Assumed Identity

12

Buchanan was reminded of an old story about a donkey between two bales of hay. The donkey stood exactly midpoint between the bales. Each bale was the same size and had the same fragrance. With no reason to choose one bale over the other, the donkey starved to death.

The story-which could never happen in the real world because the donkey could never be exactly at midpoint and the bales could never be exactly the same-was a theoretical way to illustrate the problem of free will. The ability to choose, which most people took for granted, depended on certain conditions, and without them, a person could be motiveless, just as Buchanan found that he was now.

His brother.

Buchanan had so thoroughly worked to obliterate the memory that for the past eight years he’d managed not to be conscious of the critical event that controlled his behavior. Not once had he thought about it. On rare occasions of weakness, late at night, weary, he might sense the nightmare lurking in the darkness of his subconscious, crouching, about to spring. Then he would muster all his strength of resolve to thrust up a mental wall of denial, of refusal to accept the unacceptable.

Even now, with his defenses taken from him, with his identity exposed, unshielded, he was repulsed sufficiently that the memory was able to catch him only partially, in principle but not in detail.

His brother.

His wonderful brother.

Twelve years old.

Sweet Tommy.

Was dead.

And he had killed him.

Buchanan felt as if he were trapped by ice. He couldn’t move. He sat on the sofa, and his legs, his back, his arms were numb, his entire body cold, paralyzed. He kept staring toward the chair in front of him, not seeing it, barely aware of time.

Five o’clock.

Six o’clock.

Seven o’clock.

The room was in darkness. Buchanan kept staring, seeing nothing.

Tommy was dead.

And he had killed him.

Blood.

He’d clutched Tommy’s stake-impaled body, trying to tug him free.

Tommy’s cheeks had been terribly pale. His breathing had sounded like bubbles. His moan had been liquid, as if he was gargling. But what he gargled hadn’t been salt water. It had been. .

Blood.

“Hurts. Hurts so bad.”

“Tommy, oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Push him.

Just horsing around.

Didn’t think Tommy would lose his balance and fall.

Didn’t know anything was down in the pit.

A construction site. A summer evening. Two brothers on an adventure.

“Hurts so bad.”

“Tommy!”

“Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Tommy!”

So much blood.

When Buchanan was fifteen.

Still catatonic, sitting bolt straight on the sofa, staring at the darkness, Buchanan felt as if a portion of his mind were raising arms, trying to ward off the terrible memory. Although he was chilled, sweat beaded his brow. Too much, he thought. He hadn’t remembered in such detail since the days and nights before Tommy’s funeral and the unendurable summer that followed, the guilt-laden, seemingly endless season of grief that finally had ended when. .

Buchanan’s mind darted and burrowed, seeking any protection it could from the agonizing memory of Tommy’s blood on his clothes, of the stake projecting from Tommy’s chest.

“It’s all my fault.”

“No, you didn’t mean to do it,” Buchanan’s mother had said.

“I killed him.”

“It was an accident,” Buchanan’s mother had said.

But Buchanan hadn’t believed her, and he was certain that he’d have gone insane if he hadn’t found a means to protect himself from his mind. The answer turned out to be amazingly simple, wonderfully self-evident. Become someone else.

Dissociative personality. Buchanan imagined himself as his favorite sports and rock stars, as certain movie and television actors whom he idolized. He suddenly became a reader-of novels into which he could escape and become the hero with whom he so desperately wanted to identify. In high school that autumn, he discovered the drama club, subconsciously motivated by the urge to perfect the skills he would need to maintain his protective assumed identities, the personas that would allow him to escape from himself.

Then after high school, perhaps to prove himself, perhaps to punish himself, perhaps to court an early death, he’d joined the military, not just any branch, the Army, so he could enter Special Forces. The name said it all-to be special. He wanted to sacrifice himself, to atone. And one thing more-if he saw enough death, perhaps one death in particular would no longer haunt him.

As the man who called himself Alan had indicated, Buchanan’s Special Operations trainers realized what a prize they had when their computer responded to a survey by choosing Buchanan’s profile. A man who desperately needed to assume identities. An operative who wouldn’t be wearied but, on the contrary, would flourish for long periods under deep cover.

Now they were stripping away his barriers, taking away his shields, exposing the guilt that had compelled him to become an operative and that he had managed to subdue.

Buchanan? Who the hell was Buchanan? Jim Crawford was a man he understood. So was Ed Potter. And Victor Grant. And all the others. He’d invented detailed personal backgrounds for each of them. Some of his characters were blessed (in Richard Dana’s case literally, for Dana believed that he was the recipient of the grace of God as a born-again Christian). Others carried burdens (Ed Potter’s wife had divorced him for a man who earned more money). Buchanan knew how each of them dressed (Robert Chambers was formal and always wore a suit and tie). He knew which kinds of music each liked (Peter Sloane was crazy about country-western), and which foods (Jim Crawford hated cauliflower), and which types of women (Victor Grant liked brunettes), and which types of movies (Craig Madden could watch Singin’ in the Rain every night of the week), and. .

