Stroking his left hand, Jenna leaned close, her voice interrupting his thoughts. “But I’m betting there’ll be a chopper here quicker than we can repair the one we’ve got.”
“I . . .” McIntyre’s mouth was parched. “I don't know what . . .”
“Drummond will be here soon. We’ll put you in his chopper to get you to a hospital.”
“Drummond?”
“Don’t you remember?” Jenna wiped a damp cloth across his forehead. “We talked about this when I used the radio a half hour ago.”
“Radio? Half hour ago?”
“We found what Drummond wants.” Jenna spoke quickly, her voice taut with excitement. “It was here all along. Right under our noses. We had the instructions from Drummond’s translation, but we were too clever. We made the search too hard. We thought the instructions were using figures of speech, but all along, the text was meant to be taken literally. The god of Darkness. The god of the Underworld. The god of the Pyramid. It was so damned easy, Mac. Once your men leveled the pyramid, it was so obvious why the Maya built it where they did. We found what Drummond wants.”
TEN
1
WASHINGTON, D.C.
One-thirty in the afternoon. As soon as Buchanan got off the TWA flight from San Antonio, he headed toward the first row of pay phones he saw in the terminal at National Airport. He’d managed to get some sleep during the five-hour, several-stop trip. The naps, combined with the additional four hours of sleep he’d gotten the night before at a motel near San Antonio’s airport, had given him back some energy, as had a carbohydrate-rich breakfast at the airport and another on the plane. His wounds still hurt. His head still ached. But he felt more alert than he had in days, adrenaline pushing him. He was traveling as Charles Duffy. He felt in control again.
A man answered Holly’s phone at the Washington Post, explained that she was on another line, and asked who was calling.
“Mike Hamilton.”
That was the name Buchanan had told Holly he would be using to contact her. He had to assume that the colonel and Alan would have her under surveillance, watching for any sign that she didn’t intend to keep her agreement with them. If she seemed intent on pursuing the story, if she gave indications that she had not surrendered all of her research, there was a strong chance they would move against her. For certain, if the colonel and Alan found out that Buchanan remained in contact with her, that would be enough to arouse their suspicions to a deadly level. Even if Holly wasn’t in danger, Buchanan couldn’t afford to use his real name. The colonel and Alan would be searching for him.
That thought made Buchanan uneasy as he waited for Holly to come on the line. His nervousness wasn’t caused by concern about his safety. Rather, he was nervous because he wondered about his motives. What did he think he was doing? You didn’t just leave a top-secret undercover military operation as if you were quitting a job at Domino’s Pizza. For eight years as a deep-cover operative and for three years prior to that, Buchanan had followed every order. He was a soldier. It was his job to be obedient. He’d been proud of that. Now suddenly his discipline had snapped. He’d walked away, not even toward the future but into the past, not as himself but as one of his characters.
Hey, buddy, he told himself, it’s not too late. You’d better get back in line and with the program. Phone the colonel. Tell him you made a mistake but you’re better now. Tell him you’ll do whatever he wants. You’ll be an instructor. You’ll stay out of sight. Anything.
But a stronger thought insisted.
Have to find Juana.
He must have said that out loud, because a woman’s voice was suddenly speaking to him on the telephone. “What? I didn’t hear what you said. Mike? Is that you?”
The throaty, sensuous voice belonged to Holly.
Buchanan straightened. “Yeah, it’s me.” Before leaving San Antonio this morning, he’d called Holly’s apartment to make certain she was in Washington, to ensure he didn’t make the trip for nothing. Six-thirty in Texas had been 7:30 along the Potomac. She’d been awake and about to go to work when she’d picked up the phone rather than let her answering machine take the message. Assuming that her phone was tapped, he’d used the name Mike Hamilton and made tentative arrangements to meet her.
“Is our late lunch still on?” she now asked.
“If your schedule’s free.”
“Hey, for you, it’s always free. I’ll meet you in McPherson Square.”
