David Morrell - Assumed Identity

by Assumed Identity(lit)

  The man was jolted backward. He exhaled forcefully, a practiced reaction that helped him absorb the impact. That reaction and the resistance the man's solid chest provided told Buchanan that this wasn't a civilian. The man was military: trim hips, broad shoulders for upper-body strength. While the man briefly lost his balance, Buchanan swung his right leg hard, twisting it so that his shin bone struck along the outside of the man's left thigh. A major, sensitive nerve ran down each leg in that area. If the nerve were traumatized, the victim suffered not only intense pain but temporary paralysis in the leg.

  As Buchanan anticipated, before the man could retaliate from the blow to his chest, he grunted, grasped his leg, and toppled sharply. That left a second man rushing toward Buchanan, cursing, reaching beneath his windbreaker. Buchanan threw his travel bag toward him, forcing the man to zigzag while raising a hand to deflect the bag. Before the man could recover from this distraction and draw the handgun he was reaching for, Buchanan came in close, rammed the palm of his hand sharply against the bottom of the man's nose, and felt cartilage snap. The man's vision would blur. The pain would be intense. That gave Buchanan enough time to jab an elbow into the man's solar plexus and yank the man's pistol away as he doubled over.

  Immediately Buchanan whirled, grabbed the first man struggling to stand, and walloped him against a lamp post. The man's head made a whunking sound. Then Buchanan whirled yet again, back to the second man, who lay sprawled on the sidewalk, fighting to breathe through his broken nose, spewing blood.

  If this had been combat, Buchanan would have killed them. As it was, he didn't want to make the incident even more serious than it was. If he eliminated the colonel's men, the next time their orders would be to do the same to him instead of to detain him. Or perhaps these men had been ordered to kill him. Otherwise, why would the second man have been drawing a weapon?

  From where Buchanan had come, at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 21st Street, a well-dressed, elderly man and woman gaped in Buchanan's direction. The woman pointed a trembling arm, her outcry shrill.

  Buchanan grabbed his travel bag and ran. His reaction wasn't caused only by fear that a police car would soon arrive. What sent adrenaline surging through him in even greater quantity, with greater urgency, were the two men who'd scurried around the corner in response to the woman's cry. Seeing Buchanan, they charged, and their chests were as muscled, their shoulders as broad as the men on the sidewalk.

  Buchanan ran harder, the stitches in his knife wound threatening to tear open. He didn't care. He had to keep straining. Because when the second two men had seen him and raced toward him, both had reached beneath windbreakers, pulling out handguns, and there was no question now. This wasn't just a surveillance team. It was a hit team.

  What had they done to Holly?

  But he couldn't let himself think about that. He had to concentrate on staying alive. The first priority was to get off this damned one-way street, where the direction of traffic left him vulnerable from behind. Approaching P Street, he risked wasting time to look behind him on his left, saw an opening between two approaching cars, and darted between them, hoping that the cars would shield him, having noticed that the men were raising their weapons. A horn blared. Brakes squealed. He scrambled onto the opposite sidewalk and skidded on a slippery puddle but kept his balance, then bolted around the corner as the cars stopped shielding him and two gunshots roared, bullets shattering a window across from him.

  Tightening his grip on the pistol he'd taken from the man whose nose he'd broken, Buchanan raced in a greater frenzy. The misty rain seemed thicker, the night darker. There wasn't any traffic. The rain discouraged pedestrians. Ahead, opposite, on the right, a murky street light revealed a lane that headed south, bisecting the block between 21st and 20th. Buchanan lunged toward it, his travel bag slowing his momentum, but he couldn't ditch the bag. He couldn't give up the books and files that were in it.

  Behind him, he heard curses, strident breathing, rapid footsteps. The sign for the lane said Hopkins. Sprinting from P Street onto it, he flinched as bullets struck the corner he passed. At once, he whirled, crouched, and aimed one-handed with his elbow propped on his bent knee, controlling his trembling arm. Sweat merged with beads of mist on his brow. Leaning out from the corner, he wasn't able to see clearly enough to line up the front and rear sights of the pistol. But if he couldn't, his pursuers couldn't aim clearly, either. Judging as best as he could, he squeezed the trigger rapidly, firing three times, the shots echoing in the narrow street, assaulting his eardrums.

  Nonetheless he heard the clink of ejected cartridges striking the pavement and a groan as if he'd hit one of the men, although he had no way of knowing if any of his bullets had connected because both men dove flat on the pavement and shot in his direction, their gun muzzles flashing. A bullet blew a chunk off the corner of the building, nearly hitting Buchanan's eyes. He flinched and shot three more times toward the men, who now rolled in opposite directions, seeking cover behind parked cars.

  Buchanan wasn't about to get caught outnumbered in a stationary gun battle. The moment he lost sight of the men, he ducked backward, rose, and charged toward the end of the narrow street. The gunshots had caused lights to come on in upstairs apartments. People foolishly showed their silhouettes at windows. Buchanan kept racing. He heard a distant siren grow louder. He heard a window open. He heard a shout above him. But the rapid, echoing footsteps behind him were the only sounds he cared about.

