David Morrell - Assumed Identity

At once Bailey stood and clutched the picnic cooler. “This is where we part company, Crawford. Almost forgot, I mean, Grant. Why don’t you stay aboard, see the sights, enjoy the ride?”

“Why not?” Buchanan said.

Bailey looked very pleased with himself. “Be seein’ you.”

“No. You won’t.”

“Right,” Bailey said and carried the picnic cooler off the water taxi onto the dock. He strolled across the colorfully illuminated lawn toward the music, “Moon River,” and disappeared among the crowd.

Thirty minutes later, the water taxi brought Buchanan back to the Riverside Hotel. He wouldn’t have returned there except that he needed to retrieve his suitcase from the trunk of Cindy’s car. The car was parked on a quiet street next to the hotel, and after Buchanan placed the keys beneath the driver’s floor mat, he carried his suitcase into the hotel, where he phoned for a taxi. When it arrived, he instructed the driver to take him to an all-night car-rental agency. As it happened, the only one that was open was at the Fort Lauderdale airport, and after Buchanan rented a car, he drove to a pay phone to contact Doyle and tell him where to find Cindy’s car. Next, he bought a twelve-pack of beer at a convenience store, drove to a shadowy, deserted street, poured every can of beer over the front seat and floor of the car, then tossed the empty cans onto the floor and drove away, keeping all the windows open lest he get sick from the odor of the beer.

By then, it was quarter after one in the morning. He headed toward the ocean, found a deserted park next to the Intracoastal Waterway, and smashed the car through a protective barrier, making sure he left skid marks, as if the car had been out of control. He stopped the car, got out, put the automatic gearshift into drive, and pushed the car over the seawall into the water. Even as he heard it splash, he was hurrying away to disappear into the darkness. He’d left his suitcase in the car, along with his wallet in the nylon jacket he’d borrowed from Doyle. He’d kept his passport, though. He didn’t want anyone to do a background check on that. When the police investigated the “accident” and hoisted the car from the water, they’d find the beer cans. The logical conclusion would be that the driver-Victor Grant, according to the ID in the wallet and the car-rental agreement in the glove compartment-had been driving while under the influence, had crashed through the barricade, and helpless because of alcohol, had drowned. When the police didn’t find the body, divers and trollers would search, give up, and decide that the corpse would surface in a couple of days. When it didn’t, they’d conclude that the remains had been wedged beneath a dock or had been carried by the tide out to sea. More important, Buchanan hoped that Bailey would believe the same thing. Under stress from being blackmailed, fearful that Bailey would keep coming back for more and more money, Crawford-Potter-Grant had rented a car to flee the area, had gotten drunk in the process, had lost control of the vehicle, and. .

Maybe, Buchanan thought. It just might work. Those had been the colonel’s instructions at any rate-to make Victor Grant disappear. Buchanan hadn’t told Doyle and Cindy what he intended to do because he wanted them to be genuinely surprised if the police questioned them. The disappearance would break the link between Buchanan and Bailey. It would also break the link between Buchanan and what had happened in Mexico. If the Mexican authorities decided to reinvestigate Victor Grant and asked for the cooperation of the American authorities, there’d be no one to investigate.

All problems solved, Buchanan thought as he hurried from the shadowy park, then slowed his pace as he walked along a dark side street. He’d find a place to hide until morning, buy a razor, clean up in a public rest room, take a bus twenty-five miles south to Miami, use cash to buy an Amtrak ticket, and become an anonymous passenger on the train north to Washington. Now you see me, now you don’t. Definitely time for a new beginning.

The only troubling detail, Buchanan thought, was how the colonel could be sure that he got his hands on all the photographs and the negatives. What if Bailey went into the first men’s room he could find, locked a stall, removed the money from the cooler, and left the cooler next to the waste bin? In that case, the surveillance team wouldn’t be able to trail Bailey to where he was staying and where presumably he kept the photos. Another troubling detail was the woman, the redhead who’d taken photographs of Buchanan outside the Mexican prison while he talked with the man from the American embassy, the same woman who’d also taken photographs of Buchanan with the colonel on the yacht and later with Bailey on the waterway. What if Bailey had already paid her off and never went near her again? The surveillance team couldn’t find her.

So what? Buchanan decided as he walked quickly through the secluded, exclusive neighborhood, prepared to duck behind any of the numerous flowering shrubs if he saw headlights approaching. So what if Bailey did pay the woman and never went near her again? He’d have made sure he got the pictures and the negatives first. He wouldn’t have confided in her. So it won’t matter if the surveillance team can’t locate her. It won’t even matter if Bailey ditches the cooler and the surveillance team can’t find the photographs and the negatives. After all, the pictures are useless to Bailey if the man he’s blackmailing is dead.

EXPLOSION KILLS THREE

FT. LAUDERDALE-A powerful explosion shortly before midnight last night destroyed a car in the parking lot of Paul’s-on-the-River restaurant, killing its occupant, identified by a remnant of his driver’s license as Robert Bailey, 48, a native of Oklahoma. The explosion also killed two customers leaving the restaurant. Numerous other cars were destroyed or damaged. Charred fragments of a substantial amount of money found at the scene have prompted authorities to theorize that the explosion may have been the consequence of a recent escalating war among drug smugglers.

MURDER-SUICIDE

FT. LAUDERDALE-Responding to a telephone call from a frightened neighbor, police early this morning investigated gunshots at 233 Glade Street in Plantation and discovered the bodies of Jack Doyle (34) and his wife, Cindy (30), both dead from bullet wounds. It is believed that Mr. Doyle, despondent about his wife’s cancer, shot her with a.38-caliber snub-nosed revolver while she slept in their bedroom, then used the same weapon on himself.

THE YUCATAN PENINSULA

Struggling to concentrate amid the din of bulldozers, trucks, Jeeps, chain saws, generators, and shouting construction workers, Jenna Lane drew another line on the surveyor’s map she was preparing. The map was spread out, anchored by books, on a trestle table in a twenty-by-ten-foot tent that was her office. Sweat trickled down her face and hung on the tip of her chin as she intensified her concentration and made a note beside the line she’d drawn on the map.

A shadow appeared at the open entrance to her tent. Glancing up, she saw McIntyre, the foreman of the project, silhouetted by dust raised by a passing bulldozer. He removed his Stetson, swabbed a checkered handkerchief across his sunburned, dirty, sweaty brow, and raised his voice to be heard above the racket outside. “He’s coming.”

Jenna frowned and glanced at her watch, the metal band of which was embedded with grit. “Already? It’s only ten o’clock. He’s not supposed to be here until-”

“I told you, he’s coming.”