David Morrell - Assumed Identity

The first twin shuddered, dying.

Buchanan, in turn, inhaled deeply and trembled, overwhelmed by adrenaline. The repeated shots from the unsilenced Browning had intensified the agony of the ringing in his head. Due to years of habit, he’d mentally counted each shot as he’d pulled the trigger. Four toward the bodyguard. Two toward the second twin. Three more toward the bodyguard. One toward the first twin. Earlier, the first twin had fired twice. That made twelve all told. Buchanan hadn’t worried about using all his ammunition because he knew that the Browning was capable of holding thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Normally, he wouldn’t have needed to shoot so many times, but in the darkness, he couldn’t guarantee precision. But now his remaining bullets would not be enough if the shots had attracted the twins’ other bodyguards. In a rush, Buchanan crouched behind the table, aiming toward the gloom of the beach, the glow of the lights at the outdoor bar, and the gleam of the lights at the hotel. A loud, nervous crowd had gathered on the sidewalk that flanked the beach. Several men were pointing in Buchanan’s direction. He didn’t see any armed men rushing toward him. Quickly he made sure that the bodyguard and the first twin were dead. While stopped at the first twin, he searched the body, retrieving his belt, his keys, and his pen. He didn’t want anything associated with him to remain on the scene. In a greater rush, he checked the second twin, groped inside his suit coat, and pulled out the list of names-Buchanan’s pseudonyms-that the second twin had read to him. He left the other list, the names of supposedly disloyal associates that he’d given the twins. The authorities would investigate those names and try to implicate them in these killings.

Or so Buchanan hoped. He wanted to accomplish at least some of what he’d been sent here to do, to inflict as much damage on the drug distribution network as he could. If only this mission hadn’t gone to hell, if only. .

Buchanan suddenly froze. Big Bob Bailey. Where was he? What had happened to-?

“Crawford?” an unsteady voice murmured from the darkness.

Buchanan strained his vision to study the night, his eyes now less impaired by the glare of the penlight and the strobelike flash of the shots.

“Crawford?” Bailey’s voice sounded oddly muffled.

Then Buchanan realized-Bailey had been stumbling toward this table the last time Buchanan had seen him. When the shooting started, Bailey must have dropped to the beach. His voice was muffled because he was pressed, facedown, against the sand.

“Jesus Christ, man, are you all right?” Bailey murmured. “Who’s doin’ all the shootin’?”

Buchanan saw him now, a dark shape hugging the beach. He shifted his gaze toward the crowd on the sidewalk near the hotel’s outdoor bar. The crowd was larger, louder, although still afraid to come anywhere near where guns had been fired. He didn’t see any bodyguards or policemen rushing in his direction. They will, though. Soon, he thought. I don’t have much time. I have to get out of here.

The pain in his shoulder worsened. The wound swelled, throbbing more fiercely. Urgent, he used an unbloody section of his shirt to wipe his fingerprints from where he’d touched the top of the table and the sides of a chair. He couldn’t do anything about the prints he’d left on the glasses in the restaurant, but maybe the table would have been cleared by now, the glasses taken to the kitchen and washed.

Hurry.

As he started to swing toward the first twin, wipe fingerprints from the pistol, and leave it in the twin’s hand, he heard Bailey’s voice become stronger.

“Crawford? Were you hit?”

Shut up! Buchanan thought.

Near the hotel’s bar, the crowd was becoming aggressive. The glow from the hotel was sufficient to reveal two uniformed policemen who sprinted off the sidewalk onto the sand. Buchanan finished wiping the pistol clean of fingerprints and forced it into the first twin’s fingers. He pivoted, stayed low, and ran, making sure he kept his right shoulder close to the splashing waves. That shoulder and, indeed, his entire right side were covered with blood. He wanted the blood to fall into the water so that the police couldn’t track him by following splotches of his blood in the sand.

“ Alto! ” a man’s gruff voice ordered. “Halt!”

Buchanan raced harder, staying low, charging parallel to the waves, hoping the night would so envelop him that he’d make a poor target.

“ ALTO! ” the gruff voice demanded with greater force. Buchanan sprinted as fast as he could. His back muscles rippled with chills as he tensed in dread of the bullet that would-

“Hey, what do you think you’re-? What are you shovin’ me for? I didn’t do nothin’!” Big Bob Bailey objected with drunken indignation.

The police had grabbed the first person they came to.

Despite his pain and his desperation, Buchanan couldn’t help grinning. Bailey, you turned out not to be completely useless, after all.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Pushing a squeaky cart along a dark, drizzly downtown alley, the woman dressed as a bag lady felt exhausted. She hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours, and that period of time (as well as several days before it) had been filled with constant dread. Indeed, for months, since she’d first met Alistair Drummond and had agreed to his proposal, she’d never been free from apprehension.

The assignment had seemed simple enough, and certainly the fee she earned was considerable, her accommodations lavish. As a bonus, she seldom had to perform. Mostly, all she had to do was stay in the Manhattan condominium with its splendid view of Central Park and let servants take care of her, occasionally deigning to accept a telephone call but making it short, pretending to be hoarse because of a throat problem that she claimed her doctor had diagnosed as polyps and that might require surgery. Rarely, she went out in public, always at night, always in a limousine, always wearing gems, a fur, and an exquisite evening gown, always with protective, handsome escorts. Those outings were usually to the Metropolitan Opera or to a charity benefit, and she stayed just long enough to ensure that her presence was noticed, that she’d be mentioned in a society column. She permitted no contact with her character’s former friends or former husband. She was, as she’d indicated in a rare magazine interview, beginning a period of self-assessment that required isolation in order for her to commence the second act of her life. Her performance was one of her best. No one thought her behavior unusual. After all, genius was subject to eccentricities.

But she was terrified. The accumulation of fear had been gradual. At first, she had attributed her unease to stage fright, to becoming accustomed to a new role, to convincing an unfamiliar audience, and of course, to satisfying Alistair Drummond. The latter particularly unnerved her. Drummond’s gaze was so intense that she suspected he wore spectacles not to improve his vision but, rather, to magnify the cold glint in his eyes. He exuded such authority that he dominated a room, regardless of how crowded it was or how many other notables were present. No one knew for certain how old he was, except that he was definitely over eighty, but everyone agreed that he looked more like an eerie sixty. Numerous face-lifts, combined with a macrobiotic diet, massive amounts of vitamins, and weekly infusions of hormones, seemed to have stopped the evidence of his advancing age. The contrast between his tightened face and his wizened hands troubled her.

He preferred to be called professor, although he had never taught and his doctorate was only honorary, the result of a new art museum that bore his name and that he’d had constructed as a gift to a prestigious but financially embattled Ivy League university. One of the conditions of her employment had been that the “professor” would have access to her at all times and that she would appear in public with him whenever he dictated. As vain as he was rich, he cackled whenever he read his name-in company with hers-in the society columns, especially if the columnist called him professor. The sound of his brittle, crusty laughter chilled her.