“Give me forty minutes.”
“No rush.”
“See you.” Buchanan put the phone back on its hook. The conversation had gone perfectly. Sounding natural, it had nonetheless contained the words no rush, the code they’d chosen in New Orleans to indicate that Holly did not sense a threat. See you was Buchanan’s equivalent message.
He picked up his small bag, turned from the phone, and joined a mass of passengers that had just gotten off another flight. Both National and Dulles airports were under constant surveillance from various government agencies. Some of the surveillance was a throwback to the Cold War. Some of it was due to a practical need to know which travelers of importance were showing up unexpectedly in the nation’s capital. A lot of it had to do with the increasing conviction that Mideastern terrorists were poised to make their long-postponed assault on the United States.
Buchanan had no reason to suspect that the colonel would have operatives watching the airport in case he passed through. After all, logic suggested that Washington would be one of the places Buchanan wanted most to avoid. Besides, his paper trail would have led the colonel’s operatives to San Antonio by now. Before leaving Texas, Buchanan had left his car at an office of the company from which he’d rented it. That would be the dead end of the paper trail. The colonel’s people would assume that Buchanan had flown out of San Antonio, since the car-rental office was near the airport. But they would have no way of knowing that Buchanan had used Charles Duffy’s name and credit card to rent the motel room and buy a plane ticket to Washington.
The only risk Buchanan took in the airport was that someone would notice him by accident, but that would happen only if he drew attention to himself, and he wasn’t about to get that careless. Buchanan-Lang-Duffy-Hamilton blended skillfully with fellow travelers, exited into a drab, damp afternoon, got into a taxi, and headed toward downtown Washington. The terminal had not been a threat.
But McPherson Square would be another matter.
2
In New Orleans, before Holly had gone back to Washington, Buchanan had explained to her that if he phoned and suggested they get together, she was to choose a public place in the area. The place had to be part of her routine. (“Do nothing conspicuous.”) It had to have numerous entrances. (“So we don’t get trapped.”) And it had to be dependable in terms of not being closed at unpredictable hours. (“I was once told to meet a man at a restaurant that had burned down the day before. Nobody on the team advising me had checked the location to make sure the rendezvous site was viable.”)
In terms of those criteria, McPherson Square was ideal. The park was hardly likely to have burned down. It was as public as a restaurant but far more open, and it was only a few blocks from Holly’s office, hence a natural place for her to meet someone.
Buchanan managed to reach the rendezvous area before the forty-minute deadline. Watching the newspaper building from a crowded bus stop farther along L Street, he saw Holly come out of the Washington Post and head down Fifteenth Street, but at the moment, he wasn’t so much interested in her as he was in anyone who might be following her. He waited until she was out of his sight, waited another fifteen seconds, then strolled with other pedestrians toward the corner. There, while waiting for a traffic light, he glanced down Fifteenth Street in Holly’s direction toward her destination on K Street.
She wore a London Fog raincoat, tan, an excellent neutral color when you didn’t want to stand out in a crowd. A matching cap had the extra merit of concealing Holly’s red hair, which she’d tu
cked up beneath it. The only thing conspicuous about her was the camera bag that she carried in lieu of a purse.
It was enough for Buchanan to distinguish her from other tan raincoats in the crowd. He followed slowly, glancing unobtrusively at store windows and cars, subtly scanning the area to see if Holly had anyone observing her.
Yes. A man in a brown leather jacket on the opposite side of the street.
As the man walked, he never took his gaze away from Holly. On occasion, he adjusted something in his right ear and lowered his chin toward his left chest, moving his lips.
Buchanan studied the street more intently and saw a man on the corner ahead of Holly. The man wore a business suit, held an umbrella, and glanced at his watch a couple of times as if waiting for someone. But he, too, adjusted something in his ear and did so at the same time that the first man was lowering his chin and moving his lips. Hearing aid–style audio receivers. Lapel-button miniature microphones.
