David Morrell - Assumed Identity

As he lay on a bunk in a corner of the camp’s office, his mind seemed to float while death spread slowly through his body. Death felt suffocatingly hot, squeezing moisture from his body, soaking his clothes. At the same time, death felt unbearably cold, racking him with chills, making him wish fervently for more blankets.

McIntyre’s vision clouded. Sounds were muffled. The roar of bulldozers, the blast of explosions, the din of jackhammers seemed to come from far away instead of from the remnants of the ruins outside his office. But the one thing he listened for, the one sound he knew he couldn’t fail to hear no matter how far away, was the rapid whump-whump-whump of a helicopter, and to his despair, he still had not detected it. If the chopper in camp wasn’t fixed soon, if the other choppers didn’t return soon, he would die, and it occurred to him, making him furious despite how weak he was, that adequate medical care in camp was one of the conditions that Alistair Drummond had guaranteed. Since Drummond had failed to make good on that promise, perhaps none of the other promises would have been fulfilled, either. The bonus, for example. Or the fee for the job. Maybe Drummond would have all kinds of reasons for not being able to complete the terms of the contract.

This suspicion had obviously not occurred to any of the surviving workers. They were so eager to get out of here that they attacked the job with relentless fury. Their impatience filled them with greater anticipation of the reward they’d been guaranteed. Nothing discouraged their greed, not the tremors, not the snakes, certainly not McIntyre’s impending death. They had persisted despite efforts by Indians in the area to scare them away. Those natives, descendents of the original Maya who had built these monuments, had been so outraged by the obliteration of the ruins that they had sabotaged equipment, poisoned the camp’s water, set booby traps, attacked sentries, and in effect waged war. Responding, calling it self-defense, the workers had hunted and killed any native they found, dumping the corpses into wells in unconscious imitation of the human sacrifice once practiced by the Maya. In this region untouched by civilization, the struggle had reminded McIntyre of what had happened four hundred years earlier when the Spaniards had invaded the region. The area was sealed. No outsider would ever know what had happened here. Certainly no outsider would be able to prove it. When the job was finished, all that would matter would be the results.

Delirious, McIntyre heard the office door open. From outside, bulldozers crunched past. Then the door was closed, and footsteps crossed the earthen floor toward this area of the office.

A gentle hand touched his brow. “You’re still feverish.” A woman’s voice. Jenna’s. “Do you feel any better?”

“No.” McIntyre shivered as more sweat oozed from his body.

“Drink this water.”

“Can’t.” He struggled to breathe. “I’ll throw it up.”

“Just hang on. The mechanics are working as fast as they can to fix the chopper.”

“Not fast enough.”

Jenna knelt beside his cot and held his left hand. McIntyre remembered how surprised he had been to learn that the camp’s surveyor/cartographer was female. He’d insisted that this was no place for a woman, but she’d soon overcome his chauvinistic attitudes, proving that she could adapt to the jungle as well as any man. She was in her forties, the same as McIntyre. She had honey-colored hair, firm-looking breasts, an appealing smile, and in the three months they’d been working together, McIntyre had fallen in love with her. He had never told her. He’d been too afraid of being rejected. If she did reject him, their working relationship would have been intolerable. But as soon as the job was completed, he had intended to. .

Stroking his left hand, Jenna leaned close, her voice interrupting his thoughts. “But I’m betting there’ll be a chopper here quicker than we can repair the one we’ve got.”

“I. .” McIntyre’s mouth was parched. “I don't know what. .”

“Drummond will be here soon. We’ll put you in his chopper to get you to a hospital.”

“Drummond?”

“Don’t you remember?” Jenna wiped a damp cloth across his forehead. “We talked about this when I used the radio a half hour ago.”

“Radio? Half hour ago?”

“We found what Drummond wants.” Jenna spoke quickly, her voice taut with excitement. “It was here all along. Right under our noses. We had the instructions from Drummond’s translation, but we were too clever. We made the search too hard. We thought the instructions were using figures of speech, but all along, the text was meant to be taken literally. The god of Darkness. The god of the Underworld. The god of the Pyramid. It was so damned easy, Mac. Once your men leveled the pyramid, it was so obvious why the Maya built it where they did. We found what Drummond wants.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.

One-thirty in the afternoon. As soon as Buchanan got off the TWA flight from San Antonio, he headed toward the first row of pay phones he saw in the terminal at National Airport. He’d managed to get some sleep during the five-hour, several-stop trip. The naps, combined with the additional four hours of sleep he’d gotten the night before at a motel near San Antonio’s airport, had given him back some energy, as had a carbohydrate-rich breakfast at the airport and another on the plane. His wounds still hurt. His head still ached. But he felt more alert than he had in days, adrenaline pushing him. He was traveling as Charles Duffy. He felt in control again.

A man answered Holly’s phone at the Washington Post, explained that she was on another line, and asked who was calling.

“Mike Hamilton.”

That was the name Buchanan had told Holly he would be using to contact her. He had to assume that the colonel and Alan would have her under surveillance, watching for any sign that she didn’t intend to keep her agreement with them. If she seemed intent on pursuing the story, if she gave indications that she had not surrendered all of her research, there was a strong chance they would move against her. For certain, if the colonel and Alan found out that Buchanan remained in contact with her, that would be enough to arouse their suspicions to a deadly level. Even if Holly wasn’t in danger, Buchanan couldn’t afford to use his real name. The colonel and Alan would be searching for him.

That thought made Buchanan uneasy as he waited for Holly to come on the line. His nervousness wasn’t caused by concern about his safety. Rather, he was nervous because he wondered about his motives. What did he think he was doing? You didn’t just leave a top-secret undercover military operation as if you were quitting a job at Domino’s Pizza. For eight years as a deep-cover operative and for three years prior to that, Buchanan had followed every order. He was a soldier. It was his job to be obedient. He’d been proud of that. Now suddenly his discipline had snapped. He’d walked away, not even toward the future but into the past, not as himself but as one of his characters.

Hey, buddy, he told himself, it’s not too late. You’d better get back in line and with the program. Phone the colonel. Tell him you made a mistake but you’re better now. Tell him you’ll do whatever he wants. You’ll be an instructor. You’ll stay out of sight. Anything.

But a stronger thought insisted.

Have to find Juana.

He must have said that out loud, because a woman’s voice was suddenly speaking to him on the telephone. “What? I didn’t hear what you said. Mike? Is that you?”

The throaty, sensuous voice belonged to Holly.

Buchanan straightened. “Yeah, it’s me.” Before leaving San Antonio this morning, he’d called Holly’s apartment to make certain she was in Washington, to ensure he didn’t make the trip for nothing. Six-thirty in Texas had been 7:30 along the Potomac. She’d been awake and about to go to work when she’d picked up the phone rather than let her answering machine take the message. Assuming that her phone was tapped, he’d used the name Mike Hamilton and made tentative arrangements to meet her.