David Morrell - Assumed Identity

But why would he want me killed?

To hide something.

What, though?

The bus arrived in Baltimore at nine in the evening. A cold drizzle made the downtown area bleak. She found a cheap place to eat-more caffeine, calories, and carbohydrates, not to mention grease (she rationalized that the fat might help insulate her from the cold). She didn’t want to waste her remaining money on a hotel room-even a cheap one would be disastrous to her reserves. For a time, she roamed the back streets, hoping that someone would accost her. But the man who grabbed her and whose collarbone she broke had only fifty cents in his pocket.

She was tired, cold, wet, and depressed. She needed to rest. She needed a place where she’d feel reasonably safe, where she could think and sleep. When she found a shopping cart in an alley, she decided on her next role. After wiping dirt on her face, she threw trash into the cart. With her shoulders slumped and with an assumed crazy, empty look in her eyes, she pushed the cart, wheels squeaking, through the drizzle, a bag lady on her way to a shelter for the homeless that she had just passed.

What am I going to do? she thought. The confidence she’d felt when escaping had drained from her. The rigors of her new life weighed upon her imagination. Damn it, I liked who I was. I want to be her again.

How? To do that, you’ve got to beat Drummond, and he’s too powerful to be beaten.

Is he? Why did he hire me? Why did he want me to put on that performance? What’s his secret? What’s he hiding? If I can find that out, maybe he can be beaten.

One thing’s sure. Without money and resources, you need help.

But who can I ask? I don’t dare turn to my friends and family. They’re a trap. Besides, they haven’t the faintest idea of what to do, of what this involves.

So what about the people you trained with?

No, they’re a matter of public record. Drummond can use his influence to learn who they are. They’ll be watched in case I approach them-as much a liability as my family and friends.

The drizzle increased to a downpour. Her soaked clothes drooped and clung to her. In the gloom, she felt every bit the spiritless bag lady she pretended to be.

There’s got to be someone.

The cart she pushed kept squeaking.

You can’t be that alone! she wanted to scream.

Face it. The only person you could trust to help you would have to be someone so anonymous, so chameleonlike, so invisible, without a trace or a record that it would be like he’d never existed. And he’d have to be damned good at staying alive.

He? Why would it have to be a man?

But she suddenly knew, and as she reached the entrance to the shelter for the homeless, a man in a black suit with a white ministerial collar stepped out.

“Come, sister. It’s not a fit night to be out.”

Playing her role, she resisted.

“Please, sister. It’s warm inside. There’s food. A place to sleep.”

She resisted less stubbornly.

“You’ll be safe, I promise. And I’ll store your cart. I’ll protect your goods.”

That did it. Like a child, she allowed herself to be led, and as she left the gloom of the night, as she entered the brightly lit shelter, she smelled coffee, stale doughnuts, boiled potatoes, but it might as well have been a banquet. She’d found sanctuary, and as she shuffled toward a crowded wooden bench, she mentally repeated the name of the man whom she had decided to ask for help. The name filled her mind like a mantra. The problem was that he probably no longer used that name. He was constantly in flux. Officially, he didn’t exist. So how on earth could she get in touch with a man as formless and shifting as the wind? Where in hell would he be?

Until 1967, Cancun was a small, sleepy town on the northeastern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. That year, the Mexican government-seeking a way to boost the country’s weak economy-decided to promote tourism more energetically than ever. But instead of improving an existing resort, the government chose to create a world-class holiday center where there was nothing. Various requirements such as suitable location and weather were programmed into a computer, and the computer announced that the new resort would be built on a narrow sandbar in a remote area of the Mexican Caribbean. Construction began in 1968. A modern sewage-disposal system was installed, as well as a dependable water-purification system and a reliable power plant. A four-lane highway was built down the middle of the sandbar. Palm trees were planted next to the highway. Hotels designed to resemble ancient Mayan pyramids were constructed along the ocean side of the island, while nightclubs and restaurants were built along the inner lagoon. Eventually, several million tourists came each year to what had once been nothing but a sandbar.

Cancun’s sandbar had the shape of the number 7. It was twelve miles long, a quarter mile wide, and linked to the mainland by a bridge at each end. Club Internacional-where Buchanan had shot the three Hispanics-was located at the middle of the top of the 7, and as Buchanan raced away from it through the darkness along the wave-lapped beach, he ignored the other hotels that glistened on his left and tried to decide what he would do when he reached the bridge at the northern end of the sandbar. The two policemen who’d arrived at the scene of the killings would use two-way radios to contact their counterparts on the mainland. Those other policemen would block the bridges and question all Americans who attempted to leave. No matter how much effort it took, the police would respond promptly and thoroughly. Cancun prided itself on appearing safe for tourists. A multiple murder demanded an absolute response. To reassure tourists, a quick arrest was mandatory.

Under other circumstances, Buchanan would not have hesitated to veer from the beach, pass between hotels, reach the redbrick sidewalk along the highway, and stroll across the bridge, where he would agreeably answer the questions of the police. But he didn’t dare show himself. With his wounded shoulder and his blood-drenched clothes, he’d attract so much attention that he’d be arrested at once. He had to find another way out of the area, and as the beach curved, angling to the left toward the looming shadow of the bridge, he stared toward the glimmer of hotels across the channel that separated the sandbar from the mainland, and he decided he would have to swim.

Unexpectedly, he felt light-headed. Alarming him, his legs bent. His heart beat too fast, and he had trouble catching his breath. The effects of adrenaline, he tried to assure himself. It didn’t help that he’d drunk four ounces of tequila before fighting for his life and then racing down the beach. But adrenaline and he were old friends, and it had never made him light-headed. Similarly, his profession was such that on several occasions he’d been forced into action after his deep-cover identity required him to gain a contact’s trust by drinking with him. On none of those occasions, however, had the combination of exertion and alcohol made him light-headed. A little sick to his stomach, yes, but never light-headed. All the same, he definitely felt dizzy now, and sick to his stomach as well, and he had to admit the truth-although his shoulder wound was superficial, he must be losing more blood than he’d realized. If he didn’t stop the bleeding, he risked fainting. Or worse.

Trained as a paramedic, Buchanan knew that the preferred way to stop bleeding was by using a pressure bandage. But he didn’t have the necessary first-aid equipment. The alternative was to use a method that at one time had been recommended but had now fallen out of favor-applying a tourniquet. The disadvantage of a tourniquet was that it cut off the flow of blood not only to the wound but also to the rest of a limb, in this case Buchanan’s right arm. If the tourniquet were applied too tightly or not relaxed at frequent, regular intervals, the victim risked damaging tissue to the point where gangrene resulted.