David Morrell - Assumed Identity

“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-”

“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.

Rolling 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.