanted to be brought down in a wheelchair was that he didn’t want to leave the hospital before he had a chance to get to a pay phone.

  Managing not to waver, he reentered the lobby and crossed toward a bank of telephones. His hand shook as he put coins in a slot. Thirty seconds later, he was talking to a contact officer.

  “Where have you been?” the gruff voice demanded.

  Keeping his own voice low, relieved that the phones on either side of him weren’t being used, taking care that he wouldn’t be overheard, Buchanan answered, “I’ve been in a hospital.”

  “What?”

  “A guy tried to mug me,” he lied. “I didn’t see him coming. I got stabbed from behind.”

  “Good God. When you didn’t show up at the various rendezvous points this morning, we got worried. We’ve had a team waiting in case you’re in trouble.”

  “I got lucky. The wound isn’t serious. Mostly, they kept me in the hospital for observation. With so many nurses coming in and out, I didn’t want to risk phoning this number, especially since the hospital would automatically have a record of the number. This is the first chance I’ve had to call in.”

  “You had us sweating, buddy.”

  “The emergency’s over. If you had people at the rendezvous sites, that means you had something you wanted me to know about. What is it?”

  “About the woman reporter you met on the train. . . . Is your phone secure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then this is the message. Continue your furlough. Don’t worry about the reporter. We’re taking steps to guarantee that she’s discouraged.”

  Buchanan’s grip tightened on the phone.

  “Check in at the rendezvous sites o
n schedule. We’ll let you know if anything else develops.”

  “Roger,” Buchanan said. Swallowing dryly, he set down the phone.

  But he didn’t turn away. He just kept staring at the phone.

  Taking steps to guarantee that she’s discouraged? What the hell did that mean?

  It wasn’t considered professional for him to ask to have a deliberately vague term clarified. His superiors never said more or less than they intended to. Their use of language, even when vague, was precise. “Discouraged” could mean anything from seeing that Holly lost her job . . . to attempting to bribe her . . . to discrediting her research . . . to trying to scare her off, or . . .

  Buchanan didn’t want to consider the possibility that Holly might be the target of ultimate discouragement.

  No, he thought. They wouldn’t assassinate a reporter, especially one from the Washington Post. That would enflame the story rather than smother it.

  But reporters have been assassinated from time to time, he thought.

  And it wouldn’t look like an assassination.

  As he turned from the phone, he touched the bandage on his right side, the stitches under it.

  Holly—wearing a brown paisley dress that enhanced the red of her hair and the green of her eyes—was in a chair twenty feet away.

  Buchanan didn’t show his surprise.

  She came over. “Checking in with your superiors?”

  “Calling another friend.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Listen, I want you to stay away from me,” Buchanan said.

  “And end a beautiful relationship? Now you’re trying to hurt my feelings.”

  “I’m serious. You don’t want to be around me. You don’t want to attract attention.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Buchanan crossed the lobby, heading toward the hospital’s gift shop.

  “Hey, you’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” Her high heels made muffled sounds on the lobby’s carpet.

  “I’m trying to do you a favor,” Buchanan said. “Take the strong hint. Stay clear of me.”

  In the gift shop, he paid for a box of superstrength Tylenol. His head wouldn’t stop aching. He’d been tempted to ask the doctor to give him a prescription for something to stop the pain, but he’d known that the doctor would have been troubled enough as a consequence to want to keep him in the hospital longer. The only consolation was that the headache distracted Buchanan from the pain in his side.