David Morrell - Assumed Identity

“You don’t know?”

“It’s something to do with security,” Pedro said.

“ National security?”

“Private security. She has her own business here in San Antonio. But that’s as much as Juana told us. She never discussed specifics. She said that it wouldn’t be fair to her clients. She couldn’t violate their confidence.”

Good, Buchanan thought. She stayed a pro.

“All right,” he said, “so she hasn’t been in touch in nine months. And suddenly several men who claim to be old friends of hers show up to ask if you know where they can find her. What else isn’t-?”

Abruptly Buchanan noticed that Juana’s parents were looking at him differently. Their gaze was harder, more wary, their need to confess their concerns about their daughter now tempered by renewed suspicion about him. The risk he’d taken had finally caught up to him. His remark about the other men who’d come looking for her had prompted Juana’s parents to associate him with those men.

But he was troubled by something else. The intensity of his headache had made him temporarily relax his guard. If an enemy was trying to find Juana and if that enemy was impatient enough to send three different men to ask Juana’s parents about where she could be found, might not that enemy have gone further in an effort to learn what the parents knew? Might not that enemy have. .?

“Excuse me. May I use your bathroom?”

Pedro’s suspicion made him look surly. He nodded grudgingly. “It’s down the hall. The first door on the left.”

“Thank you.”

Buchanan stood, feigning self-consciousness, and went along the hallway. In the bathroom, which was bright, white, and extremely ordered, he locked the door, strained to get some urine from his bladder, flushed the toilet, and turned on the sink to wash his hands.

He left the water running, silently opened the medicine cabinet, found a nail file, and used it to unscrew the wall plate to the light switch. Taking care not to touch the wires, he unscrewed the switch from its cavity in the wall and pulled it out to study what was behind.

His discovery increased the nausea that his headache caused. A miniature microphone-transmitter was attached to the wires. Because most people felt that a bathroom gave them privacy, that was the room they’d least likely suspect had a bug, hence the first room that Buchanan always checked. And because Mrs. Mendez kept this bathroom scrupulously clean, about the only place in the room where she wouldn’t find a bug was behind the light switch, a spot favored by professional eavesdroppers. The phones were probably miked, as well.

Okay, Buchanan thought. Here we go.

He shut off the water, the sound of which he had hoped would conceal the noise he’d made when he unscrewed the wall plate. Now he unlocked the bathroom door and went back to the living room, where it was obvious that Juana’s parents had been whispering about him.

“Pedro, I apologize,” Buchanan said.

“For what?”

“When I was washing my hands in the bathroom, I must have pulled the sink plug’s lever too hard. It looks like I broke it. I can’t get the sink to drain, I’m sorry. I. .”

Pedro stood, scowling, and strode toward the bathroom, his chest stuck out, his short legs moving powerfully.

Buchanan got ahead of him in the hallway and put a finger over his own lips to indicate that he wanted Pedro not to say anything. But when Pedro didn’t get the message and opened his mouth to ask what was going on, Buchanan had to put his hand firmly over Pedro’s mouth and shake his head strongly from side to side, mouthing in Spanish the quiet message, Shut up. Pedro looked startled. The house is bugged, Buchanan continued mouthing.

Pedro didn’t seem to understand. He struggled to remove Buchanan’s hand from his mouth. Buchanan responded by pressing his left hand against the back of Pedro’s head while at the same time he continued to keep his right hand over Pedro’s mouth. He forced Pedro into the bathroom and bent his head down so that Pedro could see behind the light switch that Buchanan had pulled from the wall. Pedro owned a string of car-repair shops. He had to be familiar with wiring. Surely Pedro would know enough about other types of wiring to realize that the small gadget behind the light switch shouldn’t be there, that the gadget was a miniature microphone-transmitter.

Pedro’s eyes widened.

Comprende? Buchanan mouthed.

Pedro nodded forcefully.

Buchanan released his grip on Pedro’s head and mouth.

Pedro wiped his mouth, which showed the strong impression of Buchanan’s hand, glared at Buchanan, and rattled the sink plug’s lever. “There. You see, it was nothing. You merely hadn’t pulled the lever far enough. The water’s gone now.”

“At least I didn’t break it,” Buchanan said.

Pedro had several pens and a notepad in the top pocket of his coveralls. Quickly, Buchanan removed the pad and one of the pens. He wrote: We can’t talk in the house. Where and when can we meet? Soon.

Pedro read the message, frowned, and wrote: 7:00 A.M. My shop at 1217 Loma Avenue.

“I do not trust you,” Pedro said abruptly.

“What?” The effect was so convincing that Buchanan took a moment before he realized that Pedro was acting.

“I want you out of my house.”

“But-”

“Get out.” Pedro grabbed Buchanan’s arm and tugged him along the hallway. “How much plainer can I make it? Out of my house.”

“Pedro!” Anita hurried from the living room into the hallway. “What are you doing? Maybe he can help us.”

“Out!” Pedro shoved Buchanan toward the front door.

Buchanan pretended to resist. “Why? I don’t understand. What did I do? A couple of minutes ago, we were talking about how to help Juana. Now all of a sudden. .”

“There is something not right about you,” Pedro said. “There is something too convenient about you. I think that you are with the other men who came to look for Juana. I think that you are her enemy, not her friend. I think that I should never have spoken to you. Get out. Now. Before I call the police.”

Pedro unlocked the door and yanked it open.

“You’ve made a mistake,” Buchanan said.

“No, you did. And you will make a greater mistake if you ever come near my home again.”

“Damn it, if you don’t want my help. .”

“I want you out!” Pedro shoved Buchanan.

Buchanan lurched outside, feeling exposed by the porch light above him. “Don’t touch me again.”

“Pedro!” Anita said.

“I don’t know where my daughter is, but if I did, I would never tell you!” Pedro told Buchanan.

“Then go to hell.”

“You’d better get here pronto,” Duncan Bradley said into his cellular phone while he listened to the transmission from the house. “Something about the guy who showed up definitely rubbed Mendez against the grain. Mendez thinks the guy’s with us. They’re yelling at each other. Mendez is kicking him out.”

“Almost there. Just two blocks away,” Duncan’s partner said through the cellular phone.

“You might as well be two miles away.” Duncan stared at the green magnified night-vision image on his closed-circuit television screen. “I can see the dude coming off the lawn toward his car. He’ll be gone before you get here.”

“I told you I’m close. Can you see my headlights?”

Duncan glanced at another screen that showed the murky area behind his van. “Affirmative.”

“Perfect. When he pulls away, I’ll be just another car on the road,” Tucker said. “He won’t think anything when he sees my lights behind him.”