But which group—the colonel’s or Alan’s—was tailing Holly? Were they military or civilian, from Special Operations or the Agency? As Holly reached K Street and crossed toward the park, Buchanan got a look at the backs of the men who followed her. They had narrow hips, their torsos veering upward toward broad shoulders, a distinctive build for Special Operations personnel. Their training was designed to make them limber while giving them considerable upper-body strength. Too much muscle in their legs and hips would slow them down. But muscle in the upper body didn’t interfere with anything, creating only advantages. Buchanan himself had once possessed that body build, but since it would identify his background to anyone who understood these matters, he’d cut back on building up his arms and shoulders, going instead for activities that gave him stamina and agility.
Now that he had a distinctive silhouette to look for, he noticed two other men dressed in civilian clothes and with a Special Operations build. The colonel must certainly be apprehensive about her or else he wouldn’t have so many men on her, Buchanan thought. The two men he’d just noticed were ahead of Holly, staking out the park. The only way they could have known to get to the park ahead of her was if they had her phones tapped and knew where and when she had arranged to meet someone named Mike Hamilton. He’d been right to be cautious.
Instead of following Holly into the park, Buchanan hung back, turned right on K Street, and went around the next block. His approach returned him to Fifteenth Street, but this time farther south, where Fifteenth intersected with I Street. From a busy entrance to the Veterans Administration Building, he looked across to the leafless trees in the park and glimpsed Holly sitting on a bench near the statue of General McPherson in the middle of the square. Pedestrians came and went, but the four broad-shouldered men had spread out through the park and were now immobile, on occasion touching an ear or lowering a chin, concentrating on Holly, then switching their attention to anyone who seemed to be approaching her.
How do I get a message to her? Buchanan thought.
Continuing along I Street, he came to a black man who held a small sign that read, I’LL WORK FOR FOOD. The man needed a haircut but had shaved. He wore plain, clean clothes. His leather shoes looked freshly shined but were worn down at the heels.
“Can you spare the price of a hamburger?” the man asked. His eyes showed subdued bitterness. Shame struggled with anger as he tried to maintain his dignity even though he was begging.
“I think I can do better than the price of a hamburger,” Buchanan said.
The man’s eyebrows narrowed. His expression became puzzled, with a trace of wariness.
“You want to work?” Buchanan asked.
“Look, I don’t know what’s on your mind, but I hope it isn’t trouble. The last guy stopped told me if I wanted to work, why the hell didn’t I get a job? He called me a lazy bastard and walked away. Get a job? No shit. I wouldn’t be out here beggin’, lettin’ people call me names if I could find a job.”
“How does this sound?” Buchanan asked. “Five minutes’ work for a hundred dollars?”
“A hundred dollars? For that much money, I’d . . . Wait a minute. If this is about drugs or . . .”
3
At a safe-site apartment five blocks north of the Washington Post, the phone barely rang before the colonel stopped pacing and grabbed it off its hook. “Home Video Service.”
“Looks like it’s a no-show,” a man’s voice said. “Whoever this Mike Hamilton is, he was supposed to meet her at twenty after two. But now it’s quarter to three, the drizzle’s turning to rain, and she’s making moves as if that park bench she’s sitting on is awfully cold.”
“Keep watching until she goes back to work and our man in her department can take over watching her,” the colonel said.
“Maybe that’s what she’s doing now. Working,” the man’s voice said. “Just because the guy at the desk next to hers never heard her talk about anybody named Mike Hamilton, that doesn’t mean Hamilton still can’t be a source for a story she’s working on. Hell, for that matter, he might be a friend she knew when she worked in California.”
“Might be, Major? I don’t like my officers to make assumptions. The tapes of the conversations don’t mention California or anything else. She and Hamilton talk as if they’ve got some kind of relationship. But what? It’s all smoke.”
“Well, most people don’t review their life history when they phone somebody for lunch.”
“Are you being sarcastic, Major?”
