David Morrell - Assumed Identity

“I will not. This is about Juana. I’m sure of it. I want to know what it is.”

As she rounded the back of the van, she stopped abruptly, startled to see the naked, bound men. “ Madre de Dios. ”

“These men can help us find Juana,” Pedro said. “This is necessary. Go back to the house.”

Anita glared. “I’m staying.”

Fatigue made Buchanan’s headache worsen. “Does Juana have an office here in town?”

The interruption made Anita and Pedro look at him.

“Yes,” Anita said. “At her home. Although she is seldom there.”

“I don’t have time to wait until morning,” Buchanan said. “Can you take me there now?”

Pedro frowned. “You think she is at her home? You think she is hurt and. .”

“No,” Buchanan said. “But maybe her office records can tell me why someone in Philadelphia wants to find her.”

Anita started toward the house. “I’ll get dressed and take you.”

“We both will,” Pedro said, hurrying after her.

At once Buchanan turned to the second man where he lay bound on the floor of the van. “If Juana’s home is in town, you must have other sentries watching the place.”

The man didn’t answer.

“The easy way or the hard way.” Buchanan showed him the pliers.

“Yes, another team,” the man said.

“How many men?”

“Two. The same as here.”

“They alternate shifts?”

“Yes.”

The tactic was flawed, Buchanan knew. Thorough surveillance wasn’t possible if only one man at a time watched a target site. Suppose Juana showed up. The spotter would phone for help. But how could the spotter be sure that a team would arrive in time to trap her?

As Buchanan brooded, the shadow of a long object secured horizontally to the van’s left wall attracted his attention. He shifted the flashlight’s beam to see what it was.

His stomach felt cold. Seeing the object made him realize that the surveillance tactic did make sense-in an efficient, deadly way.

The object on the wall was a sniper’s rifle equipped with a state-of-the-art night-vision telescopic sight. The intent of the surveillance wasn’t to capture Juana. It was to kill her the minute she was spotted.

Juana’s home was in the hills south of the city, along the western bank of the San Antonio River. They took forty-five minutes to get there, Pedro driving the van while Buchanan sat in back and guarded the captives, Anita following in the Jeep Cherokee. En route, Buchanan used the pliers again, forcing the first man to give him the telephone number that would put him in touch with the sniper who watched Juana’s home.

The telephone barely made a noise before a man’s gravelly voice answered, “Yellow Rose Two.”

“It’s Frank,” Buchanan said. Trained to mimic voices, he made himself sound like the first man. “Anything doing?”

“Quiet as hell. No sign of movement here for the past two weeks. I think we’re wasting our time.”

“But at least we’re being paid to waste it,” Buchanan said. “I’m going to stay with Duncan and watch the Mendez place. Meantime, I thought I’d better tell you I’m sending a guy out there in my Jeep. That’s how you’ll know he belongs. He’s going to pick the front lock and go in to check a few things we’re beginning to think we missed, especially some stuff in her files.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. If she’s watching the house, debating whether to go in, she’ll get spooked if she sees anybody.”

“I agree. The thing is, it’s not like I have a choice. This wasn’t my idea. These are orders.”

“Fucking typical,” the sniper said. “They pay us to do a job, but they won’t let us do it properly.”

“Just let the guy I’m sending do his job when he shows up,” Buchanan said.

“No sweat. Be seeing you.”

Sooner than you expect, Buchanan thought as he broke the connection.

A little after one in the morning, Pedro warned Buchanan that they were about a mile from Juana’s home.

“Close enough. Stop right here,” Buchanan said.

After Anita pulled up behind them, he got out of the van, told Anita to wait with Pedro, and drove Tucker’s Jeep Cherokee over a murky rise, proceeding the rest of the way along a winding, partially wooded road. His headlights revealed mist drifting in from the river. They also showed new streets and the start of construction on houses for a new subdivision.

Juana won’t like that.

What you mean is, you pray to God that she’s still alive so she’ll be able not to like it.

Pedro and Anita had described the house, which for the present was one of a very few along this section of the river, so Buchanan had no trouble finding it. Wooden and single-story, on stilts in case of flooding, it reminded him more of a cabin than a house as he passed a cottonwood tree and stopped in the gravel driveway. Quaint, rustic. If Juana’s dog had still been alive, Buchanan imagined how much Juana would have enjoyed running with it along the river.

. . had still been alive.

Man, you sure are thinking about death a lot.

You bet, with a sniper watching me from God-knows-where.

Buchanan’s back felt tense as he opened the screened porch and approached the main door. With the mist coming in from the river, the sniper might not have been able to recognize the car whose headlights had veered toward the house. What if he came down to investigate?

Play the scenario you described to him, Buchanan thought.

He picked the two dead-bolt locks and entered, smelling the must of a building that had not been occupied for quite a while. Feeling vulnerable even in the darkness, he shut the door, locked it, felt along the wall, and found a light switch. A lamp came on, revealing a living room that had a bookshelf, a television, a VCR, and stereo equipment but very little furniture, just a leather sofa, a coffee table, and a rocking chair. Obviously Juana hadn’t spent much time here. Otherwise, she would have paid more attention to its furnishings. Also, few furnishings suggested that she seldom had company.

Buchanan proceeded across the room, noting the dust on the sofa and the coffee table, further evidence that Juana hadn’t been here in some time. He glanced into the kitchen, turned on its light, and assessed its neat appearance, its minimum of appliances. Remote, austere, the place gave Buchanan a sense of loneliness. It made him feel sorry for her.

Down a hallway, the first door he came to-on the left, facing the river-was an office. When Buchanan turned on the overhead light, he saw that here, too, everything was kept to a minimum: a metal filing cabinet, a swivel chair, a wooden table upon which sat a computer, a laser printer, a modem, a telephone, a gooseneck lamp, a yellow notepad, and a jar filled with pencils and pens. Otherwise, the room was bare. No rug. No pictures. Impersonal.

He wondered what the sniper would be thinking in the misty darkness outside. How would the man react as he watched various lights come on in the house? Despite the instructions that the man had been given, would he come down to investigate?

Buchanan opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet, and immediately two things became important to him. The first was that each file had a stiff folder with hooks on each side that suspended the file rigidly on metal tracks along each side at the top of the drawer. The second was that the files were arranged alphabetically but that the files in A to the middle of D were bunched together, separated by a slight gap from the rest of the files that continued D through to L. The rigid hooks on each side of the neighboring files prevented them from expanding to fill the gap. Obviously, one of the D files had been removed. Possibly Juana had done it. Possibly an intruder who’d been searching as Buchanan was. No way to tell.