Who the hell was Buchanan? It was significant that Buchanan and his controllers always thought of him in terms of his last name. Impersonal. Objective. After eight years of having impersonated-correction, of having been-hundreds of people, Buchanan had no idea of how to impersonate himself. What were his speech mannerisms? Did he have a distinctive walk? Which types of clothes, food, music, et cetera, did he prefer? Was he religious? Did he have any hobbies? Favorite cities? What came naturally?

Christ, he hadn’t been Buchanan in so long that he didn’t know who Buchanan was. He didn’t want to know who Buchanan was. The story of the donkey between the two bales of hay was his story. He was caught between the identity of Victor Grant, who was dead, and the identity of Don Colton, who wasn’t formed. With no way to turn, with nothing to help him choose whom to be, he was paralyzed.

Self-defense made the difference-protective instincts. Sitting rigidly in the quiet, dark room, he heard a noise, the scrape of a key in the front door’s lock. A portion of his mind jolted him. His body was no longer cold and numb. His lethargy drained, dispelled by adrenaline.

The doorknob creaked. As someone in the outside hallway slowly pushed the door open, the glare of fluorescent lights spilling in, Buchanan was already off the sofa. He darted to the left and disappeared into the darkness of the bedroom. He heard the flick of a switch and stepped back farther into the bedroom as light filled the living room. He heard a metallic scratch as someone removed the key from the lock. He heard a soft thunk as the door was gently shut. Cautious footsteps made a brushing sound as they inched across the carpet.

He tensed.

“Buchanan?” The voice was familiar. It belonged to the portly man who called himself Alan. But the voice sounded wary, troubled. “Buchanan?”

Uneasy, Buchanan didn’t want to respond to that name. Nonetheless, he showed himself, careful to keep partially in the shadows of the bedroom.

Alan turned, his expression a mixture of concern and surprise.

“Don’t you believe in knocking?” Buchanan asked.

“Well. .” Alan rubbed his right hand against his brown-checkered sport coat, awkward. “I thought you might be sleeping and. .”

“So you decided to make yourself at home until I woke up?”

“No,” Alan said. “Uh, not exactly.”

“Then what exactly?” The man was normally confident to the point of being brusque, but now he was behaving out of character.

What was going on?

“I just thought I’d check on you to make sure you were all right.”

“Well, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You, uh, you were upset in the car and. .”

“Yes? And what?”

“Nothing. I just. . I guess I made a mistake.”

Buchanan stepped completely from the darkness of the bedroom. Approaching, he noticed Alan direct his gaze furtively, nervously, toward a section of the ceiling in the far-right corner.

Ah, Buchanan thought. So the place is wired-and not just with microphones.

With hidden cameras. Needle-nosed.

Yesterday when Buchanan had arrived, he’d felt relieved to have reached a haven. There’d been no reason for him to suspect the intentions of his controllers and hence no reason for him to check the apartment to see if it was bugged. Later, after last night’s conversation with Alan, Buchanan had felt disturbed, preoccupied by the postcard, by the unexpected echo of one of his lives six years ago. It hadn’t occurred to him to check the apartment. What would have been the point? Aside from the man who called himself Alan, there was no one to talk to and thus nothing for hidden microphones to overhear.

But video surveillance was a different matter. And far more serious, Buchanan thought. Something about me spooks them enough that they want to keep extremely close tabs on me.

But what? What would spook them?

For starters, being catatonic all afternoon and half the evening. I must have scared the hell out of whoever’s watching me. They sent Alan down to see if I’d cracked up. The way Alan keeps pawing at his sport coat. After I bruised his arm this morning, he’s probably deciding whether I’m disturbed enough that he’ll have to draw his handgun.

Meanwhile, the cameras are transmitting every move I make.

But Alan doesn’t want me to know that.

Buchanan felt liberated. The sense of being on stage gave him the motivation he needed to act the part of himself.

“I knocked,” Alan said. “I guess you didn’t hear me. Since you’re not supposed to leave the apartment, I wondered if something had happened to you.” Alan seemed less nervous now that he’d come up with a believable cover story. He gestured with growing confidence. “That injury to your head. Maybe you’d hurt it again. Maybe you’d slipped in the shower or something. So I decided to let myself in and check. I debrief operatives here a lot, so I always have a key.”

“I guess I ought to be flattered that you care.”

“Hey, you’re not the easiest guy to get along with.” Alan rubbed his right elbow. “But I do my job and look after the people assigned to me.”

“Listen,” Buchanan said. “About what happened in the car this morning. . I’m sorry.”

Alan shrugged.

“A lot’s been happening. I guess I’m having trouble getting used to not being under pressure.”

Again Alan shrugged. “Understandable. Sometimes an operative still feels the pressure even when it’s gone.”

“Speaking of which. .”

“What?”

“Pressure.”

Buchanan felt it in his abdomen. He pointed toward the bathroom, went in, shut the door, and emptied his bladder.

He assumed that the bathroom, like the other rooms in the apartment, would have a needle-nosed camera concealed in a wall. But whether he was being observed while he urinated made no difference to him. Even if he had felt self-conscious, he would never have permitted himself to show it.

And even if his bladder hadn’t insisted, he would still have gone into the bathroom

As a diversion.

Because he needed time to be away from Alan. He needed time to think.