David Morrell - Assumed Identity

Holly clenched the steering wheel. “What in God’s name happened on that yacht?”

La Guardia Airport. To get there, they’d used Holly’s car rather than a taxi because, after checking out of the Dorset, they didn’t want to attract attention by leaving her car in the hotel’s garage for an indefinite period. At the airport’s parking ramp, however, it wasn’t unusual for cars to be left for quite a while.

They’d been forced to rush. They had needed luck with reservations and traffic. Nonetheless, they’d managed to get two tickets on the last flight out of La Guardia for Miami, and although they got to the boarding gate with only seconds to spare, that didn’t matter. The point was, they were on the plane.

During the flight, both were too tense to sleep. They had no appetite. Still, they ate the lasagna the airline served, needing to maintain their strength.

“Your itinerary. Cancun, Merida, and Fort Lauderdale,” Holly said.

“I’ve never admitted to being in any of those places,” Buchanan told her.

“But the rest aren’t in doubt. Washington, New Orleans, San Antonio, Washington again, New York, now Miami and points south. All in two weeks. Hanging around with you could be exhausting. And this is normal for you.”

“Better get used to it.”

“I think I’d like that.”

Back at the Dorset, Buchanan had wondered if the home port for Drummond’s yacht would be the same as the city where Drummond’s corporate headquarters were located. Knowing that all large vessels were required to file a float plan indicating the length and itinerary of an intended voyage, he had phoned the Coast Guard in San Francisco. However, the officer on duty told him that the yacht was based somewhere else-they didn’t have a float plan for it. Buchanan had then phoned the National Association of Insurance Underwriters at its main offices in Long Beach, California. Eight P.M. eastern time had been 5:00 P.M. Pacific time. He made contact just before the office closed.

“My name’s Albert Drake.” He pretended to be agitated. “My brother, Rick, works on. . God, I can’t remember. . The Poseidon. That’s it.” Buchanan knew the name from the research Holly had given him. “Alistair Drummond owns it. A two-hundred-foot yacht. But Rick didn’t leave an itinerary. Our mother’s had a stroke. I have to get in touch with him, but I don’t know how else. . The Coast Guard suggested. .”

Large vessels require such large amounts of insurance that the underwriters for the insurance companies insist on knowing where those vessels are at all times. As soon as Drummond’s yacht reached a new berth, its captain was obligated to report his location to the insurance officials.

KEY WEST

After arriving in Miami past midnight, Buchanan and Holly used Charles Duffy’s credit card to rent a car and began the 150-mile drive south along the Florida Keys. During the trip, they stopped for takeout coffee and alternated driving while the other dozed, mercury-vapor lights along the extensive forty-two bridges of the Overseas Highway hurting their eyes and adding to their fatigue.

It was just before dawn when they arrived at their destination, the southernmost community in the continental United States. Key West, only four miles long and one and a half miles wide, had a permanent population of almost thirty thousand. One of the last bastions of the counterculture in America, the sand-and-coral island remained synonymous with the unorthodox lifestyle of Hemingway, who had once lived there and whose home-with its numerous cats supposedly descended from the novelist’s original pets-was a National Historic Landmark. The town’s atmosphere and architecture were an exotic blend of Bahamian, West Indian, and Cuban influences. It was known for its deep-sea fishing and its tropical foods. There was a U.S. naval air station. John James Audubon once had been in residence, also Harry Truman. The singer-novelist Jimmy Buffet was its most famous current spokesman.

But there was only one thing in Key West that Buchanan cared about, and after he and Holly caught a few more hours of sleep at a cheap motel that accepted cash in advance (he was getting nervous about using Charles Duffy’s credit card), they cleaned up, ate, then got down to business. An hour’s stroll around the crowded harbor, where they bought sandals, short-sleeved pullovers, and cutoff jeans so they wouldn’t be conspicuous, gave Buchanan ample chance to pose seemingly casual questions to vendors and fishermen. Soon he and Holly were able to stand on the wharf, lean forward against the railing, breathe the humid, tangy salt air, and study their target.

Drummond’s yacht, gleaming white against the green-blue of the Gulf of Mexico, was anchored a hundred yards offshore. Two hundred feet long, with three decks and a helicopter pad on the top (the chopper had taken off a few days earlier, heading south, Buchanan had been told by a fisherman), the yacht should have inspired awe, but instead it made Buchanan feel cold despite the eighty-five-degree temperature. The sleekly styled profile seemed threatening, like the curved tip of a massive hunting knife. The large sunning area at the stern, with windows providing a view from the upper decks, made Buchanan think of voyeurs and exhibitionists. Regardless of its resplendent white exterior, the yacht appeared cloaked in a black pall of gloom.

“Sometimes,” Holly said, “when you’re deep in thought, your eyes and face change. You look like a stranger.”

“How?”

“Solemn. Troubled.”

“Just so we understand each other, this has nothing to do with Maria Tomez,” Buchanan said. “I want to know what happened to her, yes. But more than anything, I want to know what happened to Juana.” He turned his attention from the yacht and focused on Holly, who concentrated on his gaze, confused. “A lot of this doesn’t make sense to me. What I feel about you, for example. But I have to settle old accounts before I start new ones. After this is over, you and I can talk about what we have.”

Her red hair blowing in the wind, Holly thought about what he had said, then nodded. “I never assumed there were any guarantees. I never planned this. I got swept along. Fine. We understand each other. First things first. So now that we’ve found the yacht, what do we do?”

“You noticed the way I spoke to the fishermen and vendors in the area? A little conversation combined with a few well-chosen questions. The technique is called elicitation. It’s the equivalent of what you’d call doing an interview. But the difference is that your subjects almost always know they’re being interviewed, whereas my subjects must never know. Sometimes, if they realize they’re being pumped for information, their reaction can be lethal.”

Holly listened attentively.

“I thought you might be offended because I’m telling you how to do an interview,” Buchanan said.

“This whole thing’s been a learning experience. Why should it stop now?”

“Good,” Buchanan said. “Okay, elicitation.” He told her about his training, how he’d been required to practice by going into bars and striking up conversations with strangers, getting them to reveal such intimate data as their Social Security numbers and their birth dates, not only month but year.

“How did you manage that?” Holly asked. “I’d have thought you were snooping.”

“I’d sit next to my target, have a few drinks, make small talk, comment on the television program that was showing above the bar, and at one point say that I’d learned something interesting today. The response, of course, would be, ‘What?’ I’d pull out my wallet and show him my forged Social Security card. ‘These numbers all mean something,’ I’d say. ‘I thought they were assigned sequentially, but if you break down each group, you see that the numbers tell all kinds of things like when and where I was born. See, this number means I came from Pittsburgh, and this group of numbers was assigned to whoever was born in 1960, and this number here tells which month, and. . Here, I’ll show you. What’s your number? I’ll bet you a dollar I can tell you where and when you were born.’ ”