  Spinning, seeing the two men appear at the entrance to the narrow street, Buchanan fired twice more. The men separated and lunged into doorways.

  Buchanan zigzagged, trying to confuse their aim. A bullet tugged at his left sleeve; another forced tickling air past his right ear. But this time, he didn't hear gunshots, only eerie muffled sounds as if hands were striking pillows. The men had put sound-suppressors on their weapons, making the noise of Buchanan's own weapon seem even more explosive when he spun again and fired. More lights came on in upper apartment windows. The siren sped closer, louder. Another joined it.

  Buchanan sprinted from the narrow street, racing through the misty rain across O Street, charging to the left toward 20th Street. Relieved to be temporarily out of the line of fire, he suddenly tensed as headlights blazed behind him. In the middle of the street, not knowing which way to dive, he had to spin, and the headlights streaked directly toward him. Brakes squealed. But the car wouldn't be able to stop soon enough. Buchanan had to leap forward, onto the hood of the car, sliding along it to absorb the impact, his face pressing against the windshield, stunned to see the unmistakable red hair of Holly McCoy behind the steering wheel.

  Holly's face was contorted in a shocked, silent scream. Then a flapping windshield wiper struck the side of Buchanan's face, and he snapped his head up, peering over the top of the skidding car, seeing the two gunmen appear at the exit from the narrow street. Breathing rapidly, Buchanan raised his weapon and fired along the roof of the car, unable to aim effectively but shooting four times, often enough to send the men scurrying back into the cover of the narrow street.

  'Drive, Holly! Don't stop! Drive!'

  The car quit skidding and increased speed. Sliding, Buchanan banged his face against the windshield. He glanced frantically over his shoulder, seeing that they'd reached 20th Street. A one-way heading north, it forced Holly to veer left into a break in sparse traffic. But the momentum caused Buchanan to slide sideways on his stomach, to his left, across the car's wet hood. With a travel bag in his left hand and a pistol in his right, he couldn't grab for anything. But even if his hands had been free, there wasn't anything on the slick hood to grab.

  The car kept veering. He kept sliding. He anticipated his impact on the pavement. Tuck in your elbows. Roll. Keep your head up, he mentally shouted to himself. He couldn't afford another trauma to his head. And then he was slipping off the left side of the hood. Heart pounding, seeing the sideview mirror, he hooked his right elbow around it, bent his legs up under him, felt
a jolt, and dangled. The sideview mirror sagged from his weight. He kept his elbow crooked around it, dangling lower, his shoes inches above the pavement. The car skidded. His shoes touched the pavement. The car slowed. When the sideview mirror snapped off, Buchanan landed hard, rolling in a puddle, the wind knocked out of him, but not before the car had stopped, its momentum throwing him forward.

  He lurched to his feet. More headlights blazed toward him. He heard sirens. He thought he heard racing footsteps. Then he definitely heard Holly shout from inside the car. She pressed a button that unlocked the doors.

  But instead of opening the passenger door in front, Buchanan yanked open the door in back and dove in, slamming the door behind him. Sprawling out of sight, he yelled, 'Go, Holly! Move!'

  13

  She obeyed, squinting ahead past the flapping windshield wipers, darting her gaze toward her rearview mirror, straining to see if the sirens belonged to police cars chasing her. But the headlights behind her remained steady, and no men appeared on the sidewalk to shoot at her, and the sirens became farther away, less intimidating.

  'What happened?' she asked in dismay.

  As she turned right onto Massachusetts Avenue, steered a quarter of the way around Dupont Circle, and then headed south on Connecticut Avenue, Buchanan quickly explained, all the while remaining low on the back seat, out of sight. Even though their hunters knew what type of car Holly drove, they'd be looking for a man and a woman, not a woman alone.

  Holly's hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. 'Are you hurt?'

  'I pulled some stitches.' His voice was taut. 'If that's the worst, I'll be fine.'

  'Until the next time.'

  'Thank God you just happened to be driving along that street.'

  'There was nothing "just happened" about it.'

  'What do you-?'

  'When you started down Twenty-First Street and they chased you, you ran from the sidewalk and darted between two passing cars.'

  'Right, but how did you know about-?'

  'The second car, the one that beeped at you, was mine. After the hotel's parking attendant brought it to me, I decided to drive around the block to see if I was being followed.'

  'Sounds like you're learning.'

  'And I also wanted to see if you got out of the hotel okay. I was driving toward you when I saw the fight, but you ran in front of me before I could get your attention. Then you disappeared along P Street. I was past that intersection, so I figured if I turned left onto O, I might get a glimpse of you coming from Hopkins or Twentieth Street.'

  'But what if I'd stayed on P Street?'

  'You don't strike me as the type to run in a straight line.'

  'You really are learning,' Buchanan said.

  'Evasion and escape.' Holly exhaled. 'I missed that course when I was in journalism school.'

  'I didn't mean to get you involved. It was the farthest thing from my mind. I'm sorry, Holly.'

