David Morrell - Assumed Identity

But by that same logic. .

The door fit the crude frame loosely. It had inched open after Drummond closed it. Jenna heard occasional raspy outbursts.

“. . Find the woman. If Delgado learns she isn’t cooperating. . ruined. Everything. Find her. Use every pressure. I don’t care what you have to. . Kill him if . .”

Then Jenna couldn’t hear Drummond anymore, and at once she stepped farther from the door, joining McIntyre, feeling sick but trying to seem as if she was a good employee waiting patiently.

Drummond jerked the door open and stalked outside. A black pall appeared to surround him despite the sunlight that gleamed off his thick white hair and his glasses. He was about to continue verbally assaulting Jenna when he noticed something to the left and looked briefly heartened.

Following his gaze, Jenna saw Raymond wearing outdoor clothes, carrying a rifle, entering the jungle. Even at a distance, his excitement was evident.

Then Drummond’s brittle, forceful voice jerked her attention back to him.

“All of this,” he demanded, gesturing. “You’ve been far too faithful on your map, far too diligent. The Mexican authorities can’t be allowed to realize how massive and important a find this is. Your map has to make it seem minor, an insignificant site that doesn’t merit undue attention, something that won’t he an irreplaceable loss.” Drummond pointed toward the majestic temples, the hieroglyph-engraved palaces, and the great terraced pyramid where gigantic snake heads guarded the bottom of the wide, high stairs that went up each side. “Because ten days from now, I expect all of that to be leveled. Do you hear me, McIntyre?” He glared at the foreman. “You knew the orders. You understood the schedule. Use bulldozers. Use sledgehammers. Use dynamite. If you have to, use your fingernails. Ten days from now, I expect my equipment to be set up and all of this to be gone. Level it. Scatter the rubble. Truck it out. Dump it in sinkholes. Have the helicopters lift it out. I don’t care how you do it. I want it gone!”

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

The safe site was on the third floor, yet another apartment in yet another sprawling complex into which Buchanan could easily blend. After he’d arrived in Washington from Florida, he’d used a pay phone to report to his controller, just as he’d reported at various stops along the Amtrak route. A man’s voice told him to be waiting, seated, on the steps outside the Library of Congress at 3:00 P.M. Precisely at that time, a middle-aged man wearing a blue blazer and gray slacks stopped beside him and bent down to tie his right shoe. When the man departed, Buchanan concealed the small envelope that the man had slid toward him. After waiting five minutes longer, Buchanan then went into the Library of Congress, entered a men’s room, and locked himself in a stall, where he opened the envelope, took out a key, and read a slip of paper that provided him with a name, some biographical information, an Alexandria address, and an apartment number. The paper and the envelope were far from ordinary. He dropped them into the water in the toilet and watched them dissolve. In the library’s reference section, he used an area directory to tell him which major streets were near the Alexandria apartment, and shortly before six that evening, he got out of a taxi a few blocks from his destination, walking the rest of the way, out of habit using evasion procedures in case he was being followed.

His name was now Don Colton, he’d been informed. He was supposed to be a writer for a travel magazine that he assumed was affiliated with his controllers. Posing as a travel writer was an excellent cover, Buchanan thought, inasmuch as a travel writer by definition was on the move a great deal and hence the neighbors wouldn’t consider it unusual that they never saw him. However, because Buchanan’s controllers would not have had sufficient time to tailor the cover specifically to him, he automatically assumed that this identity would be temporary, an all-purpose, one-size-fits-all persona that his controllers maintained for emergencies. As Don Colton, Buchanan was in a holding pattern and would soon be sent to God-knew-where as God-knew-who.

Avoiding the elevator, he used fire stairs to get to the third floor. After all, because most people preferred elevators, there was less chance of encountering anybody on the stairs. He reached a concrete corridor with fluorescent lights along the ceiling. As he had hoped, no one was in view, the tenants having already arrived home from work. Doors to apartments flanked each side. As he walked along green heavy-duty carpeting, he heard music behind one door, voices behind another. Then he came to 327, used the key he’d been given, and entered the apartment.

He turned on the lights, scanned the combination living room-kitchen, locked the door, checked the closets, the bathroom, and the bedroom, all the while avoiding the windows, then turned off the lights, closed the draperies, and finally turned the lights back on, only then slumping on the sofa. He was safe. For now.

The apartment had a hotel-room feel to it, everything clean but utilitarian and impersonal. A corner of the living room had been converted into a minioffice with a desk, a word processor, a printer, and a modem. Several copies of the magazine he was supposed to work for were stacked on the coffee table, and when Buchanan examined their contents, he found articles under his pseudonym, another indication that Don Colton was an all-purpose identity. Obviously, the magazines had been prepared well in advance, not just for him but for any operative who happened to need this type of cover. Don Colton-at least this Don Colton-wouldn’t be in the neighborhood very long.

Nonetheless, Buchanan still had to make his portrayal of Colton believable, and the first step was to familiarize himself with the articles he was supposed to have written. But halfway through the second essay-about Tahiti-he suddenly discovered that two hours had passed. He frowned. It shouldn’t have taken him that long to read just a few pages. Had he fallen asleep? His headache-which had never gone away since he’d banged his skull in Cancun-worsened, and he surprised himself by no longer caring about his persona as a travel writer. Weary, he stood, went into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by only a counter, and poured himself a drink from a bottle of bourbon that was next to the refrigerator along with bottles of gin and rum. After adding ice and water, he debated which to do first-to shower or to open one of the cans of chili he found in a cupboard. Tomorrow, he’d have to decide what to do about clean clothes. The ones he’d found in the bedroom closet were too small for him. But he couldn’t leave the apartment without establishing a procedure with his employers so they’d know how to get in touch with him, and that was when the phone rang.

It startled him.

He pivoted toward the living room, staring toward the phone on a table next to the sofa. The phone rang a second time. He sipped from his bourbon, letting his nerves calm. The phone rang a third time. He hated phones. Squinting, he entered the living room and picked up the phone before it could ring a fourth time.

“Hello.” He tried to make his voice sound neutral.

“Don!” an exuberant male voice exclaimed. “It’s Alan! I wasn’t sure you’d be back yet! How the hell are you?”

“Good,” Buchanan said. “Fine.”

“The trip went okay?”

“The last part of it.”

“Yeah, your postcards mentioned you had a few problems at some earlier stops. Nothing you couldn’t handle, though, right?”

“Right,” Buchanan echoed.