“No, sir. Definitely not. I’m just trying to think out loud and analyze the problem. I’m guessing that if this meeting with Hamilton has anything to do with us, she wouldn’t be doing it in plain sight. Besides, we checked our computer records. No one named Hamilton was ever associated with our operations.”
“No one named Hamilton?” the colonel said. “Doesn’t it seem relevant to you that one of our specialties is pseudonyms? Damn it, what if Hamilton isn’t his real name?”
The line became silent for a moment. “Yes, sir, I get your point.”
“Since she came back from New Orleans, everything she’s done has been routine. Now, for the first time, she’s doing something that can’t be fully explained. For her sake, I hope it doesn’t involve us. I want to believe what she told Buchanan, that she’s given up the story. But I also want to know who the hell Mike Hamilton is.”
“Colonel, you can depend on me to . . . Hold it. I’m getting a report from the surveillance team . . . Somebody’s approaching the woman.”
The colonel stopped moving, stopped blinking, stopped breathing. He stared at the opposite wall.
“False alarm, sir,” the voice said. “It’s a black guy with a sign about needing a job. He’s trying to beg from everybody in the park.”
The colonel exhaled and seemed to come out of a trance. “Maintain surveillance. Keep me informed. I want to know what that woman’s doing every second.” With force, he terminated the connection.
From a chair in the corner of the room, Alan studied him. “Why don’t you give it a rest? Whatever happens will happen regardless if you’re staring at the phone.”
“You don’t seem to take this seriously.”
“Oh, I take it very seriously,” Alan said. “To me, this is a sign of how out of control this operation has become. Instead of taking care of business, you’re wasting all your resources worrying about Buchanan and this reporter.”
“Wasting?”
“As far as I’m concerned, both problems are solved. Let Buchanan keep digging a hole to bury himself. He’s gone—and I say fine. He’ll act his way into oblivion. About the reporter—hey, without Buchanan she doesn’t have a story. It’s as simple as that. If she breaks her agreement, we’ll deny everything she says, accuse her of putting her career ahead of the truth, and challenge her to produce this mysterious man she claims was God knows how many people.”
“Maybe she can.”
“What are you talking about?” Alan asked.
“She’s the reason Buchanan walked
away from us,” the colonel said. “But maybe it’s not just professional. He tried to protect her, after all. Maybe there’s something personal between them.”
Alan frowned.
“One of Buchanan’s talents is changing his voice, imitating other people,” the colonel said. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that no matter what this guy sounds like on tape, Mike Hamilton could be Buchanan?”
4
Before Holly had returned to Washington from New Orleans, there hadn’t been time for Buchanan to explain all the basics of how to behave if she thought she was being watched. The most important thing, he’d emphasized, was not to become so self-conscious that she exaggerated her movements as if putting on a show for someone. “Never do something that you wouldn’t normally do. Never fail to do something that you would normally do.”
At the moment, what Holly would normally have done would have been to stop sitting on a goddamned park bench when the drizzle turned to rain. She’d been on the bench since twenty after two, the rendezvous time she’d established with Buchanan. Now he was twenty-five minutes late, and in New Orleans he had told her that thirty minutes was the maximum time she should ever wait for him to show up. Otherwise, if she was under surveillance, she would make her observers wonder why she was lingering. That she was lingering now became even more conspicuous given the recent turn in the weather.
Holly strongly suspected that she should do the natural thing and leave right now. Buchanan had told her that if he ever failed to show up, she should return to the rendezvous area twenty-four hours later, provided he didn’t get a message to her in the meantime. Returning tomorrow would be conspicuous, yes, but it was a lot less conspicuous than seeming not to have the brains to get out of the rain. There weren’t many people in the park anymore; most had headed toward the shelter of buildings. She felt as if she was center stage and hoped that she seemed natural when she looked around. When she made up her mind and stood, she abruptly noticed movement to her left.
Assumed Identity Page 42