  'It's done. But I helped make it happen. I didn't need to agree to meet you. I could have kept my distance. I'm a big girl. I stopped letting people control me a long time ago. Do you want the truth? I thought you wanted to meet me to tell me something that would put me back on the story. I got foolish and greedy. Now I'm paying the price.'

  'Then you understand.' Staying low in the back seat, Buchanan spoke reluctantly. 'You realize that because they caught us together, they think we're both a threat to them. It was a possibility before, but now your life really is in danger.'

  Holly tried to control her breathing. 'I had another reason for agreeing to meet you. An even more foolish reason. It had nothing to do with the story. Deep down, I wanted to see you again. Dumb, huh?'

  Except for the flapping of the windshield wipers and the drone of the engine, the car became quiet.

  Holly waited.

  She finally said, 'Don't respond. Just let what I said hang there. Make me feel like a jerk.'

  'No. I...'

  'What?'

  'I'm flattered.'

  'You'd better say something more positive than that, or so help me, I'll stop this car and.'

  'What I'm trying to explain is, I'm not very good at this. I'm not used to anybody caring about me.' Buchanan's disembodied voice came from the darkness of the back seat. 'I've never been in one place long enough to establish a relationship.'

  'Once.'

  'Yes. With Juana. That's right. Once.'

  'And now I'm risking my life to help you find another woman. Wonderful. Great.'

  'It's more complicated than that,' Buchanan said.

  'I don't see how.'

  'It's not just that I was never in one place long enough to establish a relationship. I was never one person long enough. It isn't me who wants to find Juana. It's Peter Lang.'

  'Peter Lang? Didn't you say he was one of your pseudonyms?'

  'Identities.'

  'I think I'm going to scream.'

  'Don't. Later. Not now. Get us out of town.'

  'In which direction?'

  'North. Toward Manhattan.'

  'And what's in-?'

  'Frederick Maltin. The ex-husband of Maria Tomez. There's one other thing we have to do.'

  'Get you a shrink.'

  'Don't make jokes.'

  'That wasn't a joke.'

  'Stop at a pay phone.'

  'I'm beginning to think I'm the one who needs a shrink.'

  14

  At one a.m., between Washington and Baltimore, Holly parked at a truck stop on I-95. Buchanan got out and used a pay phone.

  A man answered, 'Potomac Catering.'

  'This is Proteus. I need to speak to the colonel.'

  'He isn't here right now, but I'll take a message.'

  'Tell him I got the message. Tell him there won't be any trouble. Tell him I could have killed those four men tonight. Tell him to leave me alone. Tell him to leave Holly McCoy alone. Tell him I want to disappear. Tell him my business with Holly has nothing to do with him. Tell him Holly doesn't know or care about him.'

  'You sure have a lot to tell him.'

  'Just make certain you do.'

  Buchanan hung up, knowing that the number of the pay phone would automatically have shown itself on a screen on the catering service's automatic-trace phone. If the colonel wouldn't accept Buchanan's attempt at a truce, a team of men would soon converge on this area.

  Buchanan hurried back into the car, this time in the front. 'I did my best. Let's go.'

  As she pulled out into traffic, he reached for his travel bag. The effort made him wince.

  He took off his pants.

  'Hey, what do you think you're doing?' Holly asked.

  His legs were bare.

  'Changing my clothes. I'm soaked.' In the flash of passing headlights, he squinted at the waist of his pants. 'And bleeding. I was right. Some stitches did open up.' He took a tube of antibiotic cream and a roll of bandages from his travel bag, then started to work on his side. 'You know what I could use?'

  'A normal life?'

  'Some coffee and sandwiches.'

  'Sure. A picnic.'

  15

  The colonel frowned and set down the phone. In the safe-site apartment five blocks north of The Washington Post, Alan - who'd been watching the colonel while listening on an extension - set down his phone as well.

  The only sound was the faint drone of a car that went by outside.

  'Do you want my advice?' Alan asked.

  'No.' The colonel's narrow face looked haggard from strain and fatigue.

  'Well, I'll give it to you anyhow.' Alan's portly cheeks were emphasized by whisker shadow. 'Buchanan's waving you off. He's asking for a truce. Agree to it. You've got nothing to win and everything to lose.'

  'That's your opinion, is it?' the colonel asked dryly. 'I'm not used to taking advice from civilians, especially when they don't understand the serious nature of Buchanan's offense. A soldier can't be allowed to just walk away from his unit, certainly not Buchanan. He knows too much. I told you before, hi
s behavior makes him a security risk. We're talking about chaos.'

  'And gun battles in the street aren't chaos? This has nothing to do with principle or security. It's about pride. I was afraid of what would happen when the military became involved in civilian intelligence operations. You don't like taking advice from civilians? Well, maybe you ought to read the Constitution. Because taking advice is exactly what you're supposed to do. Without the Agency's oversight on this, you'd be autonomous. You'd love that, wouldn't you? Your own private army to do with as you want. Your own private wars.'

  'Get out of here,' the colonel said. 'You're always grumbling about never seeing your wife and kids. Go home.'