David Morrell - Assumed Identity

“Christ,” Buchanan said.

“She’s determined to make you feel at home,” Doyle said.

“You’ve got trouble enough without. . Why didn’t you turn this assignment down? Surely my controllers could have found someone else to give me cover.”

“Apparently, they couldn’t,” Doyle said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have asked me.”

“Did you tell them about. .?”

“Yes,” Doyle said bitterly. “That didn’t stop them from asking me. No matter how much she suspects, Cindy can’t ever be told that this is an assignment. All the same, she knows it is. I’m positive of that, just as I’m positive that she’s determined to do this properly. It gives her something to think about besides. .”

“What do her doctors say?” Buchanan asked.

Doyle steered onto a highway along a beach. He didn’t answer.

“Is her treatment doing what it’s supposed to?” Buchanan persisted.

Doyle spoke thickly, “You mean, is she going to make it?”

“. . Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”

“I don’t know.” Doyle exhaled. “Her doctors are encouraging but noncommittal. One week, she’s better. The next week, she’s worse. The next week. . It’s a roller coaster. But if I had to give a yes-or-no answer. . Yes, I think she’s dying. That’s why I asked if what we’re doing puts her in danger. I’m afraid she’s got so little time left. I couldn’t stand it if something else killed her even sooner. I’d go out of my mind.”

“Who do you think phoned your house? Who asked for Victor Grant?”

Doyle-who’d been silent for the past five minutes, brooding, preoccupied about his wife-now turned toward Buchanan. “I’ll tell you who it wasn’t. Your controllers. They told me they’d contact you by phoning either at eight in the morning, three in the afternoon, or ten at night. A man would ask to speak to me. He’d say that his name was Roger Winslow, and he’d suggest a time to meet at my office to talk about customizing a boat. That would mean you were supposed to go to a rendezvous an hour before the time they mentioned. A wholesale marine-parts supplier I use. It’s always busy. No one would notice if you were given a message via brush contact from someone passing you.”

Buchanan debated. “So if it wasn’t my controllers who phoned. . The only other people who know I claim to be Victor Grant and work in Fort Lauderdale customizing pleasure boats are the Mexican police.”

Doyle shook his head. “The man I spoke to didn’t have a Spanish accent.”

“What about the man from the American embassy?” Buchanan asked.

“Could be. He might be phoning to make sure you’d arrived safely. He’d have access to the same information-place of employment, et cetera-that you gave the Mexican police.”

“Yeah, maybe it was him,” Buchanan said, hoping. But he couldn’t avoid the suspicion that he wasn’t safe, that things were about to get worse.

“Since you’re supposed to be working for me and living above my office,” Doyle said, “you’d better see what the place looks like.”

Doyle turned off Ocean Boulevard, taking a side street across from the beach. Past tourist shops, he parked beside a drab two-story cinder-block building in a row of similar buildings, all of which were built along a canal, the dock of which was lined with boats under repair.

“I’ve got a machine shop in back,” Doyle said. “Sometimes my clients bring their boats here. Mostly, though, I go to them.”

“What about your secretary?” Buchanan asked, uneasy. “She’ll know I haven’t been working for you.”

“I don’t have one. Until three months ago, Cindy did the office work. But then she got too sick to. . That’s why she can make herself believe you came to work for me after she stayed home.”

As Buchanan walked toward the building, he squinted from the sun and smelled a salt-laden breeze from the ocean. A young woman wearing a bikini drove by on a motorcycle and stared at his head.

Buchanan gingerly touched the bandage around his skull, realizing how conspicuous it made him. He felt vulnerable, his head aching from the glare of the sun, while Doyle unlocked the building’s entrance, a door stenciled BON VOYAGE, INC. Inside, after Doyle shut off the time-delay switch on the intrusion detector, Buchanan surveyed the office. It was a long, narrow room with photographs of yachts and cabin cruisers on the walls, displays of nautical instruments on shelves, and miniaturized interiors of various pleasure craft on tables. The models showed the ways in which electronic instruments could be installed without taking up undue room on a crowded vessel.

“You got a letter,” Doyle said as he sorted through the mail.

Buchanan took it from him, careful not to break character by expressing surprise that anyone would have written to him under his new pseudonym. This office was a logical place for someone investigating him to conceal a bug, and unless Doyle assured him that it was safe to talk here, Buchanan didn’t intend to say anything that Victor Grant wouldn’t, just as he assumed that Doyle wouldn’t say anything inconsistent with their cover story.

The letter was addressed to him in scrawled handwriting. Its return address was in Providence, Rhode Island. Buchanan tore open the flap and read two pages of the same scrawled handwriting.

“Who’s it from?” Doyle asked.

“My mother.” Buchanan shook his head with admiration. His efficient controllers had taken great care to give him supporting details for his new identity.

“How is she?” Doyle asked.

“Good. Except her arthritis is acting up again.”

The phone rang.

Buchanan frowned.

“Relax,” Doyle said. “This is a business, remember. And to tell the truth, I could use some business.”

The phone rang again. Doyle picked it up, said, “Bon Voyage, Inc.,” then frowned as Buchanan had.

He placed his hand across the mouthpiece and told Buchanan, “I was wrong. It’s that guy again asking to speak to you. What do you want me to say?”

“Better let me say it. I’m curious who he is.” Uneasy, Buchanan took the phone. “Victor Grant here.”

The deep, crusty voice was instantly recognizable. “Your name ain’t Victor Grant.”

Heart pounding, Buchanan repressed his alarm and tried to sound puzzled. “What? Who is this? My boss said somebody wanted to speak to. . Wait a minute. Is this. .? Are you the guy in Mexico who. .?”

“Bailey. Big Bob Bailey. Damn it, Crawford, don’t get on my nerves. You’d still be in jail if I hadn’t called the American embassy. The least you can do is be grateful.”

“Grateful? I wouldn’t have been in jail if you hadn’t misidentified me. How many times do I have to say it? My name isn’t Crawford. It’s Victor Grant.”

“Sure, just like it was Ed Potter. I don’t know what kind of scam you’re runnin’, but it looks to me like you got more names than the phone book, and if you want to keep usin’ them, you’re gonna have to pay a subscriber fee.”

“Subscriber fee? What are you talking about?”

“After what happened in Kuwait, I’m not crazy about workin’ in the Mideast oil fields anymore,” Bailey said. “Stateside, the big companies are shuttin’ down wells instead of drillin’. I’m too old to be a wildcatter. So I guess I’ll have to rely on my buddies. Like you, Crawford. For the sake of when we were prisoners together, can you spare a hundred thousand dollars?”

“A hundred. .? Have you been drinking?”

“You betcha.”

“You’re out of your mind. One last time, and listen carefully. My name isn’t Crawford. My name isn’t Potter. My name’s Victor Grant, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get lost.”