David Morrell - Assumed Identity

But he wasn’t satisfied. He needed something more, another way to be sure, a further guarantee, and when he saw his chance, he stood to claim a suddenly empty table near the center of the restaurant. It was here, he remembered, that he and Juana had sat six years earlier. Not this same table. He could never be positive of that. But the position was close enough, and when Juana came in, she would have no trouble finding him. Her gaze would scan the congested room, settle on the area that she associated with him, and there he would be, rising, smiling, walking toward her, eager to hold her.

He glanced at his watch: 10:40. Soon, he thought. Soon.

His headache made him sick again. When the waiter came to take his order, he asked for the specialty: cafe au lait and beignets. He also asked for water. That was what he really wanted. Water. The coffee and the beignets were just so he’d be allowed to sit there. The water was so he could swallow more Tylenol.

Soon.

Juana.

“ I love you, ” he had told her. “ I want you to know that you’ll always be special to me. I want you to know that I’ll always feel close to you. I swear to you. If you ever need help, if you’re ever in trouble, all you have to do is ask, and no matter how long it’s been, no matter how far away I am, I’ll- ”

Buchanan blinked, realizing that the waiter was setting down the water, the coffee, and the beignets. After he swallowed the Tylenol, he was startled when he glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed like fifteen seconds. It was almost eleven o’clock.

He kept staring toward the entrance.

Here’s the postcard I never thought I’d send. I hope you meant your promise. The last time and place. Counting on you. PLEASE.

“Is something wrong, sir?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been sitting here for half an hour and you haven’t touched your coffee or the beignets.”

“Half an hour?”

“Other people would like a chance to sit down.”

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“Even so, other people would like-”

“Bring me another round. Here’s ten dollars for your trouble.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Buchanan stared at the entrance.

Midnight.

One o’clock. People frowned toward him, whispering.

By two o’clock, he knew that she wouldn’t be coming.

What in God’s name had happened to her? She needed his help. Why hadn’t she let him prove he loved her?

He packed his bag and dropped a signed checkout form on the bed. At 3:00 A.M., no one saw him leave the hotel through a service exit. Stepping out of shadows onto Lafayette Street, he hailed a taxi.

“Where to, suh?” The driver looked wary, as if a man carrying a suitcase at 3:00 A.M. might be a threat.

“An all-night car-rental agency.”

The driver debated briefly. “Hop in. It’s kinda late to be takin’ a trip.”

“Isn’t it, though.”

He slumped in the backseat, thinking. It would have been easier to fly to where he needed to go. But he didn’t want to wait until morning and catch the first plane to his destination. For one thing, the major, the captain, and Alan might arrive earlier than they’d said they would and intercept him. For another, because he didn’t have enough cash to buy an airplane ticket, he’d need to use a credit card. But the only credit card he had was in Brendan Buchanan’s name. That would leave a paper trail for the major, the captain, and Alan to follow.

This way, while he’d still have to use a credit card to rent a car, there’d be no record of where he was planning to drive. The paper trail would end right here in New Orleans. And with luck, the major, the captain, and Alan would accept that he’d decided to do what he’d told them and disappear. In a perfect world, they would consider this a reassuring gesture and not a threat. To direct their thinking, he’d written a note about his determination to disappear, had sealed the note in an envelope addressed to Alan, and had left it on the hotel room’s bed, beside the signed checkout form.

“Here we are, suh.”

“What?” He roused himself and looked out the taxi’s side window, seeing a brightly lit car-rental office next to a gas station.

“If I was you, suh, I’d take it easy drivin’. You look beat.”

“Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

But I’d better look more alert when I rent the car, he thought.

He paid the driver and didn’t show the effort with which he carried his bag into the office, where the bright lights hurt his eyes.

A weary-looking spectacled man shoved a rental agreement across the counter. “I’ll need to see your credit card and your driver’s license. Initial about the insurance. Sign at the bottom.”

He had to look at the credit card he’d set on the counter to see which name he was using. “Buchanan. Brendan Buchanan.”

If only this headache would ease off.

Juana.

He had to find Juana.

And there was only one place he could think to start.

“It’s been taken care of,” Raymond said.

Seated at the rear of the passenger compartment of his private jet, Alistair Drummond peered up from a report he was reading. The fuselage vibrated softly as the jet streaked through the sky. “Specifics,” he said.

“According to a radio message I just received,” Raymond said, “last night, the director of Mexico’s National Institute of Archaeology and History was killed in a car accident near the National Palace in Mexico City.”

“Tragic,” Drummond said. Despite his age, he didn’t show the strain of having flown to a business meeting in Moscow, then to another in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia before his present transatlantic flight back to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, all within forty-eight hours. “Do we have evidence that Delgado was responsible?”

“The man Delgado ordered to do it is on our payroll. He’ll implicate Delgado if we ask him, provided we guarantee he won’t be punished.”

“We?” Drummond asked.

“I meant you. ”

“Your confusion of pronouns troubles me, Raymond. I’d hate to think that you consider me an equal.”

“No, sir, I don’t. I won’t make the mistake again.”

“Has his successor been chosen?”

Raymond nodded.

“An executive favorable to our cause?”

Raymond nodded again. “And money will make him more so.”

“Good,” Drummond said, his voice brittle, one of the few signs of his age. “We no longer need the woman, even if we find her. The leverage she provided against Delgado isn’t necessary any longer now that we have another way to put pressure on him. In all probability, Delgado will be Mexico’s next president, but not if we reveal his crimes. Let him know we have proof that he ordered the death of the Institute’s director, that his political future continues to depend on me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, when he becomes president, I’ll have even more influence.”

“All the influence you need.”

“Never,” Drummond corrected him.

“Perhaps, then, you do need the woman.”

The old man scowled, his wrinkles deepening so much that his true age began to show. “I almost lost everything because of her. When your operatives find her. .”

“Yes, sir?”

“Make certain they kill her on sight.”

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Buchanan arrived by nightfall. He’d driven west on Route 10 from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, past numerous small towns into Texas, toward Beaumont and Houston and finally. .

His headache, combined with the pain in his side, had forced him to rest several times along the way. At Beaumont, he’d rented a hotel room in midmorning so that he could shave and shower and sleep for a couple of hours. The hotel clerk had looked puzzled when he checked out at noon. That was no good, attracting attention like that. It wasn’t any good, either, that his scarcity of cash forced him to use his credit card to rent the room. Now there was a further paper trail, although by the time Alan, the major, and the captain traced him to the hotel, he’d be long gone, and they still wouldn’t know his destination. Sure, if they checked the records of his past assignments, they might guess it, but he’d had a great many assignments in the six years since he’d known Juana, and it would take them quite a while to make the connection between her, New Orleans, and San Antonio. By then, he’d be somewhere else.